Wikipedia talk:Experimental vandalism protection

message: My proposal was that the responsible admins would update the protected version once a week, on a regular schedule, simply by taking a snapshot of the most recent unvandalized version of the main article.  I suggested giving the protected version a title that incorporated the date, but if a generic title like "Scrutinized version" were used instead, then at the top it should note that it was the main article version as of thus-and-such a date and time.  If there's fast-breaking news, readers would benefit from knowing exactly how out of date the protected version might be.
What if there's a major development, such as an assassination attempt?  The admins responsible for the weekly snapshotting could decide to bestir themselves and do an additional mid-week snapshot.  I don't envision that they or anyone would edit the protected version.  Instead, they'd open the main article, which is being edited by all and sundry as per Wikipedia norms, and snapshot a recent version.  Wikipedians tend to jump on breaking news, and it would take only a few hours before the article had pretty good coverage of something like an assassination attempt.  Even without this refinement of mid-week snapshotting, though, date-stamping the protected version would mean there was no real problem.  As of (say) November 14, 2005, no one had tried to kill Bush.  No reasonable reader could complain if the "Scrutinized as of November 14, 2005" version didn't mention the events of November 18.
The real problem with the update, as I mentioned originally, is if there's an edit war in progress.  Neither side is being vandalistic.  Which version should be copied as the "Scrutinized" version?  We wouldn't want a situation where the admins are supposed to copy whatever's in place as of midnight UTC, so the edit warriors are all online then and are constantly reverting just to try to have their version in place at the magic moment.  The selection of a version to be copied shouldn't rest on the outcome of such a struggle.  I suggest that the snapshot shouldn't incorporate any changes from the previous week's snapshot that are the subject of the edit war.  For example, suppose the snapshotting is done each Sunday.  A version is copied on Sunday the 13th.  On Thursday the 17th, an editor adds several sentences expanding on the discussion of Bush's terms as governor (an expansion this article could definitely use, IMO).  A revert war erupts over whether the new passage is too laudatory about educational changes or too condemnatory about executions or whatever.  On Sunday the 20th, the admins would edit that section of the main article to restore it to the condition it was in on the 13th, then snapshot the article, then edit the main article back to where it was when they found it.  The admins doing the snapshotting would not try to deal with the edit war on the main article.  Edit wars would be dealt with as they are now.  This method should work unless the edit war concerns the hypothetical major incident.  The snapshotted version shouldn't entirely omit the assassination attempt or whatever.  In that circumstance (probably very rare), the admins would just have to pick a version to be copied.  One would hope that the ensuing week would be enough time for the resolution of the edit war, so that the problem wouldn't recur. JamesMLane 01:33, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Updating the protected version

message: How stupid are our vandals? Do you think they won't remove the little notice at the top of the page? -_- Matt Yeager 23:54, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: what? The entire point is lost then! The whole idea is to have something there in case of vandalism... but the only time we'll actually need it, it won't be there! It will serve solely to clutter up the page. Matt Yeager 00:23, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: First, I think many of our vandals are indeed pretty stupid.  They'll change the article to say that Bush's father is Satan and leave the rest of it alone.  Remember, they're not trying to convince anyone that Bush's father is Satan; they're just being childish.  Second, readers who aren't first-time visitors to the article would still know about the protected version, and could find it readily enough, without having to check all the recent changes for themselves.  Third, if after a lengthy trial period the method seems to be working, then we could consider changing other pages so that "George W. Bush" links to the protected version. JamesMLane 00:39, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Would you prefer , which would clutter up the page and make it uneditable? Near-permanent protection is where George W. Bush is headed unless we try something different. android79 00:58, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd prefer treating the page the same as we treat, say, cheese--no protection at all, and no annoying note (unless we bring in semi-protection, with registered users only). Matt Yeager 01:06, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I take it Cheese is still suffering the after-effects of being a featured article. Vandalism to that article will taper off eventually. I don't think we can say the same for George W. Bush, at least not for another 2+ years. android79 01:13, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Umm... I do believe you're missing something 

message: A generalized proposal like this will, IMO, spark opposition.  Who would decide which articles should have a protected version attached?  What criteria would be applied to that selection process?  How would the "snapshotting" admin(s) handle an article in the midst of an edit war among non-vandals?  (The last question is a problem even if the device is confined to the George W. Bush article, but at least this thorny problem is less likely to arise if there's only one such article.)
The Bush article is unique.  The cached list of "Articles with the most revisions" shows Bush in first place with 22,491 revisions, and Hurricane Katrina second with 8,167 revisions.  That's quite some gap, and it will only widen.  Furthermore, I'd guess that the percentage of edits that are vandalisms and reversions of vandalisms is higher on George W. Bush than on most or all of the other articles on the list.
In these circumstances, it makes sense to try to deal with the problem at this particular article, without trying to establish something that can be implemented on other articles.  This article is where the problem is the worst.  If, after a few months, the idea seems to be working well, then the Wikipedia community could consider whether to apply it elsewhere, and how to answer the additional questions that would arise from that approach. JamesMLane 00:52, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The proposal, as you've correctly understood it, would leave the main article unprotected.  This does indeed have the drawback that someone who types in "George W. Bush" might come to a vandalized version.  (We might later consider changing internal wikilinks elsewhere so that a reader who clicks on a "George W. Bush" link would come to the protected version.)  The alternative you suggest has the drawback of impeding legitimate edits of the main article.  As between those drawbacks, the latter worries me more.  Furthermore, if you look at the comments on this page, it seems that even the milder version that's being proposed -- with the main article remaining unprotected -- will run into some opposition.  Let's try to get that one in place and see how it goes.  Perhaps, down the road, we could revisit the question whether to switch them around. JamesMLane 02:59, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The editable version will be up to date, but "read at your own risk". The problem is that much of the vandalism is page blanking, so the link to the "scrutinzed version" will just be replaced with GEORGE BUSH IS A PENIS half the time...[sight]...this 95% vandal/rvv rate gets old pretty quick...Voice of AllT|@|ESP 03:03, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, the proposal is no panacea.  I'm just very reluctant to inhibit editing by making admins into the gatekeepers of the article, so that no change could be made without their imperial approval. JamesMLane 05:05, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Imperial? Sometimes a hardliner stand is necessary, like in AotC, the Republic had to build up and give emergency powers to the chancellor...and a Death Star HAD to be built to keep order in the galaxy...CLEARLY it was a necessity that turned out for the better :-).Voice of AllT|@|ESP 05:08, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Doesn't everything? -Mysekurity 06:14, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

text: I am opposed to disallowing open editing by anyone but support a protected version that can be linked from a bolded link with a brief explanation at the top of the open version. The linked version would be protected. A council of 3 to 5 respected editors (not necessarily admins) would work to ensure the protected article gets updated as needed...in other words, during major situations, perhaps several times a day, and during lulls, perhaps only twice a week. The council should be people who are not vested in the POV of this article. If this can't happen, then I recommend we open this article and continue to revert vandalism as usual.--MONGO 08:19, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

text: As a subnote...the purpose of an open wiki is to ensure all can edit and we are only being hypocritical when we advertise that "anyone can edit" and then protect pages, disallowing this. I am agreement with everyone here and I think that JamesMLane's original proposal was the best one I have heard yet...--MONGO 08:25, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Just to clarify, MONGO, my original proposal, and the one I still favor, would have much less of a role for the "council" than what you describe.  They would just grab an unvandalized version.  If something major is going on, so that the article is being rapidly updated, any vandalism would be reverted almost immediately, and readers would probably want the most up-to-date version available, so the "protected" version would be less important.  For that reason, I don't think we need to worry about a Council that scrambles to update the protected version every time another administration official is indicted.  The Council members would need to be admins because they'd have to have the power to edit the protected page, replacing the previous text of George W. Bush - scrutinized version with the new text. JamesMLane 08:53, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Then any admin with a NPOV should do. I'm sorry if I seemed to mischaracterize your comments. I was just hoping that if we must protect, then let's do something along the lines of your proposal. I'm not a fan of page protection anyway, but I have a "strong dislike" of the vandals actions.--MONGO 09:04, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

text:  Having only been here a short while, I am beginning to feel that this open wiki is failing and am seriously considering leaving.  The vandalism here is really overwhelming to me and there are more important things in life than making sure a 13 year old isn't taking advantage of what appears to have been a great idea gone terribly wrong.  Yamaguchi先生 09:00, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Please don't leave as then the "13 year old" wins...that is what they would like. The whole open wiki thing is deliberate to ensure that this forum allows all views, all voices to be heard. The unfortunate byproduct of that is we have to endure the adolescent behavior of a few.--MONGO 09:04, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  The vandals will win because they have the most time at their disposal, the loudest voices, and are greater in number, while we as a community are unable to agree on what to do about it.  It does not matter if I leave.  Yamaguchi先生 09:13, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You shouldn't judge by the George W. Bush article, where the vandalism rate is far above the average.  Other articles are attacked much less often.  I spend a small portion of my time reverting vandals, and so do many other editors.  There are more of us than there are of them.  It's usually just a minor annoyance, sort of like having to sit through commercials if you watch free television.  If the vandalism starts getting you down, you're entitled to concentrate on constructive editing and let other contributors worry about the vandals.  There are many ways to help build the encyclopedia. JamesMLane 10:14, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Everyone should download this anti-vandal tool. It is pretty fast..Voice of AllT|@|ESP 07:40, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Don't make this general; confine it to Bush, at least at first 

message: Is about all this tag says. We don't need it and it won't achieve anything. Just press your rollback buttons and be done with. Most vandalism is corrected within 5 minutes, and within 1 minute on this article. We don't need to shout out lout about the public toilet analogy that is so popular with Britannica. I've removed the tag from GWB. It shouldn't be on such a high-profile article until the community has agreed to this. Try it out somewhere that doesn't matter. If there are no dont-matter pages that receive regular vandalism, then the tag need never be used. -Splashtalk 22:52, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I couldn't agree more. Terrible. Ugly. Increases the number of protected pages. Taxes our scalability by making yet another task that only admins can perform. Plus it produces a fork. Rather than making a fork of the article it would be better to provide a link to an old revision... all frequent users of Wikipedia should learn to use the history in any case.  The only objection I can see to linking a good revision is that people might change whats linked, but a bad user could just change the notice in any case.  I think we should just consider a banner that says "WIKIPEDIA SUCKS. VANDALIZE THIS ARTICLE." since thats all the notice really says... plus the Wikipedia sucks notice would be less likely to get vandalized itself. --Gmaxwell 01:05, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: For once, I couldn't agree with you two more. Ambi 00:43, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Template:This article is crap and not worth reading