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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 12.219.74.52 (talk) at 23:17, 1 June 2005. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Archive 1

Sorting this page out

Unprotect the myg0t article

OK, I just spent 4 solid hours sorting this page out. At 34k it had got way' to long, and edting it had become very difficult. No wonder it was so full of errors! I made three major changes:

  • Split off the recently unprotected pages into Wikipedia:Unprotected page to cut the page-length in half. This means you have to make two edits to unprotect a page (which is a pity) but on the other hand, at least you can see what you are doing without going cross-eyed and wearing out your scrolling wheel.
  • Re-ordered the counter-intuitive "newest at top" listings, so that the page order is now the standard "newest at bottom".
  • Went through the protected list:
    • cleaning out a whole stack of no-longer-required protections (mostly Wik vs Anthony stuff)
    • discovering another whole stack of pages that were listed here but had been unprotected ages ago
    • discovering another stack of protected pages that probably should have been unprotected ages ago, but which no-one knew about because this page was so long and disorganised.

In doing this, I came to several conclusions, which I think are worth sharing:

  • Now that I've ruthlessly organised and trimmed, the two pages would probably be short enough to combine again. But it was only the split that made the ruthless cleaning out possible in the first place. (There is still more that could be done, of course. But it should be fairly easy now.)
  • 99% of the page protections are caused by 1% of the users. (Well, probably 0.1% of the users.) If we were more proactive about dealing with problem users, we wouldn't have got into this mess in the first place.

Finally, my apologies to all for such bold and unilaterial action. I didn't actually intend to go anywhere near as far as this, and I carefully made easy revert points so that other users could come along and restore the status quo if desired. But each action seemed to lead to another one and now reverting my changes isn't really practicable, short of several hours work. (I always did tend to get a bit carried away with a good idea.) Tannin 14:09, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I'm struck by your comment that "99% of the page protections are caused by 1% of the users." Maybe this is too simplistic a suggestion, but perhaps there should be a middle way between protecting an article and banning a user: banning a user from editing a particular article, say. If an edit war breaks out between two users, it might be worth banning them from that particular article in order to force them to work out their differences. In the meantime, other editors could get on with developing the article without being caught in the middle of someone else's edit war. -- ChrisO 01:24, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)
That is exactly what I am trying to do as an arbitrator. --mav 01:39, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Are talk pages meant to be protected?

And is it acceptable for an admin involved in a dispute to protect a page? Sam Spade 22:37, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Under some circumstances, (IMHO) yes. →Raul654 22:38, Mar 1, 2004 (UTC)
According to wikipedia:protection policy: "Do not protect a page you are involved in an edit dispute over".
It is not acceptable for an admin involved in a dispute to protect a page. Martin 23:23, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I was referring specifically to talk pages (as Sam's heading indicated). I don't think the policy is supposed to apply to those. →Raul654 23:26, Mar 1, 2004 (UTC)
The policy page states: "In general, pages should not be left protected for very long, and discussion pages should be left open", indicating that protecting talk pages is typically an error.
In rare circumstances, talk pages may be protected for the reasons stated on the policy page: Enforcing a "cool down" period, target of persistent vandalism or persistent edits by a banned user, or investigating a possible bug. This is subject to the same restrictions as articles, so it is still not acceptable for an admin involved in a dispute to protect a page. Martin 00:14, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

There appears to be a problem with what happened on talk:pantheism. Sam Spade 23:25, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia has many problems. Martin 00:14, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Ideally, if an article is experiencing an edit war, the article is protected, and the issue is hashed out in the TALK area. I imagine if the TALK area turns into an edit war, then it would be protected too. Kingturtle 00:16, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Removing unprotected articles from this list

I think an unprotected article should remain on this list for a day. If the article has to be re-protected, it makes more sense to keep that action listed under the same activity....if that makes any sense. Kingturtle 04:41, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Contact us

I think this page should be semi-permanently protected. If you look at its history, it is mostly vandalisms and reversions. Since it's a fairly important page to have in an unvandalized state, I think it should be protected. Dori | Talk 17:45, Mar 8, 2004 (UTC)

  • But wouldn't it be unfortunate to protect a page that starts out saying In case you did not already know, everyone can edit an article on Wikipedia. So if you see something wrong, just click "Edit this page."? Kingturtle 22:51, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)
    • I disagree. Protecting it won't stop people who want vandalise doing so. They will just move on to a less watched page and vandalise that, which is more likely to go unnoticed. There are a large number of pages where the majority of edits are vandalism, including Wikipedia:About and Wikipedia:This page is protected. I don't see that as a reason to permanently protect them. The history shows a number of edits by non-sysops and unlogged in users that were valid edits. Why should these people be stopped from editing the page? Angela. 02:00, Mar 9, 2004 (UTC)

Spam

spam: On Wikipedia talk:How to revert a page to an earlier version I propose modifying the protection policy to allow gentle discouragement of revert wars. Comments? Martin 23:20, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I've made the change to wikipedia:protection policy. Martin

A Reader's Opinion

PROTECTING CONTENT pages (not startpages, licenses eg), affected by vandalism and wars CONFLICTS with the idea of an OPEN ENCYCLOPEDIA. it is better to remove affected pages or simply let the vandalism and wars go on, then UNDERMINING the idea behind this whole project. the way you (the admins) do it now, CENSORSHIP and MANIPULATION become possible. Example: Al Gore Bill Clinton

end of readers opinion. ...posted 09:58, 20 Mar 2004 . . by 194.232.66.26

Mistaken protection

I clicked "protect this page" when I was trying to click "Discuss this page" on Australian archaeology - is there anywhere I should report this? - Texture 02:24, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No. Anthony DiPierro 02:26, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)
No, it happens a lot. Don't worry about it. Just check the Wikipedia:protection log regularly to find mistakenly protected pages and unprotect them. Angela. 10:31, Mar 28, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Protection policy

Nazism was protected without support of policy, please look into this and correct it, thanks. Sam Spade 03:51, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

MediaWiki

Should Template:Test, Template:NPOV be listed? Maybe others similar? --Trainspotter 13:50, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

They are listed. See Wikipedia:Protected page#Semi-permanently protected (system administration reasons). The whole MediaWiki namespace was protected by default when it was first introduced. I expect things will change when the new template namespace comes into effect. Angela. 18:41, May 10, 2004 (UTC)
Oh yes, so they are. D'oh! Thanks. --Trainspotter 11:26, 11 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Do we still need this page?

Wikipedia:Protection log now shows the reason for protection, so do we still need this page? Angela. 19:13, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a page other than this one which shows which pages are protected right now? It's quite hard to work that out from the protection log. --Camembert
Yes, we do. --Cantus 20:19, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:About

I disagree with protecting this page. Protecting it won't stop people who want to vandalise from doing so. They will just move on to a less watched page and vandalise that, which is more likely to go unnoticed. There are a large number of pages where the majority of edits are vandalism, including Wikipedia:Contact us and Wikipedia:This page is protected. I don't see that as a reason to permanently protect them. The history shows a number of edits by non-sysops and unlogged in users that were valid edits. Why should these people be stopped from editing the page? Oh, and didn't I already say this somewhere? Angela. 00:09, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree with your second point, but we can't not protect it just because the vandals will move to a different page. Ilyanep 14:58, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I think the point Angela was trying to make was that it's more likely to be fixed quickly on a high-profile page. --Random|832 17:52, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Protect the page supplying a reason

Is "protection requested via IRC" a valid reason for protection? With no other explanation of why, or who made such a request? I dispute the protection of Adolf Hitler, esp. as there seems to be no reason for protection expressed on the article talk page. Sam [Spade] 20:18, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Semi-permanently protected (user pages)

Might it make sense to allow _all_ users [not just sysops] to A) protect/deprotect their own user pages, and B) edit their own protected user pages? --Random|832 12:20, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Agreed, but don't let them block their own talk pages (Trolls, vandals, etc.) Ilyanep 14:57, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)
No. It's a wiki. Why would you want to stop people editing? What about if I want to fix a spelling, or correct a link after I move or delete a page? A user does not own their user page; they just happen to have more reason to edit it than other users. If you want something only you can edit, why not get your own webpage. That's not what Wikipedia is for. Angela. 06:23, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Who unprotected Saddam Hussein?

Could we get it deleted from here, and could whoever do it explain why they did it? As I expected, the minute it was unprotected, Lir went in and vandalized it again. RickK 19:27, Jul 1, 2004 (UTC)

Material removed from project pages; user: and user talk: pages

The protected page system may be changed in the future so that all users can modify them, but modifications won't go through until a certain amount of time has passed (and/or an admin accepts them). This would reduce the requirements for admin intervention for useful things to happen.

This has been proposed for over a year and lacks consensus, sponsorship, and developer interest. I have moved it here for now. Should any support develop for this idea, it can be moved back. UninvitedCompany 01:56, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Excessive protection of user and talk pages

I am dismayed at the number of user pages that are protected, particularly since many have no significant history of vandalism. Protected pages are harmful, right? I believe that administrators should not protect their user pages merely because they have the capacity to do so. Those user pages that are targets of ongoing, frequent vandalism can and should be protected; others should not.

Also, I note that there are a number of user talk pages that are protected. I believe, strongly, that this is a bad thing, and would encourage the users who have such pages to unprotect them unless there are overwhelming reasons for keeping them protected. UninvitedCompany 01:56, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I strongly agree. It sets a bad example, and is not fair on non-sysops who can't do the same thing. It's also annoying when there is something which needs to be fixed on a page. There is very very rarely any good reason to permanently protect such pages. Sysops should expect a bit of vandalism on their user page. Maybe this should be mentioned at RfA. Angela. 06:23, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Rethinking PP Policy

Wikipedia:Protected page/Draft

What exactly is being "rethought" in this proposed policy? VV 19:26, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
See the page itself. Its quite self-explanitory. -SV

Removal of protection from user pages and talk pages

I have begun a campaign of unprotecting user pages and talk pages for which there appears to be no justification for protection. See meta:Protected pages considered harmful as well as my and Angela's comments above. User and talk pages where the affected user objects to the unprotection are listed here:

  • User:Deb - user reprotected the page herself citing "unwanted amendements" to the page (no vandalism in history)

-UninvitedCompany

policy on protection of user pages

I tweaked the "policy" on protection of user pages, which I had added on July 1.

There has been considerable growth in use of page protection on user pages in the last year, a development I find troubling. As of a year ago, there were only one or two user pages protected. Now there are over a dozen. I believe most such protection is unwarranted.

UninvitedCompany 22:26, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Why? There are no grounds that I can think of for one person to be editing another's user page, and many of these people are consistently receiving vandalism. Ambivalenthysteria 07:46, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)
There are plenty of reasons for other people to be editing user pages. For example, removing underscores, factual corrections, adding interlanguage links, fixing bugs, awarding barnstars, fixing links after a page move, formatting links, adding content, fixing interlanguage links, text corrections, grammatical improvements, removing unnecessary code, adding messages when the user can't get online, correcting formatting, fixing fonts etc etc. Angela. 19:40, Jul 23, 2004 (UTC)

Of course its not a policy issue at all, but its nice to think about. More along these lines, the use of people's particular boxes (like on User:Seth Illys, or User:172's, abstracted to a template, could be made available to everyone on a common page, say Wikipedia:User templates. -SV

Expiration time on protection

Has anyone considered allowing an expiration time on protections? Would be handy for temporary protections due to vandalism. - Tεxτurε 17:14, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

That's a great idea! When the vandalbot was in full rampage I protected several pages, didn't bother listing them here (no time, we had a vandalbot on the rampage) with every intention of unprotecting them in a couple of hours. But I forgot of left them protected for a couple of days instead :-( theresa knott 22:20, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)
As long as it didn't take away the indefinite protection option. Some articles just need to be protected until the parties stop fighting. Ambi 00:08, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

wording of pp entry, npac, george w. bush, anti-american sentiment

I was putting interesting information on there, since it's quite rare and unusual for three pages to be protected in the same day, due to revert wars all sharing the same user, and because protected pages are considered harmfull. It was an effort to get the pages unprotected quicker, by providing access to relevant information. I put in, now, a compromise wording, with indisputable neutrality. However, I think that the relevant issues could be resolved quicker and more judiciously if more access to relevant information was provided. Kevin Baas | talk 23:09, 2004 Aug 8 (UTC)

Your wording, besides being inaccurate and prejudicial, failed to mention that the shared user was User:Get-back-world-respect. The conflict on PNAC was between him and TDC (although I had been involved prior to that), the other two were between me and him. I doubt you're fooling anyone with your claim of pure motives, considering your own deep involvement, particularly at GWB. VV 23:33, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Ad hominem circumstantial is logical fallacy and empty rhetoric. My motives are to respect and protect the policies and guidelines of Wikipedia, including consensus, an equal voice for all contributors, good faith, and neutral point of view. Kevin Baas | talk 05:35, 2004 Aug 9 (UTC)
Posturing is empty rhetoric. The red herring is a logical fallacy, as is proof by assertion. VV 06:28, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Look, you're exercised your right to make allegations, and I've exercised my right to defend my motives. Beyond that, everything else is useless and inappropriate bickering; people can look at the record and make their own judgements. Kevin Baas | talk 14:57, 2004 Aug 9 (UTC)
What you have not defended is your incorrect characterization of the edit wars. VV 23:18, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Additional templates protected

Should other protected templates (such as template:stub and template:disambig) be added to the list of protected templates? --ssd 05:24, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think it is assumed that they are all protected unless listed at Wikipedia:Unprotected MediaWiki messages. Perhaps this should change now that the mediawiki and template namespaces have been split up though. Angela. 21:48, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)

is being vandalised again. Dunc_Harris|☺ 21:19, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Bush, Kerry: Short term page protection?

The recent edit histories of George W. Bush and John Kerry have been a slew of petty vandalisms and their reverts. Barring some major unexpected developments that will necessitate serious additions to their respective articles, I suspect that more of the same is about all we can expect over the next few days. I think temporary vprotected status for both pages to election day might be warrented. Objections, comments? (this same text added at Talk:George W. Bush, Talk:John Kerry, and Wikipedia talk:Protected page). -- Infrogmation 19:34, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I belive that is an excellent idea supported by existing policy regarding protection of pages that are targets of persistent vandalism. I have protected the pages. uc 20:14, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
What if something notable happens? Will the protection continue between the election and inauguration, to keep people from gloating? Gazpacho 20:22, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
The protection can be removed by any admin. Notice my proposal does not suggest continuing the protection later. -- Infrogmation 20:32, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Someone else has supported this on the talk page. I appear to be in the minority thinking this is a bad precendent to set. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 20:25, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Gloating would take the form of a bad edit. The purpose of the protection is to deter vandalism, not bad edits. While bad edits have been a problem in the past on these pages, the present problem is vandalism. Once the election is over, I believe that vandalism of these pages will return to its previous (lower but still considerable) level. I see parallels between the situation on these pages and that on the main page, which was a constant target of vandalism before it was protected permanently. With the number of page views the Bush and Kerry pages are likely to receive in the coming days, it is bad PR for us and poor public service if we permit vandalism to stand even if only for a minute or two. The Kerry page was a recent target of page move vandalism, which was reverted the wrong way, so that the histories had to be merged, making the page unavailable in its proper form for several minutes. This sort of thing is only likely to get worse for the next few days. I am not a big fan of page protection but this brief period on these pages is justified. uc 20:32, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
That would be me. I just see a glut of vandelism between now and the election. `PPGMD 20:51, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I'm not a great fan of it either but if it must be done, then it must be done. Does protection stop page moves by the way? I wasn't aware that it did. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 20:48, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Shouldn't the above discussion be moved to the Talk page? -- Schnee 20:57, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It started out there but was moved here for some reason. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 20:58, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Michael Badnarik is another candidate for next week's election and his page has been protected since Oct 18. Should this protection remain? -- Graham ☺ | Talk 21:00, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I disagree with protecting the Bush and Kerry pages. The vandalisms have been promptly reverted. These are probably two of the most frequently Watchlisted articles in Wikipedia. The total amount of legitimate editors' time consumed in reverting has been negligible, considering how many different people have shared the load. Better to unprotect and just keep swatting flies for a few more days. JamesMLane 22:51, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree that the page being protected and should be protected until at least November 3rd (barring nothing absolutely important). As I think there will be a large amount of vandalism as we closer and closer to election day. PPGMD 20:18, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Overprotection

I can't help but notice that we have a lot of protected pages right now, and to remind people that protected pages are considered harmful. I think we need to be more careful when protecting pages - I've seen a lot get protected over relatively minor edit wars where the admin who protected could just as easily have stepped in and helped mediate a resolution to a dispute. Snowspinner 20:16, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)

Yup. In that same light, it's someone else's turn to go and unprotect all the user pages and "boilerplate" pages that have no history of vandalism, or where they have been protected a long time. I still have scars from last time I did this. uc 20:20, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Yes, I notice though that there were quite a lot that were protected by User:Neutrality on October 20. What is the standard period these things are left before unprotection if there is no indication of a resolution in the article's talk page? -- Graham ☺ | Talk 20:27, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I believe it is traditional to allow a week to go by without any discussion on the article's talk page. In cases where the article has been repeatedly protected, a longer delay may be appropriate (e.g. Surrealism). uc 20:37, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Actually, many of the pages listed by Neutrality on October 20 were not protected on that date but earlier, and he wasn't necessarily the one doing the protecting, he just updated the list on the page. Quite a few of these are the pages affected by the recurring revert wars involving Gzornenplatz, Shorne, and/or VeryVerily, which is now the subject of an arbitration case. If these users get put on revert parole then unprotection should be okay, but unfortunately so far attempts at unprotection have usually led to an immediate resumption of the revert war. --Michael Snow 18:30, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Location of protected page tags

I would like to propose that we now place {{protected}} and {{vprotected}} tags at the bottom of the affected pages. This will make it more unobtrusive, which is important in those instances where high-profile pages are protected, e.g. John Kerry and George W. Bush. Indeed, in any case where a user is coming to the encyclopedia to read an article, rather than to edit it, the protected message is cluttersome.

The requirement for such tags being at the top of articles was instituted before the software was changed to warn administrators when editing protected articles. The idea was that administrators would be less likely to edit protected pages inadvertently (an action usually in violation of policy) if the notice were prominent. Now that the software warns administrators (in bold red text no less) who are about to edit a protected page, this is no longer necessary.

uc 21:57, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This might be reasonable for {{vprotected}}, the reason being that if it's only protected due to vandalism, there's no particular reason to warn the reader that the content may be flawed. With respect to the regular {{protected}} tag, I am inclined to disagree, as a full-blown revert war strongly suggests the article may not be in an acceptable state. Inadvertent editing of protected pages may have been the primary motivation at the time, but I have to think that another consideration is whether the reader deserves to be informed that there are concerns about the content. --Michael Snow 18:22, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

protectedsmall notices and editing protected pages

Several pages have been protected as a result of revert wars involving User:Chuck F. The protected versions are heavily disputed, in some cases reflecting only Chuck F's view against a more consensus or NPOV version. Following Wikipedia:The Wrong Version, everyone involved put up with this. However, some people not aware of the background have edited these protected pages for grammer/spelling, and the protection notices have been swapped for a smaller one. The smaller notice makes it appear that the currently protected versions are endorsed. I don't believe the shorter notice is appropriate except in cases where pages are the subject of obvious vandalism and there is no content dispute. I also think more attention should be drawn to the policy to not edit protected pages. The affected pages in this case are: Libertarianism and libertarian theory and Libertarian League. --172.203.11.105 04:26, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Images protected while on Main Page

I agree with Pakaran's comments on the de facto policy of protecting images on the Main Page and I've added the following line to Wikipedia:Editing the main page: "Images are also temporarily protected while they are featured on the Main Page." -- ChrisO 19:34, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Image:Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych prime minister of Ukraine.jpg

Could an admin please unprotect this no-longer Main page image and change the GFDL tag to únverified? This image was taken from a copyrighted poster, and thus violates that copyright. See User talk:Steschke. Thanks, [[User:Solitude|Solitude\talk]] 12:45, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)

Protection against page moves

Protection against page moves, but not from editing, is now possible (assuming this bug is fixed). Are there any objections to doing this for pages that ought not be moving and often come under attack by page move vandals? For example, the Village Pump, the Sandbox, and VfD. Angela. 23:00, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)

None here. —Charles P. (Mirv) 00:37, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
In fact, since I don't foresee any objections, I've gone and done this. These pages are not likely to need moving without serious discussion beforehand anyway, and when (if ever) that time comes, they can easily be unprotected in advance. —Charles P. (Mirv) 22:41, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Please do. I've had to hunt down lost bits of the sandbox history several times. Pakaran (ark a pan) 22:39, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Will they fix the software at some point to show what kind of protection is in place on the little tab at the top? I almost unprotected a Pump page. Perhaps this now protection could be mentioned in the talk pages of the pages being protected this way, since this discussion isn't very easy to find? --—Ben Brockert (42) 00:51, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)
Do we list them somewhere? I protected a few of the "deletion" pages. -- User:Docu

Protecting archival pages

I've protected several Sollog related archival pages, including the talk archives and Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Sollog. Talk:Sollog has been repeatedly vandalized, and the VfD page has been vandalized several times after the discussion was concluded. Since, unlike the rest of Wikipedia, archival pages are supposed to remain unchanging, I figured that there'd be no problem in premanently protecting these pages: it ensures that they never change (which they shouldn't), and no-one has to clutter up their watchlist with them to make sure that they never, ever change.

So, what's the opinion on this? -- Khym Chanur 04:27, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)

What if someone wants to add a navbox to all the archives of a page that has a dozen archives? What if someone wants to shuffle things around between archives, or move something from an archive to another page? What if someone wants to add a summary to the top of a 150k talk archive? Should they have to bother a sysop for each and every action? And if so, where are they going to do that? (Talk pages don't have talk pages.) By all means protect archives when they're being vandalized, but if you want an uneditable version of a certain page, look no further than the older revisions in the history; nobody can change those without low-level access to the database. —Charles P. (Mirv) 07:31, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Protecting articles from recreation

In the past we have had problems with articles being deleted by VfD and persistently recreated by vandals (dozens and dozens of times). I found that you can effectively prevent this type of vandalism by deleting it to remove history, recreating it with content {{mediawiki:noarticletext}} (the default system message for empty articles), and protecting this new version. The what links here link on that system message can keep track of pages protected by this method. Don't use this unless recreation is a constant problem like it was at André Nilsen and Andre Nilsen. silsor 00:30, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

This is a BOFH solution. silsor 08:23, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)
Indeed. I still don't think this is a very good way to do it. We should be obvious about the page's status and provide a clear message, not obscure them confusingly. Something like Shawn Mikula (though a tag could be devised describing the reason for protection in a better way). -- Netoholic @ 16:40, 2005 Jan 14 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Popular articles

Why has the redirect Wikipedia:Popular articles been protected? Is the protection against some sort of database bug? The discussion Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Wikipedia:Popular articles says its history is corrupted somehow. jni 14:28, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Front page security hole?

I'm not sure if this is a security problem or not. Yesterday, the Image:Humpback anglerfish.png was featured in the Template:Did you know on the Main Page. A local page was created, with some of the copyright info, but the image is actually on the Commons. The local page was eventually protected, but the page on the Commons never was.

Is this a security hole? I assume creating a local page, and protecting it, is sufficient to prevent someone from uploading a local image and thus overriding the version on the Commons (which was my initial concern). But it also looks like a persistent vandal could have just uploaded a new image over the one on the Commons, with the same effect. Would loading a local copy of the image, protecting it here, and then deleting the local copy when the image leaves the Main Page be sufficient?

Since I'm unregistered I have no practical experience with uploading images; I may be mistaken. But given the recent template vandalism and the current lockdown of the Main Page, if it is a problem a solution should be disseminated, at least to the handful of people involved with updating the templates and protecting the images on the front page. In keeping with the security thought obscurity precept, I deliberately didn't ask while it was still in the template; and I posted the question here, rather than on a more high profile page like Main Page talk, or the admin's noticeboard.

68.81.231.127 15:51, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Protected page that isn't in the list

Melanin is protected but isn't in the list.

It was protected by: 06:31, Mar 12, 2005 Jiang (protected due to edit war)

I don't know how to add it to the list properly. RJFJR 20:42, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

Protected Templates

I've just protected Template:Welcome. This important template is visible to numerous new users on their user talk pages. It was recently vandalized with a graphic felatio image. I noticed at least one user thought the image had been put on their own page by someone. I put a note on Template_talk:Welcome in case anyone without admin access has reason to make legitimate edits to the template. Any objections? -- Infrogmation 23:42, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Template:Unverified

Please move Template:Unverified to Template:No source. I can't do this because this template is protected. Thank you. --Ellmist 05:04, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Okay. Thanks again. Have a nice day. --Ellmist 06:53, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"Protected against article re-creation vandalism" subsection

I thought it was really useful to separate out the non-articles that we don't need to unprotect quickly, from the real articles we do need to free, so I put this subsection back. Noel (talk) 12:53, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

While I'm on this topic, I agree with the comments above that using {mediawiki:noarticletext} as the content of recreation-abuse pages is really confusing - it wasn't until I read the entry above that I understood what I was seeing there. Unless there's an objection, I will create a suitable template and modify those pages to use it. Noel (talk) 14:27, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Templates

Copied from Wikipedia:Image copyright tags

Twice now, I've tried to fix minor wording errors in copyright tags only to find them protected. Questions on the talk page have not elicited responses. Protected pages include {{CopyrightedFreeUse}}, {{CopyrightedFreeUse-User}} (but not {{CopyrightedFreeUse-Link}}), {{CrownCopyright}}, {{NationalAuditOfficeCopyright}}, {{NHSCopyright}} (but not {{CanadaCopyright}}), {{Cc-by}}, {{Fairuse}}, and so on.

Why were they protected? Wouldn't some discussion, or at least, an explanation have been nice? And can someone unprotect them please so I can fix (for example) the wording of {{CrownCopyright}} to indicate that it's specifically for UK government material? --Andrew 23:49, Apr 17, 2005 (UTC)

I'm also hoping to get a change of wording into MediaWiki:Uploadtext. --Andrew 13:13, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

It is standard practice to protect templates that serve as legal statements, so as to prevent confusion and argument. There is not particularly any reason why such templates should be easily changeable. I can't see that unprotecting them would benefit anyone.
James F. (talk) 19:19, 4 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

bug (that maybe you already know about)

If an article is move-protected but not edit-protected, and you want to edit-protect said article, you must first completely remove the move-protection, and THEN add both the move-protection and then edit-protection. That is inefficient and makes the article more vulnerable. Kingturtle 16:04, 22 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Or absence of a feature? Anyways, it would nice as well if the protection log would show if the page was protected from editing or moving. -- User:Docu
An absence of a feature is a bug ;) Kingturtle 06:59, 23 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
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