Category talk:Wikipedia pages with incorrect protection templates

Edit request on 8 June 2010
Hello! First off, this request is for the page User talk:Hoots Hagis Kilts Porridge. As you can see, it's listed in this category due to the expiry on the page being set to May 14th. The page is still fully protected. Can someone either unprotect the page, or remove the  from the pp-usertalk template? Per the documentation, the parameter is not required...

My apologizes if it seems like I am making a mountain out of a molehill, it's just that I do try to keep this category empty and my OCD is getting to me about this. :) Thanks for understanding. Avic enna sis @ 21:17, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Rambo's Revenge (talk)  21:39, 8 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I can breathe easy now. :) Avic enna sis @ 21:47, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand..
Why does adding pp-dispute to a semi-protected page add it to this category?? Why does it assume there is never any occasion where it is appropriate to temporary semi-protect a page due to edit warring? -- &oelig; &trade; 05:02, 7 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Per the documentation, pp-dispute is listed only as a full-protection template, not a semi. Avicennasis  @ 19:50, 23 Iyar 5771 / 27 May 2011 (UTC)


 * That doesn't really answer my question.. -- &oelig; &trade; 05:43, 30 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, pp-dispute has the line "|disallowlevel=autoconfirmed" which disables the template for semi-protected pages. That's what triggers it to appear here, I believe. Avicennasis  @ 18:03, 26 Iyar 5771 / 30 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes but why? The question is why is it considered 'incorrect' to use this template on semi-protected pages? By what rationale are we to never semi-protect pages over disputes? -- &oelig; &trade; 07:43, 1 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Ah. You were asking about the social aspect of why it's not used, not the technical aspect, right? Sorry if I misunderstood earlier.


 * If two IPs are in dispute about content and are edit warring over it, the page can be semi-protected, sure. But then either/both IP(s) can create an account, and after 4 days, simply continue the dispute with a username instead of an IP. Of course, you can block the accounts, but then the IPs can make new accounts. You could block the IPs and use "prevent account creation", but if you were going to block the IPs anyways, why bother protecting the article?


 * Also, I believe it helps to treat editors equally. There are times when disputes happen between an experienced editor and an IP. Semi-protecting the article in this case clearly favors the established editors' version of the content. Avicennasis  @ 19:12, 29 Iyar 5771 / 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Date Formats
I've noticed that sometimes fixing the way the date is written in the expiry parameter of the template removes the page from this category. Does anyone think a message such as "If a page has the correct template yet still appears in this category, it could be because the wrong date format was used for the expiry parameter of the protection template. Dates used in the expiry parameter should be listed as DD MMMM YYYY (ex. 14 March 2011), rather than MMMM DD, YYYY (ex. March 14, 2011)." should be included in the description of the category, or is this problem actually obvious to other people?

As a side note, does anyone know why Category:Wikipedia Manual of Style (arts) is showing up as a subcategory of this category and/or how to remove it? Nevermind, I figured it out. Millermk90 (talk) 08:18, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Edit request
Can an admin remove pp-semi-indef from Requests for comment/Muhammad images? Requesting here since that talk page is also fully protected. Avicennasis @ 11:19, 11 Sivan 5772 / 11:19, 1 June 2012 (UTC)


 * ✅ Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:01, 1 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks! Avicennasis @ 12:04, 11 Sivan 5772 / 12:04, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Bot automation on it's way
See User talk:Redrose64 (permalink). I think I can create a script to handle most of the maintenance work involved with correcting protection templates. I'm currently developing this now and should have something soon. Pinging and  as they seem to be the primary worker bees in this category. Best &mdash; MusikAnimal  talk  00:39, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the ping . I forgot to mention a couple things I've noticed since the "UTC" was removed from the protection settings and templates. First, protections now expire based on the time zone that the admin lives in. This can be a privacy concern for those that want to keep their location a secret. Second, there may be some admins who think they are setting a short term protection when, in fact, it may be up to a day longer then what they thought it was. I don't know if either of these have any effect on the bot that you are programming but I thought that I would mention them in case they do. Cheers. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 00:47, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
 * When an admin protects a page, they usually choose the expiry from a selection list which offers several options: existing expiry time, other time, 3 hours, 12 hours and so on up to 6 months, 1 year, infinite; and if they choose one of the fixed durations, this is added to the current UTC system time when they click . Choosing "other time" isn't that common, but if you do that, you can enter a date & time which is assumed to be UTC. For example, if somebody whose time zone is set to New York (UTC-5) sets an expiry of 21:00, November 22, 2015, this is stored unchanged as 21:00, November 22, 2015 (UTC); but when looking at the prot log, that same user will see it displayed back to them as 16:00, November 22, 2015. For about a month now, the prot log has displayed in your local time zone, as notified at Village pump (technical)/Archive 141, but the actual value stored in the database is always UTC. In the prot templates, the expiry parameter assumes a UTC time, as do pretty much all templates that manipulate times and dates. It's safest to set your own time zone at to "Use wiki default (UTC)", as I did years ago. I've posted at Village pump (technical)/Archive 142. -- Red rose64 (talk) 14:55, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Well that helps to explain why it seemed that there were a batch of admins who lived in or near my time zone :-) I had been doing the "subtract seven hours" in my head for decades. That had changed with the removal of the "UTC" as I worked with these. With your suggestion/solution of how to adapt my preferences I can get back to that. I know that you had to put some time and effort into explaining all of this and, as ever, I appreciate it. Thanks also for your taking the time to post at the VPT. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 19:22, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Alrighty, I've got some code worked up that I think is in good shape. The bot is capable of automatically generating all the correct protection templates from scratch. That is, check the current protection info and generate the generic templates based on that. This is pretty cool as it will definitively remove the page from this category but it may not always be what we want. So the logic is as follows:


 * Removes any protection templates representing a protection that isn't present. So it's semi'd but not move-protected, pp-move will be removed but the semi left as-is, or repaired if necessary
 * Removes any protection templates on template pages that have documentation (or any of it's redirects) or collapsible option (or any of it's redirects). Otherwise it moves it within an existing  or wraps the protection template in noinclude
 * If it is protected, it will try to repair only what's already on the page. So if pp-blp is there but incorrectly used, but the page is also move-protected, the bot will only repair pp-blp and not add pp-move if it didn't already exist
 * If there is a protection template such as pp but it's usage is completely wrong or lacking any indication of what it's supposed to be, the bot will assume the user just didn't know what they were doing and will auto-generate all templates relevant to the current protection info
 * Protection templates always get moved to the top of the page, even if they were originally at the bottom. I assume this is fine.
 * The bot is aware of all protection templates, even the old ones that redirect to pp, etc, and if a repair is done the bot will use the target template instead of the redirect
 * Null edits aren't attempted... yet!

Some examples (assume the repaired expiries and protection levels are correct):
 * &rarr;
 * &rarr;
 * &rarr;
 * &rarr;
 * &rarr;
 * &rarr;
 * on template page: &rarr;
 * when edit/move protected: &rarr;

So on and so forth. Hopefully those examples make sense. Does the logic sound correct? I'm excited to give this a try! It appeared to work well on testwiki &mdash; MusikAnimal  talk  19:25, 8 December 2015 (UTC)


 * This makes sense as far as I can tell - Redrose64 is light years more knowledgeable about the programming than I am. When things get going I will be able to let you know if I notice things going awry. There is one thing that I have encountered in the working with the category. If an existing protection gets altered/changed the expiry time in the template rarely gets updated. Here is one example. I understand that this is a separate issue from what you are working on now and I have no problem with performing the updates but I did want to make you aware of it. Thanks for all of your work on this . MarnetteD&#124;Talk 20:13, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I forgot to mention that I enjoyed your using 1970 in your examples. I was younger and more carefree back then :-) MarnetteD&#124;Talk 20:14, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Haha, I bet Redrose64 gets the reference, which is the "beginning of time" according to Unix =P As for the protections that get modified but the template does not, the bot will correct these. Basically by being in this category, the bot knows the templates need repairing or removed. If it needs repairing, it just rebuilds the templates based off of API data, so it will always be accurate. &mdash; MusikAnimal  talk  21:03, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Gosh that is great . Your mention of why the date wasn't random helps fill my "learn something new each day" quota. Another question has come to mind - will the bot be allowed to operate on a page whose protection has reached the "Only admins can edit" level? When this happens now I just let Redrose64 know about it and then he performs the necessary changes. Thanks for your time. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 22:53, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
 * No it will not (admin bots are controversial), but I'm glad you brought that up. I guess it would attempt to edit and error out, so I should put in a check for that! &mdash; MusikAnimal  talk  23:01, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I can't make any changes for this, I'm not in WP:BAG. -- Red rose64 (talk) 23:13, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Alright, this working well. I've been testing against all the pages that come through here, mirroring the templates/protection settings on testwiki, and the bot has successfully fixed them each time. That includes the fully protected page (my bot is an admin on testwiki). I wonder if I created a new bot account perhaps they'd let it be an admin. I'll ask, but no promises. &mdash; MusikAnimal  talk  02:20, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Need help in figuring this out
I have just checked the items in the category and found a couple dozen that weren't here this morning (my time) It looks as if this has been caused by either this and/or this edit by that has caused this. I haven't seen this before so I am wondering if it is solved by using the "Noinclude" command. Also Cenarium please understand that I am not complaining about your edits. I am just trying to get all of these transcluded pages out of this category. Thanks to you both for your time. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 19:49, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Looks like it was a misconfiguration in permanently protected that Cenarium fixed. Most of these pages don't appear to be protected, and never were protected, as far as I can tell. &mdash; MusikAnimal  talk  20:07, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for taking a look . I get what happened now. Does that mean I can remove the from the 50+ articles that are currently in the cat? I am happy to do so but I thought I should check with someone before proceeding. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 20:51, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah just the ones listed in this category that aren't actually protected. I have a question for you on a different matter, though, if you don't mind... Take a look at Template:Test on testwiki. Here the template (at the time of writing) is semi-protected and move-protected indefinitely. The bot-repaired templates therein are, yet the page remains in the incorrect protection template category. I don't know why this is. The protection templates do reflect the actual protections, so it should be ok, right? If It apparently doesn't like pp-move-indef, as if I remove it the page is removed from the category. I also tried and it still doesn't fix it. Any ideas? Why can't I have both the edit and move templates? &mdash;  MusikAnimal  talk  20:58, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Hmm that one is beyond my skill level and pay grade - oh wait we are volunteers :-) I'll ping again so he will see your question. Sorry I couldn't have been more help and thanks for yours. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 21:03, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * This one User talk:Endingsesame is fully protected so I am going to need an admin to remove the template. Thanks to whoever gets to it first. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 21:12, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, that one actually is protected, meaning the template shouldn't put the page in the category, right? &mdash; MusikAnimal  talk  21:16, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Interesting, apparently for user talk pages you need to use pp-usertalk? &mdash; MusikAnimal  talk  21:19, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Your edits removed it from the cat. I think thought it may have had something to do with it being a redirect but that is just a guess. You figured it out while I was typing this so thanks yet again. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 21:23, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I may be too late here... is for use on (unprotected) talk pages of protected pages. So if you've removed it from a talk page on the grounds that the talk page isn't protected, please check the prot status of the matching non-talk page. -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:58, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Well it looks like you are right about the pages being protected but then that brings me back to my original question on this thread. How do we get those talk pages out of this category? Put "noinclude" templates around Cenarium's edits, revert them or something else? I'll wait to reverse my removals until we get this figured out. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 22:15, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah yes, sorry for not opening my eyes and reading the permanently protected doc! I'm not sure transclusion is the problem here. If I'm understanding it correctly now, permprot is supposed to go on the talk pages of fully protected pages (at least per Cenarium's edit). This is further evidenced by the protection logs of some of the pages, such as here, where the page used to be fully-protected but is now only semi. That would be why we have all of these talk pages in this category. So combing through them, I would make sure the "subject" page is either semi'd or has no protection at all, warranting the removal of permprot. Does that sound right? &mdash; MusikAnimal  talk  22:49, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * So.. indeed the template is placed on fully or template-editor protected pages' talk pages, regardless of the protection status of the talk page itself. In my edit, I checked the protection status of the associated non-talk page (using ) and not the talk page itself, so the removals are correct. The only exception is pages not protected themselves but through cascading protection, which doesn't catch. There's only, but its usage is long deprecated (and I've since unprotected all cascade protected pages it was transcluded in). Maybe we could put these pages in a subcategory with a more explicit title such as Category:Talk pages with incorrect protection notice ? Cenarium (talk) 10:22, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I've also added a demopage argument to make it display as if it was on another page. This takes care of it not showing up and not categorizing on pages where it is used as a demo. Cenarium (talk) 11:37, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Not sure what is up
or or anyone else who gets to this first. I can't figure out why WWE Divas Championship is still in this cat. I have tried several things including the null edit and checking transclusions but nothing I have done works. It is probably something simple that I am missing but your help in fixing things will be appreciated. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 19:00, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
 * There is no such thing as semiprotection for moves, since unconfirmed users cannot move pages. Thus, is inapplicable. -- Red rose64 (talk) 19:15, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Well this probably my fault, then. I updated Twinkle so that the move-protect settings match the edit-protect settings by default (matching native MediaWiki behaviour), as beforehand the default for move was full indefinite protection, which is not really a fair assumption, see . I guess it should always default to full-protection for moves, then, but still match the edit expiry? I am inclined to leave semi as an option for moves just because the option exists in the MediaWiki protection interface &mdash; MusikAnimal  talk  19:28, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
 * The protection interface does allow four levels of move protection, and they are the same levels (Allow all users; Allow only autoconfirmed users; Allow only template editors and admins; Allow only administrators) that are available for edit protection. Moreover, if you alter a page from unprotected to "semi" move-protected (or vice versa), [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Foreign+Affairs a log entry is added] - but there is no effect on the user experience. The only reason that I can think of for providing both "Allow all users" and "Allow only autoconfirmed users" as options in the move prot selection list (as opposed to just one of the two) is so that when "Unlock further protect options" is unticked, the edit and move prot levels may be synchronised. -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:19, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
 * A belated thanks for dealing with this and for the explanations. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 05:46, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Page moves
something I have forgotten to mention. I don't see it very often but page moves seem to drop whatever protection existed before the move. Let me add that this went on before your recent work with this cat. It doesn't happen very often and I hadn't seen one in several weeks but tonight there were two of them. One was here at the 2016 World Touring Car Championship season page and the other was the Robert Downey Jr. article. Some time ago (on another editors page) explained how this could happen. I forgot to copy the comments to my sandbox thus my ping. This is another one that is probably unrelated to your new program but I did want to let you know about it. I will probably be asleep when you reply so I will get to any questions you have when I get back to WikiP. Cheers to you both. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 05:46, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * The protection should be unchanged, but the prot log is not moved. See WP:MOVE item 4. -- Red rose64 (talk) 11:57, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I get that R but both articles showed up in this category and the only way to get them out of it was to remove the templates that were on their page. As the protection is still in place that is great - I will simply alter my edit summary when these pop up. Thanks for taking the time to reply. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 17:13, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi again . Here is a followup question - the log for the 2016 WTCCs shows that the article is protected until Feb 2016 but there is no pink warning box noting the protection above the editing field. Does this have anything to do with the fact that the page was moved twice earlier today? MarnetteD&#124;Talk 19:39, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Another followup. This article Jesus in comparative mythology just showed up in the cat. It was also moved today. Is this one of those where the template isn't needed? It is an interesting coincidence that there have been three pages moves today causing all three articles to wind up in this cat. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 19:50, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * This page doesn't get much attention (20 watchers). I think you should file a ticket for those, pointing out that protection is being lost when it shouldn't be. -- Red rose64 (talk) 08:42, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
 * In fact, it happens whenever a protected page is moved and then the move undone with a move over redirect. In case of a move over a protected redirect, the redirect must either be a very old redirect that was protected before page protections record a null edit in the page history or come from a page move (otherwise, it will have at least 2 edits: the creation and a null edit indicating that the page was protected). 96.41.0.15 (talk) 15:23, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
 * No. When a page is moved, the protection goes with it. Whether it was moved over a redirect or not has nothing to do with it, since the redirect gets deleted in order to facilitate the move, and a deleted page has no protection. -- Red rose64 (talk) 23:31, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

I have been alerted to this discussion when I posted something similar at Village pump (technical)/Archive 142. I think a phabricator ticket is probably needed. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:22, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
 * This issue occurred again today when I moved Template:WikiProject banner shell and all protection was lost. I have filed a phabricator ticket now. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:33, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Increasing the backlog from 20
Practically because of the same reason that I gave 10 years ago. The pages that are currently here cannot be edited by most editors (only the interface administrators can) and this is not a priority for them. (CC) Tb hotch ™ 20:01, 27 February 2021 (UTC)


 * The pages that are here would be gone if the protected page or template that is transcluding to them could be tracked down and fixed. Then the category would then be empty. Waiting until there are other pages that need fixing that add up to 50 isn't all that helpful. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 22:36, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
 * has been helpful in the past or you could try asking at the WP:VPT. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 22:41, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Raising the bar is way over the top when there are so few pages in the category - the "normal" level that we are aiming at is one. Of the five pages presently in the cat, Template:Pp-move/testcases should be left alone; User:Coffeeandcrumbs/sandbox 1 transcludes Main Page/Commons media protection/Documentation and you should perhaps consult  for that one; the other three (User:CsBlastoise/IPA vowels/styles.css, User:Maantietäjä/Paikalla.css and User:Timeshifter/Sandbox125/styles.css) are all CSS pages in user space. These three are not protected, but have the line   which needs to be removed. I can't do that: the pages can only be edited either by the user concerned or a user having the interface-admin right; there are presently  of these. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 22:07, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for taking a look and for fixing the ones that you could get at. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 23:44, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the trouble. I have blanked my sandbox. --- C &amp; C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 04:57, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
 * No worries just a little housekeeping. Thanks for responding. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 05:44, 1 March 2021 (UTC)