Wikipedia talk:Semi-protection policy/Archive 3

Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Rehashing

I've invited several users who have recently reverted vandalism on GWB, and a couple have responded at my talk page that they think there's simply too much text here to be useful to them, and were wondering if we could briefly rehash the stuff we've discussed. Anyone chiming in (NOT DISCUSSING) would be helpful. Thanks in advance, Mysekurity(have you seen this?) 04:14, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

  1. There's a proposal on the front page that is quick to read. It institutes a level of protection that prevents anons and very new accounts from editing an article.
    Note that anons already can't edit protected pages, so this doesn't amend their status in that regard.
  2. It is intended for use only as a vandalism reducing tool, so will have the same usage patterns as {{vprotected}} does at present.
  3. Some people would prefer more levels of semi-protection based on whatever criterion we are using as the threshold.
  4. Some people would like automatic expiry of semi-protection.
  5. Significant concerns include:
    1. Protection creep across articles
    2. Protection creep up the scale
    3. Vandalism being displaced to other pagesBen Aveling

-Splashtalk 04:22, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Splash, that was a very good and even-handed rehashing. Are there any questions for our newly-enfranchized users? Tip: When away from the page, use the history to see what you've missed. I personally think MediaWiki needs a better system for talk pages, but at present, I guess this works okay. -Mysekurity(have you seen this?) 04:32, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Here's my take: (very briefly)
  1. Simple is good - I've been in the software business, and you rarely implement things "perfectly" the first time around. You do things incrementally -- especially when you are making changes to established software. There may be a need for increased stratification of protection levels, but one extra one seems okay as a first step. You need somewhere to start, and you need something as a proof of concept to begin with.
  2. I would prefer to see something based on the newest x% of users. Simpler to implement, simpler to change.
  3. I think the community is robust enough to handle adequately the sorts of consequences which may happen as a result of its implementation. It's good we are thinking about this, but it does not seem productive if we are overly concerned with all the nuances and subtleties of its usage.
  4. I don't think "protection creep" will occur to the extent that we may worry about. This sort of semi-protection seems only applicable to a very small subset of articles on Wikipedia. --HappyCamper 04:40, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree completely with HappyCamper, and suggest we move more and talk less. Titoxd(?!? - did you read this?) 07:12, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Agreed. What's the next step? Judging from the comments under #f1ffff-protection_proposal_v.01, it is time for another version addressing the concerns. Once we have consensus on an acceptable version (even if the next version isn't it), what comes next? —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-12-06 07:26:28Z
I'd hazard that the version currently on the front page comprehensively supercedes v.01. That was why I wrote it. v.01 can be kept up our sleeves for future deployment once we understand better the sociology of SP. -Splashtalk 13:34, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
IIRC, in order to become policy, a proposal must be approved by the community with 80% support. Once we get that, we can ask a developer to code it (the move-restrict analogy will really make coding easier), run it for a while, then send it to Meta. But we have to agree on something here first. Titoxd(?!? - did you read this?) 07:33, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, what's on the project page needs a rewording. What does IIRC mean? "It is reasonable to conclude"? I'm not sure where to begin though. --HappyCamper 01:21, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Agreed; the project page needs to at least reflect what has been agreed upon so far. Or is the intent to keep the project page small to avoid intimidating people or garnering more "but it's creep!" protests? (P.S. IIRC: If I recall correctly.) —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-12-07 02:08:42Z

The project does represent what has been agreed on so far, in my understanding. -Splashtalk 02:31, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

It is a conservative subset of what is accetable to most. There seem to be things that everyone who has commented so far agrees upon in principle that are not reflected on the main page (for example, the process of inititiating semi-protection). The majority of the disagreeable portions under the three headings for v.01 seem like they would be trivially addressed, and the supporters of v.01 do not seem to be voicing much objection to the points that the disagree-ers have raised. Hence the time may be ripe to explicitly codify a v.02 and seek consensus again, with the goal of updating the project page with more of the points that have been agreed upon. —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-12-07 03:08:46Z
I don't think there's any agreement at all on any of the elements of v.01, and I would oppose each and every one of them. -Splashtalk 03:12, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
So you also oppose most of what's on the project page then? Maybe it would be most constructive for you to write a separate proposal, then. I, too, opposed each specific formulation in v.01, but as I said, it looked like quite a few people opposed for the same reasons, with no objection from the supporters (perhaps my memory or reading comprehension is being selective? :)). Thus, again, it seems it would make sense to come up with a second proposal that is closer to being agreeable. How else is this going to move forward? —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-12-07 05:42:54Z
I wrote the current proposal. I oppose >1 level of semiprotection, I oppose hard and fast rules for instituting or releasing SP and I oppose anything other than a simple tag on articles indicating their protection. The current proposal has none of those things, and v.01 has them all. -Splashtalk 12:30, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree strongly with Splash here: policy should never be made more complicated than absolutely necessary. A single level of semi-protection and flexible rules on establishing semiprotection are exactly the right way to proceed. Tim Pierce 13:40, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I think that we should start with only one level of semi-protection, and go from there if necessary. As HappyCamper said, it's hard to foresee exactly how the feature might develop in the future, so it's best to start simple and go from there if necessary. As for how the semi-protection should be placed and removed, I think consensus at WP:AN would do a good job in figuring that out. Titoxd(?!? - did you read this?) 20:37, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Ah, I see! Thank you for clarifying. For some reason, I was starting to think you were strongly opposed to even what was on the project page (v.00 for simplicity's sake?). I see now that you object mainly to the complexity introduced between v.00 and v.01, and that indeed most of the shared objections above fall under this (extra levels, extraneous links in the template, more rules for admins to have to grapple with when applying it). For what it's worth, I would favor v.00 over v.01; an obvious reason is that because it is simpler, it is more likely to garner enough support to be enacted in a reasonable time frame! —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-12-07 21:05:20Z
My thoughts exactly. Also, having a single level of SP inherently prevents protection creep upwards, since there is only the full-blooded full protection above it, and we already use that sparingly. The concerns about creep across articles will have to be addressed by vigilance and AN/I shouting matches. If it helps clarify, v.01 above was written before the current project page. I wrote the project page as a suggestion here under #ffffff(S) (subsequent to having problems with v.01) and it was fairly quickly suggested it migrate to the front page, so it did. If anything, it is v.02. -Splashtalk 21:18, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Write up a v.02 on the talk page then? --kizzle 21:27, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
v.02 is on the project page, so no need for a duplicate. That said, we might need to hold another poll like we did for v.01 soon. Titoxd(?!? - did you read this?) 21:29, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Am a little confused by the triplication we now have. We've the project page which appears not to be objected to (although people have sought to expand onit), it appears above in #ffffff(S) and now it appears below in poll, of all things, too. Consensus can be guaged from discussion in which there is significant agreement or where those in disagreement indicate thay they can live with it. There's no need to go bean-counting. Anyway.-Splashtalk 21:53, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I had a quick question that I haven't seen anywhere else. What exactly, currently, is the 1% limit? 15mins, 20days? I *do* know we have what, 700,000 accts? This means, that one would have to create 7,000 accounts to influence this limit. I would rather see a set time period. 1d, 1w, whatever, I dislike using a variable like a %, as this enables a user to at least think he/she/it may 'game' the system, like, for instance, hooking /usr/dict up to a RNG, in conjuncture with a long proxylist, in an attempt to influence the average age of that bottom 1% of accounts. Just a thought, but I would love to hear what y'all think of this.... --негіднийлють (Reply|Spam Me!*|RfS) 06:06, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

By the way....

Anon page creation is going to be disabled temporarily. Titoxd(?!? - did you read this?) 17:48, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, that's only anon creation of new pages. The email says clearly that anons will still be able to edit. -Splashtalk 17:50, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I know, I had seen my mistake and corrected it [1] before you posted here. Titoxd(?!? - did you read this?) 17:52, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
A direct link to the letter: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-December/033880.html xaosflux T/C 01:54, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

An alternate proposal

What if we did something like this.

  1. Track unproven users in some way similar to what's already been discussed.
  2. When an unproven user makes an edit, set a flag in the DB on that edit, but otherwise treat it normally.
  3. The next time the page is edited, insert:
  • the usual heading (eg Editing Wikipedia talk:Semi-protection policy (comment) )
  • a message at the top of the page saying something like "Wikipedia cannot be sure if the previous editor(s) are experienced or not. You might like to take a moment to review their changes."
  • a diff of the current version and the last edit by a proven editor
  • the usual edit buttons and subject/headline and edit box and everything, exactly the same as usual

Nobody is prevented from doing anything. Nobody can do anything they couldn't normally do. Nobody has to do anything more than they do now. It would just help experienced users do what they can already do, if they want to.

Regards, Ben Aveling 21:11, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. +sj + 00:06, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
It's too close to a content review, which has been continuously shot down by the community. Besides, article validation is supposed to go online soon, which may address some of those problems too. Titoxd(?!? - did you read this?) 07:14, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Where has article validation as a concept been shot down? People have not agreed on any particular suggested implementation, but this sounds like a very mild and constructive one, without the downsides of other suggestions that would require (rather than suggest) validation. +sj + 00:06, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
That's not what I said. Article validation is going ahead; content review is what has been shot down several times. An interesting example was Alan Dershowitz, where Jimbo just dumped a whole new role to admins by making the page admin-only; see all the protest in his talk page about that. Titoxd(?!? - did you read this?) 01:04, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Idea from Talk:Wikipedia

Ahoerstemeier (aka andy) presents an interesting concern at Talk:Wikipedia#f5f2f5ism. In a nutshell, he is concerned that protecting (or semi-protecting) frequently vandalized pages might cause vandals to spread out and vandalize a wider variety of pages, where their vandalism might not be caught as quickly as it would be on pages that admins are watching closely, such as GWB and Wikipedia. --TantalumTelluride 00:24, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

On the other hand, it's much less interesting to vandalize pages that aren't currently cool or in the news. +sj + 00:06, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
That's exactly the point of this policy. Determined vandals have been here for a while, and have been enabled by the ability to hit big articles. If we can stem vandals from their source (if only for a little bit), the world would be a better place, I think. High-profile pages, while more likely to be watched by a greater number of users, are much more likely to be vandalized than lower-profile pages. -Mysekurity(have you seen this?) 05:22, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

How much is too much?

Assume we try this out. How many pages would have to be semi-protected before we decide it's not working and turn it off? 30? 300? 3000? Regards, Ben Aveling 07:05, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

My guess would be less than 30, more like a dozen. We should be able to see a difference one way or the other and track it over a period of a week or two. Lately, the vandalism to GWB is down slightly, but that may coincide with the probablity that these talk pages are being read by vandals....--MONGO 08:17, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
A good answer to a question I didn't mean to ask.  :-) What I meant to ask is, if the number of semi-protected pages creeps to 300, is that a problem? Is 3000? I guess so long as we can turn it off without causing a big fight, it can't become a problem? Regards, Ben Aveling 10:44, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Articles for creation experiment

Personally, I think this is a good idea, but I'm wondering what everyone else thinks. Does anyone believe that this "experiment" [2] is really temporary, or feel that its implementation is un-wiki? Can't sleep, clown will eat me 08:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I can't believe its temporary. I probably would have voted against it if asked, but looking at AFC it does seem to be working. There certainly feels like less cruft appearing in recent changes, and there are still plenty of anon's editing pages. IMHO, of course. Regards, Ben Aveling 11:16, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't think anyone believes it to be temporary, and I don't believe it to be anti-wiki either, whatever that means. Although this definitely will not prevent the types of mistakes that were made in the Seigenthaler case, it is a positive step in the right direction towards much-needed quality control; we now have page moves limited to N% of registered users and new page creation restricted to registered users as well. It's obvious to where we are heading, but I do sincerely wish that Mr. Wales would comment on this proposed policy we've invested so much time discussing. Hall Monitor 18:04, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Heading towards 'restriction' in this fashion is a quick hack to reduce vandalism. Better, more subtle solutions would not feel like restriction; but rather like community-assisted guidance -- which is where I hope this proposal will direct itself as well. +sj + 00:06, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

For the curious, anon page creation is being discussed here and some of the effects so far can be seen at WP:AFC. Regards, Ben Aveling 11:12, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

AFC is a fine idea, in general. We should surely offer new users a place to make such requests, since they are often full of good ideas but scared of creating a new article on their own -- what if I get it wrong? &c. I don't believe restricting new-page creation is a good idea; it is one of the simplest ways to get new users hooked on the system. And the restriction seems to have cut back on the creation of useful new articles by 25%. +sj +

great idea

But it misses a big bit!!! Users that are vandals should not be able to edit pages that are protected like this. I suggest a way of marking vandals as vandals, as well.
Also that certaint users that remove vandalism a lot and are not yet admins can still use this. --Adam1213 Talk + 09:15, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Semi-protected pages would be editable by anyone with an account older than 1% of all current accounts. That would essentially mean accounts older than 3-4 days. So yes, any non-admin who has been here for more than a week could edit the pages. IPs could not edit semi protected pages, which would stop most of the vandalism, if not all. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 10:49, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
It is impossible to discern which users are vandals until they vandalise. The proposed semi-protection is a much more liberal version of the current protection scheme. If a page is being vandalised, I would much rather have it open to registered editors with an account older than 1% of all current accounts rather than lock it out completely. Hall Monitor 18:05, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Established vandals are blocked indefinitely. That's a better solution than any kind of protection. -Splashtalk 18:21, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Indefinite blocks are not always an option, such as the case with AOL users due to collateral damage concerns. The same applies to school proxies; it generally takes at least 10 to 20 temporary blocks due to severe vandalism from a school IP address before something more permanent is discussed. Unfortunately, from what I've observed, the bulk of our vandalism originates from either an AOL IP or a school proxy. Hall Monitor 18:30, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I figured Adam1213 was referring to accounts >1% old that were known to have vandalistic propensities. These are usually killed off as "vandalism only" accounts in fairly short order, or find themselves without an admin to unblock or whatever. I agree that most vandalism originates from IPs, and hope that this version of semiprotect will nobble quite a bit of that on articles where it is a serious problem. (I'm a he, btw.)-Splashtalk 19:08, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Aye, my apologies. Hall Monitor 19:27, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Concern: Vandals make more usernames

First of all, I think this is a great idea. However, I am a bit concerned that this may lead to would-be vandals simply creating many, many more user names. It is relatively trivial to register two usernames each day, and that would mean that begining 4 days later, you would have 2 names per day to vandalize with. My real concern here is that, for instance, in my war with vandals on the Chuck Norris article, seeing contributions from IP addresses makes it a bit easier to spot potential vandals. If all vandals determined to add nonsense started using multiple new accounts (because they cant just use multiple IPs anymore), this could get extremely difficult for everyone. -Lanoitarus 00:15, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I suspect the reduced volume of edits would offset the loss of the convenient red flag that IP addresses raise. I'd rather check a few edits from registered users who have made dozens of edits than dozens of edits from anonymous users who have made few edits. I doubt we'll know for sure whether the tradeoff is a good one before we can actually test semi-protection. —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-12-07 03:10:08Z
I certainly agree it is worth a shot-- I simply think this is a potential issue which is worth considering and being prepared for. Perhaps some mechanism to flag multiple usernames being created from the same IP address in rapid succession? Or perhaps modify the requirement so that a certain number of edits need to have been made to non-protected pages (this admittedly may cause contamination of other articles, so it is only a rouge idea at best. -Lanoitarus 04:21, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Would only allowing like 3 logins per ip address be anti-wiki? --kizzle 05:39, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Certainly you cant restrict the number of accounts that can USE each IP, because of public terminals... Perhaps a slightly more lenient system where there is a time-based limit on multiple account creation from a single IP? For instance, if you create more than a handful of accounts in one week from the same computer, you go on "cool down" and cant create any new ones till next week? It seems that this would almost never affect legitimant users, and even when it did the damage would only be their having to wait a few days to create an account. -Lanoitarus 06:21, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
It already exists: 10 account creations per IP per 24 hours. And that still runs into problems when Joe Professor tells his entire class to sign up for wikipedia and yet they all reside behind the same proxy. Dragons flight 06:27, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Hmm, didnt know that policy existed, nor had I thought of the proxied computer lab scenario. Would it be feasable to flag accounts created "excessively" from the same IP in some way, then? Maybe so that they would have a longer period where they couldnt edit semi-protected or so that they get flagged in some way on history pages for the first couple weeks? Seems a bit big-brotherish, to be sure, im just throwing out thoughts here. -Lanoitarus 06:33, 7 December 2005 (UTC)


That is a concern of mine as well. The good news is that we can try this to see if it works or not. If it doesn't we can go back to te current status=quo. Not trying is not acceptable... ≈ jossi fresco ≈ t • @ 05:56, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

As above, I agree with you that it is certainly a good idea worth trying. Before trying, however, I think it is at least worth considering this issue and brainstorming ways we can prevent it. -Lanoitarus 06:18, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
We do have Special:Contributions/newbies to watch them, though... Titoxd(?!? - did you read this?) 01:12, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Semi-protection proposal v.02

Ok, since there seems to have been progress and we're now agreeing on the core of the proposal, let's verify the consensus on this page with a poll, just like we did for v.01. If there's agreement, then we'll send the entire proposal to a community-wide vote. Titoxd(?!? - did you read this?) 21:37, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Semi-protection of a page prevents the newest X% of registered users and all unregistered users from editing that page.

Semi-protection will only be applied if the page in question is facing a serious vandalism problem. It is not an appropriate solution to editorial disputes of any kind since it may restrict some editors and not others. Administrators will thus apply semi-protection in the same manner as current protection against vandalism is applied — either on their own initiative or following an alert on an article's talk page, WP:RFPP, WP:AN/I or some other relevant page.

Requests to lift semi-protection should generally be unnecessary in the same way that unprotection against simple vandalism at present is generally swiftly seen to by either the protecting admin or another. Generally, a simple note to the talk page or WP:AN/I should be sufficient, but WP:RFPP can be used if necessary.

Articles that are semi-protected will be indicated with {{sprotected}} (or similar) and listed at WP:PP in the same way as protections are at present.

Suggested template (note the links):


 As a result of recent vandalism, editing of this page by new or anonymous users is temporarily disabled. Changes can be discussed on the talk page, or you can request unprotection.

Note that with full protection at present, anonymous editors are prevented from editing the article in the same way as are all non-admins. This proposal does not restrict unregistered editors more than they already are in the case of protection. This is not a proposal to prohibit anonymous editing.

Semi-protection proposal v.02 straw poll

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

This poll was closed 18:04 16 December 2005 (UTC) with the following tally: (103/4/2).

Support

  1. Support. Titoxd(?!? - did you read this?) 21:37, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  2. Support. --TantalumTelluride 21:52, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  3. Support, embraces the KISS principle and enables N% of registered users to contribute to articles when protected. Hall Monitor 21:55, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  4. Support. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 21:58, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  5. Well, I more-or-less wrote the proposal so I'm bound to support it. I don't much like voting on it, but anyway. One minor concern is that X% will be a declining period of time as Wiki grows. That is presumably something the devs are already prepared to fix, however, since the same applies to move-restriction, too. -Splashtalk 21:59, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  6. Strong Support.--Sean|Black 22:18, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  7. Support.Voice of AllT|@|ESP 22:19, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  8. Support. A 22:31, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  9. Support. Tim Pierce 22:33, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  10. Support ≈ jossi fresco ≈ t • @ 22:39, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  11. Support Jabrwock 22:56, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  12. Support policy in this version. -Lanoitarus 22:58, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
    • I have moved my vote to "disagree even a little bit", as I disagree with the percentage approach -Lanoitarus 07:21, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
      • In light of developer comments below indicating that the percentage approach is the only feasable one, I have un-struck-out my vote. I now Support again. -Lanoitarus 23:19, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  13. Support wikipedia really needs this --JiFish(Talk/Contrib) 23:53, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  14. Support. Brilliant idea! Implementing this would bring hundreds of RC patrollers back into true, productive editing. Owen× ☎ 04:25, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
  15. Support. The percentage can be tweaked as time goes by and as we get a better understanding of how this policy affects the pages it's applied to. Let's get it off the ground, then we can pester the developers later once semi-protection is proven to be worthwhile! —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-12-08 06:05:22Z
  16. Support. This is a much better solution to vandalism than locking out all non-administrators from editing. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 07:31, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
  17. Support I like this idea, a lot! ;] --негіднийлють (Reply|Spam Me!*|RfS) 08:53, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
  18. Support, confident this will do the job. BD2412 T 17:34, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
  19. Support, would be quite useful! —Locke Cole 08:15, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  20. Support. Much better than version 1. As I've said since the start, we can always alter this later depending on how this works out. We're definitely making progress. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 08:32, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
    Do you mean for this to be in the section up there ↑? -Splashtalk 15:44, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
    Yeah, but see I'm format impaired. ;-) And btw, why are you asking me and not Adam? :-D --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 15:51, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  21. Support: looks great. It will especially allow users to determine the right level of protection for their individual page. There are pages which stand to gain very little from anon edits, simply because they have a long history, and need edits from experts or at least people who know the history of the page. Similarly high profile pages are very vulnerable to anon edits. Having this tool available in some form will increase the signal to noise ratio a great deal for certain pages. If certain vandals take the effort to create multiple accounts and "age" them, they can be dealt with the normal means, blocking or at worst, full protection for the page. Stevage 17:32, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  22. Support. · Katefan0(scribble)/mrp 17:50, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  23. Support - Tεxτurε 21:04, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  24. Support (moved from oppose/disagree...) It's too good of an idea to go to waste. Perhaps a site-wide notice would be in order? I vote we clean the whole thing up a little bit. The templates on the proposal page make it look ugly, and take up space (and make it look like that page itself is semi'd). I vote we {{tl}} those templates, or put them in subpages, which could also be tl'd. If no one opposes, I'll go ahead and do it. -Mysekurity(have you seen this?) 21:11, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  25. Support. mikka (t) 21:38, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  26. Support. It's A Good Thing.TM –Abe Dashiell (t/c) 21:49, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  27. Support, since shouldn't hinder useful editors, whilst still giving a bracket to catch and block rouge members. Ian13 21:58, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  28. Support. This seems like a good idea, and it certainly is worth trying. —Lifeisunfair 22:13, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  29. Support. – ugen64 22:21, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  30. Support. — William Allen Simpson 22:25, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  31. Support great idea. Martin 00:32, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  32. Support. Stop debating and do something!!! An imperfect fix would be orders of magnitude better than taking no action. — FREAK OF NURxTURE (TALK) 00:46, Dec. 10, 2005
    To wit, during the time I spent reading this page and the archives, all of this occurred. (update: these edits have been deleted for containing Jimbo's address). — FREAK OF NURxTURE (TALK) 00:54, Dec. 10, 2005
  33. Support Would be a tremendous help im allowing admins and regular user's alike go back to regular RC patrol for the most part. KnowledgeOfSelf | talk 01:37, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  34. Strong Support Speedily! xaosflux T/C 06:38, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  35. Strong support for many reasons, short version is that this is brilliant. Blackcap (talk) (vandalfighters, take a look) 06:43, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  36. Support. We need to try out some things to keep the vandalism in check. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:13, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  37. Support. We need new tools. We can haggle later about the policy on using it. - Taxman in exile 17:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  38. Support. Not perfect, but seems to have more pros then cons. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:19, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
  39. Support - Ditto the comment above. --HappyCamper 04:24, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
  40. Support - lots of obvious upsides in terms of vandal fighting time saved. novacatz 04:40, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
  41. Support. This seems completely sensible to me. -Sean Curtin 05:52, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
  42. Support - Squilibob 12:32, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
  43. Support provided that X% (or whatever) is identical to the current limit for when page moves become available. Alphax τεχ 12:45, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
  44. Support --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 19:58, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
  45. Support--SylwiaS | talk 20:16, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
  46. Strong support - It just makes sense! Great way to stop persistent vandals. --TheKMan 23:02, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
  47. support this is a good idea Yuckfoo 01:11, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
  48. Support, despite slight concerns expressed below. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:13, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
  49. Support The Final Dream 01:33, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
  50. Support, but use only sparely please. -- grm_wnr Esc 02:38, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
  51. Support Though newest %age of users is arbitrary, and I would prefer the criterion to be validated e-mail address with no history of vandalism, still this is a step in the right direction. Wrolf 04:11, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
    What do you mean by wanting the criteria to be a validated e-mail address? Blackcap (talk) (vandalfighters, take a look) 04:13, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
  52. Support The current version looks worthy of becoming, at least, an experimental policy. I can see this being of great use for admins fighting revert wars over a single page against vandals with multiple/dynamic proxy IPs. --PeruvianLlama(spit) 05:23, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
  53. Support, but only for a very low X% (at least to start). It's "easier" to increase X than it is to decrease it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Deathphoenix (talk • contribs) 13:43, 12 December 2005
  54. Support, however only for pages that are vandalized on a near daily basis. --Flockmeal 15:51, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
  55. Support This would have saved me hours of time just reverting Adolph and George alone. DJ Clayworth 18:50, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
  56. Support. Clearly necessary by now. rspeer 22:57, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
  57. Support. As a non-admin, it certainly seems less heavy-handed than full blown protection CanadianGuy 04:27, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
  58. Support, excellent idea and greatly needed.I hope a developer codes it! Dan100 (Talk) 08:13, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
  59. Support Jamie 09:57, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
  60. Support --Allen3 talk 15:53, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
  61. Weak Support Lincher 16:47, 13 December 2005 (UTC) : Reason is that there have been 60-70'000 new users since the article on Siegenthaler Sr. thus many of them fell into oblivion from RC Patrols and having gotten passed the fairly new user idea that is being mentioned on the template. This means that there are probably tons of sleeping vandals waiting for this to get into action before they decide to cause some problems. There should be a way to flag new or vandals or copyvio editing users in order to prevent them from adding to articles.
    I agree, and there is: when someone is caught being silly, we block their account from editing, either for a period or indefinitely. Once a named account is blocked, any new account they might create won't be able to edit a semi-protected page. -Splashtalk 17:05, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
  62. Support I agree that this will likely remove a lot of problems. I think the "minimum time" idea, however, could be abused by dedicated vandals creating the maximum number of accounts (10/day I think I heard?), waiting the required period and abusing the system with those accounts, as mentioned above. I think a better way to do it would be to require the protected articles to be only edited by people who have made a certain number of edits. I don't think a vandal is likely to create a large number of good edits (at least edits that don't get him banned) just to let himself make a change that'll only last a few minutes. How many required edits I don't know, maybe 50? And of course none of this addresses vandalism to low traffic areas, as was the issue in the news recently. Perhaps a list of articles that are on nobody's watch list? TastyCakes 17:54, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
    Sorry.. Read the reasons why not edit count below after I wrote that. TastyCakes 18:07, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
  63. Strong support. This will free our hands from reverting vandalism on presidential candidates, love, beauty, Judaism and so on. JFW | T@lk 17:58, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
  64. Strong support this sounds like a great way to protect the heavily vandalized pages without hindering the editing process. WolFox (★Talk★) Contribs 18:13, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
  65. Support. So long as the Semi-protections are subject to the same guidelines from the 'Uses' section of the current protection policy, I can only see allowing more users to edit a frequently vandalised page as a good thing. It's a shame that the threshold of new accounts can't be determined by the number of edits, and it's possible that some determined vandals will create lots of new accounts to get around the threshold, but you can't have everything. If Semi-protection doesn't work, admins can always go to full protection. Vary 18:48, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
  66. Support. When a vandalism spree breaks out (which can involved many edits PER MINUTE in some severe instances) there is no way for constructive edits to be preserved anyway. If you pause to sort things out, even more versions get saved in the meantime. Inevitably, the page just turns into a mess with any constructive changes lost in the chaos. And as a regular RC patroller, my experience is anonymous and brand new accounts are used for the vast bulk of vandalism. CarbonCopy 19:58, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
  67. Support →AzaToth 21:42, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
  68. Support Sounds like a sound idea, although I suspect articles like George W Bush will in practice remain in a permanent state of semi-protection, but on balance this is probably an acceptable price to pay. G-Man 21:49, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
  69. Support Was just waiting for the right number to change my vote. sigh... I'm so juvenile. --kizzle 21:53, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
  70. Strong support - how many accounts less than 4ish days old make valid edits to GWBush? None? I thought not. --Celestianpower hablamé 22:08, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
  71. Support - I think this help curb the vandalism problem a lot. There are downsides, but I think the benefits outweigh the losses. - Trysha (talk) 22:50, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
  72. Support – ABCDe✉ 02:16, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
  73. Support--MONGO 02:25, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
  74. Support gotta try something else... cause obviously we're losing the vandalism war.  ALKIVAR™ 02:34, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
  75. Support good idea but needs a few more things --Adam1213 Talk+ 08:55, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
    So... are you supporting or opposing? Your vote says "support," you're in the "oppose" column, and your post is a mix of qualifiers suggesting either. Could you clear this up, please? Blackcap (talk) (vandalfighters, take a look) 22:16, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
    Sorry about putting it in the wrong place I could not find the right place --Adam1213 Talk + 03:54, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
  76. King of All the Franks 05:27, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
  77. --Sn0wflake 05:32, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
  78. --Gerard Foley 05:49, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
  79. Very good, substantive ideas, Support without question Derktar 06:17, 14 December 2005 (UTC).
  80. Support - I've seen more vandalism than editing lately! -- Svest 11:33, 14 December 2005 (UTC)  Wiki me up™
  81. Support Agnte 13:01, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
  82. Strong Support - As a self-proclaimed member of the Counter-Vandalism Irregulars I think this would be a great contribution to Wikipedia. I am sick of anonymous vandal edits, sometimes more than one a minute, on the various pages on my Watch list. --Cyde Weys talkcontribs 13:14, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
  83. Strong support for the version on the project page as of my timestamp (no comment on other versions). We've talked enough about this and we should get on and implement it. Thryduulf 13:35, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
  84. yep, not perfect, but better than nothing. will discourage impulse vandalism on the most prominent articles. Derex 18:39, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
  85. Support trialling this feature. Lupin|talk|popups 18:46, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
  86. Support Thanks, Luc "Somethingorother" French 04:56, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
  87. Very Strong Support,for the version on the project page as of my timestamp (no comment on other versions)Brian | (Talk) 12:04, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
  88. Support. Would be very useful on pages like World War II and Adolf Hitler that attract vandals like flies. Oberiko 14:00, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
  89. Cautious Support Izehar (talk) 15:30, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
  90. Support.Would help on the high traffic pages and discourage fly-by vandalism.--Dakota t e 16:26, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
  91. Strong Support--Unfinishedchaos 18:54, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
  92. Support! howcheng [ t • c • w • e ] 21:09, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
  93. Support and suggest 0% might be a good place to start. linas 21:13, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
    0%? Do you mean only disallowing anon edits, but allowing all accounts, no matter how new? If so, I agree with the scale starting at 0 and ramping up if it needs more... Jabrwock 22:02, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
    Yes. linas 00:27, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  94. Support I don't think it will block good editors like some have argued. If they are good, they'll have enough breadth to edit more than just one article. gren グレン 22:03, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
  95. Strong Support Sounds very sensible (timestamped version). TotoBaggins 23:58, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
  96. Support εγκυκλοπαίδεια* (talk) 00:40, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  97. 'Support' I think that this is a reasonable solution to attempt to curb vandalism. Vandalism is one of the biggest criticisms that some have of Wikipedia, and restricting the newest 1% from editing semi-protected pages should reduce the number of accounts that vandals have to use. Ryohazuki1987 01:48, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  98. Support I'm glad to see an attempt at reducing vandalism. It might not be the best method, but it seems like a good idea and is certainly worth a try. Our ability to deal with vandalism will change as we continue to grow in size. Methods that worked when there were 100 editors might not work when there are 100 thousand. We might need to make adaptations like this to keep it usable. — Omegatron 02:15, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  99. Support NaconKantari 04:20, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  100. Strong Support --rogerd 04:38, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  101. Support, though I fear the (fallacious, I know, but hey, we're all irrational sometimes) slippery slope. —BorgHunter (talk) 16:10, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  102. Support. Finally, a sensible step towards reducing vandalism. Silensor 17:49, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  103. Pile-on Support. At the very least try it out for a set period (one or two months) and revote. And, Jimbo likes experiments ;-) --hydnjo talk 17:59, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  104. Support -- definitely, even if it is too late officially to vote. Danny 03:53, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Oppose (please explain why)

I didn't like the support/oppose dichotomy, as I support most all the changes in the new version. I must stress my vehement opposition to the level of attention given to protection creep at this stage, but as long as this eventually gets addressed I will be happy. I must however disagree with the X% of newest users. Why is that better than 5/30/whatever days, especially as Splash says this number will decrease as time goes by? This should be in a finite amount of days (though not explicitly given in the sprotected notice). Also, until a developer specifically says that both an edit count check and account life/x% of new accounts time check simply cannot be done, I would much prefer a minimum edit count as well, as a vandal can simply get an account, wait a few days, then vandalize to their heart's content.--kizzle 02:37, 8 December 2005 (UTC) (moved to support)
  • I agree that percentage seems a little strange and arbitrary... jnothman talk 02:42, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Yeah. Days seems much more stable but I just want to test this out so I am not opposing on those grounds. But days would be nice :-).Voice of AllT|@|ESP 02:54, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Agreed, fixed days seem more logical- I dont understand the reasoning behind the percentage approach. If someone can explain why percentages are better, then i might support, but for now i disagree on these minor grounds. -Lanoitarus 07:19, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment removed in light of developer comments below. -Lanoitarus 23:19, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
I think I like the policy, and the whole idea, but until we're told no by a developer, I think we should keep this open. Yes, it would be easier to just recycle the pagemove code, but could we perhaps have a variable percentage? Or Could we start it off at 2%/3%/x%? I love the proposal and im thisclose to voting support, but I just still have a little bit of doubt. -Mysekurity(have you seen this?) 04:30, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
As I said earlier, the percentage itself should be coded as a variable, for inter-wiki implementation, so the percentage can be adjusted as needed. Titoxd(?!? - did you read this?) 05:48, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, but im still not finding any reasonable explanation why a variable percentage is preferable to a time period, especially if the whole point of varying the percentage would essentially to make it mirror a specific time period. -Lanoitarus 07:23, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I think keeping the burden on developers at a minimum is a reasonable explanation. To me, it is a more serious concern than the possibility of needing to adjust the percentage occasionally. —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-12-08 07:28:28Z
Lets hear from a developer that this is the smart move to do before coming to such a conclusion. --kizzle 09:20, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I've moved my vote to support. I like this idea too much to let a few nitpicky ideas get in the way of having it implimented. If it's coded as a variable, we can always toy with it later, which would be useful. Remember: we are only performing an experiment here, and not making strict policy, so thanks Tito. -Mysekurity(have you seen this?) 21:11, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  1. Oppose - while an improvement, I still have concerns about the idea. Mainly, that when this new level of protection is implemented, that some pages (such as George W. Bush) will be permanently semi-protected, restricting even more free editing. I would like to see this concern addressed - perhaps add a paragraph in the policy cautioning against permanent or even long-term (i.e. more than 24 hours) of semi-protection. In addition, I still don't quite see the exact need or advantage for such a level of semi-protection — for example, if semi-protection was implemented right now, which articles would be semi-protected? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 17:01, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
    P.S. I've removed the qualifier from the heading of this, as it seems unnecessary and gives the impression that we're opposing "just a little bit". Flcelloguy (A note?) 17:04, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
    The need for this policy comes from vandal fighthers reporting that they're getting tired of reverting silly vandalism in our most prominent articles. I do agree that permanent semi-protection is not a good idea, and a recent discussion on the Incidents Noticeboard pretty much eliminated any possibility of that happening. We also discussed it ad nauseam on Wikipedia talk:Semi-protection policy/Archive1, and it became clear that the public roasting received by those who use this policy to advance the restriction of anon editing privileges would be a sufficient deterrent. That said, we might want to edit the policy to make that clearer. Titoxd(?!? - did you read this?) 23:29, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
    Maybe. We should probably write in that permanent semi-protection is not a desirable option. But please. No time limits. Not until we've tried this out awhile. But yes, admins check other admins pretty well. Just look at my talk page. :) --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 23:40, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
    Yes, I understand where this proposal comes from. I've seen my share of vandalism-fighting as well, and I have several high-profile pages on my watchlist. However, I'm concerned that we'll all state that it won't be used "permanently", but will develop into a state of virtual semi-protection. In other words, a frustrated admin would semi-protect for 24 hours. A few minutes/hours after the semi-protection is up, vandalism would occur again, triggering more semi-protection. And so on. Eventually, high-profile articles would be virtually locked down to IP addresses and new users. That's where I am concerned about this proposal. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 21:49, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
  2. STRONG OPPOSE I think this is really against the wikiphilosophy. The more readers the more editors. People without account must be able to edit to realize how fast vandalism is removed from wikipedia. Then they begin to trust it. This is one more tentative to turn wikipedia into oligarchy. I also support User:Raul654/protection in case of featured article on the main page. His reasoning his perfect. Vb 17:12, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
    I'm not sure what you mean by your second sentence: it does not prevent people reading articles at all. It has nothing at all to do with oligarchism when several hundred thousand people can still edit an article. The philosphy in Raul's page is a good one, and one that I subscribe to. On the other hand, suppose Random Article X is being attacked persistently from an unblockable AOL IP. We have two choices: prevent everyone from editing it, or prevent some from editing it. The latter is far closer to the optimum. -Splashtalk 17:19, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
    Yes but if you read and you are not able to edit then you begin to think what you heard about WP was a joke and you don't trust it. I think the advantages of the method you propose do not compete with the disadvantages.Vb 18:06, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
    The situation you are describing is what is actually happening in several of our most prominent articles: an editor, anonymous or registered, goes to an article to try to edit it, but finds that it is protected due to vandalism. The only ones allowed to edit it are the Chosen 730, which are only 0.11% of the Wiki population. This proposal would actually restore editing powers to the other 98.89% of registered users, which is much more "wiki" than the current state of affairs. Also, this is just a temporary restriction on new users, just like moving pages: they are not allowed to do that either, but those restrictions expire after a short period of time (about two or three days).
    Also, I repeat what I said before: I joined Wikipedia because it provided me with valuable information the first time I looked at it. If I had seen a picture of human feces on the Hurricane Ivan article the first time I came here, I would have not joined Wikipedia. It's as simple as that, and I am sure that such a thing happens to a significant portion of our potential-user base.
    Our main problem is not that we don't have an influx of new editors due to this being a "closed Wiki"; it rather is a problem having to deal with our credibility. There are two main issues that need to be solved to address that: lack of sources and vandalism. This is an attempt to take a bite out of the second problem. Titoxd(?!? - did you read this?) 18:59, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
    YES!! Very few new users truly come here as experienced editors of a Wiki, and by viewing a few pages they can't edit, it will not be a big deal to them, as ignorance is bliss: They don't know they can edit it, so nothing is lost.
    Experienced vandals, on the other hand, are familiar with the practice, and know what to do. There are many other articles (remember, we're talking about less than 30 or so out of 850,000), so new users would not be deterred much, it will simply be a better tool to fight vandalism, one problem that effects our credibility currently greatly much greater than bad facts. -Mysekurity(have you seen this?) 01:51, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
  3. STRONG OPPOSE idea is inherently anti-wiki. — goethean ॐ 22:16, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
  4. Oppose for now. Interesting idea, but needs to discuss more clearly its ramifications. +sj + 00:06, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
    1. Why "the last n% of users"? If you're talking about impulse vandalism, just say no accounts created in the last 4 hours. Waiting 4 hours to realize an impulse is rather beyond most such vandals. (hat-tip to jabrwock)
      Because a developer has indicated that the database does not record account creation time. Aevar says in his neutral comment that % is the only viable option. -Splashtalk 01:03, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
      The database knows the time of the first article created by an account. mikka (t) 07:33, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
      That would result in a very different criterion of time after your first new article creation rather than time since registering. That could be a long time for some perfectly good editors who a little new-page-phobic. -Splashtalk 14:04, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
      I created my first new article 7 days after my first edit (26 December/3 January). As we get more and more articles this is likely to increase, as we are less likely not to have an article on whatever the new user happens to want to write about. Thryduulf 15:27, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
    2. Build in some simple time-limits - don't just make it a toggle-able protection flag. If this is not intended ever to be permanent - and it should not be - specify that such protection is recommended can be put in place for, say, up to 1 hour -- after which it must be renewed -- and for no more than 24 hours at a stretch.
      Hard numbers never work because they rarely fit the particular circumstance that is being dealt with. -Splashtalk 01:03, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
      I personally agree with you sj, but the general concensus is that we test this out, and if pages succumb to the "semi-protection temptation" and stay semi-protected for longer than they should be, time limits will be incorporated into policy, but we wait until this is actually working to see whether admins are good at policing themselves. --kizzle 07:53, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
    3. if this should *only* be used for pages actively facing vandalism, make that even more clear. +sj +
      I think that's fairly clear already in the sentence where it says "facing serious vandalims", in the section of "Semi protection is not", and in a newly added non-pre-emptive wording that reinforces everything that is already there. -Splashtalk 01:03, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Neutral (please explain why)

  1. I like the idea, it will prevent "spur of the moment" daily minor vandalism from anonymous accounts that plagues some pages (adding "penis" in just because you don't like the subject of the article, or blanking). But I think new account restriction should be in days, not "newest %". Jabrwock 22:56, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
    Hi, Jabrwock. I moved your comment down here to keep it clear where the proposal ends. Feel free to move it somewhere else (say, if you want to explicitly support the proposal). I believe (someone correct me if I'm wrong) that the newest X% idea is motivated by the fact that this would involve the least burden on developers: It is already used to restrict page moves. —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-12-08 06:02:52Z
    I think the reason for newest X% rather than X days old is that the prior is already implemented for page move restrictions, and does not require any changes to the database, right? If it needs to be tweaked down the road, the developers will probably need to tweak the variable for moves too, so we can worry about that later. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 07:37, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
    I think we should hear explicitly from a developer that this would both be much easier and a better solution than limiting by amount of days before coming to this conclusion. If days can be done and its just the same or a bit more work than implementing X%, then it should be done instead. --kizzle 09:19, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
    I hadn't realised that the % was based off of previous code. If it is easier to implement, then I say go for it. Jabrwock 17:16, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
    Agreed, but lets let an actual developer tell us what is the smartest route to go. --kizzle 17:24, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
    Note that User:Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason, who has commented below that % is the only viable way is a developer. -Splashtalk 15:49, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
    Alright dude, calm down. --kizzle 21:03, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
    Note that Kizzle's post you're commenting on was made before Aevar posted. Blackcap (talk) 21:11, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
    I would give this my full support, I think it's totally brilliant, save for the percentage bit, which seems far too arbitrary and reduces the functionality of the tool much when compared to a fixed number of days. I'm specifically not opposing, as I'd very much like to see this go through nonetheless, but I think that the change to days rather than a percentage is important and should happen in the near future (assuming implementation occurs). Blackcap (talk) 01:12, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
    One argument for using %s over days is the mystery of it. The problem I have with using a fixed # of days is that then people will just wait that fixed number. When you give a %, they don't know (and we don't know) how long that will be, so I think it would lead to less people just waiting until the time has passed. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 08:32, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
    Fixed time still makes more sense to me: users shouldn't be kept from editing pages for longer or shorter periods of time because fewer/more people signed up that day. Additionally, users won't know when they will be able to edit such pages, and we won't, either (which I don't see as always a good thing). If you say, "After 700 edits/1 month/whatever you can edit these pages," then newbies can go, "Oh, O.K. I won't bother until then, and then I can go help out there." rather than coming back in a while and having no idea at all (feels kind of like a second-class citizen to be restricted for a time and not even be told how long the time is). Remember, WP:AGF: we supposedly good users were newbies once, too, and there're many new editors who think as in my above example above and not, "HAHAHA! NOW I SHALL WAIT UNTIL I HAVE 700 EDITS AND THEN VANDALIZE JESUS! MWAHAHAHAHAAAAA...." (just a bit of humor, but I think my point stands). Oh, and note that I still definitely want implementation with or without fixed time, I still think that this idea is totally brilliant. Blackcap (talk) 20:11, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
    Moving vote into support column. Blackcap (talk) (vandalfighters, take a look) 06:42, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  2. If this were to be implemented the percentage approach would be the only viable option, nothing in the database (except the newuserlog, and it's not as simple to grab that info from there) keeps track of when a user was created, we do however keep track of user id's for both the current user and other users. Computing whether or not a given user is a newbie in this way is how Special:Contributions/newbies works for instance. —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 07:32, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
    For those watching, note that Ævar is a developer. -Splashtalk 15:49, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
    So in order to implement this, we need to be able to change the % over time, right? Also, is there a way to display what the actual amount of days is somewhere so that we know around how long it will be? --kizzle 21:03, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
    1% is approximately 3 days. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 06:33, 10 December 2005 (UTC)


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Question about the KISS principle

If we keep it purely simple right now so that it will have more of a chance to be accepted and the developers make the changes we want, how likely is it that they will want to make code changes again later on down the road for issues that should have been solved in the first place? Secondly, does v.02 specify that the tool from the software end will have a fixed time limit or a variable time limit that will be controlled by policy? --kizzle 03:40, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

My understanding (CMIIW) is that no explicit time limit is defined. The timing policy is inherited from the current protection policy, minimizing the amount of new knowledge that admins and other editors need to assimilate in order to take advantage of semi-protection. Note "Administrators will thus apply semi-protection in the same manner as current protection against vandalism is applied…" and the paragraph following that line, for example.
I don't think the developers will want to make code changes regardless of when they are asked about it. I suspect that regardless of whether we choose percents or explicit intervals, semi-protection has the same odds of being proven effective or ineffective. (As long as the percent translates to roughly the same time interval.) Hence my support of this version, even though I think an explicit time would more accurately reflect our intent. —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-12-08 08:13:48Z

Why base it on how long a user has been registered?

Instead of allowing a user to edit a semi protected page based on how long they've been registed, why not base it off how many edits they've made? Reub2000 05:24, 8 December