Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 15:49, 27 November 2006

Discussion

I wasn't actually suggesting that; I just wasn't paying attention. El_C 07:17, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Hehehe

I didn't mean to imply that you asserted we should protect main page featured articles - I was just pointing to this because it is the clearest explanation of why we shouldn't protect them (because I have to answer that damn question so many times) →Raul654 07:21, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Heh, I know you didn't. Don't mind my spammage, just a means for me to divert attention away(?) from my incompetence! :D El_C 07:24, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

It's not that unusual to not notice an article is a main page FA; I've done it myself (acted on a request on WP:RFPP without noticing it was on the main page). Some people jump directly into their watchlists or recent changes and do not even look at the main page (if you asked me which is today's FA, I'd have to look before answering). --cesarb 16:06, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Semi

Any plans to update this to include semi-protection? It doesn't need to be rethought too much, but a mention of the new situation and your thoughts would be helpful. -Mysekurity 20:40, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Done. Raul654 20:51, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Policy

Why not promote this to policy?

Why not promote the contents of this page into a Misplaced Pages policy or guideline? I think perhaps it belongs in the Misplaced Pages namespace instead of a user namespace for both authenticity and visibility reasons. As it is a summary of other established policies anyway it shouldn't be too controversial. -- stillnotelf has a talk page 03:56, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I never envisioned it as a policy; I was just really, really, really tired of typing the same response over and over again :) Raul654 04:24, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Policy

So, this is a policy? It's being treated like one, and I've been told it's one. WikiFanatic 06:36, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

It seems to be a condensation and restatement of existing policy. So, if it's not technically policy, it agrees with policy in every way. -- stillnotelf has a talk page 03:25, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Exactly - it's not policy, as much as it is an amalgamation of policy. Raul654 03:28, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

• Pretty much. Because some new users didn't seem to understand that, I've moved this page to mainspace and flagged it as such. Comments welcome, and if you can think of a better title please do so. (Radiant) 14:53, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I see this as a memorialization of long-held practice of the community and with significant community assention to its validity ∴ a policy :) --Trödel 20:21, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Rewording

Now this is in the policy space, I've reworded it a bit to be more policy and less essay-like. I think I've stuck to the contents pretty much, but if anyone disagrees with the rewording I'd be happy to discuss here ;) --Robdurbar 23:20, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

• Looks reasonable so far. Thanks. (Radiant) 09:40, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Dissent

I think this was promoted to policy without enough input from the community. --evrik  19:35, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

• I agree that there has not been enough input from the community, yet I support the promotion none the less. KOS | talk 05:23, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

It could be argued that the fact that many were treating it as policy means that there was an implicit conesnsus. --Robdurbar 09:40, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

• Indeed. It has been existing practice for years now. I would be interested to see instances where the Main Page FA was protected, and of the likely-ensuing debate. (Radiant) 09:53, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

• Well really the only user's who could put this policy (remember it wasn't always policy) into effect were admins. I'm fairly certain that there are more editors without the extra tools than editors with them. Still as stated above, I do support this being promoted to policy. My point is that though it may have been accepted practice for years now, and that it has been treated as policy does not mean that it has implicit consensus, since only admins have been able to enforce this policy. KOS | talk 00:02, 18 November 2006 (UTC) If this comment is unclear just let me know and I'll try and clear up anything that is confusing about it. :) KOS | talk 00:02, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

One only needs to look at the plight of today's featured article, San Francisco, California, to see to folly of this policy. One of the many times that the page got replaced with a homophobic vulgarity did not get reverted for seven minutes.--DaveOinSF 19:03, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

But the policy doesn't state 'never semi-protect'. For example, look at between about 23:07 and 23:37 on 17 November - those levels of repeated vandalism from a number of users can be adequate for semi protection. But the idea, or spirit of this policy, would then encourage such protection to be in place for say, 30 minutes or an hour (as it was that example was the end of the day, but ignore that for now). But over the last few weeks, semi-protection has been left in place for 5 or 6 hours... this is what this policy wants to prevent. --Robdurbar 00:35, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

So one clueless admin unprotects San Francisco and two minutes later the vandalism recommences, with the vulgarities replacing the main page five times in the next six minutes before a separate admin steps in. Another clueless admin unprotects again, only for the vandalism to resume immediately and trash the page 13 times in 11 minutes, leaving it to another administrator to clean up the mess. If an administrator is going to unprotect a page, he or she is OBLIGATED to 1. learn why it was protected in the first place and 2. stay around to ensure that the vandalism does not immediately resume. Otherwise, they are being irresponsible.

I do not know how many people come to Misplaced Pages, click on the link Today's Featured Article and were instead greeted with a vulgarity. Blind adherence to policy by clueless administrators unconcerned as to the consequences of their actions should be punished.--DaveOinSF 06:43, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Well San Fran had an usually high level of vandalism. But, let's look at what happened, shall we? Knowledge of Self's protection at 08:04 was fully justified - it should have just been lifted more quickly. After I unprotected, there were no vandalising edits for well over half an hour, and only 4 within 2 hours - hardly the picture that you're painting. Vandalism maintained at a steady, but manageable, level till the evening when Glen S quite rightly protected it. After that, the page was twice unprotected and then quickly reprotected when the vandals were still about.

All I can say is that the policy was followed perfectly - it's intended to be used like that. Its just unfortunate that by the nature of the topic, San Fran was unusally open to vandalism. Robdurbar 11:20, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Pretty low standard for perfectly here. THe admins who unprotected then didn't pay any attention to the page, even though the vandalism recommenced almost immediately, and allowing the vandalism to take over far longer than it would have. They acted irresponsibly. And by the time someone else came in, the damage was done - complaints on the talk page about the vulgarity and who knows how many potential visitors turned off to Misplaced Pages. We should strive to do better.--DaveOinSF 18:02, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

• The same thing happened to Eagle Scout, more than 250 edits in a day, most of them vandalism and reverts.. --evrik  16:03, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't like the language forbidding full protection of the FA... it's too binding for Misplaced Pages. It's not too hard to think of ways a premedidated attack could compromise even a semi-protected article, and there certainly could be (and at least once, has been) a situation where even strong adherents to "Don't protect the FA" end up full protecting the FA. The language is too binding and could lead to the only admin around not dealing with a serious attack on the FA correctly, because the page says "under no circumstances"... even though there are at least some circumstances. --W.marsh 21:55, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

• People who object to the wording, or believe they can improve it, are of course free to edit the page. (Radiant) 23:05, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
  • You don't say! I just thought I'd discuss it first... --W.marsh 23:24, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Proposed changes to this policy

A few proposed changes to the policy. Remove emphasis on "NEVER" and include administrators' responsibilities when deciding to protect the featured article or when deciding to remove protection. Removed text is stricken, added text is underlined.--DaveOinSF 20:22, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Policy

Misplaced Pages's Main Page featured article is one of the most visible and heavily edited on the site. For this reason, it receives a lot of vandal edits from unregistered users visiting Misplaced Pages.

It has been suggested many times in the past that the featured article should thus be protected or semi-protected. However, Administrators are advised never to use extreme discretion when deciding whether to protect, semi-protect, or unprotect this page. and to only semi-protect it under certain extreme conditions.

Rationale

There are several reasons for this policy.

• Almost without exception, featured articles are improved by their time on the main page (some of them greatly improved). Check out these before-and-after diffs from September, 2005: . Protecting the featured articles means that these pages may not be improved.
• A featured article is supposed to "exemplify our very best work, representing Misplaced Pages's unique qualities on the Internet". This includes being editable by anyone. Visitors often tend to look at our most visible articles, and having those articles editable helps attract new users to the project.
• Vandalism (especially to highly visible articles like the main page featured article) is cleaned up very quickly, often in only a matter of seconds, helped by automated bots such as Tawkerbot2.
• Although the more visible featured article of the day attracts more vandals than other articles, it also attracts more curious and good faith editors. A lot of vandalism on the day's featured article is reverted by other anonymous or recently-registered users (e.g. ),
• This is codified in the page protection policy: When a page is particularly high profile, either because it is linked off the main page, or because it has recently received a prominent link from offsite, it will often become a target for vandalism. It is best not to protect pages in this case. Instead, consider adding them to your watchlist, and reverting vandalism yourself. - Misplaced Pages:Protection policy
• The featured article receives many page views from non-editing readers as well. It is damaging to Misplaced Pages to encourage new readers to visit a page that is under a severe vandalism attack.

Protection

Protection prevents anyone without administrative powers from editing an article. This should almost never occur on the day's featured article, and should only be used in rare situations where semi-protection is ineffective.

Semi-Protection

Semi-protection prevents all unregistered or recently registered users from editing a page. The main page featured article should also almost never be semi-protected in only rare situations. However, it is recognised that there are some extreme circumstances in which semi-protection can be introduced for a limited amount of time. This could occur when, for example, a range of dynamic IP addresses are being used to vandalise the featured article page in quick succession; where personal information or potentially distressing content is being repeatedly placed onto the article; or where a few minutes of protection are needed to remove harmful vandalism from a page.

Semi-protection can be introduced for a limited amount of time; it is preferable to give vandalising users a brief block, rather than semi-protect the day's featured article.

Notification

Should an administrator deem that protection or semi-protection of the Main Page featured article is necessary, a notice should be placed at the Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard and the page's talk page as to the reason and rationale behind the decision to protect or semi-protect, and whether there are any recommended steps for the unprotection of the page.

Unprotection

Because protection or semi-protection is not a step that is taken lightly, administrators should use caution when they discover that the day's featured article has been protected or semi-protected. Such an administrator should check the page history, the talk page and the Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard before deciding whether to unprotect the page. Should the administrator decide to unprotect the page, she or he must continue to monitor the page for a resumption of vandal attacks for a minimum of 30 minutes following the decision to unprotect the article. is encouraged to continue to monitor the page for an immediate resumption of vandal attacks.

Move Protection

To qualify for featured article status, the day's featured article will be at a stable and agreed-upon title. Therefore, in the event of page move vandalism, it is acceptable to protect the article from being moved. For housekeeping and process reasons, this protection should be lifted at the end of an article's stay on the front page

Other front page articles

These are covered under the semi-protection policy. Although they can be semi-protected, admins should generally be more cautious in applying protection to these pages. To qualify for semi-protection, front page linked articles should have a higher frequency of vandalism than other articles need.

Responses to proposed change

• Well the clause about having to monitor with it for half an hour is unworkable. Firstly, its unprovable and slightly bizarre - I unprotect the FA, the phone rings and what - I ignore it? I appreciate what it's trying to do, but it could bring up all sorts of accusations. For example, I know that I've tried 'patrolling' the FA after I've unprotected it to avoid such accusations; but I have a slow internet connection and have been 'beaten to it' almost every time. It's instruction keep; perhaps retain the sentence about giving it thought though.

• I like the notification process idea

--Robdurbar 21:56, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I oppose the proposed changes - we can trust the admins to protect when there is a special situation and do not need to outline it --Trödel 22:08, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the request to drop a line at ANI is a good idea. The other changes are pretty much semantics. --Robdurbar 23:13, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

True, but I think the semantics matters here in at least one case - we want to clearly favor semi-protect, not just carefully choose semi-protect or protect - --Trödel 23:20, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, the intent was not to equate protection and semi-protection, but to remove emphasis on the word "NEVER", promote greater communication, and to encourage caution for admins who might want to unprotect a protected article. Obviously, I've failed in that regard, and will give it some thought as to how to better do this.--DaveOinSF 00:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good thx!!!--Trödel 22:52, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

September 2005 diffs

I'm tempted to call "b---s---" on this (which is both the current and proposed policy): Check out these before-and-after diffs from September, 2005: . Why bs? Because of those three edits, two were done by registered users. A semi-protect policy would have allowed those two edits to be made. No editor (I think) is arguing that an FA should be fully protected, so why offer evidence of how great the current policy is by citing two examples that would have happened even with semi-protect automatically in place?

And as for having those articles editable helps attract new users to the project, exactly what evidence exists for that? Why not argue the reverse - that permiting anonymous editors to vandalize FAs gives them their first taste of how much "fun" they can have on wikipedia, and encourages them to vandalize other articles? John Broughton | Talk 02:11, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Because of those three edits, two were done by registered users. - wrong. Look at the timing on the diffs - they cover the entire 24 hours the articles were on the main page. So they encompass all anon and non-anon edits for the day those articles were on the main page. (Side note - perhaps this should be made more clear in the description)

Also, notice the dates on those diffs were the 3 days immediately prior to me writing that particular statement. I did this intentionally to avoid accusations I cherry-picked the examples. Raul654 02:18, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I stand corrected, but remain convinced that these examples are being misused as a "evidence" of anything important. The diffs cover 5+ days, 2+ days, and 9+ days, respectively. What they "prove" is that a mixture of registered and anonymous users, over a two to nine day period, can improve a FA. Who would disagree? (Why not do diffs for just the 24 hours that the articles were on the front page, rather than for multiple days?)

The argument isn't - or shouldn't be - about whether an FA should be FULLY protected or not, it's about whether it should be SEMI-protected. For the purpose of that argument the three examples prove exactly nothing. There could be 100 anonymous vandal edits and no constructive anonymous edits (other than reverts/fixes), for all anyone knows, based on those diffs. What is needed (in my mind) to prove that anything would be lost by blocking anonymous diffs would be examples of specific anony edits that really added value.

So if the policy states "FAs should not be FULLY protected because their their time on the front page can result in them being improved", sure, that's almost certainly true. But who is arguing for full protection? What the policy now says I still think is BS: it says (implicitly) "FAs should be NEITHER fully nor semi-protected because - look - here are three examples". Yet the examples say NOTHING about semi-protection, because they fail to distinguish between contributions from registered users and unregistered ones. John Broughton | Talk 22:08, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Really, what you've brought up is that the 'rationale' section doesn't state anything about semi-protection, which is a weakness. --Robdurbar 15:15, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

If you're saying that the policy wording predates the implementation of the option of semi-protection, then the wording is quite understandable, and the example would have made sense at the time. But that was then, and this is now, and arguments against "protection" are now being taken - rightly or wrongly - as arguments against BOTH semi- and full protection. The proposed change to the policy (above), in its rationale section, does not separate out arguments for full protection versus arguments for only semi-protection. I think that's a serious flaw, as discussed in the Redux section, below, which might be a good place to continue this discussion (assuming no one wants to dispute my comments on the September 2005 diffs). John Broughton | Talk 15:33, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Semi-Protection Redux

Having looked over the edits for today's Featured Article (Duke University) - I have to wonder about the rationale behind not semi-protecting the daily FA, at least for that day. Looking over the edits so far, rather than encouraging new editors to make constructive changes to the page, all that has happened is a rapid-fire string of vandalism and reversion, the latter sometimes involving the appropriate warnings and sometimes not (I have tried to supplement the nots). I agree with John Broughton above; I feel like the time and effort of the bots and the human editors could be better spent building an encyclopedia rather than protecting a high-profile page from anonymous vandals for just one day, and that new editors would get more out of seeing a featured article in the form that made it an FA rather than getting an introduction to WP editing that shows how easily editors' hard work can be temporarily defaced by vandals. I suppose I have just makred myself as a protectionist...whoah. DukeEGR93 14:14, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, the vandalism in FA's is making me crazy. Every minute there are vandals, and people can't revert them. ATM The FA of the day's footnotes are screwed, and it has been like that for 20 minutes. People have reverted it after, but a lot of vandalism gets through. Then the reason for not to protect is that someone has dugged 4 good edits by IPs, from the millions of vandalism edits. To be honest. If there are so obvious fixes, they should have been fixed before making FA, or FA of the day in my opinion. --Pudeo (Talk) 15:37, 27 November 2006 (UTC)