Wikibooks:Protected page/Unstable

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.
• Move protection protects the page solely from moves.

Administrative protection is only to be used in limited circumstances, as described in this policy.

Any type of protection or unprotection may be requested at Wikibooks:Reading room/Administrative Assistance.

Types of protection

Full protection

A fully protected page can only be edited by administrators. The protection may be for a specified time, such as 7 or 14 days, or may be indefinite.

Administrators will still have an edit tab, but the edit box is shaded red with a warning above it. For the other Wikibookians, the edit tab is replaced by a View source tab, where users can view and copy, but not edit, the wikitext of that page.

Changes to a fully protected page should be proposed on the corresponding 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.

Content disputes

On pages that are experiencing edit warring, temporary full protection can induce 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 with blocks, so as not to prevent normal editing of the page by others. If clearly inappropriate content is the subject of an edit war, it is best to block or ban those who are violating the content policies and not those who are enforcing them.

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, such as vandalism or copyright violations. Since protecting the most current version sometimes rewards edit warring by establishing a contentious revision, administrators may also revert to an old version of the page predating the edit war if such a clear point exists. Pages that are protected because of content disputes should not be edited except to make changes which are uncontroversial or for which there is clear consensus. Administrators should not protect or unprotect a page to further their own position in a content dispute.

Vandalism

Preemptive full protection of pages is contrary to the open nature of Wikibooks. 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 a page, which often breaks the attack and causes the accounts to give up and find something more constructive on Wikibooks to do. Persistent vandalism, or the possibility of future vandalism for highly trafficked pages, rarely provides a basis for full-protection. Semi-protection is used for pages that have a pattern of heavy sustained vandalism.

"History only" review

If a deleted page is undergoing deletion review, only administrators are normally capable of viewing the former content of the page. If they feel it would benefit the discussion to allow other users to view the page content, administrators may restore the page, blank it or replace the contents with {{rfu}} or a similar notice, and fully protect the page to prevent further editing. The previous contents of the page are then accessible to non-admins via the page history.

Talk page archives

Talk page archives normally should not be edited, except to revert vandalism to the archive or to repair mistakes involving the {{talkarchive}} template. Therefore, they should normally be fully protected, and any changes should be looked over by another administrator and either kept or reverted.

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). Such users can request edits to a semi-protected page by proposing them on its talk page, using the {{editprotected}} template if necessary to gain attention.

Administrators may apply indefinite semi-protection to pages which are subject to heavy and persistent vandalism or violations of content policy (such as neutral point of view). Semi-protection should not be used as a preemptive measure against vandalism that has not yet occurred, nor should it be used solely to prevent editing by anonymous and newly registered users.

In addition, administrators may apply temporary semi-protection on pages that are:

• Subject to significant but temporary vandalism or disruption when blocking individual users is not a feasible option.
• Subject to edit-warring where all parties involved are anonymous or new editors (i.e., in cases in which full-protection would otherwise be applied). This does not apply when autoconfirmed users are involved.
• Discussion pages, when they have been subject to persistent disruption. Such protection should be used sparingly because it prevents anonymous and newly registered users from participating in discussions. A page and its talk page should not both be protected at the same time.
• Talk pages of blocked IP addresses that are being used for continued inappropriate editing, including repeated abuse of the {{unblock}} template, or continued uncivil or offensive remarks. The protection should be timed so as to not exceed the length of the block. However, administrators may also choose to change the block settings to block the user from editing their talk page instead, since there is no need to synchronize the block period with the page protection time period with this method.

Creation protection

Administrators can prevent the creation of a page through the protection interface. This is useful for pages 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.

Preemptive restrictions on new page titles are instituted through the title blacklist system, which allows for more flexible protection with support for substrings and regular expressions.

Contributors wishing to re-create a protected 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 Reading room.

Fully protected pages are also automatically move-protected, as moving a page counts as editing it.

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.

Permanent protection

Some areas of Wikibooks 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 Main Page or File:Wiki.png.
• 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. This includes templates used in other highly visible or frequently transcluded pages.

Cascading protection

Cascading protection fully protects a page, and extends that full protection automatically to any page that is transcluded onto the protected page, whether directly or indirectly. This includes templates, images, and other media that are hosted on Wikibooks. Files stored on Commons will not be protected by cascading protection, and need to be temporarily uploaded to Wikibooks or protected at Commons.

Cascading protection should be used only to prevent vandalism to particularly visible pages such as the Main Page.

Protection by namespace

Templates

Highly visible templates which are used on an extremely large number of pages or substituted with great frequency may be semi- or fully protected based on the degree of visibility, type of use, content, and other factors.

Semi and fully protected templates should normally have the {{documentation}} template. It loads the unprotected /doc page, so that non-admins and IP-users can edit the documentation, categories and interwiki links. It also automatically adds {{pp-template}} to protected templates, which displays a small padlock in the top right corner and categorizes the template as a protected template. Only manually add {{pp-template}} to protected templates that don't use {{documentation}} (mostly the stub and flag templates).

User pages

User pages and subpages may be protected at the user's request especially if there is evidence of vandalism or disruption. User talk pages are rarely protected, and are semi-protected for short durations only in the most severe cases of vandalism from IP users.

Users whose talk page is semi-protected for lengthy or indefinite periods of time should have an unprotected user talk subpage linked conspicuously from their main talk page to allow good faith comments from non-autoconfirmed users.

See below the special consideration regarding blocked users.

Deceased users

In the event of the confirmed death of a user, his or her user page, but not talk page, should be fully protected.

Retired users

Retired users may have their user pages protected upon request. Talk pages of retired editors are not usually protected except with limited duration to deal with vandalism. A user's request to have his or her own talk page protected due to retirement is not a sufficient rationale to protect the page.

Blocked users

Blocked users' user pages and user talk pages should not ordinarily be protected, as this interferes with the user's ability to contest their block through the normal process. In extreme cases of abuse, such as abuse of the {{unblock}} template, the talk page may be protected for a short time to prevent abusive editing. When required, it should be implemented for a brief period which should not exceed the length of the block or six months, whichever is shorter.

Sandboxes

Wikibooks:Sandbox should also not ordinarily be protected since its purpose is to let new users test and experiment with wiki syntax. This page is automatically cleaned every 24 hours, although they tend to be overwritten by other testing users much faster than that. Those who do use the sandboxes for malicious purposes, or to violate policies such as no personal attacks, be civil, and copyrights, should instead be warned and/or blocked.

Available templates

The following templates may be added at the very top of a page to indicate that it is protected: