Wikipedia talk:Protection policy

Fully protected pages

Are any pages fully protected besides heavily used templates and the Main Page? --The High Fin Sperm Whale (Talk · Contribs) 04:20, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

• Sure. Short periods of full protection are often applied to end content disputes and force edit warriors onto the talk page.

Currently protected pages are listed at Category:Wikipedia protected pages. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:46, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Do you have any examples of fully protected articles (not including templates)? --The High Fin Sperm Whale (Talk · Contribs) 00:28, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand my previous post. Click on the link and you will see a list of all articles that are currently fully protected. For example, Joseph Schlessinger is currently listed there as it is protected to stop WP:BLP violations from being added. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:56, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

• Perhaps Wikipedia:Database reports/Fully protected articles with unusually long expiries and Wikipedia:Database reports/Indefinitely fully protected articles is what you are looking for? –xeno^talk 21:59, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Editing

People say Wikipedia can be edited by anyone.

I'm glad this is up, because it proves them wrong for some articles at the very least.

It's sad that some people say this site can't be trusted.

I like going here because it has information about, well, anything. It's easily accessible too and easy to understand. I've noticed that some of the things I read seem rather odd and I don't know if it's true or not but most things I look up I know or end up knowing it's true.

Then there's citations for information which I even had to do in school because of plagiarism. Whether those sites can be trusted or not, I don't know, but it's like people wrote down what they know or what they thought they know off the top of their head.

- TetsujinSaiki

Do redirects qualify as salting?

I know salting is officially the protection of a nonexistent page, but I have on occasion (iPhone 4) protected redirects for the same reasons a page would be salted: to prevent WP:CRYSTAL and article fragmentation. I would like a clarification as to the exact classification of these protections, and perhaps for a note of it to be made in the policy. Thanks. HereToHelp ^{(talk to me)} 17:59, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I think you've made the right decision with the iPhone page. It was my impression that salting was more used for non notable pages that keep getting created (think A7), like somebody's garage band. If it's a page that "may" be a future product/sequel of something that already has page(s), then redirecting it back to the main/"first edition" page is probably the right call. -Royalguard11(T) 03:21, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Template protection

This discussion was moved here from Template talk:Information#Bring one parameter in line - request. --David Göthberg (talk) 09:16, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Why did you move the protection template to the template itself? I prefer them on the documentation pages, and that is also what it says on Wikipedia:Protection_policy#Templates. Not that it is an important enough issue to change it back, but I don't see why it has to be moved into the template either. Or did you add it to the template first, and didn't notice that there was one in the documentation already? Debresser (talk) 06:55, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

End part moved here from the other page.

First an explanation to anyone else reading this: {{pp-template}} should be added to all protected templates, it displays a small padlock in the upper right corner and categorizes the page as a protected template. {{pp-template}} automatically detects if a template is semi or fully protected and displays the appropriate padlock. If {{pp-template}} is placed on an unprotected template it also detects that and reports the template into an error category.

Debresser: You want to have the {{pp-template}} in the /doc page of the templates (in the <includeonly> area). While praxis among most admins is to put it at the bottom of the template itself (in the <noinclude> area). Both places have their pros and cons.

1: Admins often forget to add the protection template when they protect a template. Then any user can add it to the /doc page to fix it.

2: Admins also often forget to remove the protection template when they unprotect a template, but then it doesn't matter if the protection template is on the template page or the /doc page since then any user can remove the template in both cases.

3: Users often add or remove the protection template from a template since they think that protects or unprotects the template. So having the protection template on the protected template itself prevents users from removing it when the template is still protected.

4: If users get used to seeing the protection template on /doc pages, then they might start to add it to /doc pages but in the wrong place outside the the <includeonly> area. Thus wrongfully showing the padlock on the /doc pages themselves.

Mostly due to reason 3 above I prefer to put {{pp-template}} on the template page itself when I protect a template. There's no reason for me as an admin to put it on the /doc page. But I find it very okay if users add the protection template to the /doc page if/when an admin have forgotten to add it. I know that some admins prefer if the protection template is never put on the /doc page, but I think it is unnecessary for users to spend time asking an admin to fix it when the user can simply use the /doc page.

--David Göthberg (talk) 09:16, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I see that the section "Templates" has been added to this policy page during the last few months. That section currently among other things contains this text:

In view of this, editors should not automatically add a protection template when working on templates.

It is preferable to place the protection template on a template's documentation page (if available), rather than on the template page itself.

I disagree with both sentences. The first sentence make it sound like it is the protection template that adds the protection, which is a common misunderstanding that we should avoid. And in light of what I explained in my previous message above, I also would like to change the second sentence. Here is my suggestion for those two sentences:

Both semi and fully protected templates should always have the {{documentation}} template, so that non-admins and IP-uses can edit the documentation, add categories and add interwiki links. After a template has been protected {{pp-template}} should be added to it, so it displays a padlock and gets categorised as protected. Admins usually add {{pp-template}} at the bottom of the template page itself, in the <noinclude> area. If a protected template is missing the {{pp-template}} then non-admins can add it to the bottom of the /doc page of the template, in the <includeonly> area.

Since that is a bit long we could perhaps instead add it to Wikipedia:High-risk templates, and use a shorter version here that says something like this:

Semi and fully protected templates should always use the {{documentation}} and {{pp-template}} templates. See Wikipedia:High-risk templates for more on that.

--David Göthberg (talk) 09:16, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

You mentioned four points, two that would be reason to put the protection template on the documentation page, and two that would be reason to add it to the template itself. While in your opinion #3 tips the scales in favor of putting it on the template itself, in my opinion the first two tip the scales in favor of putting it on the documentation page.

It is possible that our points of view are colored by the fact that you are an admin and I am not. I can not add a protection template to a protected template, and may put it only on a documentation page, while you can. Nevertheless, I do not think that putting a protection template should be the privilige of admins, and see that as an additional argument put them (generally) on the documentation page.

In addition, Category:Wikipedia pages with incorrect protection templates is on my daily wikignoming list, and as the man working in the field (the only one doing this regularly, there is a bot also), I can tell you that admins make mistakes with protection templates, on a daily basis. Most of them I can fix, but often I have to ask an admin to do it.

Obviously, in the light of the fact that I disagree with you about the question where the protection template should be placed, I can not agree with the text you proposed.

If you think that the sentence "In view of this, editors should not automatically add a protection template when working on templates" may lead to misunderstandings, then I have no problem with polishing it. Perhaps we should add "Since protection templates do not make a template protected, editors should not etc." Go ahead. Debresser (talk) 12:22, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Regarding this sentence that you added to this policy page:

It is preferable to place the protection template on a template's documentation page (if available), rather than on the template page itself.

It goes against established praxis, and I am disputing your suggestion. So that sentence should not be in this policy, unless you achieve consensus for changing the praxis.

If I understand you right, you want the protection template to only be placed at one place. And I guess your reason for that is that you want everyone to know where to look for it, right? And right, then it has to be on the /doc page, since both admins and non-admins can edit the talk page. But I don't think it is a problem to have two possible places for it, and when possible I think it is better to have it on the protected template itself since that stops removals by users who think that will unprotect the template. By the way, I myself used to add the protection templates to the /doc pages when I wasn't an admin.

I wonder what kind of cases it is you can't fix? Since if the template is unprotected you can remove it from the template itself, and if the template is protected you can add it to the /doc page. Of course, if there is no {{documentation}} template that loads the /doc page, then that first has to be added to the protected template by an admin. But even if placing it on the /doc page was the rule you couldn't have placed it if the /doc page wasn't loaded.

By the way, long ago I suggested a solution that would save us most of this trouble: See Template talk:Pp-template#Merge and automate. But I haven't gotten any response from the guys that code and maintain the protection templates.

And I still suggest we use the shorter text I suggested above:

Semi and fully protected templates should always use the {{documentation}} and {{pp-template}} templates. See Wikipedia:High-risk templates for more on that.

That means we here don't tell where and how those templates should be placed, instead we should write that up at Wikipedia:High-risk templates. Of course, we still need to agree on what to write over there.

--David Göthberg (talk) 13:36, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, you didn't understand me correctly. It is not that I hold that all protection templates should be in one place. It is only that the documentation page is the more convenient location, for the reasons mentioned above. So unless there is a good reason to not have it there (like when one documentation page is used by several related templates which are not all protected) that is what we should advise (but no more than advise).

I don't think we should just refer to Wikipedia:High-risk templates. It is accepted practise to have a short paragraph on a subject in the main article, together with a link to the details on another page. I think the paragraph at present does a good job of summarising the content of Wikipedia:High-risk templates.

Your statement that "it goes against established praxis" is untrue, because a lot of templates have the protection template on the documentation page. I have no statistics, but I think at least between 30-40%. And I did seek consensus here. It was up here on the talk page before I made that edit. I am not at fault that only a few people partook in that discussion. May I remind you that you were on a prolonged wikibreak when this discussion took place. Anyway, it has been up here uncontested for a few months, after discussion, so I think that you would have to show clear consensus to the contrary in order to remove it. Debresser (talk) 16:51, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I searched the archives of this page and it seems you are referring to the two discussions Wikipedia talk:Protection policy/Archive 10#Templates and Wikipedia talk:Protection policy/Archive 10#RfC: Should incorrectly placed protection templates be allowed in user 'sandboxes' (they are directly after each other on the same archive page). Or are there any other discussions that I should know about? The first "discussion" is only a message from you, that doesn't even contain the sentence about the /doc pages. And the second discussion is mostly about if the protection template may be left in the code when working on the code in user space sandboxes.

And regarding that discussion: The correct fix is to <--remark--> the template away, not deleting it from the user subpage. And even better would be to make the template automatically not categorise when on user subpages. Other users and admins should not delete things on a user's pages, that is very rude and tends to scare productive users away from Wikipedia. Admins have many times deleted or blanked my user pages when I was working with templates they didn't understand. Among other things they deleted {{pp-meta}} from my user page when I was building it. It was me who started out that template, but I almost gave up and left Wikipedia since my code got deleted several times while I was testing it in my userspace. So I know how upsetting it can be to have your work removed.

And you failed to answer most of my questions above. And I think you have misunderstood the reasons I list above for why we place {{pp-template}} on the templates themselves, instead of on the /doc pages. I only rarely see the protection template being placed on the /doc pages. And it was not my idea to place the protection templates on the templates themselves, instead that was established praxis long before I became admin. One of the reasons is that placing it on the /doc pages is to convenient, since then experience has shown us that users often remove it to try to unprotect templates. And as I explained, there is no problem for non-admins to remove it from the template page if the template is unprotected, since then the template is unprotected... So again, I ask what cases you mean you can't fix since you're not an admin?

Anyway, most of this will soon be moot, since as I kind of mentioned above, I am planning to update {{documentation}} so it automatically adds {{pp-template}} if a template is protected. And since {{documentation}} should be placed on all protected templates we won't have to think about {{pp-template}} any more.

So again, I would like to add this sentence:

Both semi and fully protected templates should always have the {{documentation}} template, so that non-admins and IP-uses can edit the documentation, add categories and add interwiki links..

Or perhaps with more details:

Both semi and fully protected templates should always have the {{documentation}} template. It loads the unprotected /doc page, so that non-admins and IP-users can edit the documentation, add categories and add interwiki links.

And I still wonder what you mean by this sentence:

In view of this, editors should not automatically add a protection template when working on templates.

I don't understand what you want to say with it, so I can't suggest how it should be changed. The only thing I can say is that it is an unclear sentence that I think will be wrongly interpreted by many users. So what do you mean with it?

--David Göthberg (talk) 02:25, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I have now added code to {{documentation}} so it automatically adds {{pp-template}} to protected templates. See more about that at Template talk:Documentation#Protection template and Template talk:Pp-template#Merge and automate.

So I would now like to remove the following two sentence from the "Templates" section, since they are no longer relevant:

In view of this, editors should not automatically add a protection template when working on templates.

It is preferable to place the protection template on a template's documentation page (if available), rather than on the template page itself.

And instead I would like to add something like this:

Semi and fully protected templates should always have the {{documentation}} template. It loads the unprotected /doc page, so that non-admins and IP-users can edit the documentation, add categories and add interwiki links. It also automatically adds {{pp-template}} to protected templates, which displays a small padlock in the upper right corner and categorizes the template as a protected template.

That's just a first draft of that text, it might need some tweaking or shortening, and I am not a native English speaker.

--David Göthberg (talk) 07:42, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

That was a good idea. And the text you propose is also good. I would add to it: "In view of this, do not add a protection template to templates, unless they have no documentation page and are protected." Or something like that. Debresser (talk) 12:12, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh you are right, I forgot there are exceptions: The stub and flag templates currently don't use {{documentation}}. So we should probably mention the exceptions in some way. Note that {{documentation}} inserts {{pp-template}} even if the /doc page has not yet been created. So I would like to change your text to something like this:

Only manually add {{pp-template}} to protected templates that don't use {{documentation}} (mostly the stub and flag templates).

--David Göthberg (talk) 05:19, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Y Done - I have added the new text. But it might need some tweaking since I am not a native English Speaker.

--David Göthberg (talk) 06:05, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Very nice. There are actually a lot of templates that do not have a documentation page. Debresser (talk) 10:39, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

But most of the templates really should have the {{documentation}} template, so non-admins can add documentation, categories and interwikis later on, even if the /doc page currently doesn't exist.

--David Göthberg (talk) 11:24, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I was talking about the bulk of templates used in articles, that doesn't have protection, nor needs any explanations that would justify a documentation page. Categories and interwikis can be added without a documentation page. Debresser (talk) 12:20, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Adding dispute tags through protection without consensus.

I think it happens, is reviewed broadly, and is found acceptable. I refer to Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive588#Inappropriate_editing_of_a_protected_page_by_Prodego. Hipocrite (talk) 16:17, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I still think the action was unnecessary and served only to further inflame an already heated situation. There is no deadline and initiating a thread on the talk page prior to correcting The Wrong Version remains a best practice imo. –xeno^talk 16:22, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Hey, I agree with you. However, I think it's reasonably evident that we lost. Hipocrite (talk) 16:23, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Hey, I agree with you too. And I don't think policy arguments should be won or lost at the admins' noticeboard (where most admins' main concern is to protect their colleague by finding arguments that whatever he/she may have done is perfectly all right).--Kotniski (talk) 17:40, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

In particular, I've seen pages get protected as a result of an edit war over whether a dispute tag should be there. If we say that admins can add dispute tags without consensus, it means that in such situations, those who are edit warring to put the tag there will generally be favoured. (Maybe some would think that's a good thing - that disagreements among people editing Wikipedia are so important that everyone reading the relevant article needs to be told about them - but I think intelligent and considered use of these tags is what we should be supporting.)--Kotniski (talk) 17:53, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

It depends what is meant by "without consensus" - in particular where some people dispute that there is a dispute, and where tags are added and removed as a result prior to protection. It's complicated by differing views about the status of tags - some have tried to argue that tags are not part of the encyclopedic text (though obviously they affect its interpretation). In general, in the absence of clarifying these issues muchly, it seems best to follow xeno's advice above, and discuss tags on talk, just like anything else, when the page is protected. Rd232 ^talk 18:28, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

If a page is protected because of a dispute, should the addition of a tag stating just that be problematic? I don't see the logic here. I am asking specifically about dispute tags only. Debresser (talk) 20:58, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't object to a tag stating just that (that the page is protected because of disputes). But I don't think that tags saying things like "The neutrality of this section is disputed" should be added automatically just because someone wants to.--Kotniski (talk) 21:06, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

That's the page protection tag. The clear consensus over the ANI section I referenced was that adding {{NPOV}} did not requre consensus because it was "obviously appropriate." Hipocrite (talk) 21:08, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

We seem to be in a situation where the "sentence" Likewise, adding a dispute tag, which helps pointing other editors to the subject under discussion. keeps being alternately added and removed. Can we have some sort of decision on this: what is actually meant here (a verb would help for starters), and do we agree with it? (As I've said above, I don't think that views expressed in an admins' noticeboard thread should be taken as a basis for maknig policy.)--Kotniski (talk) 13:05, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

How many times do we need to see admins edit tags in through protection without so much as a slap on a wrist before policy becomes descriptive rather than proscriptive? Hipocrite (talk) 13:13, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Does it happen a lot? I mean controversially and without consensus, since otherwise it would just be an example of the situations described in the previous sentence, not something additional.--Kotniski (talk) 13:20, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I would be fine with "Sometimes Adminstrators have added dispute tag, such as {{NPOV}} without consensus, though this is often a controvercial action." Hipocrite (talk) 13:23, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Seems acceptable.--Kotniski (talk) 13:30, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

How can adding a dispute tag be controversial? Debresser (talk) 14:13, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Party A - "This article is not NPOV because it fails to adress my theory that Sword-wielding Skeletons were the reason the Greeks won the Peleponisian war." Party B - "Are you kidding me?" Party A - "Nope! I'll edit war about it!" Replace "Sword-wielding Skeletons were the reason the Greeks won the Peleponisian war," with whatever you want. Here are some examples - "Cold Fusion is real." "Global warming is a fraud." "More guns, less crime!" Hipocrite (talk) 14:23, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Ok. In that case I withdraw my objection. Debresser (talk) 15:49, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I've added the sentence as proposed by Hipocrite.--Kotniski (talk) 09:39, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Better use "sometimes" or "possibly" than "often". "Often" is a word that in articles we would tag with {{Citation needed}} or {{Clarify}}. Debresser (talk)

"Sometimes" sounds OK to me.--Kotniski (talk) 16:36, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

• I can't tell what information is being added here. This smacks of "I saw something bad happen, so I'm gonna fix the policy so it can never happen again" syndrome. If there's something meaningful we're trying to say here, there has got to be a better way of putting it. causa sui× 16:44, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

  Er, other way around. I saw something bad happen, I saw it protested, I saw the protest fail, I revised policy to match what happened. Hipocrite (talk) 16:45, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

  This is a bit creepy, don't you think? And I'm still not sure what this addition is supposed to be saying to the rest of us. :\ causa sui× 21:54, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Protecting closed AfDs

Does anyone think it should be standard practice to protect all closed AfDs? They already contain instructions that say Please do not modify it and No further edits should be made to this page. So why should they be editable do anyone, including IPs?

I just came across a long-closed AfD, and it has some vandalism on it that is perhaps a test edit or something by an IP. The vandalism has remained there for almost a year and has not been removed. Pageview stats show the page has been viewed 9 times since the day it was vandalized, and not at all in some months. But this vandalism has not been removed.

Many of these pages are not watched by anyone, or even if they are watched, they are mostly ignored, so this illustrates how harmful leaving them unprotected can be.

This particular case of vandalism is plain old silliness and nothing terrible. But theoretically, one could vandalize a closed AfD in this manner and put all kinds of spam, disparaging remarks, even hate speech there, and it can go unnoticed, and meanwhile, be transferred robotically to other internet sites.

What do others think? Sebwite (talk) 01:44, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree.--Kotniski (talk) 07:20, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

No need. They are closed. That is - unneeded. We keep them for the record. If anything happened to them ever since, that will show in the history. rotection is overkill. Debresser (talk) 08:40, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I think its a great idea, but one unlikely to get much support as there seems to be a huge dislike/fear of protecting pages, even though it adds no server overhead. I'd personally like to see all closed AfDs protected, any on-going AfD being hit with socks/meats automatically semi-protected, and article deleted through AfD protected from recreation without going through DRV for an admin, but that also won't happen. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 13:52, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The other things here you mentioned I see problems with:

1. A lot of articles that get proposed for deletion are created by newbies. Semi-protecting them would often bar the creator from commenting.
2. Deleted pages should NOT automatically be creation-protected. Very often, following a page's deletion, either the original creator or someone else solves the original issues a page had, then is able to recreate it without any problems. This could happen either months later, or on the very same day! Or else, someone may want to create an unrelated article bearing the same title, and this would hinder doing so. Creation protection should be LIMITED to articles that one obsessively recreates multiple times exactly as they are following deletion, and in most cases, it should expire after a certain amount of time (perhaps 30 days) has lapsed.

A good compromise if full-protection cannot be extended to all closed AfDs is to semi-protect all of them. In the example I cited, the page was vandalized by an IP. Sebwite (talk) 15:11, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The major problem, off hand, is that AFDs (especially recently-closed ones) may have DRV notices usefully added, alerting people still watching that page. Rd232 ^talk 13:59, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose - protecting all closed AFDs is an overreaction and will simply add to the already length list of pages that are indefinite semi-protected without good reason. –xeno^talk 15:14, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
• I think this is a case-by-case issue, if there is a particular AFD that is having problems after it is closed, it can be protected through the regular processes. I don't see much benefit to protecting them all as it's not that big of a problem. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:12, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I also oppose this. Debresser pretty much gave the reason above: we only keep AFDs for transparency/record keeping, and if anything looks funny you can easily check the history and select the version by the closing admin. These aren't part of the "public face" like main/template/image. It meets none of the criteria for semiprotection in the first place, and the spirit of s-p is to prevent editing by anon/newbies in cases where blocking would not work (socks, dynamic ip range, etc).

So from what I can tell, you found 1 AFD with vandalism. And for this nonexistent problem you propose using a sledgehammer? If this is RFPP I'd say the same thing I've always said, just revert the vandalism. Not every case of vandalism needs to be solved with protection. Actually, most cases of vandalism don't need protection. If we really need to look at another project example, the ArbCom doesn't even protection their old cases. If an AFD is suffering from major vandalism, then protect it just like you'd protect an article. But protecting all of them is just not needed. -Royalguard11(T) 03:01, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Short-term protection to preserve clarity

I am in need of some advice. After a lengthy process of consultation an RfC is likely commence later this month to assess community support for implementing Wikipedia:Community de-adminship. Experience suggests that the ensuing debate may become heated from time to time, but the discussion will certainly become confused if editors try to amend the proposed policy during the discussion. The proposed policy is currently at Wikipedia:Guide to Community de-adminship and the question is: is it in order to protect this page for the duration of the RfC as a pre-emptive measure? My guess is that in the absence of a specific problem such as edit-warring that the answer is "no", but the question came up and I thought it worth checking. Ben MacDui 17:30, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Maybe I should rephrase the question. As there is no specific prohibition of such a step in the policy, perhaps the answer is that it would be quite acceptable if the reasons were clearly spelled out on the talk page? Ben MacDui 09:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

• There's no specific "prohibition" of this on the policy because that's not what this policy is for. We want you to think critically, take every situation individually, do your best, and then answer for what you've done. We do not want to "clearly spell out the reasons" why you might ever be 'allowed' to protect a page. causa sui× 19:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Point taken, although I meant "if the reasons were clearly spelled out on the talk page of WP:CDA". Ben MacDui 17:18, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Template:Pp-semi-blp is not working correctly

I have twice raised concerns on Template talk:Pp-semi-blp about Template:Pp-semi-blp not working correctly, though I have not received a response. This is probably because the template is not heavily watched, so I am bringing this up here. This template places pages into either Category:Wikipedia temporarily semi-protected biographies of living people (for those with an expiry date specified) and Category:Wikipedia indefinitely semi-protected biographies of living people (those protected indefinitely). However, even with a numerical expiry specified (e.g. expiry=10 February 2010) it still categories pages into the indef category, example. The only page in the temp. category is Rita Cosby, which is actually protected indefinitely, with expiry=indefinite. Can anyone more familiar with template code explain this and possibly fix it? Thanks in advance. Camaron · Christopher · talk 17:58, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Y Fixed, thank you for bringing this to our attention. –xeno^talk 18:22, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

lebron is bad at basketball —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.245.186.162 (talk) 20:43, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

((pp-full-indef))

Today Nickidewbear created {{pp-full-indef}} and added it to the {{protection templates}} which lists the standard protection templates. I have now reverted that addition due to the following reasons:

• I think adding templates to that set should first be discussed somewhere and a consensus reached. The best place for such a discussion is probably this talk page.
• The look of message boxes here at Wikipedia is standardised, and the protection templates are a part of that standard: They use {{pp-meta}} which in turn uses {{mbox}}, and they use standardised padlock icons. And their text content is to some extent standardised. And they also have some standard technical features. {{pp-full-indef}} does not conform to those standards at all.

--David Göthberg (talk) 00:08, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't believe policy even allows for full indefinite protection anyways (except for WP:OFFICE). So the template shouldn't be there because it won't be used. -Royalguard11(T) 00:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

"Only registered users who agree to adhere to a neutral point of view when editing and revising this page may edit and/or revise it. All other editing and revising will be undone promptly and as swiftly as possible". I'm not sure if that's a usual requirement. Perhaps it should be redirected. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 01:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Unless that is supposed to go on the talk page, it's moot anyway. Noone except admins can edit through full protection (and they know the deal anyway). Viridae^Talk 01:17, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh dear, after some looking around I see that Nickidewbear also created the sub-template {{pp-protected/nazi party}}. And he used both of his "home made" protection templates on Nazi Party to try to "protect" that article. See that articles history.

I have no experience in handling such things, so I hope some of you guys can handle this.

--David Göthberg (talk) 02:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

• Deleted the full indef one per WP:CSD#T2, took the nazi one to Wikipedia:Templates for discussion. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Comment_by_Dank

Thoughts? Check out the link to the previous discussion at WP:AN. - Dank (push to talk) 02:00, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

In my own opinion, when a page is fully protected nobody should edit it unless there is consensus to make a certain change. Admins should not edit unless asked by those who have come to a consensus. Obviously an uninvolved admin would be preferable, but if there is consensus then I don't really think it makes a difference. Current policy (I believe) says the current page is always protected (unless it's blatantly wrong, blanked, vandalized, or something in that vein), and history dictates that it will always be the wrong version. Trying to add "stable version" to the policy would just invite a wheel war over which version is the "stable" version. People should be able to handle the wrong version for a couple days.

I don't normally follow ArbCom. I prefer to say away from it. -Royalguard11(T) 03:04, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't have a preference which way we do it, I think either way could work, as long as everyone's clear. The current policy isn't clear at all ... first it says usually protect the current version, then it says (at WP:PREFER) "Since protecting the most current version sometimes rewards edit warring by establishing a contentious revision, administrators may also revert to an old version of the page predating the edit war if such a clear point exists." Even more fun ... it says not to protect the current version if it goes against content policy (and gives examples) ... but one page being discussed at ArbCom for editing-through-protection is WP:BLP ... which is a content policy, so anything that wasn't in the previous stable version (and BLP is a very stable page) automatically goes against content policy, or at least, the previous consensus concerning content policy. - Dank (push to talk) 03:54, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Pre-emptive move protection

The move protection section states that reasons for such protection include "highly visible pages that have no reason to be moved, such as the Administrators' noticeboard". Does this include article pages? I just came across the Brass article, which is move protected although it has never been moved. Is this common practice? --Paul_012 ^(talk) 14:07, 25 January 2010 (UTC)