[WikiEN-l] Protecting "Today's Featured Article"

Tue Apr 12 15:32:45 UTC 2005

It may sound non-sensical, but as images on the front page are protected, I
think Today's Featured Article should be next.

Yesterday [[Garry Kasparov]] was the featured article of the day - during
it's stay there it was subject to a large amount of vandalism, some of which
was unattended to for a number of hours. No-one seemed to care, as sneaky
vandals can seemingly do as they like at times on such articles, and not be
noticed.

This seems fair enough, as it happens everywhere, but the featured article
is a potential preview in to Wikipedia for potential contributors. If the
featured article is vandalised, many will be put off. It is ultimately a
sample of the Wiki's work which changes daily, and such a sample should be
protected, on the day it is on the front page.

The featured article will probably never be a current event, and as theres
not much that can be added to it, I can't see any dis-advantage in
protecting it on that day. As you can see from yesterday, there are a lot of
reversions and yet next to no worthy contributions to Kasparov (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Garry_Kasparov&action=history).
Before I intervened at 21:18, vandalism had been standing for two and a half
hours. Even the reverts of users were getting caught out due to the level of
vandalism.

- D. Hedley