Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 10:37, 20 May 2013

The project page associated with this talk page is an official policy on Misplaced Pages. Policies have wide acceptance among editors and are considered a standard for all users to follow. Please review policy editing recommendations before making any substantive change to this page. Always remember to keep cool when editing, and don't panic.

This page is not for proposing or discussing edits to protected pages. To request or propose a change to a page that you are not able to edit, place a message on its talk page. If the page is fully protected, you may attract the attention of an admin to make the change by placing the {{edit fully-protected}} template above your request. Requests placed here will probably be removed or ignored. If the page in question and its talk page are both protected please make your edit request at Misplaced Pages:Request for edit. To request that a page be protected or unprotected, see Misplaced Pages:Requests for page protection. To suggest that a move-protected page be renamed, see Misplaced Pages:Requested moves. To request that a deleted page protected against re-creation be re-created or restored, see Misplaced Pages:Deletion review. For information about protecting the main page featured article or other featured content, see Misplaced Pages:Main Page featured article protection.

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Remove "uncontroversial" from the policy.

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Having the word "uncontroversial" in this policy has repeatedly caused problems. The word is ill-defined in the WP context. Everyone believes their own edits to be uncontroversial. If a page is fully protected, it should be protected from editing by all editors, including admins. Admins should not carry on routinely editing a fully protected page while everyone else is locked out. The changes requested below are based directly on this post made by administrator Bwilkins, which I believe reflects the accepted and long-standing interpretation of this policy.

Please replace these sentences:

Modifications to a fully protected page can be proposed on its talk page (or at another appropriate forum) for discussion. Administrators can make changes to the protected article reflecting consensus. Placing the {{Edit protected}} template on the talk page will draw the attention of administrators for implementing uncontroversial changes.

with these:

Modifications to a fully protected page can be proposed on its talk page, or at another appropriate forum for discussion. Placing the {{Edit protected}} template on the talk page will draw the attention of administrators. Administrators must not edit fully protected pages, except to implement consensus reached on the talk page, or to remove policy-violating text or images.

Please delete this sentence.

Pages that are protected because of content disputes should not be edited except to make changes which are uncontroversial or for which there is clear consensus (see above).

80.174.78.102 (talk) 08:27, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• I think I disagree - if an admin sees (for example) a spelling error on a protected page, they should be permitted to correct it without any time-wasting discussion. Victor Yus (talk) 10:02, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• The 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing article clearly highlights the type of controversy that such seemingly minor "uncontroversial" edits can cause. IP is quite right about the obscurity of the line between controversial and uncontroversial edits; using your example of spelling error, changing American spelling to British spelling or vice versa on an American-British article can stirred unfathomable amount of tension between two sides in an already hostile environment, given that the page was locked due to content disputes. If actual spelling or grammar errors exists, admins like everyone else can wait a few hours for the article to be unprotected before editing - something as minor as an actual spelling error can wait. As I said at ANI, why poke the tiger (and risk causing further tension over something so minor?) YuMaNuMa 10:42, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• I would have thought that administrators had enough judgment to know what's potentially going to provoke tension, and what's not. I suppose they should err on the side of caution, but remember that Misplaced Pages benefits from any obvious corrections they may make (which might otherwise not get made, since the admin might forget about them and no-one else might notice them for a long time), so it would be counterproductive to prohibit such actions. Also the correction might be uncontroversial but major - in that case it's highly desirable that it be corrected as soon as possible, particularly since pages like this are likely also to be being read by a lot of people, so any substantial error will have a significant cost in terms of misinformed readers. Victor Yus (talk) 11:03, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• Unless admins can mind-read, it's impossible to determine what's controversial and what's not. Again, I'll use the aforementioned article as an example, no one would have expected there to be a such a reaction to the edits that several admins made and yet a thread concerning those changes remains one of the longest ANI threads displayed at the moment, with a majority of editors supporting the cessation of non-vital editing until the page is unprotected. Unless the errors constitute a BLP violation, it should be retained or at least discussed on the talk page before actual changes are made. If the errors on fully-protected articles, which generally were previously semi-protected, are major, it's assumed the erorrs were caused by editors trying to push a certain POV, hence any changes to the content will undoubtedly be controversial(I can explain a variety of reasons why it would be but I hope you get my point without me doing so). If need-be, the pre-edit war revision should be restored, however admins should not take the liberty of adjusting or "fixing" errors unless of course it constitutes a BLP vio. YuMaNuMa 11:51, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• I remain of the opposite opinion. Long ANI threads aren't a big deal; wrong information on Misplaced Pages is. (Even if it's not defamatory to anyone.) Victor Yus (talk) 11:31, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• I understand where you're coming from but given that most fully-protected articles are well sourced due to the appealing and controversial nature of the topic, and that the editors that edit those articles are familiar with the policies of Misplaced Pages, including WP:V, WP:RS and so forth, errors if any, are made by those who deliberately choose to misinterpret sources or view them from a different perspective to promote a certain viewpoint thus such "errors" can be considered controversial. I doubt any of the errors on fully protected articles are blatant(apart from spelling errors and grammar but as said that's minor). YuMaNuMa 11:51, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
• Terms such as uncontroverisal and major are incredibly subjective. The only way to know whether or not a change is controversial is to suggest it on the talk page. Uncontroversial, beneficial changes, be they major or minor, will quickly get consensus.

Admins editing through protection is a recurrent problem. When it happens, it's seldom to correct typing mistakes. If an admin wants to fix a spelling mistake, all that's needed is message on the talk page: "I intend to replace x with y. I'll go ahead in 5 minutes, unless anyone objects". The spelling mistake argument is really very tangential to this policy, because fixing spelling mistakes is rarely an issue with fully protected articles. If it really does bother you, I wouldn't object to modifying the proposal to include "or correct spelling mistakes". 80.174.78.102 (talk) 12:31, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Spelling mistakes bother me less than uncontroversial factual changes (say, correcting a wrong date), where wrong information is going to be read by someone and (quite possibly) believed by them. We shouldn't be putting any needless obstacles in the way of anyone who is willing and able to improve Misplaced Pages by correcting such errors. If anyone has a genuine objection to such a change that has been made, they can always say so, and then the admin will revert. And if a non-admin spots such an error first, they can say so as well, and hopefully an admin will come along and make the required change. We shouldn't allow edit-warring over some controversial issues in the article to get in the way (any more than it has to) of regular uncontroversial improvement of the article. Victor Yus (talk) 12:54, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

The same arguments apply to dates as to spelling mistakes. We can't know in advance whether or not changing a date will be controversial. The suggested rewording wouldn't delay the modification more than 5 minutes or so. And it's not as though these articles are riddled with spelling and date mistakes. So we're looking at, say, 1 in 10, or 1 in 20 protected articles containing an incorrect date or a spelling mistake for 5 minutes longer than it otherwise would have. We should also to take into account that prohibiting changes without consensus will prevent the introduction of new errors, that otherwise might have been added into the article. It's entirely possible that pausing momentarily on fast-moving article will result in fewer errors finding their way into the article in the first place. 80.174.78.102 (talk) 13:19, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template. It's clear from the above that the original request here was not uncontroversial, so by the arguments put forth by 80.174.78.102 (talk) it should not be amended at this stage. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:05, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Fair enough. I take it you'll implement the change, if appropriate, when the consensus becomes clear. There are three voices here, to date. Two in favour, one against. 80.174.78.102 (talk) 14:29, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Count me as opposed. Admins should be able to make simple corrections (spelling, grammar, obvious typos, wikimarkup issues) without seeking consensus. Errors of that sort are everywhere (I've found them on FAs the day before they hit the main page); articles on controversial topics have them, too. Rivertorch (talk) 14:41, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

How about if we added exactly that to the policy: Administrators must not edit fully protected pages, except to implement consensus reached on the talk page, remove policy-violating text or images, or make simple corrections (spelling, grammar, obvious typos, wikimarkup issues)? 80.174.78.102 (talk) 14:52, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

In my experience, vagueness sometimes can be a good thing. Unless we can think of every possible example—and I don't suppose we can—it's better not to enumerate the examples at all. Otherwise, we're setting ourselves up for wikilawyering nuisance complaints toward admins who make simple corrections in good faith. Is there an actual problem that this proposal is designed to resolve or is this the proverbial solution looking for a problem? Rivertorch (talk) 19:05, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

For example, on the Boston bombings page an editor was unhappy with the thrust of several edits made by another editor. I don't know who was right, and it's not important. The second editor was an admin. He was convinced that his edits were fine. Once the page was protected he could have continued adding his preferred changes, which he believed to be uncontroversial. Actually, I don't think he did in this instance, but there have been several instances of that kind of thing, and worse, in the past. That is why Bwilkins made the post that he did. It is also why RegentsPark reverted himself as soon as he realised he'd edited through protection. Most admins know that the accepted reading of the policy is the one Bwilkins posted, and the one I'm suggesting we make explicit in the policy. Allowing one set of editors to carry on editing an article while everyone else is excluded is not what Misplaced Pages is about. It is also a sure fire way to raise the temperature at articles which are often already smouldering. I think, essentially, it comes down to whether or not you're happy to see admins carry on writing an article when everyone else is excluded from it. Personally, I'm not, but there seem to people here who are, which is fine. 80.174.78.102 (talk) 20:37, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

What you've described at Boston Marathon bombings doesn't sound problematic. In fact, it would appear that things worked out rather well. (Don't get me started re that article, the likes of which we ought never to see if this is indeed an encyclopedia and not some sort of wiki devoted to breaking news.) It seems to me that as long as consensus and policy are respected, it shouldn't make any difference whether the people who make the actual edits to an article are in possession of the mop. On a fully protected article, non-admins' input isn't excluded; admins and other contributors all get to participate in discussion, propose wording, and have their say about what actually makes it into the article. If we trust certain contributors enough to give them extra tools, we should trust them enough to make wise decisions about unilaterally changing content to protected articles. Occasionally, one will screw up, but that's not the end of the world. On the rare occasion when one of them screws up and won't back down, that's a serious breach of policy that gets dealt with. I really don't see how changing the wording here would make such events even more rare than they already are or help resolve them more effectively when they do happen. Rivertorch (talk) 17:30, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

I see that we're not going to change one another's minds here. The notion that when we hand an editor a mop we also hand over responsibility for modifying content is anathema to me. 80.174.78.102 (talk) 19:35, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm willing to change my mind, but we do seem to be approaching this from very different perspectives. As I see it, the ultimate responsibility for modifying content is held by the community. On a given page that's fully protected, the community is represented by everyone who shows up and contributes in good faith to the discussion, and the only added responsibility of any sysop who is present is to carry out the will of the community (per local consensus and per policy). I think we probably agree that admins should not have any more say in determining content than anyone else—that's what I think, anyway. Should they be entrusted with a greater share of the responsibility for weighing arguments and judging consensus? Yeah. Someone has to fill that role, unless we're willing to accept total anarchy. Rivertorch (talk) 21:25, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

I was referring to " unilaterally changing content". As I say, my main point is that admins should not be writing an article when it nobody else can touch it. It's okay to fix typos and the like, but nothing more. The policy should say that. I can't say more than I've already said to convince you, so I'll leave it there. 80.174.78.102 (talk) 21:44, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

• I counted 8 support 6 oppose at ANI, which is not exactly a clear consensus (not that it will affect this discussion). Anyways, Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy) is an excellent place to raise awareness of this thread. To be honest, it's immensely rare for an article to get fully protected; either way, users won't be affected that much. YuMaNuMa 14:59, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• Done. Thanks.80.174.78.102 (talk) 15:20, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• Disagree. Typofixes don't need a 5-minute delay. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:14, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
• I don't think this needs to be modified. Yes, there will always be a few dumb admins out there who ignore that advice and edit through protection in a substantive way, and there will always be wikilawyers who want to argue that correcting a typo is controversial. Changing the wording is not going to fix that. By the way, for those concerned that there are or could be two classes of users in this regard, you should be aware of this proposal which would create a third class of "regular" users who could nonetheless edit even through full protection. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:35, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• So on that page you wrote "While technically limits editing only to admins, the real effect and intent is to stop any editing, admin or no, until a consensus is clear.". Which is exactly what Bwlikins wrote, exactly what almost all admins know to be the case, and exactly what I'm proposing we add to the article. Don't you find it odd that of all of the admins who know that to be the "real intent" of the policy, none of them actually want it in the policy? And all this stuff about fixing typos is a non-issue, as you must know. Let me ask you a straightforward question. Do you think that it is okay for admins to continue to make non-controversial edits to a protected article for as long as it is protected? By non-controversial I mean significant, well-sourced, in-policy edits that would likely find consensus if they were suggested on the talk page80.174.78.102 (talk) 08:16, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
• If that's the "real intent" of the policy (though I'm not sure how a collection of 0s and 1s can intend anything), then it's warped. Stopping all editing is an undesirable side effect of page protection, which can be mitigated by allowing uncontroversial changes still to be made. (To me, non-controversial means more than just "would likely find consensus", I think it means "would almost without a shadow of a doubt find consensus, without even the need to discuss".) Victor Yus (talk) 08:40, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

• I'm one of the admins who occasionally makes edits to fully protected pages, and almost invariably when I do so it is to fix a typo. Perhaps I'm unusual in this, but I'm not aware of any study on this with a meaningful sample size. As for the point about American English, I very much doubt that any admin would make the mistake of shifting an article from one variant of English to another, in my experience people who do that are usually newbies who haven't yet learned that this site is consistent at the article level rather than the site level. When if ever has an admin made that mistake when editing a protected page?

As for taking all such proposals to talk; If we need to change policy on this then we need to do so in an unbureaucratic manner, and discussing even the most minor of typos on the talkpage would be very bureaucratic and rather slow. If a change genuinely needs discussion then one can't just give that five minutes as doing so excludes people in different timezones or who only edit for one evening a week. It is reasonable to expect admins to read the protection rationale and if necessary the talkpage, and not to use our tools to further one side of a contentious debate over content. Perhaps what is needed is an injunction on admins that when we edit a protected page to self revert edits to protected pages if any editor says that the edit was controversial, or a reminder that when a page is fully protected because of an edit war not to edit the section or sections that are involved in that edit war in such a way as to take sides in that edit war. But perhaps the best solution is to leave the word uncontroversial in the policy and in the isolated incidents when an admin makes a controversial edit to a fully protected page to go and discuss it with them. ϢereSpielChequers 20:56, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

• I didn't exactly say admins were prone to making such errors, I was trying to convey to Victor Yus that it's extremely difficult to determine what's controversial and what's not. But yes, I concur that the admins are unlikely to make such mistakes. YuMaNuMa 01:53, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
• Again, all of this talk of typos is obscuring the issue. I've said repeatedly that I'd be happy for the policy to say that typo fixes are okay. See my post at 14:52 above. Both Bwilkins and Beeblebrox have said that the real intent of this policy that no change other than typos should be made without consensus. That has long been the accepted view. I'm suggesting that the policy be modified to reflect that view. 80.174.78.102 (talk) 21:35, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks for the reassurance about typofixes. I'm not sure that I agree with BWilkins and Beeblebrox on this, but I would be very strict as to what I saw as uncontroversial. To add another scenario, if an admin checks on the talkpage, sees that the mountaineering section of a particular mountain is controversial and the reason for the protection; Would you consider that an expansion of the article's sections on that same mountain's Biology, Geology or mythology would be contentious, or OK provided the admin left a talkpage note assuring people that he'd self revert if anyone found his edits contentious? ϢereSpielChequers 21:51, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

• Regarding the mountain, my view is that the admin should not edit the article at all while it is fully protected, other than to fix typos. Having a small group of editors--no matter how well intentioned--continue to edit an article while everyone else has to stand by and watch is just not WP is about. Regarding "uncontroversial", you would be very strict about what you see as controversial, but others wouldn't. Or perhaps they might consider that they were being strict, while others didn't. It's such a woolly term. The policy should say exactly what it means. As far as I can see just about everyone who has commented here agrees that admins should do nothing more than fix typos when an article is protected. But for some unfathomable reason, nobody seems to want the policy to say that. Anyway, bedtime for me. I'll drop by again tomorrow. 80.174.78.102 (talk) 22:16, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

• Uncontroversial is not necessarily that woolly. If the edit war is over one particular section and you are editing another section then it is reasonable to assume you are being uncontroversial unless someone explains otherwise, and uncontroversial ceases to be woolly if any editor has the right to go to the admin's page, explain why their edit was controversial and ask them to revert it. As for the small group of editors argument, I'm one of those who holds to the view that all clueful regulars should be admins. If some clueful regulars are being shut out of something because they aren't admins, the solution is to appoint them as admins. ϢereSpielChequers 08:33, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

• To me it's woolly. It's woollier than woolly rhinoceros. Nuclear Warfare thinks it means you can carry on making edits which shape the article. Beeblebrox, Dennis and Bwilkins think it means no editing until a consensus is clear. You think it means you can edit some parts of the article but not other parts. Victor thinks it means edits which without a shadow of a doubt would find consensus. It's woolly. 80.174.78.102 (talk) 09:51, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

• Our experience with the fully protected Boston page is that a boatload of editors will invariably jump all over any admin who thinks that "Typofixes don't need a 5-minute delay" and edits a fully protected article without checking in about the edit on the talk page first. Fully protected widely used templates, no problem, but not articles that are locked down. We need to remember that admins are given special tools, but they are not special, and have no special permissions. They are our janitors, not our lords. Apteva (talk) 21:21, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

• My understanding is that an admin shouldn't edit through full protection except for obvious fixes like typos, or to remove clear BLP violations or to revert edits made previously that were clearly against the talk page consensus, OR to add changes that the community has reached consensus on at the talk page. In other words, in an administrative capacity only, since admin are not "super-editors". I've bitten a few heads off for editing through protection for personal reasons (format, content, etc.) and would if anyone pointed it out on a talk page I'm clerking when the article is full protected. I don't think policy change is the answer, common sense is, and the occasional "reminder" when an admin breaks that trust. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 02:32, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

• It's not policy change. It's tightening the wording in order that the policy say what it means. You shouldn't have to write "My understanding is....". You should be able to write "The policy states...". "Uncontroversial" is hopelessly vague, and permits admins to carry on writing articles which others cannot touch. On the Boston bombings article, NuclearWarfare wrote "The purpose of the full protection is not to shut anyone out of shaping the article's content.". I believe that full protection should do just that. From your remarks, so do you. The current wording allows either interpretation. 80.174.78.102 (talk) 07:15, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

• I think probably the best test for non-controversiality is "if anyone objects". The norm should be that admins can do what their judgment tells them is going to be uncontroversial (whether off their own backs, or at the suggestion of other editors on the talk page), but if anyone else objects, then they must be prepared to revert. (I mean substantial objections to the substance of the edit, not mere formal objections to the fact that the admin is editing at all.) This way no-one is given extra editing "privileges" over anyone else - we are just placing a bit of trust in admins to make a temporary judgment as to what is likely to trigger no objections, which in most cases is a common sense call, and anway won't do any lasting damage if occasionally they get the judgment wrong. Victor Yus (talk) 07:02, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

• The "if anyone objects" test seems fair but in reality it can lead to a plethora of issues. Admins may not be willing to revert what they believe is an improvement to the article or may in some cases shove IAR in your face and tell you to deal with it. Further disputes regarding such edits may lead to longer full-protection periods and that will simply lead to further discontent. I understand that in some people's mind, they perceive admins as PhD professors with a wealth of knowledge and wisdom but far too often I've seen sub-par admins slide through the cracks. Increasing restrictions on the types of edits admins can make on fully protected articles prevents the abuse of power. Yes of course, it's the exception that does abuse their powers but why run into the risk of such an event occurring when we are able to prevent it? YuMaNuMa 07:32, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

• Firstly we can't prevent it because they'll shove IAR in your face anyway; and as to "why run the risk" - well, because by doing so, we enable changes to be made that in >95% of cases are going to be improvements to Misplaced Pages - and that's a Good Thing. Victor Yus (talk) 07:38, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

• In responses to the former: touche but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do all we can to address underlying problems not associated with IAR; as for the latter, what if users object and admins refuse to revert - that's the main point I'm trying to get across here in response to your suggestion. YuMaNuMa 08:06, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

• If another editor has a reasonable objection to an edit then the edit is no longer an uncontroversial one. So no need to change the policy, but sometimes there may be a need to enforce it. ϢereSpielChequers 08:22, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

• I may be getting ahead of myself here but won't enforcing an unclear policy lead to disputes, bureaucracy and ultimately discontentment? Not all fully protected articles are high-trafficked articles that are regularly patrolled by multiple admins. If users oppose a certain edit made by an admin, they may need to take the issue to DRN and maybe even ANI, if the admin is using IAR as the basis, to resolve the issue, given that the admin is adamant and refuse to revert controversial changes. As I said before it's rare for articles to get fully protected let alone disputed over, however if such an event arises, it's better to be prepared than otherwise. YuMaNuMa 08:52, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

• It is no more unclear than prod policy, and that works quite well. The only time that this would need escalation would be when an admin refuses to self revert because in their view their edit was uncontentious. I would anticipate that such incidents would be rare. ϢereSpielChequers 10:23, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Courtesy Break

• On the Boston bombings article, admin NuclearWarfare carried on editing the article as though it were unprotected. He wrote: "The purpose of the full protection is not to shut anyone out of shaping the article's content.". On the same talk page admin Bwilkins wrote "...admins should only now edit it to a) remove policy-violating text/images, or b) implement changes that have been arrived at via WP:CONSENSUS...". Those are two diametrically opposed interpretations of this policy. Admin Beeblebrox wrote the "...real effect and intent is to stop any editing, admin or no, until a consensus is clear.". Admin DennisBrown said something similar. Most admins (with the odd exception, like NuclearWarfare) know the accepted interpretation is that only typos and consensus-backed changes should be made. Unfortunately, they don't want that "real intent" of policy included in the policy page. 80.174.78.102 (talk) 07:28, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

• The policy says "uncontroversial" in two different places. Had the intent been to include only typos, I assume that's what it would have said. Victor Yus (talk) 07:35, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

• You and I have a different interpretations of the policy. That's fine. What I find objectionable is that most admins know that the accepted interpretation is that only consensus-backed changes and typos should be added. Admins have stated that they support that interpretation. Yet those same admins are arguing against having that interpretation made explicit in the policy.. 80.174.78.102 (talk) 08:30, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

• The policy is that uncontentious edits are allowed. There are some editors including some admins who would like to tighten that policy, others including myself see no need to change the policy. There is a current live example of an admin editing a protected article, but as their critics aren't citing diffs it is unclear to me whether they are saying that that admin is making uncontentious edits and for some reason that isn't yet clear to me they want this to stop; Or they consider those edits contentious and in breach of this policy. If the edits in question are contentious then I see no need to change the policy, if they are uncontentious then I see even less reason to change the policy. ϢereSpielChequers 10:23, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

• Uncontentious means different things to different people. To NuclearWarfare it means admins may continue to make article-shaping edits. To Beeblebrox, DennisBrown, and Bwilkins, it means only typos and consensus-backed edits. To you it means you can edit just certain parts of the article. To others it means something else. The policy needs to be made clear. 80.174.78.102 (talk) 10:43, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

• My position and that of NuclearWarfare may not be far apart- he hasn't yet opined in this debate. If the reason that an article has been fully protected is for example that people are editwarring as to whether or not to name certain individuals, then other edits, even "article-shaping edits" may well be uncontentious. In my view the litmus test is whether anyone goes to the admin concerned and explains why they think such an edit is contentious, and doesn't get a self revert or adequate explanation from the admin concerned. If you add a section to an article on a mountain covering the flora and fauna, only to have another editor explain that the poaching of said flora and fauna is the true reason why the mountaineering section is contentious, then a self revert is appropriate and shows that the policy is being followed. As for the idea that uncontroversial should be interpreted as "only typos and consensus-backed edits" I would accept both as examples of uncontroversial edits, but they aren't the only examples. For example there are various living people whose articles are fully protected. If one of those were to die would there be a need to get consensus to change the article to reflect that? In my view if reliable sources said that someone had died it would be an uncontroversial edit to change their article accordingly. ϢereSpielChequers 11:42, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

• That's fine. Personally, I'm implacably opposed to admins continuing to write an article while others excluded from it. The point is, the policy needs to be clear one way or another. You would accept, I imagine, that "uncontroversial" is causing the policy to be interpreted in widely different ways (compare your view to Beeblbrox's: "...intent is to stop any editing, admin or no, until a consensus is clear." ). That shouldn't happen. The policy needs to be made clear. 80.174.78.102 (talk) 12:10, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm one of those that raised concerns on NW's page and on the article talk page, (and at ANI i think) abuot this issue. As far as I'm concerned, an admin should only edit through protection to remove something from the article that's potentially harmful to living person, basically to enforce BLP. This is particularly the case, in my view, on high profile articles, and when the protection has only just been applied. I have worries about admins doing anything to a protected article without consensus. GedUK  11:59, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm of the same mind. We need to make it clear that "uncontroversial" doesn't mean any edit that they "think" is okay.JOJ 12:31, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Most of my edits to fully protected pages are straightforward typo fixes, and several of the other participants in this debate are happy to treat typo fixes as uncontroversial. What do you think of the proposal that it works somewhat like prod, if any editor says that a particular edit is controversial then the admin self reverts and takes it to the talkpage? ϢereSpielChequers 14:18, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I had not commented here before because I was not informed of this thread until this morning when WSC posted a note on my talk page. My position remains the same. Edits to a fully protected page that no one disagrees with for non-wikiphilosophical reasons are fine regardless if the page is protected or not. I find it most telling that despite the hubbub, no one has pointed to a single edit to a fully protected page by any administrator that they disagreed with for a non-wikiphilosophical reason that was not subsequently addressed immediately. The bigger issue here is simply the overuse of full page protection, especially on high profile articles. If you notice, along the same time as I made my edits to Boston Marathon bombings, I also asked the protecting administrator to remove page protection. NW (Talk) 17:08, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

• That an arb cannot see the problem with admins fully protecting a page and then continuing to edit that page is kinda worrying, but not at all surprising. The same can be said for your dismissal of anything pertaining to "Wikiphilosophy". Anyhow, when you read Bwilkins admonition to admins:

For those who understand full-protection such as this, you'll already know that admins should only now edit it to a) remove policy-violating text/images, or b) implement changes that have been arrived at via WP:CONSENSUS discussions on this talkpage.

which was prominent on the talk page under the heading "Full Protection", did you simply decide to ignore it, or were you editing the article without bothering to read the talk page? Having now read his post, what do you think of it? What do you think of RegentsPark's decision to revert himself has soon he realised he'd edited through protection? Does he pay too much attention to "Wikiphilosophy"? Would it have been better for him to simply carry on editing along with you? Following your preferred interpretation of the policy, you, he and about 5 or 6 other admins would have been writing the article, while everyone else just stood around and watched. Are you okay with that scenario? For the record, exactly what do you feel the policy permits you to do? From what you've written above it seems that admins should go ahead and edit protected articles in anyway they like, unless they think someone might disagree with the edit (and objections on "Wikiphilosphical" grounds are not allowed). Is that correct? 80.174.78.102 (talk) 20:34, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

It really just boils down to a matter of respect for the ordinary wiki editor and whether admins view themselves as a higher caste of editor or the just a mop weilding janitor. Of course any position disagrees with can be condescendingly dismissed as "wikiphilosophical" but, in fact, wiki philosophy is not just an important thing, it's the most important thing. Some heretofore unseen typo lingering transiently on a page does not significantly harm the encyclopedia, but treating the bulk of the editing community as second class citizens does. Webservers are commodity items -- the most signficant resource Misplaced Pages has is editors. The 848 administrators cannot actually write the encyclopedia; the bulk of that work properly falls upon 119,842 active users.

Accordingly, uncontroversial should be removed as a hint to the less clueful editors with sysop bits. (The more clueful ones will realize when the circumstances where not a bureaucracy occurs even without "uncontroversial" in the policy text.) NE Ent 21:23, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I consider the making of genuinely uncontroversial changes (whether typos or obvious factual corrections) very much a janitorial action. Admins can make such changes on their own initiative, or at the suggestion of others. It doesn't make them into a higher caste, except in as much as they have the "mop" and others don't, which is an inescapable matter of fact. Also, of course admins can do this sort of thing anyway without the blessing of the policy, on IAR grounds, but forcing them to apparently "violate the policy" in this way would lead to a great deal more objections and arguments. Victor Yus (talk) 10:30, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

• Let's not forget that admins often revert to the WP:WRONGVERSION when we apply full-protection. Usually FP is added when there's significant edit-warring, BLP issues, etc. There's no way in hell that an admin should be derided for protecting a version that they feel comfortable is "the least offensive version". In many ways, some people would consider such reversion as editing through protection (✉→BWilkins←✎) 11:28, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

• Your post to the talk page was very explicit. It was promptly ignored by NuclearWarfare and several other admins. You made not a peep. How come? I suspect that had a similar warning been ignored by non-admins, you would have had plenty to say. Am I right? 80.174.78.102 (talk) 11:39, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
• Also, I asked you at AN/I whether you support this change, which is based on your post. You did not reply. How come? 80.174.78.102 (talk) 11:45, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. Is there a reason that we can't use the definition from controversy? Does Misplaced Pages need to write its own definition?--Canoe1967 (talk) 12:51, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
• There is no problem. Provided we're talking about the edits by NW on the 19th, just before fp was lifted, he did nothing wrong. A couple of uncontroversial updates and a lot of formatting clean-up. All good for the project, our mission, and the betterment of humanity. I can understand standers-by, wanting to go at the article, feeling resentful that NW could do that and they couldn't, but meh. As somebody above suggested, we have grey areas that demand judgment. We deliberately don't over-prescribe behaviour here because we expect people to exercise good judgment. If a cabal of like-minded admins had swooped on the article and twisted it to their will, that's a problem. If one admin had done that, that's a problem. They'd be demonstrating poor judgment, and would deserve desysopping. That didn't happen. No problem. Sorry, I'd have said less if I had more time. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:10, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

• Everyone in this thread is agreed that minor fixes such as typos, mark-up, etc. are fine. That's not the issue. Some people, including NuclearWarfare, feel that admins should continue writing, changing, and "shaping" the article, even though it is protected. If that's your view too, fine. But this is not about making minor fixes. 80.174.78.102 (talk) 13:51, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

• My point is, his edits were minor and/or uncontroversial, and I think fp was raised shortly afterwards. Whether your interpretation of the purpose of protection, or NW's, is correct doesn't matter. No harm was done. Good was done. He exercised good judgment. If an instance arises of an admin exercising poor judgment in a case like this, we can reprimand or desysop them. If it happens a lot, we can be more prescriptive in the policy. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:26, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

• I really don't see why we must wait here like sitting ducks until harm has been done to the project. By then, the harm could result in repercussions ranging from mild annoyance to losing a significant number of valuable editors. This entire project is already on a slippery slop that's potentially heading towards disaster, the last thing we need is more harm in any form. YuMaNuMa 14:40, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
• It's long been accepted that no changes should be made to a protected article without consensus. The only exceptions are BLP concerns, and possibly typos. The policy should say that. NuclearWarfare and others are arguing against having the policy say that. They interpret the current wording as allowing them to continue writing the article while it is protected, and they want it to stay that way. 80.174.78.102 (talk) 15:02, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

• The current wording clearly allows them to do that and I think it has for some time. (Anybody know how long?) And it seems to work fine. Full-protection is vanishingly rare and brief, and it's comforting to know that there are a few clueful people around who can obviously be trusted to make the occasional uncontroversial update to a rapidly evolving topic through protection. I'm sure if you'd challenged any of NW's edits on content-policy grounds, being the reasonable person he is, he would have done the right thing.

I understand that one day an admin or group of admins may fp a page just so they can exercise a veto; or edit a protected page controversially or against consensus. Can you ping me when that happens, please? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 15:19, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

• There you go: "The next person who edits this through full protection should turn their mop in with it.". Is that controversial enough for you? The page the admins were edit warring over was WP:BLP, no less. Could you ping me if it ever becomes a simple matter to get people to agree to write a policy in terms that reflect the accepted practice? 80.174.78.102 (talk) 15:55, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

• Three years ago; on a policy page. Cheers. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 17:20, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Isn't the current wording basically aimed at permitting {{edit protected}}s to be implemented? If that is so, then we can say that even admins should be using {{edit protected}}, once consensus is established for a change, or if the change is non-controversial. This would allow getting a second opinion on whether the change really is non-controversial. Some exceptions may need defining (BLP, copyright, minor spelling/grammar and format fixing), but basically, everything that isn't essential (legal issues) or trivially and obviously non-controversial (spelling etc) should get a second opinion, via fulfilling an edit request. Rd232 13:55, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

By extension, an autoconfirmed user who wished to edit a semi-prot page (for anything other than BLP, copyright etc.) would need to use {{edit semi-protected}}. No thanks. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:27, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

No, there's no need to extend what is basically current policy into non-existent absurdity. Anyone can very easily become autoconfirmed - there's no comparison. Rd232 15:21, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

I say leave the word uncontroversial in. My thoughts on this is that many pages that are protected because two groups of editors are disputing a specific sentence or two, or perhaps the addition or removal of a paragraph. If there were finer granularity of blocks available (either down to sections within a page or for specific users on specific pages) then those blocks could be implemented while the rest of the page was unprotected. As those tools are not available we have to live with cruder tools, but we do not have to sculpture policy exclusively around those tools. The question comes down to whether uncontroversial edit, will on balance improve[REDACTED] content or damage it. If an admin makes an edit to which another editor objects while a page is protected (so that the objecting non-admin editor can not revert the edit) then the edit will usually be reverted (probably by the admin who made it -- if not by another admin in which case wheel comes into play), and the usual WP:BRD cycle can be played out on the talk page. However if an edit is likely to be non-controversial (eg moving a page into a subcategory) and there is heated discussion about the lead (these blocks on content disputes seem so often to be about the content of the lead section), then there may not be clear consensus on the talk page about the proposed change to a category -- because the question gets lost in the noise of the lead content dispute. So I say that uncontroversial should remain in the policy because on balance it does more good than harm. -- PBS (talk) 10:13, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Leaving the word controversial uncontroversial in allows admins to carry on writing the article almost as though there were no protection. That's exactly what Nuclear Warfare said on the talk page. He believes that the policy as written allows admins to carry on "shaping" the article. If you're okay with that, cool. Personally I'm not okay with it at all. Either way the policy needs tightening. We have one admin saying that the policy means protected articles should not be edited except to "remove policy violating text/images", and another admin saying it means it's okay to make article-shaping edits. But mostly we have admins saying nothing and waiting for it to blow over so that they can all be right, no matter how they interpret the policy. We had two admins here who had diametrically opposed interpretations of this policy. Instead of discussing those differences in order that the policy might be improved, they both wandered off into the garden to try to grow a pear. 80.174.78.102 (talk) 21:11, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

First, 80.174.78.102 refers to leaving the word 'controversial' in. I don't see the word 'controversial'. I see the word 'uncontroversial'. What did 80.174.78.102 mean? I think that the policy should be clarified and the definition of uncontroversial edits made more stringent, to include BLP, copyright, correction of typos. What one person may think are uncontroversial article-shaping edits may be controversial article-shaping edits to another. Full page protection should be used only as a last resort, and allowing "article-shaping" edits by admins through full page protection reduces the need for admins to get the full page protection lifted. I think that the policy should be revised with some wording that restricts what should be done during full page protection. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:31, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

You're right. I meant uncontroversial. I think if you read through the whole discussion (Remove uncontroversial edits from the policy), which I started a few weeks ago, you'll understand my position. 80.174.78.102 (talk) 22:55, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

@Robert It is easy to define uncontroversial in the circumstances where a page is protected, it is any edit where there is no objection to the edit on the talk page to that edit , I see no problem with following the usual WP:BRD cycle (and so I see no need to change the policy) ... . But I am repeating myself! -- PBS (talk) 09:47, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

@80.174.78.102 I am repeating myself in part because instead of replying to the points I made you have described one specific scenario and then say "Personally I'm not okay with it at all. Either way the policy needs tightening." If an edit proves to be uncontroversial why are you not "ok with that"? As to you second point I think you mean "I think either way the policy needs tightening." "either way" implies to me "two ways" what is the second? As for your comment "they both wandered off into the garden to try to grow a pear" I would imagine that as they have both think that made their position clear. You do not seem you have a consensus for your proposed change and unless you engage in an interactive discussion that modifies you proposal, so that you end up with a proposal that has a consensus, further discussion is a wast of everyone's time. -- PBS (talk) 09:47, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm not okay with admins continuing to make "article-shaping" edits while everyone else is limited to commenting from the sidelines. As you note below, it is essentially BRD for admins, and lockout for everyone else. You seem comfortable with that. I'm not. By "either way", I meant that as we have one admin who believes the policy means this, and another who believes it means this, the policy needs tightening to make it clear which interpretation is correct. Either one or the other is correct. They can't both be. Regarding engagement, Nuclear Warfare , Bwilkins , Dennis Brown , and Jimbo Wales have all walked away from discussion. I think I've done my fair share of engaging. We now have the RfC, and that will decide the outcome. 80.174.78.102 (talk) 20:52, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

"article-shaping" edits is too complex a phase and I suspect you are using it for rhetorical effect, so please let keep it simple and talk about an uncontroversial edit (which is what you wish to stop an admin making without prior consultation). You write "essentially BRD for admins, and lockout for everyone else. You seem comfortable with that. I'm not" If an edit is uncontroversial, then such an edit improves the article, so why are you not comfortable with an edit that improves Misplaced Pages? -- PBS (talk) 23:42, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

A sub-question

To what extent (if any) is it relevant in deciding what edits to a full-protected page are in order, to consider whether at the time of the editing, the page addresses a high-profile ongoing news event that is drawing enormous attention, such that an administrator might think it reflects poorly on the project if the article is in a poor or outdated state? Is this a factor that weighs in favor of admins being allowed to go ahead and edit, or is it a factor that cuts the other way, or is it irrelevant? My own view is that an administrator who would let a protected but obscure page sit in a problematic state for some time pending consensus under ordinary circumstances, might feel the need or desire of being more pro-active when the article concerns the number-one ongoing news article in the world. Also relevant is that the process of shaping consensus for edits on the talkpage, in that circumstance, may often be hampered by the massive number of edit-conflicts. Thoughts? Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:30, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

• Thought: subpage draft. Rd232 17:42, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
• Just repeating myself from above. It's good that there are a few clueful people around who can obviously be trusted to make the occasional uncontroversial update to a rapidly evolving topic through protection. Of course, if admins start gaming this to bias article content, they will need to be disciplined or the policy will need changing. But that's not happening. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 17:52, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
• also, isn't this one of things Misplaced Pages:Pending changes is supposed to be good for? Rd232 19:18, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
• I think that muddies the water. What's high-profile, what's not? What's controversial, what's not? If something happens that should clearly go into the article, then it will quickly get consensus on the talk page. This whole thing seems very straightforward to me, and I can't see why it is so difficult to get the wording in to the article. Almost everyone, bar NuclearWarfare, seems to agree that admins should not make any changes to protected articles other the BLP fixes, and possibly typos. Why don't we just have the policy say that? 80.174.78.102 (talk) 20:23, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

We're an encyclopedia, not a newspaper. I would support adding a "current event, article may be inaccurate" tag through protection, but otherwise it "cuts the other way" -- the last thing we want is newcomer(s) who may be drawn to Misplaced Pages for the first time thing that reach the erroneous conclusion it's edited by a special clique of editors who have been around for a long time. What made us different than the staid commercial hardcopy 'pedias (which are mostly out of business) is we continually admit we have errors and work toward continually improving them rather the arrogantly pretending we have "The Truth." NE Ent 02:27, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

A minority opinion

I know that my opinion is a minority opinion, but I will restate it. I think that full page protection is an extraordinary measure that is equivalent to declaring martial law on a page, and should maybe be done once a month, typically when there is a life-threatening emergency such as real threats. In the event of edit warring, I would really prefer to see the edit warriors let themselves be edit warriors and get blocked. Putting full page protection on a page that has edit wars just lets the edit warriors escape the consequences of WP:3RR. Since I won't get what I want, I would nonetheless say that full page protection really means full page protection. It doesn't mean protection except against minor edits by admins, with the exception of changes that are legally required, such as biographies of living persons. That is, any admin who edits through full page protection should be placing his status as a Wikipedian (I didn't say admin) on the line. Any admin who edits through full page protection for any reason other than a legal necessity should not be desysopped, but should simply be banned. This is a minority opinion. I don't like full page protection, even for temporary discussion. I am very deeply opposed to admins who have imposed full page protection editing through it, unless there are legal issues. Otherwise, there are issues of corruption in Misplaced Pages, and we should remember that Wiikpedia is in the real world. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:40, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Ban me then. --Redrose64 (talk) 07:19, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

RFC: Should Rule about Edits During Full Page-Protection Be Clarified?

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Should the policy about edits by admins during full page protection be clarified as to what as "uncontroversial" edits? Robert McClenon (talk) 21:38, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

• Support Bwilkins' interpretation. We have two mutually exclusive interpretations of this policy. Bwilkins interprets it to mean that admins should only edit through protection to "remove policy violating text/images". Nuclear Warfare interprets it to mean that admins may continue to edit through protection to "shape the article's content". I believe that Bwilkins' view reflects the long accepted interpretation of this policy. I hope people commenting here say which of these interpretations they would like to see as policy. Once we have consensus about that we can work on the wording. 80.174.78.102 (talk) 22:42, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
• Support Bwilkins' interpretation. Policy-violating text/images includes BLP, copy-right violations, libel, a variety of other issues, but full page protection should not mean that admins can shape the article. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:10, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
• Support Bwilkins' interpretation Admins are supposed to be editors with additional tools to support the community, not their own viewpoints and the responsibility to use them wisely, not a "higher caste" of editors. NE Ent 02:31, 10 May 2013 (UTC) It should be painful for an article to be full protected, so that it gets unprotected as soon as possible. Allowing uncontroversial edits reduces the urgency to return part of Misplaced Pages to what should be it's normal state. NE Ent 00:48, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• Probably yes but certainly do not support Bwilkins' opinion (I don't think it's an "interpretation"; I'm not seeing anything in the policy that could possibly be interpreted as meaning that). Uncontroversial means not likely to arouse controversy - obvious fixes of various kinds, which may or may not involve removal, and may or may not be connected with "policy violations". The clarification should be along the lines that if someone makes a good-faith objection to a change which an administrator considered uncontroversial, then it's not in fact uncontroversial and should be reverted pending consensus. Also, whether or not something is "policy-violating" can be extremely controversial, so that should not be used as a reason for an admin to force through changes. Victor Yus (talk) 08:24, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. Administrators are supposed to have enough clue to judge what is controversial. For instance, correcting the gross grammar error in this proposal would be uncontroversial. Sorry, I am not going to endorse or reject someone else's opinion which I only know about second hand from what is said above. SpinningSpark 17:34, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
• Support Bwilkin's interpretation - per the reasons I stated above in the discussion. One of which is: whether an edit is controversial is subjective, introducing new information can potentially lead to longer full-protection periods and increase tension between editors and admins on a certain page. Although as I said, it's rare for a page to get fully protected let alone disputed over by admins and editors during the protection period, it's better to be prepared and implement relevant policies than waste everyone's time at ANI in the inevitable future. YuMaNuMa 08:40, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't get it - whether something is policy-violating is often very subjective; but whether it is controversial really is not (if no-one objects to the substance of the change, then it's not controversial). The time-wasting at ANI etc. seems to be the fault of those who care more about personal status and feelings of inferiority than about the real thing we should be focused on, which is making Misplaced Pages articles better. Victor Yus (talk) 08:46, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

In response to your first point; not really, in reality if you break the law, you break the law, there's no if or buts (in most cases anyways), what people usually debate over is whether there is enough evidence to support the prosecutor or defendant's claims and whether a sentence is too harsh or lenient. The same applies on Misplaced Pages, except the policies here are much more simple and straight forward; all admins need to determine is whether the text or image violates copyright laws, does the source support a certain claim and whether information in an article should be removed as a result of legal proceedings. For edit wars over content, admins should simply restore the most stable version and let users discuss the content; in most cases the most stable version is the version that has been live for the longest. I can't fathom any other reason why an admin would want to fully protect an article (not page). As for your ANI point...if users edit an article to the point where it gets fully protected, they are most likely going to take any arisen issue related to conduct to ANI asap due to already brewing tension between editors. YuMaNuMa 09:56, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages policies are simple and straightforward?! Have you read them? In any case, I would far rather trust an admin to fix a typo or grammatical error than to judge whether (for example) some piece of text is supported by a sufficiently reliable source. And an edit war over some part of an article shouldn't hold up improvement of other parts of the article, which might be totally unrelated to the dispute. Victor Yus (talk) 10:15, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, in my opinion the guidelines are straight forward as long as you're aware of them, however applying them is a different story I guess, though usually editors and admins struggle to apply them due to the complexity of the content in question and our lack of expertise in field. It's difficult to determine which section should be off-limits as they are most likely going to be interrelated as you would expect from an article on one topic. Typos and grammar are not exactly my top concerns, I'm fair more concerned about admins abusing their powers and inadvertently causing disruption by editing pages and later claiming that they did not violate any rule. YuMaNuMa 10:27, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

• Leave the wording in the policy as is. It is easy to define uncontroversial in the circumstances where a page is protected, it is any edit where there is no objection to the edit on the talk page to that edit, I see no problem with following the usual WP:BRD cycle and so I see no need to change the policy. BTW I would expect as a sign of good faith that an admin would self-revert if it is brought to his or her attention that there was an objection to an edit (s)he made to a fully protected page. See my posting to this page on 3 May 2013 where I gave a more detailed explanation of how I reached this opinion.-- PBS (talk) 10:05, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

To argue that admins should apply BRD to protected pages is to argue that they should treat the page exactly as though it were not protected, while everyone else is locked out. If that is written into this policy, it will be the only policy to assert that admins may use the tools to gain an advantage when editing content. A few years ago that would have been unthinkable. It's sad to see what little remains of the early ideals of this place.80.174.78.102 (talk) 10:13, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

See my comment (23:42, 13 May 2013 -- it pre-dates you posting here and has more detailed reply), I think that you are using rhetoric to make a point about something other than non-controversial changes. In this posting you use the phrase "to gain an advantage" which implies controversial changes, and this policy already excludes such changes. -- PBS (talk) 12:02, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I have said repeatedly that I would be okay with wording that allows admins to make small fixes. See this post, for example. What we have at the moment is people interpreting the policy to mean everything from admins may make no substantive edits, to admins may make any edit they like. Your position is actually the most extreme. You want admins to apply BRD to protected pages, i.e. to treat them exactly as though they were not protected. Read the page you're linking to:"When in doubt, edit!". This policy needs to be clear about which edits are acceptable. Using the word "uncontroversial" makes the policy as clear as mud, as the numerous interpretations of "uncontroversial" on this page testify. Of course we can't detail every possible scenario, but we can be clear about what we mean. If we really want admins to continue writing the article while it is protected, we should say so. If we want them to do nothing more than make minor corrections and to remove policy violations, we should say so. All this stuff about admins using their good judgement is nonsense. We will have as many different interpretations of "uncontroversial" as there admins. And every one of them will be correct. No wonder admins don't want the wording clarified. 80.174.78.102 (talk) 13:47, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

• Comment all those who were involved in the section #Remove "uncontroversial" from the policy. should be informed of this RfC, or their opinions should be considered when deciding if there is or is not a consensus for a change of wording.-- PBS (talk) 10:05, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Reply to Comment - Done Robert McClenon (talk) 02:02, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
• Leave wording as is - I agree with PBS's comments above re BRD and good-faith self-reverting. Bwilkins' comment linked above may be too restrictive. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 02:20, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

• The idea of all admins reverting their edits when others object to them is nice and all but lets face reality; if an admin is willing to make an edit that would be deemed controversial on an already fully-protected page, I regretfully doubt that they are going to revert it themselves. As not all fully protected pages are regularly patrolled by admins, it may then be necessary for editors on that page to seek the attention of other admins on forums such as ANI, increasing bureaucracy and placing more pressure on already overloaded forums. YuMaNuMa 06:24, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

• Your comment shows a lack of good faith. However all admins are human and human make mistakes, so it may be that an edit that an admin makes may be seen by others (acting in good faith) to be controversial. If an admin makes a change to a protected page, they will be aware that they have, so it would not be unreasonable for other editors to expect them to see their comments on the talk page. An additional comment on the user talk page of the admin would be seen. If after a reasonable time has passed the editing admin had not reverted and no other admin who watches the page has revert it. Then and only then is a post to ANI justified. -- PBS (talk) 11:43, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

• It's one thing to make a mistake but it's another to put yourself in a situation where you're likely to make a mistake. Now, I'm not talking about grammar fixes, format fixes or such, I'm talking about the addition of new content or the alteration of existing content. I really don't see why admins would risk provoking editors by doing anything as such, an admin with respect for consensus and the community would simply wait a few days to add whatever they wish with no limitations; I have a hard time seeing the one without, self-reverting without being pointed to the controversy(this thread) that he may cause. I know most admins are genuine decent editors who will do the right thing and have respect for the community but one must note that where there's a majority, a minority exists. YuMaNuMa 14:40, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

• Yes, I suppose it is necessary. The text is already pretty clear: changes may be made to a fully protected page if and only:

A change is proposed on the talk page, and there is consensus to make the change.

A change is proposed on the talk page, and there is no objection after a reasonable time -- that is, the change is uncontroversial.

There really isn't any other way to interpret "Changes to a fully protected page should be proposed on the corresponding talk page, and carried out by an administrator if they are uncontroversial or if there is consensus for them." which is the operative prescription. There is no provision for making any edit whatsoever, by any person, for any reason, at any time, that has not first been proposed on the talk page. This is quite clear. Now, if some persons are determined to ignore that (which I gather is what is going on), this is a political issue (either they can get away with it or they can't) not a rules issue, and changing the rule probably won't help that much. However I suppose it might help to make it that much harder for people to do that, and at the same time we can add an exception for dire emergencies (such a the presence of libel). So something like this might be useful: "Changes to a fully protected page should be proposed on the corresponding talk page, and carried out by an administrator if there is consensus for them or if after five days there are no objections, except that in a dire emergencies such as the presence of libel any administrator can (indeed must) edit the page immediately." Herostratus (talk) 02:31, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Herostratus are you aware of the great Men's rights movement move debate? A among other things it generated an ANI and a couple of RfCs at WP:AT (eg RfC (October 2012)). The debate was over the different interpretations of the word "should". There was no agreement on whether "should" means "ought" or "must" (it seems that individuals, and perhaps different dialects of English, interpret the word differently). What was agreed in that specific case was not to substitute "must" for "should". -- PBS (talk) 08:45, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

• Support Bwilkins' interpretation Misplaced Pages is built on consensus. That means editors being able to edit equally, and discuss things on talk pages. That means admins should not be editing pages that are fully protected unless there is a need to edit that page. It is not for tidying up an article, correcting spelling/grammar errors, changing headings etc. If admins continue to edit pages under full protection without proper justification then the next time Wikipedia_talk:Protected_Page_Editor comes up it will pass, which will create two levels of editors. Pages will be protected to stop others editing. Full page protection is here for a reason, not for admins to treat it as a special perk, such as when the Boston bombings article was fully protected. If this rule is not clarified then admins abusing it need to be de-sysoped.Martin451 (talk) 02:36, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't think the people who claim that they support "Bwilkins interpretation" really realize what it says. By allowing admins to remove "policy-violating" material (without requiring that such removal be uncontroversial), we would be giving them much more power, not less. If your aim is to protect people's feelings by stopping admins from looking superior to others (which seems rather petty and silly to me, but still) then you should be insisting that their changes go through the same procedure as those of other editors (i.e. first be proposed on the talk page, etc.), not giving them any new blanket powers to make certain types of changes. Victor Yus (talk) 05:19, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

• Leave the current wording alone. If the existence of a problem had been documented, I might feel differently, but no documentation whatsoever has been provided. Administrators damn well should be able to make simple, uncontroversial fixes to articles, and the idea that fixing something such as a spelling error or a malformed wikilink requires prior discussion and consensus is utterly asinine and antithetical to the creation and maintenance of a serious reference work. When an admin goes further and oversteps that boundary, it's not the end of the world: either the admin becomes aware of the transgression and self-reverts or another admin reverts and the first admin suffers the consequences. In the end, it really comes down to what we're here to do. If we're here to develop an impossibly complex set of written rules governing each other's behavior in the creation of an authoritarian social media site masquerading as an encyclopedia, then maybe we should not only support proposals like this one but also officially deprecate discretion while we're at it. If, on the other hand, we actually are here to build an encylopedia, we'll assume good faith of our trusted contributors, trust them to do the right thing, call them on it when they occasionally do the wrong thing, abandon our attempts to elevate procedure over reason, and waste no more time arguing about solutions to nonexistent problems. Rivertorch (talk) 05:09, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose BWilkins proposal Though perhaps we need to point out that if an admin makes an edit that another editor challenges as controversial they should of course be willing to explain it or self revert. It was my desire to make a minor typo fix to a protected page that first got me thinking about adminship, and if we continue to trust admins to use their judgement then perhaps this will prompt more editors to volunteer for adminship. ϢereSpielChequers 06:12, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Crazy. Absolutely crazy. Since the very beginning it has been a bright line that admins do not use the tools to gain an advantage when editing content. Now we have an arb in the vanguard of those arguing against that fundamental principle. And we have admins arguing that the ability to use the tools edit through protection should be used as a carrot to entice people to apply for adminship. 80.174.78.102 (talk) 10:17, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

It's NOT an "advantage" to the admins! Misplaced Pages is not a battleground or competition - most of the things that people do here are things that all of us would wish to see done. When admins make uncontroversial changes, it's to the advantage of all of us, and to the advantage of Misplaced Pages's users. Nothing except a warm glow of satisfaction accrues to the person who actually made the changes - and you can experience that glow yourself, by the simple token of proposing uncontroversial changes on the talk page and waiting for an admin to come along and make them. Victor Yus (talk) 11:53, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Firstly who is the Arb you refer to? Secondly what advantage does it give the admin if they have to revert if anyone says their edit was contentious? I've fixed thousands of typos on this site, very very rarely does anyone object to my typo fixes. But it would be a real annoyance if I had to leave a calvary troop charging through some contentious battle because the page was fully protected and even something as uncontentious as changing calvary troop to cavalry troop had first to be discussed on the talkpage. RFA is a process by which we give extra tools to trusted editors, and one of the things we should be able to trust admins to do is to know whether an edit to a fully protected page is contentious or not. It seems that this whole proposal is sparked by one incident, and single incidents should be resolved by talking to the people who've allegedly made a contentious change and reminding them of the policy - unless someone can come up with an article other than Boston where there is alleged to be a problem then why are we even debating changing the policy? ϢereSpielChequers 19:55, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Just as likely to be yet another practice that causes editors to decide WP is for the elitist insiders and just leave. NE Ent 00:48, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

• Leaving the wording as is. Leave admins to make up their own minds, they are supposed to be able to make up their own minds. Plus what is controversial would be different depending on the reason for protection (sockpuppetry compared with edit warring - and what the edit warring was over). Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 06:34, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
• Leave as is. I've explained myself at length above. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 09:00, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
• Support Clarification is clearly needed; what that clarification shouldbe is harder. I came to this conversation because of the editing at the boston bombing article. The editing through protection by admins I respect was problematic for me. Had they been removing BLP violations, libellous or offensive material I@d have had no problem. But reorganising it, correcting spelling mistakes and grammar errors (which is often fraught anyway) when other editors couldn't was very probelmatic for me. I don't think admins should be editing through full protection unless there's consensus for it. There's consensus for removal of BLP and libel and where something's been agreed on the talk page, there's not consensus for correcting grammar, or whether para a should be before or after para b. GedUK  11:31, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

There's not consensus for correcting grammar? So there are significant numbers of Misplaced Pages editors who think that bad grammar might be preferable to good grammar in articles?! (There might not be consensus that a particular grammatical change is desirable, but that also applies to a particular removal of alleged libel or anything else; and in either case, any disagreement will quickly become apparent.) Victor Yus (talk) 11:46, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

If indeed there is consensus that grammatical errors and other unambiguous minor problems (e.g., broken links or unclosed tags) should go uncorrected until protection is lifted or consensus to fix them becomes clear, then obviously I am contributing to the wrong project. Leaving such easily fixed problems in an article makes us look slipshod or illiterate or both, and it is not in the interest of our readers (who by and large couldn't care less if an article is protected, or why). Consider a hypothetical instance: "Jones denied there alegation in court; claiming he never sawthe money<ref name="reuters and was aquitted on all counts." There are seven errors in the preceding sentence. Is it really desirable, let alone necessary, that they be painstakingly enumerated on the talk page? Should a certain interval then pass, just in case someone wants to debate whether they're really errors or how to fix them? Should there be an RfC, a 30-day wait, and a request for close at AN? That may sound profoundly silly (it does to me, anyway), but that seems to be the direction in which we're being asked to move. Rivertorch (talk) 16:06, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

• Comment My own opinion is that there should be consensus for correcting grammar or spelling (consistent with the variety of English in which the article is written). There is not likely to be consensus for moving paragraphs. The example given by Rivertorch should be corrected. It is wrong in both American English and any variety of Commonwealth English. The keyword is "unambiguous minor problems". If an article has unambiguous major problems, it is unlikely that there will be consensus on how to fix them. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:40, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

• Comment to date this change has been debated around article pages that are protected because of content disputes. However there are different types of pages in particular templates that are fully protected indefinatly, and it seems to me that those proposing a change have not considered that (as no one proposing the change has mentioned the different types of pages). -- PBS (talk) 11:43, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
• Comment Perhaps an additional phrase, or sentence, explicitly suggesting that administrators should self revert if a change that they made proved to be controversial might be added to the section as alternative compromise to the proposed change, that might gain wider support. -- PBS (talk) 11:43, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. Victor Yus (talk) 11:46, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

• Leave as is. I think we should be able to trust admins as to what is controversial or not. These articles are protected so that our readers can view a good version of the article. If we leave grammar, typos, format errors. etc. in, then it just makes us look bad. If an admin does an edit that is considered controversial then we can seek consensus to have that admin remove themselves from editing the article during protection.--Canoe1967 (talk) 11:54, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
• Support Bwilkins interpretation I don't want to pigeon-hole admin too greatly, but in a nutshell, edits to fully protected articles by admin should be limited to 1) purely maintenance or 2) fully supported by clear consensus. In other words, using the tools to bypass protection in order to serve the community (and not ourselves), the reason the community gave us the admin bit to begin with. Under no circumstances should an admin add new material that isn't supported by previous discussion. As many of have said, admin are not "Super-Editors". Full protection would otherwise advantage admin in their roles solely as editors. Dennis Brown - 2¢ - © - @ - Join WER 13:17, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
• Support Bwilkins' interpretation; leave the page as it is. with the understanding that correcting obvious typos or fixing dead links is assumed to be supported by consensus. If an admin wishes to shape a protected article's content, he should do what the rest of us have to do, which is to propose the change and see whether there is a clear consensus to make it. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:12, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
• Leave as is unless there is a definite need to address an ongoing widespread problem. WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:42, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
• Support Too many times an admin has continued working on an article well after full protection has ben implemented. Now we all like to edit articles. We wouldn't be here if we didn't. Yet at the same time admins should not have the privalege of continued article shaping when the majority of the community is locked out. It creates a tiered social class of editors, doesn't contribute to the colaberative editing process, and obviously creates strife. Admin tools should be reserved for only the bare minimum amount of editing and then only when there is clear consnsus for such edits. Many have argued that minor edits such as spelling errors should be exempt. Yet spelling errors are the exeptions rather than the rules in these cases. I remember several years ago when Michael Jackson died. Edit warring became so bad that the article became fully protected. But that didn't stop many admins. Several admins continued the edit warring well past the protection. It was a very sad day for Wikipedias collaberative process. Unfortunatly we haven't learned from the debacle. This type of BS continues because some admins decide to use their own personal definition of "uncontroversial". Thats not only wrong, its Bull Shit. If it were up to me, every edit to a fully protected article would require talk page consensus, even spelling errors. Better to be safe than sorry, and I can promise you, this is a very sorry situation.JOJ 23:23, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
• Support Bwilkins' interpretation. I really think this should be a no-brainer. Consensus is needed for edits to a fully protected article, and of course this applies to edits by an admin too, as, in that moment, he has to be considered as an editor. Lectonar (talk) 15:05, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

• Notice - there's another RfC under way, at Misplaced Pages:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2013, which looks to be leading to the implementation of PC2, which would allow not only admins, but also reviewers, to edit through (a form of) full protection. I've suggested there that the issue being discussed here really needs to be resolved in some way before this happens, otherwise a whole new set of disputes are going to arise. Victor Yus (talk) 10:01, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

• Perhaps we should set up a dedicated RfC page and call for a consensus on whether the wording should be changed. From the number of people that participated here, it's clearly of interest to many editors and readers. YuMaNuMa 10:31, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

• ALERT ALERT ALERT - Yet another example of an Adnin continuing to edit through a Full Protection. Article Doctor Who was fully protected over edit warring, but a few hours after the protection went into place, an admin came along and made an edit. Not only was this not a minor or even uncontroversial edit, but it was basically a continuation of the edit war. How much longer do we need to let this BS go on before we write a policy to address this?--JOJ 19:19, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
  • That edit was NOT part of the content dispute the article was protected for. It did however remove unsourced information, so the edit was fair game. — Edokter (talk) — 10:37, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose proposed changes. Most admins aren't idiots or woefully uninformed, and someone who's neither will be able to judge whether something is controversial or not. As was said above, if you get a complaint from someone because of your edit, you should self-revert, but we shouldn't use disagreements over "uncontroversial" to attempt to prevent admins from fixing spelling or incorrect coding. I'll guess that a decent number of admin edits through protection are through a much more profound misremembering of WP:PP; for example, when I was a new admin, I made a substantial edit to a protected article because I didn't remember that there was anything against it. Good-faith admins who misremember or have never read that part of WP:PP are going to continue making those substantial edits because they don't know better, and no policy change will prevent them from doing it or prevent you from reminding them that they shouldn't and asking for a self-reversion. Nyttend (talk) 03:49, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Please change the image at "Pending changes protected (level 1)" in the table on the right of this article.

It would be more appropriate to have a lock, but with a line through it, splitting the orange from the silver part, showing there are two levels of this protection at Pending changes protected.

Example

Sorry for the external image, I am new to (contributing to) Misplaced Pages.

Thanks!

Fluffy-kittens-26 (talk) 02:38, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

At the moment only pending changes (level one) is approved for use, so there is no reason (in fact it might be confusing) to display the level two lock symbol. When and if PC2 is approved we can add it to the list of images. Regarding the image itself, we can only display images which have been uploaded to either Misplaced Pages or Misplaced Pages Commons, see the image upload wizard. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 06:40, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Own userspace pages protection policy

Please consider joining the feedback request service. An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the following list: Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the list. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.

Exactly under what circumstances should userspace pages get protected? And should admins be allowed to fully-protect their own user pages just because they don't want other users to edit them? smtchahal 01:39, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

The protection policy regarding protection of userspace pages has been rather vague. Some admins protect userspace pages merely because they feel it is welcoming to new users, while others do not unless there has been a history of vandalism by anon. users or "other good reason". What exactly can be said to be that "good reason"? There only has been one example of it, i.e., having the userpage of a retired user protected (fully protected in case of a confirmed death of a Wikipedian, but not the talk page, I know). But, talking about active Wikipedians, user pages get protected by some admins for not really a "good reason" while others don't do it "pre-emptively". This all began on Bishonen's talk page (who declined my user page indefinite semi-protection request only a few days after another admin had protected a user's sandbox page, which had never been edited by anyone other than its user), escalated to WP:AN and when I felt even that wasn't working, I decided to post this RfC.

Also, we need to clear up when admins can protect their own user pages, and upto which level. User:Edgar181, an admin, full-protected his user page right after he created it. But of course, I can't say he did it for no good reason, because that user page has been deleted by himself several times, and there may have been a history of vandalism by auto-confirmed users, but being a non-admin, I cannot tell. smtchahal 01:41, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

• My opinion — I'd like to see the policy explicitly permit the protection of any userspage page at whatever level desired for whatever duration desired (as long as there's an unprotected user talk page, of course), since it's bad form to edit someone else's userspace if they don't want it. The whole point of the bit about "pages aren't protected preëmptively" is that we want articles to be available for everyone; the editing of userpages really isn't related to the philosophical basis upon which we permit editing of all problem-free articles. Of course admins should have the discretion to say "No, I don't think you're making this request in good faith", and problematic things in userspace should be removed by anyone with the rights to edit those pages (including an unprotection if necessary), but protection of userspace by request of the user is a basic courtesy with no downsides in almost all cases. That's why some of us already extend that courtesy in almost all cases, and that's why the policy should be changed to permit it explicitly in the face of questions about what the current wording means. Nyttend (talk) 01:55, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Being an admin, on what basis would you check whether a request for protection was made in good faith or not? Also, I don't think user pages should be allowed to be protected liberally like that, because consider the case when an admin, who displays a few userboxes on their user page, protects his user page fully. Now various bots and users, who migrate the transclusions of userboxes as they get moved, will not be able to do it and the users (not the bots, of course) will need to request the admin to do it himself who probably won't want to be bothered. This was just one of the reasons why I don't think user pages should be fully-protected without a "good reason", but of course, we need to decide what we mean by that phrase here. smtchahal 02:28, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
    • "I know it when I see it". Can't give you a hard-and-fast rule, but I'm envisioning a situation in which the requesting user is already in conflict that's related to the userpage, or when I look at the userpage and notice that it has questionable content. Basically, I'm willing to protect any time that I don't see evidence of problems; I see that as being compatible with the current wording and would like to see the current wording clarified in that way. Full protection is an issue, I admit — I'd ask users to explain why full protection was necessary, since they couldn't edit anything like that; my primary concern is the administrative time occupied by a user who wants to edit a fully-protected page, since a single unmoved userbox isn't a big problem. I'd pretty much automatically suggest the JS trick to someone requesting indefinite full protection; this is where you put your userbox code into a .js page (since only admins can edit other people's JS pages) and make your userpage nothing but a transclusion of the JS page. Nyttend (talk) 03:30, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
• Strongly Support on-demand SPP for userpages - I would not oppose automatic SPP for all userpages. The only valid reason for an editor to modify another editor's userpage is to remove generally prohibited material (spam, attacks, etc.), and I do not think restricting such clean-up tasks to autoconfirmed and confirmed editors will lead to problems. This would have the added benefit of preventing users from only ever editing their userpage and using it for purposes other than improving the encyclopedia. For this reason, I am strongly in favor of honoring requests to SPP a user's userpage for any reason. Note that my comments applies only to SPP, not FPP, and only to user pages, not user talk pages. :) ·Salvidrim!· ✉ 02:34, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
  • I completely agree with you. I think it safe to assume that since non-auto-confirmed users do not perform maintenance tasks on user pages (like userbox migration, as I already mentioned; or perhaps more importantly, removing prohibited content as you mentioned), they cannot prove to be of much help to them in any other ways, either. Besides, the whole concept of Misplaced Pages's motto "The 💕 that anyone can edit" only implies that the encyclopedic part (or rather most of it) can be edited by anyone, including anon. users, and user pages are clearly not a part of it. So if a user requests the semi-protection of their user pages, I fail to see why their request should be denied. Of course I'm also not talking about user talk pages; anyone should be able to communicate with with the user, including anon. users (unless a consensus decides that talk page should get protected; an excessively vandalised talk page archive is an example). Why user pages should not be protected fully without a "good reason" (I know I'm using this phrase way too much) I think I have already remarked in my reply to Nyttend. smtchahal 02:51, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
  • I disagree. There are plenty of reasons to edit another users userpage that isn't reverting vandalism. You might be fixing a template, enacting a UCFD, or whatever. See also Misplaced Pages:User_pages#Editing_of_other_editors.27_user_and_user_talk_pages. Legoktm (talk) 05:22, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
    • Do you reasonably believe that a non-negligible part of these template fixes, UCFD enactments, or whatever, is performed by non-(auto)confirmed editors? And that restricting the edits only to (auto)confirmed editors would result in problems? :) ·Salvidrim!· ✉ 05:40, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose Per meta:Founding principles, taken as a whole, there should be as few differences between unregistered/autoconfirmed/admin as possible. I have no right to edit user's pages under most circumstances, nor do IPs or admins. There should not be technical differences between us. Whenever I go to a fully protected the View source in place of the usual welcoming edit this page immediately pops as a "you're untrustworthy!" message, even if I have no intention of editing the page. NE Ent 03:21, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Probably you have not noticed, but there are (apparently) many more "differences" between admins and non-admins than between any other two user groups. Besides, the only meta principle that seems relevant here is the second one: "The ability of almost anyone to edit (most) articles without registration." Articles – the pages in the article-space, not necessarily all other pages as well. Just like some templates are cascade-protected from editing by anyone but admins (and it is reasonable; a single edit to those templates, even though made in good faith, could disrupt thousands of Misplaced Pages articles, which is why a very few users called "administrators" are trusted with it), a user should have the full right to get their userspace pages protected if they feel that IP users will not help them edit their user pages (and as I mentioned, unregistered users, not performing maintenance or anything, cannot be helpful in improving user pages of others; and why would they be interested in messing with other users' business, anyway? They will be told to create an account if they want a user page for themselves, if their edit to the user pages is reverted. And in case an unregistered user finds something offensive, like using images from the bad-image list that he/she doesn't want to see on the user page (that other users have failed to notice), the anon. can request the user to remove it or ask for help from some other user; think about it, it's not that hard). And anyway, how big deal is becoming an auto-confirmed user? All it takes is 10 edits and 4 days, and because the requirements for becoming an autoconfirmed user are not at all high, some articles occasionally encounter vandalism by autoconfirmed users, too. So it's not really a "you're untrustworthy!" message on a semi-protected page; it only says "create an account, make 10 edits, wait for just 4 days and you will become special enough to edit this" in my opinion. And I'm not even saving user pages should be semi-protected by default. If a user does not want their user pages protected, fine. But at least users should have this right; it's absolutely reasonable and not very clearly against any of the Founding principles. smtchahal 04:24, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
• Strong liberal support, including full protection for admins. Nyttend and Salvidrin stole my reasons. In addition, if admins can be trusted enough to be admins, they can be trusted enough not to post policy-violating content onto their userspace. Ramaksoud2000 03:27, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
• I support semi-protection of any page in user and user talk space on request, except the user talk page, subject to the current provisions, ie there is vandalism and a talk page for 'IP and unconfirmed users'. This allows any page to be semi-protected, including talk page archives. However I think it's important to ensure that admins still have the discretion to decline requests if they believe the request in made in bad faith, as long as they have a reason to support their theory (that is: no, due to xyz I don't believe you're asking in good faith or you have a history of userspace misuse). I would also support full protection on request for unused talk archives (that is, they don't need to be edited by bots or the user to do the archiving), subject to the admin discretion I mentioned above. On the question of admins fully protecting their userspace pages, I don't have an issue with this, since a similar option is still available to non-admins (by transcluding a .js or .css page onto the userpage), however I strongly believe that it would be better to semi it so that maintenance (as User:Smtchahal indicates above can still be done), however I don't believe that full protection should be prohibited by policy (but I would support adding a suggestion as I have done).

Another question we should address is whether admins should be able to protect pages in their own userspace, and I think this depends on what the policy is. At the moment I don't believe they should be, because it requires an objective opinion in an area in which the admin has a conflict of interest (however I think it's fair to AGF on the part of the admin). If the policy is changed to reflect the above then this is no longer an issue and so there is no issue with admins protecting pages in their own userspace. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 03:31, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

• Strong support Just about all the SPI clerks and admins dealing with trolls like Grawp need to be able to defend their userspace against these determined trolls, since blocking is rarely effective with them. --Rschen7754 03:43, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
• I honestly think it should be a case by case thing. For certain users who have been targeted by LTAs in the past, it makes sense to semi the entire userspace even if not all individual pages were hit. On the flip side, you don't own your userspace, and unless there is a good reason to prevent new users/IPs from editing it I would decline a protection request. Legoktm (talk) 05:18, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Of course, no one owns anything they post to Misplaced Pages (with very few exceptions). But that only means that what I put on my user page can be used by anyone else without permission (like I admittedly copied Mkdw's user page header) and I cannot do anything about it, not that one is also allowed to mess around with my stuff. One may alter it and post it somewhere else, but shouldn't mess with my user page itself. While you're reasonable in saying you would look for IP vandalism before semi-protecting a user page, I fail to see how a non-autoconfirmed user could prove to be helpful by editing someone else's user page. smtchahal 05:44, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
• Support protection on demand for user pages. It's relatively rare for someone to have good cause to edit another's user page, and more rare for a non-autoconfirmed user to correctly identify such a case. Arbitrary protection has less potential for abuse than arbitrary deletion and we allow CSD-U1 in own user space. Kilopi (talk) 08:23, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
• A weak oppose is what I am tending to here, because the protection of a userpage should be a reaction to something, not to prevent something which has not happened yet (as in articles, actually). I fear a little bit if we preemptively protect userpages, after some time there will be a push in the direction of preemptively protecting articles too, as we have now such a good precedent for doing it ("It's working fine with userpages, there is no harm..."). This, at least imho, is what Misplaced Pages is about: the encyclopedia that everyone can edit, and shutting off more and more pages (yes, even userpages) is going against this spirit, so it leaves a bit of a dull feeling inside me, let me call it a hunch that this going the wrong way. Lectonar (talk) 09:17, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

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