Protection policy
From ENC Phillips Group Wiki
 | This page in a nutshell: Editing or moving of a page can be restricted by administrators. |
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Administrators are able to protect a page to restrict editing or moving of that page, and remove such protection. Protection can be indefinite, or expire after a specified time.
- Full protection prevents editing by everyone except administrators. Fully protected media files cannot be overwritten by new uploads.
- Semi-protection prevents editing by unregistered contributors and contributors with accounts which are not autoconfirmed.
- Creation protection prevents a page (normally a previously deleted one) from being recreated. (also known as "salting").
- Move protection protects the page solely from moves.
- Upload protection protects the file from reupload, does not protect the file page from editing.
- Pending-changes protection means edits are not visible to readers who are not logged in, until the edits are checked by a reviewer.
Any type of protection or unprotection may be requested at Requests for page protection. Changes to a fully protected page should be proposed on the corresponding talk page, and carried out if they are uncontroversial or if there is consensus for them.
Contents
Types of protection
Full protection
A fully protected page can be edited only by administrators. The protection may be for a specified time, such as 7 or 14 days, or may be indefinite. The edit tab for a protected page is replaced by a "view source" tab, where users can view and copy, but not edit, the wikitext of that page. Administrators still have an edit tab, but the edit box is shaded red with a warning above it.
Any modification to a fully protected page should be proposed on its talk page (or in another appropriate forum). After consensus has been established for the change, or if the change is uncontroversial, any administrator may make the necessary edits to the protected page. To draw administrators' attention to a request for an edit to a protected page, place the {{editprotected}} template on the talk page.
All requests are submitted at Requests for page protection.
Content disputes
On pages that are experiencing edit warring, temporary full protection can force the parties to discuss their edits on the talk page, where they can reach consensus. Isolated incidents of edit warring, and persistent edit warring by particular users, may be better addressed by blocking, so as not to prevent normal editing of the page by others.
When protecting a page because of a content dispute, administrators normally protect the current version, except where the current version contains content that clearly violates content policies.
Administrators should not protect or unprotect a page to further their own position in a content dispute.
Vandalism
Pre-emptive full protection of articles is contrary to the open nature of Wikipedia. Brief periods of full protection are used in rare cases when a large number of autoconfirmed accounts are used to make a sustained vandalism attack on an article. Persistent vandalism, or the possibility of future vandalism for highly trafficked articles, rarely provides a basis for full-protection. Semi-protection is used for articles, such as Jesus, that have a pattern of heavy sustained vandalism.
Semi-protection
Semi-protection prevents edits from anonymous users (IP addresses), as well as edits from any account that is not autoconfirmed (is at least four days old and has ten or more edits to Wikipedia) or confirmed. Such users can request edits to a semi-protected page by proposing them on its talk page, using the {{editsemiprotected}} template if necessary to gain attention. They may also request the confirmed userright by visiting Requests for permissions.
Permanent protection
Some areas of ENC Phillips Group Wiki are permanently protected by the MediaWiki software. The MediaWiki namespace, which defines parts of the site interface, is fully protected; it is impossible for administrators to remove this protection. In addition, user CSS and JavaScript pages, such as User:Example/monobook.css and User:Example/cologneblue.js, are automatically fully protected. Only accounts that are associated with these pages or administrators are able to edit them. This protection applies to any user subpage with a ".css" or ".js" extension, whether an equivalent MediaWiki skin exists or not. Administrators may modify these pages, for example, to remove a user script that has been used in an inappropriate way.
In addition to the hard-coded protection, the following are usually permanently protected:
- Pages that are very visible, such as the Welcome to the Early NC Phillips Families Wiki.
- Pages that should not be modified for copyright or legal reasons, such as the general disclaimer or the local copy of the site copyright license.
- Pages that are very frequently transcluded, such as {{tl}} or {{ambox}}, to prevent vandalism or denial of service attacks. This includes images or templates used in other highly visible or frequently transcluded pages. See High-risk templates for more information.
Creation protection
Administrators can prevent the creation of a page through the protection interface. This is useful for articles that have been deleted but repeatedly recreated by an editor. Such protection is case-sensitive. A list of protected titles may be found at Special:Protectedtitles.
Pre-emptive restrictions on new article titles are instituted through the title blacklist system, which allows for more flexible protection with support for substrings and regular expressions.
Pages that have been creation-protected are sometimes referred to as "salted". Contributors wishing to re-create a salted title with more appropriate content should contact an administrator or use the deletion review process.
Move protection
Move-protected pages cannot be moved to a new title except by an administrator. Move protection is commonly applied to:
- Pages subject to persistent page-move vandalism.
- Pages subject to a page-name dispute.
- Highly visible pages that have no reason to be moved, such as the Administrators' noticeboard.
Fully protected pages are also move-protected.
As with full protection, administrators should avoid favoring one name over another, and protection should not be considered an endorsement of the current name. An obvious exception to this rule is when pages are protected due to page-move vandalism.
Upload protection
Upload protected files cannot be replaced with new versions except by an administrator. Upload protection does not protect file pages from editing. Upload protection may be applied by an administrator to:
- Files subject to persistent upload vandalism.
- Files subject to a dispute between editors.
- Files that should not be replaced, such as images used in the interface or transcluded to the main page.
As with full protection, administrators should avoid favoring one file version over another, and protection should not be considered an endorsement of the current file version. An obvious exception to this rule is when files are protected due to upload vandalism.