Wikipedia talk:Lists of protected pages/Archive 1

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Protect Wikipedia:Protected page?

HardAndFast: The article (not the talk page!) should be protected: anyone who can change the protected status of a page could edit it anyway.

SoftlySoftly: But they forget. An unprotected list can be fixed by anyone.

HardAndFast: That could be done on the talk page too.

SoftlySoftly: Not as efficiently. In any case, no page should be protected unless there is a compelling reason to do so, and there is none here. Removing a page from the list does not automatically unprotect it.

HardAndFast: If you allow anyone to edit the list, then it's hard to know what's really protected.

SoftlySoftly: The principle of wiki is that by allowing anyone to edit a page, you make the page more reliable, not less. That applies here, just as much as it applies to our encyclopedia articles.

Wikipedians in favour of protecting Wikipedia:Protected page: John Owens, ~ender
Wikipedians against protecting Wikipedia:Protected page: Patrick, º¡º, Martin

Auto-generated list

As a feature request, it would be nice to have a list of protected pages. Someone should go bother the developers via wikipedia:bug reports, if they haven't already...

copyright pages

I believe that the GNU FDL redirect page was protected because the "please note" section underneath the edit box linked to GNU FDL., so if someone changed the redirect it could have legal consequences. The text under the edit box now links directly to Wikipedia:Copyrights, so I think it can now be unprotected. Have I missed something? Martin

The link at the bottom of every page goes to GNU FDL. Should it go to Wikipedia:Copyrights as well? --Brion 23:30 Apr 10, 2003 (UTC)
Oops! Yes, it should do. I changed the redirect for the time being, because of that. When the link at the bottom of the page is changed, the redirect can be changed and unprotected. Martin
sounds like a good idea. We could linkify the "GFDL" text at the foot of the edit box too. -- Tarquin 09:50 Apr 11, 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Copyrights sets out the legal terms of use for this site. As such, we're a little finicky about it. ;) That one stays protected. --Brion 23:04 Apr 10, 2003 (UTC)

redirects to GFDL

BigFatBuddha suggested that Text of the GNU Free Documentation License should be protected, which is a redirect. I've done so (just in case it's a legal issue), but I'd like to hear his reasons... Martin 20:51 Apr 30, 2003 (UTC)

  • If (and only if) we accept the assumption that the text of the GFDL is not free for editing and modification by wikipedians.
  • And if (and only if) we accept the precedent set at GNU FDL that copyright related redirects should be protected.
  • Then, it follows that the redirect in question may be one which should be protected.
Also, comparing the list of what was claimed to be protected both before and after my latest major revision will show that the previous list was in error and my edit (and actions) were an attempt to correct it. -º¡º
The GNU FDL link is a little more important because it's at the bottom of every page - "All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License". There could be legal implications if that permission grant was maliciously changed (for example to "copyright AOL"). Perhaps I'm just legally paranoid? Hmm... Martin
At this point, I've lost track of exactly what the question is. -º¡º

Designated agent

wikipedia:designated agent was protected (perhaps by mav). Alex756 asked if it might be protected on User talk:Jimbo Wales. It is a disclaimer that is required under the DMCA OCILLA provisions. It is really a copyright notice. There is a designated agent page in Wikipedia. See also: Wikipedia talk:Designated agent for the explanation. 12:35 May 14, 2003 (UTC)

User:172 protected Talk:New Imperialism, apparently to prevent me from discussing the page with other users. He also moved a huge section of text written yesterday (and today) to an "archive", the entire page he moved was nothing but discussion regarding potentional changes to "his" page; something he apparently doesnt want happening. Pizza Puzzle

Now he just protected New Imperialism because I moved a "see also" out of the middle of nowhere and put it somewhere visible. Is this guy the owner of the site or something, I don't think he likes me. Pizza Puzzle

Wikipedia_talk:Protected_page might be a better place to discuss this. The page history makes it look like there's an edit war going on. If this is the case, and 172 is involved in this, then he should not be protecting the page anyway. <quote>If you are an admin and you want a page in an edit war in which you are involved to be protected, it is recommended that you contact another admin and ask them to protect the page for you. (from :Wikipedia:Protected_page)</quote> Angela 23:08 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

In light of recent controversy, I've made some edits to this page, mainly to clarify the situation in terms of editing a protected page. Hopefully this will avoid similar misunderstandings in the future. However, if my edits do not reflect general opinion, they should of course be reverted. Martin 23:19 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Now User:Jtdirl has protected the page, both of these individuals are abusing their powers. Pizza Puzzle

Can someone please unprotect user:Jar Jar Binks, as I wish to edit the page. Also, I note that User:George Washington (president), and User:Mount Paektu have been pre-emptively protected, which I don't believe is in accordance with our policy. Pre-emptively protecting a page is a bad idea - we should only protect pages that have been persistently edited by a banned user - simply because a page might be edited by a banned user is no reason to protect it, in my opinion. Better to simply add the page to your watchlist. Martin 23:28 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I agree with you - I've unprotected them both, and also unprotected User:Jar Jar Binks. --Camembert

I think detailed justifications are best placed on the relevant talk page. All we need to know here is:

  • what was protected?
  • why was it protected? - ten words or less.

No need to duplicate this kinda stuff, imo, so I moved it to talk:New Imperialism Martin 16:57 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I guess I'm involved in an edit war. If you look at the history of Subud you'll see a group of people who consistently try to make the page POV. I found the page in a bad state and did my best to make it NPOV. But it is now constantly edited. I reluctantly request a protection on that page. Moros 02:43, Aug 25, 2003 (UTC)


Moros. I am a skeptic in all things and I have no interest in subud whatsoever apart from the fact that a Subud centre exists about 300 yards from my house. The link that you insist on including isn't worthy of inclusion. It describes orgies and torture and a conspiracy involving highly placed members of the FBI, Donald Trump, Michael Eisner (Disney Corp) and Hervey Weinstein (Miramax). The author appears to be suffering from delusions. It purports to provide evidence of these activiews but the links to this evidence only show up as under contruction. Mintguy 11:42, 25 Aug 2003 (UTC)

"Also, admins should not (consciously or randomly) taking sides in an edit war by protecting one side's version of the page. Instead, they should revert the page to the last "stable" version." (added by Wik on October 22)

I'm not sure I agree with this. Deciding which is a stable version expresses a POV in some cases. It may be best just to protect the page in whatever state it is in when you get there and then add a neutrality or accuracy dispute label to it rather than choosing which revision to revert to. Angela 03:33, Oct 23, 2003 (UTC)

Who unprotected Danzig, and why? RickK 03:41, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Protected page suggests Ed Poor did on October 4 because "they gave up when I yawned in their faces". Angela 03:50, Oct 29, 2003 (UTC)
Except they didn't give up. RickK 04:00, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

protecting personal pages

I am curious what the arguments are against protecting one's personal user page. Kingturtle 18:20, 8 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Just to state : you may protect your user page, it is no problem with me. But, my feeling is that a use page is not a page the user *own*, it is a page whose subject is the user. Something totally egoistic. Just ME, ME, and ME again :-) As long as the page is

  • about the user itself : his pict, his age, his email adress, his dreams, his political stance,
  • or the user activity : his contributions, his favorite links,
  • or the user environment : his interactions with the project and his fellow wikipedians (what others think of him, what he thinks of others, link to a ban page, link to a love page)

...that is fine with me. It is a page focusing on the user himself. Only on him. Entirely on him. All this information may come from the user himself, but from other wikipedians as well. I know this is not the general position, but it my feeling, and that require that a user page is not protected.

(note that, just as any wiki page, the User is free not to like what was written about HIM and to revert it. In case of vandalism, protection may be necessary, but vandalism of user pages tends to be exceptionnal).

Incidentally, I think I remember that in phase I, we did not necessarily had a talk page. It is still that way on simple.wikipedia.org. Discussion with people occur on their user page. The notion of making a differenciation between the space where the user could display his ego, and the place where others were authorized to talk to him was non existant.

friendly yours (Anthere)

  1. Special priviledges for sysops - un-wiki (whatever that means).
  2. "out of process" - not what sysop powers are meant to be used for.
  3. Homepage vandalism serves important purposes as a lightning rod:
    • Draw fire from articles, which are more important
    • Expose trolls and pure vandals as such, who can then be dealt with.
  4. The possible threat of homepage vandalism also encourages sysops to be reasonably civil and avoid causing unnecessary offense/annoyance/rage even when dealing with trolls
  5. Breaks normal wikiness of fixing disambigs/page moves/etc - discourages non-sysops
  6. Leaving unprotected promotes trust and shows that we trust the wiki system to protect our reputation just as it protects the encyclopedia. This is important for wikipedia:replies to skeptics
  7. meta:protected pages considered harmful

Martin 18:37, 8 Nov 2003 (UTC)

It might be worth noting that a discussion over the protection of sysop pages is also occuring on the German Wikipedia. Calls have been made for Zenon to be de-sysopped because he was refusing to unprotect his personal pages. See de:Wikipedia_Diskussion:Administratoren if you speak German. Angela 14:49, Nov 9, 2003 (UTC)

See also: this thread on Wikien which discusses sysops protecting their own subpages. Angela 00:28, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

The relevant posts are: question, Brion, Jimbo, mav.

Protection of Mother Teresa by Viajero

I don't disagree with the protection, but it was a serious abuse of sysop powers for someone like Viajero who was an outspoken participant in that debate on the talk pages, and a particular critic of Alexandros on the page, having talked about Alexandros being banned if he didn't do what he was told, then himself protected that page. No sysop should protect a page he has been a key participant in the debate over, but then with Eloquence unprotecting the page when he had been its principal reverter, and also threatening bans, this page seems cursed with sysops abusing their powers. The subliminal subtext of this page seems to be be bold (the standard wikipedia instruction), unless you are expressing views on that aren't hostile enough about Catholicism, in which case I'll threaten a ban and abuse by sysop powers to get my way. (BTW for the record, I am one of those who reverted some of Alexandros's changes, so I am not taking his side over the edits, merely questioning the motivation and correctness of who did it.) FearÉIREANN 23:19, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I was following the edit war from afar, and at the time of protection, it appeared to me that Alexandros was removing about half the content of the article. Only after protection and reversion did it become clear to me that Alexandros had actually moved the content to Criticisms of Mother Teresa. Under the assumption that the content was being deleted rather than moved, Viajero's restoration of it was perfectly reasonable. Note that Viajero has made only cosmetic edits to the main article, and his contributions to the talk page are in the way of trying to answer Alexandros's concerns. If Viajero considered himself disinterested (as I consider him), then his actions would have appeared to him to be in line with our protection policy (as they do to me). -- Cyan 23:37, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Alexandros didn't move anything. The Criticisms of Mother Teresa article existed before. --Wik 23:43, Nov 9, 2003 (UTC)
Whoops, I misread his comment on Viajero's talk page. He wrote:
...i thought there was a Criticisms of Mother Teresa article which had already been decided on, so I removed the info that kept being added. Alexandros 22:41, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)


-- Cyan 23:49, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I fail to see how someone who continually debated not merely the specifics of edits but the whole methodology, structure and analysis with a number of users, can then be regarded as a neutral observer who could come in and protect the page. Viajero's involvement on this page goes back to October.

Among Viajero's comments are: The religious commentary, IMO, has not place in this article. 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

  1. As has already been pointed out by someone here, Hitler is arguably less controversial than MT. In any case, I don't think it is fair to compare article lengths in WP, given that it created by volunteers working in an arbitrary, unstructured way.
  2. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Why can't you accept the fact that for some people it is debatable how much good she did and how much good the Catholic Church does?
  3. The characters of her critics is completely irrelevant. Either their assertions are valid or they are not.
-- Viajero 20:52, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)
    • I could care less if the articles cotained criticsms of mother teresa based on valid factually based information. The only links containing this information, come from places like "Secular Humanism," which is far from the Washington post, or even Foxnews.com. Regardless, the point that everyone in the Mother Teresa debate seems to be making is that, if you in anyway sound like you *might* be saying something non negative about mother teresa, you will be banned, otherwise, do whatever you want to the article even if it means, including innaccurate information Alexandros 00:25, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Viajero may be right or may be wrong in the above. But someone who has already commented on the contents and structure of the article, and advocated their point of view on the issue, is by not obvious standards qualified then to be umpire protecting the page and cooling a dispute over the contents of the article that they have already taken sides on. 172 and others were severely criticised for doing that. At best Viajero made a serious error of judgment in doing something that his own participation in the debate made him unsuitable to do. Some other sysop should have been the outsider who protected the page. FearÉIREANN 23:55, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)

To Viajeros credit though, he seems to have acknowledged that he made a mistake, something 172 was loathe to do, (and that was what he was "severely criticised" for). -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 10:03, Nov 10, 2003 (UTC)

Let me put it to you this way: I do not hold a particular opinion about Mother Teresa either pro or con, yet I could have made that edit. While the edit you quote can be read as taking a position, it can also be read as a meta-comment on the ongoing debate, without taking a position. So it remains possible that Viajero did not think he had previously taken sides. I agree that it would have been better if Viajero had asked a completely uninvolved sysop to do the protecting, and I agree that more caution should be exercised by him in the future. I don't see it as an egregious abuse. -- Cyan 00:15, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I think we can agree that it was at the very least unwise and something that he should not repeat. FearÉIREANN 00:17, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I think even Viajero at this stage would agree with that. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 10:03, Nov 10, 2003 (UTC)

obviously viajero's comment with the words "road to hell" shows that he protected the page because he wanted to use his powers to further his POV and this is obviously something very grave. For some reason, Viajero seems not to like me and I think he also used the powers to the end of making me seem less credible.Alexandros 00:35, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

in viajero's revert he also removed an external link to Mother Teresa's Nobel acceptance speech, and only quoted the miniscule part of the speech about abortion. Sounds like he is trying to censor the informaiton. Alexandros 00:53, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Hi all, I have read the above comments and accept that it could be perceived that I was not a neutral observer in the matter. However, aside from the particular issues involved, it seemed to me that one user was trying to force his view of the article against a clear majority of other contributors, and that this was a breach of Wikiquette. I also assumed (now I see mistakenly) that the injunction against sysops protecting pages applied only to those directly involved in an edit war (ie, making edits).
Alexander: I am sorry if I have given you the impression that I don't like you. Not at all. I have seen that you are a valuable contributor. However, I think you are too emotionally involved with the subject of Maria Teresa. Your arguments yesterday about her good intentions and the hypocrisy of her critics were totally subjective; if your "credibility" suffered, it is solely through your own words and actions. As I wrote on my talk page yesterday, I urge you to take a break from MT, and work on other articles for awhile. As for the external link you mention above, I have no idea to what you are referring. After your last edit, I simply reverted to Wik's previous -- nothing more. -- Viajero 10:27, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

secretlondon-- Why did you protect Mother Teresa? User:2toise and I were in the middle of discussing and changing the article. Could you please unprotect it so we can finish editing? Alexandros 14:50, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Sorry Alexandros, it wasn't really much of a discussion - I appreciate Secretlondon's doing this - we can discuss changes before we make them on the talk page.2toise 14:54, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Mother Teresa is a good example of the abuse of sysop power. I think that taking out factually incorrect info which is obviously wrong starting "according to catholic doctrin..." should be allowed, and admins who use their power to do things like this, should be reprimanded. It is unnaceptable to protect pages like Mother Teresa in instences such as this one. Secretlondon, while doing so in good faith, only protected it because a lot of people are insistent on bashing Mother Teresa and the Catholic Church in general. I am taking out inappropriate information for a biography and I am being labled as a problem, when the users who want to include hearsay, are the only problems. I think it is terrible that someone has not stepped in to stop this. This is not only POV, but is insulting to Catholics. The opinions in the Mother Teresa article are no different from text found on a klu klux clan site, or a neo-nazi site. You might disguise this as "trying to report everyones side" but I dont think an article about Bejamin bannicker, for example, needs to include all the publsihed reports indicating problems with black people, or include a prominent klu klux klan member's opinion of black people along with reports concerning crime rates among black populations. Your only difference from any of the bigots who hate gays blacks or jews, is that there are more of you and you disguise your hatred as "reporting the facts. --Alexandros 15:28, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Protected Pages

Hi, all. I was just browsing the Mother Teresa talk page and noticed a bit somewhere in the middle about Cimon Avaro missing the 'protected page' blurb and accidentally editing the article page when it was protected and then being quite embarressed to have broken the 'don't edit a page when it's protected' guideline. This is something I can have sympathy with as I've made this mistake myself in the past. When you're in the cycle of rushing through articles clicking 'edit this page' and scrolling straight to where you think you want to edit it's easy to not concentrate on the text at the top.

I think one of the two following ideas may help avoid these errors, either put an extra page between the article and being able to eidt it, a 'are you sure you want to edit this protected page, if so click here' page (similar to when deleting a page), or I think my preferred option of changing the 'edit this page' link at the top to say 'Protected Page (edit)' (or something similar) in bold face.

Do others think this might be a good idea or should some of us just be a bit more leisurely with our edits!? -- Ams80 15:12, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Done it myself too. I think a slighly bolder header in a different color might be enough. --Viajero 17:26, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Good idea. It's far too easy for a sysop to overlook that a page is protected. We just need something to stand out and make us think "that's different!". -- Arwel 00:38, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

A simple thing that I think would be really effective would be to move the "Edit this page" link. If it's taken off the top/front of the list, and inserted, say, between "Unprotect this page" and "Discuss this page", then inadvertent editing of protected pages would be impossible... I think. If the idea appeals to all and sundry, I'll submit it to sourceforge. -- Cyan 03:04, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

sourceforge ticket

Protected page text

It's been suggested that the "Protected page" text given to non-sysops should link here - see Wikipedia talk:MediaWiki namespace text.

I propose it link to Wikipedia:This page is protected. (replied more at Wikipedia talk:MediaWiki namespace text). Angela. 20:31, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

User:Wik

Dear Wiki, Lir, and all concerned wikipedians, Wik is a passionate user. Such passion has its merits but it also has its downsides. There are currently four articles protected because of edit wars involving Wik, and there are three recently unprotected articles that had been protected because of edit wars involving Wik.

What can be done to improve this situation? Kingturtle 02:28, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)


Ask on the mailing list. Lirath Q. Pynnor

It would help if Lir would stop trolling, obviously. He is involved in six out of those seven edit wars, in five of them supported by no one else. --Wik 03:51, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)

  • I'd really like to find a solution for this. It winds up wasting time for all of us. Kingturtle 05:27, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Some way of protecting a page against a particular user would be good, rather than having to stop everyone editing it. Angela. 05:30, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Accidentally protected pages

I just noticed something very funny. The last 4 entires in the protection log:

01:44, Feb 6, 2004 Raul654 unprotected User:Anthony DiPierro
01:44, Feb 6, 2004 Raul654 protected User:Anthony DiPierro
23:56, 5 Feb 2004 Maveric149 unprotected Talk:Genetic basis for homosexuality
23:55, 5 Feb 2004 Maveric149 protected Talk:Genetic basis for homosexuality
23:00, 5 Feb 2004 Morven unprotected User:Cyan
23:00, 5 Feb 2004 Morven protected User:Cyan
16:42, 5 Feb 2004 Finlay McWalter unprotected USA PATRIOT Act
16:41, 5 Feb 2004 Finlay McWalter unprotected USA PATRIOT Act

Notice, each of those protections lasted less than a minute. It's almost certain that they were all accidents. Admins, myself including, keep accidentally hitting that protection button. →Raul654 07:03, Feb 6, 2004 (UTC)

That often happens. At least now there's a log people can check for this more easily. There was some discussion at MediaWiki talk:Unprotectthispage about making the unprotect button more obvious to prevent it happening so much. Angela. 07:23, Feb 6, 2004 (UTC)
Why not just generate a list of all currently protected pages, rather than having to search through the protection log to find out? →Raul654 07:33, Feb 6, 2004 (UTC)
Because there are issues with sysops running queries on the database [1]. Supposedly they are disabled. Angela. 07:52, Feb 6, 2004 (UTC)
That's what I figured - it might be a processor intensive query. So why not, at the very least, make an occasional dump of the listing? →Raul654 08:25, Feb 6, 2004 (UTC)
I've done this myself. The solution to this problem would be to make it take at least two clicks to protect a page. For example, just like you have to give a reason for deleting an article and then check the box and click the "confirm" button, we could do the same here. It would have the added benefit of giving sysops a textbox to summarize their reason for protecting (or unprotecting). I've heard on IRC that Tim Starling had some software change in his long-term plans. Minesweeper 01:16, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Well, the two I did for USA PATRIOT are both unprotects: both the protect and unprotect were deliberate, but the double unprotect is an artifact of my "reunprotecting" the page when the first attempt to do so appeared to time out. But your point is valid (I just did on Peter Pilz as an experiment). Given that deleting a page requires a confirmation, I don't see why protection shouldn't do so too. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 01:23, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

As can be seen above, I do this all the time and may have not noticed a few pages that I protected on accident. The damn 'Protect this page' link is right above 'Discuss this page' on the sidebars of content pages and 'View {page type}' on talk pages. Having to explain why a page needs to be protected would eliminate this and is something we should be doing anyway. Thank goodness such a message is needed for deleting pages - I slip up there as well since 'Delete this page' is right below 'Edit this page' at the bottom and right below 'Move this page' in the sidebar. --mav 01:47, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, the comment thing is a good idea. In particular, I know some folks protect things like village pump or VfD for a minute or two while they fix formatting - if someone trying to edit it in the meantime saw "fixing formatting - will be done momentarily" that would calm their nerves, I think. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 02:14, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Why not just take away the page protection button and make the process more cumbersome? Page protection would still be possible in short order for valid reasons, but hasty page protections and accidental page protections would vanish entirely. - Plautus satire 21:36, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

De facto semi-permanent protections

I don't see any point in making a separate header for "de facto semi-permanently protected pages". The only purpose I can see in this is that some passionate reversionist (note: I do not know and do not care who made that header) uses it as a vehicle of propaganda, and that's not what this page is for. Kosebamse 14:54, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Propaganda for what? The point is to indicate those pages that have no prospect of being unprotected. There's no way you can call a protection like this "temporary". --Wik 17:58, Feb 7, 2004 (UTC)

Others disagree about "no prospect". Further, there is the small matter of wikipedia:protection policy, which has no element of "de facto permanent" permitted. Which probably means the page should be unprotected, doesn't it, so it's in your favour. Martin 18:21, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

That's what I'm saying all along. So why isn't it? --Wik 18:34, Feb 7, 2004 (UTC)

That's a good question, but a seperate one. I've edited Wikipedia:Requests for page protection to reflect this request of yours. As an involved user, I doubt I have the authority to unprotect it myself. Martin 19:07, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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