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The project page associated with this talk page is an official policy on Wikipedia. Policies have wide acceptance among editors and are considered a standard for all users to follow. Before editing this page, please make sure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss on the talk page. Always remember to keep cool when editing. Changes to this page do not immediately change policy anyway, so don't panic.
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All substantial edits to a protected page should be proposed on its talk page, and will be implemented if a consensus is found to do so. If the page is fully-protected, you may attract the attention of an admin to make the change by placing the {{editprotected}} template above your request. Requests placed here will probably be removed or ignored.
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Why just color

This is not what is in guidelines.. I see an increasing number of maps and charts with just the color differences... sometimes the colors are so close..please give some pattern on the locks to help the users who are not so good at differentiating based on colors.... Why cant you have different shaped colors or simply a no. on the lock to tell the level of protection..... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.175.105.145 (talk) 00:53, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Why does full protection have to be on?

How come it has to be on?

Semi-protection of templates

Since permanent protection of templates sometimes is overused and new users are not likely to understand template editing I would like to promote using semi-protection a bit more instead.

Currently the section "Permanent protection" states this:

In addition to the hard-coded protection, pages which are commonly permanently protected include:
* Pages which are very frequently transcluded, such as {{tl}} or {{ambox}}, to prevent vandalism or denial of service attacks. This includes images or templates used in other visible or frequently transcluded pages.

I would like to add this to the section "Semi-protection" in the bullet list that starts "Administrators may apply indefinite semi-protection to pages which are:"

* Pages which are fairly often transcluded, to prevent vandalism. This includes images or templates used in other fairly visible or often transcluded pages.

And perhaps even add to the "permanent protection" paragraph above:

(For less frequently transcluded images and templates consider using semi-protection instead.)

But that is perhaps repeating the advice?

--David Göthberg (talk) 09:50, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I've rarely seen a genuine need for semi-protection of templates. Either they are heavily transcluded (I tend to set the bar at about 5,000 to mainspace, or 10,000 outside (WikiProject banners etc)), or they are not. I've never actually come across an instance of template vandalism which would have been prevented by semi-protection. And I very much approve of the principle that protection is applied in response to vandalism, not in anticipation of it. Indef full for templates, of course, is not just intended to stop vandalism: witness Template talk:Db-meta#reword, where a poorly-conceived, although good-faith, suggestion was impeded by the full protection long enough for its author to realise that to implement it would be a mistake. Happy‑melon 10:15, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Surprising shift in meaning

I notice this series of edits [1] has either accidentally or deliberately substantially changed this policy without any discussion I can see here? To say prior discussion and explanation is required for admin edits (not directly part of the dispute) under page protection is completely different from saying prior consensus is required for any changes. I am not bothered personally which we go for but I am not happy about an undiscussed policy change of this order and suggest we revert it until consensus is found to support it? There are also a whole load of people who would need to be told.--BozMo talk 19:07, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

TO be specific it is the change from "Pages protected due to content disputes should not be edited except to remove material such as this, to make changes unrelated to the dispute, or to make changes for which there is clear consensus. " going to Pages protected due to content disputes should not be edited except to make changes for which there is clear consensus" that I find a strong change. Under the prior policy an admin who locked a page because of a content dispute and explained and discussed what they were doing could still try and improve the page in ways not related to the dispute causing the lock. This change removes this possibility. As I say, not bothered but rather there was a consensus. --BozMo talk 19:35, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
I never really looked at that series of edits in perspective - individually, they seem innocuous enough, but now that you put them all together, I realise that I don't like the tone of their changes. The changes did not have any consensus other than WP:SILENCE, and in hindsight I don't like them. Some of the changes are legitimate cleaning up and making it less legalistic, but the change you note in particular I do not like. I also see a general shift from "admins may protect pages which fall into one of these categories, loosely applied and allowing for use of common sense" to "admins may protect pages, here are some examples of why it might be necessary", which concerns me greatly. What's the point of having a policy at all when it's just a set of examples? Although it might seem a bit uncouth for me to revoke my implicit support for the edits when I was watching them occur, I never really saw them in perspective, and now that I do, I don't like what I see. Happy‑melon 20:06, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
I would also like to object to a couple edits. Especially the deletion of the line Administrators should not protect or unprotect a page because of a dispute in which they are in any way involved. Its always been a clear violation of policy to take any administrator action in a dispute you're involved in (it's a neutral action if it's a semi protection/move protection due to just vandalism or spamming or similar). People have been taken to ArbCom over it. Admins should never fully protect a page if they are one of those involved in the dispute. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 00:13, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I am going to partly revert the text to the earlier version per above. I suggest you consider the same for the parts you object to. --BozMo talk 06:42, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your comments. As I see it, there are two issues to discuss here.
1) is whether the changes I made were discussed sufficiently before I made them, and
2) is whether the edits I made improved the policy or not.

I am inclined to focus on #2, since that is what's really at issue. Here's some rationale behind the edits that I made, that might make it easier to understand my intentions so we can find a common ground on them.

First off, I want to say that I don't take any ill-will from Happy-melon (talk · contribs) if he is dissatisfied with my edits only in retrospect. There is no statute of limitations on improving articles on Wikipedia, so there is no reason that anyone should feel uncouth for wanting to make constructive edits. What counts is whether the page is really as clear, descriptive, informative, and accurately reflecting of Wikipedia philosophy as it could be. I'm pleased to say that we all obviously have those ends in mind, so all that remains is for us to align our perceptions of what is the best way to achieve those ends. I don't have any high degree of certainty that my edits were the best way to achieve the goals I had in mind, but I do believe that my edits were reflective of a way that the old policy was unsatisfactory, and I'll outline my objections to the old version now.

Now, to explain my edits, and what I meant to achieve by them. Happy-melon (talk · contribs) described the version that was in place before I made these changes [2] in this way:

"admins may protect pages which fall into one of these categories, loosely applied and allowing for use of common sense"

I think that sounds great, and it's what I wanted the general sense of the page to be. There is an easy pitfall that many, many editors fall into when attempting to understand Wikipedia policies: the temptation is to think that Wikipedia policy pages are designed to be a collection of rulebooks that justify behavior and clearly delineate authorities. One must only go to the Wikipedia:Administrator's noticeboard or, god forbid, read petitions to the Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee to see awful talk of WP:NPOV "violations" to collect as much evidence as you like of Wikipedia editors mistakenly interpreting policy pages strictly and literally, as if they were laws. I'm glad to see that we can all agree that Wikipedia policy pages are not intended to be used in that way at all.

Rather, Wikipedia policy pages guide and inform our behavior as members of a community project to build an encyclopedia. Policy pages have strong consensus behind them because they are held to be the rules that most effectively promote the productive development of a free encyclopedia. In other words, policy pages say "We have learned through experience that this is the best way of doing things, and so you should most likely be doing things this way too." This requires a somewhat subtle understanding of policy, because while it can be comforting to say "it's the rules, so follow them", Wikipedia philosophy requires us to be honestly an relentlessly self-critical and apply the rigorous criterion "Does it work?" to everything we do. Various attempts to codify this basic principle have cropped up over our history, the most famous (and controversial) being Wikipedia:Ignore all rules. Understood properly, I firmly believe in the idea expressed by Wikipedia:Ignore all rules, and we all enjoy the irony of those who try to turn it into a firm rule. Imagine how we would laugh at one who spoke of a "WP:IAR violation"!

Of course, that is not to say that all policy pages should be redirected to Wikipedia:Ignore all rules! I want to be clear that I think policy pages serve a vital, fundamental role in all the Wikimedia projects.

Based on the way the page was written and how I have seen it applied, I did not get the sense that Happy-melon (talk · contribs)'s summary was the meaning that was being conveyed. The previous revision came off to me like it was giving us an exhaustive list of the cases in which an administrator may protect a page. Contrast this against the idea that the page should explain the rationale behind page protection and what is useful about it in terms of achieving our higher goal of building an encyclopedia, and I hope my edits will make more sense, in retrospect.

If we want to go through the edits I am proposing on a line by line basis, I would be happy to do that; but I think we need to all make sure that we agree about the fundamentals first.

Cheers, --Ryan Delaney talk 22:02, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that response, Ryan; I'm glad we're all reading from the same sheet. I've made these reversions, in two parts. The first is, I think, just a matter of tone, not meaning. The second is more relevant to the discussion. I agree that the wording needs to be placed on a continuum from 'exhaustive, definitive list' to 'loose suggestions', and not at either end. However, I think that the pre-revert wording is closer to the 'loose suggestions' end of the continuum than my version is to the other end. Perhaps we can work up something in the middle. Happy‑melon 13:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Uninvolved admins

I've also made one change, re-adding the line that admins shouldn't use admin tools in a dispute they are in. I believe ArbCom has ruled on in the past and made it very clear that if you are involved in the dispute, you can't take admin actions (regarding something like full protection because it allows abuse regarding which version the page gets locked on. Then admins aren't just a neutral third party trying to kickstart discussion, they've become a ruling judge, which isn't one of our jobs). -Royalguard11(T·R!) 17:04, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
This is an interesting example and I'd like to get it out of the way first since it's the one that I have the least attachment to. That is, I think it's an important idea that needs to be expressed somehow, that administrators should take care not to participate in conflicts of interest. My problem with the wording is that it is vague what exactly constitutes "involvement" and I have been on both ends of an excessive interpretation of this doctrine. In the strictest sense we are all "involved" in every article on this project, and I have seen the policy that involved administrators should not use admin powers invoked to condemn any administrator from acting in a dispute; because acting in an administrative capacity is itself seen as involvement in the dispute! From this I think we can get the idea that "involved administrators" is far too broad a criterion, because it does not directly capture what is the issue here, namely that administrators should not use their powers to settle their own disputes. I haven't followed Arbitration Committee decisions in awhile, so if you are aware of any that spell this out in more clear terms, or have any ideas of your own about how to clarify this situation, I'd love to hear them. Cheers, --Ryan Delaney talk 19:58, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I always thought "involved" was pretty self-explanatory: If you are on of the parties who are warring with each other than you are involved. Even one content revert makes you involved (again, vandalism reverts don't count). I think it's kind of a silly interpretation to say we're all involved in all articles on Wikipedia. If you look through past ArbCom decisions, you see lots of remedies of "uninvolved administrator may block users" or things like that. The best definition of "uninvolved" being that you've never edited the article before (or better yet never edited within the topic before), never made a content edit (like you've only added templates or categories or copyedited) would be a close second, and then it gets murky. If you've made content edits before but have not edited the article in a while (like a month) then I'd say that would be "currently uninvolved". After that it's all shades of grey. If you're a major contributer to the article, then you probably shouldn't put full protection on because of a dispute (potential WP:OWN violations, maybe even unintended). The best way to avoid all this is to post the request at WP:RFPP, and hopefully a totally uninvolved admin is watching and will make a decision.
This wasn't the case I was thinking of, but Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Matthew Hoffman (from Feb. of this year), ArbCom made it clear that Administrative tools may not be used to further the administrator's own position in a content dispute. Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Hkelkar 2 (from last July) goes further (taken from here): administrators should not use their administrative powers in conflicts or disagreements they are involved in. (there are a few other parts which I'm not sure if they were just for that case or in general).
Lots of opinions there I know, but I hope it helps a bit. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 21:10, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I thought it was self-explanatory too, but as I argued above, there is a variety of ways to interpret it. I think that this statement you quoted is a much better way of putting the same idea without being so vague:
Administrative tools may not be used to further the administrator's own position in a content dispute.
The Arbitration Committee also says we cannot use administrative tools in disputes we are involved in, but I don't think there is anything conveyed by that statement that isn't conveyed by the above statement. Do you think there is anything that would be lost if we switched the wording? --Ryan Delaney talk 04:18, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I think on the Protection Policy page we should be specific and say that "admins should not protect or unprotect a page to further their own position in a content dispute", but other than that, it sounds good. Happy‑melon 09:03, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Both of those do sound like a better wording. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 01:51, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Y Done Ok, I went ahead and made the edit. Finals are coming up so I'm very busy, but I'll get some comments up about some other things in the next few days/weeks I hope. Thanks. --Ryan Delaney talk 11:28, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Content disputes

The incumbent revision reads:

Pages experiencing edit warring as the result of a dispute may be temporarily protected, with an appropriate expiration date, and involved parties asked to settle the dispute through discussion. Isolated incidents of edit warring, and persistent edit warring by particular users, may be better addressed by blocking, so as not to prevent normal editing of the page by others.

My proposed revision would read:

On pages that have become the battleground for an edit war, temporary full page protection can force editors to take their cause to the talk page, where they can reach consensus. Isolated incidents of edit warring, and persistent edit warring by particular users, may be better addressed by blocking, so as not to prevent normal editing of the page by others.

I believe that the two versions represent the same meaning, but the previous revision focuses less on the philosophy behind page protection in terms of in what way it can be useful to achieve the goal of building an encyclopedia. The incumbent revision subcommunicates a mood of legalese, as if the policy is here to give us the authority to protect pages, rather than give us a roadmap for when and why we might want to protect them.

--Ryan Delaney talk 15:16, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the proposed revision. Maybe some editors might come here and get the subtle hint too instead of just waiting out the protection like some do now. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 18:39, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
I dislike the style and tone of the proposed text: just becuase Wikipedia policies aren't legalistic rules doesn't mean they shouldn't be written formally. How about:
“ Pages experiencing edit warring as the result of a dispute may be temporarily protected, with an appropriate expiration date, to compel the parties to the dispute to discuss the issue on the talk page, where they can reach Wikipedia:Consensus. Isolated incidents of edit warring, and persistent edit warring by particular users, may be better addressed by blocking, so as not to prevent normal editing of the page by others. ”

I think this addresses Ryan's valid comment about the focus on the positive effects of protection, while retaining the more appropriately formal tone. Happy‑melon 10:01, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

“ Instruction creep begins when someone thinks, This page would be better if everyone was supposed to do this, and adds more requirements. ”

—Meta-Wiki, m:instruction creep
Thanks for this proposal. Unfortunately I can't agree that it addresses my objection. You seem to be saying that I was unhappy about the legalistic tone of the article. Allow me to clarify; I think formal tone is fine, in fact it is very good in something like a Wikipedia policy page. What I don't like is language that creates the impression that the policy is limiting us to a certain developed list of acceptable rationales. Here's what I think is wrong with this. You read "Administrators may protect a page when..." as a suggestion, as if it is authorizing page protection in these cases. That is, you seem to be reading that statement as positive and inclusive. I think you might be missing the ambiguity in your language; people who read this will see it and think it is meant to be exclusive and exhaustive.
Recall the argument I gave where I suggested that a policy page that is too specific about when we can protect a page, someone will cite the policy as a rationale for overriding consensus in special cases on the grounds that the consensus "violates" the protection policy. In these cases, well defined rules tend to be limiting. If I could pick one word that I find worrying in the existing version, it would be the word "may". That is what I think is the cause of trouble here, because it gives me the strong impression that the policy is here to decree when I may or may not protect a page. I don't need a policy to tell me this; experience would be a much better guide than any policy.
Another way of getting at this is that I want the sense that I am being told why to use administrative tools the way I should, rather than putting the focus on the details of what the policy is instructing me to do. I don't think this revision is a significant departure from the existing version in that sense. --Ryan Delaney talk 02:22, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
There are some good points there, and in general I agree that the policy shouldn't be too prescriptive. You can probably guess that the greatest problem I have with your proposal is the informal wording: "battleground", "can force", "take their cause", etc. Can you offer an alternative wording which is less lighthearted? While I agree with the effect you're trying to create, I can't support the inclusion of a passage that includes the word "battleground" :D. As I say, it doesn't have to be (and shouldn't be) so serious as to be legalistic, but a certain level of solemnity is appropriate. Happy‑melon 09:22, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Aha! Progress. Yes, I have no attachment to having those particular terms in the policy whatever. I have to run to work, but I'll try to come up with a less colloquial proposal later this afternoon. --Ryan Delaney talk 15:39, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

How's this for a second proposal?

On pages that have become subjects of an edit war, temporary full page protection can force editors to the talk page, where they can reach consensus. Isolated incidents of edit warring, and persistent edit warring by particular users, may be better addressed by blocking, so as not to prevent normal editing of the page by others.

--Ryan Delaney talk 05:31, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

How about:
“ On pages which are experiencing edit warring between established users, temporary full protection can force the parties to discuss their edits on the talk page, where they can reach consensus. Isolated incidents of edit warring, and persistent edit warring by particular users, may be better addressed by blocking, so as not to prevent normal editing of the page by others. ”
I'm not sure about "the parties", but I ran out of synonyms for "editor" :D. What do you think?? Happy‑melon 10:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure it's a good thing to make an exception for established users. Edit warring is bad, whoever you are. Can you tell me what you think isn't addressed by the revision I just proposed, so I can have something to work toward? --Ryan Delaney talk 14:39, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
I thought the point was that, if the edit war is between an autoconfirmed user and an IP, semi-protecting the page stops the edit war without as much disruption. I thought that was common practice anyway; to full-protect only when semi-protecting wouldn't do the job. Vis the difference, I was just tweaking the style a bit (and making it a bit more obvious what the editors are being forced to do on the talk page :D). If you'd prefer to knock out "established" and just say "experiencing edit warring between users, temporary full protection..." I'd be happy with that. Happy‑melon 10:41, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Yeah. I don't mean to be rough, but I think it's an intensely bad idea to have the protection policy introducing ideas about preferential treatment for autoconfirmed users. How's this:
On pages which are experiencing edit warring, temporary full protection can force the parties to discuss their edits on the talk page, where they can reach consensus. Isolated incidents of edit warring, and persistent edit warring by particular users, may be better addressed by blocking, so as not to prevent normal editing of the page by others.
Sound good? --Ryan Delaney talk 04:46, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure I'd consider the fact that autoconfirmed edit wars get fully protected while IP edit wars only get semi- to be "preferential treatment" (:D), but that wording is fine by me. Happy‑melon 21:25, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Y Done Great, thanks. --Ryan Delaney talk 00:15, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Permanent protection

The incumbent revision reads:

In addition to the hard-coded protection, administrators may permanently fully-protect pages which fall into one of these categories:

My proposed revision reads:

In addition to the hard-coded protection, pages which are commonly permanently protected include:

The way I put it is a bit awkward, and I'd be very open to other formulations. But I am very dissatisfied with the incumbent version because it creates the impression that the following conditions represent an exhaustive list. If it hasn't happened already, you will find cases where this wording is invoked in mailing list or talk page discussion where there is strong consensus to permanently protect a page, and it will be invoked in an attempt to invalidate consensus on the grounds that consensus would "violate WP:PROT". Again, I refer to our earlier agreement that the purpose of a policy page is not to provide us with a future-proof rulebook or to clearly delineate authorities. It does not help the project to determine beforehand what rules will work and which don't, and that's what I think the incumbent revision is doing.

--Ryan Delaney talk 15:16, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I've never liked permanent protection, and even if I was asked by people I probably wouldn't do it. I think that permanent protection is at odds with our goal, which is to produce an encyclopedia. Making it uneditable is contrary to what we want, as there are no "finished articles" (contrary to other projects like Wikibooks where I guess they do protect "finished books" and Wikinews where the news article doesn't change, a new one is made), and of course there is no deadline. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 18:46, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
I think this is the area where the policy needs to be the most prescriptive: as Royalguard says, indefinite protection sits uncomfortably with the wiki philosophy, and should be used as infrequently as possible. There are situations where it is appropriate - narrow, clearly-defined categories of situations :D - and few if any other instances. For instance, things like this scare me; I don't ever intend to give such proposals a crevice to cling to in established policy. Admins should be given a fair ammount of judgement in most areas of the protection policy, but I think this isn't one of them. There simply aren't any other times when an admin should be able to permanently protect a wikipedia page! Happy‑melon 10:07, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
We are in absolute agreement that permanent protection should be rare, and we should be seeking to word the policy in a way that discourages it. I want to suggest that, somewhat counter-intuitively, the existing wording actually enables permanent protection more than it excludes permanent protection, because if an administrator can interpret the policy as justifying the protection, her or she will now have policy to point to, when common sense should have been the rule. I know it seems weird, but what you are doing is not restricting permanent protection, but creating a space where permanent protection is unassailable because it will be seen as justified by the policy. I worded my proposed revision the way I did because I want to emphasize that in each case of permanent protection, consensus is formed on a case-by-case basis to justify the action. --Ryan Delaney talk 02:30, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Here, I entirely disagree. The important thing to remember is that, within the three narrowly-defined categories, all the pages which fall into one of those categories should be protected. All high-risk templates should be indef protected. All of our legal disclaimers should be protected. All of our main pages (:D) should be fully protected. But the point is that nothing else should be. Within the categories, there is no need to minimise the use of indef protection, because the protection is most effective (and, peversely, the least disruptive) if it is applied throughout that category. It is vital, however, that the policy is worded such as to prevent indef protection being extended outside those categories. Your wording sacrifices complete proscription of other categories, in exchange for discouraging protection within the categories, when I think that the opposite should be the case. Indef protection is inherently against the wiki philosophy, so its use should be restricted to the few instances where the benefits have been proven to outweigh the downsides. Those instances neatly form three categories, within which protection should be universally applied, and it should never be applied outside. In this situation, I don't want admins to use common sense, because then we get things like this and this (look at Jan 15). Happy‑melon 09:37, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
N Not done I'm inclined to just let this one go, since I tend to agree that permanent protection is rare enough that each wording won't be too big of a deal (and we can react to events as they come to us). However, I think that Wikipedia:Practical_process has an excellent argument for why it's a bad idea to use policy to legislate against malice and misunderstanding. --Ryan Delaney talk 15:37, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Move protection

The incumbent revision reads:

Move protection may be implemented on:

My proposed revision reads:

Move protection is a possible solution for:

Same as above. Implies an exhaustive list of acceptable rationales.

--Ryan Delaney talk 15:16, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with this one because I see move protection a little differently than regular edit protection. Most of our articles will never get moved and won't ever need to be moved, and move vandalism is much worse than regular vandalism. Move protection is a good tool against this because it doesn't affect anyone really. And we do have a method to move pages if they are fully move protected. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 18:50, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
Here, by contrast, much more freedom should be permitted, as this is actually the least restrictive of all the posisble protection options. I don't like the exact wording of "possible solution for", although I can't put my finger on exactly why (:D), but I would be happy with another alternative to "may be implemented on". Happy‑melon 10:10, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
As I explained above, I think my beef is with the word "may" and the connotation of providing an exclusive list of acceptable rationales. If you have any other ideas I'd be happy to hear them, but this one sounds non-controversial enough to go ahead with it. --Ryan Delaney talk 02:31, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
I've just noticed that the move-protection section, unlike all the other sections, doesn't have an explanation of what the protection actually does. How about the below, which attempts to solve both these problems? Happy‑melon 09:44, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
“ Move-protected pages cannot be moved to a new title except by an administrator. This protection is commonly applied to: ”
I think that sounds very good. If no one objects, I think we should go with that proposal. --Ryan Delaney talk 20:10, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Let's go with that one then. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 23:54, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Y Done --Ryan Delaney talk 02:20, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Move protection restrictions

The incumbent version reads:

The same restrictions that apply to full protection during a dispute also apply to move protection during a dispute; administrators should avoid favoring one name over another, and protection is not an endorsement of the current name.

My proposed revision reads:

As with full protection, administrators should avoid favoring one name over another, and protection should not be considered an endorsement of the current name.

I find this very wordy. My revision is trying to express the same idea in simpler language, avoiding talk of "restrictions".

--Ryan Delaney talk 15:16, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Simpler is better in this case, and they convey the same idea. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 18:51, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
Agree. Less is more as long as it conveys the same nuances, which this change doesa. Happy‑melon 09:56, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Y Done In fact, it looks like this was never reverted. --Ryan Delaney talk 02:02, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Quick comment

The thing which comes most often to AN/I is precisely the question of uninvolved admins, called as easy above. Someone flags an edit war, BLP, other serious issue at AN/I, a previously uninvolved admin arrives to sort it out, makes a couple of edits and then blocks someone or protects the page. Then they are accused of being "involved" because their first act on the page was an edit. Equally "you are not uninvolved since you have previously edited a page in common with one of the antagonists, you are not uninvolved because of your nationality etc etc." In general the view on AN/I is that an uninvolved admin includes a admin who was not part of an edit war and arrived once an edit war has started and they don't get immediately counted as involved as soon as they start trying to sort it out (sometimes this is even just be fixing typos in another section out of habit when reading through the article to understand the issue, people in the wrong get very annoyed). When you start being "involved" is grey. --BozMo talk 06:00, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I think this is perceptive reasoning, and it's why I am hesitant about using any language of what counts as "involved" as well. What counts isn't that the administrator is involved; anyone who is trying to mediate a content dispute is involved! What counts is that we don't want administrators using their powers to advance their own positions in ways harmful to the encyclopedia. I think that kind of clarification is what I'm trying to achieve with these edits. --Ryan Delaney talk 02:03, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
When you're dealing with AN/I it doesn't matter what other people think: "that admin is a nationalistic pro-something, totally bias and should be desysopped". We give way to much leverage to the complainants, and cast too much doubt on admins doing they're job. Someone will always come along and complain because they think it's on the wrong version. This is the nature of Wikipedia and it'll always happen. I think in this case it's better if the admins and user who regularly watch AN/I all agree on some kind of "standard" for uninvolved and use that. You can't base a standard on what some Joe who happens to be edit warring says. They're going to say it anyways. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 00:01, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
You have some good points here, but as I see it, you can go on trying to work out a meaningful definition of "involved", or you can scrap the term completely an focus instead on conflicts of interest. If you have to use "involved" as a technical term with well-defined meaning, it might be better to simply pick a different word. --Ryan Delaney talk 02:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Relevant discussion notice

Various proposals have been made recently at Wikipedia talk:BLP which would significantly extend the scope of protection. Basically the proposals involve semi-protecting all, or many, or some, articles which are biographies of living persons (BLPs), even if there has not yet been any controversial editing. Since the discussions over there are rather involved, I'll try and summarize what I see as the most pertinent arguments:

  1. It is important for ethical and legal reasons to try to keep Wikipedia free of defamatory and certain other counter-policy material about living persons;
  2. It is primarily BLPs which attract the addition of such material, usually by anonymous editors;
  3. There are too many BLPs for the community to monitor effectively for such additions;
  4. One solution (also proposed and being polled on on the BLP talk page) is to reduce the number of BLPs by causing more of them to be deleted, specifically by saying that AfD discussions on BLPs which end in no consensus should default to delete rather than keep;
  5. Many people are concerned about the damage such a deletion policy would do (babies in the bathwater, further consensus-reaching prevented by disappearance of the article, etc.)
  6. To try to solve the problem with less harm to the encyclopedia, it is proposed to allow semi-protection of large numbers of BLPs, which will keep the articles alive but significantly reduce the amount of vandalism (and, incidentally, the removal of inconvenient but well-sourced facts by article subjects themselves).

Comments welcome, preferably at the BLP talk page (under any of the many relevant sections).--Kotniski (talk) 16:02, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Protecting the current version rewards revert warriors

Here's a typical revert sequence (A and B refer to two versions):

  • A was the established version for quite a while
  • Change #1: B without discussion
  • Change #2: A without discussion
  • admin admonishes both to use discussion instead of reverting
  • Change #3: B with discussion
  • Change #4: A with discussion

At some point, admin needs to intervene, since the revert war continues despite the discussion. (Versions A and B remain constant, nobody is willing to concede one iota to the other party.)

This policy currently says "When protecting a page because of a content dispute, administrators normally protect the current version, except where the current version contains content which clearly violates content policies, such as obvious vandalism or copyright violations." This means that, regardless at which point admin intervenes (after change #3 or 4), admin effectively cements the version of the editor who kept the edit war going. One might argue that it may be fairer after an even number of changes, but that is a weak argument. The policy sheepishly says it's only temporary, but there is nothing in the policy that backs up that claim. In fact, in most revert wars I've seen, once a page is protected, editors walk off to other areas for a time far longer than the 3 or so days for which it has been protected. This of course is a good thing, because we want them to cool off. But let's be honest: It also means that the version remains that way for a much longer time, thereby becoming the established version. This sends a clear message to edit warriors: Keep reverting as long as you can, or else your opponents will get their version established!

I will, once more, do my duty and protect the version as it is, but I'm very unhappy about it. I think, a good admin should strive to revert to a version that best fits certain clear criteria, such as the "reasons" I mention in a related discussion on WT:SLR#Clarification of what 1RR means to us. When I have the time, I might rewrite that so it can be applied to page protections. — Sebastian 18:05, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the intention is to keep the protecting admin from becoming involved in the dispute. If the admin is required to trawl through past revisions and decide which version they feel is the "best", they can't possibly be considered uninvolved: they've chosen one side of the argument over another. That's not what admins are for; we're just here to stop the edit war by whatever means necessary. I think you place too high a value on the "established version" - if a sensible editor looks in the edit history and sees a massive edit war prior to full protection, they're not going to place much weight on either version. When hell freezes over we get FlaggedRevisions, this will become even less of an issue, as neither version of the page will appear to idle viewers. All that aside, your scenario is overly simplistic: this simple case of persistent two-party reversion would just get both editors blocked for 3RR, no protection necessary. We (should, at least) only use page protection where the situation is a lot more complicated, with multiple editors and factions fighting over an issue (and usually with at least one or two cool-headed editors trying to keep things under control). Properly working out which revision is the 'correct' one in such cicumstances would be the work of ten, twenty, thirty minutes; which is time that an admin doesn't have to spend, particularly not if there's a nasty edit war going on. Overall, I think the hands-off, ultra-simple rule we have in place at the moment is the best solution to a problem with no easy answers. Happy‑melon 18:30, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for your reply; you make a number of points that merit good replies. I'm in a rush now, so please forgive me for picking out only two, where you directly criticize my example.
"simplistic": I simplified the example a bit, but it is certainly not simplistic. I think your calling it "simplistic" stems from several wrong assumptions on your part. First: It seems you are assuming that each opinion is only added by one account. That is not necessarily the case. Often, you have tag teams. If both sides have a tag team, WP:3RR which refers to editors, not versions, practically allows 12 or more reverts per day. Your second wrong assumption seems to be that, once the "allowances" are used up, edit warring stops. But heated edit wars can last for many days.
"too high a value on the 'established version'": You would be surprised to learn how many people read or edit Wikipedia without ever looking at page histories! And I've seen enough cases where an experienced editor made some change to an article without checking the history, and then even some blatant vandalism can get frozen in articles for many months, because all experienced editors trust the first experienced editor. Of course, that doesn't always happen so fortunate for the vandal or edit warrior, but it sure happens often enough to be an incentive for them. That's what I mean by "Protecting the current version rewards revert warriors". — Sebastian 22:33, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't think you've really proven your point. You seem to assume that somehow protection is also "good". Full protection is an all out bad thing. When we have to fully protect and lock down a page, there is no up side, it's bad. It can be edited, changes can't be made and it can alienate outside editors. That's not to say we shouldn't do it; it's often the only way to stop an edit war and hope that those involve will solve it themselves. Protection is not really a solution, it's a band aid, it's a temporary fix. I agree with Happy-melon above, the admin is to protect the current version, however wrong. Any other action would mean that they have to take a side, and then we get into favouratism and just general elitism. Then we'll have to open up Wikipedia:Protections for Discussion, which would be a bureaucratic nightmare that no one wants. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 17:07, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Of course, I agree that full protection is not the panacea to Wikipedia's editing problems. But how does that disprove my point? Conversely, your argument that "Any other action would mean that they have to take a side" got it completely backwards - what more extreme side can anyone take than completely siding with one extreme version?!! Sebastian (talk) 06:00, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Because protecting what's there is a rule which doesn't allow an admin to take a side: they have no control over which side ends up being "favoured". Insisting that we protect whatever's currently up is a simple way to ensure that admins can't take sides in a dispute. Happy‑melon 08:23, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, limiting an admin's choices can in some cases be helpful for the admin. I don't think that's necessarily always the case, but that's beside the point. For the sake of argument, let's assume you are right and we always need to rigidly limit the protecting admin's choice.
With that, we can address the topic of this discussion: "Protecting the current version rewards revert warriors". Nobody says that the rule to protect the current version is the only possible rule. With a little bit of imagination, we can think of many other equally rigid rules. For instance, we could rule that: "Admins always protect the version before the last revert". That rule would provide an incentive for not reverting. Can you see what I mean? Sebastian (talk) 10:55, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I want to add my own comments to this debate, which I have come to following the recent edit war on [Virgin Killer], and the controversy over the cover image displayed. Briefly, an article on a minor news site accused wikipedia of hosting child porn, and this prompted a heated debate over the image. An edit war ensued, and the image flicked back and forth. It was protected, without the disputed image at the top. I was suprised to discover WP:PREFER - the admin had correctly followed this policy. In this case, people coming across the current news article, checking wikipedia, would discover that action had been taken - ie it would appear WP had relented to outside influence, rather than it's WP:NOTCENSORED line. Having read the erudite comments above, I do understand why the rule exists. However, I wonder if an alternative could be found, without overly complicating matters. Perhaps, in a clear case of a recent edit war, where a stable version has previously existed, then the prev version would be the one locked whilst the dispute is resolved? I don't know if such a policy could be stated clearly enough to avoid the admin becoming embroiled in the dispute, but I do think that the matter is worth consideration. --  Chzz  ►  20:12, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Almost always, the best approach is to protect in the The Wrong Version. Productive talk page discussion to decide consensus often can not happen if some of the editors feel that one side has an advantage over the other. Freezing the article in the wrong version is key to helping editors believe that the system is not biased against them and that talk page discussion consensus will be based on a fair interpretation of policy. So, yes, it keeps admins uninvolved, but also can help editors that are distrustful of each other more easily move on with the discussion. FloNight♥♥♥ 20:29, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

An interesting point, well made. But in deciding which is The Wrong Version, surely involves the administrator in the debate process, and the danger of the admin 'taking sides' re-emerges? --  Chzz  ►  22:36, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

The Wrong Version almost always is going to be the version that that an administrator sees when they go to protect to stop the edit war. Irrespective of which version it is, one side of a dispute will claim it is the wrong version. By explaining this, the admin can diffuse the complaints. Selectively choosing a version will undermine the effort. The administrator then is able to go ahead and mediate the dispute with "clean hands". FloNight♥♥♥ 23:13, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Srry I previously ,misunderstood what you meant by The Wrong Version - I see now you mean that it's likely, by chance, that the current will be that one. This is relying on chance probability, which doesn't strike me as an appropriate way to decide policy. I hope you can see that, it cases where media is involved, the image displayed during dispute is of great importance. --  Chzz  ►  23:22, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Just a few thoughts: freezing the wrong version seems actually to be a worse result than allowing the edit war to continue. Admins are appointed because they are trusted to make judgement calls sometimes, not just to blindly follow procedure. Seems to me that if an admin has time to look into a case in enough detail to establish that there is an ongoing edit war and protection is the appropriate solution, they can also be expected to reach a reasonable preliminary judgement as to which version is more accurate or in line with consensus. Of course, if protection or semi-protection would exclude one side from editing but not the other (e.g. in a dispute between an IP and a confirmed account), the admin is effectively taking one side over the other and presumably would be expected to check that that side appears to be in the right. But I think this right/duty should be extended to all cases. Of course admins won't always get it right, but their result ought to be far better than the 50% given by following a blind rule. (And of course it's not necessarily a choice between two extreme versions; the admin might be able to quickly devise a neutral version which differs from either side's.)--Kotniski (talk) 07:58, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

No, administrators are chosen because they are trusted to not make content decisions. An administrators role, in closing a Afd or any other consensus discussion, is to gauge the consensus of the other editors, not to inject their own opinion of what is best. If there is an edit war happening then usually there is not consensus. If the problem is that one editor is going against consensus, then that matter needs to be addressed as well by explaining the correct way to resolve disputes to that particular editor. Full protection is almost always temporary with the purpose of allowing the issues to be sorted out in a thoughtful manner. FloNight♥♥♥ 13:40, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
But protecting is still inescapably a content decision in effect (people won't stop using the encyclopedia while we resolve our disputes). Better then for that decision to be taken intelligently than blindly. It's the users and the accuracy of the encyclopedia that matter more than the sensitivities of a few editors.--Kotniski (talk) 13:57, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
No, protection is an emergency measure to maintain peace and tranquility on-wiki and prevent the edit history from being filled up with a potentially limitless stream of identical edits. It's a way to force editors to re-engage their brain, stop blindly clicking on the 'undo' button, and consider the possibility that the other side's argument might actually have merit. As long as the admin does not evaluate the relative merits of the two versions, protection is most definitely not a content decision.
I think when we finally get FlaggedRevisions, this rule should indeed be amended; perhaps to "admins usually revert the page to the last stable or quality version that existed prior to the dispute" or similar. That's exactly what flagged revisions are supposed to be for: checkpoints to fall back on when the editing gets contentious. As long as neither party to the edit war is a page-patroller, the edit war won't even be visible to 95% of an article's audience. But until then, there is no easy way to minimise the visibility of an edit war except by nipping it in the bud, for which full protection is a sledgehammer solution that does nonetheless work. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Happy‑melon 15:55, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
All right, if you say it works... But in my limited experience it simply makes one side the winner of the edit war, and everyone loses the motivation to discuss it further, leaving the protected version as the permanent one. That being the case, it's particularly important that the admin ascertain that it doesn't look to be the wrong version (as I'm sure they do in most cases, per common sense).--Kotniski (talk) 08:09, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
It does not work in most cases. As I wrote above, I've seen many cases in which the protected version remains stable for a long time after the protection expired. So, the idea that this is only "temporary" is unfortunately only wishful thinking. -- Sebastian (talk) 09:00, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. For example, current dispute over [virgin killer]. When protection expires, I will be reluctant to revert to the obviously stable and agreed version, because a) I don't want to provoke a further edit war, and b) I don't want to appear provocative. Even though I'd just be restoring the status quo. And editprotected doesn't work - admins won't edit when it's considered 'controversial'. This is definitely a problem with current policy. --  Chzz  ►  15:21, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Ideally we would have a list of trusted experts to arbitrate edit wars in particular fields of knowledge. Given that that idea is probably not practical (though it might be worth looking at), we ought to encourage administrators to make common-sense decisions based on the evidence (much as they do in deletion discussions etc.; they don't just count the votes, they use their brains as well).--Kotniski (talk) 16:14, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

(deindenting) Protection isn't suppose to be perfect obviously. I admit that I'm not surprised with the Virgin Killer case. But I still haven't seen any better ideas on how to implement full protection. Choosing a particular version, saying it's "right", and protecting it would be a gross violation of position. I know the next suggestion would be to discuss which version is "right", but you can't do that because that's what the edit war it about. You can't just choose the version before the edit warring starting because it's probably also disputed. The only fair process is to protect the current version, as I said however wrong. Other suggestions become too bureaucratic or are just plain instruction creep. As to whether it "rewards" edit warriors, I don't think it does and if it did there's not much we can do about it (short of stopping protections, which would take an act of Jimbo). It is unfortunate that an arbitrary protected version becomes "stable". The template {{protected}} does say This protection is not an endorsement of the current version; it's too bad that it's not taken at face value. I don't think it was the intention of the protecting admins to do this though. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 20:36, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

It's inevitable that protection will have the effect of endorsing the protected version, regardless of anyone's intentions. But why would it be a "gross violation of position" to decide which version is right before protecting it? You make it sound like the quality of the encyclopedia we produce is less important than a sense of justice among warring editors. The admin has to look at the available evidence - the strength of the arguments advanced by the various parties, knowledge of WP policy, common sense - and make a reasoned judgement, as if they were closing an AfD or some other kind of discussion (except that here the judgement is in principle interim rather than final). Nothing unfair there, no particular danger of instruction creep, and not bureaucratic in any bad sense.--Kotniski (talk) 21:22, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
First, I agree largely with the above. There is just as much danger of an admin being accused of 'taking sides' by choosing the current version as there is if they make an 'informed decision', I think.
Second, lets remember that protection should be very much a last resort. On this note;
  • Many 'extensive' edit wars seem to involve very few people. Surely it would be preferable for the admins to plonk some temp blocks on the editing of the specific page on those editors
  • Furthermore, perhaps there could be an interim step prior to blocking, whereby a page is 'edit-war protected' (or somesuch) - where all edits, when 'save' is clicked, would result in a very clear notice appearing, explaining about edit wars, and asking the user to reconsider their edit. By clicking a confirmation, the editors would be taking a more active role in stating their personal inclination to involve themself in a dispute? A nice explanation of why they should reconsider whether their edit is constructive to the good of the project; links to relevent guidelines, etc. Not sure about the technical side of this idea (how would bots cope? perhaps admins exempt?), but I reckon it might avoid some protections - which would be a good thing, surely? (Unsigned by Chzz)
Those sound like good ideas - don't know if they would be supported by the software, but I guess they could be implemented fairly easily by the developers. However, on the main question of which version gets protected, there seems to be quite a lot of support for a change of policy, so I'll make a specific proposal (below) to enable discussion. (Unsigned by Kotniski)
You seem to be missing the point here. Admins are not judges. When we close an AFD one way it's because of policy, guidelines, and accepted practices. It's not an editorial decision; it's an administrative decision. Choosing any "right" version in an edit war is not an administrative decision. It's an editorial decision, and it's basically someone who has the word "admin" beside their name deciding what is "right" and what is "wrong". Not even the ArbCom gets into editorial/content decisions. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 15:49, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
You're arguing in a circle here, by defining "administrative" and "editorial" to fit with current policy. No reason it has to be that way. Deleting or moving an article, or protecting it "blind", clearly affects content too. Reasoned protection would be no different - it would be based on the same policy, guidelines etc. as AfD decisions. Anyway, the idea has been roundly rejected, so no point discussing it again and again.--Kotniski (talk) 16:12, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposed change to policy

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

It is proposed to replace the sentence:

  • "When protecting a page because of a content dispute, administrators normally protect the current version, except where the current version contains content which clearly violates content policies, such as obvious vandalism or copyright violations."

with the sentences:

  • "When protecting a page because of a content dispute, administrators should make a preliminary judgement as to which version is most likely to gain long-term consensus, and protect the page in that version. That judgement should be based on the arguments advanced by editors in edit summaries and on the talk page, taking into account existing content policies, experience and common sense."

Rationale: see above discussion. Since the protected version is in practice likely to remain stable for some time, it is in the interests of the encyclopedia that it be the "right" version rather than just the version that happens to be on top when the admin performs the protection operation. Admins are trusted to make this sort of decision, analogous to the decisions that have to be made when closing AfD discussions and the like.--Kotniski (talk) 08:35, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Whilst I fully agree with the principle, I think the wording needs work - the para you are talking about is really aimed at editors rather than the admins (as I understand it) - so a bit simpler? And not 'Should'? I'd suggest, perhaps:
"When protecting a page because of a content dispute, administrators will protect the page in a version which, in their opinion, is in the best interests of Wikipedia."
Probably not right, but can we discuss the text a bit before we vote please?

--  Chzz  ►  08:46, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Shorter is generally better, but I'd prefer to spell this one out in a bit more detail, simply because this is going to be read by (often disgruntled) editors, and we don't want to give the impression that we are simply licensing admins to do whatever they please. But if people are happier with your version, I've no major problem with it.--Kotniski (talk) 08:54, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Have to disagree here, what is the "best" version of an article? And how can an administrator determine the best version, without compromising their neutrality, and without the other side shouting "biased!. Sorry, I just think there's too many potential issues to support this change. Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 08:54, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
    • In my longer version above it is explained explicitly how the administrator is to determine the best version. If it's a reasoned judgement, accusations of bias won't hold water. (Obviously this mustn't be done by an admin who is involved in the dispute.)--Kotniski (talk) 09:04, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Completley oppose. If it were easy to determine which of the versions was "right", there wouldn't be an edit war. This has few advantages, none that wouldn't be solved by FlaggedRevisions, and will result in massive wheel wars. Happy‑melon 09:22, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
No-one said being an admin was going to be easy;) But edit warriors by nature don't always respond to reason, so edit wars often continue in cases where a neutral, intelligent and experienced observer (which administrators are appointed to be) is perfectly capable of making a reasoned judgement in favour of one side (or possibly for some neutral version they come up with themselves). If and when flagged revisions comes live, we can review to see what needs to be changed then (depending on what policies are adopted on flagging). But for now we have to make policy in the situation we're in, without flagging. I trust admins not to engage in wheel-warring on a massive scale; can you provide any evidence that this would occur? And yes, this change would have "few" advantages, indeed only one as far as I can see, but a very important one - it would make for a better and more accurate encyclopedia. Some people seem to have lost sight of that goal.--Kotniski (talk) 09:59, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Absoloute opposition to this idea - administrators should not have any sort of editorial control over non-editors. And I say this as an editor myself. IF there i an edit war and there is on side clearly in a minority a short discussion followed by a unprotection request will rapidly solve the problem. ViridaeTalk 10:06, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Not sure I fully understand this, but you obviously inhabit a different world than I do if you're saying that edit wars are rapidly solved by short discussions (and remember that minorities are not always wrong).--Kotniski (talk) 10:17, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Actually you would be surprised how quickly some edit wars are resolved when protection is instated. If they aren't easily resolvable how are admins expected to know the facts better than those already versed on the subject?If it really is a cut and dried issue then an admin could just apply selective blindness until the correct version is instated - and noone would be any the wiser, meaning there are no appearances of bias, clouding the issue. (not a reccomended tactic by the way, but doable in extreme cases) ViridaeTalk 11:13, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Of course edit wars are "resolved" quickly on protection, because people see no further point talking about them, but if they're resolved to the wrong version then the outcome can hardly be considered satisfactory. The selective blindness tactic is what I presume many admins already do, but current policy gives no encouragement to do that, so an admin in a hurry will feel perfectly justified in protecting any old version which doesn't contain obvious faults such as vandalism and copyvio.--Kotniski (talk) 11:33, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
You haven't dealt with many edit wars have you? Once protected, 9 times out of 10 in my experience participants will take it to the talk page if they believe there is a significant cvase for the edits they were tryying to make/undo. And policy does encourage selective blindness in protection occasionally - IAR was written for exactly this kind of situation - and IAR should be applied sparingly, not liberally. Really having one group of unskilled editors with final editorial control of an article in the event of an edit war to the detriment of other unskilled editors (ie comparing citizendium with WP here essentially - there are no expert editors on WP) will only ever create problems. ViridaeTalk 11:44, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Who said anything about final control? No-one's talking about changing who controls what and on what time-scale, we're just saying that the control which is necessary sometimes should be exercised intelligently and not randomly.--Kotniski (talk) 11:52, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose - completely misses the point of the protection/3RR policies. MickMacNee (talk) 10:25, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Explain please. (To me it seems the current policy completely misses the point of building an encyclopedia).--Kotniski (talk) 10:42, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose protection isn't supposed to be an editorial decision, and making it so will make it much more contentious. Right now, complaining about whether the right version is protected is generally out of bounds, and I don't want to change that.--Prosfilaes (talk) 10:33, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

So you don't much care whether Wikipedia displays accurate or inaccurate information, as long as admins are protected from editorial complaints?--Kotniski (talk) 10:42, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose, all it will do is extend the edit war by encouraging further fighting over what is the "correct" version. If it's that easy to tell, an {{editprotected}} will achieve immediate consensus. For WP:BLPs we should continue to apply Clue. Guy (Help!) 10:50, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
If by fighting you mean wheel warring, then I hope the admin community is above that. If you mean further arguing among editors, then that will and should continue anyway, regardless of this proposal. And immediate consensus is just wishful thinking considering the emotional state edit warriors tend to be in.--Kotniski (talk) 11:33, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment Consider this scenario: National news picks up on a controversial page on WP. People flock to the page and start an edit war. Admin locks the page with the controversial part removed. Overwhelming majority of genuinely interested editors are in favor of keeping the page as it was. People attracted to the page through the media scream and shout that 'it should be banned'. After a few days of protection, they go away. Page is unlocked. Consensus reached to keep controversial article. Job done.

The problem is, during the protection, many people have read the media stories, looked at the article, and seen that WP appears to have taken action to remove the controversial material. This contradicts WP:NOTCENSORED - OK, so we (people who read policies and participate in discussions) are aware of why it happened, and that it was temporary, etc. The fact remains, it appears to the rest of the world that WP has engaged in a knee-jerk censorship action. That, to me, is the problem with the current policy. For this reason, I think a) WP:PREFER should change, b) more effort should be made to avoid using protection whenever possible. If admins engage in a WP:WHEEL, we have a problem with our admins, not with our policies. Of course admins have to make decisions. We have to trust their judgement will be NPOV. If not, there are procedures in place. This matter is all about the image of WP to the outside world. This is a chance to improve the encyclopedia, and to please more editors than it annoys. --  Chzz  ►  11:04, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose per HappyMelon and JzG. Stifle (talk) 11:16, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
I never really intended this to be an immediate vote situation with people shouting out Support and Oppose. But if you oppose "per" someone, and their arguments have been answered, it would be more helpful if you could provide counter-arguments (or rather counter-counter-arguments) to show why their points remain valid.--Kotniski (talk) 11:33, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I understand the rationale behind this idea (and I know many admins that use their brain when protecting a page, as they should be expected). However, having this practice set in stone in the policy is not a good idea, imho. -- lucasbfr talk 11:56, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Because you think admins should retain the freedom not to use their brains if they don't feel like it? Or some other reason?--Kotniski (talk) 12:05, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes indeed =) More precisely, in controversial protections, we shouldn't give the right to an admin to protect the page in the states he likes best. We have already enough "omg wrong version rouge palestinian/israel/communism-friendly admin" drama on ANI as it is. Accusations of bias will hold water and fly in the controversial areas. I prefer the WP:IAR status quo (eg: only select a version when it is obvious). -- lucasbfr talk 13:09, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
You should be supporting the proposal then. It's the current policy which enables administrators to protect the page they like best, by timing their protection accordingly. Or to simply not care. The proposal would force admins to explain their actions.--Kotniski (talk) 15:01, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose: While I understand the rationale behind the proposal, I don't see how any one administrator can determine what is a "right" or "best" version or not, unless it is clear vandalism, trolling or BLP vios. seicer | talk | contribs 12:12, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
It's explained in the original proposal how they would do that. It would be based on policy and the arguments presented by editors, just like when closing an AfD or RM debate. They might get it wrong sometimes, but better to be wrong 25% of the time, say, than the 50% you get if you throw the knife blindfold.--Kotniski (talk) 12:21, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose, though I think it's a good idea in principle, I don't think it's compatable with the current use of the protection tool. Protection is an administrative function that prevents damage to the project by halting repeated vandalism or edit-warring on a specific article. Frequently, protection is applied in the midst of this disruption, which is fine because the very nature of protection means that - once editing on the article stops - the problems that caused the edit war can be discussed and resolved without further enflaming the issue by continuing to edit (and revert) the article in question. Protection is not permanent in this context, and there is no deadline - so the need to have the "correct" or "optimal" version protected is minimal, and - as noted above - will probably serve only to enflame the editors involved in the edit war, perhaps making consensus or discussion impossible. UltraExactZZ Claims ~ Evidence 12:32, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
OK, I promise this is my last contribution to this debate for the next few hours at least, but: (1) the fact that there is "no deadline" seems to imply that the need to have the right version on top is important (potentially lots of users are going to read the page before the dispute gets resolved at some indeterminate future time); (2) why should a reasoned administrative decision inflame editors any more than an arbitrary one? If they genuinely care about building a good encyclopedia, they should appreciate the admin's extra effort.--Kotniski (talk) 12:46, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Some points. Many admins I see do not edit articles much, leaving them slightly outside the loop of the editing process. There have been many cases of administrators editing an article while it is protected, that editing often lead to desysop, or sanctions. The idea that someone can come in, read the article, and make a decision that a normal group of editors could not, is pious. As standard editors, with a set of tools to prevent mischief, they should have no higher say then the editors who are currently editing the article. I want to try to understand this fully, and examine this so I will present some situations. If an admin, with no interest in the article, appears to simply prevent further edit warring, they will not have the knowledge, nor expertise in the subject matter to determine some key issues, WP:SYN, which would require the admin to review the entire article, then all of the sources, to decide if such a violation is taking place. In cases of NPOV, with an admin who is not knowledgeable in the topic, they may save to a version that further aggravates the balance, or may not have a version to save to that actually justifies either side of the equation. Cases of BLP are already covered, cases of COPYVIO are already covered. Instances of WP:OR are covered under the same argument as WP:SYN. The admin would have read the entire article and all sources to get the full picture.

The next step is to examine an admin with an interest in the article. An interest meaning they have religious beliefs, political beliefs, or other, that coincide with one side of the debate. The admin with knowledge of topic, say a popular author of a controversial subject. One side of the debate states a SYN violation is taking place, the other side says it is not. They are edit warring over the content, the admin protects the page, then begins reading the content. If the issue is murky, or simply not too easy to discern, or the sources located offline, how does the admin go about deciding? His own judgment may be faulty, or influenced by personal belief. There are two issues now, Wikipedia has in place methods for seeking out 3rd parties for advice, numerous forums and noticeboards for discussing issues of SYN, OR, NPOV, etc. What would normally take place is a consensus would form in one of the prementioned forums. Instead the admin will be deciding what the consensus is, effectively voiding the very basis for discussions on Wikipedia, and possibly at a detriment.

While we would like to assume that an admin would not violate policy, there is a laundry list of incidents it has happened, and no reason to assume that greater abilities would not effectively allow it to radiate further. What is effectively the benefit? The article will appear more balanced to the passerby visitor, or less depending on where they stand on the issue. If a content dispute exists, or edit warring, two parties are battling, with two different beliefs on what is right. How can it be in the best interest of Wikipedia to support one side over the other, the side of the admin, instead of supporting the continued efforts to locate the middle ground by seeking consensus? In dire cases, such as BLP and COPYVIO, the admins are given the power to act to prevent growing issues and possibly legal problems that could stem from the content. I see no actual benefit to allowing an admin decide, over consensus, and other forums for finding that middle ground, what is right. Sorry for the long-winded comments, however I felt I should explore things as deeply as possible. --I Write Stuff (talk) 13:10, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Just a quick reply since I'm putting this snowball on the flames: the admin would not have to research sources in depth, just assess the arguments already put forward, as in an AfD dispute. And the admin would not be given the chance to decide over consensus. The consensus-finding process would continue just as it does now. The only difference would be what is visible to encyclopedia users in the meantime. No-one seems to get this. Sigh :( Kotniski (talk) 15:12, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
  • This proposal is completely antithetical to the widely and consistently recognised principle that admins don't use the tools to determine the outcome of content disputes. Admins may also be editors, but one can only wear one hat at a time. --bainer (talk) 14:28, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
When an admin closes an AfD discussion, is he not determining the outcome of a content dispute? When an admin protects the current version because it happens to be current, is she (this time) not determining the outcome of a content dispute? --Kotniski (talk) 15:12, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose; I see the potential for good behind this idea in conception, but I don't think that anyone can be all-knowing and really know which version is the "more likely right" version. We all have our own personal biases, and while the admin coming to protect the page might not be involved, asking them to then choose one version over the other (unless one version is obviously vandalism, which would get reverted anyway) makes them no longer an unbiased authority, and would only inflame those involved in the edit warring more. -- Natalya 14:52, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
I've explained already why I think a reasoned decision should inflame people less than an arbitrary one, and why the admin is not expected to be all-knowing (even if admins get it wrong 40% of the time, it would still be better than the current policy).
  • I am completely opposed to this proposal. Firstly, and most importantly, it would tempt involved or biased editors who happen to have protection/unprotection bits into gaming the policy. Secondly, it would cause wheel wars whenever some other admin decided that the first protection was on a blatantly wrong version. Thirdly, it would tend to foster accusations of cabalism, since questionable protections would let people claim (whether rightly, merely understandably, or completely fatuously; it doesn't matter) that the page protector was acting abusively. Bear in mind, in circumstances where there's absolutely no question that one version is bogus (blatant vandalism, blanking, unsourced BLP content), the protection policy and actual practice allow and encourage reverting away from that version. The "wrong version" aspect of the policy only applies to circumstances where there is necessarily a question about which version is correct, and in those cases, picking a version to protect on is the wrong thing to do. — Gavia immer (talk) 14:55, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
You are just repeating arguments which I've already answered. No-one seems to reply to any of my points, which just confirms in my own deluded mind that I may be right. But since this proposal is obviously going nowhere at the moment, time to SNOW it.--Kotniski (talk) 15:12, 13 May 2008 (UTC)



The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.


Wikipedia:Autoconfirmed Proposal/Poll

Well, what can I say. Someone resurrected my proposal from last year to overhaul autoconfirmed status. It has already gotten coverage from the Signpost, and is currently leaning towards 7 days/20 edits, a limit I see as reasonable. I hope that people who watch this page will take a moment to participate in the poll. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 16:19, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Can you please explain exactly what the proposal is? Thanks.  Chzz  ►  16:28, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
The proposal is to change who is "autoconfirmed". Right now, after 4 days you're automatically autoconfirmed. In Jan 07, it was announced that we could now require