Wikipedia talk:Protection policy

Why is vandalism grounds for semi-protection, but incompetence is not?

Protection is supposed to be based upon "a specifically identified likelihood of damage resulting if editing is left open". So, why is damage resulting from vandalism considered actionable, but not damage resulting from incompetence? --Hobbes Goodyear (talk) 03:15, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Example? --Redrose64 (talk) 10:43, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

On second thought, please never mind. I suspect "incompetence" is a non-starter here--I will try "disruptive" in future. --Hobbes Goodyear (talk) 23:33, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

If an individual is being disruptive, they will often end up in a block. If a group are being disruptive, then yes, article protection is often applied. Resolute 02:07, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

New York is a Middle Atlantic state in the north-eastern United States.

New York is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario, the Canadian province of Ontario (NW) and the Canadian province of Quebec (N).

It is sometimes called New York State when there is need to distinguish it from New York City , the largest city both in the state and in the USA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mehrubona (talk • contribs) 12:31, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Thought about Pending Changes level two

I'm currently floating an idea at the chocolate factory about using PC2 on a subset of WP:HRT. Since this is the protection policy I thought I'd drop a note here soliciting input. Regards, Crazynas ^t 11:19, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 13 March 2013: Singles Discography Edits

I think the comment here applies to Irish_Singles_Chart and has been moved to Talk:Irish_Singles_Chart#Edit_request_on_13_March_2013:_Singles_Discography_Edits NE Ent 11:49, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protect these topics

People keep vandalising 1990s in fashion and 2010s in fashion by randomly adding words like "stupid," "gay" or "crazy." There's also the problem of naive users adding things without citations. Can someone semi-protect these two pages so only registered users can edit them?

-Osama — Preceding unsigned comment added by Osama57 (talk • contribs) 03:05, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Protection policy page. It is not for requesting that a page be protected - to request that a page be protected or unprotected, see Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:16, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

including a title for GG

He is, as we all know,a world class Dhimmi. So why then is this title not correctly inferred to him on his page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.206.232.93 (talk) 12:10, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

The damage mechanism is missing

Damage caused by a frostbite is similar to damage caused by cryopreservation. When the temperature of cells drops below freezing, ice crystals form causing physical damage and permanently change the cell chemistry. When such cells thaw, the sustained damages and change often results in cell death.

"Body tissues actually freeze when they are frostbitten. Ice crystals form in the cell, causing physical damage and permanent changes in cell chemistry. When the ice thaws, additional changes occur and may result in cell death." http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=a00193

"In areas of the body affected by frostbite, ice crystals form and cells and blood vessels become damaged." http://www.patient.co.uk/health/Frostbite.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.108.142.111 (talk) 00:22, 12 April 2013‎

I've declined your request because I don't know which article you wish to be edited. This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Wikipedia:Protection policy. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. --Redrose64 (talk) 07:37, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Remove "uncontroversial" from the policy.

Having the word "uncontroversial" in this policy has repeatedly caused problems. The word is ill-defined in the WP context. Everyone believes their own edits to be uncontroversial. If a page is fully protected, it should be protected from editing by all editors, including admins. Admins should not carry on routinely editing a fully protected page while everyone else is locked out. The changes requested below are based directly on this post made by administrator Bwilkins, which I believe reflects the accepted and long-standing interpretation of this policy.

Please replace these sentences:

Modifications to a fully protected page can be proposed on its talk page (or at another appropriate forum) for discussion. Administrators can make changes to the protected article reflecting consensus. Placing the {{Edit protected}} template on the talk page will draw the attention of administrators for implementing uncontroversial changes.

with these:

Modifications to a fully protected page can be proposed on its talk page, or at another appropriate forum for discussion. Placing the {{Edit protected}} template on the talk page will draw the attention of administrators. Administrators must not edit fully protected pages, except to implement consensus reached on the talk page, or to remove policy-violating text or images.

Please delete this sentence.

Pages that are protected because of content disputes should not be edited except to make changes which are uncontroversial or for which there is clear consensus (see above).

80.174.78.102 (talk) 08:27, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• I think I disagree - if an admin sees (for example) a spelling error on a protected page, they should be permitted to correct it without any time-wasting discussion. Victor Yus (talk) 10:02, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• The 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing article clearly highlights the type of controversy that such seemingly minor "uncontroversial" edits can cause. IP is quite right about the obscurity of the line between controversial and uncontroversial edits; using your example of spelling error, changing American spelling to British spelling or vice versa on an American-British article can stirred unfathomable amount of tension between two sides in an already hostile environment, given that the page was locked due to content disputes. If actual spelling or grammar errors exists, admins like everyone else can wait a few hours for the article to be unprotected before editing - something as minor as an actual spelling error can wait. As I said at ANI, why poke the tiger (and risk causing further tension over something so minor?) YuMaNuMa ^Contrib 10:42, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• I would have thought that administrators had enough judgment to know what's potentially going to provoke tension, and what's not. I suppose they should err on the side of caution, but remember that Wikipedia benefits from any obvious corrections they may make (which might otherwise not get made, since the admin might forget about them and no-one else might notice them for a long time), so it would be counterproductive to prohibit such actions. Also the correction might be uncontroversial but major - in that case it's highly desirable that it be corrected as soon as possible, particularly since pages like this are likely also to be being read by a lot of people, so any substantial error will have a significant cost in terms of misinformed readers. Victor Yus (talk) 11:03, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• Unless admins can mind-read, it's impossible to determine what's controversial and what's not. Again, I'll use the aforementioned article as an example, no one would have expected there to be a such a reaction to the edits that several admins made and yet a thread concerning those changes remains one of the longest ANI threads displayed at the moment, with a majority of editors supporting the cessation of non-vital editing until the page is unprotected. Unless the errors constitute of a BLP violation, it should be retained or at least discussed on the talk page before actual changes are made. If the errors on fully-protected articles, which generally were previously semi-protected, are major, it's assumed the erorrs were caused by editors trying to push a certain POV, hence any changes to the content will undoubtedly be controversial(I can explain a variety of reasons why it would be but I hope you get my point without me doing so). If need-be, the pre-edit war revision should be restored, however admins should not take the liberty of adjusting or "fixing" errors unless of course it constitutes a BLP vio. YuMaNuMa ^Contrib 11:51, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• I remain of the opposite opinion. Long ANI threads aren't a big deal; wrong information on Wikipedia is. (Even if it's not defamatory to anyone.) Victor Yus (talk) 11:31, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• I understand where you're coming from but given that most fully-protected articles are well sourced due to the appealing and controversial nature of the topic, and that the editors that edit those articles are familiar with the policies of Wikipedia, including WP:V, WP:RS and so forth, errors if any, are made by those who deliberately choose to misinterpret sources or view them from a different perspective to promote a certain viewpoint thus such "errors" can be considered controversial. I doubt any of the errors on fully protected articles are blatant(apart from spelling errors and grammar but as said that's minor). YuMaNuMa ^Contrib 11:51, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
• Terms such as uncontroverisal and major are incredibly subjective. The only way to know whether or not a change is controversial is to suggest it on the talk page. Uncontroversial, beneficial changes, be they major or minor, will quickly get consensus.

Admins editing through protection is a recurrent problem. When it happens, it's seldom to correct typing mistakes. If an admin wants to fix a spelling mistake, all that's needed is message on the talk page: "I intend to replace x with y. I'll go ahead in 5 minutes, unless anyone objects". The spelling mistake argument is really very tangential to this policy, because fixing spelling mistakes is rarely an issue with fully protected articles. If it really does bother you, I wouldn't object to modifying the proposal to include "or correct spelling mistakes". 80.174.78.102 (talk) 12:31, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Spelling mistakes bother me less than uncontroversial factual changes (say, correcting a wrong date), where wrong information is going to be read by someone and (quite possibly) believed by them. We shouldn't be putting any needless obstacles in the way of anyone who is willing and able to improve Wikipedia by correcting such errors. If anyone has a genuine objection to such a change that has been made, they can always say so, and then the admin will revert. And if a non-admin spots such an error first, they can say so as well, and hopefully an admin will come along and make the required change. We shouldn't allow edit-warring over some controversial issues in the article to get in the way (any more than it has to) of regular uncontroversial improvement of the article. Victor Yus (talk) 12:54, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

The same arguments apply to dates as to spelling mistakes. We can't know in advance whether or not changing a date will be controversial. The suggested rewording wouldn't delay the modification more than 5 minutes or so. And it's not as though these articles are riddled with spelling and date mistakes. So we're looking at, say, 1 in 10, or 1 in 20 protected articles containing an incorrect date or a spelling mistake for 5 minutes longer than it otherwise would have. We should also to take into account that prohibiting changes without consensus will prevent the introduction of new errors, that otherwise might have been added into the article. It's entirely possible that pausing momentarily on fast-moving article will result in fewer errors finding their way into the article in the first place. 80.174.78.102 (talk) 13:19, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template. It's clear from the above that the original request here was not uncontroversial, so by the arguments put forth by 80.174.78.102 (talk) it should not be amended at this stage. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:05, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Fair enough. I take it you'll implement the change, if appropriate, when the consensus becomes clear. There are three voices here, to date. Two in favour, one against. 80.174.78.102 (talk) 14:29, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Count me as opposed. Admins should be able to make simple corrections (spelling, grammar, obvious typos, wikimarkup issues) without seeking consensus. Errors of that sort are everywhere (I've found them on FAs the day before they hit the main page); articles on controversial topics have them, too. Rivertorch (talk) 14:41, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

How about if we added exactly that to the policy: Administrators must not edit fully protected pages, except to implement consensus reached on the talk page, remove policy-violating text or images, or make simple corrections (spelling, grammar, obvious typos, wikimarkup issues)? 80.174.78.102 (talk) 14:52, 20 April 2013 (UTC)