Wikipedia talk:Main Page featured article protection
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This policy originated from a subpage in User:Raul654's user space.

Opinion on draft

The current policy draft seems to be much closer to what I would have envisaged were I a new user, (and oddly, almost the opposite of what was there before), and importantly adds in the need to protect templates and use semiprotection when there are few editors on revert patrol. I have no idea though whether this involves more work for admins, who presumably would be the people involved in doing such work. Perhaps it is worthwhile making sure there are people prepared to do this work, (or set up some sort of bot?) before we get too far with this policy. The other thing is have we convinced Raul654 that the change in policy is necessary? Because I'm guessing that as featured article editor, if he doesn't agree, we could have a fine time trying to get it implemented. Terri G 17:43, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the draft doesn't represent any more work for admins. Templates are already being protected based on the existing policy. Putting a semi-protect on an article arguably results in less admin work, since most vandal-fighting goes away. And, of course, the proposed policy doesn't require admins to do anything, it simply encourages (and empowers) them to use semi-protection more often.

As far as Raul654 goes, I too hope that he is convinced that a change in written policy is needed (actual practice has been changing; if it had not, this discussion would probably have ended long ago). But Raul654 doesn't own the MPA, as I think he'd be the first to say - once a new MPA is out, any admin can semi-protect (or unprotect) it. (For example, it's getting pretty common to move-protect it pretty early in its life.)

My major concern is we don't get wheel-warring where one admin puts semi-protection on and another promptly removes it. (In the seven days in December that the MPA was analyzed in depth, this happened at least once.) The proposed policy, if you will, is simply to move the tolerance level for semi-protection a bit. The policy change certainly doesn't mandate 24-hour semi-protection -- something I'd personally support, but also realize is much too significant a change to realistically have a chance of gaining anything resembling consensus. John Broughton | Talk 18:18, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the new draft policy is great and trust there will be little difficulty in getting consensus and publishing it. Is anyone working on the new template? That would seem to be on the critical path for moving this forward.--Paul 18:29, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I am not sure where to take this to next, but I support the current draft. —— Eagle 101 ^{(Need help?)} 02:36, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps what is going on at Wikipedia talk:Usurpation#Votes as explained at Wikipedia talk:Usurpation#Can't we just... is a good model. In other words, it time to ask for a show of hands (support, opposed, whatever)? (The relevant guideline is Wikipedia:How to create policy.) -- John Broughton | Talk 21:54, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Any movement on this? Gzkn 08:49, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

(undent) No. I think it's time for someone to try to bell the cat, so to speak. I'm thinking of posting the proposal widely (without spamming, of course), and asking for any final constructive suggestions for changes to it, and then moving forward with a formal expressing of support/oppose.

One reason I've held off is that I wanted to review (but haven't had the time) the MPAs between 8 December and (say) yesterday - what number of them were semi-protected? If there were only 2 or 3, it may be difficult for this proposal to become policy; if (say) 20 of them were semi-protected at one point or another during their 24 hours on the main page, then it could be easier. John Broughton | Talk 17:09, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Regardless, with that amount of vandalism being done, (as in the 7 day study), we should adopt the draft version of this policy, or just scrap it all together. (and rely on our semi-protection policy to guide us. Cheers! —— Eagle 101 ^{(Need help?)} 04:27, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Of course, we can still change the draft, but as it looks, we need to do something. —— Eagle 101 ^{(Need help?)} 19:49, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Protection of templates used in featured articles

User:ProtectionBot and Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/ProtectionBot might be of interest to those watching this page. It is an adminbot programmed to (among other things) protect the unprotected templates used on the daily featured article, and then unprotect the templates at the end of the day. Carcharoth 15:20, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Looks like now as a result of it we have "Cascading" protection. 19:46, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Case studies of notable IP activity on main page featured articles

(Section addition: –Outriggr § 03:24, 22 January 2007 (UTC))

Notable cases of IP vandalism

• El Greco was featured on the main page on January 19, 2007. The deletion of the entire biography section by an IP went uncorrected for 2.5 days (correcting diff). –Outriggr § 03:24, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Notable cases of IP improvement

Specialized Main Page FA AntiVandalBot? / "Newbie edits" subpage?

I really don't know how helpful this would be, or how difficult to implement, but what if there were a bot running whose only purpose was to monitor the Featured Article of the day? Would that decrease the amount of time that the FA spent in a vandalized state? The bot could revert vandals as needed, or possibly even semi- or fully-protect the article for a short time if the vandalism hit a certain level.

I personally have a general bias against protecting articles. I was drawn into becoming a Wikipedia editor by the desire to fix the vandalism that I encountered. The ability to successfully do that felt incredibly empowering to me, and has kept my interest in helping and editing Wikipedia. I would hate to see that experience blocked off for future newcomers. While the main page FA does get vandalized quite frequently, I hope that we can think of other remedies than protecting the article.

If we absolutely have to protect the article (and this policy could be extended to all protected articles), I would recommend that some sort of "recommended edits" sub-page (separate from the regular talk page) be linked to from the protected article in question. The protection template placed at the top would have a prominent link to the sub-page, which is where anon and new users could post their edits. An editor could then scan that page for helpful edits and add them. If we do need to protect or semi-protect the page, let's give the newbies some feeling of empowerment.

Gosh, but I got wordy!--Aervanath 17:56, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, looks like User:ProtectionBot already does part of what I had in mind. Could it be modified to fulfill the rest of my recommendation?--Aervanath 18:00, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I think each and every problem here on the page could be solved by a software update that allows certain pages to wait three minutes or so before edits are allowed to go through. In the meantime a bot or admins could check for vandalism and page blanking, and cancel any vandalism before it even appears on the page. Mithridates 17:45, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism

Copied here by Rlevse from the Scouting talk page, soon after the article's main page exposure.

Can't article editing be temporarily restricted to people with usernames? --Jagz 17:10, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Vandals are always a problem with the main page FA. I knew this would happen. Some feel like you and I that the mp FA should be protected, but others, lead by Raul654, do not feel so. There have been several debates about it. I always we should have to waste our time fighting the vandals, that it should be protected, but of course, no one cares about that, they think the vandals should be free to waste our time.Rlevse 17:13, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

After Eagle Scout went on the main page, I observed the next few main page articles. I guess I just needed to vent a bit, so I wrote User:Gadget850/MainPage. My experience is that if you convince an admin to semi-protect the page, another admin will come along and unprotect it and note Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 17:40, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Again, we shouldn't have to worry about it in the first place. More time and effort by all valid editors is spent fighting them than good is gained. New editors can simply move off the mainpage article to edit, it simply wouldn't be that big a deal. Rlevse 17:44, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Reversed vandalism on 06FEB2007, 12:37 EST I understand not what you say sir, but I will defend to the death your right to confuse me! 17:38, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

My point is we shouldn't have to fight vandals. Wiki should not allow them, wiki is too nice to them, everyone should have a verified account, etc. Thanks for fighting these scum.Rlevse 17:40, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Rlevse has a point, but if we block the main page from new editors then it could drive away new editors, since that is the first page they see. And I have seen a few cases of new editors reverting the vandalism they see, always a good thing. But yes, it is a hassle, thankfully lots of people have it on their watch page. Darthgriz⁹⁸ 17:42, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I beg to differ, how many of us had our first exposure to wiki via the mp fa? Few I suspect. Most people I know got to it by looking up info for school assignements, google hits on a topic of interest (my case), etc.Rlevse 17:46, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm hoping we implement the German solution soon [1]. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 17:50, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Not to mention someone vandalizes and then a new person sees vulgar stuff of the mp fa...I'll believe the German solution here when I see. This issue is one reason Citizendium has been started, where accounts are required.Rlevse 17:53, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

My two cents on vandalism is this: if a featured article is being vandalized repeatedly, it makes WikiPedia look bad. Case in point, when I first went to this article (after seeing it featured on the front page), I discovered that it will full of link spam. Had I been a first time visitor, I would have been put off by what I assumed was a lack of attention to the article. I'm just sayin'. --Douglas Muth 17:56, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

But the point is Wikipedia is for everybody to edit, if the first thing you see when you click on the page to edit and you can't it defeats the purpose. Although, I hate vandalism just as much as the rest of us (especially personal attacks.) Then again, if they can semi-protect my userpage to stop vandalism, sometimes I wonder why they can't protect the main page. So I guess I just see both sides of the issue. Darthgriz⁹⁸ 17:57, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

FA should get much less attention judging by their article merit. But we are inviting vandals to ravage them. We are frustrating a lot of people here. Mandel 16:20, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Can you PLEASE protect this page from vandalism?Anon 11:50, 6 February 2007 (PDT)

A guy with an IP starting with "69" keeps vandalizing this page and vandalized the Super Bowl XLI page as well. I think that IP address should be blocked immediately. -Daniel Blanchette 21:07, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Why Wiki does not block editing from unregistered people on the main page continues to amaze me. This article was reduce to garbage before my eyes at least 3 times in a matter of minutes. I propose that anyone that is going to offer anything helpful will be willing to register, it is almost to a point where I have to confirm other sources to verify if anything on Wiki is actually valid. Arzel 21:14, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

• Nice to see some interest in this topic. The most recent discussion about this "disputed policy", for those interested, has taken place here: Wikipedia talk:Main Page featured article protection. I honestly think everyone who disputes the "never-protect" garbage should at least make a comment on that talk page (that's what my "petition" subpage was for, but I was told that consolidated expressions of interest are evil, and that mine was especially evil). –Outriggr § 00:44, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
  • It's not really an honor to have an article that you worked on appear on the Main Page because if essentially exposes the people who have put in their time and effort on the article for free to harassment. An 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. If there was nobody behind these articles the featured article on the Main Page would consist of a photo of someone's buttocks or whatever else the vandals might come up with that day. --Jagz 02:09, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

New Proposal

As a newcomer to this page I ask two questions. One, why aren't all FA article semi-protected, and two, how can such a proposal be made feasible, via a standard guideline.

I give three brief reasons for FA article semi-protection. One, Belittling contributors' efforts. Contributors spend a sizeable proportion of their lifetime editing, writing and researching a FA Article. This time is not compensated in any form. Generally, an FA article is conceded to be a fairly well-researched piece of work. Would you throw your Masters thesis to the streets for punks? Doing what Wikipedia does now is to offer no respect for hard works done by editors. It places vandals, pranksters on the same level as a diligent writer.

Two, drives away quality contributors. Contributors are bound to be disappointed that their paintaking efforts could be so slipshoddily edited by anyone. Having spent like, say, 30 hrs of their lives scripting an article, they have to be convinced that any Tom, Dick or Harry may be qualified to rewrite them, after a panel judges it to be of high quality. Vandals are easily dealt with, but who has patience and 100 hrs to deal with a troll?

Three, wasting time and money of Wikipedian Foundation. Wikipedia is not Bill Gates's private treasury. It does not have endless funds. Every year so much money is donated to keep it running. We have a responsibility to utilize them in a socially responsible manner. This means not allowing people to vandalize quality articles. Vandalizing a back alley is not the same as breaking Taj Mahal or Michelangelo's David.

Semi-protection is an easy way to identify trolls, extremists, vandals and problem users. It costs nothing. A genuine user would certainly not think twice about registering. Almost every privately run website in the world requires some form of registration. Mandel 17:59, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I am a bit confused by "Contributors are bound to be disappointed that their paintaking efforts could be so slipshoddily edited by anyone. Having spent like, say, 30 hrs of their lives scripting an article, they have to be convinced that any Tom, Dick or Harry may be qualified to rewrite them, after a panel judges it to be of high quality."- this has nothing to do with semiprotection. If an edit is good enough to be accepted on consensus, then it certainly isn't vandalism. Borisblue 09:17, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm advocating for FA semi-protection to guard against vandals etc. Semi-protection does make it easier to track errant editors and to prevent them from making NPOV or inaccurate edits to Wikipedia. A disfigured FA is much worse than anything else, IMO.Mandel 15:44, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Regarding how can such a proposal be made feasible, via a standard guideline, the answer is that the reason this guideline is disputed is because of prior discussions that resulted in an alternate proposal: Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection/re-write. Note that the alternative proposal calls for making semi-protection easier, not mandatory; there simply is not enough support for the latter.

As for how to make this policy, see Wikipedia:How to create policy. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 19:37, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• The information a few sections above (December 1-7 analysis) is very persuasive. We are losing more (in the time of valuable contributors spending time reverting vandalism) than we are gaining (from actual positive edits from anonymous accounts). It is time to make it a policy that all Main Page FA's are to be semi-protected while they are on the main page. Johntex\^talk 19:40, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Our time and money is not infinite, and yearly donation drives prove that. Vandal edits may be reverted, but at a cost. Admins regularly locked valuable contributors out by blocking a IP address; but comparatively, isn't semi-protection a much more effective way out. Maybe the German solution should be test-run on all FAs.Mandel 16:04, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Just watching yesterdays and todays featured article, I would have to say that I would not want to be an editor on a featured article the day it hits the main page. The volume of vandalism is enormous, and difficult to keep a top on. The editors of Californian Gold Rush let out a sigh of relief when the day was over. Many of the vandals appeared to have accounts set up specially for the fun. I say fully protect for the 24 hours, any serious editor will come back the next day. As someone said above, you just end up exhausting your volunteers. --Michael Johnson 02:12, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, more than that, I say that editors of a featured article deserve that 24 hours to sit back, enjoy a beer, and bask in the glory of their achievement. They shouldn't be run raggard by a bunch of vandals. --Michael Johnson 02:18, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

How abt this. For 24 hours edits will be accepted, but not immediately reflected. Then an admin weeds thru' the vandalisms. Aka a bit like the German solution. Sounds perfect to me. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mandel (talk • contribs) 17:57, 16 February 2007 (UTC).

German solution

I'm interested to hear how well the German solution is going. I only noticed it on the talk page when searching for another term, perhaps this proposal should be mentioned on the article page? Richard001 23:57, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

FA vandalism policy

Considering the weakness of current policy with regard to vandalism, perhaps a related policy for FA vandalism should be introduced. If we had a policy 'Any user who deliberately vandalizes a featured article on the main page shall be blocked for 24 hours' it would deter vandals, and there could also be a small warning message when editing the page similar to when editing older versions (e.g. 'You are editing today's featured article. Please ensure your contributions are neutral and verifiable. Edits considered to be vandalism by administrators will result in an instant 24 hour block').

Regardless of what policy is decided on, I believe we need to do something to make the main page FAs more secure and reliable for our readers and hard working contributors. Perhaps the German solution combined with tough anti-vandal policies could be this solution - this way anyone could still edit, the vandalism would never make the front page, and vandals would give up or be blocked before their edits would even be seen. Richard001 00:08, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Thought

Given that our featured articles are selected for the main page a few days in advance of their intended appearence, would it be possible (or feasable for that matter) to design an AntiVandalBot with the sole mission of watching todays featured article and reverting any vandalism it catches? Considering that articles slated for appearance on the main page now have the intended date of display on the main page printed on their featured article template, and assuming that someone could design a bot capable of reading the date on the template and instructing the bot to watch that page for vandalism for the 24 hours it will be on the main page may help keep the pages managable without protecting the page. This, of course, is just an idea. TomStar81 (Talk) 10:16, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

This still doesn't change the fact that it would muck up the FA's history, as well as being unable to block IPs who continually vandalize. Cheers, Lankybugger ○ speak ○ see ○ 02:42, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

{{Disputedpolicy}}

I'm adding this back on, as I don't think anyone has replied to ideas about the draft mentioned about 3 weeks ago, and I still don't think the existing version is reflecting what I am seeing on this talk page. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 23:08, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

A poll should probably be taken before any thoughts of removing the disputed template. Richard001 00:24, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

m:polls are evil, in any case, we need to get back to the draft mentioned above, and work on a new writing of this. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 18:53, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

• Perhaps it would help to move that draft over the current version? That is, if it has more support than the current version. I am not fully familiar with the issues here, but it may be a way forward. >Radiant< 09:14, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

My own two cents...

I don't really think we should encourage new users to edit Featured Articles. Don't get me wrong, I'm aware of the problems this can cause in regards to WP:BITE, but my rationale is simple. Per the assessment scale a Featured Article is of a quality which means "No further editing is necessary unless new published information has come to light; but further improvements to the text are often possible."

While I do believe that no article can truly be definitively complete (there will always be one sentence which can be improved, one phrase which can be made more precise), if these articles are being described as Wikipedia's best why are we encouraging their editing? These are not meant to display Wikipedia's strength by means of allowing anyone to edit them, but rather showing how good an article edited just by those willing to contribute can be! It should stand as an example, not a toy for newer people to try out.

Semi-protection makes sense, to me. While the edits by IPs can be beneficial, I'm inclined to point out that the 85% of edits constituting vandalism (or corrected vandalism) speak loudly enough. The changes to the text, while good, are comprised not just of IP users but registered users as well. Being a front page FA means that the articles are improved irrespective of their un-protected or semi-protected status.

I'm personally inclined to say semi-protection should be done for all FAs. They're good enough to be among Wikipedia's best, so we should take care. These articles are meant to represent the community and while we can't get rid of vandalism to these articles entirely, semi-protection for FAs would make these articles harder to damage and make those doing the damage more accountable for their actions. Cheers, Lankybugger ○ speak ○ see ○ 03:00, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Personally I'd like to see more research done on FAs in terms of their time on the main page. How much of the editing is vandalism? How much of that comes from IPs? How do the major contributors feel about the time their articles spent on the main page - were they happy to have them there for people to edit or did they find the vandalism tiresome? How long, on average, did vandalism stay visible? How does the average editor feel about this policy? I'd like to do some research on it myself but I haven't really got time. If anyone is interested Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikidemia is the place to coordinate this sort of research. Richard001 01:15, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Featured articles may be among Wikipedia's best, but they're definitely not perfect. I've seen featured articles with copyrighted images lacking fair use rationales (along with various other image problems a la Ian Thorpe, and there are generally copyediting problems that aren't noticed during a FAC. Whether or not these corrections come from IPs I can't say, but articles that appear on the Main Page always have room for improvement. ShadowHalo 01:09, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Research into Vandalism on the FA of the day

Unless someone has already done this, I'm going to start researching the effect of blocking would have on the Featured article of the day by looking at the edit that were Vandalism, undoing Vandalism, and constructive edits. --Andrew Hampe Talk 02:06, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

If you want to check up on it, check my research page. --Andrew Hampe Talk 02:21, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

And as for someone already doing so, I think it's been done, at least for anonymous IP edits - see Wikipedia talk:Don't protect Main Page featured articles/December Main Page FA analysis, as is mentioned in sections above. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 03:05, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism. Simple.

Looking at the edit history for TFA, I see 16 vandalisms and 16 RVs in 50 edits. That means that there are 32 edits out of 50 that are related to vandalism. This is a MUCH higher then normal ratio. At the very least, I suggest that a sign be put on the top of the edit page for TFA that says that much higher consequences are in force for vandalising it. This, of course, should also be enforced. W1k13rh3nry 23:43, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Having read through the statistics of the December study I think we need to do something. Having vile vandalism in an article like Down Syndrome, during 10% of the time it was on display, not to mention template vandalism, is hardly acceptable. Higher penalties, editing restriction or some other option like requiring approval of IP edits, perhaps sorted by a bot, are some options. Going by the hard data, I think it's ridiculous to say IP editors contribute much more than puerile vandalism to articles, or that there isn't a problem with the level of vandalism. Richard001 00:35, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Are there any figures for the amount of time the vandalism remained on the page? Cheers, Lankybugger ○ Yell ○ 01:30, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Alright, there needs to be semi-protection on Main Page FAs. 144 minutes of vandalism for the Down syndrome article is too long. Cheers, Lankybugger ○ Yell ○ 01:41, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

An analogy for the question of semi-protection

Imagine you are ill and I am your doctor. I say to you, "Take these 10 pills. 8 of them will harm you, 1 will have no effect and 1 will cause a very slight but barely noticeable improvement in your condition." Would you take the pills? Then decide whether 1 edit leading to a very slight but barely noticeable improvement is worth 8 edits that do damage and 1 that does nothing. DrKiernan 17:05, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I love it. -Phoenix 19:52, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

People are not wikis. If a vandal cut off a guy's arm and replaced it with a penis, it probably wouldn't be too easy to fix ;) --- RockMFR 04:13, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

• LOL. I must say, this is the oddest rebuttal I've yet to encounter. -Etafly 15:16, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
• I'd like to know whether the penis is the length of an arm, or normal size. Just so I get the analogy clear in my head. DrKiernan 08:17, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

The point is that we're not talking about anatomy, but about knowledge. Imagine you are at a book sale, and I am selling books. I say to you, "Here is a bag of books. 8 of them are complete rubbish, one is so so, one is worthwhile. The bag is free." Do you take the bag? I'd imagine you would, and just throw the 8 you don't like away later. Same with anonymous editing. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 17:57, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Neither analogy is close enough to the truth. People aren't eating the featured article and getting sick here (well, maybe if it was a long one and they printed it all out...), but it's not as simple as you imply either. Perhaps if one of the books was full of pornography, and you had to give it to your grandmother... Richard001 08:53, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

full/semi, maybe something new

After reading various user, talk, pump etc... discussions and giving the issue of FA articles and protection some thought, I have come up with an idea. Perhaps once an Article has reached the FA status and has survived its day on the main page maybe permanent less-than-semi-protected-but-more-just-on-editor's-and-user's-watchlist status should be enacted. In other words perhaps various "keys" should be given to the central contributers to that article and in order to edit said article an anonymous IP would have to go to one of those users pages and obtain that "key" in order to edit the page. The use of the "key" would notify the user whose "key" was used and all others with "keys" to that article. With this key system enacted, I believe that the quality of FAs might be stabilized and thereby make Wikipedia a better and more stable encyclopedia. I guess you could think of it as a sort of "active watching" or local adminship of an article. Also these keyholders might have the ability to lock an article lock an article for a period of time if they feel it necessary. I propose this because I believe that Semi is too strong and simply watchlisting to be too passive and prone to slower reverts of vandalism. Let me know if I am way off base or not with this idea.

Continually questing to make Wikipedia better Cronholm144 09:52, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Don't forget that in addition to being passive, Watchlists only feature the most recent change to an article. So if someone performs vandalism and then another user edits without noticing the vandalism, it's possible for the incident to go unnoticed. Cheers, Lankybugger ○ Yell ○ 15:41, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I would also like to know if this is a proposal worthy idea, and I would love as much input as possible Cronholm144 20:35, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

There are a number of problems with this proposal. The most fundamental, probably, is that it calls for very granular permissions (for each FA, specified users would have unique access to the article). That's completely contrary to the fundamental design of MediaWiki software, where access to an article is by class of user (e.g., for semi-protected articles, all IP users cannot edit). I don't think the developers would be at all interested in this, particularly given that there are less than 2000 FAs out of 1.7 million or so articles.

In any case, this is the wrong place to discuss such a proposal; this is the talk page for discussing protecting Main Page articles, not FAs. If you really want widespread feedback on this, you should take it to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:14, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

No, this is not a good idea. Completely goes against the fundamental idea that everyone can edit. Users do not own articles. --- RockMFR 03:28, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Everyone can edit still thay just have to click two more times to do so. It is more of an alert system.Cronholm144 04:05, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Please peruse WP:OWN Kuronue 01:47, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Interferes with Ignore all rules?

This "policy" does hinder Wikipedia all the time, so wouldn't that make this policy/guideline void under Ignore all rules? And if so, how the heck did this become policy? It's too idealistic. --Andrew Hampe ^Talk 22:34, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

It's only a guideline, not a policy. Ignore all rules applies almost everywhere, including when administrators make decisions to protect, but doesn't render all guidelines meaningless either. Richard001 10:27, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

New Proposal - Redux

I think TFA should automatically be semi-protected for its 24 hours.

I'm relatively new to Wikipedia. Although the learning curve has ben steep in the few months I've been editing, and an article that I've been working on was rated FA back in February and was yesterday's (May 22, 2007) TFA, I still feel that what I've learned is a drop in the bucket compared to what I still need to learn. For example, I didn't really know anything about Protection until yesterday. Since then I've read lots and lots (including all the discussion on this page)and probably can't say anything new in support of semi-protection for TFA. All I can do is share my experience and support some of the comments written above - especially by Mandel and John Broughton - as well as others. Yesterday Ellis Paul was TFA. What should have been a day of nothing but excitment and joy, ended up also being a day of misery. I barely ate or slept since I was tied to the computer fighting vandalism. Thankfully quite a few other Wiki editors were there to help, but it was absolutely exhausting. I was shocked when my request for semi-protection was denied. There was alot of promotion regarding the Wiki TFA designation from Ellis Paul's management and many many friends and acquaintances visited Wikipedia for the first time. Sadly, several of them were greeted by juvenile vandalism on the Ellis Paul page. Although most of the vandalism was removed quickly - I would say within a minute to two in most cases - the vandals worked faster than the vandal police. To say that I am appalled at the waste of time, energy and talent is putting it mildly. Almost immediately after the 24-hour Main Page designation ended, the vandlaism stopped. IMHO, if that doesn't indicate a need for 24-hour protection I don't know what does. I counted 103 incidents of vandalism - several to the infobox. Almost all of them were anonymous IP edits. There were a handful of true edits - all minor.

Those who truly want to make an article better will. A simple headline at the top of TFA alerting visitors/editors that the article is being protected for 24 hours would suffice.

We need to be good stewards of the time, talent and energy that's out there. Right now I can almost say with certainty that yesterday's negative experience has soured me on ever working towards TFA again. I dont feel that my time, talent and energy is valued at all. Once again, it seems that the perpetrators have more rights than the victims. The vandals must be laughing at how stupid those that would allow this to happen must appear to be. IMHO, nothing can justify allowing this to happen. Kmzundel 13:34, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

• The main argument of the "anti-protection racket" is that protection turns off new editors who would otherwise contribute to wikipedia. Kmzundel's experience indicates that the reverse of this may be true, i.e. editors are actually discouraged to participate because of the excessive vandalism of one of the main pages. The fact is that neither view is supported by data, and we are arguing over different hypotheses solely with the benefit of personal testimony. Do we have any data on the number of editors recruited and lost? If not, we should restrict our discussion to the facts. The fact is (as was shown in December) that anonymous edits of TFAs do more damage than good. DrKiernan 13:58, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

• (edit conflict. I apologize if my response is somewhat redundant) While I agree with you, from what I've read, this has been proposed and denied repeatedly over the years -- the main position is that wikipedia is founded on the principle that it is an encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and FA's represent the apex of wikipedia -- as such, the wiki philosophy must especially be reflected when FA's are presented on the main page. To me, not semi-protecting FA's for their 24 hours of fame is illogical and stubborn -- as history (edit histories, in this case) clearly shows that the world is far from ideal. If anything, the credibility of wikipedia is irreparably damaged when a person looks at a FA (which represents the best wikipedia has to offer) for the first time and reads "ur faggots and im faleing grade 9." Statistically, of course, the great majority of readers won't encounter a vandalized page due to the vigilance of RC patrollers, but a great deal of visitors (probably in the order of high-hundreds, if not more, depending on the article), will most assuredly visit the article during the window of time you'd described. Of course, all of this has been argued before. If you haven't already, might I suggest looking at the archives? Perhaps you'll find an explanation that's to your satisfaction -- if not, then maybe this issue can be raised again, but this time with some success. Cheers! -Etafly 14:02, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I know I'm preaching to the choir when I say that I'm not proposing a change to Wikipedia's principle that anyone can edit - because anyone still can edit - just not at all times!, like, for example, during the 24-hours that an article is TFA!  :-) Kmzundel 14:23, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

From my short experience of reading this page it seems that most people actually agree with you. I might add that a statistically and practically significant number of readers view vandalized articles - often 10% and more. Another set of studies of FA vandalism to compliment the December studies (see WP:WPVS) would be in order. Frankly when you have articles vandalized 10% of the time and 80-90% of IPs are vandals (and the rest hardly making any major contribution to an already almost perfect article) there's no a great deal of logic in leaving it unprotected. There may be the odd newbie editor put off by not being able to contribute, but someone who could seriously contribute something worth while to the project is going to be much more put off by the high levels of vandalism and lack of policies to deal with them.

What is also needed besides further statistical analysis of vandalism is a survey of new users and anonymous editors as to what their opinions on not being able to edit articles (especially FAs) are. It may well find most readers would support the move, since they wouldn't have to witness vandalized pages nearly as often. Richard001 00:09, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

• I've changed the way I was thinking. I realize that Wikipedia's principle anyone can edit doesn't translate to anyone can vandalize. So semi-protection of TFA doesn't go against the principle. Kmzundel 02:56, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps we could run a few trials - say once a week we have a day where the FA is semi-protected throughout its time on the main page. We have data for regular days, but we have nothing with which to compare it. I don't think it would be harmful just to run a few trials - maybe four or five - to get an idea how semi-protection would work and what impacts it would have. Editors of the article could be encouraged to further discuss their experience to help us get more feedback. Saying this is a step towards semi-protection is no argument here - we simply need some data for comparison so both sides of the debate can be better informed. Richard001 11:20, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Consensus

In order to gauge consensus for sticking with or changing the current policy/guideline on protecting today's featured article (only using semi-protection infrequently, if at all), I have categorised editors expressing an opinion on this discussion page since the completion of the data-gathering exercise in December 2006. As can be clearly seen, the overwhelming consensus of the editors contributing to the discussion (27 out of 32 on my count at 09:31 UT 24th May 2007) is in favour of a change to the current policy/guideline.

If you are in the wrong category or are not in a category at all, please move or add yourself.

No "polls are evil"-type posts please. I know already. DrKiernan 09:33, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that - I got the same response myself when suggesting a survey of current opinion, but I don't think there's any other way we can make progress with the debate, we'll just end up talking around in circles for years. Knowing where people stand will certainly help focus the discussion and allow us to give a more accurate indication of the dispute on the policy page. And if the vast majority of editors think the policy needs changing in some way, it probably needs to change. Getting as many editors as possible to add their opinion would help us come to a quick conclusion where the community stands on this one. Richard001 10:32, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks from me also. It seems pretty obvious that the majority favors policy-change. I hope this sparks some movement towards that. Kmzundel 12:44, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
• You've shattered my confidence in my writing skills, my good sir! Please allow me to clarify. I meant to say that I am in support semi-protecting all FAs for at least the duration in which it's featured on the main page, but that things were unlikely to change given the outcomes of all the previous discussions. My pessimism should not be confused with surrender, however! All the best, -Etafly 14:41, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
• Sorry that's entirely my fault. My reading skills are in error, not your writing ones! You've also highlighted that I'm only in support of semi-protection for the day (currently). DrKiernan 14:55, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

• We seem to be building consensus for semi-protection for a day. Question - who makes the final decision to change policy? This is all still mind-boggling to me - having only been editing about 6 months. Kmzundel 10:47, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Policy/guidelines are determined by the consensus of the community. I would advise that we continue making tiny adjustments to the project page, until someone starts screaming at us, and then we discuss that single minor point. If there is consensus to adjust that minor point we move on, if there isn't we hold and discuss. See Wikipedia:Consensus. DrKiernan 10:56, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Simpler approach

I would suggest that we simply examine current actual practice and have the guideline reflect that. There are always some people who strongly object to current practice, but until and unless they succeed in changing said practice, it is a guideline by default (I refer people who don't understand this statement to WP:PPP). >Radiant< 11:35, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Radiant, I don't understand what you mean when you say "examine current actual practice and have the guideline reflect that". Practice by whom? Could you please explain further? Kmzundel 12:37, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

The practice of whether or not the main page featured article is protected each day. >Radiant< 12:51, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

• I don't think so -- If people cite policy when they refuse to protect, or unprotect a FA page during its 24 hours, then the practice itself, logical as it may be, is thwarted by policy. I think reaching consensus here is the way to proceed. -Etafly 15:06, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Main page protection

Where can I find the analogous page for the main page protection policy? I can't seem to find any such policy page by searching. I've searched for such a page quite thoroughly, so I'm presuming its absence is no mistake here.

It raises some important problems for this policy if there is not: Letting IP editors edit an FA, the primary feature of the main page, while denying registered editors the right to edit the main page without the matter even warranting a policy page (and lack of policy page raising an eyebrow) hardly seems logically consistent to me. I could just as likely make a small improvement to the main page (perhaps adding a new news item, an internal link etc.) as I could for an FA. The FA is after all the best of our work, and the likelyhood that I would need to edit it, and that by editing it I would actually substantially improve it, is fairly low, just as for the main page. It is also going to be visited frequently, and having it vandalized is little better than having the same done to the main page. Users may get a kick from being able to edit our main page FAs, but the same applies to the main page. The situation is almost identical, yet one policy says 'No, nobody can edit it ever, it needn't even be discussed', while the other says 'No, it should never be protected except under extreme circumstances. Can anyone else see the strange divide here? Richard001 10:52, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I, indeed, find this to be a valid point. Evolauxia 22:45, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

• Wow, Richard.....you have indeed uncovered a strange divide. Kmzundel 23:09, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying the main page is no more important than the main page featured article, but the divide in protection is still too large for my liking. Another comparison is editing the main page FA and uploading an image to Wikimedia Commons. You need to have an account simply to upload a free use picture found on flickr, but to replace the main page FA with a picture of a penis, which is viewed by thousands of people each day, requires nothing. Richard001 00:36, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

• Richard, you again make a valid point. If TFA is part of the Main Page for 24 hours....and the Main Page is always protected....it seems a paradox that TFA is not protected at least for the 24 hours that it is part of the Main Page. Kmzundel 20:11, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
• From the protection policy, "Indefinite full protections are used for ... High visibility pages such as the Main Page in order to prevent vandalism." >Radiant< 09:00, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Improvement whilst on the Main Page

Richard asks for proof that the articles are improved whilst on the Main Page. An interesting point. These are the last three Today's featured articles: [2] [3] [4]. I have taken the first and last version from each day, and compared the two. DrKiernan 08:49, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

• IMHO, the comparisons do not show significant improvement and do not justify the time it took to revert all the vandalism. Kmzundel 10:26, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
• I agree. In Simeon I there are three errors ("Boris II", "817" and "they was rested") and as for Caspian expeditions, I don't think "Chungamania" has had a great impact on European history, in fact, as it is a made up country, it's had none at all! DrKiernan 10:33, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

A study of about 10-20 random diffs would be good. Since we need only look at the differences it shouldn't be that much work either. We could use these results to reword the policy page based on facts rather than speculation. Richard001 00:12, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Taking the last 10 then:
4 improved: [5](+ ref) [6](lead) [7](years unlinked; extra links added) [8](+ ref)
2 little different: [9] [10]
4 damaged: [11](made-up country) [12](incorrect dates, etc.) [13](repetition) [14](ref vandalised)
DrKiernan 07:26, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Even for a small sample size that basically shows the original argument was flawed. Changes to the wording now reflect the truth of the matter. I've also pointed out another important aspect - there is no evidence at all to suggest semi-protecting articles will prevent such improvements. It might even be found that most of the improvements were by registered users, and most of the damage was from anons slipping vandalism through the cracks and not having it cleaned up for all the chaos of high traffic editing. I'm not asserting this is the case, but I would hardly be surprised if it was. Richard001 09:00, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

DrKiernan, thanks for taking the time to compare the last 10. And I would add that 3 of the 4 "improvements" were barely that. IMHO, only one was a significant improvement [15](lead). I agree that the original argument is flawed. Kmzundel 10:25, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Time taken to correct vandalism

Richard asks: Is vandalism cleaned up in "a matter of seconds".

From the December 2006 study we estimate that the average time spent vandalised is:
(239 + 81 + 82 + 114 + 18 + 113 + 135)/7 = 130.33 minutes
and the estimated average number of vandal edits is:
(76 + 45 + 62 + 80 + 166 + 105 + 98)/7 = 90.3 edits
Hence, the estimated average time to clean up vandalism is: 130.33/90.3 = 1.44 minutes (86.6 seconds). DrKiernan 10:41, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for providing these statistics for, us DrKiernan. I've tweaked the policy page again to reflect the data we have available. I've also pointed out that what is most important for our readers (and they are most important, are they not?) is the percentage time spent vandalized, i.e. the chance a random user will view a vandalized page. I have made no judgment as to whether the times spent vandalized in the December study articles is acceptable, I've simply given the reader the figures. A comparison of this with the time spent vandalized for a 'normal' article would also be appropriate here, though I'm not sure if we have this sort of data available yet. Further research is needed - we're leaning too heavily on a single study from 6 months ago with a sample size of 7. Richard001 11:17, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:WikiProject Vandalism studies#Conclusions from study 1, the average time for reverting vandalism generally is 12.63 hours. The median time is 14 minutes. DrKiernan 11:25, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

What now (redux)

I've read and re-read everything here on this Talk page.....and it seems to me we keep saying the same things over and over again....making the same valid points over and over. How long do we keep this up before determining that we've reached a consensus? I don't see anyone posting comments here saying they strongly favor the current policy....only comments from folks who obviously don't favor the current policy. We've expended a good bit of time and energy (thank you all for that) making the same points. The question to be answered is simply this: should Wikipedia's principle "anyone can edit" be translated to "anyone can vandalize"? I cannot believe that's what the Wiki folks intent was. Nor do I believe that semi-protecting (at the very least) TFA for 24 hours goes against the spirit of that principle. If you sense a bit of frustration on my part, you're right. And I've only been part of this discussion for 10 days. Kmzundel 15:29, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

• Perhaps the main point of contention is that on the main page, directly below the header and above the FA is the following line, placed in full protection:

  "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit."

  While I don't think that semi-protection makes this statement false (anyone can indeed edit a semi-protected page, so long as they register!), others may feel that any form of protection is in direct contradiction to our favourite wikislogan. Perhaps the solution would be to footnote that statement explaining that anyone is free to register in order to gain the ability to modify FA's.. However, it's time we start seeing reality; I have not seen a single FA that has been improved by IP-edits during its 24 mainpage hours. The rare good faith edits are probably more frustrating, as I find that they tend to undermine the overall quality of the FA without justifying immediate reversion (others may disagree, of course.) I'm not sure how we can effect an immediate change to policy. Perhaps we could take this to WP:VPP. Best regards. -Etafly 15:55, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

• I would rather continue evolving the policy here by making incremental adjustments, as Richard and I have done. It has changed for the better since we began.[16] Although it doesn't seem to have effected perceptions yet, judged by my failure to get Today's featured article semi-protected.[17] DrKiernan 16:14, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

My request was turned down as well.  :-) Thanks for all your efforts. Kmzundel 16:39, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

• Tsk :) Fact is, the "anyone can edit" slogan by the GodKing is a pretty powerful exhortation, too. If it gets extreme (and it's not right now, IMO), then by all means, re-report. But the main page article should not get into a situation where semi-prot is the default setting, like move-prot is right now - Alison ☺ 16:20, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

• Perhaps we should seek his opinion on the subject in light of WP:WPVS, though I don't agree that WP:JIMBOSAID should trump incontrovertible evidence (and possibly consensus) to the contrary. :) -Etafly 16:28, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

• (Why are we using bullet points?) I'd rather see it change gradually than try to make any sudden leaps as well, though I feel the logical point to go from now would be to set up a new research project and do some trials of semi-protecting. I suppose a lot of people will object, but we seem to have a very strong consensus to semi-protect already, so I think some trials would be in order so we can get some idea what semi-protection might be like. A week of semi-protection and a week without is my suggestion. Where would we go to get approval for such a trial - Wikipedia:Featured articles? Richard001 00:19, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

• (Dunno - they look cool! :) ) I'm not sure there is a "strong consensus" to semi-protect, though this page may say otherwise. My suggestion is that you gather evidence/rationale/etc and bring the matter to the admin group over on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard - Alison ☺ 03:16, 2 June 2007 (UTC) (disclosure: I'm an admin)

If there is not a strong consensus to semi-protect there must be some form of very strong sampling bias happening here. The odds of getting around 35 editors to 4 favouring policy change (most of which want semi-protection every day) purely due to sampling error would be something like one in four billion. Perhaps there is something about this process that is biased towards people who favour stronger protection, I'm not sure what, but unless one or two editors are going to dictate to a hundred others what our policy is, you are going to have to find a great many people who favour our current protection guidelines. More input is welcome though, of course; please do whatever you can to encourage participation in the discussion. Richard001 10:05, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Paste from User talk:DrKiernan

You've made a lot of changes to that document now - some of them I just reverted as they appear to be just unilateral changes. I think we need to bring this whole matter to a wider forum to gain greater input from the community rather than have just a handful of us make all the changes. Thoughts? - Alison ☺ 07:46, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Alison's revert: Period of protection

As I said above, at the point at which my minor edits are disputed, we hold and discuss that single minor point.

I think that the time period for protection should be until the end of the day and not for a shorter period because if vandalism occurs early in the day it will recur and recur all day wasting time in having the article reverted, protected, unprotected, the protection announced, the protection unannounced, etc, etc. If the article is being heavily vandalised in the morning, it will be heavily vandalised for the remainder of the day. Studies prove that the number and frequency of vandal edits is constant all day and not restricted to specific time periods. Hence, if it needs protecting in the morning, it will need protecting all day. DrKiernan 07:59, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I have to agree here. If the vandalism is heavy, and not just of a marginal nature, then unprotecting the page is about as intelligent as a wasp displaying fixed action pattern behavior. What we really need is a slightly more rigorous definition of 'heavy', though. This is a matter for general discussion at Wikipedia:Protection policy, where I have argued for (and will continue to argue for) a more quantitative and descriptive, if still flexible and situation dependent, definition of 'heavy' vandalism. Richard001 10:13, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Point 4 of rationale

• The featured article of the day attracts more vandals than other articles,[9] and the proportion of vandal edits is also higher.[10] However, it also attracts more good faith editors.

Thanks for looking up the data on this one too; as it stands though I wonder if it should still remain in 'rationale'. The 'it still attracts a higher portion of good faith edits' line seems mediocre compared to the levels of vandalism (7 times higher than normal and *cough* 41000 times higher nominally... It's also just repeating the 'anyone can edit' line. I suggest you move the vandalism data to counter-rationale and salvage the 'good faith' by moving it alongside the 'anyone can edit' point.

We're down to 3 points for rationale now - I hope those wanting to keep the policy as it is have a huge cavalry charge coming up otherwise it looks like policy is going to change rather soon. Richard001 09:37, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

• Well, I agree that point 4 does not support the previous policy of non-protection, but it does support the present guideline, which is to permit semi-protection but deprecate full protection. I think we should be seeking to move points into rationale and out of counter-rationale as the guideline develops, rather than the other way around. Ultimately, I would like to see the page develop so that there is no counter-rationale and we are agreed on a rationale, as well as a guideline. DrKiernan 09:49, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I see, that's a good way to go about things I think. It will be interesting to see whether administrators will start to follow the policy as it moves towards a more stable position - I noticed a protect and then unprotect issue on Jupiter the other day for example. I'll take the issue of a trial up with the admins in the next few days and see what feedback we get. Richard001 10:58, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

• I have to admit that I'm really confused now. Not sure why we would want to move points into rationale. It already seems to me that the 1st three rationale points start out with rationale statements then continue with statements that are counter rationale. I was thinking those statements should be moved into counter rationale. Don't we more counter rationale than rationale? Kmzundel 13:01, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

• The problem is that that polarises the issue. We should be working to avoid that. How about redrafting the two rationale and counter-rationale sections into one section, as below? DrKiernan 13:56, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Rationales

Against full protection

• Some featured articles may be improved by their time on the main page.^[1] Fully protecting the featured articles might postpone or even prevent these improvements.
• A featured article is supposed to "exemplify our very best work, representing Wikipedia's unique qualities on the Internet". This includes being editable by anyone.^[2] Visitors often tend to look at our most visible articles, and having those articles editable helps attract more good faith editors to the article and to the project.

For full protection

• Well, frankly, I can't think of any that are justifiable.

Against semi-protection

• I can't think of any that are justifiable either.

For semi-protection

• Unprotected articles are not always improved and can be damaged while on the Main Page.^[3] There is no evidence that semiprotecting the articles will prevent improvement.
• "Our best work" is not exemplified by a new user coming in and seeing vandalized pages featured on the main page.
• It takes an average response time of 1 minute 25 seconds to repair each vandal edit.^[4] This is helped by specialized automated bots such as AntiVandalBot. With an average of 90 vandal edits a day, on average FAs are vandalized for over two hours of total time during their stay on the main page.^[4][5] Major damage can even go uncorrected for days.^[6]
• Bots are ineffective against subtle changes, and can even revert to damaged versions.^[7]
• The featured article of the day attracts more vandals than other articles,^[8] and the proportion of vandal edits is also higher.^[9]
• Without exception, featured articles on the main page are brutally vandalized, and many editors spend more time reverting vandals than improving the article.
• It is best to not allow the problem to occur in the first place than wasting time cleaning up.
• Having to fight vandals subjects 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.
• Many users waste their time fighting front-page article vandals instead of producing good articles.
• Many new and anonymous users come to the talk page to register their complaints and dismay that the FA is being vandalized and request protection.^[10] When it is protected, no good faith new or anonymous users request unprotection, countering the idea that users would prefer a page they can edit to a page that isn't vandalized.
• Most of the logic that applies to main page protection also applies to the main page FA, though the polices are completely different - one being completely protected, the other less so than a normal article.
• Registration is required for much more trivial matters than editing the main page, such as uploading a picture to Wikimedia Commons.

Comments on the above draft

I think the format is much more effective. The only thing I would suggest is reversing the order of how they are currently listed - with "for semi-protection" at the top. Kmzundel 14:16, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about the format, both ways of splitting the arguments are okay I guess. I don't like the fact that there is no 'for semi-protection' rationale at all though - surely there is enough to scrape together a few points, even just a couple. For example new editors coming to the main page and finding the can't edit it, then going to the featured article and finding they can't edit that either unless they sign up and then wait 4 days is a little off-putting. I don't personally believe the rationale for not protecting is very strong, but I don't want to see the guideline become a one sided story - that's how it was not all that long ago, before the counter-rationale section was added.

I might also add it's very confusing to find a page that says one thing in the rationale, another in the protection policy stated, and yet another thing in what actually happens day to day. We really need to get some admins in here so we can discuss actually implementing some of the changes - for example protecting for the whole day in the case of vandalism being above a rough threshold. Richard001 10:09, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

You mean an "against semi protection" section? That could be addressed simply by removing "full" from the section title. On your third point, the change has been advertised at Protection policy and Request for Protection with Alison being the only one who came to this page to contribute. By all means, take it to Admin Board and see if that gets any attention. BTW, today's featured article is semi-protected, so the current guideline (as it stands right now) is implemented. DrKiernan 10:23, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Alternatively, for your first point, we could split the "against protection" section into two, like so:

Against full protection

• Some featured articles may be improved by their time on the main page.^[11] Fully protecting the featured articles might postpone or even prevent these improvements.

Against full and semi-protection

• A featured article should represent Wikipedia's unique qualities on the Internet. This includes being editable by anyone.^[12] Visitors often tend to look at our most visible articles, and having those articles editable helps attract more good faith editors to the article and to the project.

8 June

On Friday last week, the MPFA, Atheism was semi-protected for 16 hours, for two periods (the protection was lifted during the day and re-imposed). What I found interesting was the rate of vandalism which was considered severe enough to semi-protect the page:

Until the first semi-protection, at 04:18, there were 15 vandal edits (15% of the total), an average of 3.48 vandal edits per hour. Protection was lifted at 16:11 and re-imposed at 19:45, during this unprotected period there were 12 vandal edits (32% of the total), an average of 3.36 vandal edits per hour.

The average no. of vandal edits per day to the MPFA is 90, an average of 3.75 vandal edits per hour. In other words, the vandalism was no more (and virtually no less) than the usual level experienced by the MPFA.

Presumably, either we are managing to get this guideline considered sensibly or the article was preferentially semi-protected because it was perceived to be a controversial subject requiring protection.

Let us hope that it is the former! DrKiernan 07:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I think in such an important case of Main page FAs we need to be a little more precise in defining what levels are needed to protect. Our main focus here should be to minimize the proportion of readers who see a vandalized page, so we need to come up with a rough level of vandalism at which we protect, and perhaps another level at which we protect without further question, until the end of the day. But what level of vandalism is acceptable? 5%? 10%? The policy shouldn't force admins to go from not protecting to protecting at any exact level, but there should be a rough level at which they should consider protecting, and another, higher level at which a user can ask for protection and get it until the end of the day with no messing around. Richard001 22:03, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

This policy no longer represents the approach of admins to protection

I am sorry but changes to this page over the last month have completely distorted this policy to the extent that I do not recognise it. We are "the free encyclopedia anyone can edit" not "the free encyclopedia anyone can edit as long as they have had an account for 4 days". The main page FA is one of the first pages (after the main page) which people will come across, to find it semi-protected undermines one of the core elements of the project. It should not be semi-protected. WjB