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Wikipedia:Lists of protected pages

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by G-Man (talk | contribs) at 20:03, 10 October 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.

Purpose

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. Please also add a short description of ten words or less indicating why you protected it. If you need to say more, discuss on the talk page of the page you protected.

Semi-permanently protected pages

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

temporarily protected pages

British National Party protected by Ed Poor on request due to protracted edit war G-Man 20:01, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Sysop pages

Though some sysop pages are protected, this is not endorsed (or necessarilly condemned) by these guidelines. It probably needs discussion.

Recently unprotected

Most recent at the top.

At the request of Martin:

-- Cyan 19:28, 30 Sep 2003 (UTC)


  • Suicide bombing - edit war -- Protected by me, 4 Sep 2003. Unprotected by me in the hope that the heat has subsided now. Tannin 00:05, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)
  • Homicide bombing - protected at Wik's request by Cyan 02:06, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC), unprotected (by Martin, I think).
    • Not by me. Might have been unprotected accidentally as a result of Ed Poor's page move. Martin 00:10, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)
  • Coca Cola. Stopping an edit war. RickK 01:33, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)
    • Unprotected by ?? (possibly Eloquence)
    • 'Twas me. Sorry for not listing it here - it was one of those unprotect-get disconected by ISP-forget about it instances. --Camembert 00:35, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Unprotected by Tannin 10:40, 21 Sep 2003 (UTC) (with Jiang's agreement) to attempt negotiated solution. Provided Jiang is content with draft version, can remain unprotected.
Protected by Tannin 00:18, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC) as Jiang is not content with draft version.
Unprotected. I don't care who's content with what. Can you both just agree not to edit the page for the time being? See [2]. -- Tim Starling 00:30, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)
No way known. Tannin

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.