Wikipedia talk:Protection policy

Protection policy not fair to unregistered

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Semi-protection and up stops unregistered users from editing, and Pending Changes Protection prevents unregistered users from seeing their own edits. 71.237.21.218 (talk) 00:20, 16 March 2022 (UTC) Maggie Simpson lover

Conservatively 80% of vandalism is carried out by IPs. Absent the availability of page protection I am almost certain that editing by unregistered users would not be allowed at all. - Ad Orientem (talk) 00:29, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

80% of IP editing is constructive. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. 2A00:23C4:570A:600:B108:27BF:92F:5059 (talk) 17:29, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia can and reserves the right to prevent further disruption when required. (CC) Tbhotch^™ 18:15, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Says YOU, Mr. REGISTERED user! 71.237.21.218 (talk) 16:21, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

That Ad Orientum guy, and maybe Tbhotch-who-I-don't-have-to-pay-royalties-to-just-because-his-name-is-TRADEMARKED. 71.237.21.218 (talk) 16:25, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Question about viewing source on protected pages

Why is it that some templates seem to hide their source text if they're protected?

I'm still learning a lot about editing and often want to look at examples in other articles for reference. Lately, I'd been working on an infobox so, in addition to reading documentation, I wanted to see how some other infoboxes implemented stuff. Looking at the template for Automatic taxobox (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Automatic_taxobox), if I click on "view source", all I see is

"<includeonly><nowiki/>{{#invoke:Automated taxobox|automaticTaxobox}}</includeonly><noinclude> {{doumentation}}</noinclude>"

The only way I can actually see the inner workings is if I go to "View History", open up an older version, then view the source for that older version. I found the same for some other "fully protected" and "template protected" templates like "Template:Cite web". Can someone explain this for me? Jasonkwe (talk) (contribs) 20:49, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

@Jasonkwe: This is not actually directly(*) related to protection. The '#invoke' syntax indicates that a module is run instead. You can find the list of modules near the end of the 'edit' version of the page. For Template:Automated taxobox, the syntax tells you it's calling Module:Automated taxobox. You will normally find this type of thing on the more widespread and complicated templates, (*) which are often protected. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 21:12, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Oooohhhhh, gotcha. Thanks! The #invoke syntax made me think it was protection-related and essentially saying "call self" and storing the inner workings elsewhere (which I could see in past versions). I see now that it's because the change to invoking the module was one of the last few revisions to the template so a few versions back actually showed the source text itself. Thank you!Jasonkwe (talk) (contribs) 21:22, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Preemptive protection for Today's Featured Article?

Apologies if this has been discussed before (likely has), but has there been any broad community discussion of preemptively applying semi-protection to the current featured article on the Main Page? Or can the main page summary be protected separately from the article somehow? (Asking after seeing a block evader vandalize the featured article two days in a row.) Funcrunch (talk) 04:20, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

@Funcrunch: Semiing is on Wikipedia:Perennial proposals. Last I checked, there's consensus to preëmptively PC-protect but no one's set up an adminbot to implement that yet. As to the summary on the Main Page, that is fully protected. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 04:24, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm fairly sure I saw a vandalized summary of the featured article on the main page yesterday when I pulled up the app on my cell phone. (Didn't take screenshots and all the edits were quickly reverted and soon redacted) Funcrunch (talk) 04:29, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 183#RFC: Pending-changes protection of Today's featured article, perhaps. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:52, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Tracking things down, Wikipedia_talk:Today's_featured_article/Archive_15#TFA_vandalism seems to be the last discussion - Legoktm, did anything happen with that? Galobtter (pingó mió) 02:17, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Because of IRL stuff, I'm roughly 3 months behind on my wiki commitments and slowly catching up. So, nope, no progress yet. Hopefully soon. Legoktm (talk) 06:42, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

@Tamzin and Redrose64: So how can this process be moved forward? Today's featured article was vandalized for at least the 12th (I think) day in a row, minutes after posting. Funcrunch (talk) 01:52, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Pinging Paul Erik on this discussion since he's been dealing with the current streak of TFA vandalism. Funcrunch (talk) 06:10, 15 May 2022 (UTC)