Wikipedia talk:Quasi-protection

message: This is a proposal I've seen before. The primary problem with it is that administrators are the bottleneck - they simply can't promote users quickly enough and their time could be better used for other things. Maybe if distinguished users could promote new distinguished users? Or maybe if they make X edits and have an account for 4 days without receiving a complaint? I don't know. Deco 22:59, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I like Jtdirl's idea. The quasi-protection system is good, but adds a lot more hassle; it might be worth tweaking the sprotection system a bit and seeing if that staves off the vandalism for a while before putting in a major new layer. Shimgray | talk | 23:09, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm, also an interesting suggestion. In reply to admins as the bottleneck: I admit, this is a potential backlog, but I don't think that it should be a major issue: first, distinguished users would have no real benefits except for quasi-protected pages, which would be extremely rare, thus lowering demand. Secondly, most people wouldn't know about this until they reach a quasi-protected page. Finally, it would only take a few moments to quickly review a user's contributions - an admin could easily review 10 or more users in a minute, scanning their contributions. I'm sure we would find enough people willing to help at all times that no backlog would be created. Thanks for the comments! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:19, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No source images and the like can be cheacked in a couple of seconds. there have been backlogs.Geni 23:23, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Why not just amend the current semiprotection policy and extend the timespan for new editors to 5 days from when they make their first edit and also make them have 50 substantive edits?--MONGO 23:23, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Agreed needs a number of edits. Just 1 wouldn't be too high a bar to meet and not enough for any vandal to be banned. Make it 50 or so and if they get to 50 without being blocked it probably outweighs the damage they could do after reaching that bar. --pgk(talk) 23:27, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 50 edits is a good idea; if the account only turns out to be vandal after 50 edits, the good edits made to get them over the quasi-protection boundary would outweigh the vandalism. How about automatic promotion on reaching 50 edits, which can then be taken away by any admin, as a kind of less extreme block? smurrayinchester(Talk) 10:50, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

text: As much as I would love to do promotions, I don't think that would work, as least not if it were given out as liberally as suggested. Prodego talk 01:06, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Admins are the bottleneck 

message: Screams wheelwarring for controversial users, very much so a waste of time for Administrators, extensive changes needed to Mediawiki, additional DB stress, etc. The effort's really appreciated, but this sort of thing won't be efficient enough to handle sleepers. --Avillia (Avillia me!) 23:17, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Apparently my estimate differs from yours. :-) I don't think it would take quite that much time - a brief glance at the contribs, making sure that they're not all minor edits to a category or something that a bot could do, randomly open one, and then promote - it should be given out quite liberally. I also don't think that wheelwarring will be a problem, because quasi-protection would only be applied to pages under vandalbot attacks, and not for content dispute. There's nothing to wheel war over - either you're a vandalbot or you're not. :-) Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:23, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Take reformed vandals, people who go against the veritable 'grain' of the Wikipedia community, people who generally make widely differing opinions among administrators. Half of them will want to distinguish, half of them don't trust them, and one member of this controversial group will be wanting to edit a quasi-protected article. --Avillia (Avillia me!) 23:27, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

text: You have to take into account the time it takes to load each page of the process.  You'd need to load their user talk, their contribs, at least one of their diffs, and the actual promotion page.  When everything is going well, that would only take a couple of seconds per page on a fast connection, but wikipedia often slows down to the point that it would take a minute just to load all the pages.  Anyway, even 10 seconds a person is still nearly 10 minutes a day not spent on other things... An admin can do a lot of useful stuff in 10 minutes... --Tango 23:42, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  No. 

message: Either there will be few distinguished users because few ask for it thus Quasi-protection will be pretty much the same as full protection or it becomes a major resource drain for admins. An even then will be a fairly hefty form of protection.Geni 23:22, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't understand what you mean by a "hefty" form of protection. As to too few users: because this will be given quite liberally, that shouldn't be a problem. If a user comes to a quasi-protected page, which will be quite rare, and wishes to edit it, all they have to do is make a request. See above for replies regarding admin drain. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:25, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: People want to edit pages right now they do not want to have to wait however long it takes for an admin to notice thier request. More likely the protection will be gone before an admin answers it.Geni 23:43, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Two scenarios

message: I think we need some sort of way to implement simulated annealing. --HappyCamper 23:28, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Er, can you elaborate? The analogy is lost on me. Deco 08:36, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Simulated annealing]] 

message: I've been asked to comment on the technical aspects of this, but for now, here's another thought. If four days isn't long enough, why not ask us to extend it? We can do so without too much trouble, although the configuration setting might affect other related flags, e.g. for page moves, etc. robchurch | talk 01:24, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sleeper accounts will still sleep as usual, the point of this policy is to solve that problem by and large. I wish there was an easier way to kill sleeper accounts, but I no one can think of any yet. I would support changing 1 to 2% either way though.Voice-of-AllTalk 01:34, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with Voice of All with respect to upping it to 2%. I fear that the quasi-protection policy, as proposed, will be unworkable. bd2412 T 04:01, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If this proposal can work (and I think it can, the only problem is retroactive edit counting...an initial server use bump), I'd like for it to be implemented, and 1% to be changed to 2% in addition (so spro will have a two pass check). If now, I'd at least like to see the 2%.Voice-of-AllTalk 07:09, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

text: That would still be un-useful, because a bot that creates an account can be programmed to make an edit on that account the second it creates it. --GeorgeMoney T·C 17:41, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alternative or supplemental 

message: I don't see how this would be very helpful if applied to all daily FAs (see User:Raul654/protection, whose objections also apply to this proposal). If applied to only articles targeted by sleeper accounts, I would perhaps grudgingly accept it in the same sense that I accept that semi-protection is sometimes warranted. However, this proposal is just too m:instruction creepy for me. It doesn't make sense to have a requests page considering the difficulty of informing people about it, and the difficulty of getting them to apply (more work -> not nice). And even then, as others have said, admins would have a lot of work to do. Sleeper accounts are a relatively minor problem, IMO. It's not worth having such a targeted solution. Just semi-protect the articles they target and be done with things. Another thing worth doing might be pursuing their ISPs and, y'know, actually screwing them up the ass. Even if we can't get anything done legally, cutting these things off at the source is probably worth a try. Johnleemk | Talk 10:16, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree, semi-protected should look at edit count, this system of having admins verify people will only lead to a big mess. How many pages would you think would be quasi-protected at a time? Probably not many, and for this very trivial benefit we now have to vouch for the intent of every user? This has scaling issues. Also, if the system is being added because a better system would entail changes to the code there are logical errors. This system will also entail changes to the code, so why not go ahead and do the better system (having mediawiki count edits) since both require code changes. - cohesion 21:14, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For the record, I only support edit counting and the 2%. I do not think that an admin approval system would work at all, too much pile-up and wasted time.Voice-of-AllTalk 21:20, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Uh... 

message: But, instead of having people to be "distinguished" status, we could make it that people on WP:TRUSTED can be able to edit the pages. --GeorgeMoney T·C 16:35, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I like it! 

message: I think the bulk of promotion to the "distinguished user" status can be done by a bot. The algorithm might be complicated (like 24h. since the 50 mainspace edits since the last block and at least 48h since 20 mainspace edits since the last test message, and at least 1 month since the last block). The admins could manually distinguish/de-distinguish if the bot fails. The bot's algorithm could be make unknown to users to prevent gaming of the system. We could even set the distinguish user flag to static IPs if only good edits are coming from this account.
We could somehow separate the "new" and "distinguished" users by coloring in the RC/NA/WP lists - it would help the patrolling. abakharev 03:55, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I much simpler pass test of User:Voice of All/History/monobook.js could do it. I'd rather KISS it though. Just check their contribs for 50 edits (or 100). Remember that deleted edits don't show up on contribs pages.Voice-of-AllTalk 05:29, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The code on User:Voice of All/History/monobook.js looks interesting, I would like to add it to my monobook, but what it is exactly doing? There are two approaches to the deficiensies of the semi-protection - smarter sprotect (not 4 days since the acc creation but 4 days since the first article edit + num of edits +...) or just a simple bit in the user's database + smart bot to set the bit + manual overwrite.  I am not sure what is easier to code, but the second system seems to be more flexible and safer. The approach based poorly on the number of edits (especially the number of the article edits) seems better than the approach based on time, but theoretically there could be a possibility that all the articles interesting for a user are semi-protected, thus, he cannot reach the number of edits , thus... I am not sure if the situation is realistic but it is possible. There are also accounts that regularly vandalize but make some productive contributions as well, I would like them to be kept off from the s/q-protected articles. abakharev 05:49, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would do this: 50+ articles edits/4 days min. Both are needed. Thats it. The only policy that can ever get through, and is for the best usually, is KISS.Voice-of-AllTalk 06:23, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

text: How about 50/100 edits and four days since the last block?  A few vandals may be able to get through, but that's no big deal since it would still be fewer than are able to edit semi-protected pages already.  All in all, however, I would prefer this be automatic rather than committee.  The idea of having two user tiers has always been an issue, and has never really gained momentum.  There are other ways of "distinguishing" users... i.e. barnstars etc.  --tomf688 (talk - email) 18:36, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Bots are hacks, workarounds for missing software features. If we did it automatically it shouldn't be with a bot. Deco 18:39, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A bot could promote  

message: There is already far too much of a status distinction in Wikipedia between admins and non-admins. I do not want to have to go crawling to an admin for promotion, or risk being demoted by a rogue admin out of spite. The term "distinguished user" is patronising in any case. CalJW 22:39, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Find a solution that doesn't give yet more powers to administrators

message: If MediaWiki has no internal editcounter, what counts the edits in the renaming log? Prodego talk 14:59, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe that that's a technical restriction that makes it impossible if the renaming of a certain number of contributions is simply too high; I don't think it actually "counts" edits, per se. (Though I'm not sure about this; a developer would be more appropriate to ask.) Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 15:51, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  No MediaWiki editcounter? 

message: OK, this is going nowhere. The only practical ideas suggested were a)block 2% instead of 1% of new users and b)get the devs to make an editcounter to check for X edits to edit certain pages. I suggest we focus on those proposals.Voice-of-All 05:59, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  KISS, KISS, KISS