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Sgmiller

I have repeatedly (at least four times) request page protection for the article "Tareq Al-Suwaidan" and everytime I come back the next day, the request is gone with no indication that has been processed in any way. Is it possible that my request is also being vandalized or am I doing something wrong here?

Sgmiller (talk) 15:26, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

First off, use descriptive headings please, rather than your username. Second, looking at the history of this article, you can see, that your request was declined. We already discussed the idea of an archive and I think this is another case where this would be a good idea. But until then I'm afraid you have to use the history to find out what happened to your requests if they are already removed from the page. Hope that does not discourage you too much from editing :-) So#Why review me! 15:38, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Sludgegulper

I just wanted to add the reference to alcohol made from Potatoes...

http://www.toffi.net/kiss/geschichte/g_44.htm

But because of protection, I can't

Hope someone can. THanks, —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sludgegulper (talk • contribs) 07:38, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Rob Bell

Does anyone know why this has been protected for so long?

Thanks

John

CaptinJohn (talk) 11:53, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

From a quick glance, looks like edit warring back at the beginning of December. The public face of GBT/C 11:58, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

User:VoABot

Is it just me or has VoABot not made a run in a while. It seems that is has been a couple hours and the page is getting a little backed up. Would someone look into this? Thanks. Nevermind, it seems to be back and working fine. 149.169.159.251 (talk) 21:23, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

User:Dreadstar

User:Dreadstar has protected several articles in which User:Montanabw was involved in a content dispute. What's going on here? To me, Dreadstar's actions seem inappropriate.

  • Chaps protected. In this case, Dreadstar violates Wikipedia:Protection policy, namely Administrators should not protect or unprotect a page because of a dispute in which they are in any way involved. Dreadstar has made many edits to Chaps.

I am one of the editors involved in the content dispute on Chaps, but I had nothing whatsoever to do with Steer wrestling. In my book, these actions amount to ganging up on editors with whom Montanabw disagrees.

Is this the correct venue for this issue? --Una Smith (talk) 18:48, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps I should have asked another admin to protect the page since I had edited the article previously, but my involvement was not in the content dispute itself, but to try and stop the edit warring and personal attacks editor Una Smith was involved in. Una expressed her support for my actions at the time: [3]. I'd suggest again that Una work it out with Montana on the talk page, edit warring is unacceptable, as are personal attacks against another editor. Dreadstar † 19:43, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Chaps was the subject of an ordinary content dispute, not edit warring. Dreadstar made numerous comments on Montanabw's talk page concerning the content dispute itself. Now Dreadstar appears to accuse me of edit warring and personal attacks. I deny both accusations. --Una Smith (talk) 20:42, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, but this is edit warring: [4][5][6][7][8][9]. As for civility and personal attacks, I'll let Montana and any other editors you've attacked provide diffs, but this one where you said "My intent is also to stop you before you savage any more newbies and alienate any more established editors" along with a few other comments you made, ones that I will take the time to find if it becomes necessary, were sufficient to show that the allegations of personal attacks made by you may have merit. Note that I didn't block you for edit warring and personal attacks, I merely protected the article under dispute. Dreadstar † 21:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Dreadstar basically was not editing the article, but rather removing unsourced, contentious content from the chaps article and trying to show us some ways that a consensus can be reached. I see no overstepping of boundaries. His previous work cited above was to try to administrate issues with an editor who was promoting fringe theories in a number of the rodeo articles as well as making some significant personal attacks, edit warring and tedendious editing. . As for the rest, I have been enduring UnaSmith's personal attacks, fake "warnings", bullying, and edit warring for over a month now. She claims she is not personally attacking me, but her actions certainly feel otherwise from my point of view. We had a strenuous but legitimate difference of opinion over the article bitless bridle, which bled over to a "competing" article, hackamore, an article where a different admin (Rlevse) attempted to settle the dispute. Anyone can skim the talk pages of those two articles to get a feel for what was going on. Part of the original problem was the behavior of a third editor, who was new to wikipedia but initially caused some significant disruption on several articles (not all horse-related), but who, to her credit, appears to have detached herself from these disputes and is settling down to responsible editing. However, Una has expressed that she considers me to have been mean and unfair to this person, but now that the earlier issue has quieted, Una seems unable to quit going into articles where I have expertise, have edited extensively, and she is challenging material in a manner that seems to go a bit beyond simple requests for verification. This was one example. The bottom line is that I make credible, sourced edits that she disagrees with and she reverts, then "warns" me and makes broad-based accusations against me when I dispute anything she says. I just want to get back to editing without having to defend every sentence of several stable, long term articles. And I am tired of trying to explain certain concepts over and over again, even after providing some good sources. I don't see why this discussion even needs to be here. I just want to be left alone to edit articles to the best of my ability and make appropriate changes to good faith suggestions for improvement without having to have every vandalism revert I do challenged as "tenditious." Montanabw(talk) 23:56, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Where are the admins?

There are a lot of active admins, but I guess their attention is elsewhere. There are requests hours old that haven't been addressed. Sorry if it sounds like I'm complaining, but it does irk me because I'd be happy to address these requests if I had the tools to do so. Enigma msg! 00:01, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmm... well, if that happens, drop a note in my talk page or post at AN. I am on semi-wikibreak, but if there were a bot posting a note in my talk page whenever the backlog becomes too big, I will gladly come to help. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 01:03, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
I hear you. Although it may seem that way, there are times when vandalism is busy (most of the time), or CAT:CSD is way full, or any one of the many other pressing issues. All in all, I do not find RFPP to be generally neglected. Thanks for your attention. -- Alexf42 01:36, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
I find it to be neglected, but I'll try and leave messages for admins in the future. I've done it in the past. Enigma message 18:16, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
You could also try adding {{adminbacklog}} to the top of the page if it gets really out of hand.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 22:27, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Temporary full-protection A new editor has joined to edit the article who is a suspected sockpuppet of an editor who has been blocked indef for sockpuppetry. The original editor who was indef blocked was intent on deleting the article, eventhough it was keep per AFD. The editors who were involved in editing the article are not around now, so I am forced to keep an eye on the article, but it is turning into an edit war, because the editor does not follow consensus. The editor is just interested in editing this article and one more , so SPA. Until more editors come around who are interested in editing this article it should be fully-protected to prevent disruption and to avoid inflaring the situation of the new editor whos edit style is tendentious at the least. Thank you, Igor Berger (talk) 09:03, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Edit warring on this article has stopped for a while now. The editor in question, user:Life.temp, is only suspected by Igor to be a sockpuppet. Igor is the editor who was edit warring, and now he's requesting protection to stop the edit warring, which is ridiculous. Life.temp is now discussing things on the talk page with me and hasn't made any edits in a while. There's no reason to protect this page. Equazcion •✗/C • 09:30, 10 Apr 2008 (UTC)
Okay let's not protect the page but get WP:EA so others can help us settle our diferences. Because at this point I fill uncomfortable, that edits are being made, and what I recommending is being ignored. Also I was not edit warring on the article but reverted back to your edits that we discussed on the article that Life.temp did not respect and kept reverting to his version. Please check my reverts. So maybe we still need article protection untill this is settled amiable? Igor Berger (talk) 09:47, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Just because you reverted to my version, and just because we agreed on something, doesn't mean you can revert-war in order to uphold it. When you and another editor continue to revert each other, that's called an edit war, no matter what, and it's not allowed. I frankly don't care if you feel comfortable. You edit-warred, and now the other editor and I are discussing possible edits, have nearly come to an agreement and are about to make those edits, and now, rather than joining the discussion, you're requesting protection? No. This is not helpful. Equazcion •✗/C • 09:53, 10 Apr 2008 (UTC)
And you deleting everything per WP:STEAM is? Igor Berger (talk) 10:09, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
If you have a problem with my edits take it to the article's talk page, Igor. This discussion is about protection. Your request for protection is not helpful, and if you can't defend it any further then simply withdraw it. This is not an opportunity for you to start making general complaints. Equazcion •✗/C • 10:14, 10 Apr 2008 (UTC)
Are you giving me an opurtunity for a discussion? You just deleted about 30 % of the article, one delete after another, in less than 10 minutes. Do you think I can make an input when you are acting as a main editor of the article and excersing your authority? Igor Berger (talk) 10:20, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
No one needs to ask permission prior to making an edit. Talk page, Igor. If you want to complain about my edits, that's the place to do it. I'm done responding here. Equazcion •✗/C • 10:22, 10 Apr 2008 (UTC)
Please protect the page so it can be handled in proper WP:DR with RFC or EAR. Thank you, Igor Berger (talk) 10:27, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

← This user continues to refuse to discuss anything, despite there being a constructive ongoing discussion on the talk page. I urge the admin reading this to please not protect the article, as it will only stop the constructive editors engaged in the discussion from making edits based on demonstrated consensus. Please view the discussion at Talk:Anti-Americanism#Removals and rationale -- to which Igor has not contributed, other than to announce his request for protection. Thanks. Equazcion •✗/C • 10:31, 10 Apr 2008 (UTC)

This user, is me, so stop refering to me condescendingly. We were discussing on the article's talk page. And when I contested your edits, you left me a note on my talk page that you do not want to work with me. So, as long as your edits are to your liking, it is okay, right? Please protect the page so we can seek uninvolved experienced editor's opinion. Let's have time to build consensus not rush to outcome. Igor Berger (talk) 12:02, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
When you contested my edits, I asked for specific examples rather than vague reprimands. When it seemed you were not going to comply with that and instead just continue repeating yourself, that's when I left you a message saying that I was tired of you lashing out at people when criticized. Don't try to make it seem like I wasn't willing to discuss this, because anyone looking at the dicussion on the talk page will see that I tried -- repeatedly. Equazcion •✗/C • 12:18, 10 Apr 2008 (UTC)
Look I am not against your edits. It is the way you did it that is objectionable. I am sure you know what is sourced and opinionated, but instead of letting editors source it and rewrite the opinionated parts to fact, with a sourced references, you just slashed it all out in 10 minutes - 30% of the article. Why don't you give time for other editors to come to the article and assist in rewritting it? Why not takle one paragraph - context at a time. Raise it on a talk page and let editors try to source it if possible, and if not we delete it per policy. We need to work together in harmony to build Wikipedia, not in my way or the highway So if you are willing to slow down and respect my requests as well as wait a bit for other established editors to join the article, then there is no protection needed. Please learn to compromise. And you should know better, you have been here a long time, much much longer than me. Please set an example in amiability. Igor Berger (talk) 12:29, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
We were working together in harmony, but then someone went and requested protection. I cleaned up an article riddled with POV and OR. I discussed all these changes first on the talk page -- a discussion which you did not participate in. Instead, you didn't like what was being discussed and decided to put a stop to it by getting the article protected. And when I complained about this, you insulted me. Goodbye, Igor. I'm done with you. Equazcion •✗/C • 12:41, 10 Apr 2008 (UTC)
I asked for page protection because I was and am conserned with suspected sockpuppet user:Life.temp. When he first started editing the article I asked for your help request on your talk page for help with the user, a few weeks ago So after I asked for your help and I supported your edits, you just said I am edit warring. Does that makes sense? Why you did not say, Igor let his reverts stay and do not revert him. So while I was thinking I was doing the right thing with agreement from you, I was going against the grain! Am I a Jack's Ass! I have added a link to this section of the talk page from the project page. I still would like to have the page protected, so edits can be discussed in detail and not enforced. Igor Berger (talk) 13:03, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Remove {{editprotected}} section

I think that requests for edits to protected pages are more efficiently served by {{editprotected}} and CAT:EP than by a section here, and having two parallel processes for requesting changes is confusing. Is there any objection to me removing the editprotected section from this page and changing all the documentation to direct all requests to {{editprotected}}?? Happy‑melon 14:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it is confusing personally. No harm with having more than one place. Majorly (talk) 14:51, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Forgive me, but are editors so fed up with vandalism nowadays....

that just a few IP edits a day constitutes a request for protection? As of the timestamp of this message, witness the requests for Italian Renaissance, Bridge, and San Francisco Giants, respectively. If I were an admin I would decline those because in my view, there hasn't been enough IP vandalism on any of those articles to warrant protection. ArcAngel (talk) 21:40, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

As an aside, this wasn't meant to question the judgement of the editors who requested the protection of those pages, it just left me wondering what constitutes "high levels" of vandalism, in an admin's view? ArcAngel (talk) 21:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
No offense taken. To answer your question, if all I see in the last several edits was stuff happening then being reverted, that's enough for me. This is my first attempt to do this kind of thing. - Denimadept (talk) 21:48, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
It depends, really, though admins should be careful with protecting, and protection shouldn't be used just to shut IPs out: if there's a huge amount of vandalism in a short amount of time, I'm likely to protect, and if there's sustained vandalism to a page over the course of a week or more, I'm likely to protect then as well, but in cases such as one or two vandals on a page, or a page that received two or three instances of vandalism each day for two or three days, I wouldn't protect, and would just revert if necessary. I personally wouldn't have protected Italian Renaissance, but it's well in the realms of admin discretion: I don't oppose the protection. Acalamari 21:56, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
And what happens when a vandal edit is accidentally kept inside a constructive edit? How long could it last then? MMetro (talk) 07:00, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Just for the record, I am fed up with this lenient system that literally promotes vandalism. -- Matthead  Discuß   23:45, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

What's lenient about it? We revert, then we block and/or protect when warranted, hopefully without shutting out any potentially good editors. We don't have the authority to impose the death penalty for Wikipedia vandalism (yet). --Bongwarrior (talk) 07:51, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

What's lenient about it is, especially in the case of anon. IP edits is that no action can be taken. I requested semi-protection on an article that has been anonymously edited at least 10 times by the same individual (reposting of identical information) and that request was denied. I've had an argument with a friend before on why "anyone would what to contribute" to Wikipedia. I'm starting to see his side more and more. Modor (talk) 10:46, 27 May 2008 (UTC)Modor

Did you give the guy any warnings? Some of them might think their edit didn't go through or something unless you tell them to stop. It also has the additional benefit that they can get blocked faster (WP:AIV). -Royalguard11(T·R!) 02:52, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I gave the guy several warnings and the edits continued. Unfortunately, he uses his school's computer system, so different, but yet similar IP#s are used. Modor (talk) 02:30, 29 May 2008 (UTC)Modor

We can always range block if you can find an admin who can do it. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 16:27, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

My request for semi protection

Why was my request to semi protect Ginger deleted? It was legitimate, and certainly not old or inactive. --- Krezos Farland (talk) 09:16, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

It was most likely archived by the bot. However your request was granted by me, so your request was not ignored. Acalamari 21:07, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation. And thanks for granting my request. :) --- Krezos Farland (talk) 09:03, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
You're welcome. :) Acalamari 16:04, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

A feature request: IP-range protection

I've started a discussion on WP:VPT about a method to protect articles against IP ranges. I figured that people that haunted this talk page would be likely to have views one way or the other.Kww (talk) 16:32, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Admin instructions

I just made a proposal that we find a standard location for admin instructions and I used rfpp as an example for how it could look (link is in the top right corner). Let me know what you think. The rfpp admin instruction page I put up is just a very rough draft (since I needed an example page), so feel free to edit it as much as you'd like. Pax:Vobiscum (talk) 00:42, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Archive

Is this page archived? If so, where? --Paul_012 (talk) 19:52, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

No, this page isn't archived: there's just the "fulfilled/denied requests" section, and after they've been in there for a few hours, the bot removes them. Acalamari 20:20, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Making it harder to IP edit

Is there anything we can do about changing the accessibility to vandals? If the IP had to log in just to acknowledge that they were going entering a mode that could edit pages, it would be the child proof bottle. Users already log in before editing, and it's way too easy to edit through either the top edit this page button, or the edit in each subsection. Note that I'm not saying eliminate IP editing, since anons give us valuable help, but make the process a much more intentional act. Some people click on edit this page without knowing what they're doing. That log in could also track if the person does vandalize a page, and take appropriate measures at the time of access. MMetro (talk) 06:55, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

There are difficulties. There is no way to allocate selected protection of articles, so if the article is semi-locked then all IPs and non-autoconfirmed users are prevented from editing. The only other thing would be for some script to remove the edit buttons while still being able to edit, but then what? A user would have to access the editpage by telling the URL to ?action=edit, which would be too much for new users I think and would put good faith editors off. Also, if a vandal really wanted to vandalise, that wouldn't be much of a deterrent (although it might prevent a lot of fly-by vandalism). It's not a good idea, and probably not workable. As for good faith with misplaced edits, most editors will assume good faith when seeing someone's bad edit. We've all been there, and if my earliest edits were interpreted as vandalism I'd have been blocked ages ago! :) I doubt a script exists, or will ever exist, to instruct the MediaWiki software to to take action against a user who vandalises; Cluebot (talk · contribs) is a good bot for this, but there are still false positives which must be taken into account. Plus, if you were thinking about something that would automatically block a user, then that bot would have to have admin access, and I guarantee that such a controversial task will not be allocated to a bot. Nevertheless, Recent Changes and New Pages are watched nearly 24/7 by hundreds of different users, so nearly all the time vandalism will be acted upon and quickly. PeterSymonds (talk) 16:52, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Right now, editing for an anon is actually easier than a registered user, because the registered user logs in, while the anon just goes to work. If it was at least a two step process of confirming that you want to edit before letting you edit, accidental edits, at the very least, could be eliminated. There are enough incidents where the IP undoes their vandal edit to suggest that this might be part of what's happening. In that case, even a cancel editing button could help to keep those edits from having to be registered. i would hate for Wikipedia to go down simply because so many resources are spent on the upkeep of what we have, rather than the production of new material. MMetro (talk) 07:12, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
True, it's an idea to consider. The new users have to go through CATCHA so I suppose that sort of thing is open to consideration. However this talk page is probably not the place to do it. I'd recommend WP:VPT. Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 08:39, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Permanent Protection

There is an article which is a hotly contested article, the one on the British Isles. Now I recently protected this for two weeks due to edit warring on the article, and accusations of POV pushing by one side or another. Coupled with editors who have stated they cannot accept the term British Isles on Wikipedia and intent the page removed, to the other extreme of other editors claiming it is a term stating that Britain should be ruling over Ireland (or at least the name claims as such.) Now the protection is due to end in a few days, but as people can see from the talk page, and the protection log this is a hotly contested article with many an edit war. What I want to know is should this page just be protected indefinitely with Admin and Bureaucrat only editing by request to edit a protected page. I fear this may be the only solution for this article as there are too many people on both sides of the political divide insistent on putting their own POV on the article against the verifiable facts. Canterbury Tail talk 18:59, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I would fully support handing out blocks to the POV pushers on both sides of the issue; if their block logs start filling up, they become candidates for community bans, which is sometimes the only way to deal with this sort of issue. The arbitrators tend to dismiss similar situations as "content issues", which they decline as a matter of course. I have no problem with indefinite semi-protection, and short-term full protection, but long-term locks tend to stop all editing, as each side uses the talk page to prevent edits with which they disagree, and the end result is a sub-par article with no editing activity and no hope of improving. Better to flush out the problem editors now, and it has been my observation that most PoV pushers (particularly on this topic) don't restrict themselves to a single article, but to a range of articles, and locking one will just cause them to move to another article to pull the same shenanigans. Horologium (talk) 19:23, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Easier said than done on that page. It all comes down to edit disputes, not out right vandalism on there. Plus many of the editors are editors in good standing outside of that debate. It's, complicated there. Canterbury Tail talk 19:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Block them for 3RR, edit warring, or tendentious editing. I don't edit that particular group of articles, but I am familiar with some of the usual suspects, as I watch AN, ANI, and RFAr. Looking at the most recent discussion from the talk page, I don't see the names I expected to see, although I do see at least one in the edit history of the article, as well as IP editor from one of the relevant countries. As I mentioned earlier, the lock has stopped editing cold (there have been no edits since it was locked on the 19th) although this article is better than most, with a Good Article badge on it. FWIW, that IP editor should have been blocked for his edits on the talk page, where he launched attacks upon anyone who disagreed with him, (including another Irish editor), using nationalistic cant. We don't need more nationalist idiots infesting the project. Horologium (talk) 21:06, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

So if Semi-Protect is supposed to stop anonymous IP's....

Then how did these two IP guys on June 7th and a recently registered user on June 8th with one edit apiece manage to get thru the semi-protect for The Stig article? I thought semi-protect would stop them?--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 01:45, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Because the semi-protection expired on 6th June. See the Logs for the page. CIreland (talk) 01:48, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Don't blame me if the logo is still there, if the lock is there, i'm assuming it's still active.--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 02:20, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Nope, the padlock actually means nothing, you could go add it on an article yourself if you wanted. It is going to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PAGENAME&action=protect that shows you the protection status of a page. Prodego talk 04:20, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I didn't know that non-admins could actually look at that page. You can also hack at the api to get something too. Like http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&titles=Trumpet&prop=info&inprop=protection tells you that Trumpet is semiprotected, but http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&titles=Saskatchewan&prop=info&inprop=protection returns nothing (Saskatchewan isn't protected). -Royalguard11(T·R!) 05:09, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

John Cena

Can you edit his personal life because he is now currently dating fellow WWE superstar Mickie James, so WWE put them together for a storyline. my sources come from wrestlescoop.com and wrestlenewz.com. thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by DoubleDCrazy13 (talk • contribs) 17:40, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Self-Replicating Machine

I would simply like to be able to discuss this page with other editors on the talk page, but I can't due to it's semi-protected status. Is there any way I can be allowed to at least do that? I'm not trying to contest it's protection status, simply the inability to take part in what is supposed to be an open discussion.RadioShack1234 (talk) 16:39, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

You are free to discuss it on the talk page. Only the article is protected. BradV 16:43, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
When I click on the discussion tab, there is no "edit this page" link at the top, or near any of the topics, it also tells me about it's semi-protected status if I click the link to make a new topic. Am I just doing something wrong? RadioShack1234 (talk) 17:16, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, according to the log, it's been semi-protected by Yamla. You could either ask him to unprotect the page, but since he's been less active recently, you could request unprotection here instead. Acalamari 17:20, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Suggest to unprotect talk completely and allow RadioShack1234 to edit main article as needed. Thank you. GeraldDean (talk) 01:00, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
I first (now) came here alarmed at "SteveBaker's" rude comments towards Americans, saying he "Came here to do work Americans can't do." This is insulting and I want to edit my views too. Hod Lipson initiated that nonsense not Collins but he is conveniently taking it out on him and the F-Units article it seems there at Self-replicating machine. He is also editing the Midway game article [10] several times and he works there per his site [11]. This is conflict of interest Wikipedia:Conflict of interest and he seems to be working the same for Bowyer's RepRap project there at Self-replicating machines and putting up more than necessary and pointlessly ripping up the F-Unit site down to a stub in retaliation for scrappings at the talk pages. Then he removes any editors ability to report it or revert it by deleting the entries. What the heck is this? Independent2 (talk) 02:41, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't want to get the page unprotected or anything, I simply want to be able to take part in the discussion as I believe this to be a very important topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RadioShack1234 (talk • contribs) 04:06, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Is there an archive?

While I understand that active applications should never be archived (they should be fulfilled or denied) I notice that the fulfilled/denied list isn't very long, meaning it only contains recently fulfilled or denied entries. Someone is probably archiving these somewhere, but I've been unable to find where. Would it be possible for a link to be put in the fulfilled/denied list that directs to the archive where these records are kept to read how the decisions were made and stuff so that users will have a wider plethora of examples to consult? Tyciol (talk) 15:38, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Nope. The bot moves fulfilled/denied requests to that section after a certain period, and then eventually removes them completely. They aren't archived, and an archive doesn't exist, as it's unnecessary. The best thing would be to find it in the history; which shouldn't take too long if it's recent. Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 12:18, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
Any archive would be huge and unmanageable. Looking through the history is really the only way to see what happened. Discussion isn't really suppose to happen, just a request a and response. The best way to see examples is watch them as they go by. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 18:25, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
Should the time frame for eventual complete removal be extended -- Taking the page I requested protection for less than 24 hours ago, it's now completely gone from the list - having to trawl the page histories to find the edit to find the decision, and the reason behind it is cumbersome at best. - maybe 24 hrs after decision is a bit more workable? -- Ratarsed (talk) 12:20, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree, I think a 7-day archive would be a good idea nevertheless, allowing the people who request protection to read the reasons for the administrator's decision (especially in cases where it's declined). The Archive could be then purged regularly for everything older than these 7 days. --SoWhy Talk 13:01, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
We have an average of about 10 requests a day, sometimes more, and on a good day, less. That would run up an archive of 70 requests in a week, give or take a few. I wouldn't support this, as it's unnecessary; it's either accepted or declined, with very little discussion. However, I wouldn't object to it if the bot moved it to a subpage. I see no reason to clog up the main page with so many completed requests. Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 13:11, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
Would an acceptable approach be to follow the daily log idea that AfD, TfD, etc. uses? At least this way people who watch the page looking for a resolution stand a chance of reading the outcome before it was deleted (as it wouldn't need to be) -- Ratarsed (talk) 14:55, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
The issue with that is the differences between RfPP and AfD etc. At AfD, a separate discussion is established, requiring community consensus, and the discussion is preserved as an archive of the decision. A daily log is kept to categorise the subpages of the numerous discussions that occur. RfPP isn't like that; there is no community decision, it's just done or not done. PeterSymonds (talk) 15:17, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


Why do you guys think that an archive would not be manageable? There are bots for this, they can sort the archive by date, either daily or weekly or monthly, whatever you want. Just move completed reports to the archive of the current day. A good bot would also automatically created a content directory for the archive, so if somebody looks for something, he should quite quickly find what he's locking for by searching the archive of the indicated day/week/month. --PaterMcFly (talk) 21:17, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
I just want to say that if anyone wants some kind of archive to go ahead, then you need to talk to User:Voice of All. He runs User:VoABot, which semi-"archives" the page now. Actually, I'll go poke him now.
I think a 24-48 hour archive would be a good idea. And just so you know, it's been a little slow here lately. I've seen over 30 pages a day requested before. 10 is a slow day. -Royalguard11(T) 02:10, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
Using a bot, we can choose the length of time to keep it, I think 1-2 days are needed at least, I'd rather say 7 days. If the bot is just moving them to Wikipedia:Requests for page protection/Seven Day Archive for example instead of deleting them, it would not be much code to change I guess. And then the bot could in the same "motion" delete everything older. --SoWhy Talk 17:29, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the fullfilled/denied section could go on a subpage and the items can last longer. Aaron Schulz 16:45, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

  • I would support moving fulfilled requests to a subpage after only a few hours of being on the RFPP page. No need to have it past 1 or 2 hours in the "current requests" section, and if we are going to have an archive it could be moved from the "fulfilled requests" section after 5 or so hours. VegaDark (talk) 18:46, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
  • I would support this idea, and having a rolling archive of no longer than 3-5 days old. Any longer than that and it'll get too long. -Royalguard11(T) 01:44, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

procedure for indef protected pages getting stale?

I've reviewed some of the pages on the indef protected list and found a dozen or so that seem ready for unprotection. Some of them have been protected for months. I was considering formatting them for RFPP but thought it would be better to ask here if there is a procedure for this? --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 05:02, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

There's no special procedure. What I'd do is look at the log to find the protecting admin. If they've been inactive recently then list the article here in Requests for unprotection, noting the inactivity of the admin. If they haven't been inactive, then drop a friendly reminder on their talk page. CIreland (talk) 05:09, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
There is a procedure, it's "requests for unprotection" on RFPP. I don't see any reason why these pages need to be unprotected or somehow researched for WHY - if someone wants to edit it, they can ask. That being said, I don't really care if you go on a crusade to get them unprotected, I'm jussayin'. Tan | 39 05:12, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the replies. It's not a crusade; just seemed like maybe they got lost in the shuffle. When I have the time, I'll follow-up with the protecting admins or on RFPP. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 05:52, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
If they've been protected for over a month, then it's safe to ask at RFPP. Excluding office pages, admins have no special rights to decide when a page can be unprotected, and there is nothing that says you have to inform them (contrary to what some would believe, it's just polite to leave them a note, that's all). Anything under a month and you should try to get ahold of the protecting admin. I'd just go and unprotect them myself, but some self-important user felt insulted that I was unprotecting their pages and complained about it at AN, so now I don't. I'd be glad to unprotect any page listed here though. -Royalguard11(T) 00:56, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Resubmitting a protection request

I submitted a protection request on Jesse Jackson, which was declined with a note to resubmit if edit-warring continued. How do I go about resubmitting in that case? I moved it back to the top and added a note, but I'm not sure that's the correct procedure. Thanks, --Clubjuggle T/C 21:12, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

You can do either that, or simply make a new entry describing the new circumstances. I fully protected it, by the way. VegaDark (talk) 18:41, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Bot to remove protection templates

Didn't there use to be a bot to remove protection templates from pages that were no longer protected? I've noticed (and removed) two templates today on articles that weren't protected. It would be handy if the bot were still available. -- SiobhanHansa 01:54, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Criticism of Wikipedia

Request for semi-protection was denied by an admin who did not seem to be aware of the guidelines this essay, which is prominently linked from WP:RPP. A significant percentage of the unregistered edits being vandalism is good grounds for asking for semi-protection — a lot of valueable editor's time gets wasted on daily reverts to that article. That article is now experiencing (uncited, of course) references to the Nazis added by unregistered users [12], and hardly any constructive edits are made there by unregistered users. Please reconsider the decision. VG ☎ 10:28, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Protection reason

Hey guys, with the new improvements to Wikipedia's protection page, I have been playing around with the new common reasons drop-down box (found at MediaWiki:Protect-dropdown). I think it is looking pretty good, but I wanted to solicit wider input. Does everyone like how its laid out, should there be other reasons, are the links good, etc.? Any input would be greatly appreciated, and any boldness would be even more appreciated ;) « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 20:33, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Section anchors

Can the mechanism that creates RPP sections add {{anchor}} templates that match the names that appear in the URLs on other pages so that the links function correctly instead of leaving us at the top of the page?—Largo Plazo (talk) 00:54, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Pibo Canada

A vandal comes in here, creates a series of disruptive pages with titles of the form "Pibo Canadian-province-or-territory-name" for every Canadian province and territory. They're all deleted. Some of them have been deleted before. Some haven't. None of them has a title that will ever be the title of a legitimate article. I put in RPP requests for each of them. Instead of reasoning, "Gee, we have a problem with this guy recreating these Pibo articles for this finite set of Canadian provinces and territories, and none of them will ever be created by anyone else—let's just get them all out of the way now", the admin evidently looked at each request in isolation, and declined protection for the ones that have only been deleted once. I don't see how anyone will benefit from this, and it means another possible round of vandalism which will bring us right back here to protect them anyway. As a non-admin who's trying to help out around here and doesn't like dealing with preventable recurrences, I find this frustrating.—Largo Plazo (talk) 01:09, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

To record the discussion that transpired on the project page:
Because the protection policy says "Semi-protection should not be used as a pre-emptive measure". Simply because he created the page once does not mean he will be back to create it again. Until there is a pattern of recreation on the specific page there is nothing to justify protecting it. If he re-creates simply re-request protection. Tiptoety talk 01:06, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
There's obviously a pattern. Patterns don't begin and end with each single page. If they did, we'd have to start vandalism warnings over at Level 1 each time a vandal switched to a different page to attack; we'd never be able to block someone who vandalized a hundred pages a day but only touched each page once. By the way, rereading the sentence you quoted, I see it doesn't make sense: no matter how many times a page has been recreated before, creation-protecting it is inherently pre-emptive. It isn't retroactive; it isn't punitive. It prevents something from happening in the future: it's pre-emptive. Also, we aren't dealing with semi-protection here. This is full protection.—Largo Plazo (talk) 01:16, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
Then allow me to quote a section of the protection policy dealing specifically with creation protection: "Administrators should not use creation protection as a pre-emptive measure, but only in response to actual events." Tiptoety talk 01:19, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but that doesn't address my comments! 1. A single abusive creation is as much an actual event as is a pair of abusive creations or a whole sequence of them. 2. As I already pointed out, the word "pre-emptive" doesn't explain your approach because creation-protection is as pre-emptive after five creations and deletions as it is after one. 3. The sentence you quoted doesn't in any way indicate that the determination must be made for each page in isolation, so it doesn't address my earlier comments related to that.—Largo Plazo (talk) 01:28, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Protected page isn't protected

Daredevil (Marvel Comics) has the lock symbol indicating, I believe, that the article is protected or semi-protected. Yet a new-user anon-IP was just able to make a vandal edit at [13]. Is there a glitch, or am I misunderstanding? Thanks -- Tenebrae (talk) 00:11, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

The lock indicates that it is protected against move vandalism. The article is not protected against edits at all, just against moves. Metros (talk) 00:15, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

talk page notices

Is there a talk page template as a banner notice for a protected article page? 76.66.195.63 (talk) 10:04, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, two actually. {{Permprot}} and {{Temprot}}. Ioeth (talk contribs friendly) 22:10, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

The Sims 3

Vandalism?! What the... Perhaps you should verify what Hereford (the one who requested the semi-protection) is really doing before blindly protecting the page. It's not the first time he imposes his ideas on the article instead of discussing them in the talk page as requested, which obviously creates revert wars. He does not understand that not everyone agree with his solutions. To solve HIS problem, he requests the page to be semi-protected to prevent users from participating in the revert war.

Caknuck, you can't just blindly semi-protect a page with "Excessive vadalism". Look carefully at the history logs of "Sims 3" article and you'll see that the vadalism level of this article is low. I suggest that the semi-protection be verified and removed as it does not apply. -- Lyverbe (talk) 00:52, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I suggest you post that at User talk:Caknuck instead, I doubt he will read this. SoWhy 12:43, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Project page says "Further discussion should take place on the Talk page of the article". I expect any admin to read this and not specifically Caknuck, but I'll give it a try. -- Lyverbe (talk) 17:47, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
In the two days prior to semi-protection, IPs were vandalizing the article (diffs: 1, 2, 3), adding unsourced info (diffs: 1, 2) and edit warring over the release date. This is not a "low" level of vandalism/disruptive editing. Furthermore, I find your allegation that I "blindly" protected the article somewhat upsetting and certainly lacking in good faith. At this time, I fail to see a valid argument to remove the semi-protection. caknuck ° resolves to be more caknuck-y 19:06, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
First, you have to make a difference between good faith edits and vandalism (ie. your first link as an example of vandalism). Second, "unsourced info" is NOT vandalism. Yes, I still stand on the word "low" when I define the level of vandalism on this article as I've had it on my watchlist for more than 6 months and find the level of vandalism so incredibly far from being "excessive". I speak for those who can no longer edit because of an act that I feel was made with poor judgement. On top of that, I would have found silly to protect the article for 7 days; you protected it for 7 weeks. Like, 2 months! -- Lyverbe (talk) 00:36, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
If you had made this argument earlier instead of accusing me of using the admin tools wantonly and insinuating that Hereford requested protection to push an agenda, then my original response would have been much different. It's a lot easier to be heard if you remain civil. As far as the protection length goes, Hereford requested protection until the release date, and I slightly overshot. And no, unsourced info typically is not vandalism (but may be considered so if editors who know better continually reintroduce such info into articles), but it is against policy and it is considered disruptive. All of that being said, I'll unprotect the article and watchlist it. If IP vandalism spikes up again, I'll re-protect the article. Does this sound reasonable? caknuck ° resolves to be more caknuck-y 01:14, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
Lets do what all Wikipedia users have to do: Work together as a team. As always, I'll also keep an eye on the article and we'll keep in touch in case it does get out of hand. Thanks for your understanding and accept my apologies for my "blindly" remark.
Ps. Happy Caknuck day tomorrow :) -- Lyverbe (talk) 03:09, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. I'm sorry things got off on the wrong foot. Let me know if vandalism spikes on the article (I've asked Hereford to do the same, but I'm not sure how long he/she will be gone) so I can step in. Cheers, caknuck ° resolves to be more caknuck-y 05:16, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Help please

I made this inquiry but got no response. Can an admin please answer so I can at least know for future reference. Rgrds. --Tombstone (talk) 06:44, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Snow Leopard (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
semi-protect. High level of IP vandalism. Tombstone (talk) 14:36, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Declined – Not enough recent disruptive activity to justify protection. Ruslik (talk) 14:54, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
Not to beat a dead horse, but 14 IP vandalisms in past 11 days, which was 100% of edits in that time span. Wikipedia:ROUGH states "higher quality articles are more complete, there is less likelihood that the article will need to be edited in the first place." This is a former FA. Sorry to pester. Rgrds. --Tombstone (talk) 15:10, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
Hello? Can someone please clarify this so I can move on? What is the interpretation of "recent"? Rgrds. --Tombstone (talk) 00:09, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, this was about to be archived on the project page, so I thought I'd ask here. --Tombstone (talk) 06:46, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

After the 15:10 UTC query went unanswered I'd have gone to the admin's talk page rather than post again to the project page, since WP:RFPP gets a lot of traffic and things that aren't new requests can easily be missed. But now we're here and because I think there's a reasonable case for protecting the page, I've given it 3 weeks. – Steel 17:02, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, Steel. --Tombstone (talk) 12:31, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I disagree with the protection and agree with Ruslik's decision. Protection is not necessary when other methods of reacting (like reverting and/or blocking) are still easily possible and in that case it was nowhere near the "heavy and continued vandalism" WP:ROUGH speaks of. I don't want to wheel-war the decision, but I really think Ruslik should have been asked first before undoing his decision. You should at least inform him of it... SoWhy 12:41, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Ehhh. I'm a stickler for people asking the relevant admin about a decision before contesting it to someone else, but on this occasion given that this was the third time Tombstone had asked for clarification I felt it kind of rude just to tell him to go elsewhere. I assumed Ruslik wouldn't mind since I wouldn't mind if our roles were reversed.
As for the protection, I think daily or twice-daily vandalism stretching back at least a month (I didn't check further) to a mature article with few, if any, constructive edits in the last fortnight is borderline but probably enough. Though if you or Ruslik disagree strongly enough then I won't fight over it... – Steel 14:07, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I declined because 1 or 2 reverts per day is not a very high level of vandalism, it does not impedes normal editing and is easily reversible. Other admins can disagree, of course. I do not mind, because it is not so a big deal, and I was busy yesterday and forgot to answer (I noticed this thread). Ruslik (talk) 14:57, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Just to be clear, I was not shopping for a semi-protection. I was only looking for some clarification for future reference because I thought it qualified. Ah, I should have handled this better, sorry. WP:ROUGH was not quite clear enough for me to be satisfied, so I balked at the response. I should have listed the reasons in the first place instead of waiting to reply to the decline with the reasons. I understand the responses now, but IMO WP:ROUGH could be more specific about "heavy" or "recent" or whatnot. Are these concerns reasonable or am I being overly procedural? If this is a worthwhile request, please advise if it would be reasonable for me to initiate discussion at WP:ROUGH to elaborate on its qualifications. Rgrds. --Tombstone (talk) 15:46, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Cliff Bleszinski

Can someone take the necessary steps to protect the Cliff Bleszinski page? It has been defaced by IP addresses, which have inserted false, non-neutral, and defaming statements ("Douche Bag", "ruined Gears of War") for a couple of weeks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.36.57.185 (talk) 01:41, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

VoAbot missing

Our trusty bot has gone AWOL. I've left a note for VoiceofAll, but we may need to archive/delete completed request manually for a while. caknuck ° resolves to be more caknuck-y 02:56, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Never mind, it's back. caknuck ° resolves to be more caknuck-y 04:15, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Protection criteria need to be defined.

" Declined – There is not enough recent disruptive activity to justify protection at this time." Define "enough". Define "recent". Define "justify". The word justify doesn't even occur in the page justify is a link to, WP:Protection_policy. I know because I followed the link to try to find the criteria. They are not there. The criteria need to be stated in numbers or percentages and written somewhere so non-administrators can read them and become aware of the criteria and not waste our time asking for what we won't get. For instance, what length of time is recent--a day, a week, a month? How much vandalism is enough? Is "enough" measured as a percentage of edits or by an actual number? -- Another Stickler (talk) 23:32, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I found what could be a definition of "enough", but in an article not linked to in the standard declined response template. Quoting Wikipedia:Rough_guide_to_semi-protection, "More than usual levels of vandalism occur when anything over 5% of edits constitute vandalism." Reverts of vandalism are included when counting in the total number of edits per, "If each vandal edit was followed by a revert, without any further edits to the page, then 50% of edits would be vandalism." This definition needs to be linked to in the response template. Administrators also need to become aware of this and base their decisions on the 5%-of-edits threshold. Being consistent will make it easier for all involved. What remains to be defined is "recent". -- Another Stickler (talk) 23:55, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Enough means is it better to protect than block (since blocking is preferred)? Recent is current or ongoing, immediate. Justify meaning is there more vandalism that good faith edits (and is it worth it if its not?)? I honestly can't think of a reason to write all this down. Its more of a judgment based thing. And 5% isn't written in stone, remember its just a guideline; a base point to get you thinking for yourself. Synergy 01:49, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
WP:ROUGH isn't even a guideline; it's an essay. When I consider whether or not to semi-protect a page, I look at:
  1. The number of disruptive edits over the last several (~3-7) days.
  2. The protection history of the article/page (which is a good indicator of whether or not it is a common vandalism target).
  3. Whether or not the article is in the midst of a content dispute and whether the requestor is involved in said dispute.
  4. How many different editors are causing the disruption and whether or not they are IP-hopping or socking.
  5. When applicable, the nature of the disruption, ie. BLP violations and rascist nonsense get slightly more consideration than juvenile "i can haz penises?" silliness.
After weighing all of that, I make a gut decision. caknuck ° resolves to be more caknuck-y 03:52, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
But "i can haz penises?" has never appeared in a print encyclopedia, and World Book Encylopedia articles haven't been affected by the lame jokes of a TV show. Vandalism brings harm, not only because it takes time and resources to spot and eliminate the problem, but because useful edits get lost in the process. So by what guiding principle can useful information be disallowed because it's not encyclopedic, and yet a certain level of vandalism has to be tolerated because it's not enough to justify taking active measures to eliminate it? MMetro (talk) 10:29, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
If the vandalism isn't strong enough (6 vandalism edits in the last 50 edits going back to November, for example) then no. Remember that most IPs/new users actually do a lot of good for the project. Locking them out unnecessarily would be frustrating for them and unhelpful for us. In answer to your question, no, vandalism is not "tolerated", but in the case of protection, it's a resort we only explore when the vandalism is corrupting the page on a frequent basis. PeterSymonds (talk) 10:41, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Caknuck:Oops. I meant guide, not guideline. Force of habit really. Synergy 21:15, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Non-Admin Declines?

Should folk without time enough to make an RfA attempt make obvious decline calls, ala non-admin AfD snowball closures, or just leave rather silly requests like this be until an admin swings by? MrZaiustalk 14:57, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd be very cautious about doing any such non-admin action. If it is absolutely obviously the right thing to do, then you're unlikely to cause trouble. My understanding of WP:IAR is that it applies to all cases where no reasonable editor would dispute what's best for Wikipedia. I note that you didn't actually decline, just added a comment. That's perfectly helpful and non-contentious, so thank you. SHEFFIELDSTEELTALK 15:25, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Comments are of course very helpful, but I wouldn't go so far as declining as a non-admin. Majorly talk 15:38, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Fair enough - I'm certainly not in the business of trying to make precedents. MrZaiustalk 16:01, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

How do I resolve the dispute?

My original request/response received:

create protection, page vandalisim, unverifiable citations, turning into an edit war - Nadia (talk) 22:12, 10 February 2009 (UTC) nadia kovacs

Declined This is more of a content and formatting dispute than outright vandalism. Frustrating, yes, but not a cause for page protection.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 22:49, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

How do I resolve this dispute then? I believe it is more than formatting dispute since the user is putting in unverifiable citations. Nadia (talk) 22:59, 10 February 2009 (UTC) nadia

Both of the new editors have been warned by another editor and have not re-added unreferenced material since. I've added the page to my watchlist, and can escalate the warnings and block as needed. I might note that you have some WP:COI issues on this article, and should be bending over backwards to make sure your additions are completely sourced.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 23:16, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! As far as my "additions" I haven't added any new ones, just reverted the page back (by undoing) to what it was before the edit. Nadia (talk) 23:19, 10 February 2009 (UTC) nadia

Solving the randomness problem

I recently requested semi-protection for a BLP, and showed that it had been vandalized more frequently than other articles for which protection had recently been granted. When protection was inexplicably refused, I appealed the issue to WP:AN ([14]). There, I pointed to yet other examples of page protection being granted on fewer incidents of vandalism, but was rebuffed; eight incidents in a week was enough to protect "a fictional character in the anime and manga franchise Bleach,"and six incidents of anonymous vandalism in a week was good enough for reality TV show: eight in a week after eleven in a fortnight and a long history of persistent IP vandalism was not thought sufficient to protect a BLP. Neither at RFP nor AN were admins willing to lift a finger to rectify the mockery made of WP:BLP by this situation.

The problem is not simply that this admin got this RFP wrong; it is that there is an unacceptable lack of consistency in the present RFP system between how different admins handle indistinguishable requests.

I had long thought - and this latest incident has made crystal clear - that we urgently need some kind of meaningful standard - if only a guideline - for where the applicable RFP threshold lies, and a working process to appeal decisions by a single admin. The general tenor of those defending the decision at AN was that administrators have little guidance and a great deal of discretion. That is appropriate, to an extent: admins should have a wide range of discretion, because the kind of behavior that triggers attention at RFP comes in an endless variety of shapes and forms. Nevertheless, an editor should have a ballpark outside of which she knows ex ante that an RFP will not be granted, and vice versa. It also seems beyond serious dispute that there should be rough consistency between how two identical requests will fare with different reviewing admins.

These concerns suggest the need for some kind of guidance, or at least a yardstick against which an admin's decision can be measured. In two functionally identical requests on the same day, the same result should ordinarily obtain without clearly stated reasons why by the reviewing admin. The less guidance there is for reviewing admins, the more variance there will be between how requests are handled, and, thus, the more important that there be a clear process for appealing to a second admin to review the decision. Some admins are relatively sensible; others are relatively unwilling to grant semi-protection. I will not name names. At any rate, it is ludicrous and unacceptable that the fate of an RFP is so largely a "luck of the draw" situation, standing or falling almost entirely on the idiosyncrasies of whichever admin happens upon it first, a fortiori in the BLP context. To be sure, some requests are meritless (for example, a request for semi-protection when all vandalism is from registered users), but that is beside the point.

The "admin" who closed the AN discussion advised that this was the appopriate place for discussing criteria for page protection. What can be done to prevent such absurd situations arising in the future? - Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 01:59, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I definitely agree that more guidance would be nice (and I say that as an admin who has recently started working more in this area.)
On the other hand, I'll also point out that the article in question has had no edits by anyone since February 17, so protection would have been a waste of time on this one.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Anon vandal

Following the advice of User:Bettia, i report this situation for page protection, which has been on-going the past few months: An anonymous IP (and endless array of addresses, all starting with 92) has been operating in several AEK Athens FC (Greek soccer club) players, namely:

Arnaldo Edi Lopes da Silva, aka Edinho (here, they removed wikilink of PORTUGAL NATIONAL U21 TEAM and inserted just PORTUGAL (nation), and has been inserting lies about him being called up to the main national team), Juanfran (with all the links i provided to attest the truthful data, they still change his national stats, and now has merged the U21 and A teams' stats, just because), Geraldo Alves (also removed national team link, and changed to nation) and Gustavo Manduca (he inserted national team lies, which i removed; How could he have scored against Belgium in the Olympics when this nation did not even appear? Also, checking - it is available on Wikipedia - the match reports of that competition, we can clearly see that Manduca did not score, against Belgium or any other team).

This is seriously getting out of hand, blocking or using talkpage, as Bettia told me, won't do any good, with their endless array of IP, and this "user" does not write any edit summaries as well.

Attentively, VASCO AMARAL, Portugal - --NothingButAGoodNothing (talk) 19:44, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Just to confirm - NothingButAGoodNothing is requesting semi-protection for the following pages due to heavy and persistent vandalism:
Regards, GiantSnowman 01:36, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Done all four of them, for 1 week, respectively. Perhaps that will deter them... Lectonar (talk) 10:56, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

How Many?

How many vandalising edits constitute protection? Because I have made some IPs very angry because I keep rollbacking their edits and warning them, to repay me they keep vandalising my userpage.
Examples:

1 2 3

Limideen 15:00, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

You can have your userpage protected on request, regardless of vandalism. Either let me know on my talk page or post a request here. Cheers. · AndonicO Engage. 02:18, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Anon vandalism

In this article, i think some minor protection is warranted. In external links, i thought/think there was/is too much elaboration: there is no need for the player's name, just the site and the words "profile" or "stats" suffice. I left that thought in edit summary, making the necessary adjustments in links' display.

This week, an anon IP reverted the links, i sent that person a message, explaining in detail what was needed and coherent. Their response? Pop up another IP and re-revert it, no words "added". I undid and also sent this new IP a message, although this will be clearly inefficient. Is it possible to protect for a couple of days? Would really appreciate it.

Attentively, Vasco Amaral, Portugal - --NothingButAGoodNothing (talk) 01:02, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

  • Sorry for the incovenience (it must have been such i did not receive one single word of feeback...), no worries, closed case on my own (not going to start an edit war over this, although links keep getting reverted by different anon IPs, without one word). A good weekend from Portugal - --NothingButAGoodNothing (talk) 15:14, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Transcluded templates

I'm wondering what other admins do when they see a request to protect a template that is generally transcluded? According to WP:HRT, a template that is transcluded into a large number of pages is considered 'high-risk'. What is considered a 'large number'? I recently denied a semi-protection request because the template was transcluded only in about 30 pages but then agreed to protect it because I saw that it could potentially be in hundreds or thousands of pages (turned out to be wise because the template is now transcluded in thousands of articles but that was after the fact). Any general tips on how to deal with templates would be very useful for newbie admins like me. --RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 01:36, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

You made the right decision the first time. You should always consider what is happening now, not what might potentially happen. If a template becomes high use then it can be requested for protection, but not before it's actually a high-rist template. High risk is usually at least a couple hundred transclusions. -Royalguard11(T) 22:54, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Archiving bot...

...is apparently broken. Can somebody look into this? –Juliancolton | Talk 02:19, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I notified the bot owner; seems that's the best place to start. Tan | 39 06:34, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
that would be far too efficient. :) –Juliancolton | Talk 20:04, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
VoABot seems to break every once in a while. Just have to manually clean for a couple days. -Royalguard11(T) 01:28, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Bratislava

Back on 30 March, I (fully) protected Bratislava. My reasons are given on Talk:Bratislava, so I shan't waste space here rehashing them, other than to say that (as for Gdańsk/Danzig) it concerns what name(s) to use for what period. The article has been fully protected since. My hope was that locking the page would lead to a conclusive discussion on the particular political football involved, and I alerted the WikiProjects on Slovakia and (very relevant here) Hungary. However, there has been very little discussion. More surprisingly, there's been curiously little protest about the inability to edit, either on the article's talk page or on my talk page. (There has been some. There was a proposal here to unprotect the article; I protested this and rather to my surprise the article was left protected.)

Because there has been so little discussion or protest, because things are so peaceful as they are now, because I'm pretty sure a dreary battle will restart as soon as the article is unprotected, and because I think I'm responsive to comments and requests made while it's protected, I personally have no qualms about leaving the page locked indefinitely. However, I concede that doing so flagrantly violates the spirit (and very likely the explicit policy) of WP, so I bring up the matter here for second and third opinions.

Before anyone rushes to say that the article should be unprotected, I'd invite them to consider its history, which is particularly sorry. In late 2007, it made it to FA (which is how I encountered it) thanks to the excellent work of User:MarkBA and two or three others. Since then, each one of those authors has been blocked, has left in disgust, or has quietly dropped out. (MarkBA himself was topic-banned and indefinitely blocked.) That says something about the lasting toxicity of centuries-old central European animosities. -- Hoary (talk) 10:27, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

PS there has been some discussion there since I posted the message above. -- Hoary (talk) 23:27, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
PPS now it's back to the moaning, name-calling, and venting. -- Hoary (talk) 00:50, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think indefinite full protection is a good idea; it is better to block and/or topic ban those who can not edit constructively (which will let all others edit). But keeping it locked up while things are worked out on the talk page seems fine. henrik•talk 11:40, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the comment. The would-be editors include users of quickly changing IP numbers and also people who quickly move from one username to another, so blocks won't work and topic bans would bring a need for time-consumingly reasoned allegations of sockpuppetry. Complete unprotection seems a lot more risky than a change to sprotection. How does the latter sound? -- Hoary (talk) 12:25, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
It sounds good. sprotecting it indefinitely (perhaps occasionally trying it unprotected and seeing how it goes) would be fine: I have no problems at all with that. It's pretty common practice on articles infected by the plague. That said, keeping it full protected for a week or two more might not be a bad idea as long as there is some kind of progress on the talk. henrik•talk 15:42, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
I'd never encountered "WP:PLAGUE"; it's good. Yes, I've now switched Bratislava from indefinite full to indefinite semi-protection. -- Hoary (talk) 00:53, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Sluggish performance by admins today

The admins are taking a hell lot of time to check and decide on WP:RPP today. I have been waiting for nearly an hour for two requests. Pmlinediter  Talk 10:29, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

That's because we are all lazy oiks, obviously. Alternatively, consider WP:RFA. CIreland (talk) 10:43, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
There are even wild, baseless rumors that one or two admins have a life.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 22:05, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
*gasp* Where did you hear that!? J.delanoygabsadds
Not worth our salary, clearly. – Toon(talk) 22:08, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Purges?

I assume when the page is purged that fulfilled/denied requests are removed from the last section. I am unable to find where they go after this, I would like to go read the response to one I posted, does anyone know where/if these are archived? Tyciol (talk) 08:57, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

It looks like they're just deleted. Here's your response. TheJazzDalek (talk) 09:09, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Common Era

Can someone explain how the request for temporary semi-protection of Common Era moved from current requests to fulfilled/denied requests with no indication of whether it was fulfilled or denined? I looked through the edit history, but couldn't figure it out. --Jc3s5h (talk) 17:26, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I've moved it back to the current requests section. My apologies for the mistake I made when I manually archived the requests. To the other people who are watching this page, what happened to VoABot (talk · contribs)? It hasn't been archiving WP:RFPP for the past three days. Cunard (talk) 17:34, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
That I don't know. Its not blocked and I don't see anything on VoA's page commenting on it other than back in 2008. Sorry. :/ Syrthiss (talk) 17:37, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Shortcut to requests for edits to protected pages

I'd like to make a shortcut to this section of RFPP; several times I have wanted to point users here and having a shortcut would have been easier and more concise. However, it's not an easily-anagrammed section. WP:RFETPP? WP:RFEPP? That one is probably best. Any support or opposition out there before I boldly create it? Or am I missing a shortcut that already exists? Tan | 39 15:30, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

How about WP:RFED (Request For EDit)? You shouldn't really have shortcuts longer than 4-5 letters. -Royalguard11(T) 22:26, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
Well, except for WP:CONTENT, WP:START, WP:CURRENT, WP:INDEX, WP:BROWSE, WP:WELCOME, WP:ARCHIVE, WP:FORMULA, WP:EDITSUM, WP:SIGHELP, WP:HOWTO, WP:NPOVD, WP:OVERSIGHT, WP:REDIRECT, WP:RESEARCH, WP:SANDBOX, and about four dozen others... :-) I'll wait a day or two for other opinions and then consider options. RFED could work rather well. Tan | 39 23:22, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
Most of those are actual words though. We could turn WP:ARCHIVE into WP:HTAOTIA (How To Archive Old Talk Into an Archive) if we wanted long letter jumbles ;) . -Royalguard11(T) 02:27, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
WP:RFED created and added to appropriate template. Tan | 39 02:43, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion

To all admins around, here's a suggestion I'd like to give. True, the purpose of protection obviously is to keep certain pages from abusive edits that occur repeatedly. But before you consider protecting a page no matter how many times it has been vandalized, see first if the one who requested for protection already made attempts to reason with those vandalizing it. 124.106.203.208 (talk) 10:59, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the request for page protection of Cashis

This is a bad faith request. If you read the talk page, it is clear that the requesting editor is also the IP editor that he claims is vandalizing the article. This editor has a WP:COI problem (he is the artists manager) and refuses to work with experienced editors that have offered assistance. Niteshift36 (talk) 05:31, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Response to my request for page protection for User:Netalarm

I'm aware that the IP responsible for the vandalism has been blocked, however the vandalism to the page was fairly extensive with the IP user vandalizing the page 22 times each one a few seconds after I reverted their edits clearly using automated software of some kind as it simply wouldn't be possible for anyone to type this fast [15]. The IP was only blocked for 24 hours and they could easily come back and continue to vandalize tomorrow. - Jeffrey Mall | Talk2Me | BNosey - 20:11, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Some help, please?

I can't handle all the RfPP requests for two days straight. Especially when I sign on this morning, I see someone is raising a stink about some tendentiously editing IP that got blocked last night. Enigmamsg 15:30, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Header Level inconsistency

I was about to make a PP request, but got conflicting info on the main page about the syntax to do it with. The verbal description specifies a Level 4 header which would be 5 equals: =====. But the example provided shows only 4 equals, which is a Level 3. Most requests come in on a Lev.3, and I figure I'll just follow suit, but I'm here to suggest it be looked into by someone with Authoritah. -:-  AlpinWolf   -:- 11:33, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

You are correct, I guess whoever wrote that meant "four ="-header. I fixed and clarified it in the header. Regards SoWhy 12:03, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
No. A Level 1 heading, which is the style for the title of a page and therefore is normally not used, is 1 = on each side. A Level 2 heading is 2 = on each side, and so on. I came here with a different question: Why does this page have Level 4 headings (4 =) immediately under Level 2 (2 =) headings, with no Level 3 (3 =) headings? By the way, heading and header do not mean the same thing. Finell (Talk) 21:43, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

new mop on the block

I've been trying to handle some of this, I'm fairly confident in my knowledge of protection policy, but any and all feedback anyone has on my work here is welcome and appreciated. Thanks! Beeblebrox (talk) 20:25, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Your help is welcome. ;) Acalamari 20:31, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Instructions could be clearer.

I was looking to tell someone how to request salting. The first sentence of this page says:

This page is for requesting that a page, image or template be
  • fully protected,
  • semi-protected,
  • move-protected or
  • unprotected.

However, if you look at the list of protection options in WP:PP, it lists:

  • Full protection
  • Semi-protection
  • Creation protection
  • Move protection

When I compared the lists, I wondered if Creation Protection were handled elsewhere. I've been told that isn't the case, and it should be requested at this page. That makes sense, but I hope you can see why it isn't clear. I'm not comfortable simply editing a policy page in case there's a good reason it reads the way it does. I think the opening sentence should be edited to included "creation protected". Am I missing something?--SPhilbrickT 12:19, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for any confusion. You are perfectly free to add requests for create protection to this page, so I've clarified the header to avoid any future confusion. Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 14:31, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
Thanks.--SPhilbrickT 14:33, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Page Protection Query

I was looking at the Wikipedia Vandalism Page Protection page yesterday and I noticed that there were quite a lot of people refused page protection because the page hadn't been vandalised enough. For quite a few of the instances, I could've told the person that their request would be refused because of the amount of times the page had been vandalised. As normal editors, are we allowed to edit that page to add say the note template along with something along the lines of "this page has been vandalised twice within the last 24 hours". Are we allowed to do that or is this a page for the admins only? --5 albert square (talk) 11:17, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there is anything specifically saying you could not or should not do that, and it could help lower the admin workload here. However, I wouldn't advise it for anyone without a thorough understanding of the protection policy or who don't want a lot of user talk messages challenging their decisions. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:57, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

request

Hi I request a block on the Lee Corso page.SOme idiot was vandalising it. Also I request protection on kirk Herbstreit's page and Woody Paige's page —Preceding unsigned comment added by Waleslittlehelper (talk • contribs) 03:16, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Not sure where to mention this

I requested full protection on Glenn Jacobs. I intended to request semi-protection and must have clicked the wrong option. Embarrassing. My mistake. Gavyn Sykes (talk) 00:43, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

No worries. Happens all the time - and admin would have probably semi'd anyway. I've made the change here.  7  00:47, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. Didn't want to edit it myself, wasn't sure if that was permitted. Gavyn Sykes (talk) 00:57, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
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