Wikipedia talk:Protected Page Editor

A few months ago, a major proposal was started for a new user right. It had garnered quite a significant amount of participation, with majority of them supporting. There were also extended discussions on it. The end result was no consensus, just short of support. I am hereby re-proposing this new user right. On the main page of this talk page, there is a drafted proposal about its use, abuse, how to obtain, and what warrants the removal. This user right will have the combinations of editprotected and tboverride included in this right. This allows access to title blacklists, such as blacklisted page names or access to the edit notices. It also allows access to fully protected pages. It does NOT allow access to cascade protected pages, like the main page, nor does it allow access to the interface. It also does not allow access to the user and site js and css pages. The draft on the main page of this talkpage, is merely a rough draft of a proposed policy. It will be finalized via a follow-up RfC, should this come to pass.

The big question: Should the community adopt this new right?

Yes

1. Support and a Question: I think if the user can be trusted with other user rights, then having access to this one should be no problem. This would also take some of the weight off of admins when asked to edit locked pages. I do have one question, will this allow users with this user right to protect pages or just edit protected pages? - Neutralhomer • Talk • 23:07, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

   It will not allow users to protect the pages, just edit them.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 23:16, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

   That's what I thought, just wanted to make sure I understood. Still support. Thanks Cyberpower. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 03:24, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

2. Support If this will give me a chance to edit the wrong version of a problematic BLP that was fully protected by an admin, I'm all for it. §FreeRangeFrog^croak 00:12, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
3. Strong, Longstanding Support. I'm a writer. I don't want to have an admin's power to block or unblock my fellow editors-- it might chill editing discussions. But I would be happy to help out with the non-confrontational, wiki-gnome chores like editing protected pages when necessary. And there are many others like me. Not everyone has the courage to wear a sheriff's star-- but we don't mind lending a hand, picking up a broom, and helping sweep up the place. --HectorMoffet (talk) 00:32, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

   Technically, that's what adminship is supposed to be, just picking up a broom and helping out. But I understand the sentiment. E123 (talk) 04:35, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

4. Support Sounds like something good. Openskye (talk) 00:52, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
5. Support as a non-admin-template-monkey. —Theopolisme  (talk) 01:08, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
6. Support Cyber makes a good point about people being able to update fully protected templates. Hadn't thought of that. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • Sign AAPT) 01:21, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
7. Support There are a lot of trusted non-admins who I feel should be able to edit protected pages. TCN7JM 01:28, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
8. Support Trustworthy non-admins should definitely be able to edit protected pages. --ceradon ^talk_contribs 01:30, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
9. Support. - Glad to see this moving forward. Obviously, you do not need to be an admin to be trusted with the right to edit protected pages. GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:31, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
10. Support Per above, especially regarding protected templates—I often see putting in an edit request as often more trouble than it's worth (in improving templates).—Kelvinsong (talk) 01:39, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
11. Support per above discussions. It would allow admins to have some of their load lightened off, as well as make minor non-controversial edits. Johnny Au _{(talk/contributions)} 02:06, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
12. Support provided that it doesn't actually cause MORE work for the admins if they have to revoke a lot of these should they be misused. I certainly hope not. --JohnDBuell (talk) 02:09, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

    I trust that the administrators will see warning signs before handing someone this right. Besides, removing this right is simply a flip of the switch.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 02:17, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

13. Support this seems useful for template editors. I know I've decided against requesting some minor template fixes just because edit protected can be a nuisance, especially if the change is minimal. Just to need make sure those that get this right are trustworthy enough to not try to use it to end run around legitimate disputes. PaleAqua (talk) 02:22, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

    If it is possible as Beeblebrox suggested below to split this so that it only applies to templates that seems like a better approach. Even if it was just to see how it goes at first. PaleAqua (talk) 06:38, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

14. Support for our template gnomes who don't care to dole out internet justice. Kilopi (talk) 02:25, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
15. Support per above, sounds great! Davey2010 Talk 02:45, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
16. Support I feel that protected pages usually get too hot to handle because other users start owning articles and unjustly use the protection to their benefit... This is a great step towards ensuring a better check on articles and goes by the pillar: anyone can now edit Wikipedia... The Wikimon (talk) 03:16, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
17. Support, I think – at least, I know I've passed by a few pages where making an edit request for the sake of something small has felt out of proportion. If it doesn't work out, it can be revoked. But, from the sound of it, I hope it does. CsDix (talk) 03:19, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
18. Support Like the last time. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 03:43, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
19. Yes. Zach 03:44, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
20. Support - Back when I joined Wikipedia, I asked for confirmed status to edit a semi-protected page. I still edit this page from time to time to address issues, full protect pages can move very slow. Having this permission allows more freedom to trusted users without adminship. Adminship is supposed to be no big deal, but it is now. Giving more 'admin' level permissions without the entire toolkit will be good for those who don't want the hassle of the RFA process, but are already upstanding and good members of the community. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 03:57, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
21. Support Edit requests not being quickly answered is off-putting to editors. While I'd prefer a reduction in the use of full protection, this might be a step in the right direction. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:01, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

    Agreed - full protection is a fire extinguisher - good to have around but only to be used when things are seriously out-of-hand. If there has been a trend to heavy-handed usage of FP that is a concern. Manning (talk) 11:56, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

22. Support - it's not something i'd be interested in (i prefer just being a humble contributor), but I see the need for something like this. --ColonelHenry (talk) 04:06, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
23. Support for editors in good standing (enough edits that it's probably not a fly-by-night account, low history of edit-warring). Ray^Talk 04:41, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
24. Support with caveat, this is a great idea if there is no change in the abuse level necessary for full-protection, however, this level of abuse must not be lowered due to the existence of this userright Tazerdadog (talk) 05:11, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
25. Support for editors with a couple of years experience on WP and an edit history that shows that they know both what to do, and what not to do. Thomas. W (talk) 05:35, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
26. Support the concept and rationale. It should be deployed and turned on as a science experiment to see if it works. If not, disable the feature and rethink the approach using the new behavioral data. My feeling is that it will work just fine. —EncMstr (talk) 05:41, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
27. Support I think one can handle the right to edit fully-protected pages without being an admin. Greengreengreenred 07:01, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
28. Support trial only. I think it's a good idea, though I, like Tazerdadog and the opposers, am worried that this would lead to more liberal usage of full protection. Unfortunately, I don't think the caveat "this level of abuse must not be lowered due to the existence of this userright" is enough. I propose running it for an extended trial (e.g. 6 months), and if at the end of the trial, people feel that no reduction of the standards for full protection has occurred, it can become permanent. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 08:38, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
29. Support. Sounds pretty reasonable. If it causes problems, turn it off. — Hex (❝?!❞) 09:30, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
30. Support per Hex. If it's passed, sign me up! :D So a print encyclopedia, a strawberry shortcake, and a sycamore walk into a bar - wait, have you heard this one? (talk) 10:06, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
31. Support. In response to Surturz: I have noticed that there has been a lot of doomsdayish, worst-case-scenario thought in RFCs and proposal discussions recently. (It's what killed the RFA RFC.) Statements like "I oppose this because it could lead to X. " are frustrating: editors are not giving these new ideas and proposals a chance to prove themselves in action. I can understand the concerns, and if they do turn out to be accurate, then further discussions can be had down the track. But in front of us is a sensible unbundling proposal that is a good fit for technical/template editors. Simple as that. Let's do it and watch how it goes. — This, that and the other (talk) 10:13, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
32. Support I have for long held that it would be useful for me to be able to edit protected templates or do reference fixing in protected articles. No need to be an admin for that, just an experienced user. This proposal addresses precisely this issue and I support it wholeheartedly. Debresser (talk) 11:32, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
33. Strong Support - This would greatly benefit everybody in the project. Admins wouldn't have such a load on them to handle protected edit requests, and editors who have experience can answer these and give admins a bit of a chance to tend to other areas. At times there are extreme backlogs in this area. Editors would also be able to help out in other areas such as bypassing the title backlist to create edit notices. There are quite a few users who are trustworthy and know quite a bit of template coding but aren't an admin yet. Vacation9 11:59, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
34. Support: I think this is a good idea because to become an admin here a person must generally engage in a lot of talk. I have seen multiple RFA's (disclaimer: including myself) where at least one commentator said something like, "This person doesn't actively engage in 'Area X' (an area where people discuss things at length, such as articles for deletion or usernames for administrator attention), which are key areas I look for in potential admins, so I oppose. " For those of us who generally don't care to get involved with contentious discussions like that but instead buckle down and actually get to work fixing things that are broken, this is a great idea. Banaticus (talk) 13:54, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
35. Support Yes: it would relieve Admins of some pressure whilst allowing others to demonstrate trustworthiness & Admin potential etc, if they so desired. Basket _Feudalist 14:25, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
36. Support Sree-t 14:49, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
37. Support Although Wikipedia is open to everyone, vandalism is rampant - therefore some pages are protected. Users shown to be productive must be given the said editing rights. CHeers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 15:33, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
38. Tentative support - it's definitely a good idea, my one concern is: what happens when a "protected page editor" (we need a snappier title) is engaged in an edit war (even admins fall into this trap occasionally, so this isn't exactly a crazy idea), the page gets fully protected, but they can still push their edit in? Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 15:55, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

    Methinks that some people aren't reading the proposed policy.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 16:12, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

    I missed that bit: L Still a tentative support, for now. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 16:14, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

39. Support: There are many editors who can be trusted and for them this right will be helpful. To explain, they don't need to wait for admins to make minor requested changes in full-protected pages. Recently in an article, a deleted image link was not removed from the article for days, since we did not have an admin among us. Also, as Vacation9 says, this right will decrease admin workloads. Another thing we can do, bundle/include the right with "reviewers" flag! --Tito Dutta (contact) 16:28, 5 April 2013 (UTC) In addition, there should be a clear note that this right should not be used for a) controversial edits, if the edit is b) reverted c) requested to be undone in talk page by other non-FPP editors! --Tito Dutta (contact) 16:33, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
40. Support. Seems reasonable, logical, and sensible. — Cirt (talk) 17:20, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
41. Support. I'm not convinced by the opposers, and BatteryIncluded puts it well. Yes, this will mean the occasional breaching experiment of someone who gets this right in order to vandalise pages, but those will be rare, and removing the right will be easy. Someone needs to modify the no-cloud part, however, because right now the proposed policy says that you can't get the right back if you want to use it non-controversially. Nyttend (talk) 17:55, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
42. Support The tools to edit a protected page would be very useful to established, judicious editors. It would cut back on the problems associated with "freezing the wrong version" of a problematic BLP, per FreeRangeFrog. It would ease the burden on admins to respond to request to edit protected pages, per Johnny Au. I agree with the many comments from non-admins who don't want the panoply of admin tools, but would like to help out. I am such an editor. I've always taken Groucho's position of not wanting to be a member of any club that would have me when it's been suggested that I submit an RfA. I probably always will. But if my edit history is deemed appropriate for giving me the tool, I'd welcome the opportunity to ease the slowness of implementing non-controversial edits to protected pages, moving us back into the "anyone can edit" mode. I'd also like to help with the "freezing the wrong page on a BLP" problem, a situation I've encountered far too often. Even if I'm not deemed judicious enough to weild this tool, I know many editor's whose judiciousness is beyond reproach (at least by the rational.) I'd like to see them have this tool. I'd be very surprised if it had to be revoked very often. David in DC (talk) 18:27, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
43. Support. As for edit wars, I don't see how this would be any different to regular edit wars. Warnings or temporary blocks by an objective admin would settle the matter until people calm down. The only difference would be that there'd probably be fewer edit wars, since there would be fewer protected page editors, who probably would have fewer interests (subject-wise) in common. I still think protected page editors should show hesitation and consider posting potential changes on a talk page for certain templates or articles first. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 18:28, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
44. Support. This seems to be a useful level of permission granularity between adminship and editorship. —me_and 18:57, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
45. Support. There was a recent off-wiki discussion (they actually used an obsolete method called "face to face speech" -- how crazy is that?) among some Quakers. The majority opinion was that accepting a position as a Wikipedia administrator would violate the Quaker Testimony of Equality by giving one person power over another. Like being a police officer, this is something that (some) Quakers have no problem with someone else doing, but choose not to do themselves for religious reasons. Previous discussions have made it clear that multiple Wikipedia editors share this philosophy. Also, the "let them make a request for an edit to a protected page" argument has a problem; editors will certainly do that for major changes, but when the edit in question is an uncontroversial rewording for clarity, typo correction, or improved citation -- the exact kind of edit that we need the most -- the editor is unlikely to bother making a request for an edit to a protected page. --Guy Macon (talk) 3:21 pm, Today (UTC−4)
46. Support' We need to move more things away from pure admins. However I do have a worry that it will encourage more lock downs. JASpencer (talk) 21:54, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
47. Strong Support. I'd have concerns about misuse of this right, but I think the proposal offers enough in terms of removing it under a cloud in the case of abusing full protection to get the upper hand, for example, that my concerns have been answered. I'm not interested in templates, but I am interested in content. I really dislike the way administrators get to make edits of full-protected pages, while the rest of us have to plead via edit requests. Either implement this proposal, or require administrators to request agreement on the talk page before they can make "non-controversial" edits under full protection. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:35, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
48. Support. There is a lot of completely routine maintenance work - for instance, prepping DYK queues - that currently can only be done by admins, creating a wholly unnecessary blockage (the number of active admins doesn't scale to cover the amount of protected template work that needs to be done). This is a very necessary and sensible step. Prioryman (talk) 23:22, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
49. 'Support The ability to edit protected pages and templates shouldn’t just be left in the hands of admins who most of the time cant handle the other things that their tasked with. By allowing trusted users who have in the past shown to the community that they can be trusted with the task of making good non controversial edits then let them. Why should we have editors sit around waiting for there good edits to be added by someone else whey they themselves can add it.--Dcheagle • talk • contribs 01:17, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
50. Strong Support This will allow me to fix fully protected double redirects. - Camyoung54 talk 01:43, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
51. Support Less restrictions equals more trust. Ultimately the goal is knowledge here so I hope the power wont be abused.--Surge1223 (talk) 06:20, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

    Support - I don't see any reason to doubt a trusted and reliable editor. If he is willing to contribute valuable and good contributions, what for place a barrier in front of him? Arctic Kangaroo 04:58, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

52. Support. There are plenty of pages that are full-protected because of the possibility of vandalism—highly-used templates. Many times the maintainer of the template is a technical non-admin who has come up with a useful bit of code. If it catches on and ends up on a lot of pages, then they are rewarded for their ingenuity by being shut out of directly editing their code. Not good. This will put the ability to maintain code like this back in the hands of the technical people and not require an intermediary admin, who may not be as adept of a Parsertongue, to try to judge if the proposed code should be accepted and where to splice it into the existing code. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 05:16, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
53. SupportThe admin-user gap should be bridged with stuff like this.--Seonookim (What I've done so far) (I'm busy here) (Tell me your requests) 05:55, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
54. Not perfect, but not terrible either. It would be nice to see something more clearly delineated on how the removal process should work. NW (Talk) 14:10, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
55. Support. It would make a lot of sense to have a user right that allows non-admins to edit the large number of commonly-transcluded templates that we have protected. Editing them is really not an admin job, it's an expert job - as it stands, it's admin-only because that's the only level of protection available. Concerns about misuse of the right are valid, but they can be addressed the same way as current admin rights. Admins are not allowed to edit through a full protection to impose their view in a content dispute, and the same should apply to the new user right - anyone abusing it to win a content dispute should lose it. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:38, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
56. Support There have been several times when I need to make a trivially small edit to a protected page and it was really not necessary to get an admin to do it. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 14:59, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
57. Support Would make edit requests more viable and better allow for trivial edits that would just be tedious to fix with edit requests.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 15:10, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
58. Yes Per above. Protonk (talk) 17:16, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
59. " I mean, if we propose and pass this, there might as well be another new user right called "auto-administrator" while we are at it. Passing out rights that are supposed to be exclusive to administrators both tarnishes the importance of administrators existing on Wikipedia, and opens up the floodgates for users to start proposing more types of rights that are supposed to be exclusive for admins, such as article nuking. I mean, this could lead to a point where more of these discussions start, and then there will be a user with every single Wikipedia editing right provided by the Administrator user right, but not actually be an administrator, which can impair some editors from trying to be on their best behavior on Wikipedia in order to pass a administrator nomination; what's the point of being an administrator if all the administrator rights can be granted separate of the administrator title?"...... can't tell if sarcasm or just stupid... -Nathan Johnson (talk) 17:20, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
60. Support. I've often found grammatical or semantic errors in DYKS that are not corrected for 1-2 hours despite being reported. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:23, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

    This actually wouldn't be covered under the proposed right, as Template:DYK is cascade-protected. All the things appearing on the main page would still have to be fixed by admins. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 17:42, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

    Which is as it should be. Load more and more work onto the buggers until they begin to come to their senses re unbundling, which is why I voted to oppose this proposal. Malleus Fatuorum 17:44, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

61. Support. Sounds very reasonable. Ashleyleia (talk) 17:27, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
62. Support. As an admin who regularly patrols CAT:EP, I find that the same names pop up again and again making requests to fully-protected templates. Many of these are editors who are highly technically competent, and who I would fully trust to make the edits directly, but who might have a hard time at RfA because they spend most of their time dealing in technical areas and may not have the broad experience that successful adminship candidates need. Adminship candidates are frequently opposed if they don't have experience in several areas of Wikipedia, for example content creation, AfD, recent-changes patrolling, etc. This breadth of experience is important for editors who request the admin toolset, as protection, deletion, and blocks require good judgement and the trust of the community, but it doesn't have all that much to do with template editing. The proposed user right would go a long way towards addressing this mismatch. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 17:38, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
63. Support. Unbundling FTW. The really good way ahead in page protection is using FlaggedRevs instead, but unbundling of the sysop right must happen in any case. Pretty much any step in that direction is welcome. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 21:14, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
64. Support Great idea. nerdfighter 21:51, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
65. Modalities I leave the regulars to work out - to prevent abuse, but I support this. Manojpandeyanarchocommunist (talk) 19:55, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
66. Support. Sure! I'm all for breaking up the admin toolkit so that people who just need one specialized function don't need to be torn apart in a full RFA. About breaking up the admin toolkit, note that we have already done that to an extent. ^King Jakob _C2 01:13, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
67. Support. This is perfect for those of us who don't like having our hands held to get locked templates edited, especially when the sysop doesn't know what they're doing. –Fredddie™ 02:10, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
68. Support, as I always support unbundling measures and anything similar. Nothing problematic with this one, so another perennial support for a perennial proposal. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:41, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
69. Support. It's a good idea, would be a good preventative measure in case of an overload/busy situation, and wouldn't cause any sort of disruption. dci | TALK 02:46, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
70. Support trial only, if PC2 can not be implemented. I am convinced by those who want to edit but not admin, and by User:King of Hearts' points below. — Sebastian 06:07, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
71. Support. Sure why not Sounds Good ;) Fox2k11 (talk) 09:38, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
72. Support. Like the idea, with the mass of data that is flowing through Wikipedia right now, it is important to broaden and distribute the filters over a wider area. This also accounts for some information change over time, something that is notoriously difficult to incorporate into any referential compendium. Ed42311 (talk) 14:03, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
73. Support: I see this as the better option at this time. PC2/3 may be useful at some point, just not now. Technical 13 (talk) 14:13, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
74. Support. Unbundling this right from the general duties of admins seems sensible to me, although it needs to be given with care. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:08, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
75. Support. Hmlarson (talk) 17:54, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
76. Support. The hassle and delay entailed in creating an edit request discourages many minor edits of protected templates from ever being proposed, let alone acted on. This looks like a reasonable solution. —Stepheng3 (talk) 18:19, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
77. Tentative Support. This does seem like a good idea, but I think this permission should be used judiciously. I do fear the idea of edit wars erupting on fully protected pages, as do many other people here, but as long as the permission can be revoked without much of a hassle by the admins in those types of cases, it shouldn't be too bad of an issue. It would be very helpful in fixing the massive amount of typos and grammatical mistakes I tend to find on fully protected pages that I don't find as much on semi-protected ones, but I still am not too sold of the idea of edit wars erupting in pages that are fully protected for a reason. impinball (talk) 19:22, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
78. Support. It seems like a good idea. I trust there are good people who are interested purely in copy editing, grammatical corrections etc and not edit warring without wanting to become administrators and have powers over others. Many pages, especially those locked after being subjected to edit warring, are very ugly and read very badly. It would also seem to separate off those purely interested in content from those interested in managing others and, given that it is a less responsible status, should be quicker and easier to acquire. --Januarythe18th (talk) 21:03, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
79. Support Seems like a good idea. But with restrictions, any case of breaking 3RR or edit warring behaviour on a protected page and it is revoked I think will be a good place to start. I for one hate not being able to make constructive edits to a page because a bunch of fools have edit warred on the page and caused it to go into protection. So yes, with firm rules in place. MisterShiney ✉ 21:19, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
80. Support Any abuse of this new privilege will be easily noticed and corrected. I'm not worried about it leading to more protected pages. The potential burden on admins from edit requests does not seem to be much of a consideration in protecting pages now. The PC2 proposal would be fine with me as well.--agr (talk) 21:26, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
81. Support per above. This would help resolve the question of capable editors who are stymied in their editing abilities because they can't/won't undergo the gauntlet that is RfA. Imzadi 1979 → 00:13, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
82. Support Smacorder (talk) 02:24, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
83. Support per above. If there's a growing concern that this power is being delegated from proper administrator duty, I'd to hear proper discussion of why administrators seem unable to handle this task themselves. Chris Troutman (talk) 05:54, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
84. Support, I would support most unbundling of admin functions, as there are plenty of contributors who could use some of them well and not necessarily all the others. Similarly be quite happy to deal with one subset, but wish to avoid getting involved with others. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 08:38, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
85. Support —[AlanM1(talk)]— 08:49, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
86. Support Then I could copyedit Emily Ovenden without having to keep asking other people. Rothorpe (talk) 14:24, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
87. Strong Support This could be useful for people like me who notice mistakes, but can't change them. And if someone with the right abuses it, take it away from them. Scientific Alan 2^{(Click here to talk)(What have I done?)(Me)} 14:38, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
88. Support - should be useful for those of us who are responsible users but don't have the time or energy to become admins.  Mr.choppers | ✎  18:03, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
89. Support - with the proviso that there should be some level of required and responsible editing required before granting. • Astynax ^talk 02:13, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
90. support Pending review should never have been instituted, it simply results in yet another layer of special people approved by special people--all editors with a long enough history should have the ability to approve edits--not just the university students who have enough friends who are already admins. μηδείς (talk) 02:30, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
91. Support. I would like to not have to wait a week for template edits to go through. 117Avenue (talk) 04:36, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
92. Support Wikipedia should strive for openness.--Spannerjam (talk) 08:36, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
93. Stongly Support the proposed user right. Faizan (talk) 09:19, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
94. Support. I think its a great idea. Qantasplanes (talk) 11:09, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
95. Support this makes perfect sense. Our current system makes it very difficult for any non-admin to do any work maintaining high-use templates, however qualified they may be to do this. The ability to maintain such templates is not necessarily correlated with abilities required for prospective administrators, such as knowing when to block people or delete pages, so RfA is not really an option for such people. To make things worse many administrators do not have the technical skills required to understand or process requested changes to complex templates. I don't see how this could lead to an increase in the number of protected pages since we're not modifying the protection policy, and the risk of vandalism to protected pages arising from this is negligible. Hut 8.5 13:29, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
96. Support seems a useful idea. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 15:01, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
97. Support Having high-use templates and editnotices as an admins-only territory is incompatible with the openness of the site, in which technical measures for editorial restriction are implemented only when absolutely necessary. Full protection of heavily used templates, an unfortunate necessity, should not result in even highly trusted non-admins being locked out. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 16:02, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
98. Support Makes sense. GSK ● ✉ ✓ 18:55, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
99. Support Good way to take some of the load of admins and it is a good way for a user to show that she can be trusted with admin related rights.Lee Tru. (talk) 21:38, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
100. Support Good proposal. David. S 04:36, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

No

Weak Oppose I simply have a hard time supporting any type of unbundling proposal and I frankly don't know that I see the need for this. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • Sign AAPT) 23:01, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

It's not really unbundling. It's one right from accountcreator, and a seperate unused right. This is helpful for the technical editors to routinely update fully protected templates. It's also useful for certain bots.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 23:19, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Actually, (not making a statement about the current proposal) why don't we just add the editprotected permission to the bot flag? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 08:41, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

That would be open to potential abuse.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 19:30, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

1. Oppose This will encourage long-term full protection of pages only editable by a trusted set of editors. Wikipedia should go back to its roots as the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. --Surturz (talk) 02:31, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

   So you're saying you want everyone to be able to edit protected pages? What's the point of that? You know they're protected for a reason, right? TCN7JM 02:36, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

   1) No. 2) Better content. 3) Yes. --Surturz (talk) 02:58, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

   Then what exactly are you saying? TCN7JM 03:01, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

   If I'm reading surturz's opposition correctly, I think it's a fearing that this power will eventually be abused as if it were an insidious form of article ownership. I find the user's answer "Better content" as a cop-out non-answer, but the rhetorical question was overly broad.--ColonelHenry (talk) 03:51, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

   Exactly. Those last two questions were rhetorical. Anyway, if the right is abused, an admin can just revoke it. TCN7JM 03:56, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

2. oppose — I definitely agree with Surturz, and what logical basis does this proposal have?
   A. its just not necessary. If an editor wants to put in an edit inside an edit-protected article, he may put in an {{edit request}} {{edit protected}} and have faith instead of petulance. If he feels he should be given the right to edit protected pages he should try at RfA. The permission to edit protected pages needs same amount of trust as an admin is bestowed with.
   B. it will perhaps provide an extra stimulus to protect more pages for longer period of time, accelerate ossification and eventually, bias. How are we going to determine who is entitled to such a user right? This should call for another RfA-like structure, nothing less will be acceptable.
   C. The most important thing is that protected pages could do well without much editing, it's precisely why they are protected in the first place. In certain cases where it might be useful, interested editors better get admin rights if it's possible. Till then NO WAY. Mr T^{(Talk?) (New thread?)} 04:38, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

   The most important thing is that protected pages could do well without much editing, it's precisely why they are protected in the first place—au contraire. Have you read WP:PROTECT? In the lead paragraph: some individual pages may need to be subject to technical restrictions...because of a specifically identified likelihood of damage resulting if editing is left open. Hardly like you put it. —Theopolisme (talk) 11:30, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

   I have read it in fact. I never claimed that I reported it verbatim. Act of protecting a page is done with a motivation to curb edits in general, especially since acting admins are usually not prescient persons. We tend to try to stop editing in pages temporarily. Protected pages don't need much editing while they are protected and this tool or right (or whatever you may want to call it) will create more problems than it will solve, period. Mr T^{(Talk?) (New thread?)} 05:52, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

   I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I think you are still misconstruing the purpose of protecting pages; it is not to "curb edits in general," but rather to "curb unconstructive edits," with the added side effect of constructive edits having to go through another hoop. —Theopolisme (talk) 01:12, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

3. Oppose I don't believe we should make yet another user right for hat collectors to ask for unless there is some huge, pressing problem that would be solved by it. Right now, out of over four million articles and however many templates and other pages, there are .... seven unanswered requests for edits to protected pages. Only one of them is a bit stale and the reason for that appears to be that another user had a question about the request that has not yet been answered. And this right is so ripe for abuse. what we don't have is the admin manpower to police yet another userright. It also seems to me like this rather defeats the purpose of having full protection. While it technically limits editing only to admins, the real effect and intent is to stop any editing, admin or no, until a consensus is clear. If there is evidence that there is a specific problem with backlogs of requests to edit fully protected templates I would prefer some sort of solution that was technically limited to an the template namespace but as of yet I have not seen evidence that such a problem exists in any namespace. Seven out of four million is pretty damn good if you ask me. Beeblebrox (talk) 06:13, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

   I for one think that the main reasons are templates and technical fixes like reference errors to protected articles. Especially the first is enough of a reason for this special status, since becoming an admin is rather difficult, but I edit templates better than most admins. Debresser (talk) 22:11, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

4. Oppose I share the concerns of Beeblebrox and I agree with the points he makes. Also, I can think of some editors who I'd consider "trustworthy" and experienced enough to take on this suggested new right, and with all of them I'd prefer seeing RFAs (which would likely be successful) instead. INeverCry 06:40, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
5. Oppose per same reasons as Beeblebrox and for other similar reasons, and I'm saying this as a non-admin. I mean, if we propose and pass this, there might as well be another new user right called "auto-administrator" while we are at it. Passing out rights that are supposed to be exclusive to administrators both tarnishes the importance of administrators existing on Wikipedia, and opens up the floodgates for users to start proposing more types of rights that are supposed to be exclusive for admins, such as article nuking. I mean, this could lead to a point where more of these discussions start, and then there will be a user with every single Wikipedia editing right provided by the Administrator user right, but not actually be an administrator, which can impair some editors from trying to be on their best behavior on Wikipedia in order to pass a administrator nomination; what's the point of being an administrator if all the administrator rights can be granted separate of the administrator title? Steel1943 (talk) 07:02, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
6. Oppose for reasons similar to Surturz. The whole point of Wikipedia is that anyone can edit it. The more lock-downs or other bureaucratic nonsense we have, the less free is the content. If you're afraid of vandalism, then edit faster. Teply (talk) 07:11, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
7. Oppose Because other users start owning articles and unjustly uses the protection to their benefit... it will perhaps provide an extra stimulus to protect more pages for longer period of time, I'd prefer a reduction in the use of full protection; this will encourage long-term full protection of pages only editable by a trusted set of editors, fearing that this power will eventually be abused as if it were an insidious form of article ownership. This right is so ripe for abuse, It’s just not necessary. If an editor wants to put in an edit inside an edit-protected article, he may put in an edit request  ; Right now, there are.... seven unanswered requests for edits to protected pages. In certain cases where it might be useful, interested editors better get admin rights if it's possible. Seven out of four million is pretty damn good if you ask me, I don't believe we should make yet another user right. KhabarNegar (talk) 08:56, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
8. Oppose Was open to supporting but Beeblebrox makes several good points, as well as Surturz' more ideological one. Overall I think additional hierarchical userrights have a negative impact on the community, so should only be taken on when there is evidence of a pressing need Jebus989^✰ 10:24, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
9. Oppose If an editor is sufficiently trustworthy to have this right, they're sufficiently trustworthy to have the full admin toolset; they're either trustworthy or they're not. I don't see any need to separate that toolset out into its constituent parts and start creating separate user types for each one, which is ultimately what proposals like this would lead do. This proposal alone would add a great deal to the administrative/bureaucratic workload without adding anything much of value to the encyclopaedia. WaggersTALK 10:29, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

   Just consider-- some of us don't want to have the full admin toolset. I may be trustworthy to be an admin, but I'm not willing to be one. Having the 'block' power over my fellow editors-- that would disturb my "wikipedia experience". I don't want to be an admin, charged with enforcing behavior. But I am willing to help out with boring template edits and boring non-controversial edits to protected pages, if you guys need more help. --HectorMoffet (talk) 12:28, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

   I find that opinion to be baffling. Becoming an admin doesn't obligate you to block anyone or enforce behavior, in fact, it doesn't obligate you to do anything. If you became an admin and didn't block anyone, no one would ever come over to your user talk page and ask you why you're not doing your duty. Passing an RfA only means that you're trusted with the extra tools, not that you're obligated to use them. ‑Scottywong| confabulate _ 13:36, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

   It's not the obligation to use admin tools that troubles me-- it's the mere ability. I don't want some "admin" icon/status to bias objective content debates. A "debate" isn't the same if I can block my opponent in the debate. It's idiosyncratic, I admit, but since when have minor idiosyncrasies interfered with improving the project? --HectorMoffet (talk) 14:31, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

   "A "debate" isn't the same if I can block my opponent in the debate." - Wrong, you cannot block your opponent for merely disagreeing with you because then you're involved. Also blocks are not to be used as means of retribution. I don't think you understand what burden adminship is. Mr T^{(Talk?) (New thread?)} 06:00, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

   I think Hector meant that he didn't want his status as an admin to sway a debate in his favour simply because he's an admin, and not because of the content of his argument. Samwalton9 (talk) 20:09, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

   Neither do I, or indeed any other admin worth their salt. I don't wade into discussions saying "hey, I'm an admin so you'd better listen to me". Admins' opinions don't carry any more weight than other users most of the time. And wouldn't you worry about partaking in an argument if you have privileges to edit blocked pages and other users don't? By Hector's logic, "a debate isn't the same if I can edit the page we're discussing and my opponent can't". If the ability to block can sway a debate (and it shouldn't) then surely the ability to edit the blocked page in question can sway it just as much. WaggersTALK 11:32, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

10. Opposefor templates, these need greater scrutiny. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 10:59, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
11. Oppose for articles as per most of the reasons above. For templates, I might be persuaded on the need for a technical role. Although I'm an admin I stay well away from editing templates, as even though I have the necessary permissions, I lack the competence. But that is a different discussion. Plus "might support" does not mean "would support" - I'd need to really think it through. Manning (talk) 11:46, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
12. Oppose per Beebs. I'm not convinced of the need.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:37, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
13. Weak oppose mostly per Beeblebrox, yet another solution to a non-existent problem. Most protected edit requests that go unanswered are either poorly constructed or moderately contentious. Non-contentious edit requests where the requester clearly lays out exactly what the change needs to be are generally answered quickly. I could probably support some version of this proposal if stricter guidelines were drafted regarding who is eligible for this user right. If this were ever enacted, I don't think it would be a good idea to hand it out to a lot of editors. ‑Scottywong| express _ 13:32, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
14. Oppose as per Beeblebrox. A solution looking for a problem. This will likely result is more pages being protected, lessening the editability of the encyclopaedia, not increasing it. LukeSurl ^{t c} 13:42, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
15. Oppose per Beeblebrox. KillerChihuahua 13:47, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
16. Oppose I cannot support a proposal involving user rights where the details have yet to be fully worked through. This looks like a hat. It creates Admin. overheads in establishing & managing credentials. The sum of effort on Admins managing the requests could outweigh the effort currently required to manage the problem this solution is intended to resolve. The right could be abused to advance a position in an article content dispute. Being an upstanding member of the community can go out of the window when an editor becomes too focused on a subject. It has been known for Admins to edit through full protection to a favoured version and this could easily lead to AN/I overload. I don't understand the method of requesting this right, namely "Users are to state what they intend to edit with that right and administrators will assess based on that statement." Once granted the user can use the right on any article so the question "what they intend to edit" is irrelevant. I don't see the net benefit for a relatively low volume issue. Leaky Caldron 14:04, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
17. Oppose Wikipedia already suffers from vested interests that control articles to promote their (or their employer) slant. Why create another avenue to propaganda?32cllou (talk) 17:23, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
18. Oppose. Beeblebrox said it best. This is a solution that solves no actual problem but might create more problems itself. Regards SoWhy 17:27, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
19. Oppose This is a solution in search of a problem. ⇌ Jake Wartenberg 17:33, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
20. Oppose I'm not sure I understand the proposal completely, so perhaps my opposition to it is a bit hasty; however, in general, I would like to see LESS rights for us editors. The problem on this site is Vandalism. I spend about 10% of my editing time reverting idiot posts. I'd like to see everyone registered to enable their editing privilege, and limit ANY editing by a user with under 100 edits to edit anything except requests for an edit suggestion on talk pages. When a new user has completed 100 talk page edits, then he can be a full fledged editor; plus, we get to see just who we're dealing with by seeing his/her proposals. It's not fair for those of us that really care about the content in an article here, to have to spend so much time policing the site. (my two cents) thanks Pocketthis (talk) 18:21, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

    I think I agree with you that you do not fully understand this proposal. Imagine if this proposal did pass. This right would need to be requested at PERM and obviously it won't be granted if you are new or a vandal. You can edit fully protected templates, and edit other kinds of protected pages. If you abuse this right, it is almost immediately revoked from you and you will no longer be able to edit protected pages.—cyberpower ^Chat_Offline 18:42, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

21. The #Alternate idea below to use pending changes level two seems far superior, requiring no technical changes and resulting in no drawbacks from a new level of permissions. EllenCT (talk) 19:07, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
22. Oppose. I don't think it will make administrator's jobs any easier; in fact it will just give them new lackeys to watch for transgressions. Administrators are not babysitters; if someone is trustworthy enough to edit protected pages, why aren't they trustworthy enough for other privileges (even if they choose not to use them)? Equivamp - talk 19:11, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
23. Oppose, largely per Beeblebrox. Ironholds (talk) 19:48, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
24. Oppose, I was leaning towards "support", but not after reading Beeblebrox's reasoning. Jauerback^dude?/_dude. 19:58, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
25. Oppose. WP:IDIOT pages are protected for several reasons, e.g. vandalism, content war, and to protect wikipedia. Vandalism and content war can be sufficiently covered by the PC2 suggestion below. But giving more editors the chance to make changes to e.g. protected templates, just increases the chances of an editor snarling up by mistake. It will probably lead to a higher level of protection than the current one for certain things. What I would suggest is implementation of PC2 as suggested below, with possibly another level of protection created for high level templates. Putting all these groups into one basket just seems wrong.86.25.24.66 (talk) 20:27, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
26. Oppose I agree with Beeblebrox 100%. United States Man (talk) 21:10, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
27. Oppose Pages are protected for valid reasons, such as edit warning, vandalism and such, to assist the article's content. If really need to made an edit, then just submit a request, and if you want to edit it yourself, run for adminship. If you feel free can handle this, you should be able to be an administrator. Beeblebrox's brings up some valid points. TBrandley 00:13, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
28. Oppose mostly per Beeblebrox. This proposal creates more hierarchy without significant benefit. Beeblebrox's alternative idea, below, seems viable. - tucoxn\^talk 03:36, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
29. Oppose due to edit warring. However "If you feel free can handle this, you should be able to be an administrator." and similar comments are nonsense since RfA is not just about content submissions.Cptnono (talk) 04:54, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
30. Oppose. I can see how this could be abused. If a page is protected, let it stay protected. There needs to be that cool down time. If a page is reporting on big news, there are so many editors watching it that there is no need to worry about vandalism because it is reverted in minutes or seconds.Mr. Straub (talk) 06:16, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

    Sorry for badgering, but I can see this proposal being most useful in template space. "Cool-down time" might be a problem in article space, not not in template space. Large numbers of highly-visible templates are protected, and editors are currently forced to use the often-backlogged CAT:PER queue to have changes made. — This, that and the other (talk) 09:15, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

31. Oppose basically per Beeblebrox. Spencer^T♦C 06:40, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
32. Oppose, Beeblebrox is right. There is virtually no need for this, and it will be extra trouble to administer, so the cost/benefit (business case if you like) is all wrong. There are risks to the proposal, and no good reason to go ahead with it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:36, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
33. Oppose An unnecessary user right in my opinion. A protected page should not be edited until the underlying reason for the protection is resolved -- this proposed user right will cause more problems than it solves. Pol430 talk to me 09:00, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
34. Oppose. Agree with Beeblebrox. As of now. there is not a regular, urgent, long backlog on Category:Wikipedia protected edit requests. And even then, some of them usually require discussion before actual implementation. Zzyzx11 (talk) 09:51, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
35. Oppose. If the feature is included then protection is quite useless. The page protection feature is there to protect vandalism, so if this feature is added then the page will be vandalised. Suggestion: Implant semi-protection Level 2 which only allows users with *this* number of edits to edit the page. Saves the trouble of admins given the permission to people. Hz. tiang 10:11, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
36. Oppose - As per above and if vandalism/edit warring continues to be a problem on semi-protected pages and there's not enough justification for fully protecting the page then perhaps the question is whether the requirements for auto-confirmed rights should be reviewed and whether temperamentally disruptive editors who target specific pages(COI/POV/stalking/etc) should be stripped of their user confirmed status. - Food for thought there as I believe confirmed rights are under appreciated and lack maintenance. PPC2 seems to address the issues I raised above though. YuMaNuMa ^Contrib 11:59, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
37. Not quite there - unbundling admin tasks makes sense, but the threshold that any admin can give or take away the right would create too much drama and chaos. It could encourage a dysfunctional landscape where certain admins with political positions could start to stake out important articles they've full-protected for the benefit of their minions, while searching for excuses to revoke the permissions of their opponents' minions. It would make more sense to give the right out based on a 'weak RfA' with a lower percentage of support required. Wnt (talk) 13:17, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
38. Oppose although superficially attractive (why not have users who can edit protected pages but can't block?) I have two big concerns. First it's not needed: I have no problems with the existing mechanisms for getting protected pages changed, and the existing levels of protection + pending changes work very well. Similarly if a trusted user wants to make a difference to the project by taking on more responsibility including editing protected pages they can become an admin. They may not use the other tools but they are safe with them. The other concern is it will generate more contention; more protected articles as e.g. editors protect them to work on them. More arguments between users, complaints over users, a whole new class of disputes needing resolution. That is unless protected page editors are held to the same high standard as admins, in that they can only use their tools if uninvolved to avoid disputes; in which case they should be admins.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 13:28, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
39. Oppose - Reason stated in my support for PC2 below. Arctic Kangaroo 15:12, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
40. Oppose. All user rights should be removed from regular editors and concentrated in the hands of the elite administrators. Malleus Fatuorum 15:54, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
41. Oppose - per Beeblebrox, if it ain't broke don't fix it. Seven edit requests is not exactly overload for the admin pool. Jonathanfu (talk) 23:12, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
42. Oppose - It isn't really necessary. - Al Lemos (talk) 01:17, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
43. Oppose - After careful consideration and disregarding a personal desire for this right, I share an assimilation of many of the above opposition views. Full protection is only placed on those pages that really need it. Users can still request changes to these pages. Administrators tend to be fairly picky as to what gets full protection, and semi-protection/pending changes protections already have other users (such as reviewers) that can help edit. Full protection really needs administrator review in many cases. Opening up another user category increases the likelihood that something will go wrong rather than reducing the burden on administrators and editors, in my opinion. I do explicitly reject the notion that administrators do not have to utilize their toolset, as mentioned earlier, though; it is expected that admins remain active or risk losing their user rights. I also reject the idea that "hat collection" is as widespread a problem as indicated by some above - hat collection is not possible without the permission of granting administrators, and they always ensure that the user meets criterion for a right. This is a volunteer effort, and I hate seeing users called names for helping the community. However, again, I reiterate that this right seems to me as though it will cause more problems than it will solve. --Jackson Peebles (talk) 01:49, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
44. Oppose - Will be like asking for vandalism at higher level --Adamstraw99 (talk) 06:21, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
45. Oppose - per This will encourage long-term full protection of pages only editable by a trusted set of editors. Wikipedia should go back to its roots as the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. First, I've edited in controversial areas where admins had strong opinions and would LOVE to just protect the page and allow only them and their friends edit and I have no doubt these individuals would abuse that privilege. Also, being constantly attacked by a persistent AnonIP and New Editor sock lately (with the same POV as those editors) and one who has registered two and three new handles a day! - I see the need for temporary protection from AnonIPs and New Editors. And in cases where there are 6 editors going nuts (which I've seen a few times), sure protect it from everyone. But even in these extreme situations, protection has lasted only two weeks and people have been properly chastened or chilled. I think instituting this will cause a lot of distrust and rancor in the community as some people are allowed to edit and others are not and as protection periods inevitably grow longer and longer. You know, like the income tax was only supposed to take 1% of millionaires' income and now it takes a big chunk of everybodys'. Resist this destructive move. CarolMooreDC🗽 06:48, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

    Hello Carol, I know and respect you from our time together in conflict resolution, so I read your words with interest. You probably have a point that each additional hierarchical level will make people further down feel more disempowered. I also see what you mean when you say that the level of protection needed at the level of anons and new SPAs does not need to be duplicated at higher levels. But the fact is that we currently have a considerable number of pages that are protected at that level. I believe this is a step towards more openness; I don't see the slippery slope you are afraid of. — Sebastian 07:52, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

    • Examples of "considerable number of pages that are protected at that level" would be helpful for those of us who have not seen that level of protection that often and/or to see if there already is some pattern to be aware of. To answer my own question found Wikipedia:Lists_of_protected_pages and Wikipedia:List_of_indefinitely_protected_pages. I have a feeling the list will explode if this proposal is passed.
    • Also, it would be helpful if the proposal included a clear and speedy method of challenging administrators removing some one "under a cloud". Like immediate appeal to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. Without it POV editors will become admins even more frequently to exercise (and possibly abuse) that authority. Editors must be assumed to be innocent unless proven guilty. I'm sure there are a number of editors who edit only occasionally in one "controversial" area with POV admins but may decide to skip editing there if certain admins might remove their ability to edit in protected articles in a completely different area.
    • Given my experience with a sock (the infamous Wikipedia:Long-term_abuse/JarlaxleArtemis) who vandalized ALL my recent edits and articles for weeks and led to most of them being protected, I can guarantee he'd keep doing so, assured an editor with his POV would find some excuse to ban me, and then he could basically get me kicked off Wikipedia for weeks at a time!
    • You must look carefully at how the most destructive editors will abuse this process and in the last few weeks I've seen exactly how or it would not even have occurred to me. CarolMooreDC🗽 15:58, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

      Thank you! I see where you're coming from. It's often hard to know how a policy change can backfire, which is why I voted for a trial period. BTW, there seem to be currently about 2000 articles at Special:ProtectedPages. — Sebastian 05:35, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

    • Actually Special:ProtectedPages seem to be mostly templates (which often need it since so easy to screw up) and user pages. Found Category:Wikipedia indefinitely semi-protected pages. CarolMooreDC🗽 13:56, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

46. Oppose. If really needed it could/should be combined with reviewer (which is granted to trusted users in a similar fashion), so I don't think we should create a new separate group. Also I'd like to see same usage analysis supporting the need. How many longterm fully protected pages do we have that have uncontroversial maintenance issues?--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:46, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
47. Oppose I believe I opposed it last time as well, for similar reasons that Beeblebrox raises. As a non-admin I don't mind waiting a day or two to have my edits fulfilled, and it gives the chance for another person to look at them. Legoktm (talk) 16:31, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
48. Oppose - Beeblebrox makes very good points. Although fully protecting an article technically allows admins to edit it, they should only do so rarely. In the majority of cases, an article is protected because of edit warring; the protection exists to prevent anyone from editing to and thus encourage discussion of the issues. An uninvolved admin is entitled to edit the page if it is necessary for them to implement an established consensus. The ability to edit protected pages thus assumes the community trusts the individual to judge consensus. That kind of trust is something we need an RfA for: except for uncontroversial cases, we generally expect admins to judge consensus because they are trusted and supported to do so. To give this right out to other editors will leave the judging of consensus in the hands of people not supported by the community (either that or the process to get the right will be equivalent to RfA, and we might as well make them an admin). ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 18:30, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
49. Strong Oppose - Wikipedia doesn't need more admins deciding who’s evil and who edits. Moagim (talk) 18:36, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
50. Oppose - While the principle may sound alright, it is an invitation for "sleeper editors" or just people who have a definite view of what an article should be to come in and use it as a means of changing that article as they see fit, going against what Wikipedia stands for. --ProtoDrake (talk) 19:10, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
51. Oppose - As per Beeblebrox. Samwalton9 (talk) 23:03, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
52. Oppose - Protected articles are protected for a reason. I think that allowing more people to edit them would devalue the protected nature and make Wikipedia itself less stable. I would suggest that a better solution would be to create yet another tier of protection and move non-critical articles there. Regardless, I don't think that this would lead to a large benefit to the community, and could reduce the quality of Wikipedia were it abused. Risk/reward = too dangerous. Korlus (talk) 23:36, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
53. Oppose - Seems like a classic case of a solution in search of a problem.--Fyre2387 ^{(talk • contribs)} 00:16, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
54. Oppose - Springboard page requested edits to protected pages is working fine. I don't see a compelling need to create this new role. The lack of a deadline for this project leaves me comfortable with content-dispute-resolution methods in place, with no need to add this additional means. --EEMIV (talk) 00:57, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
55. Oppose - Protected Page Editors, who shall controll them?? - there are already too many uncontrolled admins running around ....

    Let's get rid of some of them first. Tonton Bernardo (talk) 02:18, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

56. Oppose Per Surturz and Beeblebrox. Just doesn't seem very useful, and I'm definitely afraid of corruption. E123 (talk) 04:39, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
57. Oppose Another role is not necessary and creates additional hierarchy without any demonstration of it even being required (no data?!?!). Further, as already stated, protected articles are protected for a reason and expanding the number of parties with this right is counterproductive.--Labattblueboy (talk) 05:13, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
58. Oppose per Beeblebrox . I agree with his analysis. -- Alexf^(talk) 09:34, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
59. Oppose per above reasons. Not in support of Beeblebrox too. - Jayadevp13 12:28, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
60. Strong Oppose per Beeblebrox. One support argument was "There are a lot of trusted non-admins who I feel should be able to edit protected pages". Make them an admin then? Problem solved. If they're not trusted enough to be an admin, then they don't deserve to have similar editing rights? Leiservampir (talk) 13:41, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
61. Oppose; unnecessary. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 14:42, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
62. Oppose. Autoconfirmed users can already edit semi-protected pages. If you want lots of users to still be able to edit protected articles, semi-protect them. Or set up pending changes review. If you want a certain user to be able to edit fully protected articles, make him an admin. We need more bureaucratic half-measures like we need a hole in the head. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department: Please take a number} 15:41, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
63. Oppose If you want to push the mop on protected pages (template or otherwise), or if you know of a user who you believe should have the access to do so, RfA is thataway. Personally I'm all for the unbundling of admin rights and only granting users the tools they will actually use. However, the granting of rights which could be abused as this one can require the trust and support of the community, not just of one admin. Show me a community approval process which grants smaller rights like this and I'll back it 100%. If you can't pass an RfA, then you definitely shouldn't have this right. If you could but choose not to, that's your choice - making an end-run around RfA to get the rights you'll use isn't the way to do it. --ElHef (talk) 15:45, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
64. Oppose what are admins for? This does not fix a pervasive problem as requesting edits from sysops is not difficult. Hekerui (talk) 19:27, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
65. Oppose per E123. If a protected page wants an edit, submit an edit request, or wait until you're a full admin. There's too many user rights as it is. Rcsprinter (talkin' to me?) @ 20:58, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
66. Strong Oppose - solves what is barely a problem by creating a worse potential problem. I'm not thrilled with the idea of creating "lite admins" where the creation of these "light admins" is not strictly controlled (i.e., bureaucrat-only). If this process were such that only bureaucrats could grant it and then only after a "mini-RFA", I'd be okay with it ... but not with hoards of admins having the ability to grant it. If you'd like to edit protected pages, seek adminship. --B (talk) 22:27, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
67. Strong oppose - I think this is the wrong solution for the problem. Typically there are a few users tend easily get in edit wars on these types of pages. Rather then protect the pages fully and then create a new class of users that are exempt from this protection, semi-protect those pages and determine the typical edit warring users and take away their rights to edit semi-protected pages. Basically this would be replacing the carrot with the stick, and putting the finger on the sore spot. _W^\|/_haledad (Talk to me) 22:36, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
68. Oppose mostly for the reasons stated above. It is not too often that an edit request can't solve simple wiki-gnome maintenance issues. However, the proposed privilege can and will lead to unbalanced editing by cabals on certain controversial articles. GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 23:41, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
69. Oppose In my opinion this will cause more problems than it solves. Most pages are not long-term protected, and it is always m:The Wrong Version anyway. Matters of urgency are handled by dropping am {{edit protected}} on the talk page or a note on WP:ANI. If someone finds that they are constantly needing to edit protected pages, is that because they are trying to help other editors? Then become an admin, that is exactly who we want. But if it is because they tend to focus on tendentious articles on which consensus breaks down so badly that locking is required, we do not want more people editing the article; we want the problem solved. So I feel this will cause more harm than good. -- Avi (talk) 00:00, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
70. Oppose, I like the idea of this, however I like the idea of communism and socialism on the surface too...but in reality it's just not practical. I think that it will cause more issues then it would solve, yes Admin attention would and could be other places without protection issues, but think about the trigger happy deletion review editors or potential edit wars to envision the chaos. So reluctantly I have to oppose a brilliant idea. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 02:57, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
71. Oppose. Oppose unbundling anything that needs care and trust. If an editor can be trusted with this, they can be trusted with full adminship. They should ask for it, or be nominated, and we should give it to them. If they don't want to block, fine. Having the blocking tool doesn't require you to use it. It requires that you don't misuse it. Also note the lack of evidence of backlog in editprotect requests that should be fulfilled. Also note that often page protection is used where editor blocks were more appropriate. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:17, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
72. Oppose. While I think it's unlikely that unbundling this would cause frequent, significant problems, and while I'm sympathetic to the plight of editors who have a need for certain tools but fear the gauntlet of RfA, I don't see a pressing need for unbundling here. On occasion, experienced editors who lack the mop would be able to make uncontroversial fixes to fully protected articles before an admin gets around to it, but I don't think it has been demonstrated that there's been a real problem with backlogs or delays. As for templates, I rarely mess with them (being a ham-fisted klutz) but can't help wondering if it would be technically feasible to establish a user right that afforded access to protected templates but not other protected pages. If so, I probably could support that. Rivertorch (talk) 06:53, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
73. Oppose Concerned this will lead to pages being protected so that "trusted" editors can edit them. Better to keep full protection as it is, and to use it more sparingly. I'd rather more of our problematic editors were banned, but that hardly seems likely to happen. Number 57 09:13, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
74. Oppose per first two sentences by Number57. --Dweller (talk) 12:43, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
75. Oppose I don't support creating additional user levels/classes/whatever at this time unless undisputable great need can be shown, and I don't think it is. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 14:47, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
76. Oppose. Good faith idea. But the current system seems to be working (for me anyway). I rarely see a page fully protected. Semi-protect usually does what I need and that seems to be used sparingly enough. Editors who run into this situation often might ask themselves if their lives (and articles) wouldn't be as well off, if you stopped watching some of these pages. Let other editors fight the good fight. Other articles need your help! Student7 (talk) 16:29, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
77. Oppose per Beeblebrox and Malleus. I don't see much of a problem as is, and Wikipedia does not need new administrative caste. Hillbillyholiday ^talk 17:16, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
78. Oppose You'll wind up with a new echelon of super-users, and that's not necessary. Current system seems to be fine and there's no compelling reason to change it. I don't like the idea of certain users being anointed with having greater editorial judgment and fairness than others. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 18:09, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
79. Oppose - I continue to oppose breaking up admin rights. If a user would like a protected page edited, they may use the editprotected tempalte, or better yet ... work towards adminship. Rjd0060 (talk) 18:42, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
80. Oppose - This just adds more bureaucracy and room for drama...more drama for who gets the tool; more drama for who loses the tool; more drama about users trying to own articles. Keep it simple as possible: Go through the RfA process (yes, yes, that process can have its own drama; but I'd rather keep the drama contained, and not have it spread). To the editors who don't want to be admins because they don't want all the tools: Then don't use the tools you don't want to use. Kingturtle = (talk) 19:07, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
81. Oppose I consider editing through protection to be the most controversial tool in the admin suite. The times when it should be done to article space are vanishingly rare. I would support this proposal if and and only if it was restricted to template space, which appears to be the sole justification for the proposal.—Kww(talk) 20:11, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
82. Oppose. Too much hierarchy already. Nonexistent problem, or wrong solution to existing problem. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:02, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
83. Oppose. Would likely result in pages that are perpetually protected, with only a select cabal of selected editors able to edit these pages. It would be better simply to solve the extant problems causing a page to be protected in the first place. Miguel Escopeta (talk)
84. Oppose. There are enough admins to deal with edits that need to be made to protected pages. If there weren't, we should create new admins. Existing difficulties in stopping admins from editing/moving edit/move protected pages are another reason why I'm not keen to expand those with this ability; it's a pervasive "low level" misuse of the admin toolset as it is. WJBscribe (talk) 22:18, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
85. Oppose. For me, this a very unusual course of action for me to oppose because I have fundamentally believed in a greater access of rights for proven editors. That said, Beeblebrox's argument that the introduction of this user-right does not seem to fix a major problem affecting the community, while the pages that have been rightfully protected due to circumstance and protection will be opened up again. Proven editors do edit war, and do abuse user rights, and the problem seems so inconsequential that I could not foresee the introduction of such a system. Mkdw^talk 23:16, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
86. Oppose. Enough wiki-hierarchy as it is. Leave it at that. DDima 23:54, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
87. Oppose As above. Paul S (talk) 00:52, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

Why aren't cascade-protected pages and interface pages included? -- Ypnypn (talk) 23:12, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

In the last proposal, almost the entire community was opposed to allowing access to interface pages to non-admins because of the potential for site-wide damage. Cascade is also not allowed because the right doesn't allow it which makes sense because of security reasons.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 23:21, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Can this be done on a page by page basis though to keep an editor who may just happen to have this ability, and who may just happen to be in an edit war, from abusing the privilege? That would be my only concern. --JohnDBuell (talk) 00:50, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

That would likely require some technical modification to MediaWiki Core. As proposed in the draft outline, if they are caught using this right in an edit war, the right would be revoked after a stern warning.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 01:36, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

• The qualities needed to edit protected templates and those need to edit fully protected contents pages are considerably different. I'm just a little concerned that those with the ability to do one aren't necessarily able to properly do the other (I'm thinking ofthe RfA nominations for people who wanted to edit templates, rejected because of insufficient content editing experience. (Of course this applies to admins also) But I don't want to propose yet another complication. DGG ( talk ) 04:57, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

That, indeed, is the crux of the issue for me. That and I have yet to see the evidence that there is a serious issue with edit requests to protected templates not getting the attention they deserve. However, consider the filemover right. Anyone who is autoconfirmed can move a content page, but they can't move files without being granted this separate right. Thi ssuggests that it is possible to tailor user rights to specific namespaces. If we could change this to a template-space only right I think I could easily see my way clear to supporting it, but if it is a blanket ability to edit any page that now would be restricted to admins only, not so much. The potential for misunderstandings, abuse, drama, etc is just too great. If it were templates only it would be less "sexy" and would more boring, like filemover. Beeblebrox (talk) 06:26, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I might point out that the backlog at CAT:PER is often quite bad (it can often get up to 30 items, although it is under control right now) and the edit requests tend to be answered by one of a small group of admins. There are plenty of non-admin users (such as myself) who would be able to help out with most of the more mundane requests, if we belonged to this proposed user group. I, for one, would not be interested in editing fully protected articles (other than to fix protection templates, etc.) — This, that and the other (talk) 10:24, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with TTO here. Backlogs are usually large, and when they are they go unnoticed or unaddressed for weeks. Template editing is also an interest to many editors, including myself. Vacation9 12:06, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Does this mean there will be more fully protected pages instead of semi-protection for busy controversial articles? I would rather see edit warring than most editors locked out because a few can't behave. EllenCT (talk) 09:09, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

For one, the intent of this proposal is to allow users who are trusted enough to edit, but not quite trusted enough to be an admin, to edit the pages that are protected. Protection should be applied as if this right didn't exist. That's not what this right is for.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 12

01, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I have two different comments. Firstly with articles, for any editor with a decent track record, why would they need this? Why not just go to RFA? I'm ruminating on the sort of attributes I'd want to see in a decent candidate, but I just can't see what would be different from an equally good RFA candidate.

Second comment - the idea of having a "protected template editor" is a different, but quite intriguing idea. As an admin I have the permissions to edit all the templates but would never dream of doing so - I simply don't have the technical competence. I could easily envision an editor who has no desire to be the sort of "all-rounder" who ends up passing RFA, but otherwise brings good technical skills to the table. (How we would select these technical candidates is best left to those who administer maintain the current templates, not someone like me). Manning (talk) 12:06, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

"for any editor with a decent track record, why would they need this? Why not just go to RFA? "

Because I don't want the power to 'block' or 'delete', not under any circumstances. It's like carrying a gun-- I may be responsible enough to carry one, but I choose not to. Call us 'conscientious objectors' -- we want no part of "adminship" and policing editor behavior.

I might use the "trusted wiki-gnome rights", but not if it means I have to carry the burden of the "user policing rights". I think there is something useful in flagging the users who are "trusted", regardless of whether or not they seek the role of admin. --HectorMoffet (talk) 12:14, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) First of all, consider editors like me. I failed my RfA mostly because I've only been here 6 months. That said, I have quite a bit of technical skill and ESP experience so answering EPs and editing templates would be great for me. This right would be great for people who haven't been around long enough to be an admin but still are trustworthy to have this right (not saying I am). In that sense, it's like rollbacker. To address your second point, it's not technically possible to do this I don't believe, but that is an interesting idea. Vacation9 12:17, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

What should be the conditions for granting this right? I think there should be some strict conditions that should be met before this right is granted. That should include, atleast 3000 edits in Mainspace, have never been blocked and should pass most of the criteria of being an admin. Amartyabag ^TALK2ME 13:11, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

That's a bit too strict. They aren't an admin. They can't block, delete, protect, edit the interface, edit user css/js, or the site css/js. If any criteria, I propose technical template knowledge, policy knowledge and at least 3000 edits in general, and most importantly, AGF.—cyberpower ^Chat_Offline 14:43, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Question: Is there any intent to use this group as a probational pre-promotional requirement to becoming and administrator? Technical 13 (talk) 16:10, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

That's up to the community to decide if this should be a pre-requisite. I hadn't planned on it though.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 16:13, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

• General Note

  I get the impression that half of the people here aren't reading the proposed policy based on the comments I'm seeing.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 16:16, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

This may help you with that concern. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:40, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. There's no harm in trying though right? ;-) Besides I can handle insults and tough criticism.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 16:50, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

• Question, is there a reason why not just having Admins conduct these edits, as is the present case, isn't sufficient?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 23:31, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I second it. Why not just let admins handle these changes? Put in {{edit protected}} or something in the talk? If one wants more, then ummm, then just file an RFA. This needs same amount of trust as admins get. Mr T^{(Talk?) (New thread?)} 06:06, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

See my response above. I suspect most editors raising these concerns have not made {{editprotected}} requests on a regular basis. — This, that and the other (talk) 07:02, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

• Small point, but since you use the Main Page as an example in the introduction, users with this right would be able to edit the Main Page. Cascading protection applies to pages transcluded on the protected page, so they wouldn't be able to edit, for example, the TFA blurb. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 10:12, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
  • No: the main page is cascade protected through its transclusion on Wikipedia:Main Page/1 through Wikipedia:Main Page/5. ... I was wrong, but anyway, those pages should transclude the main page even though they don't right now. — This, that and the other (talk) 10:20, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
    • Slightly off-topic, but I thought we couldn't transclude mainspace pages? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:52, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
      • Yep, you can transclude them using {{:Main Page}} syntax; you can even substitute them if you want. See User:This, that and the other/transclude. — This, that and the other (talk) 05:05, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
  • To answer your question, you cannot edit any page that has the cascading property according to the developers. That means direct protection and protection resulting from transclusion. previous unsigned comment was added by Cyberpower678, 21:32, 7 Apr. 2013.

Granting

It is proposed to ask what the editor intends to do with the right. What is the precise point of this? Once granted the editor can edit any article, including any that they might have an interest in establishing a position on. Leaky Caldron 14:11, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Just like requesting adminship, the candidate is asked what they intend to do with that right. Removal of the PPE right is easier than adminship and if caught abusing (subject to what the community believes is abuse), they're given a warning and then it's removed from them. If they are caught edit warring and the page gets protected and they continue to edit it and the other person can't the right can be flipped off. I hope I'm clearly expressing myself here.—cyberpower ^Chat_Offline 14:40, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

So, how about this situation: Two users are in an edit war. Nobody has breached 3RR. Normally at this point protection would be preferred to blocking as it allows discussion to continue. But wait! Both users have this right. The protection will not stop them. As an admin who works with protection issues I'd like to know what I am supposed to do at this point. Block them both? Just ask the edit warriors to stop since there is no technical way of actually stopping them? Protect and hope for the best? Crazy drama at ANI? Beeblebrox (talk) 16:44, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Remove the right and leave a warning on their page.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 16:49, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

• ... in addition, as rollback flag is removed if used in editwarring, this one can be removed if (continuously) misused. --Tito Dutta (contact) 17:15, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

In my scenario nobody had yet abused the user right, just edit warred on an unprotected article. So, just so we are clear, you are saying that if two users with this right are edit warring we should protect the page and preemptively remove the user right to stop them from ignoring the protection? Beeblebrox (talk) 17:51, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought you had protected the page already. If they know what warrants removal of the bit, such as edit warring through protection, then protecting the page should be sufficient. If they continue, and some admin discretion is allowed given the nature of the warring, warn or block and remove the right.—cyberpower ^Chat_Offline 18:47, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Seems like the words "involved" and "uninvolved" need to play a part in the conditions of use. Leaky Caldron 18:07, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

involved.. uninvolved -Good point! --Tito Dutta (contact) 18:12, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Great points from Leaky indeed.—cyberpower ^Chat_Offline 18:47, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Some clarification/elaboration on what would constitute "trusted" seems necessary. I'd suggest that any recent history of being blocked (other than the rare abusive blocks, or those for simple technical reasons) should be reason enough not to grant it. "Recent" should be relative to edit activity level (e.g. 25% of non-minor edits and 25% of account duration, at least 2000 edits in 6 months, to pick some figures from thin air).LeadSongDog come howl! 15:52, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Asking for closers

Does anyone mind if I ask for closers at WP:AN, for a close roughly one week after the start? (For RfCs relevant to adminship, the one-week RfCs seem to get more discussion and more attention.) - Dank (push to talk) 17:33, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

This RfC like most RfCs will stay open for 1 month.—cyberpower ^Chat_{Limited Access} 17:36, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Most do, yes. Your call. - Dank (push to talk) 18:12, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Just an hour ago, I learned about this discussion from notice above MyWatchlist. More editors will join eventually! --Tito Dutta (contact) 18:15, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Just my two cents: when an RfC can get you a definitive answer on something, 30 days is fine. When there's no chance of that ... when one RfC starts something, and another fills in details, and a later one will be needed for adjustments ... you'll get people opposing just because they don't want to greenlight something that takes that long to set up, because they don't want to spend that much time keeping track of it, and because that offers too many opportunities for things to go wrong. - Dank (push to talk) 18:40, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Just approving this RfC is a huge change to Wikipedia. The discussion should go on for a bit. If this does pass, subsequent RfCs will be shorter to set it up faster, but right now, it's still uncertain if this will pass or not.—cyberpower ^Chat_Offline 18:50, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, good job. There's active discussion on both sides. - Dank (push to talk) 19:04, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

You know, we need to make an experimental Enwiki

It's not 2003 anymore. Wikipedia (enwiki) has become an essential reference for the entire internet population. There was a time when we could easily take risks to improve the project, trusting that if it doesn't work out, we'll just change it back. We were explorers in an unknown land, we could afford to be "experimental".

When I read the opposition to this proposal, the main emotion I see is "Wikipedia is too precious to be this experimental". The status quo is an incredible success, and even a relatively minor tweak to our operations might degrade the project-- a price that's too high for us to pay.

Unfortunately, that means we don't have the luxuries we had in 2003, when an RFA really was WP:NOBIGDEAL. Wikipedia is now 'mission critical'-- it has become too important to innovate.

The opposes here raise a lot of "What if" worries-- what if we try this and something bad happens or things get worse. Wouldn't it be nice if we had an "experimental" version of enwiki where instead of worrying about "what if", we would have the freedom to change anything we want and actually see how it goes, instead of just guessing and reading tea leaves.

Then we wouldn't have to guess about the effects of change, we could actually use A/B testing to evaluate policy changes. And it would be easier to adopt changes here once they've been tested in an experimental enwiki and met with success. --HectorMoffet (talk) 19:55, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

You raise a lot of good points, but I'm not sure how an experimental version would work. The whole point of this change is that it's related to how lots of users interact with Wikipedia, any experimental wiki probably wouldn't have this amount of users if I'm not mistaking what you're saying. Samwalton9 (talk) 20:15, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. A much smaller group of editors who are trying to make a Wikipedia that's even better than EnWiki. If it works, we could "discover" new tools and techniques that, once proven to work, could be incorporated here at EnWiki. (and of course, if an experimental wiki somehow turned out to be an overwhelmingly success, it might wind up being "the next Wikipedia".) --HectorMoffet (talk) 20:25, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

With the relatively small amount of users who edit regularly anyway, I'd be worried that unless the experimental wiki was made specifically for one big change that no one would ever edit it at all and so nothing would be 'discovered'. Samwalton9 (talk) 20:39, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I think the "big idea" is 'Wikipedia, but somehow better'. Maybe nobody would show up-- but that's the beauty of an experimental project, isn't it. It would have the freedom to fail. --HectorMoffet (talk) 20:44, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I disagree with HectorMoffet that this proposal is "too experimental" or exposes Wikipedia too too much risk. This proposal is careful and balanced, and can be implemented with what I expect to be success. Debresser (talk) 22:07, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I should clarify-- I personally support this proposal; It's not "too experimental" for me, it's "too experimental" for the people who oppose this. --HectorMoffet (talk) 22:39, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

My first reading of your post was too cursory. I apologize. Debresser (talk) 23:04, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Too many too's. :p—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 22:58, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Alternate idea

Ok, maybe this is crazy, but I think I may have a different proposal that would solve this rather neatly. It seems like this proposal is most concerned with the editing of highly-used templates. This is in fact an area where admins are sometimes limited in their ability help respond to requests because of the complex coding and parsing in some templates, but we can't just leave them unprotected because of the potential for massive-scale vandalism. So, what if instead of full protection we use Pending changes level two. This might actually be the perfect fit for this currently unused tool. The reviewer right is all that is needed to edit through it, and we already have a process in place for granting it. Simple, easy to implement, no extra processes or developer time needed to get it going, all we need is a consensus to use PC2 in this way. Frankly I always though PC2 was fairly worthless, but in fact it seems like a perfect fit with this particular issue. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:55, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Support using PC2

1. As proposer. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:55, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
2. Nicer than a new caste and less likely to result in more full protection of controversial articles. EllenCT (talk) 19:03, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
3. Seems sensible enough. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:08, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
4. Support, looks like a good idea. Jauerback^dude?/_dude. 20:01, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
5. Support. Probably pointless, since (as noted below) it's impossible to do at the moment, but this would definitely be helpful. Many good template coders who won't vandalise are unlikely to pass RFA (whether because they don't want to run or because many people think they won't be good admins), and this would permit them to edit more constructively. It would also help those who can't edit the templates, since this way they could perform the edit (and simply wait for a reviewer) rather than attempting to explain the edit to an admin who doesn't understand what's going on — not to mention editors who don't understand the "complete and specific description" requirement on the editprotected template. Nyttend (talk) 20:41, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
6. Seems like it'll be almost the same. A group of trusted non-admins with the ability to edit pages that get a lot of edit requests. Support! TCN7JM 20:51, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
7. Weak support I agree with Surturz's oppose that people editing such pages should pass RfA and I am one of those people who believe that splitting up the admin-rights on a number of sub-groups is the wrong way to proceed. However, should the community - despite Beeblebrox's well-reasoned oppose !vote above - still believe that such a right should be created, then I agree with Beeblebrox that this solution would be far superior than the creation of another user group. Not only does it use a system already implemented but it would also allow any editor to make such changes with a review system in place, thus removing the need to actually request changes on talk pages. Those arguing that this proposal will increase the work for reviewers fail to take into account that those editors who wish to request the protected page editor right as discussed above could also become reviewers instead, thus fulfilling the same role in a slightly different technical way. Regards SoWhy 21:44, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
8. Support! Protection is usually a bit exaggerated and sometimes backfires. This way people can still monitor and update the page. asdfawesomegreen (talk) 22:48, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
9. Support TBrandley 00:40, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
10. Weak support per SoWhy. - tucoxn\^talk 03:39, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
11. Support Much improved. The solution more closely addresses the largely imagined problem while still allowing anyone to edit and seems to be the sort of function for which PC2 was intended. Teply (talk) 03:44, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
12. Weak support per everyone above. My only concern is the fact that admins are handing out the Reviewer right to people with 3-400 edits. We'd need to drastically tone that down if this is to function as we want it to. gwickwire^talk_editing 04:43, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
13. Strong Support - Better than the "Protected Page Editor" right. With PC2, all autoconfirmed users can contribute, meaning more contributions, since some autoconfirmed users have not made too many "edit requests" etc to edit fully-protected pages/templates. Arctic Kangaroo 05:04, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
14. Support - Yes, this is sensible, unlikely to get dramatic, and the infrastructure already exists. Pol430 talk to me 09:12, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
15. Support Per my previous comment made in the Oppose/No section of primary proposal. YuMaNuMa ^Contrib 12:06, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
16. Support Good idea too. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 22:09, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
17. Support - Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't this just be a combination of the proposed user right with something like the Reviewer right? Anyone going through the process of requesting this right should be at least as trusted as our reviewers, so why not? Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:47, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
    • No, this proposal is to apply Pending Changes level 2 to pages in the template namespace, etc. Those with the reviewer right would be able to edit these pages directly and approve any changes. To edit PC2-protected templates, one would only need the reviewer right as it currently exists, so all existing reviewers would suddenly be able to edit high-risk templates. Something to consider. — This, that and the other (talk) 05:10, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

    • Thanks for the correction. I still support the proposal. Most of our reviewers are trusted enough to be allowed access to those templates, in my opinion. Others are free to disagree, of course. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:15, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

18. + — Sebastian 06:09, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
19. Support, this appears to be a good compromise solution between leaving the edits to fully protected articles to only Admins and creating a new user authority type. This allows for some editing, with a trusted reviewer approving before it goes live, while not requiring an edit request template usage, which appears to be the primary reason why the first proposal was created.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:46, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
20. Support. Seems like a fair compromise.
21. Support. Don't see why there's a problem. 069952497a^{Comments and complaints}_{Stuff I've done} 20:25, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
22. I guess I support this, but I'm not clear how this is an alternative proposal. I think we should have PC2 on all BLPs, for example, but the use case for PC2 has little to do with the use case for full protection. The original use case is to let users answer non-controversial or consensus edit requests during a dispute. That's not applicable here, but I do think we should implement and use PC2. --B (talk) 22:30, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
23. Support Pending review should never have been instituted, it simply results in yet another layer of oh so special people approved by oh so special people--all editors with a long enough history should have the ability to approve edits--not just the university students who have enough friends who are already admins. μηδείς (talk) 02:32, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
24. Comment On the plus side, I always thought PC1 was useless and that PC2 was the only useful feature that pending changes provided. On the negative side, Pending Changes protection doesn't actually work in the Template name space. It's only implemented in mainspace.—Kww(talk) 19:54, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Oppose using PC2

1. Admin rights are not Pokémon. Editors requiring this access should pass an RfA. --Surturz (talk) 21:15, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
2. Oppose for templates. Editor 1 with reviews rights changes the wording of a template. Editor 2 without the review flag comes along and breaks the template. Editor 1 comes back, sees a typo in their edit, corrects that typo, thus confirming the edits of Editor 2. Wham the template is broken, it is then transcluded onto 1,000,000 other pages, despite the fact that Editor 1 was just trying to change the text. Second example, a mischievous editor adds to a large part of a template, and substitutes a ) for a }, someone who does not understand the change clicks accept. Template editing of high profile templates needs a separate user right if non-admins want to edit them.86.25.24.66 (talk) 21:46, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

   That's not what happens, though. Unreviewed edits must be explicitly accepted. If an admin/reviewer edits on top of an unreviewed edit, their new edit will also be unreviewed. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:14, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

   Ok, I missunderstood how it works, I have only made a few changes to pending pages. But part of my point still stands, there are too many people who don't want/need the right to edit templates, who already have the reviewer right. Templates have been moved to the core of wikipedia, and it is too easy to break them.86.25.24.66 (talk) 22:53, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

3. This is a weak oppose, not an adamant one. Mainly, I'm concerned that the reviewer right has been given out too freely, so that this would open up template editing to quite a few users who shouldn't be doing it. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:28, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
4. Reviewing PC articles and editing high-risk templates are quite different activities and shouldn't be lumped together. A good article reviewer might be a terrible template editor, etc. — This, that and the other (talk) 00:00, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
5. Strong oppose: At first thought I actually liked this idea but the more I think about it I have to oppose. First I have a minor worry that the editors that are best for editing protected templates and reviewers are not necessarily the same group of people. Furthermore, it seems that template specific sandboxes are a better staging point for potential changes then having them sit as pending changes on the template itself. At least with sandboxes, the effect of the desired changes can be seen on the test subpages. Not sure how PC2 would act with testcases. Seems like it might make it more work! "Okay someone has a pending change... let's start by copying the template over to the sandbox to see what it looks like in the testcases. Oh I probably should fix this when I'm them... Okay testcases looks good now lets copy everything back to the real template." I worry that PC-2 will encourage bad template practice. Template development for heavily used cases ( which are the ones that would normally be protected ) should be done with sandboxes and testcases, not just drycoding stuff directly into the final template. PaleAqua (talk) 04:02, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
6. Nooooo! Here comes PC2 sneaking up on us yet again, after being decisively rejected last year (and proposed repeatedly since). If we're going to make major changes to the policy on pending changes, let's give it a full year from the date that it was implemented to actually provide a chance to assess it, and then let's give it its own RfC and not tack it on to a different proposal as an afterthought. Besides, Beeblebrox's oppose to the main proposal on this page was, I thought, sound (it gave me pause and made me rethink supporting, anyway), and very similar reasoning can be used to show this counterproposal as unnecessary. Rivertorch (talk) 07:43, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
7. Oppose per Rivertorch and PaleAqua. Templates are not broken by vandals - they're broken by accident. There's nothing in the magic reviewer flag to make an editor any better or worse at spotting or avoiding bugs. Protecting the template is not a way of saying "only admins know how to edit it" - it is a way of insisting that every user working on the template set up his own proofs on some other page that the new version works before an executive decision is made, and when that decision is made it is not by one individual quickly deciding on a yes or no, but at least potentially by a threaded discussion in which a series of initial refusals does not equal an 'edit war'. Wnt (talk) 13:02, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
8. Oppose I'm still not convinced of the need. And with pending changes still controversial, I'm not sure it's the time to glom this onto that.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:29, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
9. Oppose Wnt hit the nail on the head. This is the wrong solution to the wrong problem. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:37, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
10. Oppose. The sandbox-test-discuss-edit cycle works well for template editing, and using pending changes would get in the way of that. Plus, I don't think this would be a good idea from a technical point of view. For pages protected with pending changes, logged-in editors are always shown the most recent version even if it hasn't yet been accepted. If we used PC2 for templates, that would mean all of the transclusions would have to be updated every time an editor made an edit to the page, and all logged-in editors would see any mistakes that resulted from it. Each edit to the template would also put a strain on the job queue, and that doesn't happen if the edits are made to a sandbox instead. At the moment it isn't technically possible to use pending changes in the template namespace, and I suspect that whoever set PC up on this wiki had a good reason for doing it that way. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 18:22, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

    I'm worried that my point about the technical issues might not have come across too clearly, so let me be more concrete. Take, for example, Template:Location map. This template produces a map with a location marker, and it is used in 150,000 pages, mostly in the infoboxes of countries, cities, and other locations. It isn't protected with cascading protection, so it would be eligible for PC2 protection under this proposal. Now, let's say that this page was protected with PC2, and an IP came along and replaced the template code with [[File:Penis parts.png|1000px]]. This image is not in the bad image list, so it can be shown on any page. So straight after the IP's edit, a 1000-pixel version of this image would be visible to all logged-in users on all of the 150,000 pages the template is transcluded on. It wouldn't be visible to readers or IP editors unless the edit was approved, but it would result in a huge amount of disruption for registered editors.

    Meanwhile, the IP's edit would mean that the servers have to update all of the 150,000 pages that use the template, even though the changes wouldn't be visible to readers. We have recently had outages because the job queue couldn't cope with the demands placed on it. That pressure may be eased when the new implementation of the job queue comes into effect, but even so, using PC2 for templates would cause work for the servers that really isn't necessary. This hypothetical IP edit would be presenting the servers with a queue of 150,000 articles to update, but the edit would only be reverted. And then the revert itself would present the servers with another queue of 150,000 articles to update, making a maximum possible total of 300,000 articles for the servers to process unnecessarily. All this work for the servers is avoided by the current system of full protection, sandboxes, and edit requests. To sum up, this proposal would be a technical nightmare and would have a large risk of disruption to editors, and I believe we would be foolish to implement it. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 14:19, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

11. Oppose NO NO NO noway should we use PC2 and even if we could considers this it needs to be done in its own RFC not tacked onto another RFC as its listed here.--Dcheagle • talk • contribs 18:28, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
12. Oppose as per various arguments further up.--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:48, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
13. Oppose - Personally, I dislike PC1 (I really don't see the point of it, and it's more confusing than the proper protection procedures), and given the furore around PC2, this won't work. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 16:27, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
14. Oppose per Wnt. INeverCry 19:31, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
15. Oppose. - Let trusted editors edit protected pages, if they misuse the right, it will be quickly removed. GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:30, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
16. Oppose. - Not seeing the necessity for this. The only pages I've come across that were locked up were in the middle of edit wars, & should have been. If you want this, become an Admin. If you see something that really needs fixing & can't wait (& from some of the long-lasting mistakes & outright crap I've seen, I have trouble imagining that degree of urgency), put in a request for somebody who can fix it. As others have said, this is begging for trouble. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 03:31, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
17. Weak Oppose since all reviewers need not be expert in complex template coding. At least I am not.- Jayadevp13 12:38, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
18. Oppose - Great idea, but unfortunately PC2 doesn't do exactly what we need for this purpose, per Mr. Stradivarius' explanation above. ‑Scottywong| spout _ 21:48, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
19. Oppose as per Mr. Stradivarius. LukeSurl ^{t c} 23:23, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
20. Oppose Complicated and incomplete, not to mention no consensus for its use at all. -- Avi (talk) 00:04, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
21. Oppose (tentative) per Rivertorch and PaleAqua. Mr T^{(Talk?) (New thread?)} 13:38, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
22. Oppose. I can't see how PC2 would work for this, and I am unhappy about piggybacking this onto the original RfC. Espresso Addict (talk) 15:22, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
23. Oppose (with regard to templates and editnotices only) Heavily used templates are just too dangerous to allow anyone with the reviewer right to start messing with them. If unbundled from adminship, editprotected needs to be a user group unto itself, so that we can properly evaluate whether the candidate can be trusted with the specific privilege in question. This may also be technically unworkable, if PC does not stop unreviewed revisions from being transcluded or substituted. Admins who assigned reviewer privileges to users did not contemplate that, by so doing, they would give the users the ability to vandalize > 10,000 pages in one fell swoop. There are certainly non-admins who can be trusted with editprotected, but it requires a much higher level of scrutiny than the reviewer right. I would, however, support using PC2 for BLPs which would otherwise require full protection. As important as BLPs are, a bad reviewer could only vandalize them one at a time, and would quickly be reverted and blocked. I don't believe that someone would edit for months to get the reviewer right, just so they could vandalize a couple of PC2 BLPs for a few minutes before being banned. Editprotected allows someone to vandalize all BLPs with a single edit, and needs to be handed out much more sparingly. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 16:24, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

    What template is on every BLP? Gigs (talk) 18:26, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

24. Oppose. Either go through RfA or find other things to do. Kingturtle = (talk) 19:09, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
25. Oppose for lots of reasons, not least the feeling that this needs proper discussion because of the community's views on Pending Changes, and this feels like an idea tacked-on to another discussion. --Dweller (talk) 20:10, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
26. Oppose Adminship should be the bare minimum requirement for editing protected pages. This feels forced just because there are less successful RFAs than years past. I will never support this. Agent Vodello^{OK, Let's Party, Darling!} 22:49, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
27. Oppose If it's not broke, don't fix it. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 22:58, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
28. Weak Oppose Unless the issue Mr. Stradivarius brings up with when changes are seen by logged in members is addressed, I cannot see this working considering how low the bar for auto-confirmed editors all while protected pages especially templates are critical to the system. Mkdw^talk 23:25, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Neutral using PC2

1. Neutral: Currently neutral to see replies of 86.25.24.66's oppose! --Tito Dutta (contact) 21:59, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Discussion of using PC2

Interaction of Wikipedia user groups and page protection levels

	Unregistered or newly registered	Confirmed or autoconfirmed	Extended confirmed	Template editor	Admin	Interface admin	Appropriate for (See also: Wikipedia:Protection policy)
No protection	Normal editing						The vast majority of pages. This is the default protection level.
Pending changes	All users can edit Edits by unregistered or new editors (and any subsequent edits by anyone) are hidden from readers who are not logged in, until reviewed by a pending changes reviewer or admin. Logged-in editors see all edits, whether accepted or not.						Infrequently edited pages with high levels of vandalism, BLP violations, edit-warring, or other disruption from unregistered and new users.
Semi	Cannot edit	Normal editing					Pages that have been persistently vandalized by anonymous and registered users. Some highly visible templates and modules.
Extended confirmed	Cannot edit		Normal editing*				Specific topic areas authorized by ArbCom, pages where semi-protection has failed, or high-risk templates where template protection would be too restrictive.
Template	Cannot edit			Normal editing			High-risk or very-frequently used templates and modules. Some high-risk pages outside of template space.
Full	Cannot edit				Normal editing		Pages with persistent disruption from extended confirmed accounts. Critical templates and modules.
Interface	Cannot edit					Normal editing	Scripts, stylesheets, and similar objects central to operation of the site or that are in other editors' user spaces.
* In order to edit through extended confirmed protection, a template editor must also be extended confirmed, but in practice this is almost always the case. Other modes of protection: Create protection Move protection Upload protection Office protection Cascade protection

I'm not seeing how this helps? The only thing that seems to change is it increases the workload of reviewers that would now have to review edits on PCl2 articles by autoconfirmed and confirmed editors that they previously didn't have to. Am I missing something or misunderstanding the proposal? Technical 13 (talk) 3:23 pm, Today (UTC−4)

This way, anyone would be able to edit high-risk templates, reducing the workload of admins who know intricate wiki syntax. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:34, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

PC2 would replace full protection for high use templates. Users who wish to edit those templates regularly would apply for the reviewer right if they don't already have it. So this would reduce the number of protected edit requests while still preventing vandalism as any non-reviewer edits would be held for review. Three months in to the redployment of pending changes significant backlogs have yet to surface although they were widely predicted. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:35, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Ah-ha... Beeblebrox's explanation makes sense. It is a replacement for full protection on the majority of those templates. It reduces requests from editors to administrators to edit these templates, but increases the backlog for reviewers. What about the comment below that says it can't be used in Template:? Technical 13 (talk) 19:42, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

• I'm impartial about the fact of adding a new user right. I had an RfC planned for the use of PC2 that I wanted to run after this one, but Beeblebrox beat me to it. The current problem with this is that it's technically impossible to PC2 a template as the software doesn't allow for it. I also seem to recall the devs refusing to put more development into this feature. Other than that, I wouldn't be opposed to using PC2 protection on templates.
• By adding the word "instead" to this proposal, you have disallowed any votes from those who might find the original proposal and the alternate both to be acceptable. As written, only those who oppose the original proposal can vote on the alternative proposal. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:33, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

  Not really. "Instead" is just stating a fact; either full protection or PC2 can be used, not both. For example, a voter might support two different candidates for president, even though only one of them can win. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:36, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

  Yes, really. :) Imagine that you are faced with four candidates for US president; , Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Aaron Burr, and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. Only one can become president. You think that either Adams or Jefferson would be good choices. Someone asks you, "Jefferson: support or oppose?" and you vote "Support." Then someone else asks you "Adams instead of Jefferson: support or oppose?" how would you vote? --Guy Macon (talk) 19:52, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

  The proof is in the pudding. I supported the original proposal, and I supported here as well. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:56, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

  Put yourself in the closer's position. Confusion reigns. Having said that, this sounds like a neater solution all round. Leaky Caldron 20:11, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

• We currently have 855 active sysops, of which about 700 are active. We have 7,991 reviewers, of which I guess a hundred at most will have an interest in editing high visibility templates. Is it really a good idea to allow that many WP:IDIOTs that level of access when they will not want or need it. 86.25.24.66 (talk) 20:50, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

• Well, historically, admins screwed up like the example in WP:IDIOT tells us. Any admin can break any highly-visible template and not even mean to, just because they were gone for a while and don't understand the code. We trust them not to do that. We trust reviewers to not allow potentially harmful material to be added as well and to keep their hands off if they are not able to determine an edit's validity. So why not trust them to keep their hands off templates they don't understand as well? Regards SoWhy 21:54, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

• To address many of the opposers, who feel that being a reviewer has nothing to do with knowing how to edit templates, how about introducing PC3, where only admins can review edits? Wouldn't require the creation of a new class of users, just added on to the admin toolset and nothing else. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:13, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Is there a table like above for PC3? I understand things better with visualizations. Technical 13 (talk) 14:34, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

    Just imagine a new row in the table, where "Unregistered, New," "Autoconfirmed, Confirmed," and "Reviewer" are all yellow and say "can edit; changes will go live after being accepted by a reviewer," and "Administrator" is green and says "can edit; changes go live immediately; can accept pending changes." If semi-protection is also used on top of PC3, then "Unregistered, New" is red and says "cannot edit," "Autoconfirmed, Confirmed" and "Reviewer" are both yellow and say "can edit; changes will go live after being accepted by a reviewer," and "Administrator" is green and says "can edit; changes go live immediately; can accept pending changes." -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 20:08, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Procedural concerns

Some of the opponents said that the PC2 proposal should not be piggybacked on the PPE proposal, and not be presented so shortly after it already failed on its own. These argument seem very valid to me. While I support the proposal based on how I see its merits, I would understand if the closing admin rejected it for this reason, especially if significantly fewer people voted this time than previously. — Sebastian 06:26, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Merely adding the question had a spoiler effect on the main question, and the addition of the words "instead of" reinforced the effect. I am sure that this was not intentional, but as a it did appear to bias the results. The additional question was posted at 18:55 on 5 April 2013. If you look at the votes before and after the additional question was posted, you see:

Before: 43 support (1-43), 20 oppose (1-20) = 68.3% support

After: 26 support (44-70), 24 oppose (21-45) = 52.0% support

I would also note that oppose vote #21 explicitly says that it was influenced by the added question.

Also see: Strategic nomination. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:04, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Until two more closers sign on (notice is up at WP:AN), I'll just say: noted. (And btw, I'll be deferring to the other two on PC2 stuff.) - Dank (push to talk) 14:10, 7 April 2013 (UTC) For a close in early May, I mean. - Dank (push to talk) 16:24, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Unless someone beats me to it, I will update the above numbers after it closes. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:48, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

• I guess i should comment here since I did it. As you can see from my comments opposing the new user right, I don't think this is the sort of huge, overwhelming problem that I would expect to see as justification of a whole new class of users with the power to edit through properly placed full protection at any time. So, I proposed a simpler solution using tools we already have. And frankly I could not object more strongly to the removal of "instead" from the proposal, since that is in fact what I proposed. They are mutually exlusive options. If we use PC2 only on curently full-protected templates and grant reviewr status to any responsible user who asks for it for that purpose, there is no need to create the new userright.

As to the recent rejection of PC2, I did not follow that saga too closeley, but if I recall it was related to using it against one specific banned user. This would not be in that vein at all, vandalism is not in the mix here so I see at a total re-purposing of what PC2 would be used for, not another attempt to use it n ways the community recently rejected. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:58, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

• Two comments. First, from your point of view instead was an okay word to use but from a neutral point, instead was an attempt to "sabotage" (forgive me for not having found a better word) the original proposal. I'm not saying you're trying to sabotage the proposal and I know you wouldn't try. Which brings me to point 2. PC2 would also need dev development to implement on Templates. That being said, the devs stated that they have no more intentions of tinkering with PC (I don't remember where I saw that but I do remember seeing it). Also, by reducing everything to PC2 with our current reviewers, that would be like handing PPE to all of those reviewers to edit fully protected pages. I see a great big red flag here. Either way, both proposals require the same amount of dev development to MediaWiki to implement.—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 11:04, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

• The difference in the two numbers cannot be wholly attributed to a spoiler effect. Your people who are most passionately devoted to the proposal are going to show up and !vote on it first. The roughly 50/50 later support may merely indicate that people who don't have a dog in this fight but saw the site notice are evenly split. I can say of my own !vote that it had nothing to do with the alternate proposal and I am wholly opposed to this right and believe it will result in more problems/fights over protected articles. --B (talk) 22:35, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

• That's a very good point. I would like to crunch some numbers on a couple of similar RfCs and see if the effect described can be found. Does anyone have any suggestions for RfCs that got site notices and a lot of votes? --Guy Macon (talk) 21:36, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Should only be granted by bureaucrats

I suggest that this new group only be assignable by bureaucrats, since it pertains to a traditional element of the admin toolkit, which could be used by a malefactor to quickly create massive vandalism. Otherwise, we will end up raising the bar at RFA for full adminship. For technical reasons and simplicity it might be easier to only allow bureaucrats to remove the right. Admins needing to quickly revoke editprotected on an emergency basis could still block users holding the right, pending review of the situation by a bureaucrat. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 16:34, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

The assumption behind your suggestion appears to be that all non-admins are malefactors. An interesting insight. Malleus Fatuorum 16:51, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Note on PC2 consensus

As someone who was involved with the PC stuff pretty heavily, I have to say there seems to be a misconception among the opposition to the present proposal that PC2 was rejected soundly in the past. The main discussion was at Wikipedia:PC2012/RfC_1, which was closed with a weak "default to no consensus to use for the time being". There was absolutely not a consensus against ever using PC2. The closer even mentions that we probably should revisit the issue after PC1 had been out for 3-6 months, which would be right around now. Gigs (talk) 18:33, 9 April 2013 (UTC)