Wikipedia talk:Main Page featured article protection

This policy originated from a subpage in User:Raul654's user space.

This guideline is opposed - my rant
OK, for about the 8 billionth time, I've decided to read the main article, just, you know, for fun. And, for about the 7 billionth time, it was vandalized, and it looked awful. Good thing I know enough about Wikipedia to read the page histories and revert, unlike the several people who decided to vandalize the vandalism in between (one wouldn't necessarily wonder why someone might decide to vandalize an article that had for several minutes claimed that that solar system was 6000 years old because the Bible says so).

My statement, and this is something I've believed since first editing Wikipedia in September 2006: this policy does far more disservice to the place than service. Does it show people they can edit and improve an article? Yes. But it also shows about 1/4 of the people who come to a page that Wikipedia can be vandalized and isn't necessarily reliable (anyone who maintains that lack of credibility isn't Wikipedia's biggest problem apparently hasn't been in any sort of education recently). Of course, Wikipedia's loss of credibility due to vandalism on the main page, which is pretty significant, might not even compare to the disservice done to the readers. It is a very editor-centric premise (of course, developed by editors) that we should encourage editing more than worry about vandalism and Wikipedia's credibility. I can nearly guarantee you that people who use this page for research and/or viewing would come to the opposite view.

Please, stop this disservice to our viewers. At this point, I can't even tell anyone to look at the main page on Wikipedia, because it would embarrass me as an editor, and they don't have the know-how to revert it, let alone look at a clean old version of it. The Evil Spartan (talk) 17:36, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Clearly, as no-one has opposed you, we all agree. DrKiernan (talk) 11:11, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree (still) with your stance. Kmzundel (talk) 17:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I have to disagree. I like the fact that we don't protect the main page FA. The openness of Wikipedia is a big drawing card for potential new editors (and, admittedly, new vandals). This openness is a big reason why Wikipedia is one of the more popular websites on the internets. I think it's important for us to "put our money where our mouth is" by leaving the main page FA unprotected. There are so many eyes on the article while it's on the main page that it's extremely rare for any vandalism there to go undetected for any length of time. If it was accurate before it was on the main page (and presumably it was, or it wouldn't be featured) it will almost always be accurate while it's on the main page. Of course, it can always be semi-protected for short periods of time, if the vandalism is so frequent that a reader's odds of landing on a "clean" version of the article start to become iffy. --Bongwarrior (talk) 21:12, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * And that is why, wikipedia will never be considered as a reliable source. Such a waste really. (yes i have an account, just mucho lazy to login) 70.107.80.64 (talk) 01:04, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * You were aware it was a wiki when you registered, right? 86.44.27.243 (talk) 23:20, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

If users want to access an encyclopedia that can't be vandalized, they can just go over to Britannica. The wiki model is central to how Wikipedia works, and new users should be given every opportunity they can to contribute. Borisblue (talk) 07:32, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * That argument doesn't work for me. You're basically saying you want wikipedia to be unreliable. That turns me off the project completely. We should be striving to make it more reliable not keeping it rubbish. DrKiernan (talk) 07:42, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Another here who agrees with The Evil Spartan. Sure this is a wiki, but it's not a blog. At the risk of sounding a maverick, falling back on the "anyone can edit" argument doesn't really cut it. Yes, that's the point of WP in principle, but in practice we don't allow just anyone to edit. We ban certain vandals, sometimes permanently, so already we're qualifying the assertion that anyone can edit, come what may. There's a balance to be struck between reliability and accessability, and for me permitting easy vandalism of the main page tips the scales too far one way. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:40, 20 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with The Evil spartan also. I've said this many times: IMHO "anyone can edit" does not equate with "anyone can vanadalize".  The disagreement seems to be the spirit of that law vs. the letter of the law.  As far at TFA protection, we're talking 24 hours.  It remains a no-brainer to me.  Kmzundel (talk) 16:41, 20 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I also agree with The Evil Spartan. Failure to routinely semi-protect showcase articles accomplishes nothing except to make wikipedia look stupid and like nothing more than a pretentious blog. Maybe someone should care about that. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 12:38, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Also notice the inherent hypocrisy or left-hand-not-knowing-what-the-right-is-doing, in this part of the policy: "These guidelines do not apply to the Main Page itself, which is always protected 'as a result of repeated vandalism of the Main Page and [because it] keeps our welcome mat clean.'" So apparently some things are worth protecting - just not articles. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 12:41, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Main article should be semi protected
I firmly believe that the main page article should be semi-protected from the moment it becomes a main page article to the moment is ceases being one. I hope most editors will join me in this opinion. Bstone (talk) 16:13, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, we should seriously change this
I just had to fully protect the current FA because Grawp got to it, and we all know he likes to use sleepers. Seriously, the FA gets a lot of hits, and is perhaps the easiest article to vandalize on the site. Kwsn  (Ni!)  23:09, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree. The policy should be changed.  I just requested semi-protection for the article Joe Sakic, as it was a featured article on Wikipedia's main page today (November 12, 2008); however, semi-protection was declined, seemingly for the standard of not semi-protecting featured articles when they're displayed on the main page.  As I pointed out in my request, though, there were many vandalized edits that got looked over; thus, they weren't reverted.  A lot of backtracking had to be done.  The majority of edits on main page featured articles are vandalism.  When there are any edits that happen to actually be constructive, they're usually done by established editors.  So, factoring all that in, what's the problem with semi-protecting main page featured articles?  It seems as if more harm than good comes out of the current policy.  -- Luke4545 (talk) 18:19, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

December 2008 analysis
A new analysis of featured articles on the main page, similar to the one conducted two years ago, has been started by User:DrKiernan. Hope you don't mind that I moved it to a subpage, DrKiernan! Great start so far. Budding Journalist 09:05, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't mind at all. DrKiernan (talk) 09:11, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Reactive Semi-Protecting (my two cents...) and a plea for clarification
I'm not proposing semi-protecting the Main Page featured article (MPFA) as a matter of course, like BStone is above - and I agree with BongWarrior (also above) that we should 'put our money where our mouth is' and to daily assume that the majority of IP edits will be GF; but when the article does receive significant IP vandalism I think it is ridiculous that we are more lenient with our use of semi-protection for the MPFA than with other articles. Surely this lenience misrepresents WP just as much as default semi-protection does?

To put this in context, I was watching today's MPFA Samuel Johnson, which was getting vandalised once every five minutes at one point, and yet a semi-protection request was denied because this wasn't 'extreme'.

Now...I realise that my above suggestion is unlikely to receive much support and that the guideline is likely to be kept. But could I please ask that the guideline indicates somewhere what would be considered extreme vandalism. This way, people like me won't make pointless requests wasting both their own time and the admin who has to consider the requests. At the moment it says 'when a range of dynamic IP addresses are being used to vandalise the featured article page in quick succession', and to my mind the revision log of Samuel Johnson (see particularly between 11:00 and 13:00) indicated exactly this.

So if admins with experience on this matter could post below it would be much appreciated. 30 times an hour for two hours? More? (I'll also ask the admin who denied the request directly.)

Thank you. Hadrian89 (talk) 19:24, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Pending changes
I added a see also to WP:PC, PC1 may be another option to consider. Widefox ; talk 13:23, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Deprecation
This guideline was deprecated in April 2010, the discussion can be found at Wikipedia_talk:Today's_featured_article/Archive_5 section "RfC: Time to dispense with WP:NOPRO?" All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 14:13, 19 May 2014 (UTC). 14:13, 19 May 2014 (UTC)