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Wikipedia:Lists of protected pages

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Hephaestos (talk | contribs) at 11:04, 10 August 2003. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.


Wikipedia users known as administrators have the ability to "protect" pages such that they cannot be edited except by other admins. This ability is only to be used in limited circumstances.

This ability is used semi-permanently in some cases:

  • Protecting the Main Page from vandalism.
  • Maintaining the integrity of the copyright and license pages.
  • Maintaining the integrity of past press releases.
  • Protecting certain "system administration" pages.

This ability is also intended to be used temporarily in some cases:

  • Enforcing a "cool down" period to stop an "edit war", upon request (see below).
  • Protecting a page that has been a recent target of persistent vandalism or persistent edits by a banned user.
  • Preventing changes to a page while investigating a possible bug.

Admins should not protect pages when they have been involved in the edit war in question (either by actively editing the page or by expressing strong opinions on the talk page). Admin powers are not editor privileges - admins should only act as servants to the user community at large. If you are an admin and you want a page in an edit war in which you are somehow involved to be protected, you should contact another admin and ask them to protect the page for you.

In general, pages should not be left protected for very long, and discussion pages should be left open.

Editing protected pages

Admins should be cautious in editing semi-permanently protected pages, and do so in accordance with consensus and any specific guidelines on the subject. In many cases it is appropriate for a sysop to first raise the issue on the relevant talk page, as a non-sysop would have to do.

In cases of temporary page protection, admins should refrain from editing pages while they are protected. They should not continue editing content while people with different points of view who are not admins are unable to do so. There are, however, a few times when admins may cautiously decide to edit such a page:

List of protected pages

If you protect a page, or find a protected page not listed here, please add it to this list.

Semi-permanently protected pages:

temporarily protected pages:

  • Islamofascism - POV vandalism by User:JoeM - Hephaestos 11:04, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)
  • Have temporarily protected the letter pages A B etc to stop someone from replacing the content with a medicine directory, shouldn't last long G-Man 23:59, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC). -- Actually, I think the protection starts at J. Evercat 00:32, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)
  • user:Zoe - persistent vandalism by Michael
  • Open Directory Project: cooling down an edit war, with the agreement of the parties involved. -- Stephen Gilbert 13:50 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  • Ariel Sharon. User:Palestine liberator has been vandalising a series of articles. This is one of his major targets (replacing Sharon's picture by a penis over and over and over again. On the Penis page he replaced a picture of a penis by Sharon, redirected Israel to [[Zionist Entity]], plonked rants into articles, etc.). After I protected this page and created a ban page he said he would stop "messing", 8 minutes later restarted. Now he says he is gone from wiki but I don't believe him. I will leave it protected for a while until we know if he is gone or at least stopped messing. (Jeez, me protecting Sharon, a man I like most of Europe view as a war criminal! The irony!!!) FearÉIREANN
  • Easter Bradford. -- some sort of edit war going on, one person adding POV and possibly libellous content quercus robur 15:41, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The following automatically generated pages are also usually protected for (system administration) reasons:

Recently unprotected

Most recent at the top.

  • New Imperialism (again) - protected to stop an frighteningly rapid-fire edit war over whether to have links to "temp" pages or not. --Camembert 19:15, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)
  • Hugo Chavez - subject to continuing POVing by one anonymous user who deletes NPOV or factual information and replaces it with POV anti-Chavez stuff; in one case an 'open letter' accusing wiki by being NPOV of being pro-Chavez. (other any-Chavez stuff has been left elsewhere.)
The vandal's back so I protected the page earlier today. 172 05:59, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)
It's been a couple of days, so I'm unprotecting the page. However, I'd be shocked if he doesn't return given his persistence and fanaticism. If that happens, it will have to be protected again. 172 05:50, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)
  • User:Mount Paektu. This user as User:Paektu is the subject of a ban page over highly controversial behaviour which some have viewed as POV vandalism. Having failed in attempts to delete the mention of the discussion his talk page (after another user protected it) he then set up a new page for himself. I have redirected the above page to his first identity, so that anyone going to his page will know who he really is (and won't be conned into not knowing what is going on) and can express their views if they wish on his behaviour. As he has a long history of deleting things he doesn't like, I have temporarily protected the redirect on User:Mount Paektu. (All its contents are in any case on the other page.) FearÉIREANN 05:42 19 Jul 2003 (UTC) -- now seems to be unprotected. Evercat 21:24 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  • Catholicism: Protected by me after request of one of the involved parties. This article needs cool heads and calm discussion. --Dante Alighieri 15:59 23 Jul 2003 (UTC) -- now seems to be unprotected. Evercat 11:49 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  • user:Jar Jar Binks - almost certainly the latest Michael creation but with possible legal implications, as it infringes both a trademark and purports to the real actor who played the character. FearÉIREANN 06:02 5 Jul 2003 (UTC) -- now seems to be unprotected. Evercat 11:49 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  • User:George Washington (president) Michael's latest identity. Text removed and redirect installed to the User:Michael page, as seems to be now policy. Page protected to stop Michael removing redirect. FearÉIREANN 01:33 8 Jul 2003 (UTC) -- now seems to be unprotected. Evercat 11:49 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  • Joseph Stalin, being vandalized by User:Paektu. --Delirium 03:36 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)
    • Unprotected; he seems to be gone. --Delirium 03:38 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  • Gaia theory, Gaia Theory, Gaia hypothesis, Gaia theory (biology), Gaia theory predecessors - all subject to an edit war between two users. --Dante Alighieri 19:31 1 Jul 2003 (UTC)
    • The "warring factions" have been very productive and constructive as of late. Unprotected as of now. --Dante Alighieri 20:07 6 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  • Bouncing Souls - originally protected to stop a Michael edit war. FearÉIREANN 06:02 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  • User:ChuckM - His highly disruptive activities force me to put a warning on this user's page so that innocent Wikipedians don't get fooled by his constant request for copyright clarification. Evercat 03:41 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)
    • forced are you?... the entire IP range has now been blocked, so I unprotected the page. Martin 17:53 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)
  • User:jtdirl - given Michael's history of vandalising user pages of people who clash with him, I have placed a temporary protection on my own user page to stop him laying seige to it, in the view of my above two interventions against him. The talk page is not protected. FearÉIREANN 20:44 23 Jun 2003 (UTC)
    • pre-emptive page protection isn't in accordance with the wiki way :) Martin 17:53 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)
  • User:Michaelism - banned vandal Michael's latest user page, to stop removal of a demand from a user that Michael stop the vandalism he has been carrying out tonight. FearÉIREANN 20:44 23 Jun 2003 (UTC)
    • I'm uncomfortable with that protection... I just redirected the page to user:Michael (and added a contribs link to same)... maybe I'm just being finicky... Martin 20:01 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)
  • User:Joe Canuck - Some anonymous user has tried to remove the hard ban notice from this page and reinstate Canuck's page. This was reverted by another user. To stop the removal of this notice by an anonymous user (who may indeed by Canuck, given that this user has a long history of circumventing bans by reappearing under new names, and the additional note the anonymous user placed on the page bares similarities with similar actions by Canuck under the names DW and Black Widow) I have have protected this page to stop any further deletions of the hard ban notice. The talk page has not been protected. FearÉIREANN 23:31 22 Jun 2003 (UTC)
    • Unprotected because one edit is not persistent. Soft security suffices for now. Martin 20:01 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)
  • User_talk:Theresa knott
  • All the long list of pages protected to stop now banned user Joe Canuck from inserting potentially copyright images that had been listed for deletion have now being unprotected. FearÉIREANN 20:33 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)
  • Monkeypox, this has been protected and unprotected by various administrators over the last few days. The page was recently featured on television and has been subject to a repeated deluge of newbie tests and other vandalism. Unprotected by Evercat 11:47 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)
  • Spectral envelope, was protected to stop an unprecendented kind of repeated vandalism: two users, one in Singapore and one in India, appear to be using this page as a substitute for personal email. Unprotected by Evercat after 10 days.
  • List of phobias (no reason given)
  • Wikipedia:IP probation watchlist - a non-sysop might wish to edit this to criticise an unblocking
  • Martha Stewart, lots of vandalism on this page due to its appearance on TV
  • Bertie Ahern, Celia Larkin Eamon Delaney pages unprotected. I protected them because one user kept coming on over the weekend and adding in POV stuff about Bertie and Celia's sex life, titbits about Eamon. (When I told Eamon, a friend of mine, that he was the subject of an edit war on wiki he was perplexed!) The protection seems to have worked. After vandalising Mav and my talk pages, the vandal got bored and left. FearÉIREANN 00:56 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  • Karl Marx had been protected for a week now, think that's long enough, in my opinion. כסיף Cyp 08:54 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Commentary

The protected page system may be changed in the future so that all users can modify them, but modifications won't go through until a certain amount of time has passed (and/or a admin accepts them). This would reduce the requirements for admin intervention for useful things to happen.


See meta:Protected pages considered harmful, MeatBall:DelayAction.

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