VistApedia:Protection policy

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Administrators have the ability to "protect" pages such that they cannot be edited except by other admins. This ability is only to be used in limited circumstances as protecting pages is considered harmful.

See also: List of protected pages

Policy

1. Do not edit a (temporarily) protected page. If you edit one anyway, please stop when asked to!
2. Add a boilerplate message to the top of temporarily protected pages.
3. List pages you protect or unprotect on OpenVistA Wiki:Protected page.

This ability is used semi-permanently in some cases:

• Protecting the Main Page from vandalism.
• Maintaining the integrity of the copyright and license pages.
• Protecting certain "system administration" pages.
• Protecting the often-used texts in the MediaWiki namespace.

This ability is also intended to be used temporarily in some cases:

• Enforcing a "cool down" period to stop an "edit war", upon request (see below).
• Protecting a page that has been a recent target of persistent vandalism or persistent edits by a banned user.
• Preventing changes to a page while investigating a possible bug in the MediaWiki software.

Note that the protection of any particular version of a page is not intended to show support for that version.

Protecting pages

In general, administrators should not protect pages which they have edited in the past (this includes discussing the article on the talk page). Administrator powers are not editor privileges — administrators are simply representatives of the community of contributors as a whole. If an administrator is involved with a page and wants that page protected, he should contact another administrator to do it for them. Because wiki pages are supposed to be open to everyone, it's best to leave pages protected for as short at time as possible. Talk pages should never be protected.

Editing protected pages

The policy concerning the editing of protected pages does not apply to the permanently-protected pages. For pages that are only temporarily protected, administrators should never edit the page. Editing the page would constitute an imbalance in privileges between the administrators and the general community. Instead, discuss potential changes on the talk page first, and only make those changes when the page is no longer protected. (Discussing potential changes to permanently-protected pages on the talk page first is also a good idea in certain cases.)

The only cases in which an administrator may make changes to a temporarily-protected page are when he is adding a boilerplate message or other, similar notice.

List of protected pages

If you protect a page, or find a protected page not listed on OpenVistA Wiki:Protected page, please add it to the list. Please also add a short description of ten words or less indicating why you protected it.