Wikipedia talk:Semi-protection policy/Archive 5

message: I made :Category:Semi-protected to complement Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Sprotected. I made it a child of :Category:Protected against vandalism just to emphasise the point. -Splashtalk 15:39, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Category 

message: It seems to me this could be a dangerous feature to deploy for very long if the restriction against brand-new accounts isn't in place. As it is, it's basically an encouragement to create an account to vandalize. It seems like the "no-spanking-new accounts" control was pretty critical to how this thing was going to work. Thoughts? Demi T/C 19:33, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with this. --JiFish(Talk/Contrib) 19:40, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Yes, I believe the developers are aware of this problem and hope they are working toward full implementation as proposed.  Hall Monitor 19:47, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  And it should be fixed now. Try it again. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 01:35, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Concern about half-implementation 

message: Perhaps it hasn't been spelled out. As I understand it: 
*Protection is for content disputes: Well-meaning people disagree on what should be on a page, and frequently revert each others' edits, believing them to be incorrect, biased, etc. Can apply to controversial topics like Jihad, Abortion, War in Iraq etc.
*Semi-protection is for vandalism: Vandals repeatedly deface high-visibility pages because they hate the subject, find the subject funny, or have something witty to add.  Can apply to George W Bush, Obesity, Penis, Hitler etc.
Different problems, different solutions. In the former case, you prevent *everyone* editing until they sort out their differences. In the latter, you aim to stop vandals editing, while serious editors can get on with the job. Yet the names are confusing: Perhaps they should be "content protection" and "vandal protection" rather than "protection" and "semi-protection". Stevage 21:52, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Not a bad idea, how hard would it be to implement? --kizzle 21:57, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's wait until this is totally live before making changes. I kind of wish you guys had said all of this 2-3 weeks ago before it went partially live. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 23:52, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Dude. That's why we have theory and practice. You can't think of everything when it's still theory, but once you see it in practice you can suddenly see "obvious" things. Stevage 07:04, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: it's still too soon. Everyone is jumping to conclusions. I removed 5 from the PP list tonight, so we have 12 and all fit the guidelines. Just be patient. It will work out. I just don't like this making changes when it literally just went fully functional. Give it a few days. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 07:16, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Difference between semi-protection and protection

message: What if we incorporate time limits into semi-protection as follows: SP can be applied for up to a week the first time, then if serious vandalism continues once it's lifted, SP can be applied for another 2 weeks, then finally, if serious vandalism continues once it's lifted, it can be applied for another 3 weeks.  However, this is the maximum; even pages such as GWB, Kerry, Hitler, etc. must have SP lifted every 3 weeks. I think upon evidence that vandalism has continued repeatedly after semi-protection has been lifted, 3 weeks is a good balance to pages that might experience such waves of vandalism for very long periods of time. It would also satisfy both the clause of semi-protection not remaining for extended amounts of time along with using it as a response rather than for pre-emptive measures. --kizzle 21:56, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Noting that key provisions of the Patriot Act (Semi-protection policy) are set to expire in two weeks, the president said: "The terrorist (vandalism) threat to our country (Wikipedia) will not expire in two weeks. The terrorists vandals want to attack America (Wikipedia) again, and inflict even greater damage than they did on September the 11th (before semi-protection)."
--kizzle 22:14, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Why don't we wait until it's fully live. Didn't we agree to keep this like this is to see how it works out before making changes? You guys are really jumping on this way too fast. Give it some time. I really don't like time limits. We've been through this. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 23:54, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm just trying to address the valid concerns people have over GWB becoming indefinetely protected. --kizzle 01:34, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

text: What you see at present is the admins, in conjunction with non-admins, thrashing this out: self-policing just exactly as predicted. It's going to take a few days, maybe weeks, until we can establish where the consensus lies on particular example like GWB. Bear in mind that, if a single admin among the 740+ thinks it should be umprotected, it will be. -Splashtalk 02:09, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  idea to curb protection creep 

message: Shouldn't semi-protection be prohibited on talk pages?  It would seem that this would unfairly hurt discussions involving anon IPs on certain pages, and these pages wouldn't be viewable to the readers who are simply using Wikipedia as a reference. --kizzle 22:00, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, talk pages just shouldn't be protected in general (although I have occasionally seen that in extreme cases). I don't think that that'll be a problem, as the same rules apply to semi as do to anti-vandal full protection. Blackcap (talk) 22:24, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Agreed, unless it is an extreme case. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 22:35, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, because both Talk:Poop and Talk:Bogdanov Affair are semi-protected. --kizzle 22:51, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Bogdanov Affair is a special case - it's been through Arbitration, and the need may be warranted. I'm not sure about Talk:Poop - let me check the log. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:16, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  The Bogdanov Affair pages were protected by Fred Bauder, an arbitrator, so I assume it has something to do with the ArbCom. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 23:18, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Hey Fred! :) Yeah I think Bogdanov will be the exception. Otherwise, what's happening is that we're having to block people constantly from the pages. This would be a great way around that. We've blocked what? 25 people? 30? It's nuts. And it's not really slowing down. One was blocked a couple of days ago. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 23:55, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  question 2 

message: This is the first proper use of WP:SEMI. The history has exactly the right characteristics, and now the vandal has been knocked on the head (post-bugfix) and everyone else can carry on with their job of editing. -Splashtalk 02:10, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks - indeed, when the article was initially (fully) protected, the vandal was mocking the editors of this article that sooner or later it would have to be unprotected (diff), and that he would return to vandalise it then. Didn't work out too well for him! :-D bd2412 T 02:16, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Good!  Glad to see this.  Thanks.  Antandrus  (talk) 02:21, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Does this imply that semi-protection of the George W. Bush article was not properly done?  Can't sleep, clown will eat me 02:28, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Not necessarily. Simply that this article (Japanese media) exhibits just the kind of features that make short-term sprotection an ideal solution. -Splashtalk 02:35, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes I think it's a great tool against pages where a dynamic IP keeps nailing the page. You can't block the person because their IP keeps changing, but on the other hand, full protection isn't really worthwhile since non vandals should be able to edit the page. I'm going to do it to History of Gibraltar and Disputed status of Gibraltar. We have a blocked user (Gibraltarian) who keeps using dynamic IPs to vandalize the pages. I tried a range block but those are damn useless. :) Again, great case for S-P. It won't be permanent...just until Gibraltarian gives up. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 03:03, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Whoah! I see the words, "I tried a range block, but those are damn useless" and I get distinctly worried. First, don't ever try a rangeblock. If you don't know what you are doing, don't touch it. You will really mess things up. Second, if a rangeblock doesn't appear to have worked, you did something wrong. You should almost never need to use a range block. Jeez... 86.133.53.111 16:49, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Japanese media]] 

message: This post says it's probably not restricted to X% as we envisaged, but actually to about 4 days, which is known to be about equivalent to 1%. Just an observation. -Splashtalk 02:58, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: 4 days is still on target with what we were shooting for, and this makes a new field availible for future use account creation date in the sql table.  I'm sure the old accounts will never be updated, so in 10 years if this displays somewhere they will be Legenday accounts or some other grandfathering term. xaosflux Talk/CVU 03:02, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

text: 4 days is fine. Most vandals will just try vandalism right off the bat, see that they can't, and give up (or maybe, if we're lucky, move on to legitimate edits on other articles). Someone willing to wait 4 days isn't going to be stopped by any protection policy. Firebug 04:49, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interesting detail 

message: keep in mind, we're going to find out exactly how effective this is in about 4 days, when all the sleeper accounts created today will become in effect.  For you admins, do you have access to do the checkuser or whatever to see what other accounts belong to the IP?  Are you going to simply ban one of the user's accounts, who also registered 9 other accounts today, or are you going to try and proactively find the other sleeper accounts registered? --kizzle 03:46, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: User:Tim Starling, User:David Gerard, User:Fred Bauder, User:Kelly Martin, User:Raul654, User:The Epopt and User:Jayjg have CheckUser access. In addition, stewards have access to grant it to themselves (although not on this project, due to their own policies), and certain developers can access it too. 86.133.53.111 16:46, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  checkuser 

message: Just a heads up that I'm proposing: Wikipedia:TimedArticleChangeStabilisationMechanism
Basically it's Semi-protection policy, on steroids. Rather than only apply to certain articles, it would apply to all the articles in the wikipedia automatically, and rather than preclude anon/new editors from editing an article the idea is that anyone can change an article, but the change doesn't necessarily go live for a day.
The editors will nearly always catch problems by checking their watchlists, and correct the article as and when required. No admin intervention would normally be necessary (unless a persistent vandal appears, in which case the admins can be petitioned to freeze their account.)
It's more complicated to code and it needs more processing time, but I think it should work plenty fast enough in practice.
WolfKeeper 19:01, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Firstly, you might want to read about naming conventions to see why Wikipedia is different from other CamelCase-based Wikis, and how spaces are a good thing. Secondly, I think it is a bit early to be making any descisions of this sort, and it would be helpful to wait just a little so we can see how this works out. Lastly, I disagree with this proposition simply because it creates too much beaurocracy and unneccisary coding changes, plus server stress, which, as you should know by now, is none-too-good. -Mysekurity(have you seen this?) 19:10, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: At this stage it is just a proposal. We need to examine what changes to the server code would be necessary- in principle it shouldn't add any significant load at all; there's already a cache in place that would deal with most of the page loads, without hitting the new code at all. It also definitely wouldn't add any new bureacracy, but there certainly would need to be some code changes. I'm more worried whether the behaviour would be acceptable to the users; but my gut feel is yes it would be ok.WolfKeeper 19:36, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Future direction? 

message: If you look at the list of semi protected articles, I don't think anyone can complain. A few on there are obviously temporary (i.e. they got hit hard with vandals for a few days) and the ones that are there long term )at least 3-4 days) probably should be. Penis, Nigger, 50 Cent and the others are frequent, long term targets of vandals. Again though. Remember. If anyone objects to anything on that list, put a request up at RfP. It's what it's there for. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 00:23, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems like this page is definetely becoming a spill-over target for vandalism from the semi-protected pages, though it's not close to needing SP at this time. --kizzle 03:28, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Also note that some of the Semi-ed articles where just stepped down from full protecton, like Jay Cutler and Ronnie Coleman.Voice of AllT|@|ESP 05:17, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  So far 

message: It appears that Digg has picked up on the semi-protection story,  one week after we were slashdotted.   The feedback varied, but overall it looks like people totally digg the idea.  :-)  Can't sleep, clown will eat me 09:14, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I spoke too soon, we've been slashdotted again.  Can't sleep, clown will eat me 09:55, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Funny thing about that first slashdot story, when I posted it, I also submitted the following line after what's currently there: "Now, if you want to replace Our Glorious Leader's photo with a pierced penis, you'll have to wait an unspecified amount of time before you can Prince Albterize the President."  Seems they didn't like that line too much. --kizzle 10:00, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Semi-protection on Digg

message: The policy statement says that it is "accepted Wikipedia policy". It is at best accepted English language Wikipedia accepted. GerardM 11:31, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Which for our purposes, is Wikipedia policy. Policies vary between different projects and languages, that's nothing new. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 20:04, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  You are exactly right but miss the point. People on other projects think that en.wikipedia is the one defining policies. It is therefore important to state this. GerardM 17:41, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I do not believe that to be true.  For example, from what I have read, the de.wikipedia is much more agressive about enforcing blocks on vandal users and IP addresses than the English Wikipedia is.  Unless some sort of a degree is made by Jimbo, policies do vary from language to language and project to project.  Can't sleep, clown will eat me 17:48, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Policy statement is overly broad 

message: What if semi-protection levels ( = minimal "xp points" required to edit an article) were generated by an algorithm taking parameters such as "vandalism", "controversial", "on-going" as well as editing frequency? 
That would have the two-fold effect of (a) protecting high-profile pages from edit wars and (b) drawing attention to lower-profile pages that sorely need attention, but will be neglected because of new users preferring to make a difference -- even if a grammar correction one -- on a high-profile article than doing the research and extending the information on lower-profile ones.
If this isn't the place to discuss this, please forward or direct me to the proper forum.  Dnavarro 17:07, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I would actually put that at Village pump (technical). --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 20:07, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  extending semi-protection policies 

message: I certainly generally agree with this policy addition, but I'm interested in seeing what happens when these vandalism honeypots are (more or less) taken away and where the vandals then go to do their dirty work.  Has anyone taken a look at a possible migration of these vandals to other "less attractive" unprotected articles? — Stevie is the man! Talk | Work 17:49, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That's impossible to predict. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 20:07, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

text: They generally go here, which is fine by me.  I'm all for keeping this page un-semi-protected no matter what, because this is as good a page to draw vandals to as any, as its pretty low profile and is a policy page rather than a reference article. --kizzle 20:57, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, they go everywhere else, too. I'm not so sure that honeypots are a good thing anyway, as then it's just impossible (by which I mean mildly difficult) to get decent work done on the article which is honeypotted. Spreading it out is O.K.: that's part of why we have watchlists and RC patrol. Blackcap (talk) 21:04, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I agree. I was talking with a friend offline (whose name I won't mention) about this, and (s)he said that this will not be nearly as big of a problem. This person is pretty high-up, and has been here much longer than most of us, so I think (s)he knows what (s)he's talking about. The thing about high-profile pages is that vandals become sucked into a life of vandalism because they see they can edit this, and then are shut down over and over again. The casual user will not do this as often, I believe, and will more likely edit a lesser-seen page than a higher-profile one for small capturing issues like spelling, grammar, and punctuation. An experienced vandal, on the other hand, can burn out, and will often leave after getting kicked around or ignored too much, and with this, they won't become hooked on vandalizing in the first place. Again, we havn't really seen what will happen, but that's going to be my prediction. As my this person said, "there's no one perfect solution to this vandalism," we've got a lot of issues that we have to deal with, but they tend to be minor. As long as we can use this to keep a few of them under wraps, we can deal with what we're actually trying to do here: build an encyclopedia. -Mysekurity(have you seen this?) 03:42, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Reduced honeypots for vandalism

message: We currently have 28 semi protected articles. But, at least 7 or 8 are going to be for just 2-3 days. So now a massive flood. I really think it's going to stablize at 40 or less. We've turned down all but 1 request for semi-protection on RfP. And I'm watching WP:PP like a hawk. :) Just making sure that people understand that this is for persistant, frequent vandalism. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 08:12, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Good on ya. Blackcap (talk) 08:30, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: And look at this. I unprotected GWB last night and we've had very little vandalism since. A good sign, I must say. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 20:03, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, comparatively, anyway. But you're right, that is a welcome sign. Blackcap (talk) 20:05, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  For those keeping track at home 

message: Semiprotection makes it so you cannot edit sections of articles, can someone fix this? Thanks. SandBoxer 21:23, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I see what you mean. It looks like when a page is semi protected, it only allows you to edit the entire article at once, not section by section. I'll put a bugzilla report in. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 22:13, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Bugzilla # is bugzilla:4385. I bet it gets fixed lickety split. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 22:16, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, this is really annoying for really long winded articles (ie. most of the current semi-protected ones) SandBoxer 22:24, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

text: There's some talk on the mailing list about this, see [WikiEN-l] The George W. Bush article: is this still a wiki? and related thread. Blackcap (talk) 07:18, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: According to Brion, if you clear the cache on your web browser, it should solve the problem. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 12:06, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inability to edit sections? 

message: Splash, could you or one of the other good policy writers rewrite the part of the policy that talks about articles from the main page and featured articles. We just had another featured article semi-protected. That's pre-emptive. We don't do pre-emptive. Thanks. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 22:19, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: One problem with this "policy" is it is two pages in one: first it explains what semi-protection is and how it works, secondly it explains the "policy" surrounding its use: when to use it. These seem to me to be two quite distinct things with two different audiences: Normal users need to know what semi-protection is, but they don't really need to know when to apply it (since all they can do is request it). Admins know what it is, they only need to check the guidelines for use. So perhaps it would be appropriate to break this page up further into either two pages, or at least two big sections on htis page: "For admins" etc. Stevage 11:59, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Is there a reason that you put "policy" in quotes? Makes it sound like you doubt its validity. It doesn't really matter, except that I don't want to be reading distain into something where there isn't any. Blackcap (talk) 17:53, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Featured articles 

message: Does anyone think that semi-protecting the Main Page would be a good idea? It was originally not protected and was protected only to deal with excessive vandalism. Now we have semi-protection to deal with that problem. Izehar 20:51, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thats a good thought, and it makes a lot of sense. But the main page being protected works, from what I understand it's protected now to discouarge vandalism from appearing on it, so that new visitors to the site don't get hit with, obscene images, or words right off the bat. In theory Semi-Protection should take care of that problem, but high profile pages like GWB still get hit with vandalism, albeit its a lot less than it has been. KnowledgeOfSelf | talk 20:59, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Never.  4 days and people can put penises on the main page?  No way that's going to happen.  Ral315 (talk) 21:43, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I support giving it a try.  The current system is a fairly big burden on admins, having to protect and unprotect the featured article and selected anniversary templates and pictures, and having to maintain the "in the news" and "did you know" sections.  Semi-protection would allow a lot more community involvement in all these areas, and allow admins to work on other things.  I say, let's give it a try, and see whether an unnacceptable level of vandalism results.  dbenbenn | talk 22:57, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I'm not really sure what I think... therefore I think trying semi-protection on the main page might be a good idea. We can see what happens. Deskana (talk page) 00:08, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If we could semi-protect against longer than 4 days, maybe somewhere around 60 days, I'd be happy, but of course, no one else will go along with that for a multitude of reasons. --kizzle 00:24, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

text: No. Letting any part of the main page be unprotected is not a good idea; this puts too much risk that the main page will be constantly vandalised. It's not a big trouble to upkeep the main page; there's a suggestion section for "In the News" and "Did you know"; selected anniversaries are already done, and Raul takes care of the featured articles. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:38, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I strongly oppose semi-protecting the Main Page. Only users who have earned the trust of the community should be allowed to edit such a high-profile page. Reducing the protection level of the Main Page would jeopardize the reputation of the whole project. --TantalumTelluride 02:57, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

text: We discussed this in one of the archives (the first one, I believe), and it was ruled down, as it was deemed that only the selected few should have the ability to change it. It does put a little more pressure on admins, but not too much, as they are mostly just blurbs. If you want to get involved, look a the templates for the near future, and comment on those before they're protected. -Mysekurity(have you seen this?) 04:37, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Main page? 

message: won't fit on user talk pages, so I made an other one  →AzaToth 21:03, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No problem with that. We could use it on Bogdanov Affair and possibly on the 2 Gibraltar articles that Gibraltarian keeps nailing as well. And yes, it's definitely a last resort on both of those. For G, I keep trying range blocks but he uses an ISP that uses 9 banks of IPs. Almost impossible. Anyway. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 21:09, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template for user talk pages 

message: I did suggest this in the past and it was opposed, I wish it was implemented back then. In any case. Nice to see this :) --Cool CatTalk|@ 13:15, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep. We kind of got lucky. :) The whole libel thing was hitting around the time this started and I think Jimbo was anxious to give vandal fighters another tool. And. This is it. :) So far it's working out well I think. About 30 SP articles and it's hard to argue with them. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 13:27, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Glad this exists 

message: I notice above there is a discussion above that sprotect is for vandalism while full protection is more useful to prevent a content dispute.  However, I notice the current protection template still says it is targeting vandalism.  Would it be remiss of me to change the template at this stage? 222.166.160.203 14:25, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, we have 2 full protection templates.  is for protection due to edit wars.  is for protection due to vandalism. They are both used for full protection.  simply mentions vandalism and it should really just mention vandalism since it hasn't been approved for edit warring. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 14:34, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change protected page template 

message: I think we should change the name of this to Wikipedia:Semi-protection, any thoughts? It eventually should be merged into the Protection Policy page, but for now...? -Mysekurity(have you seen this?) 23:08, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Erm, Arbitration policy, Banning policy, Blocking policy, Deletion policy, Image use policy, Privacy policy, Protection policy, Undeletion policy... there is some parallelism in there... Titoxd(?!? - help us) 23:14, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yep, "X Policy" is the norm. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 01:24, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point, and thanks. Any thoughts about merging this into the protection policy? -Mysekurity(have you seen this?) 07:14, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rename 

message: Hi folks, I was just running through the list of semi pages (I am truly boring!) and I noticed that on some occasions folks will add semi but not add the template to the top of the page and also they might semi the page but not add to the list of protected pages.  Is there any way to make these lists and template additions automatic/dynamic so things don't slip through (and also it makes life easier on the admin -- don't have to do three sets of work to sprotect/prot/vprot a page) novacatz 02:39, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, unfortunately. The same has been asked about AfDs and such, but the answer is always no, as it puts too much strain on the servers/too much work and etc. It'd be nice, but the thing I can think of most would be to add something to your monobook.js (like I have for AfDs [it's called AutoAfD]), and then make a mod of that. Yes, it is annoying, but it isn't too much to ask, is it? -Mysekurity(have you seen this?) 07:16, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Keeping lists up to date 

message: These pages are not candidates for semi-protection, they should either be fully protected or not protected at all - not halfway as this policy is implying.
Nor should the Bogdanov Affair page.
Please take this into account. --Whitewalls 22:47, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Why do you contest that GWB is not a candidate for semi-protection? --kizzle 22:49, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Well, I supppose there is no harm in trying unprotection - I mean semi-protection was never intended to be imposed indefinitely. Izehar 22:52, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Neither semi- nor full-protection require any enforcement. -Splashtalk 22:55, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Um Whitewalls, do you mean that those articles should be fully protected and not semi-protected. Would you mind explaining why? Izehar 22:59, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

text: So? We don't want to stamp out vandalism completely (we can't, it's not possible) - we want to reduce it. Wikipedia is a wiki: all pages by definition can be edited by anyone; even semi-protection is supposed to be only temporary. Have you read the Wikipedia:Protection policy yet, only in certain circumstances can a page be fully protected permanantly. Izehar 23:15, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Who cares about WoW? He's just another in the long list of petty vandals we've had - the only difference is that his mess is harder to clear up. If he shows his face, he'll be blocked and reverted as per his ban; this is all in his report. Izehar 23:32, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Note this "test version" of Whitewall's user page and the automobile-tire themed name. OK, OK, I'll AGF. —Bunchofgrapes  (talk) 23:38, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Yes - and he'll be reverted. Look, we're not going to protect the entire encyclopaedia just because WoW might hit it. Izehar 23:40, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Bogdanov Affair is a unique case. Whitewalls said "
The vandals who attacked GWB and Bogdanov Affair seem to have moved on now, and are attacking aFd's instead.". Actually vandals are not the problem at Bogdanov Affair. Please read the Arbcom decision on this. We've had weeks and weeks of various sockpuppets of Ivan Bogdanov and others post to the talk and main pages of the article. We then have to block them. Here is the list of users banned due to that case. It was growing by several a week. SP the page is a way around that. Fred Bauder, one of the arbcom members, semi protected the page himself so that we didn't have to keep banning users forever...and ever. So the quietness you see a mirage. If it's unprotected, we'll go right back to Ivan and the others illegally hitting the page. Honestly, if people want it unprotected, I'd ask Fred. BA is the one article where SP might be permanent by necessity. The controversy that caused this raucus is not over. So this isn't "vandalism". it's more than that. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 12:26, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see BA as a extremely special case -- it was vandaled a lot and hence was semied.  Plain and simple.  I think for all semi articles, there should be a lifting every now and then to see if the gits have lost interest.  You can always lay down the law again if the vandals return.  Note that for extremely persistent vandals - semi won't do anything - they can just create sleeper account and wait the required rest period and get going once it is over.  novacatz 12:37, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well you know what? it's stopped the postings from banned users on P-A. It is a special case. If you think it's just "vandalism", you haven't read the case. This is people named in the article invading it without any desire to become real editors. It's not random drive by stuff. But hey, if you want it unprotected and go against the arbcom's wishes, be my guess. It's a heck of alot more complicated than "vandals". --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 04:06, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[George W. Bush]] and [[Obesity]]

message: So I refactored this some, without changing the actual policy even a little bit. I'm hopeful that having a big heading which appears in the now-forced TOC about when not to use sprotection might help out some. I added some instructions, just in case, and to provide an opportunity for people to be reminded about WP:PP. (I don't expect that particular change to make much difference, though.) Then, I sort of dusted the whole thing down a bit, since policy-plaque was beginning to grow on it. -Splashtalk 03:50, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks good. Clarifying is good. Especially since we're still getting admins SP pages which shouldn't be SP. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 04:12, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shake-out 

message: The history on the GWB page that is... it is nice to be able to look back and see all of that nice history not-so-cluttered with vandalisms and reverts.  It does really feel good. novacatz 16:55, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Exactly. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 17:14, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Amen. It's great when something works. It seems that people can actually *gasp* re-arrange sections and such, and make it a better article instead of dealing with edit conflicts by vandals. I have not heard a single complaint from users regarding inability to edit the article. I'm sure there are some, but big articles like that should require a little more experience with our editing practices before re-arranging, IMO. -Mysekurity(have you seen this?) 21:52, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  It's beautiful 

message: The flood resulting from Google writing their logo in braille and then linking to this article from the search resulting when you clicked on the logo finally forced this page into semiprotection.  However, there were a couple responses at Talk:Louis Braille from an anon and a relatively new user commenting that they felt reassured by the template.  I often think of protection as, at best, an occasionally necessary evil and had completely missed that it may have positive connotations for readers.  I may be way behind the curve on this realization as I don't frequent policy pages much, but I found the comments refreshing. - BanyanTree 22:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I trust protectec articles much more myself.Voice of AllT|@|ESP 03:48, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  interesting response to usage at [[Louis Braille]] 

message: kizzle and others had concerns about protection creep with SP. Honestly, I did too. But so far, so good. Only 4 articles have been SP since basically the start of SP and all 4 are special cases. We have GWB, the 2 Gibraltar articles (SP due to blocked user Gibraltarian) and Bogdanov affair, which is a quasi-decision by the arbcom...Fred Bauder in particular. We only have 24 SP pages listed on WP:PP, which is actually down from a few days ago. I think Splash and I deserve applause. lol We've been working hard to unprotect pages that shouldn't have been protected. Anyway. So far, so good. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 11:42, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Applause novacatz 15:55, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a celebration, bitches!! --kizzle 21:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  And the best news about SP so far 

message: A couple of us were wondering if AfDs could be semi-protected. If an AfD is heavily vandalised, could it be semi-protected? Does it only apply to articles? Thanks. --LV (Dark Mark) 20:09, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I didn't mean be default, but in exactly the situation you described (although perhaps with less mi55p3e11ed w0rd5). :-) --LV (Dark Mark) 22:42, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know - I guess for AfDs to even be considered to be semi-protected, it would have to be extraordinary circumstances (even then, I'm still hesistant). Otherwise, we should try and semi-protect as little as possible, especially on "voting" pages where we usually solicit and encourage opinions and "votes". I guess it would have to be a case-by-case basis. Is there a specific one you were thinking of? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 22:45, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the issue came up during this, but the general question, which could be applied to future AfDs as well, remains unanswered. --LV (Dark Mark) 22:54, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

text: The existence of sock/meat puppets should not be the determining factor.  Instead the deciding factor should be the occurrence of vandalism within the AfD.  Thus a flood of of puppets descending on an AfD and adding their comments in an orderly fashion should be allowed to proceed without interference.  If some of the people drawn to an AfD start to change or remove existing comments, then we are talking vandalism and semi-protection would seem to be one of the options available.  In the cases I have seen where vandalism comes into play, it is usually caused by only one or two individuals making a block of the offending IP a better option.  Semi-protection should only come into play when it becomes impractical to block individual offending IPs. --Allen3 talk 23:15, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, did you see the amount of IPs and brand new users changing things and adding multiple votes, etc. in the above case? Check the history for the 10th. In a case like this, would SP be a valid option? --LV (Dark Mark) 04:47, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Usually, 50 edits lets you vote on AFD. 150 lets you vote on ArbCom. Semi-protect rarely stops legitimate voters. 16+ edits/day is usually higher than the usual new user. It tends to jump up after they have been around though. Only in cases where sockpuppets can really skrew things up should semi be used. Look at how bad this is. I wish the admin payed closer attention.Voice of AllT|@|ESP 04:53, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Some things annoy me. Like being yelled at twice in 2 days for a vote I closed 5 months ago. Yeesh. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 05:05, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Heh...who is yelling? And who else pointed this out? Anyway, I am just saying that sometimes, sometimes semi is needed for AfD and for admins to be cautions, especially when dealing with cruft/troll magnet articles. You have done plenty of good work here so nobody here is against you. Now please cheer up before I send you hordes of Esperanza spam! :-)Voice of AllT|@|ESP 05:08, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a new AfD on that article and I was cautioned that I wasn't careful enough the first time. Just annoyance. Anyway, yes afd votes are just like any article. Honestly, I never have figured out why anons are allowed to comment on afds anyway since they can't vote on them. Always found that strange. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 06:07, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The reason I only semi trolled up AFDs or remove only troll votes (uneligable voters can still comment, I don't mind), is that tally=/=consensus. Occasionally, a new anon IP will present a good argument on AfD, it is very rare though, but it happens.Voice of AllT|@|ESP 18:34, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, agree about vandalism. But current severe puppetry or puppetry likely to become severe due to the articles's troll magnet level and sock levels on its past AfD's deserves Semi-Pro, IMO, as it is just not worth all of the miscounting and hassale. We just have to agree to disagree there.Voice of AllT|@|ESP 01:22, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  AfDs 

message: We're getting a bit off course here. Yes, I think SP can be used for AfD votes IF it's eggregious, but it has to be vandalism. It can't just be anons or wild comments. The White Rose Society one was rejected by me because the requestor was objecting to the types of votes being made and it's like well. No. :) If real vandalism hits an AfD page (and it's happened), then by all means yes. We can SP for a short time just like any article. Not more than a few hours, but yes. But if it's just "well I don't like the votes" or "anons are making the page messy", then I don't think SP should be used. It can't be used for style points. There is nothing wrong with cleaning up AfD pages if they get out of hand. But SP wasn't meant to stop messiness or to stop anons from commenting. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 01:31, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Back to point

message: We seem to have admins who have decided that "% of good edits" is a reason to SP. We have Age of Enlightenment, which is barely being hit with one-two edits a day (if that) and yet, because "40% of edits are vandalism", it was semi protected. We need to tighten up the policy so admins don't do that. I mean if we allowed that as a reason, we'd have 500 protected pages and that's not an exaggeration. It wasn't meant to stop anon editing, but people are interpreting it that way. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 23:48, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As I said on WP:RfPP, I agree with you here.Voice of AllT|@|ESP 23:57, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I thought that was already clear in the policy. Semi-protection should only be applied when there is an urgent need to protect the page due to a vandalism attack. It is not designed to restrict anon editing. Feel free to make it clearer, as that was the intent when it was drafted. If someone wants to expand the scope of the policy, they need consensus first. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 23:59, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This would be clarifying, not expanding. I have a feeling that "restrict anon editing" isn't clear enough. We've had 3 admins use this criteria now so obviously, something isn't clear. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 00:24, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think by "extension" Titoxd meant that the use of percentages would be such an extension, not that your request would be. -Splashtalk 00:53, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

text: And thank you for the support, Voice of All. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 00:30, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Ok, the "restricting anons" thing was to stem the (presumed) tide of comments at the time about that, and the fact that it is a m:Foundation issue that anons are good for us. The main reason that the kind of example mentioned above is not within the spirit, nor really the letter, of the policy is that such protection does not deal with a current problem. It deals with a historical one. And that historical problem is, quite specifically, anonymous editing. The solution is chosen as one that will, in future, reduce such editing (as it undeniably will). There is also a subtle distinction between anon editing and vandalism: semi deals with vandalism, which can come from anywhere, and not merely anon editing. Semi has collateral in that sense, and thus should be deployed only if blocks and rollbacks simply can't take it. I will think for a little while on a personal suggestion, but I imagine it will be something along the lines of Titoxd's. -Splashtalk 00:53, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure the restricting anon editing part is what bothers me. What bothers me is that this is supposed to be for HEAVY CURRENT vandalism. An edit a day isn't heavy vandalism. Basing it on history is not current. Honestly, I don't like anon editing. Never have. So what bothers me more is the ignoring the heavy current part. It's not pre-emptive and it's not based on an article's edit history. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 00:57, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. I'm toying with idea of adding a new section to the page, "Alternatives to protection" (for example). Make it brief and to the point, put it before "How" and include in there an exhortation to make sure the solution chosen is one that actually deals with a current problem and not a historical one. Now I write it like that, perhaps another not line saying "...for dealing with a historical problem — the article should have serious, running vandalism enough to justify restricting access to the article." Or something; that's an off-top-of-head draft. -Splashtalk 01:03, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

text: It's similar to Japanese media, which was also semied, so it's appropriate. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 04:34, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need some help adding to the policy 

message: There is some discussion about disregarding the SEMI policy for one specific article. See Talk:George W. Bush#Why keep removing the semi-protection?. Just thought I'd let the page where this discussion should probably be taking place know what is going on. --LV (Dark Mark) 16:35, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it's a matter of subversion, just some concerns (with which I happen to disagree) about the appropriateness of regularly testing the background level of vandalism by lifting protection at least once per week. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 23:58, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Subverting community consensus? 

message: For those interested in the principle involved here, there is a straw-poll at Wikipedia:Article Improvement Drive regarding whether anons should be allowed to vote there. I'm firmly of the opinion that they should based on the "anyone can edit business" and have been surprised by the resistence. I note it here because it strikes me as a kind of back-door semi-protection. Marskell 10:06, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article Improvement Drive 

message: While I do appreciate Splash's worry that my vandalism monitoring tool could conceivably be used for nepharious purposes (monitoring the success of a bot-based vandalism campaign, for one), I've restored the link that he removed.  We do monitor all IPs using that tool (using the normal web server logs) and the information is available to tools developers and would also be made available to non-developers having checkuser access, so abuses by known vandals could be detected and dealt with.
In any case all the information is public and if the information were really that useful for dark purposes the vandals could obtain it by writing a simple screen-scraper for article histories. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:10, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, actually your mind works in darker ways than mine...my reason was obvious at the time: it was because there was a spate of admins protecting articles based on their vandalism history rather than any particular vandalism problem at the time of protection. People were saying "protecting because of 40% vandal rate", but not observing that, actaully, the article got edited once or twice every few days or/and the single irritant at the time was, or could have been, blocked without requiring protection. (Seems to be an "ooh, new anti-vandal option, must use always" effect on some admins, even now.) That's not the fault of your tool of course, which is a rather neat piece of work, but that was the reason I took the link out — to take away the suggestion that % vandalism over some arbitrary period was good grounds for semiprotection. I've no problem with it remaining, however. -Splashtalk 01:32, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Coolies! Yeah it's a problem we're running into on RfP with even some admins. We've had several "almost all anon edits have been vandalism" reasons for protection. It's a neat tool though. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 08:02, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Tony's tool

message: global warming is sp; when I edit it it tells me WARNING: This page has been locked so that only administrators can edit it. Be sure you are following the protected page guidelines. this is confusing! William M. Connolley 11:39, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Complaints about that on WP:AN today. Not sure what's up. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 11:57, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like the devs decided to reuse MediaWiki:Protectedpagewarning for the semi-protection warning as well. I think it'd be better if there were a seperate warning message (at MediaWiki:Semiprotectedpagewarning perhaps). I've placed a similar comment, as well as a suggestion for improving the messages, at MediaWiki talk:Protectedpagewarning. —Locke Cole • t • c 01:13, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Message is wrong? 

message: Radiant just added a merge tag to this page. The link is to discuss it at Wikipedia talk:Protection policy. Do so. :) I think it should remain 2 pages. SP and FP are very different. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 13:37, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Link updated to talk page xaosflux Talk/CVU 14:43, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I think merging is a bad idea at present. THere's enough unique material here to justify a seperate page, and it is used in a sufficiently different way. I'm going to remove the tag soon, I think. -Splashtalk 16:15, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge tag 

message: I'm an admin of Thai Wikipedia. I could not find how to do the semi-protect there, does it exist overthere? --manop 21:55, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It has to be turned on in the site preferences for each wiki. It most likely has not been turned on, but that can be fixed by a developer. However, be sure to discuss it in your project first before requesting it. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 22:03, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Okay, thanks a bunch. --manop 23:15, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: IIRC only the English and Spanish encyclopedias have it. The Spanish one can be called the "Gibraltarian rule". lol Ecemahl requested it because just like on the English Wikipedia, User:Gibraltarian was heavily vandalizing certain articles. So it was implemented. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 16:36, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The list of interwikis on the project page gives a more complete list. -Splashtalk 17:03, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How to make semi-protection in other language WP 

message: In order to fight against "sleeper accounts", I have an idea: Modify the SP policy to include accounts fewer than X edits (like the page-move policy), so that these "sleeper accounts" can be detected earlier and exposed longer. --TML1988 14:40, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no edit-count restriction on page moves. Both semi-protection and move capability have the same restriction: 4 days, according to the email link I just posted above. My approximate understanding is that, previously, the "autoconfirmed" status of an account was that it not be in the newest 1% of users, hence the original form of this policy. However, it appears from Brion Vibber's original email that this was changed to a simple 4 days, which was about the 1% level at the time. -Splashtalk 16:18, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And actually, when we first started this discussion, we were going to restrict it based on edits. However, it would've taken some major software modifications as opposed to the "newness of accounts" restriction, which was already in place for page moves. I don't know. Splash and I do alot of page protection stuff and we haven't really run into that many "sleeper accounts". it's been pretty sparadic. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 16:26, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good grief, do you know how paranoid this is?  Sleeper accounts ? So somebody is going to create 2**64 accounts and just let them quietly age until they need to troll some aggressive administrator? Uhhhh! Come on, people. This is anti wiki. ... aa:talk 18:20, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Calm down.  It actually does happen, and is a known vandal tactic -- Willy on Wheels has been doing it for a long time (not to foil sprotect, but to foil the restriction on page moves).  If you need more proof, here's an edit just from today (edit summary). People can and do make sleeper accounts to get around aging requirements. · Katefan0(scribble)/poll 18:26, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Its not paranoia when someone is actually out to get you.... see User:DickyRobert indef blocked for legal threats, trolling, harassment, etc... regularly creates sleeper sockpuppets with which to vandalize. He's done it at least 50-60 times that I can think of. User:CapnCrack was doing the same thing on Oklahoma Christian University so that we had to change Semi into Full protection just to stop his socks from vandalizing.  ALKIVAR™ 20:53, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

text: It's not radical, it's been proposed before. All somebody would have to do is to make a single punctuation correction somewhere or change something between British english and American english or something and the account would be forever. Besides, some people make accounts to record their user settings and don't edit the wikipedia and we probably don't want to forbid that.WolfKeeper 16:25, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sure it's possible to use cookies to save user settings instead of having to register an account.  Although I still think it should be a requirement to have an account before editing, it would eliminate probably 99% of the vandalism. Ryan Salisbury 21:51, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You would probably get a reduction in vandalism, but I don't think that a 99% reduction is credible. And the worst vandals would just create throwaway accounts.WolfKeeper 16:26, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I still say there needs to be another database of edit counts that indexes into the existing user database. It doesn't even have to be 100% exact, if we started it next month say, anyone with more than 30 or 50 edits or something in 3 months time, would get extra priviledges. We could grandfather in older accounts as well irrespective of edits (anyone with an account up to now, gets the priviledges).WolfKeeper 06:39, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fighting "sleeper accounts" - an idea 

message: Here is a page that dmcdevit found that lists all SP pages. Great. But. Going through the list, we literally have 10+ pages that were protected but didn't have a tag on it. One for 15 days. One for 18 days. Jesus. Any ideas on how to stop this? I thought I'd ask you guys since......you guys rule. :-D Bad enough that admins aren't adding them to WP:PP. Now we have them not even adding the tag. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 05:11, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Just unprotected 28 articles. None of them had tags. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 05:37, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Any ideas? 

message: Please see Talk:Pauley Perrette; Jimbo wants to leave it permantantly semi-protected and is wondering about the tag on the article. —Bunchofgrapes  (talk) 18:59, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If Jimbo wants to make an exception, he can, although there's not a great deal of evidence (in the gap between protections) that it's actually needed. If we stop using the tag on all semi'd articles, the help desk will just get a pile of "but why can't I...?" questions. -Splashtalk 23:40, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Surely the "why can't I..." issue can be addressed by a message appearing to those trying to edit the page who can't, after they click "edit". This would require a software change I think, so that "edit this page" appears to non-loggedin users on semi-protected pages (instead of "view source"), but the function provides "view source" plus an explanatory message why they can't edit. Rd232 talk 12:28, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Pauley Perrette]] and Jimbo's semi-protection 

message: What if we automatically semi-protected redirect pages? Vandals often create pages over them to circumvent the requirement that users create an account to start new pages. Redirects are rarely on users's watch lists so the vandalism only gets reverted if someone catches it on the RC patrol. I've caught a few of these but it seems like we could solve this problem much easier. There wouldn't be much "collateral damage" because rarely do new or anonymous users have a legitimate need to edit redirect pages which have already been created. Savidan 08:18, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Just a thought 

message: If libellous claims are being made about someone, is that a possible reason for semi-protection? Andjam 02:38, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Adding possibly libellous claims is most certainly vandalism, so yes, that would be a reason for temporary semi-protection. Just post a note to WP:RfP, or the article's talk page if you know an admin is watching that. -Splashtalk 12:14, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  SP and libel 

message: I'm writing here to draw some additional attention and input to a semi-protection proposal that has been made on WP:AFC.    Specifically, a few new users have been adding their article requests on the project page (often by blanking the existing page).   We are all quite positive that these are NOT intentional acts of vandalism, but rather new users who are unfamiliar with the system making honest mistakes.   The problem is that the errors are often not fixed in a timely manner.   Recently, a page blanking there wasn't fixed for over 4 hours -- and it's not the first time that has happened.  This reflects poorly on Wikipedia and could leave a bad first impression on the new users that Wikipedia is directing toward WP:APC.  Given all this, it has been proposed that semi-protection be leveraged to help direct new, anon users to the addcomment link rather than erroneously editting the project page.
It is very important to note that the intention of semi-protecting AFC is not to prevent anonymous users from participating, but to ensure that all anonymous users can participate through WP:AFC.  It is my opinion that this is a perfect example of Wikipedia:Interpret all rules in that while the rules might not allow for this particular application, this action is perfectly inline with the spirit and goals of them.   
Currently, WP:AFC does not get enough experienced user traffic nor administrative attention to get much input on this proposal.  However, it is a page that is somewhat high profile to the public.  Therefore, Meegs and I are looking for additional feedback on this proposal before we take it over to Wikipedia:Requests for protection.  Again, the core discussion can be found on Wikipedia_talk:Articles for creation.   Thanks.  -- ShinmaWa(talk) 06:13, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Based on the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation I have semiprotected Wikipedia:Articles for creation.  This should not cause a problem because new requests should be submitted via a link provided on the project page instead of through one of the edit tabs (the link provides a template and places the edit on a subpage).  If this action should cause any colateral damage, please feel free to reverse the protection. --Allen3 talk 14:54, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Articles for creation]] discussion looking for additional input 

message: The page said sprotection should never be used pre-emptively, which sounded odd, because all counter-vandalism action is pre-emptive in the sense that it's always anticipating the future. I therefore changed this to "purely pre-emptive", for example in the sentence: "Semi-protection should not be used as a purely pre-emptive measure against the threat or probability of vandalism before any such vandalism occurs, such as when certain pages suddenly become high profile ...", which makes it clear that there must be a vandalism problem on the page before sprotection is appropriate. I also deleted some repetition. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:54, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not pre-emptive because the vandalism is occuring at the time of protection. It's a very serious stretch to suggest otherwise! -Splashtalk 21:24, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I've put back in the note to admins. The content of that note is so often repeated that it's useful to have it there for the occasions that people actaully take the time to read the policy before using (rare, admittedly, but still). I also replaced the words "editorial dispute" since not all such disputes are necessarily content-related; sometimes it's as trivial as the formatting, but that still doesn't warrant semiprotection. -Splashtalk 21:28, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A dispute about format is still a content dispute. You seem to have ruled so much out with your edits that it's not clear what circumstances sprotection could ever be used in, and I don't understand your point about "pre-emptive." To say it should never be used pre-emptively is wrong. All page protection is (obviously) pre-emptive. What you mean is that it should never be used purely pre-emptively i.e. when there has been no vandalism, so I've restored that. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:20, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Vandalism happens at a high rate to an article. It is semiprotected. That is not pre-emptive. -Splashtalk 00:27, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Pre-emptive

message: Since the George Washington page have been vandalized almost every day is it possible to lock the page from IP editing for a couple of dyas?  (Steve 01:29, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree (see the history list: the last 100 edits were vandalism since less than 3 days! imagine the overhead in WP's database ! and the fact that with 50% probability, a random visitor will find nonsense on the page !) — MFH:Talk 17:59, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for Protection 

message: How do you request the banning of an IP vandal? --Yodamace1 19:15, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Question

message: An issue has arisen around removal of semiprotection, and I'm posting this to seek views on how it should be addressed. For the majority of articles, semiprotection requests are made in order to deal with a short-term vandalism problem. Once granted, and the vandalism dies down, it is usually safe to remove the semiprotection. There are some (high-profile) articles which are certain to be vandalised again as soon as the semiprotection is lifted however, the classic example being George W. Bush — and these articles thus stay in a more or less permanent semiprotected state. The issue is around how we recognise these articles and ensure they stay semiprotected if necessary. 
The specific article which has caused a problem is Tony Blair. This was semiprotected about a month ago due to heavy anon vandalism. Semiprotection worked - it gave editors the chance to focus on content instead of reverting vandalism. However, it was then unprotected without a discussion, and the vandalism started again almost immediately. It has subsequently been reprotected, unprotected, vandalised again, reprotected, and today unprotected again; it will no doubt be heavily vandalised again soon if it hasn't already, at which point I'll be listed it for semiprotection again ... and so on. Each unprotection has been carried out unilaterally without discussion. 
I believe we need to find a way to avoid cycles like the one I describe above. The root of the problem is that some admins believe, rightly or wrongly, that the policy around unprotection decisions is that they are entirely at an admin's discretion. If this is the case, I'd suggest this is an oversight in the policy, rather than a deliberate intention.
It has been pointed out to me that any solution to this problem needs to avoid being overly bureaucratic - uncontroversial un-semiprotections should be able to be made easily and I agree with that.
Thoughts?
SP-KP 23:35, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Unprotects are a common sense thing. See an article that can be unprotected? Unprotect it. Don't need to go filling in forms on WP:RFPP for the obvious and then have two admins involved rather than one. Just takes up twice the time for no improvement in outcome. It's not an oversight in policy, since we don't actually have much, if any, policy surrounding unprotection. This is because the current practise is the correct one and there is no need for us to document every click of the mouse. m:Instruction creep rarely achieves much. -Splashtalk 23:41, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunately, the problem we have is that some admins are making unprotection decisions in respect of articles that pretty clearly shouldn't be unprotected (if one accepts the premise that semiprotection is the best way to deal with heavy vandalism). What we need is a light-touch mechanism to reduce the incidence of inappropriate decisions, without impacting on admins' day to day work. SP-KP 00:10, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's rather disingenuous of you. What you mean is that you don't like my decision to unprotect Tony Blair and think it an inappropriate decision to return a wiki article to free editing. There is no article, imo, that should not be regularly unprotected and so I do not accept the basis of what you say "the problem" is. On the contrary, lengthy protections without any indication that an article might be unprotected ever are inappropriate, not to mention anti-social, anti-wiki, and unnecessary. -Splashtalk 04:12, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think its rather disingenuous of you to suggest SP-KP is being disingenuous.  Yes he doesn't agree with your action, but that is allowed. Frelke 06:31, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

text: As to widely-vandalized articles, I think we should write them on paper. Or, agree that this is a wiki and editing it is what people do. It's how it comes to exist. -Splashtalk 23:41, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Can someone define disingenuous  for me? Is this a good example? Frelke 06:34, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I disagree. If we can see areas where an improvement to our processes could result in a better encyclopaedia, we should at least explore them. Lots of policies and processes on Wikipedia have developed over time; I see no reason why this should be different. SP-KP 00:10, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The thing you propose to "develop over time" here is a reduction in the editability of the encyclopedia. You might want to try a different ship. Wiki is not paper. Wiki is editable. It is a m:Foundation issue that anyone can edit our articles. You're on the wrong ship if you want a policy to say that freely editable articles are bad. -Splashtalk 04:12, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Honestly Splash, I think you are overreacting a bit. SP-KP's point is a valid one. I mean. George W. Bush is sometimes unprotected but honestly, it's usually symbolic as I don't see us completely unprotecting it until he leaves office. I think that his core point is valid. We should have some special template or something to show that an article is more or less permanently semi-protected. Otherwise, the template that is generally used on GWB and also Jew is inaccurate. It basically says that once the vandalism dies down, the page will be unprotected. Well that's simply not true on those 2 articles. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 04:40, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's just that the editors (few of them, actually) of GWB have some WP:OWNership difficulties. I have never understood why a single editor insists on re-protecting Jew, but it's hardly reasonable to rely on Cecropia's opinion on that article to determine policy. TfD has repeatedly deleted templates of the kind you describe, which goes some significant way to showing that people outside the talk-pages of a couple of articles don't want such a template. I actually do think that those who proceed as if they sky will fall if we allow free editing of articles are the ones overreacting. I mean, Tony Blair has been unprotected for hours now, and the wiki has withstood and will withstand. -Splashtalk 07:49, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Splash, the deletion of those templates could be because people aren't happy with them as a solution, not that they don't think there is a problem. No-one is arguing for ongoing creeping reduction in Wikipedia's editability, or that we should abandon foundation issues. All this discussion is about is a proposal that we find a way of encouraging admins making unprotection decisions to do so with an appropriate degree of consideration as to the consequences. There are lots of ways in which we could do that. I've freely admitted above that your decision to unprotect Tony Blair was the thing that prompted me to raise this issue; but please accept in WP:AGF that there is nothing personal here, and that my motivation in raising this is to help us produce a better encyclopaedia. SP-KP 09:50, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of semiprotection