Wikipedia talk:Protection policy/Archive 5

message: The following link and explanation was added to the "See also" section of Wikipedia: Protection policy:
* What we know about wikipedia vandalism so far (rate & sources of WP:VANDALism)
The Edit summary history of that addition and the revert that followed is given below: 
:17:30, 30 May 2007 Thomasmeeks (→See also -link for rate & sources of WP:VANDALism) (relevant for most common WP Requests for page protection)) 
:22:54, 30 May 2007 Steel359  (→See also - rm unrelated)
The stated reason for removal is that the added link is "unrelated." But the link is related as indicated by for example that Wikipedia:Protection policy has "Wikipedia vandalism" as a category.  Why is it a category for that page?  Because the most common reason for requesting semi-protection at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection is WP:VANDALism.  The removed "See also" link  documents the rate & sources of WP:VANDALism.  In docuumenting the rate of vandalism, the link provides a benchmark that can be compared with an article in question as to whether vandalism is relatively hight or low there.  That benchmark rate can be considered at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection.  That added link also finds that for the pages studied, 97 percent of WP:VANDALism is by unregistered users.  Semiprotect would block such vandalism. Therefore, the reason given above for removing the link is unwarranted.  --Thomasmeeks 00:56, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Must you make a big deal out of every single little thing? – Steel 01:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't believe that your reply is responsive to the request I left on your Talk page for a response (01:03, 31 May 2007, since deleted by you, possibly b/c you believe your response is satisfactory).  I believe that your revert & the reason you gave for it are not supportable.  --Thomasmeeks 02:30, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sigh. I really wish you wouldn't try to mind-read me. Anyway, one question: where did you get "deleted" from, exactly?  – Steel 10:48, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd have no problen with "removed" instead of "deleted," if that is your point. --Thomasmeeks 11:37, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Moved to bottom where new messages go" would be more accurate. – Steel 11:40, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Correction noted.  Sorry. --Thomasmeeks 12:45, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't see any harm at all in linking users to information on what the 'average' level of vandalism is - I think it should be footnoted or something like that. Since we're talking about a relative thing here, having some neutral standard for 'heavy' vandalism is quite helpful. Richard001 10:48, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think Richard001's compromise works well with the rest of the page. -Royalguard11(Talk·Review Me!) 22:20, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Edit dispute on relation of WP protection policy and WP vandalism

message: Patel is continuing to get IP edits despite getting indefinite semi-protection.  What gives? --Adamrush 18:28, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We don't do indef semi protections. Look at the protection log. Ther article was protected for a finite time, which expired yesterday. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 18:31, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anon edits despite indef. semi-protection 

message: Could an administrator add a    tag to all the pp-templates between where the bolded words transition into unbolded words. This helps make the main message (article is protected) stand out. Examples:
*Without tag
 
This  has been protected from editing to prevent vandalism. ([ protection log]). 
*with tag
 
This  has been protected from editing to prevent vandalism. ([ protection log]).  
----
*without tag
 
Editing of this  by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled  to prevent sock puppets of currently blocked or banned users from editing it. 
*with tag
 
Editing of this  by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled  to prevent sock puppets of currently blocked or banned users from editing it.  
Thanks -- Hdt83  Chat 06:56, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah. I thought it looked more like a  instead of a . As it is now, I support this change.  WODUP 07:00, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Minor change for the pp-templates 

message: Hi. I just wrote an essay on Page Protection. Another User suggested I put it here. I have read most of the above comments about this topic, and just wanted to throw my essay out there for people to think about:
At the time this essay was written, there were 991 semi-protected articles, and 29 fully protected articles. That is almost 1000 protected articles. In our haste to fight vandalism, we protect articles left and right. How do we know that their isn't some ip user that doesn't have a positive contribution? How can we claim to be a wiki if we block so many pages?
How can we truly call ourselves a Wiki, or "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" if we block pages so quickly? We justify ourselves by saying that "anyone can make an account", but that isn't fair. They would have to wait 4 days before they could edit semi-protected pages. You have to be fairly determined to wait that long to fix something. People should be able to go to a Wiki and edit something without having to become a Wikimaniac.
Now, your probably going, "but Wikipedia has almost 2 million articles!" and you would be right. But it isn't articles like Liverpool, New York that are getting protected. It's articles about notable things like Wii, Baseball, Chocolate, High School Musical, and Cheese that are being protected. These are the things people would want to edit, so in essance, we say "you can't edit about anything notable, but you can edit Liverpool, New York." Great. . . 
We semi-protect so much that we need a small template  so that we don't have to use that big ugly tag. We shouldn't have to even think about having a small tag. It is silliness that we semi-protect everything people care about and call ourselves "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit."
The link to the essay is in my signature, which so far contains only what is written above. --Trumpetband What is happening to Wikipedia? 23:55, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And others would argue that vandalism is one of the main problems with Wikipedia. I think it's ridiculous to unprotect heavily vandalized articles for ideological reasons - the good editors will get sick of reverting and leave the project, and the readers will see vandal sewerage half the time instead of the actual article. I certainly would not bother working on an article if I had to spend the majority of the time reverting vandalism, and I certainly wouldn't appreciate having readers seeing a blank page instead of my hard work. I think practical solutions are far better than ideological ones, and stopping about 95% of the vandalism is a very practical one. Richard001 00:27, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, if it comes to that, we might as well not allow ip users to edit, and stop calling ourselves the "encyclopedia that everyone can edit" (unless we wanted to add an "after waiting 4 days" note to that - don't mean to be aggressive, just a thought. --Trumpetband What is happening to Wikipedia? 01:03, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Some would say we should, some would say we shouldn't. It's not like this is a binary issue where people either say 'Only registered users can edit' or 'We should never protect articles' though. Everyone has their own opinion along a continuous scale, and there are valid reasons for all perspectives. Richard001 22:50, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Why are you whining here? If you think Wii, Baseball, Chocolate, High School Musical or Cheese should be unprotected, then request unprotection. If anyone's foolish enough to actually unprotect it, you'll soon see why semi-protection is necessary – Gurch 22:07, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  My Essay 

message: I'm just wondering if 69.120.111.23 deserves a full protect yet? It was locked from Wknight94, because "prevent 69.120.111.23 (talk • contribs • block logauto) from using it to make disruptive edits or continuing to abuse the  template.". However that doesn't make sense. The IP hasn't edited a page since June 25th, nor has been very active at all in the last 2 months. The anonymous user does have two vandalize warnings, but neither are final.
I think the page was protected to prevent other editors from using the talk. This anonymous user is on  Wikinews currently, and maybe Wknight94 felt it needed some pre-emptive action. Altough I believe that isn't a valid reason to protect a page? Sofar, the page has had one anonymous user place a spam link on it 3 times, but other than that it has had little disruption. All in all, this page may need protection (with it being in mainstream news), but has it reached this step yet? Also, Wknight94 removed all talk, outside the warnings. Should the page be reverted?
I'm not here to request a unprotect, just advise. I will follow whatever advice is given, as i'm unsure on how this policy fully works. Thank you Rawboard 04:13, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It appears that User:69.120.111.23 was linked from Digg (as the tag on the user talk page says) and people were turning up to have a good chitchat about the recent events, and the page protected to stop that . Judging by the protection summary ("move along people"), I imagine the talk page was protected for the same reason. We needn't worry about pre-emptive concerns because (a) this is a special case, and (b) stuff had already happened on the user page . – Steel 13:31, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, thank you. I won't contest the page's standing Rawboard 15:20, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should this user talk be protected? 

message: You only find out about the semi-protection from the note on such pages when clicking 'edit'. Surely it would be better to use a small icon and group these pages into a category? Why is this done? It means that the category of semi-protected pages is actually incomplete at any given time...--h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 11:51, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We do have templates that add icons and categorise pages.  for example adds the page to :Category:Semi-protected. Regardless, categorisation is less important now that Special:Protectedpages exists. – Steel 15:46, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why do some semi-protected pages not have a visible template, icon or category? 

message: See here for discussion (FYI, I'm just cross-posting so people know about it since this is the page for protection policy). -Royalguard11(T·R!) 23:32, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal to S-P Every Day 

message: it says the simpsons generated $2 billion dollars in its first 14 months as a 1/2 hour long program. This figure seems high or out of context. 207.47.55.120 10:10, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  simpson source 15 the times magazine article by nick griffith 

message: Regarding the addition by , is this kind of analysis really necessary in the policy? I personally don't think so, and I am removing it. -- ReyBrujo 03:38, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it's not necessary, especially the second edit. It's just someone trying to make a point that there are a lot of protected articles, which I believe is a lot better than a thousand vandalized articles. I could similarly add less than 0.1% of all articles are protected, and imply that that was a bad thing. I would hope that such an edit would be promptly reverted. Richard001 04:19, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Latest changers 

message: Just so everyone in the protection area knows, a straw poll has been started for Wikipedia:Autoconfirmed Proposal at Wikipedia talk:Autoconfirmed Proposal/Straw Poll. Please come and voice you opinion. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 20:42, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Straw Poll Started 

message: I notice that some semi-protected pages have the big banner saying "editing of this article by new/unregistered users is currently disabled" and that other semi-protected pages have not even an icon in the top right corner, but most have the small icon in the top right-hand corner. What I propose is that all semi-protected pages be added to the Semi-protected category (or a specific sub-category like "semi-protected against vandalism") with the small icon in the top right visible. I suggest that the original "big banner" sprotect template be deleted and that we remove the mechanism for pages to be sprotected without the icon and category. What do you all think? This seems the most logical thing to me.--h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 11:40, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A suggestion for all semi-protected pages 

message: So, I was thinking of adding a subject for the Emo(slang) page, but I'm kinda scared, and hope not to offend or confuse anyone by doing this. 
I was thinking of adding a topic about the Emo ppl give and the Emo ppl should know about. The article dedicated to emo centralizes too much on how ordinary ppl see and criticize Emo ppl, when the author of the article forgot about adding something about the true emo, the one real emo ppl experience.
Just to let you ppl know, at first I was dissapointed to what ppl told me about it, but as I was giving a better view to this subculture, I saw a way different life rather than the one the 'haters' or 'fakers' say.
Plz don't try to be a smartypants and steal this, I'll be more glad to recieve colaboration from other ppl who know about this better than the usual 'lable-this' ppl. Any feedback would be deeply appreciated. I don't hate emo ppl, I don't like them either, I just feel it's necessary to give a bit more attention to this article.XNelsxdeadx 01:52, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Emo as my semi-protected subject 

message: For articles containing biographies of leading U.S. presidential candidates, can we build consensus that semi-protection expirations counted in days are preferable to those counted in weeks or months? 
Unfortunately, due to the high visibility of these articles, the choice is between faster expirations or de facto near-indefinite semi-protection. The good news is that these articles are so closely watched that unhelpful edits are reverted quite quickly. Can we agree to introduce sprot only after first remedy user warning/blocking solutions are are unable to keep up, and then only briefly?  
In a sense, these articles with high readership are "on the front page" every day; greater good justifications for keeping them open are arguably similar to those for newly featured articles appearing on the main page.
To narrow the points in search of consensus, here's two questions offered here for discussion:
#What is a reasonable duration before expiration of semi-protection on these articles to ensure that "anyone can edit" gets an even chance?
#What levels of vandal editing, when it occurs, may be worth tolerating on closely watched articles belonging to leading candidates for the sake of preserving Wikipedia's editorial openness and unique role in this media saturated topic area? 
Thanks for reading (and editing). --HailFire 08:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I can see that.  Too much codification is definitely not a healthy thing here. While I would like to see more evidence that less intrusive methods are tried before pulling the sprot trigger, it is the duration to be set for sprot expirations on these articles that I'm more concerned about. Right now it looks like there is a community of editors and Admins who think these articles should be semi-protected as much as possible, and are quite willing to set expirations of one month or longer that result in de facto preemptive sprot.  I am just trying to bring the debate more into the open so all views can be heard and to discourage these different views from being addressed through  wheel warring. If this is not the right forum to seek consensus on this kind of thing, please point me someplace else where Admin views can be solicited. --HailFire 11:48, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd say the problem isn't nearly as bad as you suppose, based on the low amount of pages that are presently semi-protected. This page is not really a good spot to bring it up because it has relatively low traffic and visibility. I would suggest the admin noticeboard for more discussion. >Radiant< 13:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Duration of semi-protection on U.S. presidential candidate articles