Wikipedia talk:Protection policy

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Awkward phrasing in WP:PREEMPTIVE

The first sentence (Applying page protection as a preemptive measure is contrary to the open nature of Wikipedia and is generally not allowed if applied solely for these reasons.) is awkwardly phrased because there aren't multiple reasons stated. I'd like to tweak this in a way that avoids changing the meaning. One option is removing the if applied solely for these reasons. Another option would be changing these reasons to preemptive reasons. I'm open to other suggestions. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 03:21, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would just omit the waffle leaving: "Applying page protection as a preemptive measure is contrary to the open nature of Wikipedia and is generally not allowed." If there are reasons to protect a page, then the page can be protected and WP:PREEMPTIVE doesn't need to hint that. We generally don't protect preemptively. WP:IAR is always available if, for example, a BLP needs to be preemptively protected due to social media drama. Johnuniq (talk) 04:30, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like you and EEng are in agreement and that change has basically been made now (see below). Thanks. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 04:35, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@EEng: Given that your changes to WP:PREEMPTIVE seem to be in response to this discussion being opened and the fact that your changes could be interpreted as changing the policy, it might have been better to discuss them here first. Anyhow, thanks for the improvements and I think we got to a good place. While I did change some of your revised text back to a version closer to the original, I kept most of your changes. However, I believe two in particular need to be mentioned here to give people the chance to agree or disagree. Specifically:

The blatant vandalism was changed to vandalism. I think that's consistent with practice and the rest of the policy. Vandalism being subtle definitely isn't a reason we'd leave a page unprotected.
The aforementioned proposal to fix if applied solely for these reasons was effectively done by moving solely to earlier in the sentence and removing the rest.

The rest of the changes seem cosmetic, but are definitely an improvement. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 04:33, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Indefinite create and move protections

While long durations are discouraged throughout the policy, create and protection protections are often indefinite and the policy should be more consistent with standard practices. I did some analysis of the most recent 5,000 protections going back to 8 February 2024.

There were 328 create protections and 272 (83%) of those were indefinite. Of those, 247 were protected due to a page being repeatedly recreated. 7 had no reason, 5 were restoring previous protections, 4 were due to socking, 5 were the result of AfDs and RfDs, and the rest were reasons showing up just once. I think a good starting point would be updating WP:SALT to state that Create protection of any duration may be applied to pages being repeatedly recreated in violation of policy using the lowest protection level sufficient to stop the disruption.

There were 66 move protections that were ECP or higher (move semi-protection is basically a no-op), not cases where move protection was the same level as edit protection, and not done by TFA Protector Bot. 29 (44%) of those were indefinite (16 of those were ECP while 13 were full protection). The reasons for the indefinite move protections were more varied than with create protection as you would expect with 11 protected due to vandalism and disruption, 6 due to move or edit warring, 2 due to socking, and the rest were reasons showing up just once. I think a good starting point would be updating WP:MOVP to state that Move protection of any duration may be applied to pages being repeatedly moved in violation of policy using the lowest protection level sufficient to stop the disruption.

We can tweak the additions later if necessary. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 22:50, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure about documenting "lowest protection level sufficient to stop the disruption." IMHO it's often better, for example, to semi-protect an article for a week so the disruptors get bored and move on. In this context, I wouldn't think it helpful to salt a page for less than six months because once someone gets the idea they just have to wait a bit, they will wait more and more. Similarly, if a move war is going on, why not protect for a month to allow a move discussion plenty of time? I suppose a 48-hour protection could be applied and then block someone who moves it before a discussion is finished but I would prefer to avoid that. Johnuniq (talk) 00:39, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I think a lot of what this section is off the mark and awkward as guidance. But I wasn't up to fixing that, just improving the exposition. E Eng 01:15, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Which section is off the mark and awkward as guidance? Daniel Quinlan (talk) 01:25, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking in particular of protection is used when vandalism, disruption, or abuse is occurring by multiple users and at a level of frequency that requires its use in order to stop it – at the end it refers to two different things, and for whatever reason I lacked the enegry to untangle that (probably because this is a policy so I didn't want to do anything that shaded the meaning even slightly differently. There was some other stuff as well that's gone now. E Eng 02:52, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You have a point. We could replaces requires its use in order to stop it with warrants intervention. I would also suggest removing level of which is unnecessary. The result would be Instead, protection is used when vandalism, disruption, or abuse is occurring by multiple users and at a frequency that warrants intervention. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 03:07, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The lowest protection level sufficient to stop the disruption part is about to protection levels for create and move protection, not protection durations. For example, it's not necessary to use full move protection when the move vandalism is only from autoconfirmed users. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 01:24, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yikes, I don't know how I misread that. I agree that minimum level is desirable. Johnuniq (talk) 01:44, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Both changes look good to me. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 01:18, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Johnuniq: @Firefangledfeathers: Thanks. I went ahead and made the changes. I ended up merging the create protection sentence with another sentence to avoid some redundancy. I also added a short sentence about semi-move protection not having any effect, based on a similar sentence from the create protection section. Please let me know if you have any concerns. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 01:37, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Cascading protection and conditional transclusion

I haven't checked, but I think templates can be conditionally transcluded. If a cascading-protected page transcludes a template that conditionally transcludes another one, but doesn't use it in this case, is the third one protected (assuming there's no other reason to protect it)? Orisphera2 (talk) 18:28, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If {{B}} is nested conditionally inside of {{A}}, and {{A}} is transcluded at Example, but the condition is not triggered, then {{B}} is not technically transcluded at Example so it would not be cascade-protected. Primefac (talk) 18:33, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If it does, there may be a case when it leads to something I think isn't very good. I remember finding that trying to transclude a template recursively fails. (There was also a case where I was disappointed to find the same in CPP.) If a template in a transclusion loop (i.e., transcluding a template that transcludes it or another template that transcludes it or so on) is transcluded by a cascading-protected page, it can, depending on the implementation, stay protected when the protection is lifted or the transclusion is removed. I think it's better if it's not. Someone who has the power to cause this situation can also fix it, but they may just not notice. I don't have a good example of a use for a transclusion loop, but I think it would use conditional transclusion. The protection can be lifted if it was by mistake. In this case, it's likely to only be protected for a short time, but this doesn't apply to the second case (removing the transclusion). Orisphera2 (talk) 18:28, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Correction: CPP. It's weird that it isn't red-backgrounded. Orisphera2 (talk) 18:30, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, when I was writing this, a glitch happened and a lot of text disappeared and I had to reload the editor. This happened less than an hour before, though I'm not sure that it was here. I think it can also happen to other editors, so it's worth looking into. If it's a result of a captcha, it's a weird one. Orisphera2 (talk) 18:28, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]