This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments or questions on this topic should be made in a new Senate Hall page rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record. Toprawa and Ralltiir 08:11, February 25, 2012 (UTC)
One of the things I will be proposing at the upcoming Mofference (item 6 on the agenda) is a complete rewrite of the protection policy. Rather than bog the Mofference itself down in arguments over minor details and end up being told to CT it, I'm going to open up a thread here to discuss the proposed rewrite so we can iron out any problems in advance.
The proposal can be found at User:Master Jonathan/Mofference/6/WP:PP. The rewrite is related to a vote on the super-semi-protection abuse filter, which isn't supported by the current protection policy, so the section on super-semi-protection may be removed if the filter is rejected. Highlights of the rewrite include:
- Complete rewrite to sound more professional and explain things to newbies a little better
- Updated full protection section to reflect current practices
- Expanded semi-protection section
- Addition of sections on move, creation, and upload protection, none of which were present before
- Placeholder era icons to be used on super-semi-, move-, and upload-protected pages (the actual icons will have to be created by someone else, as I haven't a clue how to do so)
Please tell me what you think of the rewrite. Is it good? Bad? Should I tweak or remove something? Throw the whole thing in the trash and start over? I'd like to have a version that represents a rough consensus by Mofference time so we can speed things up at the Mofference. —MJ— (Jedi Council Chambers) Friday, January 27, 2012, 00:49 UTC
- I'm sorry, Jonathan, but this feels like an administrative dealing, and something not for the entire community to consider. You should leave this for the administrators to handle. This can go with your Abusefilter suggestions as well. JangFett (Talk) 01:58, January 27, 2012 (UTC)
- I don't think the admins have the power to forego consensus --- pretty much everything should be decided by the community, shouldn't it? Menkooroo 02:04, January 27, 2012 (UTC)
- Some things obviously need to be decided by the community, but I think admins should have the privilege to decide in matters such as protection. We shouldn't be required to put up a CT every time a page needs stronger protection than autoconfirmed. The alternative to filter number 23 would be sysop edits only, which is worse than the current setup. 1358 (Talk) 09:08, January 27, 2012 (UTC)
- Per Xd here. Admins shouldn't have to get community consensus before every action that isn't spelled out in policy, it's part of why we trust them to use best judgment. The filter isn't in violation of the protection policy, the protection policy says nothing about "these are the only ways we can protect the wiki from spam and vandalism". In this case an admin found a nice way to stop some unhelpful edits that was less restrictive than full protection. If we have to make a policy for everything and have a vote before doing anything, we'll go the way of Wikipedia's community with its ridiculous amount of policies and over the top bureaucracy. If an admin protects a page or makes a filter and someone thinks it's wrong, bring it up with the admin and see what they say, then if you're not satisfied, take it to a community discussion where it can be voted on if needed. I just don't want to see us turn into Wikipedia with having to vote on everything and make a policy for everything, it's more of a hindrance than anything else. (Btw this isn't aimed at this policy specifically, but the apparent reasoning behind it). Cheers, grunny@wookieepedia:~$ 09:33, January 27, 2012 (UTC)
- Some things obviously need to be decided by the community, but I think admins should have the privilege to decide in matters such as protection. We shouldn't be required to put up a CT every time a page needs stronger protection than autoconfirmed. The alternative to filter number 23 would be sysop edits only, which is worse than the current setup. 1358 (Talk) 09:08, January 27, 2012 (UTC)
- I don't think the admins have the power to forego consensus --- pretty much everything should be decided by the community, shouldn't it? Menkooroo 02:04, January 27, 2012 (UTC)
- This wouldn't require consensus every time a page needs to be added; it's just a simple one-time vote to approve the concept and add a section about it to the policy so that newbies can understand what's going on. However, I didn't create this thread to argue about the filter vote; I created it to discuss the proposed policy rewrite. The point is that the existing policy hasn't been updated in a long time, doesn't do a very good job of explaining things and is completely missing several forms of protection; since the protection era icons link to the policy, it needs to have a clear explanation of what the different kinds of protection are and why they might be applied so that newbies can better understand why they can't edit a particular page. That's the driving force behind the rewrite. Now, can we please drop the talk about the filter vote and focus on the policy rewrite? As I said, the goal is to better explain to the newbies why they can't edit certain pages, part of which is the addition of protection icons for move, upload, and super-semi-protection so that users are less likely to be confused. Does anyone have any comments that relate directly to the proposed rewrite? —MJ— Jedi Council Chambers Friday, January 27, 2012, 22:31 UTC