Wikipedia talk:Main Page featured article protection/Archive2

message: How about this one:
ALL templates in a main page FA should be semi-protected.  As in, protect them before the main page goes up, and not unprotected until it's off the main page.  I'm staring at that big penis on the Macedonia (terminology) page, and I see that they're scrambling to figure out in which template the image was stuck.
An new IP user making a good faith first edit really has no business mucking around in the Templates anyway.--DaveOinSF 03:25, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As of now, 11 different templates were vandalized a total of 18 times in the first few hours that the Macedonia (terminology) page was the main page FA.  The longest instance where it failed to revert was 21 minutes.  There were several other instances of 5-to-7 minutes.--DaveOinSF 04:18, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm thinking the "xx icon" templates for a start, and similarly widely-used templates, should all be semi-protected anyway. An anonymous or newly-registered user can always use  on the talk page if they do have a useful edit to make – Gurch 10:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I too witnessed the large phallus photos, as well as my young daughter. I don't see why it is unreasonable to temporarily lock featured articles while they are on the main page. I mean, they garner the "featured" status because they are well constructed. Any improvements to the articles can certainly wait until they come back down. ZincOrbie 20:25, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Templates included in the main page FA are sometimes vandalized, and it is more difficult to remove this kind of vandalism quickly. It is also less likely that casual readers would need to modify the templates. Admins may semi/full-protect the templates as needed.
I don't think the policy should make such protection MANDATORY (and it does not, as it now reads); that would be (a) telling admins what they have to do, when they are volunteers and, more generally, (b) it's instruction creep.  But the policy clearly needs to state (as it does now) that administrators can protect templates while still complying with the policy.  John Broughton  |  Talk 15:11, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree. This has been done in practice already anyway. Borisblue 16:00, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Templates 

message: Other discussions on this topic are here, here, here and here. Please add more if you find them. Someone may wish to consolidate all these disparate discussions into one location. Carcharoth 12:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Other discussions on this topic

message: This policy was changed on 5 December with the addition of a section that reads:
:Templates included in the main page FA are sometimes vandalized, and it is more difficult to remove this kind of vandalism quickly. It is also less likely that casual readers would need to modify the templates. Admins may semi/full-protect the templates as needed.
I don't think the policy should make such protection MANDATORY (and it does not, as it now reads); that would be (a) telling admins what they have to do, when they are volunteers and, more generally, (b) it's instruction creep.  But the policy clearly needs to state (as it does now) that administrators can protect templates while still complying with the policy.  John Broughton  |  Talk 15:11, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. This has been done in practice already anyway. Borisblue 16:00, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change on policy page on 5 December 

message: Ordinarily, I never comment on Wiki-policy, because I feel out of my depth; but Opabinia regalis asked me to comment on my experience with Photon, which was on the Main Page on 14 October 2006.  
At the time, I had just freaked out after seeing the ~300 edits to Enzyme three days earlier and was thinking about protection or semi-protection of Photon as a defence against vandalism and a way to prevent the waste of good editors' time.  However, talking it over with friends led me to a better understanding of Wikipedia and its community.  Speaking just for myself, I agree with the old policy of almost never protecting the Main Page Featured Articles.
I can't claim to have clear experimental data.  The amount of outright vandalism to Photon was relatively low (~30/150 edits) but the new contributors generally did not add much to its scientific content, either, with 1-2 exceptions.  The bulk of the newcomer edits seemed to be relatively minor changes in emphasis or re-wordings; nonetheless, although incremental, I believe that their net effect was positive, especially for the clarity and tone of the article.   Sometimes, when you've read an article too many times, you develop a tin ear and it's hard to imagine reading it for the first time.  The day on the Main Page is a true "test by fire" that lets us evaluate how well our article "flies" with its intended readership, the legions of people who will read it for the first time; it helps our articles to progress more quickly.
Aside from practical encyclopedic considerations about readability, the lack of protection on the Main Page sends a powerful message, at least for me: "Wikipedia is beyond the reach of malice; we have nothing to fear."  It may seem quixotic, or at least St. Francis-like, but it's also a thought-provoking lesson in the power of a community of good people, an example that may attract new well-meaning editors to Wikipedia. Willow 11:37, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Very nice. I really like this analogy in general, and the whole Wikipedia project can certainly be construed this way. What's frustrating for me is that this "process" perspective/philosophy has no end in its application here, and thus seems like dogma. The sanctity of the day's featured article is worth something too. Such a "process" perspective, after a certain point, fails to respect the goal orientation implicit in any project (where the project, in this case, is a single encyclopedia article about something). The last thing you do, according to some monks, is kill the Buddha. –Outriggr § 04:19, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Experience with Photon

message: Please see Wikipedia talk:Main Page featured article protection/Petition for a call to amend or cancel this policy. I believe it would be beneficial to gauge the number of users, in a straightforward list-of-names style, who are concerned about this policy. Thanks. –Outriggr § 01:59, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Petition 

message: Ok, I know that this was originated in Raul654's userspace, but currently it resides in the mainspace, and thus should be treated as a mainspace policy. I think some ideas need to be drawn from the statistics. I created a simple table with the amount of time the page spent vandalized by anons. 
Day *	times (note * means look for more information below)
Dec 1	03:59 (16.6%)
Dec 2	01:21 (6%)
Dec 3	01:22 (6%) **
Dec 4	01:54 (8%) 8+ hours of protection
Dec 5	??? ***
Dec 6	01:53 (11%)
Dec 7	02:15 (9%)
Total	12:44 (~8.8%) ****
:*Links go to the relevant section of Wikipedia talk:Don't protect Main Page featured articles/December Main Page FA analysis
:**Today was the first day of the study that saw a substantial number of vandalising edits by newly registered users, who would also be blocked by semi-protection of the article. (New editors are not included in the counts below.
:***Very hard to gauge how long the article spent vandalised without per-second history.
:****December 5, the time was not available. Therefore the percentage next to the total is calculated by taking 6 days (144 hours)
:Note - Of course new users have been left out of this study. (this is only anons).
::Note - Feel free to clean up and improve the wikitable if you want, it is fairly primitive.
From what is seen in that table... and from the total for that week (minus one day) the main page was in a vandalized state 8.8% of the time it was up. This is not counting new users accounts (who would be blocked when the article is semi-protected). That is quite high, I fear to say that our anti-vandalism efforts are not quite as fast as we like to think. At the very least this needs to be downgraded to a guideline. —— Eagle 101 (Need help?) 05:12, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks so much for doing that analysis, to all involved. Part of my continued interest in this issue is based on the numbers I saw when looking at the analysis page some time ago—and seeing the amount of time articles spent in the vandalized state. It appears this is still borne out.–Outriggr § 07:16, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, based on the arguments above, what do we all think about making this a guideline rather then a policy. Guidelines still have some force, but at least are not as much instruction creep as policy is (for this case). If the page is undertaking say, no edits (like todays featured article did through the period 9:06 to 11:21 UTC), there is no need to protect it. But the instant that vandalism starts to pick up, it is in our best interest, according to the stats information that we have above to semi-protect the page. —— Eagle 101 (Need help?) 23:14, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Just downgrading the current policy to a guidline will not accomplish anything.  Based on the above, it needs to be rewritten to encourage semi-protection when the FA page is vandalized.--Paul 23:45, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

text: The data is collected by examining the history of the main page FA while it is on the main page. Template vandalism is something different, and much harder to research. The times given are the near exact amounts of time the main page FA was in a vandalized state. If we add in template vandalism I am willing to bet the statistics above would look worse then they do now. Do note that those stats are only tracking anon vandalism, and have left out new users entirely. —— Eagle 101 (Need help?) 01:09, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

text: In reply to Paul.h, perhaps that is the case, maybe we should start such a re-write as a subpage of this talk page? —— Eagle 101 (Need help?) 01:09, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure I'm following still:  if the analysis is analyzing only the actual article history, it is missing the main source of recent vandalism from the "penis" template vandal, who isn't hitting the article directly, rather vandalizing the article via the templates and images.  Sandy (Talk) 01:26, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Correct, right now the main page is in a vandalized state an average of 2 hours and 7 minutes. With template vandalism that number only increases. But, remember we are talking about semi-protecting the main page itself. we know that in recent times (from December 1 to December 7) how long the page itself is in a vandalized state on average. (due to edits to the FA, not to edits to templates transcluded onto the FA). Basically I am arguing that this policy needs to be downgraded to a guideline, and or rewritten to more closely match reality. The idea of rewriting it comes from Paul. —— Eagle 101 (Need help?) 01:37, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  some analysis 

message: A few thoughts I've come up with:
# I think it is not beyond Wikipedia's ethos to change the semi protection template (perhaps a specific one for Todays featured article) so that it is more of a welcome message, stating 1) that in order to protect the quality of the article, new users/editors won't be able to edit the article page directly, but if the care to go to the discussion page they can put their edit there and someone can add it in if it's useful; 2) provide a link to the sandbox in the template, so they can have a go without disrupting the article itself; 3) suggest there are many pages that may need their attention in the rest of Wikipedia and a quick search should bring up something they're interested in; 4) point out that Wikipedia isn't censored.  I think this would allow us all the breadth we need to encourage new good faith editors.
# I think all templates should be semi protected because even as an established member, I don't even know how to use a template, let alone change one, and yet there seems to be a lot of problems caused by these being vandalised.  I would think it reasonable to restrict template editing to seasoned editors generally.
# Semi-protection should be offered to the regular contributors to an article a short time before the FA ends up on the main page, leave it up to them whether they have enough time, energy and coverage throughout the 24 hours to cover any vandalism problems.  You may find that some pages have sufficient people to cover the article that the article itself doesn't require any protection (I would still advocate template semi-protection in this case).
This could also include:
## Making sure editors know where to go for help if a problem occurs.
## Allowing editors to prearrange semi-protection for times when they don't have enough cover would also be helpful, as it may be that vandals come out more when they realise there are too few people physically watching the article.
I'm aware most of this would involve quite large changes to policies, not just this one, but maybe they would be worth testing at least. Terri G 13:02, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In addition, I think it highly unlikely that a new user will be able to significantly contribute to an FA, just because they would probably find it too difficult to pass the verifiability criteria, paticularly adding citations on a first attempt, and are therefore likely to be reverted and get disheartened. Terri G 14:07, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Some good ideas Terri. Related to the sandbox, another idea would be to duplicate today's FA in the sandbox, and point new editors to that if they wish to improve the article, where an experienced editor can review the change in relation to featured article standards. (Sorry if that was what you meant; I didn't think so.) Here's where someone cries censorship, without recognizing that every reversion they do has the same effect. –Outriggr § 00:13, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not sure how feasible the "duplicating the FA" in the sandbox idea is, but the other ideas are very good. I have some worries about whether or not the sandbox would remain synchronized, with the main page. I think it is best to simply have newcomers suggest improvements on the talk page. I am still debating whether this policy is even needed, the protection policies seem to be enough. More thoughts on that in a bit. Though I would encourage everyone to look at the history of the policy, and see how and why it was created. Cheers —— Eagle 101 (Need help?) 01:00, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the idea of a special main-page protection template, as Terri suggests. And to keep down the storm of edit suggestions, maybe the template could have a link to, say, Talk:Bulbasaur/Mainpage--a subpage created just for suggestions on improving the article? --Masamage 02:22, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm glad my ideas seem to have been received favourably, particularly the separate template, I thought it would be nice to combine the main features/answers newbies are likely to want in one place.
Outriggr, I'm not averse to the idea of duplicating the main page as a sandbox, but I did intend just a blank sandbox, like you would get anywhere on wikipedia, which I presume would not need to be synchronised with the main page?  In a duplicated sandbox, I would be concerned that the code for the various things like infoboxes etc could get a bit daunting to a newbie though.
I am keen to maintain somewhere for the people attracted by the TFA to have somewhere they can edit and for their contributions to be added to the TFA if possible without too much difficulty, perhaps the specific talk page for changes, afterall for some people the knowledge that people around the world are looking at and using your info is part of wikipedia's charm.  I'll go and look at that history now. Terri G 10:40, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Ideas

message: I was thinking, what if we just subst'd all templates before a FA went on the main page? A) this ends template vandalism without adding a lot of admin work and B) no "collateral damage", the templates in the FA can be editted by anyone, and the templates themselves can be editted by anyone... but at the same time it's simple to revert main page FA vandalism again.
I don't really know how practical this would be, some templates might become very long when subst'd, but doing/undoing it would be relatively easy if someone wrote a simple script. Just thought I'd throw the idea out since I hadn't seen anyone suggest it. --W.marsh 17:44, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I hesitate to throw my support behind this excellent suggestion, lest I be accused of having mono-mania. brenneman 06:48, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

text: And our poor newbie anon presses Edit and sees 100K of template code. He'd have a hard job adding his serial comma then :-) Colin°Talk 08:40, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I think the templates should just be protected. Leaving the article itself unprotected is one thing (although I don't agree with it), but leaving the templates open seems completely unjustifiable. How much editing needs to be done (or can be productively done) on any of these templates? Everyking 12:06, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we already do protect the templates and have a provision in the policy for that. What I think we need to look at is this policy on protecting the main page. Have a look at this history to see how little discussion has gone into making this policy. (look at the edit summaries on the creation of this policy).  I see a few links in the what links here relating to the discussion of this policy. Most of them don't seem to be real discussion about this policy, rather just linking to it as a justification for not protecting the main page. Looking at this, I can't even see why this was upgraded to policy to start with. I cannot see the discussion that made this a policy. Therefore I think some serious talk and perhaps re-writing of this policy needs to be done, as per the statistics given above. I think there is a case where protecting the main page is indeed needed, especially for controversial topics, and those that just seem to attract more vandalism then others. There has to be some happy medium. —— Eagle 101 (Need help?) 17:28, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Apparently there's been a huge amount of template vandalism recently affecting these articles, so I guess they aren't protected at least some of the time. Anyway, I guess it became a policy just because Raul is FA director and he's a big proponent of the view it represents. The policy definitely needs to be redeveloped to reflect community judgment on the matter. Everyking 11:09, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I think the need to edit them is much lower than the need to edit the articles themselves, and I don't even think there is much need to edit the articles themselves during their special day. That constructive editing might be possible doesn't mean that the negative side-effect of vandalism doesn't outweigh it. Everyking 11:09, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Templates redux

message: Torchic is now the featured article. Thus, we have vandalism reverts flying right and left, because it's both Pokemon and featured. For that matter, Pokémon got subjected to page move vandalism, meaning that it's currently awaiting speedy deletion so I can move the history from Idiot262. AAARGH! -Amarkov blahedits 00:46, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The vandals are putting Pokemon on the front page now, are they? :-) Carcharoth 01:29, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

text: It's really agonizing. It's like throwing little cups of water onto a fire that's spreading across the kitchen, desperately hoping you won't have to resort to using the fire extinguisher. Everyking 11:23, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, we need to re-write this policy. How about Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection/re-write. Lets not get too picky with the wording, but lets get a general feel for what we want. I will copy the contents of the policy as is, and then see what we can come up with. I will redirect the talk page of that re-write here, so that we can keep all the talk in one location. —— Eagle 101 (Need help?) 12:16, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Ok, I have re-written it to meet what looks like we have agreed upon. Feel free to modify, Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection/re-write. Lets see if we can come up with something that is a happy medium. —— Eagle 101 (Need help?) 14:35, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Okay, this is absurd. 

message: Just throwing a random thought out there that we should also be s-protecting the templates that get included on the talk pages of Featured Articles. After seeing a large penis appear on the talk page  a while back (I think it was the "this article appeared on the main page on DATE" one), I suggested on IRC that templates such as Template:Featured be protected, but the prevailing opinion was that "no one cares about talk pages", and I was shot down. Gzkn 09:30, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There's extensive discussion on template protection for MPAs going on at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Follow-up to Vandalism on Main Page. You might get a more receptive reaction there regarding protecting talk page templates as well.  John Broughton  |  Talk 16:19, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template protection, including talk page

message: Why doesn't the "Rationale" section simply say first and foremost, that this is a Honeypot and avoid a lot of the nonsense?  And please, don't refer me to BEANS.  --Connel MacKenzie -  wikt 01:34, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Because it is not, that is why.  Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 16:48, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Call it what it is... 

message: User:ProtectionBot and Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/ProtectionBot might be of interest to those watching this page. It is an adminbot programmed to (among other things) protect the unprotected templates used on the daily featured article, and then unprotect the templates at the end of the day. Carcharoth 15:20, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like now as a result of it we have "Cascading" protection. 19:46, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protection of templates used in featured articles 

message: (Section addition: –Outriggr § 03:24, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Case studies of notable IP activity on main page featured articles 

message: * El Greco was featured on the main page on January 19, 2007. The deletion of the entire biography section by an IP went uncorrected for 2.5 days (correcting diff). –Outriggr § 03:24, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Notable cases of IP vandalism

message: I really don't know how helpful this would be, or how difficult to implement, but what if there were a bot running whose only purpose was to monitor the Featured Article of the day?  Would that decrease the amount of time that the FA spent in a vandalized state?  The bot could revert vandals as needed, or possibly even semi- or fully-protect the article for a short time if the vandalism hit a certain level.
I personally have a general bias against protecting articles.  I was drawn into becoming a Wikipedia editor by the desire to fix the vandalism that I encountered.  The ability to successfully do that felt incredibly empowering to me, and has kept my interest in helping and editing Wikipedia.  I would hate to see that experience blocked off for future newcomers.  While the main page FA does get vandalized quite frequently, I hope that we can think of other remedies than protecting the article.
If we absolutely have to protect the article (and this policy could be extended to all protected articles), I would recommend that some sort of "recommended edits" sub-page (separate from the regular talk page) be linked to from the protected article in question.  The protection template placed at the top would have a prominent link to the sub-page, which is where anon and new users could post their edits.  An editor could then scan that page for helpful edits and add them.  If we do need to protect or semi-protect the page, let's give the newbies some feeling of empowerment.
Gosh, but I got wordy!--Aervanath 17:56, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm, looks like User:ProtectionBot already does part of what I had in mind.  Could it be modified to fulfill the rest of my recommendation?--Aervanath 18:00, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Specialized Main Page FA AntiVandalBot? / "Newbie edits" subpage? 

message: ::Copied here by Rlevse from the Scouting talk page,  soon after the article's main page exposure.
Can't article editing be temporarily restricted to people with usernames? --Jagz 17:10, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Vandals are always a problem with the main page FA. I knew this would happen. Some feel like you and I that the mp FA should be protected, but others, lead by Raul654, do not feel so. There have been several debates about it. I always we should have to waste our time fighting the vandals, that it should be protected, but of course, no one cares about that, they think the vandals should be free to waste our time.Rlevse 17:13, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Again, we shouldn't have to worry about it in the first place. More time and effort by all valid editors is spent fighting them than good is gained. New editors can simply move off the mainpage article to edit, it simply wouldn't be that big a deal. Rlevse 17:44, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

text: My point is we shouldn't have to fight vandals. Wiki should not allow them, wiki is too nice to them, everyone should have a verified account, etc. Thanks for fighting these scum.Rlevse 17:40, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Rlevse has a point, but if we block the main page from new editors then it could drive away new editors, since that is the first page they see. And I have seen a few cases of new editors reverting the vandalism they see, always a good thing. But yes, it is a hassle, thankfully lots of people have it on their watch page. Darthgriz98 17:42, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I beg to differ, how many of us had our first exposure to wiki via the mp fa? Few I suspect. Most people I know got to it by looking up info for school assignements, google hits on a topic of interest (my case), etc.Rlevse 17:46, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Not to mention someone vandalizes and then a new person sees vulgar stuff of the mp fa...I'll believe the German solution here when I see. This issue is one reason Citizendium has been started, where accounts are required.Rlevse 17:53, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But the point is Wikipedia is for everybody to edit, if the first thing you see when you click on the page to edit and you can't it defeats the purpose. Although, I hate vandalism just as much as the rest of us (especially personal attacks.) Then again, if they can semi-protect my userpage to stop vandalism, sometimes I wonder why they can't protect the main page. So I guess I just see both sides of the issue. Darthgriz98 17:57, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

text: FA should get much less attention judging by their article merit. But we are inviting vandals to ravage them. We are frustrating a lot of people here. Mandel 16:20, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism 

message: I'm interested to hear how well the German solution is going. I only noticed it on the talk page when searching for another term, perhaps this proposal should be mentioned on the article page? Richard001 23:57, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: German solution

message: Considering the weakness of current policy with regard to vandalism, perhaps a related policy for FA vandalism should be introduced. If we had a policy 'Any user who deliberately vandalizes a featured article on the main page shall be blocked for 24 hours' it would deter vandals, and there could also be a small warning message when editing the page similar to when editing older versions (e.g. 'You are editing today's featured article. Please ensure your contributions are neutral and verifiable. Edits considered to be vandalism by administrators will result in an instant 24 hour block'). 
Regardless of what policy is decided on, I believe we need to do something to make the main page FAs more secure and reliable for our readers and hard working contributors. Perhaps the German solution combined with tough anti-vandal policies could be this solution - this way anyone could still edit, the vandalism would never make the front page, and vandals would give up or be blocked before their edits would even be seen. Richard001 00:08, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: FA vandalism policy

message: Given that our featured articles are selected for the main page a few days in advance of their intended appearence, would it be possible (or feasable for that matter) to design an AntiVandalBot with the sole mission of watching todays featured article and reverting any vandalism it catches? Considering that articles slated for appearance on the main page now have the intended date of display on the main page printed on their featured article template, and assuming that someone could design a bot capable of reading the date on the template and instructing the bot to watch that page for vandalism for the 24 hours it will be on the main page  may help keep the pages managable without protecting the page. This, of course, is just an idea. TomStar81 (Talk) 10:16, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This still doesn't change the fact that it would muck up the FA's history, as well as being unable to block IPs who continually vandalize. Cheers, Lankybugger ○ speak ○ see ○ 02:42, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Thought

message: I'm adding this back on, as I don't think anyone has replied to ideas about the draft mentioned about 3 weeks ago, and I still don't think the existing version is reflecting what I am seeing on this talk page. —— Eagle101 Need help? 23:08, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A poll should probably be taken before any thoughts of removing the disputed template. Richard001 00:24, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: m:polls are evil, in any case, we need to get back to the draft mentioned above, and work on a new writing of this. —— Eagle101 Need help? 18:53, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

text: *Perhaps it would help to move that draft over the current version? That is, if it has more support than the current version. I am not fully familiar with the issues here, but it may be a way forward. >Radiant< 09:14, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  {{t1|Disputedpolicy}} 

message: I don't really think we should encourage new users to edit Featured Articles. Don't get me wrong, I'm aware of the problems this can cause in regards to WP:BITE, but my rationale is simple. Per the assessment scale a Featured Article is of a quality which means "No further editing is necessary unless new published information has come to light; but further improvements to the text are often possible."
While I do believe that no article can truly be definitively complete (there will always be one sentence which can be improved, one phrase which can be made more precise), if these articles are being described as Wikipedia's best why are we encouraging their editing? These are not meant to display Wikipedia's strength by means of allowing anyone to edit them, but rather showing how good an article edited just by those willing to contribute can be! It should stand as an example, not a toy for newer people to try out.
Semi-protection makes sense, to me. While the edits by IPs can be beneficial, I'm inclined to point out that the 85% of edits constituting vandalism (or corrected vandalism) speak loudly enough. The changes to the text, while good, are comprised not just of IP users but registered users as well. Being a front page FA means that the articles are improved irrespective of their un-protected or semi-protected status.
I'm personally inclined to say semi-protection should be done for all FAs. They're good enough to be among Wikipedia's best, so we should take care. These articles are meant to represent the community and while we can't get rid of vandalism to these articles entirely, semi-protection for FAs would make these articles harder to damage and make those doing the damage more accountable for their actions. Cheers, Lankybugger ○ speak ○ see ○ 03:00, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Personally I'd like to see more research done on FAs in terms of their time on the main page. How much of the editing is vandalism? How much of that comes from IPs? How do the major contributors feel about the time their articles spent on the main page - were they happy to have them there for people to edit or did they find the vandalism tiresome? How long, on average, did vandalism stay visible? How does the average editor feel about this policy? I'd like to do some research on it myself but I haven't really got time. If anyone is interested Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikidemia is the place to coordinate this sort of research. Richard001 01:15, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Featured articles may be among Wikipedia's best, but they're definitely not perfect.  I've seen featured articles with copyrighted images lacking fair use rationales (along with various other image problems a la Ian Thorpe, and there are generally copyediting problems that aren't noticed during a FAC.  Whether or not these corrections come from IPs I can't say, but articles that appear on the Main Page always have room for improvement.  ShadowHalo 01:09, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  My own two cents... 

message: Unless someone has already done this, I'm going to start researching the effect of blocking would have on the Featured article of the day by looking at the edit that were Vandalism, undoing Vandalism, and constructive edits. --Andrew Hampe  Talk 02:06, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you want to check up on it, check my research page. --Andrew Hampe  Talk 02:21, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And as for someone already doing so, I think it's been done, at least for anonymous IP edits - see Wikipedia talk:Don't protect Main Page featured articles/December Main Page FA analysis, as is mentioned in sections above.   -- John Broughton   (♫♫) 03:05, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Research into Vandalism on the FA of the day 

message: Looking at the edit history for TFA, I see 16 vandalisms and 16 RVs in 50 edits. That means that there are 32 edits out of 50 that are related to vandalism. This is a MUCH higher then normal ratio. At the very least, I suggest that a sign be put on the top of the edit page for TFA that says that much higher consequences are in force for vandalising it. This, of course, should also be enforced. W1k13rh3nry 23:43, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Having read through the statistics of the December study I think we need to do something. Having vile vandalism in an article like Down Syndrome, during 10% of the time it was on display, not to mention template vandalism, is hardly acceptable. Higher penalties, editing restriction or some other option like requiring approval of IP edits, perhaps sorted by a bot, are some options. Going by the hard data, I think it's ridiculous to say IP editors contribute much more than puerile vandalism to articles, or that there isn't a problem with the level of vandalism. Richard001 00:35, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Are there any figures for the amount of time the vandalism remained on the page? Cheers, Lankybugger ○ Yell ○ 01:30, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Alright, there needs to be semi-protection on Main Page FAs. 144 minutes of vandalism for the Down syndrome article is too long. Cheers, Lankybugger ○ Yell ○ 01:41, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Vandalism. Simple.

message: Imagine you are ill and I am your doctor. I say to you, "Take these 10 pills. 8 of them will harm you, 1 will have no effect and 1 will cause a very slight but barely noticeable improvement in your condition." Would you take the pills? Then decide whether 1 edit leading to a very slight but barely noticeable improvement is worth 8 edits that do damage and 1 that does nothing. DrKiernan 17:05, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I love it. -Phoenix 19:52, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

text: *LOL. I must say, this is the oddest rebuttal I've yet to encounter. -Etafly 15:16, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

text: *I'd like to know whether the penis is the length of an arm, or normal size. Just so I get the analogy clear in my head. DrKiernan 08:17, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Neither analogy is close enough to the truth. People aren't eating the featured article and getting sick here (well, maybe if it was a long one and they printed it all out...), but it's not as simple as you imply either. Perhaps if one of the books was full of pornography, and you had to give it to your grandmother... Richard001 08:53, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  An analogy for the question of semi-protection 

message: This "policy" does hinder Wikipedia all the time, so wouldn't that make this policy/guideline void under Ignore all rules? And if so, how the heck did this become policy? It's too idealistic. --Andrew Hampe Talk 22:34, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's only a guideline, not a policy. Ignore all rules applies almost everywhere, including when administrators make decisions to protect, but doesn't render all guidelines meaningless either. Richard001 10:27, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interferes with Ignore all rules? 

message: In order to gauge consensus for sticking with or changing the current policy/guideline on protecting today's featured article (only using semi-protection infrequently, if at all), I have categorised editors expressing an opinion on this discussion page since the completion of the data-gathering exercise in December 2006. As can be clearly seen, the overwhelming consensus of the editors contributing to the discussion (27 out of 32 on my count at 09:31 UT 24th May 2007) is in favour of a change to the current policy/guideline. 
If you are in the wrong category or are not in a category at all, please move or add yourself.
No "polls are evil"-type posts please. I know already. DrKiernan 09:33, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for that - I got the same response myself when suggesting a survey of current opinion, but I don't think there's any other way we can make progress with the debate, we'll just end up talking around in circles for years. Knowing where people stand will certainly help focus the discussion and allow us to give a more accurate indication of the dispute on the policy page. And if the vast majority of editors think the policy needs changing in some way, it probably needs to change. Getting as many editors as possible to add their opinion would help us come to a quick conclusion where the community stands on this one. Richard001 10:32, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consensus 

message: I would suggest that we simply examine current actual practice and have the guideline reflect that. There are always some people who strongly object to current practice, but until and unless they succeed in changing said practice, it is a guideline by default (I refer people who don't understand this statement to WP:PPP). >Radiant< 11:35, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Radiant, I don't understand what you mean when you say "examine current actual practice and have the guideline reflect that".  Practice by whom?  Could you please explain further?  Kmzundel 12:37, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The practice of whether or not the main page featured article is protected each day. >Radiant< 12:51, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Simpler approach

message: Where can I find the analogous page for the main page protection policy? I can't seem to find any such policy page by searching. I've searched for such a page quite thoroughly, so I'm presuming its absence is no mistake here. 
It raises some important problems for this policy if there is not: Letting IP editors edit an FA, the primary feature of the main page, while denying registered editors the right to edit the main page without the matter even warranting a policy page (and lack of policy page raising an eyebrow) hardly seems logically consistent to me. I could just as likely make a small improvement to the main page (perhaps adding a new news item, an internal link etc.) as I could for an FA. The FA is after all the best of our work, and the likelyhood that I would need to edit it, and that by editing it I would actually substantially improve it, is fairly low, just as for the main page. It is also going to be visited frequently, and having it vandalized is little better than having the same done to the main page. Users may get a kick from being able to edit our main page FAs, but the same applies to the main page. The situation is almost identical, yet one policy says 'No, nobody can edit it ever, it needn't even be discussed', while the other says 'No, it should never be protected except under extreme circumstances. Can anyone else see the strange divide here? Richard001 10:52, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I, indeed, find this to be a valid point. Evolauxia 22:45, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not saying the main page is no more important than the main page featured article, but the divide in protection is still too large for my liking. Another comparison is editing the main page FA and uploading an image to Wikimedia Commons. You need to have an account simply to upload a free use picture found on flickr, but to replace the main page FA with a picture of a penis, which is viewed by thousands of people each day, requires nothing. Richard001 00:36, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Main page protection

message: Richard asks for proof that the articles are improved whilst on the Main Page. An interesting point. These are the last three Today's featured articles: 
. I have taken the first and last version from each day, and compared the two. DrKiernan 08:49, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A study of about 10-20 random diffs would be good. Since we need only look at the differences it shouldn't be that much work either. We could use these results to reword the policy page based on facts rather than speculation. Richard001 00:12, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Even for a small sample size that basically shows the original argument was flawed. Changes to the wording now reflect the truth of the matter. I've also pointed out another important aspect - there is no evidence at all to suggest semi-protecting articles will prevent such improvements. It might even be found that most of the improvements were by registered users, and most of the damage was from anons slipping vandalism through the cracks and not having it cleaned up for all the chaos of high traffic editing. I'm not asserting this is the case, but I would hardly be surprised if it was. Richard001 09:00, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

text: DrKiernan, thanks for taking the time to compare the last 10.  And I would add that 3 of the 4 "improvements" were barely that.  IMHO, only one was a significant improvement (lead).  I agree that the original argument is flawed.  Kmzundel 10:25, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Improvement whilst on the Main Page 

message: Richard asks: Is vandalism cleaned up in "a matter of seconds".
From the December 2006 study we estimate that the average time spent vandalised is:
(239 + 81 + 82 + 114 + 18 + 113 + 135)/7 = 130.33 minutes
and the estimated average number of vandal edits is:
(76 + 45 + 62 + 80 + 166 + 105 + 98)/7 = 90.3 edits
Hence, the estimated average time to clean up vandalism is: 130.33/90.3 = 1.44 minutes (86.6 seconds). DrKiernan 10:41, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for providing these statistics for, us DrKiernan. I've tweaked the policy page again to reflect the data we have available. I've also pointed out that what is most important for our readers (and they are most important, are they not?) is the percentage time spent vandalized, i.e. the chance a random user will view a vandalized page. I have made no judgment as to whether the times spent vandalized in the December study articles is acceptable, I've simply given the reader the figures. A comparison of this with the time spent vandalized for a 'normal' article would also be appropriate here, though I'm not sure if we have this sort of data available yet. Further research is needed - we're leaning too heavily on a single study from 6 months ago with a sample size of 7. Richard001 11:17, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: According to Wikipedia:WikiProject Vandalism studies#Conclusions from study 1, the average time for reverting vandalism generally is 12.63 hours. The median time is 14 minutes. DrKiernan 11:25, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Time taken to correct vandalism 

message: I've read and re-read everything here on this Talk page.....and it seems to me we keep saying the same things over and over again....making the same valid points over and over.  How long do we keep this up before determining that we've reached a consensus?  I don't see anyone posting comments here saying they strongly favor the current policy....only comments from folks who obviously don't favor the current policy.  We've expended a good bit of time and energy (thank you all for that) making the same points.  The question to be answered is simply this: should Wikipedia's principle "anyone can edit" be translated to "anyone can vandalize"?  I cannot believe that's what the Wiki folks intent was.  Nor do I believe that semi-protecting (at the very least) TFA for 24 hours goes against the spirit of that principle.  If you sense a bit of frustration on my part, you're right.  And I've only been part of this discussion for 10 days.  Kmzundel 15:29, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  My request was turned down as well.  :-)  Thanks for all your efforts.  Kmzundel 16:39, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

text: * Tsk :) Fact is, the "anyone can edit" slogan by the GodKing is a pretty powerful exhortation, too. If it gets extreme (and it's not right now, IMO), then by all means, re-report. But the main page article should not get into a situation where semi-prot is the default setting, like move-prot is right now - Alison ☺ 16:20, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * Perhaps we should seek his opinion on the subject in light of WP:WPVS, though I don't agree that WP:JIMBOSAID should trump incontrovertible evidence (and possibly consensus) to the contrary. :) -Etafly 16:28, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *(Why are we using bullet points?) I'd rather see it change gradually than try to make any sudden leaps as well, though I feel the logical point to go from now would be to set up a new research project and do some trials of semi-protecting. I suppose a lot of people will object, but we seem to have a very strong consensus to semi-protect already, so I think some trials would be in order so we can get some idea what semi-protection might be like. A week of semi-protection and a week without is my suggestion. Where would we go to get approval for such a trial - Wikipedia:Featured articles? Richard001 00:19, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * (Dunno - they look cool! :) ) I'm not sure there is a "strong consensus" to semi-protect, though this page may say otherwise. My suggestion is that you gather evidence/rationale/etc and bring the matter to the admin group over on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard - Alison ☺ 03:16, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If there is not a strong consensus to semi-protect there must be some form of very strong sampling bias happening here. The odds of getting around 35 editors to 4 favouring policy change (most of which want semi-protection every day) purely due to sampling error would be something like one in four billion. Perhaps there is something about this process that is biased towards people who favour stronger protection, I'm not sure what, but unless one or two editors are going to dictate to a hundred others what our policy is, you are going to have to find a great many people who favour our current protection guidelines. More input is welcome though, of course; please do whatever you can to encourage participation in the discussion. Richard001 10:05, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: What now (redux)

message: You've made a lot of changes to that document now - some of them I just reverted as they appear to be just unilateral changes. I think we need to bring this whole matter to a wider forum to gain greater input from the community rather than have just a handful of us make all the changes. Thoughts? - Alison ☺ 07:46, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Paste from [[User talk:DrKiernan]]

message: As I said above, at the point at which my minor edits are disputed, we hold and discuss that single minor point.
I think that the time period for protection should be until the end of the day and not for a shorter period because if vandalism occurs early in the day it will recur and recur all day wasting time in having the article reverted, protected, unprotected, the protection announced, the protection unannounced, etc, etc. If the article is being heavily vandalised in the morning, it will be heavily vandalised for the remainder of the day. Studies prove that the number and frequency of vandal edits is constant all day and not restricted to specific time periods. Hence, if it needs protecting in the morning, it will need protecting all day. DrKiernan 07:59, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I have to agree here. If the vandalism is heavy, and not just of a marginal nature, then unprotecting the page is about as intelligent as a wasp displaying fixed action pattern behavior. What we really need is a slightly more rigorous definition of 'heavy', though. This is a matter for general discussion at Wikipedia:Protection policy, where I have argued for (and will continue to argue for) a more quantitative and descriptive, if still flexible and situation dependent, definition of 'heavy' vandalism. Richard001 10:13, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Alison's revert: Period of protection

message: *The featured article of the day attracts more vandals than other articles,[9] and the proportion of vandal edits is also higher.[10] However, it also attracts more good faith editors.
Thanks for looking up the data on this one too; as it stands though I wonder if it should still remain in 'rationale'. The 'it still attracts a higher portion of good faith edits' line seems mediocre compared to the levels of vandalism (7 times higher than normal and *cough* 41000 times higher nominally... It's also just repeating the 'anyone can edit' line. I suggest you move the vandalism data to counter-rationale and salvage the 'good faith' by moving it alongside the 'anyone can edit' point.
We're down to 3 points for rationale now - I hope those wanting to keep the policy as it is have a huge cavalry charge coming up otherwise it looks like policy is going to change rather soon. Richard001 09:37, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see, that's a good way to go about things I think. It will be interesting to see whether administrators will start to follow the policy as it moves towards a more stable position - I noticed a protect and then unprotect issue on Jupiter the other day for example. I'll take the issue of a trial up with the admins in the next few days and see what feedback we get. Richard001 10:58, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

text: * I have to admit that I'm really confused now.  Not sure why we would want to move points into rationale.  It already seems to me that the 1st three rationale points start out with rationale statements then continue with statements that are counter rationale.  I was thinking those statements should be moved into counter rationale.  Don't we more counter rationale than rationale?  Kmzundel 13:01, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * The problem is that that polarises the issue. We should be working to avoid that. How about redrafting the two rationale and counter-rationale sections into one section, as below? DrKiernan 13:56, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Point 4 of rationale

message: Unprotected00:00-04:18diff	Protected04:19-16:11diff	Unprotected16:11-19:44diff	Protected19:45-24:00diff	Total unprotected(7 h 52 m)	Total protected(16 h 8 m)
Total no. of edits	61                        	42                      	37                        	7                       	98                         	49
Good faith edits  	28 (46%)                  	36 (86%)                	12 (32%)                  	7 (100%)                	40 (41%)                   	43 (88%)
Vandal edits      	15 (25%)                  	1 (2%)                  	12 (32%)                  	0                       	27 (28%)                   	1 (2%))
Reversions        	18 (30%)                  	5 (12%)                 	13 (35%)                  	0                       	31 (32%)                   	5 (10%)
On Friday last week, the MPFA, Atheism was semi-protected for 16 hours, for two periods (the protection was lifted during the day and re-imposed). What I found interesting was the rate of vandalism which was considered severe enough to semi-protect the page:
Until the first semi-protection, at 04:18, there were 15 vandal edits (15% of the total), an average of 3.48 vandal edits per hour. Protection was lifted at 16:11 and re-imposed at 19:45, during this unprotected period there were 12 vandal edits (32% of the total), an average of 3.36 vandal edits per hour.
The average no. of vandal edits per day to the MPFA is 90, an average of 3.75 vandal edits per hour. In other words, the vandalism was no more (and virtually no less) than the usual level experienced by the MPFA.
Presumably, either we are managing to get this guideline considered sensibly or the article was preferentially semi-protected because it was perceived to be a controversial subject requiring protection.
Let us hope that it is the former! DrKiernan 07:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think in such an important case of Main page FAs we need to be a little more precise in defining what levels are needed to protect. Our main focus here should be to minimize the proportion of readers who see a vandalized page, so we need to come up with a rough level of vandalism at which we protect, and perhaps another level at which we protect without further question, until the end of the day. But what level of vandalism is acceptable? 5%? 10%? The policy shouldn't force admins to go from not protecting to protecting at any exact level, but there should be a rough level at which they should consider protecting, and another, higher level at which a user can ask for protection and get it until the end of the day with no messing around. Richard001 22:03, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  8 June 

message: I am shocked and angry that Dr.Kiernan's "categorization" - an attempt to show group consensus - was removed.  He did not ever say it was a poll, although after his initial categorization, some folks chose to add their names.  Removing it was really shabby, IMHO.  Kmzundel 04:35, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  "Consensus" happened to be the title of the post in which Dr. Kiernan developed the categories.  Had the title been "Table", the title of my post here would have been "Dr. Kiernan's table".   Kmzundel 16:34, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of Dr.Kiernan's consensus

message: This is a scenario where some of the concepts from this proposed policy may help. Sr13 06:17, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If it is ever implemented, yes, that would pretty much solve the problem of vandalism entirely. Until then, we must continue to deal with the problem of live edits, and debate how much we should restrict them. Richard001 07:35, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion 

message: My suggestion is that we return to what I originally set out to do, which is to move away from the grandiose general arguments that people make about the suggested guideline and instead discuss specifics: A single minor is made or proposed, and then we discuss that single minor edit, when it is resolved we move on. DrKiernan 07:52, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's what I thought we were doing... So shall we start by discussing the reversions made today? For example we are back to 'extreme' vandalism, not 'heavy'. Are we really happy to have articles with the lower half of a naked woman's dead body shown to 15% of kid's that click on a Pokemon article? How 'extreme' does vandalism have to be before we protect? What's the meaning of 'extreme' and 'heavy'? It has been said that vandalism is often brief (caused by things like kids coming home from school (but don't there exist time zones?) and goes away after a short period of protection - let's do a study on that and see if it's supported by the data. Richard001 08:11, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: On the issue of timing of vandalism: the December study, which is what I was going on, broke the day into 6 hour periods and counted edits in each period (with the exception of 5 Dec, which was broken down further). There is no discernible pattern, it seems to be constant during the day. DrKiernan 08:16, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

text: On the issue of "extreme" and "heavy", I would define "extreme" as meaning the severity of vandalism, i.e. how offensive it is. For example, use of the c word on a page meant for children or showing naked corpses would be "extreme", but inserting gibberish would be "mild". I would define "heavy" as meaning the frequency of vandalism, i.e. how often a page is vandalised. As we know, vandalism of MPFA is over 40 000 times heavier than the average page. I would call that "heavy". The average page, or even 10 or 100 times more than the average, I would call "light". DrKiernan 11:33, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  My suggestion 

message: - seriously, how did that make it through FAC in that state? That can't be a real before and after. Neil ╦ 10:01, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Was the improvement due to an IP editor or registered one? Richard001 11:58, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Diplodocus "before and after" example 

message: Correct me if I'm wrong, but seeing as TFA gets so much exposure, why is not simply reverting as needed and occasional (ie: no more than an hour) semi-protection just done on a case-by-case basis (which is how we actually do it)? Why do we need some glorified policy to set in stone what's just common practice? We don't need to codify things that are simply just "how we do things." In a sense, this page is going against the spirit of WP:DENY, in that it's glorifying TFA's vandalism and making it out to be something special--above and beyond normal vandalism--which it's not. I just say WP:RBI and move on. ^demon[omg plz] 12:09, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Won't people wonder why their semiprotection requests are turned down? What about the many editors who think the page should be protected for the whole day? Where will these people go to see what the policy is, and assess its rationale? We codify just about everything that is 'how we do things'. Should we remove the FA requirements just because 'that's how we do things'? How will people know what is required for an FA? Why do you make statements like 'it's glorifying TFA's vandalism and making it out to be something special--above and beyond normal vandalism--which it's not.' when the vandalism is both numerically and by percentage of edits known, as a fact, to be higher than other articles? If you would like to read up on some of the (very limited) research available on this subject, see the vandalism studies page and especially the December study, which is the most relevant to this subject (though comparison with 'normal' levels of vandalism is also useful). Richard001 23:31, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: First and foremost, the edit summary given by your reply to me was The only problem I see is with the assertions made in your post, which I view as a borderline personal attack. But I'm trying to assume good faith here, and I kindly ask that you do the same. Secondly, yes, I have read the vandalism studies and paid special attention to the December study. I fail to see relevance. Yes articles are vandalized, and the main page FA is no different. Yes it receives a higher level of vandalism due to its higher exposure, but that's expected. Between the admins and normal users watching it, the reversion of vandalism usually takes mere seconds. However, if vandalism gets really bad, then we semi-protect it for a short period of time til it dies down. This is fully in line with our protection policy--which discourages protection at all, as we want to be freely editable to all. That being said, we do want to remain as open to editing as possible at all times, which is why semi protecting the main page FA is frowned upon so heavily. ^demon[omg plz] 04:08, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't mean to sound like I was attacking you, I was pointing out that there was a major problem with the assertion you made about vandalism not being 'above and beyond normal vandalism'. The levels of vandalism, by amount of vandalism, and percentage of vandalism are higher (there are 7 times more vandals by proportion of edits alone!). If this isn't above normal vandalism, what exactly is? Even if it was at normal levels of vandalism, we still need to consider whether 'normal' levels of vandalism are acceptable when placing out our finest work on display. Your argument that it only takes mere seconds to revert makes it sound like there is little problem, but that means nothing when you consider that there is a new vandal in mere seconds as well. Given that Wikipedia is becoming more and more widely known, this problem isn't going to go away unless we come up with some new strategy for dealing with this. It's either that or we accept that one is every half dozen people get the old 'james is gay' first impression of a Wikipedia featured article.  Richard001 04:34, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Having this page admits there's a problem 

message: The debates on this page remind me of those that took place at Wikipedia:Attribution. Many editors worked on that page for months and everyone involved thought they had consesus ... only to find that when they tried to impliment the merger involved, the broader community was a bit shocked by the fact that no one had bothered to tell them about it.
I happen to think protecting the Featured Article while it is featured is a wonderful idea.  However, I also think that this is a BIG change... and one that requires a lot more discussion and the input of the entire Wikipedia community before enacting.  LOTS of notice should be given ... in as many different forums as possible.  You need input from Admins, you need input from regular old editors (not just those who worked on the page).  I would also STRONGLY suggest that someone should bounce this off of Jimbo, to make sure that he won't pop in a few weeks after it is enacted and say "Sorry, I don't like it" (It has happened before).  It is a fundamental enough change that he may make one of his rare "pronouncements" as founder. Blueboar 20:31, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I'll leave a message on his talk page if someone hasn't already. Is there anyone else or any other pages where we could post a message? I've left one on all the pages suggested, as well as WP:FA. I've also requested on the admin noticeboard that we have a hidable message at the top of the page like we did with the 'attribution' merge proposal, though I don't know if anything will come of it. Can we archive any of this page? It's getting rather big, though it's also nice to have the discussions visable for newcomers. Richard001 23:38, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good idea... bad execution 

message: Academics are used to a publishing paradigm where our work is assessed by peer-review, and either improved or rubbished by it, and as a result of those discussions we either publish or not. If we publish, we expect that work to remain available to the community. Wikipedia works in the same way, an article is developed through discussion, and either improved by it (in which case it stays) or rubbished by it (in which case it is deleted). However, it isn't worth the time and effort of publishing the final result if it is then subsequently destroyed or wasted. If nothing is done to address the concerns of experts who have limited resources to devote to a project, then they will leave, and join other projects which do address (or attempt to address) those concerns, such as citizendium. Citizendium has its problems, of course, (I haven't joined it yet) but if citizendium improves and grows, and wikipedia becomes bogged down with vandalism, POV and OR, I will and so will others. Maybe, that is the future, wikipedia will have its day and die, and other publishing paradigms like journals will have their day and die, and be replaced by a wikiweb where experts contribute. Who knows? When I started my career, there was nothing like this. I think there is a wider impact here, on where exactly wikipedia is heading, and how it will develop in the next few years. DrKiernan 12:25, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  An essay 

message: I wonder if we might have the devs create protection against anon IPs but still allow immediately created accounts to edit. Accounts can be tracked, warned, and blocked much more easily. This would still allow new good-faith users to edit, while reducing vandalism somewhat. Marskell 09:28, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I brought the issue up on Wikipedia talk:Protection policy, but it doesn't seem people are very enthused about complicating the process. Can account blocks still block the IP from which they came as well for a brief period? If not people could just create an account, vandalize, get blocked, create an account, vandalize... I'm not clear on that issue so I'm unsure whether it would, or could work. Richard001 09:38, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The thirty seconds it takes to create an account will reduce vandalism almost certainly. The most common vandals, hit-and-run friends of gays, are never actually persistent. They'll come, post something twice or thrice, and leave after being reverted. A good faith new editor will be more willing to take the thirty seconds to create an account. Marskell 09:44, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Was that what you suggested Richard? If it was, then I misunderstood and would not have dismissed it. DrKiernan 09:47, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes - the 'soft protection' could apply only to IPs or have a brief waiting period - the one Marskell proposed above is one with waiting time = 0. Even if blocks don't track IPs from which the account came, it might be worth at least trialling - I feel we hardly ever do any experiments around here to gather useful information. But surely it would be possible, perhaps as an option, for admins to add a 'block IP as well' for say a few hours to a day along with the account. It's very easy to create an account, but it would be very interesting to see just how much of an effect it would have - despite only taking a few clicks it is quite a big mental barrier. Richard001 09:58, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I copied this to the protection policy talk. Best to continue discussion there, where there will be more eyes. Marskell 11:24, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-semi-protection 

message: The average page is vandalised once every 460 days and it takes a mean time of 12.63 hours (let's say 0.5 day) to revert a vandal edit (Vandalism study 1). So, the likelihood of viewing the average page when it is vandalised may be calculated as:
0.5/460 which is 0.001 or 1 in 920
The likelihood of viewing the MPFA when it is vandalised is:
2.125 hours/24 hours which is 0.09 or 1 in 11
:Thanks again for providing relevant data, I've updated the page to say one in eleven readers view a vandalized page, which is almost 10% higher, and I've also pointed out that vandalism by % time vandalized is also higher, which is one of the critical points here. Is the odds of seeing a vandalized page really that low though? I'm sure I see a lot more than that in my travels here - perhaps skew or other factors need to be accounted for when making such calculations - I can't quite put my finger on it. Even so, I doubt it could possibly be as high as 1/11 given those data. Richard001 01:19, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You would only get the 1 in 920 if you stuck to Random pages: higher traffic pages have higher rates of vandalism and net vandalism time, so almost all editors and readers would hit vandalized articles at a higher rate than that.  Without accurate pageview data (beyond the top of the curve covered by Wikicharts), it will be very tough to calculate the actual average rate at which readers happen upon vandalized articles.  Undoubtedly, it's somewhere between 1 in 920 and 1 in 11.--ragesoss 04:11, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Even by clicking on random pages I would intuitively expect to get more than 0.1% vandalism, though it would take a lot of clicks to test that out with much accuracy. This is an important matter though - is there something we can use as a proxy for the amount of hits a page gets? It's not about the chance a reader has of seeing a vandalized article by hitting the random button, it's about what the odds are of a reader seeing a vandalized article in the course of their normal reading. What could be the best proxy for how much an article is read - number of edits to the article? Number of links to it? Edits to the talk page? Richard001 10:06, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Likelihood of viewing a vandalised page 

message: *A featured article should represent Wikipedia's unique qualities on the Internet. This includes being editable by anyone.[11] That anyone may edit is also one of Wikipedia's Five pillars.
This is only mentioned as part of the five pillars, the point in which it is mentioned being mainly about copyrights. If we keep the rest as a footnote this should probably be part of the footnote as well. Perhaps we should move all of the material in the footnote into this point, while keeping it as concise as possible. Richard001 10:00, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Is it better with everything as a footnote, or would it be clearer to leave it all in the text? Richard001 08:45, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Point one of against

message: Marskell has a point, we have a page where the "rationale" isn't one.
I suggest (it's just a suggestion, don't bite my head off) that we re-phrase the page so that it is an actual description of what happens now rather than an injunction to action or a proposed guideline. We simple say "is" instead of "should". You can't easily dispute something that "is" because it either is or it isn't! The "rationale" section could then be moved to the bottom of the page under a new section heading. Don't know what it might be called, "Opinions" or "Discussion" or something similar maybe. It would also mean that we could remove the headers, and just have a page with a description of current practice. DrKiernan 13:32, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we ought to turn it into prose but keep it very short. A single para under a "Considerations" heading. Marskell 18:53, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I can only see further reverts if we try to change the page - I'd at least let those who have reverted know what you plan to do in case they are no longer watching the page, in order to avoid repeating the previous situation. I had hoped we would have more people joining the discussion, but besides a few administrators dropping by and reverting some changes we haven't really had much input at all. Anyway, I've renamed the section 'arguments for and against' since it certainly isn't an explanation for how things are now. I've made a few other small changes relating to discussion here, feel free to discuss any of them if desired. How do people feel about having a numbered list? I don't mind it, but it might give the impression we're 'counting' points, which is irrelevant really because its the quality of the overall argument and not the number of points that is important (and you could easily reword it such that there are more points for the other viewpoint if you so desired). Richard001 06:39, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I shall. See what I'm suggesting here: . I haven't re-written the "considerations" section, just moved it (that comment means I can not be bothered to edit it, not that I prefer bullet points over a single paragraph). DrKiernan 07:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

text:  Guys - I'd like to stay involved here but am having mental bandwidth issues as 1) day-job is killing me 2) admin work is heavy-going and 3) I've been very ill and off-line a lot lately. I'll try review the state of play tomorrow if I get the chance but am still interested in staying involved here - Alison ☺ 07:10, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

text: I'd like to continue participating in the discussion but, in all honesty, I'm having difficulty following it all.  I'm still very green when it comes to policy and how things work.  I've tried to educate myself which is how/why I came to this discussion to begin with -(after my TFA experience on May 22, 2007.) It's all frightfully confusing - when comments on this page which were made in good faith are deleted and so much time and energy going 'round and 'round and 'round about the need for semi-protection (which seems as clear as the nose on my face), I am less inclined to expend the time and energy it's taking.  All I know is that I will never set myself up for that frustration (TFA) again.  Kmzundel 14:00, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps we should include a summary quote on your experience (the one above is fine) as a footnote to give evidence of someone being fed up with the experience of going through TFA, and another from someone who supports current policy like Marskell. It would be better than just saying 'some think' or 'some feel that' - some actual examples of FA editors is what we need. Richard001 22:26, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's fine with me.  You can also quote me as saying that it's discouraging to know that my time and talents are not valued.  It's also incredibly demoralizing to see the fruits of one's labor so easily destroyed. IMHO, knowing that TFA is going to be vandalized on a daily basis is like knowing that a hurricane is going to hit a particular location every day and saying "Oh well.  It'll be gone tomorrow."  Kmzundel 22:47, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added a couple of quotes - do you think it's an improvement? I think it's better having actual FA editors as examples than just saying 'some feel'. Still, if anyone feels its footnotecruft, don't be afraid to say so. Richard001 06:26, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe use diffs? DrKiernan 07:59, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

text:  I think they look fine, but yes, add diffs - Alison ☺ 08:11, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Avoiding dispute - please note that I'm trying to avoid it not start another one 

message: Per WP:RFD, Yespro was deleted while nopro was kept. Is this not POV to have a shortcut that affirms one side of the debate? Because it's commonly used, I don't think we should delete it, but I don't think we should encourage people to use it either. I've deleted it from the page as a shortcut, leaving the neutral WP:MPFAP, which is no longer than the other one. If people want to use NOPRO that's fine, but it's not right to continue endorsing a redirect that is slanted politically, just as it's goes against NPOV to have say M$ redirect to Microsoft. Richard001 05:37, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not entirely happy with your rationale (having a redirect doesn't mean we must use it, and it is somewhat of a false analogy), but there's no middle ground here, so I guess I'll have to settle for keeping it. Richard001 06:29, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm not suggesting WP:NOPRO be mandated for use, but that it's currently highly used and has already run the gauntlet of WP:RFD - Alison ☺ 06:33, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: WP:YESPRO

message: "An average article is vandalised once every 460 days". Who came up with this nonsense, and can we remove it? SalaSkan 18:20, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Average article 

message: I have removed this article from the requests at third opinion since several users are in dispute.  I would recommend that you request community input on the matter.  — Coren (talk) 02:57, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe we did. It showed that there were more people against changing the policy than was thought, but it remains unclear where the majority lie, and hence whether there is a dispute or not. Richard001 06:53, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Third Opinion 

message: Please don't move-protect the featured article, it's pointless. Only use it for move-warring. --216.193.201.64 23:00, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not pointless, it stops idiots from moving the page and creating endless work for people. An FA should have its damned name sorted out by the time it is featured on the main page! Richard001 01:28, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ha! You're saying "eff ay" in your head when you think of a featured article: "An FA". I have no objections to move protecting today's featured article, it won't hinder anyone except the vandals. I'm not recommending it, but we should be able to move protect every FA, it shouldn't be featured otherwise (FA's must be stable). James086Talk | Email 14:10, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move-protection 

message: Currently the project page lists the rules but doesn't discuss the rationale for the desire to leave the page unprotected.  Tempshill 23:09, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It also kills the attempts to represent opposing views in the article itself, such as the massive waste of time and energy that goes in to round-the-clock every day fighting of TFA vandals, etc and so on, but I'll stop as I know I'll just get ignored like all the other times this topic has come up.Rlevse 01:30, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Regardless of where you stand on the issue, Wikipedia:For and Against TFA protection, which I just noticed in the "See also" section, is worthwhile reading. — TKD::Talk 09:33, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Project page needs to discuss rationale 

message: I just thought, wouldn't it be a good idea to instantly block anyone who vandalizes the Main Page FA for 24 hours, regardless of previous warningss. This should put out the fun and deny recognition for the vandals. Also, the English rugby team is today's FA. I get the feeling that lots of fans of the All Blacks, Wallabies, Springboks, France teams would be eager to vandalize the article. (Just like the article on the controversial ref Wayne Barnes.--Alasdair 08:08, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Instantly blocking vandals of the Main Page FA 

message: Is there a reason we do not indefinitely move-protect all featured articles? Gimmetrow 05:02, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move protection for FA 

message: What is an already fully protected page like Evolution got to FA? It wouldn't be unprotected would it? Sorry just a random question that hasn't got much to do with anything, but interesting.--Serviam (talk) 19:07, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Random comment