[Wikipedia-l] Re: Locking articles in a content war?

Sat May 25 21:14:17 UTC 2002

On Saturday 25 May 2002 12:01 pm, Brion wrote:
> As far as I know, the ability to protect pages from edits by non-sysop
> users was added to protect against frequent vandalism of the main page.
> Is it appropriate to be using this ability in a content war, for example
> [[Reciprocal System of Theory]]?

As a general rule, most definitely yes. But in this case the eidt war had 
degenerated in outright replacement with one totally different version with 
another, then back again, then another revert, etc. This amounts to a type 
vandalism and is counterproductive for all involved (although since this 
"vandalism" is only being wrought onto a single article, it makes FAR more 
sense to protect the page than even begining to consider banning an IP). 

The article can just as easily be unprotected as soon as things settle down 
(the period of protection was never meant to last more than a few days -- 
just enough time for the partisans to talk about what to do next). If a sysop 
ever has to do this, then a reason why it had to be done should always be 
placed in the talk for that the page in question. As was done. 

If that sysop makes a mistake in judgement, then another syop can just as 
easily reverse the protection. BUT the other sysops need to be informed that 
such action is being taken. Perhaps it will be better to first bring this to 
the mailing list instead of just placing a note on talk page.... 

Just read the talk and especially the old talk for [[Reciprocal System of 
Theory]]: One inherently POV version was being advocated by a single person 
named Doug and another NPOV version had been worked and agreed upon by a half 
dozen others. After a previous version war in January Doug returns and places 
his POV version in the place of the agreed upon NPOV version of January. Then 
the version war started up again with one version being replaced by another 
in kind. 

Some discussion should take place as to when this ability should be used. If 
it is only appropriate to use the protection function of the software on the 
main page and maybe special and possibly on some wikipedia-specific pages, 
then this function should be disabled by default to all but those pages. 
Please reverse the protection of [[Reciprocal System of Theory]] if this 
action was not appropriate.  

maveric149   