Wikiversity talk:Page protection

What do we want page protection to represent?
I think this is one question we can think about for starters. On an "open Wiki", what does this actually mean? --HappyCamper 16:33, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I've been thinking that it might make sense for Wikiversity to have a page protection policy that includes an explicit "make a copy" rule. The policy could say that if you want to edit a protected page, you should feel free to make a copy of the protected page and edit that. A specific example would be the main page. There could be a "backup" copy of the main page that is always available for editing by everyone. --JWSchmidt 17:34, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I suppose. But if enough people copy this, then would this not render page protection unnecessary at all? --HappyCamper 23:00, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Not in the case of important pages that hold a position, such as Main Page. Preventing vandalism or maintaining a steady copy of an important page calls for page protection, and any copy of these pages would not represent the same importance as the original, so could (and should) be freely edited by anyone. --Draicone (talk) 23:37, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm warming up to the idea as I think about it more. It may actually reduce editorial conflicts on Wikiversity. --HappyCamper 16:05, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Time to think about this again
I believe the Curator user group will have a significant impact on Wikiversity because it easily grants page protection to relatively new users. The issue of page protection needs to be addressed.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 14:56, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree, and we also need to update Page protection templates. I propose we have a template for raw data. I've recently semi-protected a couple of page like Observational astronomy/RZ Cas to prevent accidental editing of machine readable data. Any changes to the text would cause the software to generate errors for someone following the lesson instructions. There are a number of good reasons for protecting some pages. --mikeu talk 16:14, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Should we discuss page protection templates here?
Why I created this template

The question of protecting is complicated by the fact that there are many reasons to protect.. For that reason we need a suite of templates that announce protected pages. I am no expert on wikimedia software, but I did a similar suite of templates to create short info marks at the beginning of sentences. See Category:Inline_icons.


 * 1) The first big question is: Does such a use of subpage templates have any unintended consequences?
 * 2) The second question is Where should we design and discuss these announcments?'. For now we can use this space, but we should soon move this page to better location.

After that we have plenty of time to design apropriate protection documents. The language is important for those of us who wish to recruit quality writers into Wikiversity.

We want the protection page to invite quality writers to become Curators. Many expert editors on WP are not administrators, I think because of the hassle required to achieve that status. My working assumption is that some WP editors would welcome a chance to write on a platform where they can essentially "own" the resource. This "ownwership" is not real, but arises from the fact that we rarely have edit disagreements on WV resources. This is in part due to the ease with which WV can fork and/or create subpages in mainspace.

We do not want to invite editors who will make unproductive contributions, but we do need to deal with them, and also with people who want to overprotect.

The first step in creating the desired culture is to make the right impression as soon as a reader sees a page protection announcement. Readers don't read the Colloquium or Wikiversity policy pages, I would think.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 17:11, 4 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Note: I will probably place this entire discussion on hold. I do think we need to re-examine our protection templates, but that can wait until pages that need such protection actually appear.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 18:17, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

See Category:Protect template --Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 18:21, 4 January 2016 (UTC)