Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 02:34, 22 January 2014

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The previous RfC regarding PC2 closed with the following result: There is only a consensus for implementation if and only if an rfc concerning criteria for its use gains community-wide consensus first. I think it's now time to have an RfC over what the criteria for PC2 should be.

Pending changes is a feature that requires an administrator or reviewer to accept some changes to pages before they "go live" (become visible to IP users). It has two levels, referred to as PC1 and PC2. A page configured to use PC1 requires that edits made by new or anonymous users be reviewed, while autoconfirmed users' edits are automatically accepted. A page configured to use PC2 requires that edits made by any users other than administrators or reviewers must be reviewed. The following chart further explains these details:

Extended content

Interaction of Misplaced Pages user groups and page protection levels   Unregistered or newly registered Confirmed or autoconfirmed Extended confirmed Template editor   Admin Interface admin Appropriate for (See also: Misplaced Pages:Protection policy) No protection Normal editing The vast majority of pages. This is the default protection level. Pending changes All users can edit Edits by unregistered or newly registered editors (and any subsequent edits by anyone) are hidden from readers who are not logged in until reviewed by a pending changes reviewer or administrator. Logged-in editors see all edits, whether accepted or not. Infrequently edited pages with high levels of vandalism, BLP violations, edit-warring, or other disruption from unregistered and new users. Semi Cannot edit Normal editing Pages that have been persistently vandalized by anonymous and registered users. Some highly visible templates and modules. Extended confirmed Cannot edit Normal editing Specific topic areas authorized by ArbCom, pages where semi-protection has failed, or high-risk templates where template protection would be too restrictive. Template Cannot edit Normal editing High-risk or very-frequently used templates and modules. Some high-risk pages outside of template space. Full Cannot edit Normal editing Pages with persistent disruption from extended confirmed accounts. Interface Cannot edit Normal editing Scripts, stylesheets, and similar objects central to operation of the site or that are in other editors' user spaces.   The table assumes a template editor also has extended confirmed privileges, which is almost always the case in practice. Other modes of protection: Create protection Move protection Upload protection Office protection Cascade protection view talk edit

Consensus already exists permitting PC1 to be used in situations listed at Misplaced Pages:Protection policy#When to apply pending changes protection. At this time, consensus to allow use of PC2 has been achieved, but it requires that criteria for its use exist, which is what this RfC aims to establish. Jackmcbarn (talk) 23:24, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Proposals

Note: More than one proposal may pass. Proposals are not mutually exclusive unless they contradict each other.

Proposal 1

PC2 should be usable in the same situations as PC1 (i.e. cases of persistent vandalism, BLP violations, or copyright violations), but only if the situations are being caused by autoconfirmed users and blocking them is an ineffective solution. Jackmcbarn (talk) 23:24, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Support (Proposal 1)

1. As proposer. Jackmcbarn (talk) 23:24, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
2. I expect this to be very rare, but slowing down an edit war—in thoughtfully selected situations, subject to admin discretion—is a reasonable use. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:36, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
3. Support This probably won't affect too many pages, but it would be a useful option for certain situations. ~HueSatLum 23:54, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
4. Support We should have this option available to deal with persistent BLP violations, copyright issues, socks, etc. On occasion we get groups of disruptive autoconfirmed users and this would really be helpful. Mark Arsten (talk) 00:20, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
5. Support DavidLeighEllis (talk) 00:52, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
6. Support Ramaksoud2000 02:30, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
7. Support Technical 13 (talk) 02:38, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
8. Support Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 03:09, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
9. Support. MER-C 03:32, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
10. Support. I would add sockpuppetry to the above list, as that's the main reason that PC2 was suggested on WP:AN for some individual articles a while back. But then again, if problems with autoconfirmed users aren't solved by blocking, then the reason is usually sockpuppetry anyway. — Mr. Stradivarius 03:37, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
11. Support. StringTheory11 (t • c) 04:12, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
12. Support. Amitrc7th (talk) 06:12, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
13. Support – Mojoworker (talk) 08:02, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
14. Support. Cheers AKS 08:33, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
15. FDMS 19:56, 9 January 2014 (UTC): (Auto-)Confirmed status shows that a user is not likely a vandal, but not necessarily that he/she knows how to contribute to Misplaced Pages in a sufficient way to make it part of the default version.
16. I've long been skeptical of PC generally, but I think it's settled that we are going to use it,but if it is going to be used, and Mark Arsten's rationale for its use makes good sense to me. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:33, 9 January 2014 (UTC) Modified. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:53, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
17. Support --AmaryllisGardener (talk) 00:26, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
18. Weak Support - I can see where this is useful, but Admin's really need to highly consider before doing a PC2 on a page. It should be used ONLY if Full Protection is the only other option. I am fearful it may be used inappropriately if available. Etineskid(talk) 02:26, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
19. Support -happy5214 02:35, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
20. Support, but even tougher action needs to be taken to vandal-proof and POV-proof Misplaced Pages, at least for articles of a more serious nature. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:43, 10 January 2014 (UTC).
21. Support. — Cirt (talk) 04:38, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
22. Support Weak support. Support Propo 2 more as it's more restricted. --Ankit Maity _{«Review Me»} 11:49, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
23. Support Yep, that's a good proposal..Herald talk with me 13:59, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
24. Support essentially per Mark Arsten. I don't imagine it would be commonly used, but it would certainly be an effective tool to have to help limit disruption in specific instances. --Jezebel'sPonyo 17:34, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
25. Support • Astynax 20:05, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
26. support Epicgenius (talk) 20:30, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
27. Support I particularly agree with Mark Arsten's rationale. Novusuna 22:59, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
28. Support as certain pages have been goldlocked due to autoconfirmed vandalism and BLP violations and this would allow those articles to be open to more editing.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 00:03, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
29. Support — ΛΧΣ 04:04, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
30. Support This still leaves articles open to be edited, unlike the gridlock that full protection can sometimes bring. Canuck 08:47, January 11, 2014 (UTC)
31. SupportTal Brenev (talk) 00:35, 12 January 2014 (UTC)Tal Brenev
32. Support As a frequent patroller of WP:RFPP, I have seen a number of situations where a user requests semiprotection due to sockpuppetry, but adds that that may not be enough because some of the socks are autoconfirmed (i.e. sleeper accounts that wait/make a few good edits until they become autoconfirmed). Thus I think that a stricter type of page protection is necessary to combat particularly extensive sockpuppetry. Jinkinson talk to me 00:37, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
33. Support --Surfer43_¿qué pasa? 03:36, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
34. Support Remsense (talk) 03:52, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
35. Weak Support I am starting to see where this may be necessary, but I feel in general that PC is a bad thing. Jane (talk) 13:21, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
36. Support APerson (talk!) 04:03, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
37. Support as rare as cases may be for use, they DO exist. -- Aunva6 19:49, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

    Can you provide a real (not hypothetical) example of such a case? Ozob (talk) 02:09, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

    I encountered one, once. i think it was about a year ago though, so I don't remember the situation. like I said, they're quite rare. -- Aunva6 05:59, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

    I just realized that we discussed this last year. As your example you gave Emmelie de Forest. The situation was: There were four users who inserted BLP violations over about two months. Two gave up soon after being reverted; one of these used one sockpuppet once. Two others were persistent. One received a block. The other should have received a block, but instead the article was placed under indefinite PC2. The article was soon downgraded to PC1 (since there was no consensus for the use of PC2 on en.wiki). The constructive (or at worst not destructive) edits of several IP users were reviewed during that time. The PC1 expired in August.

    I still don't see this as a success. Placing the article under PC2 did not punish the offending user as he deserved and caused extra work for reviewers. The message of PC2 is: We are afraid to confront BLP violators and would rather hassle everyone else. It's the TSA approach to vandalism. Ozob (talk) 15:58, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

38. Support Dan653 (talk) 01:29, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
39. Support Phil2011.13 1:49, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
40. Support However, I'd like to go on record here suggesting that the number of edits required to be an auto-confirmed user be increased. I have approximately 1700 edits here; it's taken me this long to really understand the complexities of respecting and working with those whom I agree and disagree with, and how best to avoid conflict. An auto-confirmed user should be an informed and experienced editor. Pocketthis (talk) 16:18, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
41. Support I have something over 700 edits, and agree with Pocketthis that experience takes time to accumulate; I still feel like I'm learning new ropes. So, I agree his idea of a status for experienced editors. But current "auto-confirmed" status is already useful; "experienced" ought to be additional, not a replacement. I'm too inexperienced myself to decide how practical implementation would be, or how beneficial overall. But for helping to deal with matters like vandalism and protection, I like the tiered response this proposal offers, and "experienced" looks like it might help support levels of escalation in dealing with problems. Evensteven (talk) 17:15, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
42. Support It's good to have an intermediate level of protection, and this describes a reasonable time to use it.DavidHobby (talk) 13:58, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
43. Support. Jianhui67 05:32, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
44. Support Chris Troutman (talk) 03:52, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
45. SupportCogito-Ergo-Sum (14) (talk) 20:11, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
46. Support. →Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 01:36, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
47. Support. Seems to be a very reasonable criterion for using PC2. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 17:47, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose (Proposal 1)

1. Just to be different. And because I can't think of a situation where doing this would be better than just blocking the known disruptive accounts. Perhaps very rarely, against a very sophisticated multi-IP-address multi-sleeper-account attack, but not as a matter of course. W. P. Uzer (talk) 09:06, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

   "only if the situations are being caused by autoconfirmed users and blocking them is an ineffective solution" Ramaksoud2000 21:15, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

   If blocking them alone is not helping, contact a Checkuser. A concerted autocon-buster attack on an article is almost always sockpuppetry. —Jeremy v^_^v 23:51, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

2. I oppose the use of protected changes in principle because they are too complicated and result in too little benefit when used in addition to the conventional protection system. This applies also to this proposal to introduce rules for an additional flavor of protected changes.  Sandstein  11:45, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

   "consensus to allow use of PC2 has been achieved" Ramaksoud2000 21:15, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

   It hasn't. Look at the page for yourself, and discover that more people !voted against PC2 than for. -- Ypnypn (talk) 00:12, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

   Now you're just lying. 148 supported it and 89 opposed. Ramaksoud2000 04:47, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

   Okay, I must have miscounted. I apologize. -- Ypnypn (talk) 14:46, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

   Yeah, well. Comments matter more than just votes. --George Ho (talk) 09:48, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

   That's true when some comments are policy-based and some are not. Was this the case here? - Ypnypn (talk) 14:46, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

   how are they complicated? i mean, really, there are charts that explian permissions basis quite well. seriously, it's no more complicated than learning wiki markup. -- Aunva6 19:53, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

3. Oppose. WP:ANYONECANEDIT. -- Ypnypn (talk) 00:12, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

   Oh yeah, very nice. A group of backyard friends decide to vandalize using their IP. We allow them and award them a barnstar, "WP:ANYONECANEDIT". That's the point of protecting pages, dude - to prevent edit wars, vandalization, etc. Putting "WP:ANYONECANEDIT" as oppose on a protection policy RfC makes no sense. --Ankit Maity _{«Review Me»} 11:41, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

   Just because protection is sometimes necessary doesn't mean we should greatly expand its frequency and intensity. - Ypnypn (talk) 14:47, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

   That's another issue. But, saying WP:ANYONECANEDIT in this case is obviously invalid. There are more adverse types of vandalism these days so to combat them, it's perfectly safe to implement more. 5 types of protection should be perfectly easy to handle on articles. And we aren't increasing its intensity, we have nothing higher (and thus nothing more intense) than full protection on articles. What you may also be saying is more protected articles will be there. Page protection is always used sparingly. Never, without any reason. We wouldn't have needed sysops for PP-ing then. We are increasing the types so that full protection isn't used uselessly where other methods could be productive. --Ankit Maity _{«Review Me»} 16:19, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

   No, it is the issue. This type of protection is really likely (IMO) to lead to a much more protected encyclopedia. Evidence: Other language wikipedias have gone that way and there have been editors who have made their desire to greatly expland the use of PC2 clear. (All BLPs etc.) Hobit (talk) 14:19, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

   Hey, you read only the first line, did you? For example, there was also more such as And we aren't increasing its intensity, we have nothing higher (and thus nothing more intense) than full protection on articles. What you may also be saying is more protected articles will be there. Page protection is always used sparingly. Never, without any reason. We wouldn't have needed sysops for PP-ing then. We are increasing the types so that full protection isn't used uselessly where other methods could be productive. --Ankit Maity _{«Review Me»} 07:11, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

   Maybe you can answer a question I've had for a while: Can you give an example of a page and a time when PC2 would have been the best situation? Ozob (talk) 14:47, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

   The Biggest Loser Germany would be one. It could do well with PC2 where a reviewer (i.e. a bit experienced user) can add refs or review previous changes and stuff and they are obviously trusted by the admins, so safe edits can be allowed. --Ankit Maity _{«Review Me»} 11:51, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

   All I know about this is what's in the article history, but it looks like a couple of IP editors took it upon themselves to add some tables of questionable value in the article; it doesn't seem (at first glance at least) to be vandalism so much as a misunderstanding of Misplaced Pages. Given that it seems to happen whenever the article is not semi-protected, it makes sense to keep the article under long term semi-protection. But—and maybe I'm just missing something here—when was the article ever vandalized by an autoconfirmed user? It looks to me like all the problematic edits have come from IP users. The last round of semi-protection expired 10 June 2013, and on 11 June 2013 a bot removed the semi-protection template. The article had no edits for two months, but suddenly on 16 August 2013 it was placed under full protection. Why? It seems to me that the article should be unprotected. What am I missing? Ozob (talk) 14:55, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

   That's for the protecting admin to deal with. It was my job to just give an example. --Ankit Maity _{«Review Me»} 07:31, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

   Then I'm going to say that there's no reason to use PC2 on that page. There are still no use cases for PC2. Ozob (talk) 15:15, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

4. The statement that there is agreement to use if there is wide consensus on conditions was a clever way of bypassing the fact that there was not actual consensus to use, because there was no evidence thee would ever be the necessary wide consensus on the set of conditions then or now, that would ever satisfy those of us who think there is no need for it at all, and the condition should be never. DGG ( talk ) 01:35, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
5. I continue to oppose the use of PC2 for the simple reason that the set of circumstances that might actually warrant it are vanishingly rare. Multiple autoconfirmed users vandalizing the same article at the same time? Blocking them all somehow won't stop them because they have a massive army of autoconfirmed socks? Sure, yeah, possible that this may happen once or twice a year. That is not sufficient cause to add this somehwat confusing tool to an already cluttered array of protection options. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:34, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
6. Weak oppose in favor of proposal 2. I feel that PC2 should only be a last resort, if full protection is the only other thing capable of stopping the disruption. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 08:31, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
7. Oppose - Not all autoconfirmed users behave in the same manner as some/many unregistered or new editors. Of course, this proposal should have been limited to BLP violations, but at least another proposal is better. --George Ho (talk) 09:48, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
8. Oppose. Proponents of the proposal have failed to demonstrate that PC2 is needed or that it would work. PC2 relies on the nearly meaningless distinction between editors who hold the reviewer permission and editors who don't. We should be trying to build a more unified community here, not adding additional tiers to the already-complex hierarchy of who can edit what. Rivertorch (talk) 12:15, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
9. Oppose I think PC2 is a useful tool, but this is too broad.—Kww(talk) 13:28, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
10. Oppose although I think that (as Beeblebrox says) this is an "almost never" set of circumstances. Support Proposal 0 (or 4) instead, as "anyone can edit" is more important by far than "very little vandalism". —Kusma (t·c) 19:03, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

    Kusma, The most important provision of this proposal is that it is to be used in cases of major vandalism, and not "very little vandalism". If you think that PC2 goes against "anyone can edit", then so does our entire page protection structure. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 04:54, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

    TheOriginalSoni, apparently you misunderstood me. My apologies for being unclear. My point was that the goal to allow anyone to edit is more important than the goal to minimize vandalism. Page protection is sometimes necessary, but should also be used sparingly. Against harmless vandalism (like replacing pages with "KUSMA IS A WANKER"), I don't think PC2 is needed, reverting and blocking work. Against really nasty vandalism (like replacing a 1.68 with a 1.86 in a science or medicine article), I am not convinced that it will be efficient (unless it is used on every page, which is a terrible idea). —Kusma (t·c) 09:08, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

11. Oppose all attempts to expand the use of Pending Changes.—S Marshall T/C 23:10, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
12. Oppose as slippery slope (!WP:SLIPPERYSLOPE) to top down control of content rather than relying on WP:5. If mere editors don't get to exercise their muscles on the cases where this proposal would apply, then the encyclopedia is weakened, not strengthened. - Neonorange (talk) 09:59, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
13. Oppose far too broad. PC2 is much more restrictive than PC1, more like full protection than semi-protection. We shouldn't be closing off articles this freely. Hut 8.5 12:12, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
14. Oppose Too board. If auto-confirmed users are causing problem, the solution is not to sweep it under the rug with PC2, but to do with the issue with the editors involved directly. PaleAqua (talk) 21:44, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
15. oppose any use of PsC. This is a solution in search of a problem and will _cause_ more problems than it will solve (long queues, leaving "anyone can edit") Hobit (talk) 14:16, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
16. Oppose – PC2 is simply too restrictive. It would add substantially more work to reviewers. Spencer.mccormick (talk) 19:00, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
17. Oppose. Where is the use case for this? In the previous RfC, I asked, even badgered, supporters to give me an example of even one article and one time where PC2 would have been the right solution. They had nothing! There are no use cases for PC2. I invite supporters to show me even one page covered by this proposal where PC2 would be the right solution. Ozob (talk) 19:19, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
18. oppose as per Hobit, Ozob, PaleAqua and others above. Either too restrictive or fails to solve the actual problem. Not a good idea. DES 21:39, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
19. Oppose There are cases where this would be useful, but those cases can obtain PC2 via consensus at WP:ANI* or the new board proposed at Option 5. John Vandenberg 23:54, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
20. Oppose. It seems to me that there are two situations where this proposal might offer something that proposal 2 doesn't: (1) if the community is opposed to a block; (2) if there are a lot of autoconfirmed accounts involved. Neither of those would be provide enough justification for using PC2. So I'm opposed on the basis that proposal 2 is neater. Formerip (talk) 00:44, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
21. Oppose I think PC1 does the job that's needed already and think PC2 is a solution looking for a problem that's just going to add one more layer of bureaucracy. Some people need to spend a little more time outdoors. BcRIPster (talk) 22:44, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
22. Oppose. Too involved. Struggling to understand why blocking the culprits would not be an effective solution. SpinningSpark 23:48, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
23. Oppose PC2 is far more powerful than PC1, ergo it needs a higher use threshold. Also still garbage due to being implemented by developer fiat. —Jeremy v^_^v 20:09, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
24. Oppose Who are these administrators to whom you're giving all this power and authority? This undermines the whole concept behind Misplaced Pages. Nimptsch3 (talk) 09:43, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

    Nimptsch3, These "administrators" already have these powers and authority (to protect pages and block disruptive editors) as elected by the community. This has been a provision of Misplaced Pages since at least 2005. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 04:54, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

    The OriginalSoni I understand, but I'm not a fan of extending/expanding this system. I was on Misplaced Pages for a good while editing personal interest articles (under a different username), and I don't remember there being publicity about a vote. I was never asked to vote...? And who nominates the admins? Other admins? There are 119k active registered users and 1,400 admins. I do oppose further centralizing control of Misplaced Pages. It's reportedly skewed in all sorts of ways as it is (cursory treatment of issues concerning women and biographies of women, extensive articles about video games and stubs about things like NATO, etc.). If this system has been in place since 2005, then I wouldn't expect more of the same to be of benefit.

25. Oppose. I haven't seen any situation described here where these issues being caused by autoconfirmed users wouldn't be more effectively handled by blocking those users, and implementing temporary full protection if there are multiple accounts involved. Implementing PC2 in these multiple-disruptive-account situations would just waste reviewers' time, as Jackmcbarn pointed out below in the proposal 1 discussion section. We're talking about three ways in which users can be very serious problems; I think admins have a duty to deal with them as quickly as possible. Ivanvector (talk) 20:36, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
26. Oppose - Confirmed editors should never be forbidden from editing live. --NaBUru38 (talk) 18:10, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Discussion (Proposal 1)

• It is already in use this way anyway. See Category:Misplaced Pages pending changes protected pages (level 2). Ramaksoud2000 02:30, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
• In response to WhatamIdoing, this should not be used in case of an edit war. Ramaksoud2000 03:32, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
  • I agree. PC2 is a poor choice for stopping an edit war, since it would just waste reviewers' time. Jackmcbarn (talk) 03:34, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
    • Their job would just be to let through edits that don't continue the war, thus enabling continued improvement of other parts of the article. Doesn't sound any more onerous than the task of letting through edits that are not vandalism, or that are not BLP or copyright violations. W. P. Uzer (talk) 09:30, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
      • That's not how PC works. You can only accept a revision if you accept or revert everything that came before it. Jackmcbarn (talk) 21:21, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
        • If you are reviewing one edit at a time—which is plausible, since I don't remember the last time I saw Special:PendingChanges with pages more than an hour or so old—then in practice, that is exactly how it works. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:48, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
          • If an edit war is going on and other editors are adding useful information at the same time, then there wouldn't be only one edit at a time. Jackmcbarn (talk) 01:51, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
• With respect to cases where this proposal would apply but the one below, allowing PC2 as an alternative to full, does not, I'm inclined to add this at a later date, but not initially. With respect to cases where the proposal below, allowing PC2 as an alternative to full, applies, I've already indicated my support below. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 05:38, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
• These options are being presented unnecessarily as a binary. PC2 is good for opening otherwise fully-protected pages. PC2 is also a good measure when PC1 fails (vandalism from autoconfirmed users). I support PC2 as an alternative to full protection when PC1 would be insufficient. Chris Troutman (talk) 05:45, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

• Vandalism from autoconfirmed users can be resolved by blocking the user(s) and, when necessary, getting a Checkuser involved - largely because vandalising a semiprotected article/PC1 target to dodge reviewers is in and of itself a massive red flag that you're dealing with a sockpuppet specifically for the purpose. —Jeremy v^_^v 23:35, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

• • (Ignoring alternatives to support and appose for a moment) It is binary... but it is a two-digit binary. You can support both, oppose both, support one and not the other... Yaris678 (talk)
• In response to W. P. Uzer. The case you mention as "perhaps very rarely ... not as a matter of course". Is exactly the sort of case we are talking about using PC2 in. I don't think any one is thinking of using PC2 as a matter of course. (If someone does want to use PC2 as a matter of course, please speak up now!) Yaris678 (talk) 13:06, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
•  Comment: What are the prerequisites for granting this user right to editors? --Zyma (talk) 14:10, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
• Re Hut 8.5, I don't find it an issue that PC2 is too much like full protection. It's clearly less restrictive than full protection is, and in cases where autoconfirmed users are causing disruption, the only alternative to it is full protection (which is how a lot of articles end up now). Jackmcbarn (talk) 16:02, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

• Both PC2 and full protection prevent anyone who is not a member of a certain restrictive usergroup from editing pages. Anyone who is not a member of that usergroup can only suggest changes. Admittedly we have more reviewers than admins and the mechanism for suggesting edits is better with PC2, but the types belong in the same category and should be treated similarly. I don't have a problem with PC2 being used as an alternative to full protection, as you can see from my comment below. On the other hand the protection policy currently treats PC1 as an alternative to semi-protection, so saying that PC2 can be used in the same areas as PC1 is likely to lead to PC2 being used as an alternative to semi-protection.
• Incidentally it is not true that there are lots of full protected articles. Filtering to exclude things like redirects the list looks like this. There aren't many, and most of those are protected due to edit wars where this proposal would not apply (and where PC2 would be useless). Hut 8.5 21:47, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Proposal 2

PC2 should be an option for pages that qualify for and might otherwise be fully protected instead, e.g., to deal with certain vandalizing sockpuppeteers without locking everyone out completely and letting the socks "win" a big badge of disruption.

Support (Proposal 2)

1. I expect this to be rare. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:36, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Support Technical 13 (talk) 02:38, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
3. Support. I don't think that there would be much difference in practice between this proposal and the first proposal anyway. — Mr. Stradivarius 03:39, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
4. Support. StringTheory11 (t • c) 04:12, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
5. Support as common sense: If an article qualifies for a given protection level, common sense says it also qualifies for any lesser-included level of protection appropriate for that type of page (i.e. articles do NOT qualify for template-protection). It's the "administrator's good judgment" to decide which of the qualified-for levels of protection - including "no protection" - is most appropriate in a given circumstance. (note: I support assuming that this proposal does not mean this is the only way a page can get PC2 protection - that is, someone may come up with a proposal for situations that currently warrant semi-protection or PC1-protection and the community decides it's a good idea) davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 05:17, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
6. Support – Mojoworker (talk) 08:03, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
7. Support. Cheers AKS 08:32, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
8. Rschen7754 08:56, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
9. I suppose so, but as the first commenter says, this situation is going to be rather rare - I don't remember ever seeing a page fully protected due to vandalism, it's generally due to edit warring. In fact, why not allow PC2 in case of edit warring? The reviewers could filter out all edits that continue the edit war, while letting through those that have nothing to do with the dispute. (I mean, of course, only in situations where full protection would otherwise have been appropriate.) It could also be used for those templates and other VIP pages that are currently fully protected. W. P. Uzer (talk) 09:18, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
10. Support I agree with Mr. Stradivarius that this will be essentially the same as #1 in practice. Jackmcbarn (talk) 15:18, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
11. Support Again agreeing with Mr. Stradivarius. Jed 20012 (talk) 19:31, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
12. Support --AmaryllisGardener (talk) 00:27, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
13. Support -happy5214 02:35, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
14. Support. — Cirt (talk) 04:38, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
15. Support. Better to allow as many people to edit as possible without compromising the integrity of the page. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 08:32, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

    (Weak) Support - Until there is another stronger proposal, this is the best as far as I see. George Ho (talk) 09:19, 10 January 2014 (UTC) You know what? After some thought, I must change sides. --George Ho (talk) 04:32, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

16. Support --Ankit Maity _{«Review Me»} 11:48, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
17. Support This is a better solution to full protection in these cases but agree with W. P. Uzer that edit warring is another good example of where this would be effective.Blethering Scot 17:16, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
18. Support - While rare as it may be, this would be a nice alternative to full protection in certain given circumstances. Reviewers are expected to be knowledgeable Wikipedians and could help reduce admin duties for edits on some fully-protected pages like this. Full protection may still be warranted over PC2 in some circumstances, but PC2 could be interpreted as a less-restrictive form of full protection that will allow reviewers to assist in approving specific edits instead of making it an admin-only function. Red Phoenix _{remember the past...} 18:40, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
19. Support. • Astynax 20:07, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
20. Support. ALH (talk) 21:28, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
21. Support. Both this and the criteria outlined in proposal 1 will likely be rare, but the option should be on the table as an alternative to full protection. Novusuna 23:01, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
22. Support because the bad acts of a few disputants, or a single persistent individual, should not hamper the ability of others to contribute.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 00:03, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
23. Support — ΛΧΣ 04:04, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
24. Support - this seems a useful alternative to full protection that would be less disruptive to the encyclopaedia. I prefer this phrasing, but, as others have said, the difference between this and #1 is minimal. Anaxial (talk) 11:27, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
25. Support this would make articles more open rather than less. I don't see it as being used very often because pending changes isn't effective at excluding edits which are not clearly disruptive to an uninvolved reviewer, but it might be useful in a few cases of extreme vandalism. Hut 8.5 12:15, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
26. Support Full page protection alternative --Surfer43_¿qué pasa? 03:41, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
27. Support ///EuroCarGT 03:43, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

    second choice to proposal 4, which I greatly prefer. At least ideally would keep the use of this down to something reasonable and make things easier to edit, not harder. Still has problems (queues not taken care of and likelyhood of expanding beyond these bounds is massive). Hobit (talk) 14:47, 12 January 2014 (UTC) Eh. After some thought, this is a bad idea simply because we are talking about so few articles that adding this complex of an interface is more harmful than could ever be helpful. Hobit (talk) 02:48, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

28. Support Nick Levine (talk) 16:06, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
29. Conditional Support as per Hobit, I support this if and only if Proposal 4 (which i greatly prefer) is not adopted, as this is the most restrictive version. DES 21:36, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
30. Support, using PC2 instead of full protection is a good step forward. John Vandenberg 23:40, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
31. Support. Formerip (talk) 00:45, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
32. Support Ramaksoud2000 02:13, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
33. Support APerson (talk!) 04:04, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
34. Support This equals full protection minus the inconvenience to good-faith editors. —Ed Cormany (talk) 02:24, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
35. Support. MER-C 05:35, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
36. Support - Jr8825 • Talk 11:20, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
37. Support Phil2011.13 1:51 16 January 2014 (UTC)
38. Support Another way to establish a measured response to problems. Evensteven (talk) 17:20, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
39. Support Dan653 (talk) 00:40, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
40. Support It's good to have an intermediate level of protection, and this describes a reasonable time to use it.DavidHobby (talk) 13:59, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
41. Support. Jianhui67 06:17, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
42. Support. Pastaguy12 (talk) 21:22, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
43. Support --buffbills7701 00:37, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
44. Support Chris Troutman (talk) 03:53, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
45. Strong Support Isn't this what pending changes was originally supposed to do? Cogito-Ergo-Sum (14) (talk) 20:13, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
46. Support. →Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 01:37, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
47. Support Nicely provides a more graded response than full protection. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 17:50, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
48. Support per above. Go Phightins! 19:11, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose (Proposal 2)

1. I would support adding socking (only if by autoconfirmed users and blocking them is an ineffective solution) to Proposal 1 (although I think such situations would rarely get past WP:SPI). However, I'm uncomfortable with the opening phrase of this proposal, because it is so vague as to be unenforceable. Proposal 1 is written in what I would call "positive language", in that it specifies where to use PC2; the language here opens the door to anything where we would currently use full protection. How do we decide to use PC2 instead of full protection? Because of WP:DENY? That's unconvincing. A full-protected page cannot be edited by socks (unless those socks are admins!). That's pretty deny-ing. I'm also mindful of the fact that the reviewer flag has been given out carelessly. I'd prefer to be precise about where to use PC2, to start, and we can always expand its use in the future if consensus goes that way. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:49, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

   I oppose this all the more, because Proposal 12 would accomplish something very similar, but do it much better. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:41, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

2. . Oppose It is an additional complication that we aren ot prepared to handle. DGG ( talk ) 01:38, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
3. For the exact same reason as I oppose the first proposal. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:35, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
4. Oppose per my reasons outlined in opposition to Proposal 1. Rivertorch (talk) 12:16, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
5. Per Beeblebrox. I also don't see why WP:DENY should play a big role here. —Kusma (t·c) 19:05, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
6. Oppose all attempts to expand the use of Pending Changes.—S Marshall T/C 23:10, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
7. Oppose as slippery slope (!WP:SLIPPERYSLOPE) to top down control of content rather than relying on WP:5. If mere editors don't get to exercise their muscles on the cases where this proposal would apply, then the encyclopedia is weakened, not strengthened. - Neonorange (talk) 10:00, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

   Neonorange, this proposal does quite the opposite of what you are trying to prevent. In cases where nobody could have edited a page, everybody can now. This makes Misplaced Pages "the encyclopedia that everyone can edit" even more. Ramaksoud2000 23:55, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

   Ramaksoud2000, I oppose any of the proposed implementations of PC2 (how many proposals are we up to now? 9? 10?) that ignore the foundation of Misplaced Pages. At least full protection, the nuclear option, is seen as so extreme that it is very rarely used. PC2 is the Misplaced Pages equivalent of nuclear proliferation... PC2 may be tactical in comparison to full protection, but that's the slippery slope. I had experience in Usenet (.alt) that, to a certain extent, form my views of Misplaced Pages: it is possible for editors to work things out without so much bureaucracy. Restrictions like the 1 revert rule and semi-protection are mainly behavior nudges; full protection is, effectively, a content bomb. - Neonorange (talk) 00:59, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

8. Oppose The critiea needs to be tightened. The fact that socks might think they "won" in certain cases is only tangential to the issue which is making a good encyclopedia. PaleAqua (talk) 21:52, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

   Especially given how few articles are under full protection ( as pointed out by davidwr below ) this seems like it is going to be either a fancy bikeshed for just a very small number of pages and the chance to slide down the slope to protecting a larger number of pages. I've also worried that PC2 might slow down facing the problems that would result in a page being full protected. The big benefit of full protection to me is the cooling down time in heated discussions. Not sure what PC2 buys over that. PaleAqua (talk) 17:37, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

9. Oppose. This is too vague; what happens if the criteria for page protection change? And, why should "letting the vandals win" be a criterion for whether or not a page gets PC2? Ozob (talk) 19:25, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
10. Oppose. Sockpuppets are often not confirmed accounts, and where they are, they can be blocked fairly quickly. SpinningSpark 23:50, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
11. Oppose Overkill for dealing with sockpuppets, and semi-protection is a far better honeypot for them than any iteration of Fragged Revisions or full-protection since autoconfirmation-buster accounts tend to expose themselves by editing a semi'd page. This would just mask the problem. You can't polish a turd and have it be meaningful. (tl;dr: You don't use long-term full protection in articlespace for sockpuppets; you thus shouldn't use the PC equivalent for socks.)—Jeremy v^_^v 20:12, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
12. Oppose - This proposal is way too simple and too complicated. Not to mention too incomprehensible. --George Ho (talk) 04:32, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
13. Oppose: Using WP:DENY as rationale for PC2 is circular logic - the "badge of honour" becomes implementation of PC2 rather than warnings on talk pages. And we would recognize the sockpuppets through WP:SPI and very likely post warnings all over the sockmasters' pages anyway. Unless you're saying "apply PC2 and let the socks be" which I also oppose. Furthermore, as other eds have noted, this reads like "any page that qualifies for full protection qualifies for PC2 also" which is far too broad. Ivanvector (talk) 20:46, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
14. Oppose - Confirmed editors should never be forbidden from editing live. --NaBUru38 (talk) 18:10, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Discussion (Proposal 2)

• I don't really buy the example given in this proposal as distinct from the first proposal, but if this proposal is that PC2 can be used in place of full protection, I note that there was some success during the trials with using PC2 on otherwise fully protected pages such as Misplaced Pages:Contact us. I am generally supportive of such reductions in protection as well as escalations in protection. -- zzuuzz 06:39, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
• This is much better than the first proposal, but I'm not yet in support. -- Ypnypn (talk) 14:49, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
• In reply to Kusma, the goal of some sockpuppeteers is to cause disruption by forcing pages to be fully protected. By letting legitimate edits happen, we deny them that. Jackmcbarn (talk) 19:07, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

  You also give other vandals targets. Do I need to utter the words "JarlaxleArtemis" again so that it'll fucking sink in? (To those unfamiliar: One of JarlaxleArtemis' modus operandi, and a lot of other determined LTA vandals besides, is to harass any editor or administrator taking action against them. Reviewers are no exception to this.) —Jeremy v^_^v 23:29, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

• To everyone opposing this proposal, what makes PC2 so bad that it's worse than full protection? Clearly, it's easier to edit a PC2 page than a fully protected page. Jackmcbarn (talk) 19:27, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Looking back as someone who opposes this proposal, and seeing what I consider to be way too many unexplained "support" !votes, I'll take a stab at answering that. First of all, I think the language about "badge of honor" and so forth isn't really suitable for policy. Second, as noted just below, it isn't like there are a lot of pages where we have full protection and would need to do this. Thirdly, I think the existing language gives administrators inadequate guidance about when, and when not, to use PC2 instead of full protection, other than when the administrator somehow thinks that it's a "good idea" to deal with socks or other disruptive users. The fact is, that such disruptive users are dealt with just fine by full protection (and perhaps by being blocked). I don't accept for a second the claim that protecting the page and making editors actually go to the talk page to propose an edit (oh, the horror!) in any way is a "win" for the socks. On the other hand, being able to keep making bad edits, and make other editors have to take the time to review those edits before rejecting them and being able to move on to the next edit, is handing the trolls a tool that they will learn to love. Remember, it takes a conscientious reviewer some amount of time to review an edit. People who want to disrupt will learn to capitalize on that, and this proposal will hand them the ability to do it over and over and over again. Full protect, and it takes that away from them instantly. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:22, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
• I didn't realize just how few pages are fully-protected. As of a few minutes ago, less than 40 pages in the "article" namespace larger than 700 bytes were fully-protected (700 bytes filters out redirects, softredirects, and other "this is not really an article" pages). About half will have their current protection expire in less than 30 days. Given the low numbers, I'm starting to understand those who oppose PC2 on WP:Misplaced Pages is not a bureaucracy grounds. I also understand and somewhat agree with those who oppose applying PC2 to cases where full would not otherwise be applied, under either WP:CREEP or being one more step away from the ideal of being "the encyclopedia anyone can edit" (don't kid yourself though, the day the first article was placed under any kind of protection was the day Misplaced Pages stopped being "the encyclopedia anyone can edit" - if it ever really was that to begin with). Nonetheless, I'm staying supportive for Proposal 2, in the hopes that the number of pages that wind up being fully-protected in the future is lower with the PC2 option than without. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 01:49, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

  I too love the idea of "the encyclopedia anyone can edit", but that's because I would want it to be "the encyclopedia anyone would want to edit". I think we sometimes have to face unpleasant facts: good things can be attacked. Some protective response is required: no option. I agree by all means that we should always keep an eye on policies like WP:Misplaced Pages is not a bureaucracy and WP:CREEP, because the best protection is a measured protection. We need to keep a balance going the best way we can. Evensteven (talk) 17:33, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

• I wish you would speak English. "Letting the socks 'win' a big badge of disruption"? It took me 3 tries to realize "socks" referred to sock puppeteers. Maybe it would be better to be more clear about the proposal and provide more detail so editors who aren't so deeply involved in Misplaced Pages (but are equally valued members of the community) can participate in the discussion.
• Re NaBUru38 This doesn't prevent confirmed users from editing. In fact, it does the opposite, allowing confirmed users to edit where they would otherwise be unable to. Jackmcbarn (talk) 18:17, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
  • "This doesn't prevent confirmed users from editing." - But it does prevent confirmed users from editing live, and I opoose that restriction. --NaBUru38 (talk) 18:28, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
    • But so does full protection. Why is full protection okay and this not? Jackmcbarn (talk) 18:37, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Proposal 3

• Pending changes level 2 may be applied in the case of continued vandalism, BLP violations or sockpuppetry by autoconfirmed accounts, where blocking has proved ineffective and full protection is the only other option. Should not be used for copyvios as these are still viewable in page history.
• Pending changes level 2 should never be used in a content dispute or possible content dispute. If one develops on a PC2 protected page the PC2 protection should be immediately lifted, and all edits accepted, except those which meet the criteria for editing through full protection.
• Pending changes level 2 may be used in other circumstances with a consensus on WP:AN, WP:ANI or as a general or discretionary sanction at admin discretion. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 09:10, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Support (Proposal 3)

1. Support as proposer. Similar to the other proposals but provides more information and guidance for other situations. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 09:12, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Support. I'm not sure that I agree with the sentence about copyvio, but otherwise, I like this proposal, particularly because of the second and third bullet points. In particular, I like the way it spells out the problem with using it in content disputes. Please remember, a lot of users got the reviewer flag on very flimsy grounds. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:53, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

   If that's true about reviewer flags, then there should be a review of who has them, and how they were given out that way. This proposal does not (or at least ought not) address what is a problem in implementation of user rights (if any). Evensteven (talk) 17:55, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

   No, my point is that (aside from the merits of this proposal, or lack thereof, since it clearly won't have consensus) there is value in explicitly stating that PC should not be gamed in content disputes. The fact that we have many, many users who were made reviewers in a very careless manner is directly relevant to that point, because if someone who cannot be trusted to refrain from using accept/reject in a content dispute has the reviewer flag, then we have a problem. Any reviewer can, in theory, be brought to AN or ANI if they misuse the reviewer right, but it would be better to have clear criteria in place ahead of time. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:06, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose (Proposal 3)

1. In line with my above comments on the other proposals. Vandalism etc. by autoconfirmed users ought to be addressed by blocking. But content disputes (edit wars) seem to be an ideal situation in which PC2 could be beneficially used. W. P. Uzer (talk) 09:23, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

   W. P. Uzer The problem with using it in an edit war is that it can benefit one side over the other and put reviewers in a situation where they need to decide which side's edits they should approve. If they don't approve either side then we have a page history full of unapproved edits in limbo, meaning that any unrelated edits can't be approved without deciding to either allow or not allow the others. Regarding blocking instead, if you have a look at this you can see that it is being used for autoconfirmed accounts where blocking isn't doing the job. There are a few sockpuppeteers who autoconfirm their accounts and then get away with things which are small enough not to get noticed until they are caught, sometimes months later. These are the pages which are fully protected at the moment. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 09:49, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

   An edit can be declined, reconsidered, and accepted at a later time without creating a queue or holding anything up. Technical 13 (talk) 17:24, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

2. I oppose the use of protected changes in principle because they are too complicated and result in too little benefit when used in addition to the conventional protection system. This applies also to this proposal to introduce rules for an additional flavor of protected changes.  Sandstein  11:46, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
3. I oppose this mostly, but not entirely, because I think it's self-contradictory. It recommends using PC2 in the case of BLP problems, and simultaneously removing it instantly if someone says those BLP problems might be "a content dispute". Most non-vandalism BLP problems are content disputes, e.g, "Is this source good enough to support a sentence that the subject has been charged with drunk driving?" And if you put PC2 on a controversial article (e.g., Manning's), then someone declaring it to be "a content dispute" means that there should suddenly be no protection whatsoever, and all edits should be accepted except for edits that would have been accepted if they'd been the subject of an editprotected request? So vandalism should be accepted, but the one sentence that everyone agreed on the talk page was a good idea should be rejected? That doesn't make any sense at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:38, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
4. FDMS 20:00, 9 January 2014 (UTC): I think Pending Changes is useful in many situations, but not in those listed above.
5. My issue is that this proposal tries to do too much. I think each bullet point ought to be a separate proposal, each point being considered on its own merits. WhatamIdoing is correct in noting that points 1 and 2 are contradictory. -happy5214 02:35, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
6. Oppose, same as above proposals with a dose of WP:CREEP that more or less insures it won't work as intended. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:37, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
7. Oppose per my reasons outlined in opposition to Proposal 1. Rivertorch (talk) 12:18, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
8. Oppose, for much the same reasons as WhatamIdoing. We shouldn't be adopting self-contradictory criteria. That said, while point 3 of the proposal probably goes without saying, it can be good to explicitly spell these things out. Novusuna 23:07, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
9. Oppose all attempts to expand the use of Pending Changes.—S Marshall T/C 23:10, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
10. Oppose as slippery slope (!WP:SLIPPERYSLOPE) to top down control of content rather than relying on WP:5. If mere editors don't get to exercise their muscles on the cases where this proposal would apply, then the encyclopedia is weakened, not strengthened. - Neonorange (talk) 10:02, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
11. Oppose the second point is an invitation to wikilawyering (most non-vandalism BLP issues are really content disputes of some kind, as WhatamIdoing says above) and the third point is overbroad and completely inconsistent with how we use protection everywhere else. Hut 8.5 23:50, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
12. Oppose per Happy5214's comment above. Tal Brenev (talk) 00:38, 12 January 2014 (UTC)Tal Brenev
13. Oppose option 5 is better. John Vandenberg 23:42, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
14. Oppose per Happy5214. APerson (talk!) 14:45, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
15. Oppose Considering how prolific sockpuppeteers are, these proposal would cause serious problems regarding lock levels. Most pages would be administrator locked. Phil2011.13
16. Oppose Second bullet: So a page is already under PC2 protection, and then a content dispute arises. The response is to lift protections? Doesn't that just open up the page to further attack while it's already dealing with the dispute? Sounds like a recipe for complications. Evensteven (talk) 18:03, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
17. Oppose as unnecessary and way too prone to abuse in controversial areas. —Jeremy v^_^v 20:16, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
18. Oppose per Happy5214. →Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 01:40, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Discussion (Proposal 3)

• What I imagine would happen in an edit-war scenario is this (assuming we're in a situation where, at present, FP would apply): Instead of FP, the admin initially applies PC2, and warns everyone to stop the edit war. If anyone tries to continue the edit war via pending edits, then firstly the reviewer will reject those edits, and secondly the people making them are at high risk of being blocked for disruption, so hopefully the edit war would then quickly wind down. Meanwhile other unrelated improvements to the article could still be made, as the reviewers would let these through. Of course, if it turns out the review log is still getting clogged with disruptive edits, then FP remains an option (and depending on admin's judgment, it remains an option right from the start). The philosophy has always been, I think, that we try to apply the minimum level of restriction possible. Of course the very act of applying protection during an edit war (whether FP or PC2 or any other) necessarily "favors one side over the other" - one side has its version in place - so that isn't going to change in my scenario. W. P. Uzer (talk) 10:11, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

  Have you ever considered the fact that the edit-warriors don't necessarily care about how the article outwardly looks, only that it's written the way they want it written? PC won't force discussion (which is the entire point of a edit-warring page prot); FP will. —Jeremy v^_^v 23:25, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

• Unrelated point - in the second bullet point of your proposal, shouldn't "accepted" read "rejected"? I can't make sense of it otherwise. W. P. Uzer (talk) 10:20, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
• I think you should use the wording "edit war" instead of "content dispute". A good-faith content dispute that isn't being fought over shouldn't be reason to lift PC2. Jackmcbarn (talk) 15:20, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

"Proposal 0" (Proposal 4)

No change in current policy. PC2 is not to be used.

Support (Proposal 4 AKA Proposal 0)

1. First off, this entire RFC is based on a faulty assumption, that PC2 *should* be turned on, and the only issue left to discuss is the conditions on which it can be used. That is not what the last RFC said. This is a terrible idea that forces every edit to go through pending changes. There has been no evidence that PC2 is ever needed, and in the cases I have found where it has been used, it did not resolve the problems it was intended to fix: edits that should have been accepted were not being accepted without reason, or alternately every edit from an autoconfirmed editor (and most from non-autoconfirmed editors) was being accepted. This software is not being well-maintained or upgraded, it does not integrate properly with VisualEditor. Risker (talk) 02:23, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
2. PC2 is simply not a useful tool and even after lots and lots of discussion (what, like five years now? six?) there has never been a strong consensus for it's use. It's confusing, poorly understood, and of extremely limited use. Frankly I have never seen a situation where it seemed to work better than the other protection options. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:40, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
3. This RfC is heavy on assumption and so light on substantiation that the gentlest breeze might send it scuttling away. No evidence has been provided to show a need for PC2 (never mind a pressing need—any need at all). No evidence has been provided to suggest that editors possessing the reviewer flag are more capable than any other established editors of assessing pending edits. In fact, this RfC bears no evidence of anything at all—except perhaps a faulty reading of the previous RfC and a reckless willingness to rush forward with technological "solutions" to "problems" that haven't even been shown to exist, let alone been proven intractable. In short, no evidence has been provided to suggest that permitting use of PC2 would be a net positive for the encyclopedia or the project. Rivertorch (talk) 12:07, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
4. It's not a big issue for me anymore, but I find everything that Risker, Beeblebrox, and Rivertorch said here to be quite convincing. In the event that PC2 is implemented, I would like the criteria for its use to be narrowly defined until experience shows broader implementation would be a net positive. And I continue to be concerned that a significant number of users were made reviewers without adequate scrutiny. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:46, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
5. Even if this proposal does not gain consensus, I think PC should be used as rarely as possible. Ideally, never. If it is widely used, it will change Misplaced Pages into no longer being a wiki (bad), if its use is very rare, it will be confusing a lot of people for quite a while. Against vandalism, I think the current tools suffice. PC2 can't protect against edit wars without turning Misplaced Pages into a two-class society (with the associated unnecessary "who reviews the reviewers" problems). Full protection is much cleaner for these issues. —Kusma (t·c) 19:00, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
6. Per Risker. There is no previous consensus on this issue and no clear need or application that won't cause more problems than it will solve. It's basically a (problematic) solution in search of a problem. Hobit (talk) 20:50, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
7. Support: Interesting that I need to put this under "support" as I oppose the implementation of PC2 and the spirit behind these sorts of changes completely. I only just came across this now, I have been editing for a long time and never knew there was a "pending changes" process at all. From what I see, this is entirely in response to some users' valid frustrations with vandalism, bad anonymous users, single-purpose non-neutral accounts and such. This isn't going to solve that on top of the tools we have already, it's just going to add another process in which articles that need attention can get tied-up in an ever-growing backlog waiting for someone higher-up in the community's ever-more-complicated hierarchy to approve, which if they are so controversial should have been discussed on talk pages anyway. If you find that last sentence overly complicated, consider it an analogue to what PC2 does to new users wanting to participate in Misplaced Pages. This flies in the face of two (maybe three) of our five fundamental principles, assumes bad faith on the part of newcomers, not to mention automatically biting them, and seems to me to add so much red tape that many quality editors are just going to give up and go away. We don't want that. It's easy to revert vandalism, to identify and educate new users who don't understand the rules, and smite those who are just here to cause trouble. Problematic articles can be dealt with through protection and requested edits. We want to be an encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and PC2 takes us a very large step in the opposite direction. Ivanvector (talk) 21:10, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
8. Support the non-use of Pending Changes. Would support more clarifications, by which I really mean restrictions, on the use of PC1.—S Marshall T/C 23:10, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
9. Support no nukes option: I'm a new editor; I spend an order of magnitude more time on learning how Misplaced Pages works than on making edits, and my average edit takes me about 20 minutes - the Pending Changes level 2 proposals make me wonder if the learning effort is worth it - Neonorange (talk) 10:16, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
10. Support This continues to be a poor solution to the actual problem. What we need is the ability to protect articles against specific editors and IP ranges (where the IP range blocks are effective against logged-in editors). PC2 is a poor implementation of that.—Kww(talk) 19:22, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
11. Support. PC2 seems to have too many problems. James500 (talk) 11:14, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
12. Support The system was shown to be flawed in the trial, and my experiences with editors that have the 'reviewer' bit have not given me any confidence that its implementation would solve anything. What it would do is take the ability from normal editors, such members of a wikiproject, to correct basic errors in an article. Edgepedia (talk) 13:48, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
13. Most aims of protected changes can be achieved by normal (semi-)protection without making Misplaced Pages even more bureaucratic and complicated.  Sandstein  17:34, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
14. Support per Risker. Ozob (talk) 19:27, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
15. Support per Risker. I see no evidence cited to prove or even strongly indicate that PC2 is an improvemetn over metods now in use for any situation. DES 21:33, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
16. Support No critical problem has yet been presented which this would solve better than current methods of discussing changes on the article talk page. Rather, it would be a step backwards in dealing with edit warring, because of the increased confusion that would result. Even PC1 is confusing, and having yet another process would compound it. (It is, in my opinion so confusing at least to me that I will not work as an editor or admin on anything under PC1, because of the problems of knowing exactly what I might be accepting inadvertently. ) DGG ( talk ) 23:38, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
17. Support. So far, I have not heard described a scenario where I would want to use PC2 rather than some other sanction. Against that, I may wish to edit a page, but if I do I may be forced to decide whether to accept the existing pending changes. SpinningSpark 23:59, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
18. Support moving from opposed. Given how few articles ( see davidwr comment in the discussion of proposal 2 ) are currently fully protected... PC2 just seems like a solution without a problem. Even given that there might be more space between articles under PC-1/Semi and those needing full protection, I don't think it's enough for PC2. The more I think about it, I'd also rather see proper branching draft supports than PC-2 for other use cases. PaleAqua (talk) 17:44, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
19. Support unless safeguards are put in place to prevent scope creep. If PC is implemented as a replacement for full-protection, there is a danger that PC2-protection will not be seen as such a big step, leading to over-liberal use. --W. D. Graham 18:56, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
20. Support Society has Wiki- knowledge. They know how current policy works. Changing it won't stop anyone but take away anonymous editors.--Kafkasmurat (talk) 09:00, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
21. Support as an unnecessary complication that will further stratify and divide editors without doing much to solve any problems. As always, I am open to changing my opinion if new evidence is presented; much of my !vote is based on the paucity of evidence provided in support of this tool. ElKevbo (talk) 15:15, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
22. Support It just seams to be overcomplicating the whole protection system, when its actual use would be very limited. Isaac Oscar (talk) 07:59, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
23. Support as this RfC is otherwise a loaded question which automatically assumes PC2 is a given, despite the fact that nobody has come up with a legitimate use case other forms of protection (whether hardlock or CRASHlock) would prove just as effective if not moreso, and the entire driving force behind this being a bunch of editors who seem to have a BLP fetish to the point they'd burn the entire encyclopedia to prevent one frivolous lawsuit from some Z-lister bitching about him being an inch too short in his bio. This BLP maximalism needs to stop, or else Misplaced Pages will not stand. —Jeremy v^_^v 20:21, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

    Another thing I feel I need to point out: This repeatedly asking the same fucking questions on an extremely frequent basis needs. To. Fucking. STOP. —Jeremy v^_^v 20:53, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

24. Support - Yes, violations of BLPs are still problematic, and full protection is too arbitrary and too simple, yet too perfect. But, after reading past RFCs on Pending Changes (and poorly-conceived, long-forgotten Patrolling Review or something), more discussion on PC2 is needed. This RFC was too soon, to be honest. No open discussion was made, as it was in RFC 2011, Phase 1. And there haven't been constructive polls. Seriously, this page is full of promising, yet awfully-executive proposals that may be doomed to oblivion. There were no discussions on what PC2 should apply to. Recently, there were no discussions on expanding usage of PC1, and indef. PC1 has been recently enabled on date pages, like January 31, and somewhat occasionally-edited (not infrequently-edited) pages, like same sex marriage in the United States. I'm sorry to say this, but unless constructive discussions are made, there should be no more proposals, and proposals here will fail. George Ho (talk) 04:43, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
25. Support I'm reluctant to even comment here, because, as Risker notes, this RfC is based on bullshit. With that said, I oppose PC2 full stop. Joefromrandb (talk) 19:16, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
26. Support Per many above. The title of this RfC is telling. Year after year these biased pending changes RfCs are thrown at the community, always worded to assume that pending changes is going to happen. Yet year after year we get on just fine without it. The cycle got tiresome back in 2011. ThemFromSpace 06:06, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
27. Support - Confirmed editors should never be forbidden from editing live. --NaBUru38 (talk) 18:12, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose (Proposal 4 AKA Proposal 0)

1. Oppose long-term, but support by default on a temporary well, technically, an indefinate basis (and ONLY on a temporary basis) until such time as the community agrees on at least one way to use PC2. Wait, I think I just said what the previous discussion said: No PC2 until we agree on a specific proposal to use PC2. It looks like at least one of the proposals on this discussion is going to pass, which is why I'm logging this as an "oppose." davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 04:42, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Oppose, because it's already been used with some success on a very small number of articles after discussion (usually at ANI). So "no change, don't use it" isn't accurate: it would have to be "no formal change and no official limits, so apply IAR as usual". WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:12, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
3. Oppose Seems a useful tool to use against auto confirmed articles subject to socking. --Mdann52talk to me! 13:56, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
4. Oppose PC2 has been used with IAR/one-off consensus on Dinh Bo Linh with success, and would be helpful on Fritz Springmeier (currently fully protected). On both of these pages, new accounts began disrupting them as soon as they hit the autoconfirmed threshold. Jackmcbarn (talk) 15:34, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

   Actually, PC2 was a poor decision for the Đinh Bộ Lĩnh article, because the problematic edits were not coming from auto-confirmed accounts; with respect to the Fritz Springmeier article, the issue is a content dispute, not anything that is covered by pending changes policy at all. Further comments on the talk page. Risker (talk) 06:49, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

5. Oppose – I prefer Proposal 2. Except in the case of edit warring, I don't see how Full Protection is always (or even usually) a better option for dealing with problematic confirmed editors. Mojoworker (talk) 21:54, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

   Oppose (see my Support and Discussion comments) Changed my mind. George Ho (talk) 04:43, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

6. Oppose It should be used.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 00:03, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
7. Oppose Much stronger oppose than the strongest oppose 'ever'. --Ankit Maity _{«Review Me»} 06:23, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
8. Oppose. There are definitely cases where PC2 is useful. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 10:48, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

   Oppose ( moved to support ). While I am against the other current proposals, I could see supporting a stronger proposal with well defined criteria. PaleAqua (talk) 22:31, 11 January 2014 (UTC) Moving to support. With how few pages are fully protected, I don't see the use of PC2 at all. PaleAqua (talk) 17:44, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

9. Oppose Same reason I supported in previous RfC. Ramaksoud2000 05:34, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
10. Oppose. It should be used. How and why need to be established. John Vandenberg 10:50, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
11. Oppose, it should be implemented for more flexibility. Tal Brenev (talk) 14:19, 12 January 2014 (UTC)Tal Brenev
12. Oppose. There are many cases in which PC2 is a very good idea. APerson (talk!) 14:46, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

    Could you provide an example? Ozob (talk) 17:19, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

13. Oppose If we can't use PC2, then for articles on which semi is insufficient to control the disruption, we're left with full or off-label use of template protection. Both are extreme hindrances to editing. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 22:58, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
14. Oppose, PC2 definitely has its merits and should be used, albeit rarely. StringTheory11 (t • c) 01:30, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
15. Oppose. I've seen situations with significant disruption from autoconfirmed users for multiple reasons with some useful edits in between (e.g. Bigg Boss 7 prior to November 2013) where PC2 may be useful. MER-C 04:53, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

    It seems that there were multiple abusive accounts active on that page prior to November 2013, and the main problem was repeated and persistent copyright violations (though there were also some BLP violations). The copyright violators were also sockmasters who used autoconfirmed accounts. On the face of it that looks like a PC2 argument—except that PC2 was tried and didn't slow them down. So in exactly the situation where PC2 is supposed to be of most use, it doesn't work. Ozob (talk) 23:09, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

16. FDMS 08:34, 16 January 2014 (UTC): Successfully in use in other Misplaced Pages versions, also see my comments above.
17. Oppose Chris Troutman (talk) 03:55, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
18. Oppose Misplaced Pages should have a broad toolkit to suppress vandalism. Enabling PC2 would fill a gap in current practice. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 17:41, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
19. Oppose - PC2 can be a better solution than blocking or locking completely. Go Phightins! 19:12, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Discussion (Proposal 4 AKA Proposal 0)

I've moved this from proposal 0 to proposal 4. I don't see any reason this proposal should get to jump to the top of the list. Jackmcbarn (talk) 02:39, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

I do. A "no" here is global in effect (in terms of the proposal). That should be the first choice anyone has to make. It could affect all the other choices. Evensteven (talk) 23:23, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Also, some questions: "forces every edit to go through pending changes" How so? That's not what's being said at all. "This software is not being well-maintained or upgraded, it does not integrate properly with VisualEditor." How is that relevant to PC2? If FlaggedRevs is that bad, PC1 shouldn't be usable either. Jackmcbarn (talk) 02:46, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to undo your change; your proposals are putting the cart before the horse. This is the horse. And I agree that PC1 shouldn't be used either, because it's technically awful, and is also unmaintained and unintegrated with VisualEditor. And since we're the only wiki that uses PC anywhere at all, it's going to stay that way. How about trying a completely different RFC, like "change Pending Changes to Flagged Revisions"; at least that extension's being maintained. Risker (talk) 03:03, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

"change Pending Changes to Flagged Revisions"? Pending Changes here is being provided by mw:Extension:FlaggedRevs. Jackmcbarn (talk) 03:11, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

There are localized changes that are unsupported and make it PC instead of FR. The German and Russian wikipedias have FR applied without the overlying PC changes. Risker (talk) 03:15, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm looking at the code that activates FlaggedRevs here.

// Temporarily give testwiki enwiki's settings instead, for testing PageTriage --Roan May 7
elseif ( $wgDBname == 'enwiki' || $wgDBname == 'testwiki' ) {
        $wgFlaggedRevsNamespaces = array( NS_MAIN, NS_PROJECT );
        # Show only on a per-page basis
        $wgFlaggedRevsOverride = false;
        # We have only one tag with one level
        $wgFlaggedRevTags = array(
                'status' => array( 'levels' => 1, 'quality' => 2, 'pristine' => 3 ),
        );
        # Restrict autoconfirmed to flagging semi-protected
        $wgFlagRestrictions = array(
                'status' => array( 'review' => 1, 'autoreview' => 1 ),
        );
        # Restriction levels for auto-review/review rights
        $wgFlaggedRevsRestrictionLevels = array( '', 'autoconfirmed', 'review' );
        # Use flag "protection" levels
        $wgFlaggedRevsProtection = true;
        # Use current templates/files
        $wgFlaggedRevsHandleIncludes = FR_INCLUDES_CURRENT;
        # Group permissions for autoconfirmed
        $wgGroupPermissions = true;
        # WP:FPPR trial quota
        $wgFlaggedRevsProtectQuota = 2000;
        # Group permissions for sysops
        $wgGroupPermissions         = true;
        $wgGroupPermissions = true;
        # Use 'reviewer' group
        $wgAddGroups = 'reviewer';
        $wgRemoveGroups = 'reviewer';
        # Remove 'editor' group
        unset( $wgGroupPermissions );
        $wgAddGroups = array_diff( $wgAddGroups, array( 'editor' ) );
        $wgRemoveGroups = array_diff( $wgRemoveGroups, array( 'editor' ) );
}

Where is it running modified code? That's all configuration for the standard FlaggedRevs code. (I'm asking the developers now. Sounds like it might be somewhere else.) Jackmcbarn (talk) 03:25, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

After talking with some developers, it seems that Pending Changes is just a name we gave to FlaggedRevs here, kind of like we renamed AbuseFilter to Edit Filter. $wgFlaggedRevsProtection = true; could potentially be seen as the difference, as it controls whether all pages need review, or only pages "protected" to require it. Is this what you were referring to changing when you said to switch to FlaggedRevs? Jackmcbarn (talk) 03:45, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

• I don't know much about the technical side of the code and whatnot, but from discussions I have had with devs and others my understanding was that the WMF would only expend resources on tools we actually use, and they had already put a lot of effort and funds into developing PC only to see the community not use it for several years. I doubt we would see any real updates to PC in any form unless and until it has a strong track record of being used by this project, which as Risker points out is the only project out of all WMF sites to use it. They felt burned by us, and rightfully so, because we asked them for something, they made it just for us, and then we literally took years to really do anything with it. Now that PC1has been in use for a year it may have some chance of getting back on the developer's radar, but PC2 is pretty much a complete loss in my opinion and we should just let it go nd forget we ever knew it existed. I know there are a lot of people on WP who have trouble letting things go, but there's nothing to even be attached to here, the community has never supported this tool and even now I suspect that many of those commenting have only a partial understanding of what PC2 is and how it is different from PC1. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:47, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

• Recently, there are cases of people adding and removing similar contentious materials in BLPs. Some people were whining over full-protection use and duration of protection time. Also, some administrators were reluctant to use full protection, as other alternatives are considered. If discussion about similar material becomes exhaustive during full protection, maybe there is human err... or current system err. But suppressing usage of PC2 won't help matters. As said before, full protection may be too bureaucratic, too absolute, or too weak to handle weak matters, like sockpuppetry. As full protection is appropriate for dispute of similar content, PC2 can be good alternative for weak matters that is considered "appropriate" for full protection. George Ho (talk) 22:12, 10 January 2014 (UTC) Moved from Oppose section. --George Ho (talk) 19:08, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

  If you have issues with autocon-busters, semi-protection is doing its job by weeding out more sockpuppets for Checkusers to scrutinise. Full-protection is overkill for sockpuppetry matters, yes, but so is PC2. Block+CU check to ferret out more socks or abused ranges is the medicine here and anyone who suggests otherwise is a lazy fool. —Jeremy v^_^v 08:09, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

• There are more adverse types of vandalism these days so to combat them, it's perfectly safe to implement more. 5 types of protection should be perfectly easy to handle on articles. And we aren't increasing its intensity, we have nothing higher (and thus nothing more intense) than full protection on articles. What you may also be saying is more protected articles will be there. Page protection is always used sparingly. Never, without any reason. We wouldn't have needed sysops for PP-ing then. We are increasing the types so that full protection or other protection types aren't used uselessly where other methods could be productive. Admins must be definitely aware of all community rules without which if we elect them it would be meaningless. --Ankit Maity _{«Review Me»} 06:28, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

  Give me a definitive use case for PC2 that absolutely cannot be covered by normal administrative tools and community processes, semiprotection, full-protection, PC1, or the edit filter. Stop it with the fucking FUD and start giving definitive answers, or go to fucking de.wp. —Jeremy v^_^v 08:09, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

• I have been inclined to support PC2 on the grounds that having a tier of responses available to respond to threats is preferable to having a short (PC1 only, un-auto-confirmed) or heavy (full page protection) set of tools. Threats intensify and increase in sophistication. But so does bureaucracy. I'm newer here, but quick to pick up on some things. One thing I do understand is that Beeblebrox is right about me: I have only a partial understanding of what PC2 is and how it is different from PC1. Attacks can kill from the outside; bureaucracy can kill from the inside. I tend to favor putting PC2 in place for a trial run: 1 year, 2 years? not longer. Reassess then, and vote again. Let's see what experience accumulates in the mean time. It will make for a better decision in the long run. Evensteven (talk) 00:56, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

  Given the extraordinary amount of discussion that various forms of PC have had (Misplaced Pages:Pending Changes lists organized discussions going back nearly five years), together with the fact that PC1 has been active for a year now and received an extensive trial beforehand, I think the data and experience we need is available. I think the issue is, and has been for a long time, that the Misplaced Pages population has no consensus on the benefits and drawbacks of PC (neither 1 nor 2). There are good, informed, respectable opinions on both sides, and those opinions are held in roughly equal measure (with some natural variance in who votes in any one poll). I'm sure I'm not alone in just wanting PC discussions to be over, but I can't ever see that happening: Supporters will continue to believe that PC is a net benefit, and opponents will continue to believe that PC is a net loss. It would take a very powerful argument to close PC discussions for good, I think, and I don't know what shape that argument could possibly take. Ozob (talk) 04:17, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

  Thanks; that actually makes it easier. I too had noted "good, informed, respectable opinions on both sides". It's good to know you'll have good company either way. Evensteven (talk) 06:08, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

• Maybe I'm missing it. Has _anyone_ put forward an example where PC2 would be a good idea? Hobit (talk) 20:01, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

  None. The only arguments I've seen for it can be summed up as "sockpuppetry is bahd, m'kay?" and "Think of the Z-listers!". The former would be exacerbated by PC2 and the latter is BLP theatre at best. —Jeremy v^_^v 21:09, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

  Well, whenever I ask supporters, I either get no response, or I get an example which doesn't help their case, like Emmelie de Forest, The Biggest Loser Germany, or (in the previous RFC) Audie Murphy. Ozob (talk) 21:47, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Proposal 5

I propose the idea by User:King of Hearts in the original RfC that many users supported: "Create a subsection of WP:RFPP dedicated to PC2 requests. One can put in a request for a page to be PC2-protected, after which a discussion will take place. If consensus is reached, then the page will be PC2-protected." Ramaksoud2000 05:36, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

This can be used along with other methods if multiple methods gain consensus. Ramaksoud2000 16:19, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

To clarify further, this should only be implemented if a set of standards were to gain consensus first. Ramaksoud2000 01:34, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Support (Proposal 5)

1. Support Ramaksoud2000 05:36, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Support as an additional method of having PC2 on a page. I do not support the idea that this should be the only method to get PC2 on a page. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 07:02, 12 January 2014 (UTC) Update Support is conditional on not being abused, see discussion. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 22:21, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
3. Support, as an extra method per davidwr. This new board will help develop community consensus on best practises for when PC2 is appropriate. I think the same board should also process requests to remove of PC2, if the PC2 was added on the same board. That way the decisions to apply and remove are archived together and searchable in the same set of archives. John Vandenberg 10:55, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
4. Weak support, should be used, but along with at least one of the other proposals. Tal Brenev (talk) 14:15, 12 January 2014 (UTC)Tal Brenev
5. Non-exclusive support I like this idea, but it should be implemented along with one of the other methods of allowing PC2, rather than being the only method. Jackmcbarn (talk) 16:26, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
6. Non-exclusive support, along with the specification of narrowly defined criteria. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:34, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
7. Non-exclusive support. I think we can enumerate a few circumstances (which this RfC is trying to do) under which PC2 is eligible without need for discussion. However, because it is a highly specialized tool there will indubitably turn up cases where PC2 would be useful that we didn't think of before (or generalization of said cases would not be applicable). -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 10:37, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
8. Support Weak and non-exclusive. --Ankit Maity _{«Review Me»} 11:38, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
9. Support, though this should not be the only way to get PC2. APerson (talk!) 14:47, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
10. Support Seems reasonable. Should not be the only way to impose PC2.DavidHobby (talk) 14:02, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose (Proposal 5)

1. Oppose we need some kind of criteria for specifying when PC2 should be used, as with other forms of protection and with consensus discussions in other areas. This ensures that standards are applied consistently and fairly. This proposal would allow any article to be protected for any reason if the editors who showed up in the discussion agreed with it. Hut 8.5 10:17, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Oppose any implementation of PC2 (including this) for reasons stated above. Ivanvector (talk) 16:51, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
3. Oppose This would lead to PC2 being applied on a case-by-case basis, without any standard criteria, which is the whole point of this RfC. I agree with Hut 8.5. Novusuna 20:45, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

   Opposition withdrawn after clarification, now neutral. Novusuna 01:03, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

4. Oppose per Hut 8.5. Ozob (talk) 21:35, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
5. Oppose, even if PC2 is implemented, it should be easier and not have another built-in layer of bureaucracy. —Kusma (t·c) 08:59, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
6. Oppose per Hut 8.5 -- Ypnypn (talk) 00:34, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
7. Oppose - Not a good idea. Separating requests is the last thing to do. Increase and reduction are enough sections. George Ho (talk) 02:17, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
8. Sounds like the bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.—S Marshall T/C 05:54, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
9. Oppose ditto S Marshall Evensteven (talk) 06:16, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
10. Oppose. It's not a bad idea (I once proposed something vaguely similar when it became clear that some form of PC would be implemented), but at this point my sense of it is that if PC2 is permitted—and I hope it isn't—the level and nature of disruption should be so extreme that the discussion really should take place at AN where more people will see it, including administrators willing to actively work on identifying and blocking socks while fully protecting the articles. RFPP isn't a particularly good venue for discussing things, and if PC2 proposals occur there it might well become the venue of choice for editors seeking the upper hand in esoteric content disputes and trigger-happy admins "specializing" in PC protection. If we must have PC (1 or 2), it should always be reserved for extraordinary situations where other measures don't work, and the place for dealing with such situations is AN. Rivertorch (talk) 14:25, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
11. Oppose as putting the cart before the horse. This should be done after PC2 is approved, not same time as. —Jeremy v^_^v
12. Oppose - Confirmed editors should never be forbidden from edition an article. --NaBUru38 (talk) 18:13, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Discussion (Proposal 5)

• Commenting on my support, in light of Hut8.5's oppose: Any RFPP discussion should be based on established criteria/guidelines/policies/etc. just as AFD and other discussions are. I trust the closing admin to give weight to opinions backed by established criteria and with the very rare exceptions where WP:IAR should be invoked for the good of the project (and, as with all uses of WP:IAR, at the risk of the administrator's reputation, admin-tools, and even editing-privileges), not give weight to opinions that amount to "WP:BECAUSEIWANTITTHISWAY." davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 22:25, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
• Hut 8.5, Kusma, and Ypnypn, the above would be informative and would clarify that this is non-exclusive and a set of standards would be made if one of the first two proposals pass. If no set of standards pass, then I believe this would be moot. Ramaksoud2000 01:34, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

• The whole point of this RfC is to come up with a set of standards. In any case I don't see why we should vary our usual approach to protection in this case, and we don't have these consensus discussions about protecting articles with any other kind of protection. The discussion would be somewhat pointless in that the closing administrator would have the authority to implement the result on their own if there is a policy justification for it. Hut 8.5 07:41, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Proposal 6 (withdrawn)

Proposal 7

The use of PC2 for longer than 1 year on any page must be reviewed by an administrator and/or by a community discussion at least once a year, excluding protection set under the authority of the Arbitration Committee or a higher authority.

Clarifying notes:

• Existing tools like Template:Update after exist to make tracking such things relatively easy. I say this to deflect opposition based purely on the idea that "it would take extra work to identify such pages."
• This is intended to make sure that long-term/indef settings don't get forgotten about. It is not intended to say "you can't use PC2 on a long-term basis."
• For cases where PC2 was imposed under the authority of the Arbitration Committee or a higher authority, annual review is generally a good idea but this proposal is not meant to tie their hands.

davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 01:45, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Support (Proposal 7)

1. Support as proposing editor. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 01:45, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Support PaleAqua (talk) 02:28, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
3. This seems feasible, and would help provide confidence in its use. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:24, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
4. Support Why not? Ramaksoud2000 00:56, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
5. Support. John Vandenberg 16:01, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
6. Conditional support only if a similar proposal is passed for full protection. Otherwise we end up with a totally illogical situation where a stronger form of protection requires less work to maintain. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 18:28, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
7. Support. It would be best if we did this for all forms of protection, but we have to start somewhere. -- Ypnypn (talk) 20:46, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
8. Support — ΛΧΣ 01:17, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
9. Support --AmaryllisGardener (talk) 01:18, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
10. Support George Ho (talk) 02:24, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
11. Support If we are to have such things at all. DES 10:04, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
12. Support Phil2011.13 (talk)
13. Support Amitrc7th (talk) 15:39, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
14. Support Evensteven (talk) 06:18, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
15. Support: I agree with King of Hearts that this should also apply to full protection. I also believe that page protection that lasts beyond a cooling off period of a couple of months often indicates tendentious editing on the part of one or more editors that would better be resolved by long-term topic bans. • Astynax 18:15, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
16. Support also apply to full protection. --Surfer43_¿qué pasa? 23:57, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
17. Support Seems like a good safeguard Cogito-Ergo-Sum (14) (talk) 20:11, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose (Proposal 7)

1. I don't really want to see any articles under PC2 for a year, much less longer. But if someone were to decide that this were appropriate for a page, especially a non-article page (e.g., downgrading full protection on some SPIs to PC2), then I'm unconvinced that this proposal is a good idea. For one thing, the bar for multi-year PC2 should not be higher than for multi-year full protection.
   I'm also concerned about the bureaucratic hassle: is the benefit worth the time and hassle, or is this going to turn into a rubber-stamp brigade? Imagine what would happen if you systematically nominated every single fully protected page for routine review. People would stop paying attention, start !voting to leave the settings alone, and start yelling at you after the first few dozen (just one or two days into the review cycle). But if you bring them one, or a couple, that you believe need to be changed, then you get a thoughtful response. I don't have any reason to think that the community's tolerance for reviewing PC2 pages based on an arbitrary deadline is going to be any different.
   Finally, it can be gamed with not much effort: put the page under PC2 for 364 days, and add a note to your calendar to re-set it later, or keep it on your watchlist and reset protection with the first problematic edit after it expires. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:36, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Oppose If you're using the equivalent of full-protection on an article for longer than 30 days continuously, you need to have your tools revoked. Full-protection is NOT for long-term use in articlespace for a good reason, and it stands to reason PC2 also needs to follow that paradigm, for much the same reasons. —Jeremy v^_^v 20:25, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
3. Oppose Honestly, I like what the Germans are doing. I'd like to lock everything down. Chris Troutman (talk) 03:58, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Discussion (Proposal 7)

If this happened for PC2, I'd want to see it for full protection (in the article namespace) as well. Jackmcbarn (talk) 03:42, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

I would as well, but that's another discussion for another page, and another time. And yes, I would consider this proposal "passing" as a sign that it might be time to have that discussion. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 21:27, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

This proposal seems like a good idea, and it would be even more beneficial for full protection. Ramaksoud2000 00:51, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

• I'm having trouble with the wording of this proposal, particularly the phrase "the Arbitration Committee or a higher authority". What authority is higher than Arbcom? If this is referring to office actions, then it should say so. In any event, I hope that neither Arbcom nor WMF staff would ever impose PC2 on any article. Or Jimbo, for that matter, but I don't think he does much with his mop anymore, let alone his übermop. Rivertorch (talk) 14:33, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
• My question is: What precisely is a legitimate use case for full-protection that (in practice) goes longer than 30 days? I can think of none that wouldn't fall afoul of WP:Protection policy, and if we're tying PC2 to full-prot then that means there is likewise no legitimate use case for PC2 that exceeds 30 days. Hence my comment above. And don't try to dodge the question or give me some half-baked excuse bullshit, give me a fucking definitive answer. —Jeremy v^_^v 23:15, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Proposal 8

In order to gain some idea of the effect of PC2, for the first 6 months after the first proposal that does not limit PC2 to articles that would otherwise be fully-protected passes, the protecting administrator must indicate what protection he WOULD HAVE used had PC2 not been an option. This should be recorded in the protection log but it may be recorded on the article talk page, the article edit log, or another location if the situation warrants. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 02:00, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Support (Proposal 8)

1. Support as proposing editor. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 02:00, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Support: Seems like a useful way to understand how PC-2 would be used and provides a nice check point for unforeseen concerns that might arise after PC-2 is approved for some use cases. PaleAqua (talk) 02:31, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

   Support Ramaksoud2000 03:54, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

3. Support A tiny burden on the applying admin, in exchange for usage data. Novusuna 18:57, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
4. Support subject to some other "apply PC2" proposal gaining consensus, of course. Everyone loves stats! Ivanvector (talk) 01:30, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
5. Support APerson (talk!) 16:54, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose (Proposal 8)

1. This is the mildest possible oppose, not a strong one. The proposal strikes me as WP:CREEP, with relatively little to be gained, and I also find the current wording really difficult to understand. I had to puzzle over the language between the first and second commas. If I understand correctly, we're talking about cases where anything other than full protection is the alternative to PC2, and thus, only about situations in which there is consensus following this RfC to use PC2 as an alternative to anything other than full protection. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:31, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Oppose. Unnecessary IMO, unless PC2 is approved only for a limited trial. In that case I would support this measure for the duration of the trial. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 18:30, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
3. Oppose - Too much is too much. Proposal 1 isn't that great, so why should this one, as well? George Ho (talk) 02:28, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
4. This strikes me as CREEP. Also, I don't think people will remember to comply. If we want this data, we should just go ask people after they've added PC2. I don't think very many pages will get this protection, so it shouldn't be too hard to do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:38, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
5. Oppose per Tryptofish. -Tal Brenev (talk) 21:56, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
6. Oppose ditto King of Hearts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Evensteven (talk • contribs) 06:21, January 17, 2014 (UTC)
7. Oppose per Tryptofish. Rivertorch (talk) 14:35, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
8. Oppose. You fucked us over before. I don't trust you to run a trial of AOL, let alone PC2! —Jeremy v^_^v 20:28, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Discussion (Proposal 8)

• How would this data be collected and viewed in aggregate? The main benefit of something like this would be the ability to see its overall effects. Ramaksoud2000 03:01, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

  The details are not critical now, this can be worked out later if this proposal is adopted. One possible way to do this is to adopt a standardized set of keywords to be put in the protection log entries, such as "(PC2/Full)", "(PC2/Semi)", "(PC2/PC1)", "(PC2/PC1+SEMI)". These can be sifted through at the end of the 6 month period. PC2 log entries without such keywords (there will no doubt be a few) can be examined by hand at the end of the 6 months, in the hopes that the intent will be present either in the protection log, the article history, or the article talk page. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:44, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

• Absolutely not. Last time we gave you a time-limited trial it took an RfC eight months after the fact to shut it down. You have proven that you can't be trusted to run trials with respect to PC, as you will not honor the trial's time limits, and you used Every. Single. Excuse. In. The. Fucking. BOOK! to keep the trial going even after the end date. As far as I am concerned, and anyone who wants PC2 to get a fair treatment should also be, you have no interest in the "time-limited" part of any trial, and just want to use it as an excuse to force PC2 in. —Jeremy v^_^v 23:06, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

  What's this have to do with trials? PC2 is intended to be permanent, even if this proposal passes. Jackmcbarn (talk) 23:29, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

  I read it as a time-limited trial, likely to see if expansion is justifiable. —Jeremy v^_^v 23:38, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

  It's not meant to be one. Regardless of what the result of the data is, the status quo will be maintained without another RfC to change it. Jackmcbarn (talk) 23:41, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

  You see to be quite upset over something that is not true. Ramaksoud2000 04:09, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

  As the person who wrote this proposal, I apologize if I led anyone to think this was a "let's turn PC2 into PC2-trial." The 6 months was NOT to "review it after 6 months and get rid if it if we don't like it" but rather "review it in 6 months so we have an idea of how it is being applied in practice." davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 04:01, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Proposal 9

If proposal 8 is adopted, 6 months after it is "triggered," usage statistics will be gathered and formally reported on an project page that is directly related to PC2. Whether proposal 9 passes or not, if proposal 8 passes, it is expected that interim and final statistics will be gathered and discussed by editors on discussion pages. The passing or failing of proposal 9 would not impact such discussions. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 02:00, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Support (Proposal 9)

1. Support as proposing editor. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 02:00, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Support: Per my reasons at proposal 8. PaleAqua (talk) 02:32, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
3. Support Ramaksoud2000 03:54, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
4. Support Statistics are good to have. Novusuna 18:58, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
5. Support APerson (talk!) 16:54, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
6. Support --Surfer43_¿qué pasa? 00:01, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose (Proposal 9)

1. It's always a bad idea to mandate something and have no resources planned to meet the mandate, not even have an idea of what those resources need to be. If they are known, they needed to be stated in the proposal. Evensteven (talk) 06:25, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Oppose. You fucked us over before. I don't trust you to run a trial of AOL, let alone PC2! —Jeremy v^_^v 20:29, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

   This is not a trial. Ramaksoud2000 23:17, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

   Reads like one as-written-by-Lemony-Snicket to me. —Jeremy v^_^v 23:39, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

   This is not a trial. See my comment from a few minutes ago on proposal 8. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 04:03, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Discussion (Proposal 9)

Who would be gathering the statistics? Jackmcbarn (talk) 03:44, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Again, this is a detail to be worked out later, but since the logs are public, if "nobody" did it then "anyone" could and "everyone" could verify things. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 04:32, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

I think this proposal is moot. If it passes, no one can be forced to gather those statistics. If it fails, there is nothing to prevent someone who wants to gather those statistics from doing so. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 18:32, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Just to clarify: If proposal 8 fails, then there will be no statistical data to gather. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 04:07, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

The intent of this proposal is to state up-front that there is a desire to have statistics reported 6 months into the usage of "PC2 for other than pages that would have been fully protected." Having this kind of statement up-front - or an explicit up-front lack of consensus for this proposal - is important. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 04:07, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Also, I vote that at the end of six months, someone will resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and they will give me a pony. This is just going to be Somebody else's problem and achieve nothing. If we wanted to do something practical, we might see whether someone wanted to request an WP:IEG to pay them to do this analysis (and, specifically, to do it and published the report by a stated deadline). WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:43, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

This is my specific concern about any trial, especially since history has shown the pro-PC camp has little interest in abiding by time limits for trials, and once one comes up they'll use every tactic they can to try and keep the "trial" (now a hostile takeover) going indefinitely. If they want an indefinite trial, they need to learn German. —Jeremy v^_^v 23:10, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

I believe that you are confused. This is not a trial. Ramaksoud2000 23:16, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

The way it's writ, Proposal 8 is a thinly-veiled proposal to run a 6-month trial. —Jeremy v^_^v 23:19, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Proposal 10 (moved)

Proposal 11 (closed)

Proposal 12

On articles where full protection is enabled, PC2 may be enabled when protection is lifted, if consensus to enable PC2 is established on the article's talk page, or as a result of a discussion on WP:AN, WP:AN/I, or a noticeboard created for this purpose. If there is no clear consensus, PC2 is not to be used.not to be used on that article. wording changed, see discussion.

Note: this proposal is intended to be exclusive to proposals 1-4 which give specific general conditions on use of PC2 (or oppose it entirely) but is not necessarily in conflict with the other extant proposals. (struck - covered by "not mutually exclusive" note above proposal 1)

Note 2: as a result of input from editors below, I have adjusted the wording of this proposal to remove the "exclusivity clause". I am notifying the editors who have already commented below so that they may revise their comments if they wish. Ivanvector (talk) 02:34, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Support (Proposal 12)

1. Support as nominator. Ivanvector (talk) 21:36, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Non-exclusive support. To make it non-exclusive, "If there is no clear consensus, PC2 is not to be used." would have to be tweaked, but that's not a big deal. Jackmcbarn (talk) 00:40, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
3. I strongly prefer Proposal 12 over Proposal 2. I note that editors who oppose 12 express concern about spelling things out specifically, and they are correct, but 2 is far, far worse in this regard. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:43, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
4. Support This answers my strongest concerns over proposals 1 and 2. It still allows a full block to be used to cool down a heated situation and allows for a gradual reduction of protection. PaleAqua (talk) 22:42, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose (Proposal 12)

1. Oppose - Something like this needs some extremely clear-cut criteria for use. This has far too much potential to turn into a tool for locking down article content, much like FP (which is a very good reason why the protection policy explicitly discourages use of FP for sustained vandalism). I will say it again: If you're using full-protection or an equivalent on an article for more than 30 days continuously, you need to have your tools revoked. —Jeremy v^_^v 23:11, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

   The clear-cut criteria is that FP was applied first (i.e. something bad happened that warranted full protection); beyond that I left it open intentionally. I would support a maximum time limit when this is applied, like "max 30 days and then either unprotect or revert to FP" or something like that. I would support it as a tack-on for all the other proposals too. Proposal 13? Ivanvector (talk) 01:58, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

   That's not a clear-cut criteria (in that it doesn't demonstrate that PC2 is absolutely necessary); that's extremely subjective and there's nothing stopping edit-warriors from asking for PC2 after a edit-warring FP in an effort to control the article content. For areas which are known to be highly controversial in the real world (such as the Israeli-Arab Conflict or homeopathy) or which attract swaths of partisans (Armenian Genocide, any article on American politics) this is wholly unacceptable. —Jeremy v^_^v 02:20, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

2. Oppose. If PC2 is a useful tool, then it should be applicable to a different range of articles than FP, so a page having had FP should not be a necessary criterion for PC2's deployment. (And if PC2 is not a useful tool, as I maintain, then we shouldn't use it at all.) Ozob (talk) 03:05, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

   I disagree. I see "PC2" vs. "Full" like "small hammer vs. big hammer." If you need to hammer something and all you have is a big hammer, you use the big hammer or you don't get the job done. If you add a small hammer to your toolkit, you use the small hammer on the jobs where the small hammer is a better tool than the big hammer. Now, the analogy does break down in that there are things a small hammer can hammer that a big hammer just can't do. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 04:01, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

   What this proposal says is, always try the big hammer first. Afterwards, if there's consensus that the small hammer might work, try the small hammer. So you'd be less likely to use the small hammer at all (because you wouldn't want to have to smash everything with your big hammer first), and even when you did, you might not even know whether it worked (because maybe hitting the page with your big hammer destroyed it). So, even conceding that this small hammer might be useful (which I don't—I think it's a tool in search of a job) this proposal would render it ineffective. Ozob (talk) 04:38, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

   I asked this question in the wrong context. I'll ask it again on your user talk page. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 05:07, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Discussion (Proposal 12)

Since we seem to be having trouble describing specific examples/situations where PC2 might be useful, I am proposing this as a way to allow the use of PC2 to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, subject only to the condition that full protection must have been tried first, so as to limit this to very serious cases of disruption. The criteria here is intentionally broad, rather than attempting to guess at every situation where PC2 could be useful (see WP:CREEP and WP:KISS). If, as some editors here insist, there are cases where PC2 works better, then let those situations be identified by the community when they appear, and let the criteria for use of PC2 evolve on its own. Ivanvector (talk) 21:36, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

• I would support this if you removed the "exclusivity" clause. Let's suppose only proposal 2 passes. Let's say an article's full protection is expiring and it doesn't quite qualify for continued full protection so downgrading to PC2 is not an option. It will be downgraded to Semi and/or PC1 or no protection at all. Let's say that, if given the chance, the community would agree that PC2 is best. This proposal would accomplish this, but only if proposals 1-4 all fail. If Proposal 2 above passes, then the community would not have the option of seeing if there was a consensus to keep PC2. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 20:54, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

I think I see what you and Jackmcbarn are saying. When I wrote this I thought that exclusivity would be implied and just wanted to point it out, but I can see how this could pass along with other proposals (though I don't support them myself), and I can also see how this RfC is already complicated enough without throwing in a proposal with forced exclusivity. I will tweak the wording. Ivanvector (talk) 02:18, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

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