Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2014 October 11

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October 11

User page semi protection

How do I protect my user page so that only I can edit it?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Deaths_in_2013 (talk • contribs)

That'd be WP:RFP. Or become an admin and lock the page yourself. Ian.thomson (talk) 03:09, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

What is the required number of contributions that I need to have before I can be nominated for adminship? Deaths in 2013 (talk) 03:25, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

RfAs are complicated and usually require high credentials and dedication to Wikipedia. Create a few Featured articles and good articles, be active in reverting vandalism, investigate sockpuppets, do that for like a good amount of time without getting into too much controversy (and hopefully no blocks) and you have a good chance. In respect to your userpage, the relevant policy is WP:UPROT. You can request indefinite semi protection and an admin will grant it to you at WP:RFPP. Tutelary (talk) 03:33, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Oh, you could totally apply right now. There's no actual policy requiring the rejection of anyone who has little to no prior history in resolving uninvolved disputes, patrolling for vandalism, reviewing new pages, hunting down sockpuppets, or contributing to a wide variety of subjects. Here's a guide. Ian.thomson (talk) 03:40, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

You have to please the community. Doing all of that demonstrates that you're willing to get into the nitty gritty, do admin related work (reporting vandals, tracking sockpuppets, requesting protection, etc) and that's what most people in the community look for. Also creating content, maybe working with AfCs (that's the real nitty gritty) and all that. Sure, I could do it right now, but I know I'd fail. Though it is of note that there's no 'right' time to do it either. But you have to cover your bases and try all that you can to look like you are the best candidate for it. Tutelary (talk) 03:54, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Your best bet would be to look at the failed RFA's for the last year or so, and don't do any of the stuff the no-voters gripe about. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:28, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

However, if you're only trying to get your talk page protected, go to WP:RFPP. That will certainly be faster than trying to gain adminship. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:29, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

I have to admit I'm having trouble seeing where or why your user page would need to be protected in the first place. In its entire history, there have only been two edits made by other accounts, both during a one-week period in June/July. (Neither was conspicuous vandalism; to the casual eye, one or both could well have been your own edits inadvertently made while logged out.) Note that from a technical standpoint, there is no way to protect a page so that only a single, specific user can edit it. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 09:04, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Unless the page is being actively vandalized, protecting it would be ridiculous. The entire point of that page is that people can leave you messages on it. Often those messages will be really important. Even if you were an admin, you'd find it hard to justify locking your own talk page. Bottom line here is that while there is a theoretical way to get that done, the practicalities are such that shouldn't do it - and it's highly likely that someone else would come along and un-protect it again. SteveBaker (talk) 17:22, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes. The OP would have to demonstrate a lengthy and persistent pattern of vandalism, especially on the talk page. (Protecting the user page itself is less of an issue.) And if the talk page gets semi'd, the OP would be expected to create a separate non-protected talk page to accommodate IP's and redlinks. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:27, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Actually, I want my https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Deaths_in_2013/My_OR_stuff page protected. [[Deaths in 2013 (talk) 03:09, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Go to WP:RFPP and ask. The worst they can do is say no. You're the only one that has edited that page anyway. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:53, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

What you're trying to do is just wrong - it's not the wikipedia way. Let me count the ways...

1. Wikipedia:User_pages#OWN says this about this kind of page:

   "Traditionally Wikipedia offers wide latitude to users to manage their user space as they see fit. However, pages in user space belong to the wider community. They are not a personal homepage, and do not belong to the user. They are part of Wikipedia, and exist to make collaboration among editors easier."...let me repeat: to make collaboration easier. How would a protected page help collaboration?

2. Putting a fake Semi-protection banner on a page that's not semi-protected is seriously wrong. Don't do that.
3. You miss the point of Wikipedia - it's a collaborative work. It is 100% not the Wiki-way to lock your content away while you work on it by yourself. The idea is to bring in other people and collaborate on an article (even if it's just a draft). If you want to work on it by yourself, place the document on the hard drive of your own computer and work on it there where nobody else can bother you.
4. If the page isn't being actively vandalized, or edit-warred or something like that, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell of getting protection put on it. Since your page doesn't seem to have ever been edited by anyone other than you...it's not going to happen.
5. Even when protection like that is applied, it's usually for a very limited period of time...a week or two, perhaps...and it would probably only be semi-protected, which means that people with named accounts (like me) could still edit it.
6. User pages are subject to the same rules as normal articles - so having a page for "My_OR_stuff" is just wrong anyway because "no original research" is a rule that applies to all articles, including drafts on your user page.
7. The Wikipedia:User_pages#Excessive_unrelated_content says that you can't have "Extensive writings and material on topics having virtually no chance whatsoever of being directly useful to the project, its community, or an encyclopedia article. (For example in the latter case, because it is pure original research, is in complete disregard of reliable sources, or is clearly unencyclopedic for other clear reasons.)". Since you admit that this is original research - you are in clear violation of this rule.
8. Your "Rules for Readers" section is abusive, childish, and very much in violation of our principles here. Notably, you don't get to make the rules...rules are made by consensus forming - discussion, collaboration, team-work.
9. Calling the page My_OR_Stuff makes it sound like you think you own this content. You don't. You've released it under the CC-by-SA public license. It belongs to Wikipedia now. We can copy it, publish it, edit it, put it on a T-shirt...do pretty much whatever we like with it. You simply don't have the right to demand any particular level of protection.
10. I don't know why you are so desperate not to have this page of yours edited...nobody else seems to have ever edited it...and if they did, and you didn't like their edit, you could just revert it. What's the problem here?
11. Your username - and the subject of this user page - strongly suggest a Wikipedia:Single-purpose account - and such things are always regarded with suspicion here...a sense that you're trying to wall off a section of the encyclopedia and make it your own. That's a really bad thing...it's not how we work here.

So, no - there is absolutely zero chance of getting your page protected - and every chance of getting it deleted. If you wish to be a good Wikipedian, you've got to understand the whole team-work/collaboration/trust thing. Your response to your page being edited by someone else shouldn't be "Oh no! SOMEONE IS MESSING WITH MY STUFF!" - it should be "Hooray! Someone is helping me in my efforts to bring this draft article up to the point where it can be incorporated into the encyclopedia!"

SteveBaker (talk) 14:24, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

While I don't disagree with much of what SteveBaker said above, I want to point out that as Tutelary already pointed out, the relevant policy WP:UPROT actually says user pages and subpages will be protected on simple request. I recall reading some discussion before which seem to affirm my view that that this isn't just a misleading policy page but actual policy i.e. how things are routinely handled as per consensus but didn't find anything the first time I searched. I had a quick look at the RFPP and history and found two user page protection, one was rejected and one for 1 month.

But I had a second look and finally found Wikipedia talk:Protection policy/Archive 15#Own userspace pages protection policy which appears to be where consensus was established for the current wording. So I'm still confident in my original belief, and suspect the denial was most likely by an admin unaware of the current policy in this regard.

Reading the discussion will probably help explain the reason for current policy. But I don't think it's hard to understand. While SteveBaker is correct that it's accepted userpages belong to the community, the way this is usually understood is to mean the community has a right to control what a person puts in their user pages. In other words, an editor can't add crap we don't want to their userpage. And if they do, we have a right to ask them to remove it (whether because it's disruptive, too offtopic and treating use like a webhost or blog, misleading such as claiming to be an admin, or whatever else).

It doesn't however mean other people should routinely edit someone elses userpage without permission. While it may sometimes be acceptable to do simple corrections without permission, it's normally considered best to ask first, even in cases where the material is inappropriate. Heck even if you ask and the user doesn't fix the problem, it's often considered best to bring the matter before the community (e.g. ANI), rather than try to force remove the inappropriate material. Exceptions would be where the material is so damaging as to require immediate removal (such as apparent copyvios, serious BLP violations etc) as well as cases where the editor has lost the privilege to control their user page (such as most banned editors).

As the protection policy says, user talk pages are a special case since they are intended for communication with the editor. So in cases of protection, we do require a good reason. Note however we still give editors wide latitude over them. E.g. they can deleted most stuff without even having to archive it. And it's even normally accepted that if an editor asks someone to stay away from their talk page, this should be respected within reason. (Although it may reflect negatively on the editor banning, perhaps even be evidence that the editor isn't respecting the norms of the community.)

In terms of the fact that as a non admin, the editor couldn't edit the page if the page was fully protected, the user page guidelines Wikipedia:User pages#Protection of user pages have a suggestion on how you can make it so only admins and the user can effectively edit their own userpage, by putting the content on a css subpage (I think js would also work) and transcluding it and then fully protecting the userpage. While it's only really talking about cases where semiprotection isn't sufficient, I suspect this is mostly because it wasn't updated in line with the protection policy. (I also wonder whether the css/js trick is a smartest move since you could theoretically screw up and put unwanted code on it.)

In fact, at least one of the discussions I recall was where when an admin fully protected some of their user pages. IIRC it was generally suggested there was nothing wrong since the protection policy allows protection on request so it's silly for an admin to have to request it. This would also seem to imply there's no reason why a user can't use full protection with the css trick even without there being a good reason for full protection. Ditto with user subpages. (I think you could just move the subpage to a css or js extension, but you won't be able to view it normally then.)

Note however I'm explicitly not suggesting the editor just make a request at RFPP. One thing that guidelines do make clear and as I've said before, just because you're page is protected doesn't mean you can have any random content in it. We do expect you to restrict content in your userpages to community norms, even more so if your page is protected. This also means if you're going to request protection, you should make sure it already complies. In particular, it's generally a bad idea to draw attention to stuff you have which is borderline.

Nil Einne (talk) 16:09, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

I took that to mean the user page itself (eg User:SteveBaker) and not sub-pages like User:SteveBaker/whatever. Since the user page itself is highly personal - and exempt from many rules - it makes sense that it should be protected on demand. As you say, nobody else has any business editing it - except in extreme cases such as admin actions. But sub-pages are not (IMHO) subject to the same treatment. Hence my opinion that it should not be protected. SteveBaker (talk) 04:39, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

In my experience, they will easily semi your user page if asked, and likewise almost any other user sub-page. The one they're more hesitant to semi is the talk page, which is not what the OP is asking about anyway; but if the user first creates an unprotected talk page, and has been repeatedly vandalized on his regular talk page, they usually will accommodate. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:14, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Looking at the page itself, if the user deletes the confrontational stuff and the fake semi-protection section, and renames it "Supercentenarian notes" or something equally neutral, it would be no different from any other user sub-page where they're developing information. Putting _NOINDEX_ at the top would probably be a good idea too. Then it would be pretty much invisible except for someone who already knows about it. And if vandals attack it, the user could confidently ask for semi-protection. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:12, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree. SteveBaker (talk) 04:39, 13 October 2014 (UTC)