Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Cowman109 (talk | contribs) at 06:38, 4 November 2006 (→Wording: Addendum). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

No thanks

Hmmm, no-one's started discussing this, so I guess it's up to me to do the honours (-: Anyway, I don't think this is a good idea. The reason is that new and unregistered users are far from being a uniform, monolithic horde of trolls, vandals, and spammers. In fact, according to the available data, they write most of Misplaced Pages's content. If we want the encyclopedia to continue to grow, our policies need to continue to be amenable to these new users, and an important part of that is allowing new users to edit them. Even if they often don't have anything constructive to add, it's easy to revert dumb contributions. On the other hand, I think it's highly unconstructive to call ourselves "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit" and then put off-bounds important parts of the project. JYolkowski // talk 22:25, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I do not claim that "new and unregistered users are... a uniform, monolithic horde of trolls, vandals, and spammers." Rather, this proposal is based on an obvious (and presently undisputed) claim that new and unregistered users are unlikely to be able to determine whether there is consensus for their changes to official policies. Preventing vandalism is therefore a quite compelling justification for semi-protection of official policies if new and unregistered users are unlikely to be able to improve official policies, even when they are editing in good faith. The statement that Misplaced Pages is "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit" means that Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia in which most people can edit most articles. However, many other "important parts of the project" are far more restricted in editing than official policy pages would be under my proposal. For instance, even most established users cannot edit the main page, nor can they edit high-risk templates. Consequently, there is no need to assume that the statement that Misplaced Pages is "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit" implies that Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia in which anyone can unilaterally alter official policies with which they disagree. Indeed, I would argue that our present system of allowing new and unregistered users to directly edit official policies essentially entraps such users into editing the policies against a consensus of which they are wholly unaware. The experience of having their good faith edits to official policies unceremoniously reverted, and of being warned and blocked if they persist in reinserting them is likely to encourage many new and unregistered users to leave Misplaced Pages. So, if new and unregistered users write most of Misplaced Pages's content, we should encourage them to continue to edit articles by preventing them from editing official policies.

I don't think that there's a snowball's chance in heck of many new and unregistered users feeling "left out" of the policy making process and leaving Misplaced Pages if all official policy pages are semi-protected. After all, new and unregistered users hardly seem discouraged from editing by the fact that they may not vote in requests for adminship. Similarly, since Misplaced Pages administrators are concerned with the interests of new and unregistered users despite the inability of such users to vote in requests for adminship, there is no reason to assume that Misplaced Pages policies will become biased against new and unregistered users if such users may not directly edit them. John254 00:19, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

What about people like User:68.39.174.238?--MrFish 13:35, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

User:68.39.174.238 could create an account. Or, barring such a drastic measure, he could propose edits to official policies on their talk pages. Almost all established editors edit with accounts. While User:68.39.174.238 is welcome to continue editing as an unregistered user, by doing so he is necessarily giving up certain privileges that are normally afforded to established users -- not the least of which are directly creating non-talk pages, directly moving pages, voting in RFA's, and the possibility of becoming an administrator himself. John254 00:18, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. We can't hold back an important and useful policy just to save one or two editors (out of hundreds of thousands) the fifteen-second inconvenience of registering a free account. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 14:33, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me

I can't really imagine any reason an anon or brand-new user would have to edit the core set of policy pages anwyay. They've all been gone over enough that there's few if any typos and such. And of course the talk pages are always open if anyone feels like proposing anything. I see a good deal of potential benefit to this and frankly very little harm. It has my support. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 02:53, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

• I'm inclined to agree with the previous poster. New users' changes to policy pages seem mostly to be vandalism or "remove the reason somebody used to delete my pet article". Where a legitimate suggestion comes up, it really should go through the talk page anyway, to leave a not-paper trail establishing consensus or documenting reasons for opposition. Barno 17:58, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Regardless of the above proposal, it is absolutely not a requirement that changes to policy pages be discussed beforehand. This is a widely-held but incorrect belief. The only requirement is that changes not be made that don't reflect consensus, and new and unregistered users are quite capable of making such changes. JYolkowski // talk 22:16, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
    • That would be something that applies to both long term users and new users, so that's not really the issue here. The issue here is the access new or unregistered users have. This is no different in how page moves are restricted for new and unregistered users. I completely agree with the rational of this proposal and support it. -- Ned Scott 00:15, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
    • It is true that "it is... not a requirement that changes to policy pages be discussed beforehand." However, the determination of whether there is consensus for changes to official policy without prior discussion is an exceptionally fine art that new and unregistered users are extraordinarily unlikely to have mastered. Indeed, even many changes to official policies by established users should be discussed prior to implementation. New and unregistered users are well advised to propose any changes to official policies. John254 00:21, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
    • You're right, but there's also a strange circular logic here: You're saying that policy changes needn't be discussed on the talk page if there's consensus, which is technically true. But what's the best way to obtain consensus? Discussing it on the talk page! Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 14:27, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

As you might have guessed, I think this proposal is a good idea. "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit" is not scratched in the slightest sense, because Misplaced Pages namespace is not part of the encyclopaedic content. It is content about content, content about organizing the project in a broader sense. Requiring that users show a minimal track record by requesting that they create a login before editing the rules is even more common sense. Everything else is a waste of resources. Because we do seem to have an abundance of volunteers doesn't mean we should waste their time. Time partially spent reverting the 99% revert-quality anon-edits on policies and guidelines. There is a big gap between admins and non admins today. Let's help closing this gap a little bit by using the software tools we have today. And employ them where they are reasonably employed. Nobody is asking to semi-protect the whole 'pedia. Just the rules. --Ligulem 23:20, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

This is a good idea. It's not like any anon or new user would have any reason to be editting any of the policy pages. Moreover, it would deter vandalism to said pages. Naturally, a new user who edits in good faith would need to get familiarised with our policies anyway, a process which would take a few days. By the time they're familiarised with the rules, they've been registered long enough to be able to edit the pages about them. Kari Hazzard (T | C) 20:02, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Existing practices

The logs for the semi-protection policy itself show that two administrators have attempted to permanently semi-protect the policy, but one administrator has reverted them. There appears to be a substantial interest in the semi-protection of official policy pages on a continuous basis, which is being obstructed by adherence to the current language of the semi-protection policy. John254 00:51, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

This is a "no-brainer"

It is a fundamental rule of Wiki-hood that our policy pages are editable, but there is no reason they should editable to newbies and anons. Anons with experience, or amazing ideas, who are unwilling to register -- as is their right -- can always make proposals on policy talk pages; if these proposals are meritorious, any non-newbie registered editor may add them in short order. I don't think every policy page necessarily needs immediate semi-protection (there are many of them, and some aren't regularly edited), but where a history of troublesome edits exists, invoking permanent semi-protection should be within the discretion of any admin. In short, I support this. Xoloz 15:10, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I also agree that this proposal should definitely be adopted. Allowing non-logged-in and new users to edit policies pages is something no good can possibly come from. Andrew Levine 17:33, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Frankly I believe we would be wise to go a step further. Policy pages could only be modified by administrators. Guideline pages could be modified by any logged in user. Those discussion pages and all other pages could be modified by anyone. Terryeo 23:19, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Agree. Jayjg 23:57, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Goes against what semi-protection is supposed to be used for

In my eyes semi-protecting all policy pages, no question asked, is not something we should be doing. Each case should be looked at individually. We must remember that semi-protection can indeed be harmful - it was merely an addition so we could not completely lock out pages that were experiencing heavy vandalism that people could not handle. By semi-protecting all policy pages, we are essentially saying that newcomers are not welcome to point out typos or errors in such pages (and I bet many would be too lazy to go to the talk page, as well, heh). Semi-protection is supposed to be used only if it's necessary - using it preemptively only to protect from possible future vandalism is foolish and goes against what Misplaced Pages stands for - anyone can edit. If we don't have enough people reverting, fine then, get more people to watchlist the page. I've already added Misplaced Pages:Semi-protection policy to my watchlist. If we have cases where the page gets vandalized for hours without anyone noticing, semi-protection could be a possibility. People seem to have the notion that IP Addresses are evil, though. What we want to do is encourage users to get involved in the community, not shut them out.

Another objection would be press concerns. I of course can't speak on behalf of the Wikimedia foundation, but if we started permanently locking down groups of pages, I assume we would no longer be the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, as people just hopping by can't fix a funny grammatical error or a typo.

There are quite a few policy pages experiencing more vandalism that perhaps might be a candidate for semi-protection, but only those that are fundamental to the running of the site, such as Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view. That page, however, as it is much more popular, already has people reverting vandalism within minutes, so is it really that necessary to semi-protect? I'd rather not stuff any beans up someone's nose as to what sort of vandalism would make it a good thing to semi-protect the page, but when the time comes, it's obvious. We are not at the point where it is a necessity to semi-protect all these pages.

This policy is simply seeking to lock out those who aren't already in the circle of usernames registered for more than three days (or whatever the number is, I can't quite recall), and I certainly hope people don't have have the belief that all anonymous IPs and new users are evil. Cowman109 14:41, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

The claim that "Semi-protection is supposed to be used only if it's necessary - using it preemptively only to protect from possible future vandalism is foolish and goes against what Misplaced Pages stands for - anyone can edit." is unpersuasive since the statement that Misplaced Pages is "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit" means that Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia in which most people can edit most articles. However, many other important parts of the project are far more restricted in editing than official policy pages would be under my proposal. For instance, even most established users cannot edit the main page, nor can they edit high-risk templates. Consequently, there is no need to assume that the statement that Misplaced Pages is "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit" implies that Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia in which anyone can unilaterally alter official policies with which they disagree. Similarly, we shouldn't avoid the useful semi-protection of official policies because the press might misinterpret this action to suggest that Misplaced Pages is "no longer... the encyclopedia... anyone can edit"

While the idea that "people just hopping by a funny grammatical error or a typo" on official policy pages is nice in theory, that's not what actually happens with edits by new and unregistered users on these pages. For instance, the history of the blocking policy shows heavy IP vandalism, which fills up the edit history , and makes it more difficult to find substantive edits. New and unregistered users often make positive contributions to articles, not official policy pages. Moreover, this policy proposal is certainly not based the notion that "all anonymous IPs and new users are evil". Rather, semi-protection of official policy pages is suggested based on strong evidence that this action promotes the health of these pages. John254 15:39, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I think a big point is whether this is really needed or not. Are policy pages experiencing enough vandalism that prevents other users from viewing the pages properly? If it ain't broke, then don't fix it would be what I would say if the answer is no. If there are problems that I'm not aware about, such as underwatched, but important policy pages consistently getting vandalized every day, then by all means, as I've stated above, it should be looked at for semi-protection. If something similar to this proposal was proposed, however, there should be a clear distinction between policy pages that are still experiencing changes and those that are set in stone and are absolutely fundamental to Misplaced Pages as a whole (Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view comes to mind). Cowman109 16:01, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Official policy pages are experiencing enough vandalism to prevent other users from viewing the pages properly. For instance, the semi-protection policy itself recently remained in this state for ten minutes. More generally, all vandalism prevents some users from properly viewing the pages when they are in vandalized states. For articles, this diminution in utility is ordinarily counterbalanced by the value of contributions by new and unregistered users. However, since new and unregistered users very rarely make positive contributions to official policy pages, allowing new and unregistered users to edit these pages impairs the viewing of the pages to some degree without any counterbalancing benefits. Permanent semi-protection of official policy pages is justified because it will stop much vandalism, but exceedingly few legitimate contributions. John254 16:23, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Or as Ligulem put it when attempting to permanently semi-protect the semi-protection policy:

Anons don't edit policy about semi-protection. History shows only vandalism edits by anons (no useful edits seen)

John254 16:29, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Completely agree with John. It is just a common sense decision, newbees and anons are welcome to propose changes on the policy talk pages, but the editing should be done by established editors. I can not see any harm of this and if it would save a few thousand admin-hours on monitoring policies and reverting the vandalism it is a good step Alex Bakharev 08:56, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Can't quite believe

...that after about 3 days and 5 editors, someone decided that this had been thoroughly scrutinized, widely publicized, well-considered and had deep, broad, consensual support. I thought the reason for locking down policy pages was to prevent ill-thought-out edits to them?! -Splash - tk 23:39, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Examples from the other side?

So far, those who oppose this seem to be arguing that by adopting this we'd miss out on useful anon edits to policy pages. While it's easy to find plenty of anon vandal edits to policy pages simply by looking in the history of any one of them, I'd like to hear from the other side of the story: Can anyone point out a few positive, lasting policy page edits by anon users which were neither vandalism or minor typo/format changes? Even a few such examples (4 or 5 maybe?) would help the rest of us understand your position immensely. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 14:52, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

The unfortunate forking of this proposal away from WT:SEMI means that several arguments made there have been lost here. My personal one is that the vandalism doesn't matter, since it doesn't change the policy itself. Revert, block move on. No need for blunt instrument solutions to something that doesn't actually matter. Above, it's said that some policy was in a bad state for .... 10 minutes. That's really no problem. -Splash - tk 16:47, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Quite a few positive IP contributions from just three pages I looked at:

While many of these are indeed minor changes (one of them to WP:IAR was very helpful and added links that are still in use today), does that make their contributions less important? Any positive contributions are helpful, and as Splash says, if there isn't a problem, why should we be trying to fix it? Cowman109 18:37, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Since this is a new proposal, the onus is on its supporters to explain why anonymous users editing policy pages is such a huge problem that we need to disallow it. So far no particularly convincing arguments have been made. JYolkowski // talk 20:21, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Here's some situations that come to my mind. For one, we already have enough work trying to keep up with vandalism in the article namespace, it seems very needless to divert our time and resources for monitoring policies as well (at least, in the sense of how much we monitor, since people should still monitor policy to some degree). Also, I've seen times where there are pages that aren't well monitored and / or where vandalism wasn't caught until much later on. Some vandalism isn't obvious, like changing the date on image policy about what images uploaded after "2005" can do such and such. Considering how high use some of these policies are, I don't really see the difference between them and some of our protected high use templates. People should be able to edit any article, but I'm not sure if that should apply to every page. -- Ned Scott 21:03, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Why not just semi-protect all pages then? Because we're a Wiki, that's why. The amount of vandalism on policy pages is incredibly small compared to that in the main namespace, so the extra amount of time spent rolling that back is IMHO significantly less important than the importance of allowing everyone to contribute to them. The possibility that someone could make significant, undetected changes that would actually affect people's behaviour seems highly remote to me but if you have concrete examples please share them. JYolkowski // talk 21:29, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I understand what you're saying, but when things happen to policy pages they can effect a much larger group of pages and articles. If someone vandalizes a single article it doesn't necessarily have a big impact on other articles and pages. So even if the vandalism is less, their effect on policy pages is more significant than normal pages and articles. -- Ned Scott 21:34, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

This is hardly ever the case, though. If someone changes WP:VAND to say you get a barnstar for vandalising, you don't suddenly get one. If someone amends WP:NPOV to allow for opinionated articles, you cannot suddenly write them. If someone unfortunately reads them in their broken state, a thing that will happen rarely given the hawk-like watching the pages have, then a small amount of education will clear things up. In the example you mention above, things are slightly worse, I agree. But then such a particular kind of bad thing really cannot be happening often enough to realistically justify locking down every policy page we have. On the ideological point, if the policy of Misplaced Pages is that it be freely editable, then its policies of all things ought to live up to that charge. It is fundamentally not the case that only articles need to be freely editable. Almost every namespace benefits from its open nature and the occasional fix. The only exception is Mediawiki: pages which can literally beserk things if they get broken. And thus are fully-protected in software. -Splash - tk 21:47, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but those are cases of obvious vandalism. Not only that, but there's also the concern about good faith edits, such as re-wording part of a policy, that can cause problems. -- Ned Scott 21:58, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I hope we're not discussing a proposal to prevent good-faith edits. They just need to be gently reversed, and a user/talk message left explaining things. In this kind of case, also remember that sprotection gives only 4 days (96 hours!) of a reprieve, and if a user doesn't quite things on day 1, they're not terribly likely to have got it all in their head just 3 days later; particularly not if there is nothing by way of an education process in the interim. Now I know Misplaced Pages is neither therapy nor school, but there is value in having to discuss such things with new, but inexperienced users and sometimes they do pick up on something that the groupthink effects prevent more established editors from seeing so easily. But my main concern is the notion that we would ever seek to pre-emptively disallow good-faith editing. WP:SEMI has this effect as collateral damage, and that is the principal reason why its usage should be narrow, brief and regularly subject to review in each page it is deployed on. -Splash - tk 22:11, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Good faith edits that have major negative effects should be avoided when reasonable, just like high use templates. We're talking about policy, and only blocking new and unregistered users. I fail to see the harm, at all, and I definitely see the benefit. -- Ned Scott 22:14, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

(unindent) Policy pages are quite different from high use templates in several ways. First, they're nowhere near as prominent as high use templates. If someone stumbles onto Misplaced Pages from a search engine or from clicking on a link from the Main Page, it's quite likely that the page in question will have high-use templates. Our policy pages are much less prominent (they're not linked to from the main page, they won't likely be at the top of search engine search results, etc.) so changes to them don't have the same effect. Second, changes to them don't really cause problems, because Misplaced Pages is not a bureaucracy, and the specific text on a policy page at any given moment doesn't really matter; what does matter is the principles and beliefs of the community. Third, WP:VAND excepted, these pages are not really subject to a lot of significant vandalism. High-use templates have been in the past, which is why people decided to protect them. The guideline around that was written to reflect that practise, and was not by any means a solution looking for a problem. Here, however, there isn't any evidence that these pages are subject to so much vandalism that protecting them is important. JYolkowski // talk 00:12, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

If "the specific text on a policy page at any given moment doesn't really matter", someone couldn't, say, change the text of the policy page and then convince an administrator to enforce the new policy language nine minutes later . Therefore, it must have been patently obvious that my temporary enactment of this amendment did reflect "the principles and beliefs of the community". Thus, there clearly is consensus for this proposal, and it should be enacted and implemented. John254 01:25, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

The fact that I un-did the protection would indicate that there isn't such consensus. JYolkowski // talk 01:48, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

On Misplaced Pages, consensus is not synonymous with unanimity. John254 02:02, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

This isn't about unanimity, of course. There are still issues to be sorted out and the process of amending policy requires significant time. This can't be rushed. I have an amendment to propose to the policy that I haven't had a chance to do due to being busy during the week, but I hope to elaborate over the weekend. Additional time will give people more opportunities to bring forth their ideas. Cowman109 02:28, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

New users aren't the problem

More questionable edits to policy pages come from admins with agendas than from new users. Vandalism is obvious and easy to revert. Dealing with admins intent on changing the rules is much tougher.

Most requests for semi-protection are refused. It's been repeatedly refused for popular pages like Horse, which is vandalized several times a day. Why should policy pages get better treatment? They're watched by so many people that vandalism won't go unnoticed. --John Nagle 06:22, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

• Endorse. The longer a process wonk has been editing, the more likely he will know the ropes well enough to insert a devious amendment to an existing policy page. "Real" anons and genuine new users have no interest in policy pages; if you semi-protect, the process wonk will just... well, beans. — Preceding unsigned comment added by John Reid (talk • contribs) 08:40, 31 October 2006

When I was a new user I tried to read every guideline and policy I could before doing most things outside of very basic editing. To say that new users won't even look at policy pages is absurd. Not all newbies are the same. -- Ned Scott 02:12, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, new users often are the problem, and in any event shouldn't be editing policy pages, since they almost never have anywhere near the Misplaced Pages-specific experience required to make any positive contributions regarding Misplaced Pages policy. John just has a bee in his bonnet about a certain admin he likes to target for abuse; see, for example, this sad demonstration of one of his attempts to smear respected and longstanding admins in good standing, and note how quickly his nonsense is beaten down by sensible editors. Jayjg 23:56, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Personal attack ignored, but added to Permanent Record. --John Nagle 01:14, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

My "Permanent Record"? Oh, no, am I about to be called to the Principal's office? Jayjg 14:56, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

{{Policy}} not policy

I see a basic misunderstanding here. Let me fix it:

Policy pages are not policy.

This is a subtle distinction and it's not surprising that {{policy}} fails to make it. Most editors would get confused; I'm sure that those who frequent this page will not

Our community is not governed directly by reference to written policy. Instead, we form community consensus around certain principles and processes. Consensus does not mean that a supermajority votes a page up; it doesn't mean that a cadre of admins stands around a page, reverting and blocking those who attempt to edit it. The status of a page does not determine consensus; rather, it is the other way around -- sometimes.

Policy pages -- even those labeled "policy" -- do not necessarily track actual project policy. Sometimes the deviations are minor, sometimes major; sometimes they are inserted and removed quickly, sometimes they are present in the initial draft and remain so for years. Like all people everywhere, we do not always say exactly what we mean. Likewise, editors and admins do not always act in accord with actual policy. Sometimes, they cite written policy pages to justify outpolicy action. We have ways of dealing with such people; after all, we see them in the mirror from time to time.

This is a wiki; that's key. It's very hard for any edit to do lasting harm, no matter how pornographic or foolish. Shit left on article pages does degrade our public image in some proportion to amount, time left on, and number of page views by those offended; this is part of the price we pay for a wide-open-door editing policy. We probably do need to raise the bar to vandalism and astroturfing a very tiny bit. But that's a measure to apply to articlespace. It really doesn't matter at all if proposals are vandalized; they are, by definition, sub rosa.

To create an absurd example, let's take the case of the rogue anon jimbo who vandalizes the official Misplaced Pages:Foo policy page, fills it with autofellatio images, then WP:OFFICE-protects and locks the page. So long as a prior good version is available in history, we need be nothing more than slightly inconvenienced; we merely reference the prior version instead of the current. Policy has not changed; only the current version of the page. John Reid 09:05, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Since "'Real' anons and genuine new users have no interest in policy pages ", it would follow all of their edits would be vandalism. With no good edits from new and unregistered users, semi-protection offers substantial benefits (preventing vandalism) with essentially no costs (because there were no good edits from new and unregistered users). For articles such as horse, however, the interest in allowing good edits by new and unregistered users is considered to outweigh the interest in preventing vandalism through semi-protection. The argument against this proposal seems to amount to: "It doesn't matter if these pages get vandalized. In fact, we should encourage vandalism to these pages by not semi-protecting them, even though such an action wouldn't prevent any legitimate edits. The current versions of these pages don't matter. They could, and should be vandalism-filled garbage dumps, just to dissuade 'admins with agendas' from maliciously modifying them, by undermining whatever reliance might otherwise be placed on the current version of the page." I submit that this argument is absurd, and is a wholly unjustified slander against Misplaced Pages's administrators. John254 12:56, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages official policy pages are NOT sandboxes

To further respond to John Reid's comments above, the current state of official policy pages is actually quite important, despite the fact that the literal content of the policy pages is not identical to community consensus as to the policy itself. Official policy pages are an vital tool in educating and informing new users of the community consensus as to policy. Such pages also serve as important references for established users. To the extent that such pages contain misinformation, they will misinform their readers, especially newer users who are unlikely to check the page history to determine if they are viewing a "good" version. Furthermore, an official policy "fill... with autofellatio images" or other vandalism would give new users entirely the wrong idea about Misplaced Pages. Consequently, I strongly disagree with John Reid's claim that leaving official policy pages in such vandalized states would be "nothing more than ]". If someone "fills... with autofellatio images", we need to revert the vandalism quickly. However, we would be much better off if we could prevent most vandalism on such pages before it occurred. Use of semi-protection is disfavored as a vandalism prevention measure on articles because it prevents many legitimate edits by new and unregistered users. Yet, in the case of official policy pages, semi-protection prevents most vandalism while continuing to allow almost all legitimate edits, because legitimate contributions to official policy pages by new and unregistered users are exceedingly rare. Therefore, semi-protection of official policy pages will improve their quality. John254 00:38, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

What are users from other Wikis who are not familiar with the English language supposed to do when they want to add transwiki language links to articles, however? Also, it seems that if people really do want to vandalize these pages, they would simply avoid the semi-protection and create a swarm of sockpuppets as has been done in the past to vandalize it anyway. While semi-protection on policy pages removes most drive-by vandalism that gets reverted within minutes anyway, it would also make it much more difficult for minor edits such as grammar and technical issues to be fulfilled. Cowman109 01:07, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

On the rare occasion that interwiki links or spelling or grammar fixes need to be made on official policy pages, new and unregistered users can request these changes on the talk page. "Users from other Wikis who are not familiar with the English language" probably won't be able to access the English Misplaced Pages at all, or access it so rarely that they do not present substantial considerations in the decision to semi-protect official policy pages. Allowing large amounts of vandalism and modifications against consensus to occur on these pages simply because on extraordinarily rare occasions new and unregistered users actually make minor constructive contributions to them is not a tradeoff that I, or, it seems, most other Misplaced Pages editors, are willing to make. While it is possible to vandalize a semi-protected page, semi-protection greatly reduces the frequency of vandalism, since most vandals lack the technical knowledge of Misplaced Pages and/or the motivation to vandalize semi-protected pages. John254 02:00, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

This brings up one further problem with semi-protecting policy pages. Most of our policies are not perfect jewels that have been polished and refined to perfection. Rather, they are "quick hacks to achieve a temporary result" (from WP:PRO). If policy pages are semi-protected, new users will incorrectly see them as polished, refined gems instead of the "bodgy hacks they are". JYolkowski // talk 01:46, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that it's constructive to leave official policy pages un-semi-protected, so as to solicit vandalism for the purpose of disparaging their status. John254 01:53, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

This is a Wiki. Because of this, by default, we don't protect pages, block users, etc. without a really good reason. No such really good reason has been demonstrated. JYolkowski // talk 01:56, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism is bad. If we have the opportunity to prevent most of it, while allowing almost all legitimate edits, that is a "really good reason" to semi-protect official policy pages. John254 02:00, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Why don't we protect all pages? Because this is a Wiki, that's why. Furthermore, most reverts to policy pages are reverts/edit wars between experienced users, not reverts of vandalism. JYolkowski // talk 02:36, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

We don't semi-protect all pages because new and unregistered users frequently make constructive edits to articles and other non-policy pages. The existence of "reverts/edit wars between experienced users" is not a reason to encourage vandalism on official policy pages. John254 02:40, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I've seen a lot of people throw out 'most anon edits to policy are vandalism' and 'most reverts to policy are established users', but do we have any statistics? Those might help clear up some of these points of debate. Shell 02:41, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

We don't have any formal statistics. However, one could examine the edit history of the semi-protection policy itself, which clearly illustrates the phenomenon of new and unregistered users making edits that are almost entirely vandalism. John254 02:46, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

We should probably collect some then. I took a look at the last 500 edits to WP:V, dating back 7+ months. Out of those, 65 were anonymous. Out of those, around 49 were reverted. A significant amount of these 49 weren't vandalism, but good-faith edits to attempt to improve grammar or whatever that didn't really. Note that this works out to about 0.2 reverts of anonymous edits per day, and about 25% of the anonymous edits were kept. Out of the 500, around 113 of them (25%) were reverts of non-anonymous editors edits. So, 70% of reverts are of non-anons. Based on these, it's somewhat dubious that most anon edits to policy are vandalism, and seems to be a safe bet that most reverts are reverts of edits by established users. JYolkowski // talk 03:21, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I would urge editors to review the edit histories of official policies themselves, rather than accepting the above claim without evidence. In any case, there's no assertion that edits by new and unregistered users to these pages are actually improving them. John254 03:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

(Tiny comment before I go to bed) - I think it's important to make the distinction between different policy pages. Some are still constantly evolving, while others are more static. I think we can safely say that the Semi-protection policy page has indeed seen almost completely anonymous IP vandalism, but other policy pages have had much more positive contributions, which is why it may be good to only semi-protect (or preferably full) protect those that are set in stone with close to nil chance of further necessary minor changes. Cowman109 03:26, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Many official policy pages have had almost entirely vandalism from new and unregistered users, as may be verified with a review of their edit histories. John254 03:37, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Enactment

There are several competing views as to what constitutes consensus for the purpose of amendments to official policies. Without attempting to resolve this issue and attempting to define exactly what consensus is, it is clear that under the two most common views of consensus, this amendment has consensus for adoption. Some users claim that consensus exists where a sufficient supermajority of established users have expressed support for a proposal. This view is supported by the numerous changes to official policies that have been effectuated as a result of votes, as discussed in detail in my comments on Misplaced Pages talk:Discuss, don't vote. If strong supermajority support for a proposal constitutes consensus, it is clear that this proposal has consensus for enactment. A total of 14 established users (SlimVirgin Stifle Jc37 Starblind Barno Ned Scott Xoloz Andrew Levine Terryeo Alex Bakharev Ligulem Karimarie Jayjg and John254) have expressed support for this proposal on this talk page and on Misplaced Pages talk:Semi-protection policy. By contrast, only 5 established users (JYolkowski Cowman109 Splash Nagle and John Reid) have expressed opposition to this proposal on this talk page and on Misplaced Pages talk:Semi-protection policy. This yields 73.68% support for this proposal, which is certainly sufficient for a relatively minor refinement to the the semi-protection policy to semi-protect official policies.

Alternatively, some users contend that Misplaced Pages is a "cluocracy" such that

disputes generally are, and should be, resolved in favor of whomever has the best reasoning - not in terms of rhetoric but in terms of knowing what works and what doesn't

Under this definition of consensus, this proposal also has consensus for enactment. Almost all edits by new and unregistered users to official policies are vandalism and/or obvious changes against consensus. It is thus clear that the current practice of permitting new and unregistered users to edit official policies isn't working. Semi-protecting these policies, by contrast, will work, since semi-protection is widely known to greatly reduce the levels of vandalism on pages to which it is applied. Furthermore, since almost all constructive edits to official policies are made by established users, semi-protection will allow almost all legitimate edits. Irrespective of which definition of consensus we choose, it is clear that this amendment has consensus for enactment. Thus, I am adding it to the the semi-protection policy. John254 01:40, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

(ec)73% is not consensus, and anyway you haven't counted some people who have opposed as opposing (John Nagle, for example). Furthermore, counting "votes" in a non-poll environment is just silly. JYolkowski // talk 02:09, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

User:Nagle is the user who signs his posts as "John Nagle", so he was counted. 73% can indicate consensus. Creating a poll for this issue would simply be redundant. John254 02:16, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

No. Consensus means discussing and coming to a solution that everyone can agree with. There has not been enough discussion to do so here. JYolkowski // talk 02:20, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Please see Misplaced Pages:Consensus. This guideline does describe how a supermajority can help to indicate a consensus. Not once does it claim that consensus requires absolute unanimity (which would make it essentially impossible to achieve). John254 02:26, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Unanimity isn't the goal - you're right, that is quite difficult, but please look at the section you're referring to. It starts While the most important part of consensus-building is to thoroughly discuss and consider all issues - I think that's what JYolkowski is asking for. Just give it some more time and see what can be done about addressing the objections others have. Shell 02:31, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

There's not a large number of editors giving input here, have you tried the Village Pump or something similar? FWIW, I also agree that semi-protection makes sense for official policy/guideline pages; unlike other articles, edits to the policy pages are supposed to have consensus and support of the community first. Since you do appear to have consensus of the editors who have responded, I reverted your inclusion of this idea to the policy. Shell 02:07, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that we need more input on this. JYolkowski // talk 02:09, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, JYolkowski did post information about this issue on the Village Pump (). John254 02:12, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Once again I must strongly suggest that you revert your actions, John. There has not nearly been enough time to discuss this and I was preparing a suggestion for an amendment to this before you changed the policy page. There is no rush to get this policy initiated and it is best to make sure that all that needs to be said has been said. Give this another week or two before edit warring like this for the sake of our sanities - the Wiki won't implode if this isn't done right away. Cowman109 02:18, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd have to agree - looking back at the history and this talk page, it doesn't seem that all significant objections have been discussed. There's no hurry on things - building consensus isn't just about how many people think one way or another, its about cooperating to reach an agreement. Shell 02:21, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

One idea towards a possible compromise

Writing my post about the statistics above, one thought that occurred to me was whether there is benefit to making a distinction between policy pages that anons are likely to take their frustrations out on (WP:VAND, WP:SEMI, etc.) and ones that they aren't (WP:V, WP:NOR, etc.)? I'm kind of tired right now so I'll just throw the idea out and log off right now, but I'll throw this out and see what people think. JYolkowski // talk 03:28, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Overall I'd say that there isn't a great need for this, if an anon or new editor changes/edits a policy page well, editing a policy page is not changing the policy and the edit can be reverted if needed. This is "The 💕 that anyone can edit" and all that. And if it's meant to reduce work, traffic on policy pages is a tiny percentage of the total amount of editing going on so it won't make a dent there. Overall, there's a philosophy at work here we should be very cautious about changing. Unless there's a screaming need for this, we shouldn't make such a fundemental change like this without a lot more thought and discussion. Rx StrangeLove 03:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

If edits by new and unregistered users are almost all vandalism and or changes clearly against consensus, they aren't making a positive contribution to official policy pages, and there's no reason to allow them. We allow new and unregistered users to contribute to articles because they often make positive contributions. The claim that Misplaced Pages is "The 💕 that anyone can edit" means that almost anyone can edit Misplaced Pages articles, not that almost anyone can edit Misplaced Pages official policies. Indeed, Misplaced Pages contains many non-article pages that even most established users cannot edit, such as the main page, and high-risk templates. John254 03:47, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, there's a compelling reason to limit pages that can cause actual damage such as high risk templates and the main page. Editing policy pages doesn't expose us to any real risk. We've never made any across the board distinction between name spaces like this when it comes to editing rights, and there's no compelling reason to do it now. If the bottom line here is to reduce the reverting workload, I don't see it as an important enough rational to make such a fundamental change in the wiki philosophy. Being a Wiki comes with a cost for sure, but in this case it's a pretty small one compared to making such an elemental policy change. At least without a lot more discussion among a lot more participants. Rx StrangeLove 05:46, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I fail to see how semi-protecting official policy pages -- an extraordinarily small fraction of all the pages on Misplaced Pages -- represents "a fundamental change in the wiki philosophy". Also, the implication that official policies have their own namespace, and that semi-protecting them is an "across the board distinction between name spaces like this when it comes to editing rights" is factually incorrect. Official policies are relatively small part of the Misplaced Pages namespace. Then again, the claim that "We've never made any across the board distinction between name spaces like this when it comes to editing rights" is also factually incorrect -- all MediaWiki namespace pages are fully protected. John254 06:04, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

The Wiki philosophy means that anyone can contribute and no distinctions are made between editors of different levels of experience. Also, our policy pages are not WikiMedia pages (as a general platform), they are Misplaced Pages specific pages and we've never made any distinction between policy and article pages when it comes to editing rights. Restricting content editing privileges by class of user is a fundamental change. We do have some minor restrictions for new users but nothing that limits them to this extent. I was using a general meaning of the word namespace and you can disregard it if you'd like, but the point is still valid. Semi-protecting policy pages (official or not) is a fundamental change in the way we do things here. They may make up a small fraction of the total amount of pages here but they are an important part of what we do here. Also, the fact that they do amount to a fraction of the total number pages argues against making a change like this in order to reduce workload...the number of pages are few in number. Rx StrangeLove 06:32, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

the idea is that anyone can edit / contribute to articles. -- Ned Scott 06:37, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

The thing is that we've never made a practical distinction before, policy, along with articles have always been open to everyone. We should be careful in making a change like this...note that I'm asking for more thought and discussion before something like this is put in place. Rx StrangeLove 06:42, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think policy and articles are even near the same level of "editability". Apples and oranges, my friend, the distinction is obvious. -- Ned Scott 07:20, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Because WP:FAITH is a core principle of the community, we have always allowed anyone to edit anything, until clear evidence of disruptive editing is present. Protecting any page for which there isn't any real evidence of disruptive vandalism is a big shift from that core principle. JYolkowski // talk 23:08, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Response to "One idea towards a possible compromise" above

Misplaced Pages:Vandalism is already semi-protected, and has been more or less continuously since February 2006. Since the set of "policy pages that anons are likely to take their frustrations out on" could easily be interpreted as the set of policy pages that would be semi-protected even under the existing policy, this isn't really a "compromise" at all. Furthermore, it fails to address concerns that new and unregistered users generally aren't contributing constructively to any official policy pages. John254 05:09, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Also, I strongly disagree with Cowman109's suggestion that we should fully protect any official policies on a continuous basis. Full protection of these pages should be strictly limited to a temporary protection used to stop edit wars, and where absolutely necessary to prevent severe vandalism that cannot be stopped with semi-protection. Full protection effectively writes most established users out of the policy making process, even when such users have extensive Misplaced Pages experience and a through understanding of our policies and practices. John254 05:37, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

• The way I read it, the compromise would be to semi-prot policy pages that (judged by their history) are indeed the target of several bad edits by anons - as opposed to automatically semi-protecting every policy page. The current situation seems to be automatically never semi-protect policy pages. I think both extremes are bad in that they are examples of thoughtless application of the protect button. Rather, we should look at pages individually, and see how many good and bad anon edits a page gets. The spirit that "everybody can edit the encyclopedia" is not harmed by indefinitely semiprotting a policy page. It's a simple example of net benefit and making less work for ourselves. >Radiant< 15:12, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

  I can agree with that, and would support its implementation. Would someone like to make a list for discussion? - jc37 15:46, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

  Probably it makes sense to do two things. First, determine what sorts of policy pages disruptive editors will tend to get pointed to. For example, new disruptive users will often be told to stop vandalizing and that the page they're editwarring on is semi-protected (feel free to suggest other such scenarios), so may continue their campaigns of disruption on the linked pages. However, they are quite unlikely to be asked to, for example, ensure that their contributions are verifiable and to ignore all rules, so most anon contributions to pages like those are not by disruptive users and so are made in good-faith. Second, determine what threshold of disruptive editing we can no longer put up with. There seems to be general consensus that the vandalism that WP:VAND gets is so excessive that it's more or less permanently semi-protected. On the other hand, many policy pages only see one occurrence of vandalism every few days, which is no big deal. The ones that fall in the middle probably need more discussion. Having said that, I don't think this is necessary to do right now (although if others want to do it, I'm game). If users feel that an individual page gets too much vandalism, they can reach consensus on a page-by-page basis. JYolkowski // talk 23:32, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

  • If we are to implement this "compromise solution", I would suggest that, as a minimum, the official policies actually linked from the MediaWiki interface should be semi-protected, since they have a very high visibility to disruptive users. Misplaced Pages:Protection policy and Misplaced Pages:Semi-protection policy are linked from MediaWiki:Protectedtext; Misplaced Pages:Blocking policy and Misplaced Pages:Appealing a block are linked from MediaWiki:Blockedtext. I also suggest that the semi-protection policy be amended to specifically allow the continuous semi-protection of some official policy pages, which should be mentioned by name. "Reach consensus on a page-by-page basis" wouldn't really work, since the discussion would likely revolve around an application of the existing semi-protection policy, and seek to determine whether these pages received a sufficient level of vandalism to qualify for semi-protection under the existing criteria. Pursuant to the existing semi-protection policy, an official policy can qualify for semi-protection due to heavy vandalism under the same criteria that would be applied for the semi-protection of an article, or most other pages. The entire purpose of a "compromise solution", of course, is to effectuate a change to the semi-protection policy, and to semi-protect some official policies that presently do not qualify for semi-protection. John254 01:04, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Wording

The actual wording of this amendment to the semi-protection policy has not yet been discussed. This should be looked at clearly. I think we should stray away from words like 'should' and 'must', but instead use 'may', as some policy pages may benefit more from semi-protection than others. Any comments? Cowman109 04:24, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Is this a version of the proposed amendment that the editors who have opposed the old version of this amendment can support? If we can enact the amendment with the new wording, and use it to semi-protect Misplaced Pages:Protection policy, Misplaced Pages:Semi-protection policy, Misplaced Pages:Blocking policy, and other official policy pages that are subject to significant IP vandalism, but not enough vandalism to qualify for semi-protection under the existing policy, I would support it. Naturally, I am assuming that Misplaced Pages:Protection policy, Misplaced Pages:Semi-protection policy, Misplaced Pages:Blocking policy, etc, can actually be semi-protected under the new wording, and that the administrators who opposed the old version of this amendment are willing to perform the semi-protections themselves if necessary. John254 04:52, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Uh, there was no old version unless I'm mistaken? No offense, but you simply took words and put them on the Semi-protection policy page without setting them in stone first here, so I figured we can start that. I do agree that some policy pages should be semi-protected, just not all of them. Simple, yet not necessarily binding wording such as this will allow administrators to not be so afraid to semi-protect policy pages, at least. Cowman109 06:36, 4 November 2006 (UTC)