Wikipedia:Protected page/Draft

These are proposed revisions of the current protected page policy, coming in response to much faster edit activity having a bearing on the effectiveness of the current policy with respect to sorting out issue disputes.

Stevertigo's proposal: calls for the initiation of a formal scheme of degrees for different types of page protections, and of self-selecting or assigning standard formal roles for involved participants, based on a quick vote. Amendment:To use the term "moderation" to refer to a formal process of article-specific dispute mediation. The means by which a moderation edit happens is a subsection of thethe protected page policy, which provides for moderators to edit the page, under a proposed header. Add above tag, or see Template:moderationedit for header text.

Pir's alternative proposal: calls for a system of steps to occur after a page is protected each time, beginning with a list of the participants in the conflict, and an outline of the views of each. Wikipedians must mediate to find a compromise; failure to reach said compromise within a week, the listed editors are banned from editing the article in question for a standard time.

Protection by degrees
Currently, protections types are not formalized; short term conflicts and long-term controversies are treated in the same way. Protected pages should be a standard procedure to stop destructive edits to a page. In order that this be done more freely, the boundaries by which these protections can happen must be further defined, and described formally. (I have no idea on what scheme the degrees should go by-SV).

Regardless if the data is safely stored, page revert conflicts should be viewed as destructive in themseves, and stopped immediately by sysops; either those involved or not in the article. Even one instance of an auto revert can be grounds for temporary protection, ((temprotect)), in order to determine cause. Preferably this would be limited to cases where a conflict is errupting between partisans.

Roles
From the outset, involved and incoming parties must define their formal roles in the dispute as either an observer, protector, moderator, partisan, or third party partisan, which are agreed to or recorded by the moderator. Role disputes must be dealt with first; listed as on Category:Role disputes. Because these role disputes would be of an abstract policy nature (unrelated to the topic) neutral editors can be of assistance in determining the roles of each participant before proceeding.

For fairness, any sysops who active in the dispute at the time of the protection are considered partisans, unless by consensus on becomes a moderator.

Rule changes comparison

 * Format note:


 * Existing rules
 * Alteration and comment


 * Do not edit a temporarily protected page except to add a protected page notice.
 * Moderators edit away, provided the concerns on the talk are addressed. Sysop moderators are accountable by process, so unsatisfactory treatment can be lodged as a complaint.
 * Do not protect a page you are involved in an edit dispute over.
 * Sysops in an edit war must themselves protect in order to stop reverts and start dialogue. After revert and protection, all partisan sysops must then recuse themselves from editing the article and accept status as a partisan for the time being, regarding the current article. For sake of fairness, blocked partisans are treated in pairs, while third party partisans at the time of the dispute may recuse themselves, participate as a moderator; otherwise they may be asked to stop editing or be blocked from editing the article (violation of rules is cause for review). Once roles are defined, editing can continue.
 * Protect the page supplying a reason
 * Supply a reason, and state your current or intended role; Protector (intervening short-term), Moderator (intervening long-term) Partisan (involved, must cease editing), 3rdPartisan (third party+partisan).
 * Add to the top of the temporarily protected page and make mention of the protection in the edit summary.
 * Add one of three tags (stprotection) (mtprotection) (ltprotection).
 * List pages you protect on Wikipedia:Protected page; if it is protected due to a conflict, you may want to list all user names/IPs involved in the conflict.
 * Protected pages automatically list on Category:Protected pages. A choice of three headers are chosen based on the type of protection: (in progress), (service) (short term), (medium term) and (long term),
 * Consider encouraging a resolution between the disputing parties.
 * Moderators must encourage a resolution between the disputing parties, assess the current mindset of involved editors, and base the protection level on the anticipated level, duration and cause of conflict.
 * Remove the protection (while supplying a reason) once the conflict has been resolved
 * Remove from the top of an unprotected page and make mention of the removal in the edit summary.

Alternative proposal
A system of steps to occur after a page is protected each time, beginning with a list of the participants in the conflict, and an outline of the views of each. Wikipedians must mediate to find a compromise; failure to reach said compromise within a week, the listed editors are banned from editing the article in question for a standard time. Editors not involved in the dispute can make changes, and deal with the controvesial points. A ban on a specific edtitor can be lifted early by a 3/4 vote in a general poll. *SV: Continued conflicts repeat the above process, adding new names to the list.


 * 1) in case of an edit war the page in question is protected as before. Then the following steps are taken:
 * 2) the admin who protected the page makes a list (on the talk page) of the editors involved in the edit conflict ;
 * 3) the named editors each outline their view of the disagreement (talk page) ;
 * 4) the named editors (with the help of fellow Wikipedians if this is helpful) try to hammer out a compromise ;
 * 5) if no compromise can be found within a week, this is taken as proof that they are unable to resolve their conflict. Therefore the page is unprotected but the listed editors are banned from editing the article in question for a period of, say, a month. Editors that were not involved in the edit conflict can edit the article and get a chance to deal with the controversial points ;
 * 6) Since this system could be abused by people who raise spurious conflicts just to get other editors banned from an article, there is need for a further step: if one of the editors feels their opponent is acting in bad faith, they can ask for a vote on this, and if there is a consensus (say 3/4) then their ban is lifted.

pros:

 * nobody wants to get banned from an article they are interested in, therefore Wikipedians will try to avoid edit wars ; willingness to compromise and to be civil will increase ;
 * a more formal way of dealing with edit conflicts ;
 * no big changes required (software, new sysop roles etc.) ;
 * Wikipedians who avoid edit wars don't get shut out of protected articles for long periods ;
 * the workload of admins stays the same

cons:

 * protection policy change

pir 14:32, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)