Wikipedia:Pending changes level two protection for problematic BLPs

The following is a proposed policy for implementing level two pending changes protection for certain biographies of living people:

Standards for assigning protection

1. The article must have a history of edits obviously not in compliance with WP:BLP. Genuine, tenable disputes between editors in good standing as to what BLP requires for particular articles do not form a sufficient basis for protection.
2. It is reasonably believed that semi-protection is insufficient to control the disruptive editing.
3. PC protection may be overlaid with semi-protection.
4. Pending changes protection will not be assigned outside of the main namespace.

Standards for assigning the reviewer permission

An editor must have sufficient experience with Wikipedia, and a demonstrated understanding of BLP. Only mainspace edits, such as adding content in compliance with the policy, or removing unacceptable material, will be considered. Recent and substantial edit warring in the main namespace may constitute grounds for denying a permission request, at the discretion of the administrator responding to it. Administrators should provide a written explanation when granting or denying requests for the user right.

Standards for revoking the reviewer permission

Revocation may occur when an editor has substantially misused the permission itself, substantially created mainspace BLP violations, or has been blocked for an extended period of time. Editing outside the main namespace, such as the expression of opinions on acceptable sources on a article talk page, does not form a sufficient basis for removal of the permission. The reasons for revocation of the user right should be noted on the affect editor's talk page. Prior to new instances of PC protection being placed, the reviewer privilege would be removed from users who received it during the trial, via an automated process, to limit use of the user right to editors who meet the new standards for granting it.

Standard of review

Since PC level two protection is only to be used on articles with BLP problems which semi-protection cannot effectively resolve, close scrutiny of edits by reviewers is vitally important. Reviewers should examine pending edits to the same BLP standards that an administrator would use in fulfilling an edit request on an article fully protected due to BLP problems. Questionable or borderline edits should be rejected, as should content for which the reviewer cannot verify the source prior to acceptance. Edits for which immediate confirmation of references is not possible should be noted on the talk page, for further investigation.

Rationale

When semi-protection is insufficient to quell BLP violations on an article, the only alternatives available under existing policy are full protection, locking everyone except administrators out, or widely watchlisting the article, and hoping for the best. Neither solution is satisfactory. The criteria described here begin the formation of a community policy for the use of PC protection, avoid harm to living people, and ensure the highest level of editorial access for articles, by first assigning this protection to a limited number of BLPs that will derive the greatest benefit from it.