Wikipedia talk:Rough guide to semi-protection

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[edit] Article quality

Do editors agree or disagree that increasing article quality should justify increasing levels of protection? Just to reiterate my points on the protection policy talk page:

  • High quality articles being vandalized does more damage to the quality of Wikipedia than having poor articles vandalized
  • The higher the quality an article is, the less likely a given edit will improve it
  • High quality articles will not require much editing anyway, so the negative effects should be minimal. In contrast, protecting a start class article or stub may prevent unregistered or newbie users from improving the article.
  • Top articles like FAs have enough to deal with in terms of edit creep (take a look at the number of delisted FAs) without the added burden of vandalism.
  • New editors can always start off on smaller articles to find their feet
  • Giving higher priority for protection serves as motivation for editors to improve an article

This doesn't mean that FAs should always be protected, or that stubs should never be protected, but it is something to weigh up along with other factors, when considering whether to protect (or request protection of) an article. Richard001 11:32, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I see the logic behind it and where your coming from, but it would not be right at least at the moment in my opinion. Protecting what we define as good articles is a slippery slope because it does several things, for example:
* It assumes that some articles are so good that any or most changes will be bad, but all articles, even featured articles aren't perfect and are in a constant state of updating and refining - this is a core principle of what wikipedia is.
* It limits editing of articles especially to new users, and therefore becomes a block to new editors. This is a fundamental violation of User:Jimbo's concept of wikipedia, or at least what I interpreted his views as. One of wikipedia's greatest assests is the absense of cabalism and elitism among seasoned editors, it encourages new people to join the project.
* As most editors begin editing as anon IP's before they sign up, to restrict pages to usernames only would limit the interest of new users, a reiteration of the above point.
* I think there is a flaw with the idea that New editors can always start off on smaller articles to find their feet which is that often, new editors find wikipedia and gain an interest in it by searching larger more mainstream articles, the kind of article that are likely to be protected.
Vandalism is an inherant problem of wikipedia, and not something that will go away with increasing levels of page protection. It seems to be widely seen that our current method of dealing with vandalism is the best; request users cease and desist, inform them of the correct policy, encourage good behaviour and when nessessary block IPs . Despite the size of wikipedia, there remain just over 1000 admins. Increasing the amount of page protection will require many many more admins, the RfA process will then become easier in order to create more admins. Then unsuitable editors will penetrate the sysop levels and gain access to the admin tools which will increase the potential for vandalism at higher levels, something we have been able to avoid due to a very tightly run process. Most vandalism only lasts for minutes on articles though some can go several days or weeks. The real risk we face in my opinion is from individuals inserting what appear to be honest facts into articles which turn out to be completely fabricated mistakes/lies. E.g. changing the date of the moon landing to 1942 or something, such things often go un-noticed by editors but make the encylopedia look unreliable in the public eye. Interesting ideas though, its good to bat these things around every once in a while and see what the school of thought on it is. WikipedianProlific(Talk) 00:27, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

These are basically just arguments against protection in general. If there is a page on a mainstream topic that is a start class, it is better sense to protect it than if it is an A-class article, as there is less to be lost in terms of quality. If you want to argue against this point, put forward an argument for protecting the start class argument over the A-class version. Richard001 01:12, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 50% maximum vandalism?

The essay currently states that 50% of edits being vandalism is the 'maximal proportion', as each vandal edit will be reverted. This is not the case. Semi-protection is often applied after a string of anonymous edits from various IP addresses and sockpuppets, particularly on articles which are not widely watchlisted. For an example see where this protection was applied. There was a flurry of vandalism in the preceding three days - there were 47 vandal edits and 23 reverts - 67% vandalism. -- zzuuzz (talk) 00:36, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

That's a good point - it can vary, and vandals often make several edits at a time to one article, which are then all reverted at once. It's also possible, though probably rarer, for a user not to revert properly but to manually remove the vandalism as they come across it, thereby creating several 'revert' edits for one vandal edit. Richard001 00:44, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Semi-Protection Needed

Yesterday,I tried to have a page semi-protected because of several repeated attempts at vandalism. This was on a page that is a biography on a living person. Yet, this morning some "bot" removed the template saying the page is NOT protected. Apparently, I didn't go about it right. How does one formally go about protecting the page? I really feel this needs to be done immediately. I am referring to the biography for the rock singer Rick Springfield...and people's attempts to vandalize that page with lies re: his personal life. Can someone help me with getting that page protected? Ladycascadia 15:02, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Who does it block

IIRC, semi-protection means that any account with fewer than 300 edits can't edit that page. I wanted to check if I'm really recalling correctly, but I can't find this information. Any help? Thanks. --Gronky 00:46, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

From PROT: Semi-protection disables editing from anonymous users and registered accounts less than four days old. Richard001 07:19, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. --Gronky 10:47, 23 October 2007 (UTC)