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:Semi-protection policy - Misplaced Pages

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This page documents an English Misplaced Pages policy.It describes a widely accepted standard that editors should normally follow, though exceptions may apply. Changes made to it should reflect consensus.Shortcut
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Semi-protection of a page prevents unregistered editors and editors with accounts newer than four days from editing that page.

Semi-protection is only applied if the page in question is facing a serious vandalism problem. It is not an appropriate solution to editorial disputes of any kind since it may restrict some editors and not others. Administrators apply semi-protection in the same manner as current full protection against vandalism is applied — either on their own initiative or following an alert on an article's talk page, requests for page protection, the administrators' noticeboard, or some other relevant page.

Semi-protection is only to be applied as a response to serious vandalism and not as a pre-emptive measure against the threat or probability of vandalism, such as when certain pages suddenly become high profile due to current events or being linked from a high-traffic website. Only when there is evidence of a serious problem of vandalism should semi-protection be applied.

Administrators: note that semi-protection should only be considered if it is the only option left available to solve the problem of vandalism of the page. In other words, just like full protection, it is a last resort, not a pre-emptive measure.

To request that semi-protection of an article be lifted, a simple note on the article's talk page or the administrators' noticeboard should be sufficient, but the requests for protection page can be used if necessary. Requests to lift semi-protection should generally be unnecessary in the same way that unprotection after simple vandalism at present is generally swiftly seen to by either the protecting admin or another.

Articles that are semi-protected are indicated with {{sprotected}} and listed at Misplaced Pages:Protected page#Semi-protection.

When not to use semi-protection

Semi-protection is intended to allow good edits to be made even while there would otherwise be a serious vandalism problem on a page. This means that there are some situations that, whilst semi-protection would be technically possible, it is not to be applied. These are mentioned above, and summarized here. Semi-protection:

  • Is not to be used to dispel edit warring or revert wars. See the protection policy for how to deal with this.
  • Is not intended for pre-emptive protection of articles that might get vandalized. This includes the day's Featured Article which should almost never be protected.
  • Is not intended to prohibit anonymous editing in general, and is thus not a solution to run-of-the-mill vandalism.

Talk pages and user talk pages are not protected as a rule, except in extreme circumstances.

How

  1. In the protection interface, choose "Block new and unregistered users" for editing and/or moving the page as appropriate.
  2. Add {{sprotected}} to the top of the article. This adds the article to Category:Semi-protected.
  3. List the page at Misplaced Pages:Protected page#Semi-protection.

In the exceptional circumstance that you protect a User talk page, use {{usertalk-sprotect}} instead.

Tools

  • While the recent history of an article is most relevant to this type of protection, this tool is useful for tracking vandalism on a particular article over a longer period, to consider changing status.

See also

Categories: