This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Richard001 (talk | contribs) at 03:22, 11 April 2007 (→See also: Added study for further reading). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 03:22, 11 April 2007 by Richard001 (talk | contribs) (→See also: Added study for further reading)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) | This page's designation as a policy or guideline is disputed or under discussion. Please see the relevant talk page discussion for further information. |
 | This page documents an English Misplaced Pages ]. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page. |
]
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. Protection of the page is generally prohibited. Administrators are advised to use extreme caution when deciding whether to semi-protect the page. They should notify the community when they choose to do so. Circumstances under which semi-protection are appropriate are given below.
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.
- Much 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 AntiVandalBot.
- 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 higher than normal volume of edits due to the high visibility of the article will correspond with a higher than normal volume of vandalism.
- 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
Counter rationale
Reasons not to have the policy.
- Without exception, featured articles on the main page are brutally vandalized, and many editors spend more time reverting vandals than improving the article.
- "Our best work" is not exemplified by a new user coming in and seeing vandalized pages featured on the main page.
- Users should not have to fight vandals in the first place.
- It is best to not allow the problem to occur in the first place than wasting time cleaning up.
- Having to fight vandals subject the article's editors to harassment and is insulting to their work. The attitude that the article on the Main Page should not be protected from unregistered users is insulting and fails to consider the welfare of the people behind the article.
- Most new users don't first encounter Misplaced Pages via the main page but by Google search hits, or links from other sites; thus, the argument about all the new users being able to edit this article is moot.
- Many users waste their time fighting front-page article vandals instead of producing good articles.
- Many new and newer users come to the talk page to register their complaints and dismay that the FA is being vandalized and request protection. When it is protected, few good faith new users seem to ever request unprotection on the talk page, countering the idea that new users would prefer a page they can edit to a page that isn't vandalized
- Vandalism isn't always cleaned up quickly, with many FAs being vandalized for over an hour of total time during their stay on the main page
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. 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 thus be introduced for a limited amount of time, though it is preferable to try other methods of dealing with vandalism first, such as blocking problematic accounts and IPs.
Templates
Templates included in the main page FA are sometimes vandalized, and it is more difficult to find the source of this kind of vandalism quickly. It is also less likely that casual readers would need to modify the templates. Admins may semi/full-protect the templates as needed.
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.
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, articles linked via the front page should be experiencing a higher frequency of vandalism than other articles.
Note that none of this applies to the main page itself, which is always protected.
See also
- Misplaced Pages:Today's featured article
- Misplaced Pages talk:Don't protect Main Page featured articles/December Main Page FA analysis - A recent study on the nature of edits while on the Main Page.