Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection




 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the discussion was withdrawn by nominator, and outside MfD's jurisdiction anyway. Tim Song (talk) 01:22, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

'''Thank you, I think I've made my point. I've started an RfC at WT:TFA, all further input should be directed there.  HJ Mitchell'''  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   01:10, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Main Page featured article protection
In light of an ANI thread (oldid) on protection of the TFA, it seems to me that this guideline is not only preventing justified protections, but scaring editors away from requesting protection when vandalism is truly excessive, for example, on the recently featured, and scaring admins away from applying protection simply because the article is on the Main Page. HJ Mitchell &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   22:28, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep, it ain't broken, don't fix it. Woogee (talk) 23:17, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete - I'd have to agree, as I always found the "we don't protect the featured article" thing to be a bit bizarre. It's as if they need to defend the principle of the "anyone can edit" encyclopedia by leaving one of the most visible pages in the project in an unprotected state. Tarc (talk) 23:27, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete Featured articles are featured because they are our best work. We don't need driveby vandalism spoiling that. There are millions of other pages unregistered users can edit.  Aiken   &#9835;   23:39, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. This is not how we change policy, and the "guideline" in question is policy - as the ANI discussion shows, administrators respect it to the point of fearing for their bits if they contradict it. If anyone feels the policy should be loosened, they ought to use the normal editorial methods available for loosening it. — Gavia immer (talk) 23:39, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Not at all. They fear losing admin rights for wheelwarring on the protection, not for keeping it protected. This is absolutely not a policy and never will be.  Aiken   &#9835;   23:43, 22 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete - I agree with Tarc. This seems to be one of those quirky rules that is kept around just because it has become tradition even though there doesn't seem to be a lot of justification for it, sort of like a blue law. An interesting essay can be found at For and Against TFA protection, but that essay addresses the concept of automatically protecting every TFA by default, not whether or not we allow TFA protection at all (in response to vandalism). Frankly I think that the TFA should be judged like any other article; if the volume of vandalism is too much for reverting to be efficient, protect it. If the volume of vandalism isn't too much to handle, don't protect it. To Gavia immer: this isn't policy, it's a guideline, the ANI only showed that admins are afraid to wheel war (for good reason), not afraid to protect it. --  At am a  頭  23:42, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * speedy keep if one disagrees with the policy guideline, one should take it up with the people at WP:FA. This is not the place to change this guideline If people are afraid to protect the TFA, for fear of violating this, they should read it first. You will not be defrocked for protecting the TFA. Someone should probably make WP:FA aware of this discussion.  Dloh  cierekim  23:46, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * See above. You're confusing policy and guidelines. This is not a policy, it's an archaic practice.  Aiken   &#9835;   23:47, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Guidelines ought to serve a useful purpose. This does not; it causes extra work. Featured articles should be treated no differently than other articles. It's not up to "the people at WP:FA" to decide whether an article needs protection. Do we really want people to see an article vandalized by "PENIS" and "drthtrhtrfdhd", or do we want people to see our best work? We're meant to be an encyclopedia, and most people who come here are readers. So they should come first.  Aiken   &#9835;   23:51, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * No comment on that, but I've left a note on WT:FA and WT:MP. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   23:51, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * It's a practice set and kept by consensus at WP:FA. You need to take it up with them. Dloh  cierekim  23:52, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't see why it's up to the people at FA when it's much more a Main Page issue, but if any of them are interested, I've left them a note. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   23:54, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi Dloh, where and when was this consensus? What benefits are there in following this archaic and useless guidelne, when we are potentially showing readers our "best work" vandalized with swear words and junk?  Aiken   &#9835;   23:58, 22 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete. This is an "Encyclopedia that anyone can edit", with an emphasis on the "Encyclopedia" part. Featured articles are supposed to be our best, most accurate work. We don't need the featured article claiming that the earth is 6,000 years old, or that there are 9 planets in the solar system, as it did many times today. Brad 23:56, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete or tag as historic. Wikipedia's reputation for inaccuracy exists for a reason. I can see no good reason why our most visible article at any given time should also be the one most likely to be showing a vandalized version. The whole "people will see it and realise they can edit Wikipedia!" argument is outdated; it may have been true when Wikipedia was starting out, but now the world and his dog knows what Wikipedia is and how it works, IMO the people turned off by seeing vandalism and inaccuracy outnumber the potential recruits. – iride  scent  00:04, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete: As far as I know en.wikipedia is the only which don't protect TFAs. Tb hotch Ta lk C.  00:05, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm getting really tired of explaining this, but here it goes again anyway: The whole "afraid to protect it" thing is not relevant to this conversation. At least it isn't if you are referring to the discussion at WP:RPP that led to the discussion at WP:ANI that lead to this discussion. My point about possibly being dragged before ArbCom was related to the move protection and the fact that undoing it today would have been wheel warring and was not in any related to TFA protection. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:14, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think you'd get taken to arbcom for that, and certainly you wouldn't lose admin rights.  Aiken   &#9835;   00:18, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm aware of that and although the ANI thread was the straw that broke the camel's back, my point about being "afraid to protect" was a general one- I've seen it happen time and again at RPP and at the articles themselves, but it wasn't supposed to refer to you (implicitly or explicitly). Sorry to give that impression. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   00:19, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Don't worry Beeblebrox, I know you ain't no yellow-bellied coward. --  At am a  頭 00:22, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Without wanting to sound snotty, do you (Beeblebrox) or anyone else in that discussion actually know what wheel warring means? It doesn't mean "don't undo another admin, they're an elite class of superusers"; it means "once an administrative action has been reverted, it should not be restored without consensus". Reversions become a wheel-war at the third step in the chain—that is, when someone else unprotects, you protect, and they unprotect again. Simply reversing their unprotection would be absolutely bog-standard WP:BRD of the kind that happens all the time. – iride  scent  00:23, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * In this case though, it would have been wheelwarring, as someone had already changed the protection. Wheelwarring is a phrase that does get thrown around quite a bit with little thought as to what it actually means, but here it's correct.  Aiken   &#9835;   00:25, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * No it wouldn't. Go and read the policy. Article is in a state of permanent protection. Admin A removes the protection. Admin B re-protects it. It only becomes a wheel-war if Admin A then comes along and re-removes the protection. – iride  scent  00:31, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, the article had been indefinitely move-protected (first admin action). Another administrator reversed that indefinite protection (reversing the first action). When a request was made to restore that indefinite move protection, Beeblebrox refused to avoid a wheel war. As Aiken said, this article was at the third step of admin actions. (The indefinite move protection was later restored, for anyone curious.) Nothing in WP:WHEEL suggests that it's okay if Admin C is the one undoing the reverted action, rather than Admin A. --  At am a  頭 00:35, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * @Iridescent: ... which is what would have happened had Beeblebrox changed it back. It would have been a wheelwar. As I say, it can be a confusing policy to understand.  Aiken   &#9835;   00:36, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * From WP:WHEEL :"Do not repeat a reversed administrative action when you know that another administrator opposes it. Do not continue a chain of administrative reversals without discussion. " (emphasis not added, it's in bold letters on the actual policy page) While I think it would be an overreaction in this case, there have indeed been admins who have lost their mop over a single instance of wheel warring. More important than that is why we have the wheel warring policy in the first place, when an admin action has been reversed, it should be discussed before being reversed again, just like any other edit. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:26, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Well put, Beeblebrox. That is exactly the point of the policy. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   00:29, 23 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Speedy keep per Dlohcierekim and discuss at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article preferably using an WP:RFC. MFD is not the venue for discussing policy or guidelines. –MuZemike 00:32, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * No, this cannot be speedy keep after so many deletes. MFD is the exact location for discussing the deletion of guidelines.  Aiken   &#9835;   00:42, 23 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep This seems like an attempt to avoid the difficulty of having to get consensus for a change in the protection policy by simply deleting the page it's written on.  —  Soap  —  00:39, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Not quite. It's an attempt to start a discussion, though I'll admit it's a little pointy. I think I've made my point now, so I'm going to draft an RfC in a more appropriate venue. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   00:41, 23 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete even though I know this is probably technically not how this is supposed to be done, per Iridescent (and per WP:BURO as far as MFDing it is concerned). It's a tradeoff, but as WP has matured, there are less and less people who don't know that you can edit a page, and more and more who bang the "WP is inaccurate/untrustworthy/wrong" drum.  Improving WP's reputation for quality (FA's are the best we have to offer) is more important than hooking the 0.001% of new editors who would only join if they could edit the TFA. --Floquensock (talk) 00:47, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep, MFD is not the place for policy discussions. Nakon  00:54, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * This is not a policy...  Aiken   &#9835;   00:56, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Guideline/policy/whatever. This is not the proper venue.  Nakon  01:02, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.