Erik Moeller wrote:
Today I decided to analyze in more detail to what extent articles across Wikipedias remain protected for long periods of time. The report is at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Longest_page_protections%2C_September_2005
(To developers: The script I used is 'logprot.pl' in my home directory. It may be desirable to make this available as a special page, if someone can figure out a way to make the query scale.)
It shows all pages in all language Wikipedias that have been protected for more than 14 days. Note that, by the time you look at it, some of the pages in it may have been unprotected already.
The Wikipedias with the most such protected pages are (article rank in parentheses):
German - 253 (2) Japanese - 165 (4) English - 138 (1) Italian - 19 (5) French - 15 (3) Spanish - 13 (10)
This confirms my intuition that long term page protection is used excessively on the German Wikipedia. It is quite striking that many, many controversial articles have been protected for months. For example, articles about veganism, sex, democracy, abortion, astrology, Karlheinz Deschner (famous atheist writer), Silvio Gesell (controversial economist) and his Freiwirtschaft theory, Gorleben (controversial nuclear waste disposal site), and Egon Krenz (East German politician) have been protected since July. Articles about child sexual abuse and pedophilia have been protected since April 2005 and March 2005, respectively. Notably, in the child sexual abuse case, the article was also cut down from 54,000 characters to 2,000 before being protected, making it effectively useless -- a rather drastic measure to deal with ongoing controversies.
The longest protected articles appear to be related to German student corporations. The record holder is [[de:Schmiss]], which has been protected since January after a neutrality dispute.
Perhaps ironically, even the article about Wikipedia itself has been protected since August 25.
Note that the local policy on protection, at http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Seitensperrung and http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administratoren , is not unusal and recommends only short protections except for very high exposure pages like the Main Page, or unimportant pages like redirects which are frequently vandalized. This raises the question why no bold admin has unprotected these articles yet.
I cannot say anything about the protection patterns on the Japanese Wikipedia, which is the only one which stands out besides English and German. The long term protections on the English Wikipedia appear to be mostly accidental. When someone notices that a page has been protected for very long, it is generally quickly unprotected.
Across languages, possibly with the exception of Japanese, the German Wikipedia is alone in the pattern of locking down controversial articles for months. Protected articles also seem to not be tagged as such, so that visitors do not see a reason for the protection on the page (a visible marker might also encourage sysops to unprotect the page).
One immediate effect, besides stagnation, is that sysops become far more relevant in the power structure, as they are the only ones who can add information to articles after protection. Instead of being janitors, they become editors. This, I believe, must have social repercussions beyond the articles concerned.
I can see three immediate ways to address the issue, by increasing complexity:
- limit protections by policy
- add an automated or template-based visible marker to protections in
the article namespace
- add an "expiry" feature for page protection similar to blocks
I am merely reporting this issue and will leave it to others to deal with.
Best,
Erik
Interesting...
One point which does not seem factual to me in your report, but possibly only an interpretation is
"> One immediate effect, besides stagnation, is that sysops become far more
relevant in the power structure, as they are the only ones who can add information to articles after protection. Instead of being janitors, they become editors. This, I believe, must have social repercussions beyond the articles concerned."
This is only true if there is no social norm forbidding a sysop to edit a protected page. At least, on the english and french wikipedia, I do think the rule of no-edit on a protected page exist. Maybe not on all projects ? Can you from your data gather such an information ? I mean, are there situations when a long-protected article actually grow and evolve during the protection ?
Ant
On 9/14/05, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
This is only true if there is no social norm forbidding a sysop to edit a protected page. At least, on the english and french wikipedia, I do think the rule of no-edit on a protected page exist. Maybe not on all projects ? Can you from your data gather such an information ? I mean, are there situations when a long-protected article actually grow and evolve during the protection ?
As far as I understand, an admin can edit the article if there is a rough consensus to do so on the talk page.
Anthere wrote:
This is only true if there is no social norm forbidding a sysop to edit a protected page. At least, on the english and french wikipedia, I do think the rule of no-edit on a protected page exist.
Can't speak for Fr, but at least on En, sysops are allowed -- almost even encouraged -- to make minor edits to protected articles that are likely uncontroversial. Spelling corrections are a very obvious form of this, but edits can easily go a lot further. This isn't much of a problem on En because the community of sysops is vastly multi-cultural and of such varying opinions that even slightly significant edits are likely to spark controversy and are therefore avoided.
On De, however, I perceive a much more homogenous distribution of opinions among the sysops. Since it was a sysop who made the edit, and since sysops are trusted users, the edit was probably trustworthy. Since there are often no other sysops disputing/opposing the edit, it doesn't matter that the edit was of a much greater significance/magnitude than some edits that spark violent edit wars. This (among many many other things) encourages existing sysops to make sure the community of sysops remains broadly like-minded, and this in turn encourages the view that dissenting non-sysop editors are just vandals, and encourages the sysops to keep the page protected. Hence, as Erik said, "sysops become far more relevant in the power structure" and "instead of being janitors, they become editors".
Timwi
On De, however, I perceive a much more homogenous distribution of opinions among the sysops. Since it was a sysop who made the edit, and since sysops are trusted users, the edit was probably trustworthy. Since there are often no other sysops disputing/opposing the edit, it doesn't matter that the edit was of a much greater significance/magnitude than some edits that spark violent edit wars. This (among many many other things) encourages existing sysops to make sure the community of sysops remains broadly like-minded, and this in turn encourages the view that dissenting non-sysop editors are just vandals, and encourages the sysops to keep the page protected. Hence, as Erik said, "sysops become far more relevant in the power structure" and "instead of being janitors, they become editors". Timwi
The same can be said of Polish Wikipedia, although here we do not protect as many pages as at de:.
On Wed, Sep 14, 2005 at 08:39:20PM +0200, Pawe³ Dembowski wrote:
On De, however, I perceive a much more homogenous distribution of opinions among the sysops. Since it was a sysop who made the edit, and since sysops are trusted users, the edit was probably trustworthy. Since there are often no other sysops disputing/opposing the edit, it doesn't matter that the edit was of a much greater significance/magnitude than some edits that spark violent edit wars. This (among many many other things) encourages existing sysops to make sure the community of sysops remains broadly like-minded, and this in turn encourages the view that dissenting non-sysop editors are just vandals, and encourages the sysops to keep the page protected. Hence, as Erik said, "sysops become far more relevant in the power structure" and "instead of being janitors, they become editors". Timwi
The same can be said of Polish Wikipedia, although here we do not protect as many pages as at de:.
Come on, Polish sysops being of homogenous opinion ? Just look at the Togo case or Tawbot case ;-)
They're much less likely to get themselves involved in edit wars than English sysops, but that's just about all difference.
Let's just wait for the dump so we can finally find all blocked pages and remove all old blocks.
Come on, Polish sysops being of homogenous opinion ? Just look at the Togo case or Tawbot case ;-)
They're of more homogenous opinion when it comes to page protection or article content - the above cases aren't about that :).
On Wed, Sep 14, 2005 at 11:37:43PM +0200, Pawe³ Dembowski wrote:
Come on, Polish sysops being of homogenous opinion ? Just look at the Togo case or Tawbot case ;-)
They're of more homogenous opinion when it comes to page protection or article content - the above cases aren't about that :).
I don't think so, at the moment nobody even knows which pages have been protected, and many pages have been protected/unprotected so many times it was almost a protection war ;-) Haven't you noticed the "why the * has X been unprotected, +protect" flames on IRC ?
Timwi wrote:
Anthere wrote:
This is only true if there is no social norm forbidding a sysop to edit a protected page. At least, on the english and french wikipedia, I do think the rule of no-edit on a protected page exist.
Can't speak for Fr, but at least on En, sysops are allowed -- almost even encouraged -- to make minor edits to protected articles that are likely uncontroversial. Spelling corrections are a very obvious form of this, but edits can easily go a lot further. This isn't much of a problem on En because the community of sysops is vastly multi-cultural and of such varying opinions that even slightly significant edits are likely to spark controversy and are therefore avoided.
On De, however, I perceive a much more homogenous distribution of opinions among the sysops. Since it was a sysop who made the edit, and since sysops are trusted users, the edit was probably trustworthy. Since there are often no other sysops disputing/opposing the edit, it doesn't matter that the edit was of a much greater significance/magnitude than some edits that spark violent edit wars. This (among many many other things) encourages existing sysops to make sure the community of sysops remains broadly like-minded, and this in turn encourages the view that dissenting non-sysop editors are just vandals, and encourages the sysops to keep the page protected. Hence, as Erik said, "sysops become far more relevant in the power structure" and "instead of being janitors, they become editors".
Timwi
Makes sense...
Could it be possible that certain pages are automatically unprotected after a certain time, while others (such as main page or site notice...) remain protected ? In short, two different types of protection ?
Ant
Anthere:
This is only true if there is no social norm forbidding a sysop to edit a protected page. At least, on the english and french wikipedia, I do think the rule of no-edit on a protected page exist. Maybe not on all projects ? Can you from your data gather such an information ? I mean, are there situations when a long-protected article actually grow and evolve during the protection ?
I can't automatically check it with the current script, though I could theoretically check for each article how many revisions there have been after the protected one. On the German Wikipedia, the general pattern seems to be that the article simply "dies" after the protection, with the exception of a few minor edits by sysops, like these:
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=B%C3%BCrgerrechtsbewegung_Solidari... http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Verlag_Heinz_Heise&diff=676005... http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=P%C3%A4dophilie&diff=6769462&a... http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Erich_Honecker&diff=7926076&am... http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vertreibung&diff=9105694&o... http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Egon_Krenz&diff=6801089&ol...
These are often requested on the talk page, and sysops seem to stay away from controversial edits to protected pages. In that way, I don't think the German Wikipedia is fundamentally different from any other, it's just that the number of pages where sysops have to act as gatekeepers for long periods of time is[*] far larger. Speculating, I think this must give a different impression of the role and importance of sysops to newcomers.
[*] For the record, admins Bdk and APPER have now unprotected many of the affected pages on the German Wikipedia. I'll re-run the script in a week and report the results here.
Erik
IAC, even if policy isnt prohibitive, the number of sysops on any wiki is an extreme reduction in the available pool of edits in open editing. Unless there is some great liberalization in granting sysop trust, which seems to kind of contradict recent discussion about claimed problems with sysop accountability.
Jamie on Mediawiki-l says that there is some code in 1.5 which AIUI might allow for gradations in page protection (sysops, logged-in, anons etc) --or was he talking about an aspect of the validation /confirmed-version method?
SV
--- Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
Anthere:
This is only true if there is no social norm
forbidding a sysop to edit
a protected page. At least, on the english and
french wikipedia, I do
think the rule of no-edit on a protected page
exist. Maybe not on all
projects ? Can you from your data gather such an
information ? I mean,
are there situations when a long-protected article
actually grow and
evolve during the protection ?
I can't automatically check it with the current script, though I could theoretically check for each article how many revisions there have been after the protected one. On the German Wikipedia, the general pattern seems to be that the article simply "dies" after the protection, with the exception of a few minor edits by sysops, like these:
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=B%C3%BCrgerrechtsbewegung_Solidari...
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Verlag_Heinz_Heise&diff=676005...
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=P%C3%A4dophilie&diff=6769462&a...
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Erich_Honecker&diff=7926076&am...
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vertreibung&diff=9105694&o...
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Egon_Krenz&diff=6801089&ol...
These are often requested on the talk page, and sysops seem to stay away from controversial edits to protected pages. In that way, I don't think the German Wikipedia is fundamentally different from any other, it's just that the number of pages where sysops have to act as gatekeepers for long periods of time is[*] far larger. Speculating, I think this must give a different impression of the role and importance of sysops to newcomers.
[*] For the record, admins Bdk and APPER have now unprotected many of the affected pages on the German Wikipedia. I'll re-run the script in a week and report the results here.
Erik _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org
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Speaking of sysop acc'tability.
Currently, policy on most Wikis means that people are only likely to be desysopped if they commit very gross breaches of policy.
Just being generally grumpy, coming close to the line between what's OK and what's not, and other behaviours which are probably not good for a sysop to exhibit, will not usually get you desysopped.
In some cases, you may get desysopped not because you've done anything wrong but because a lynchmob came after you.
Mark
On 14/09/05, steve v vertigosteve@yahoo.com wrote:
IAC, even if policy isnt prohibitive, the number of sysops on any wiki is an extreme reduction in the available pool of edits in open editing. Unless there is some great liberalization in granting sysop trust, which seems to kind of contradict recent discussion about claimed problems with sysop accountability.
Jamie on Mediawiki-l says that there is some code in 1.5 which AIUI might allow for gradations in page protection (sysops, logged-in, anons etc) --or was he talking about an aspect of the validation /confirmed-version method?
SV
--- Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
Anthere:
This is only true if there is no social norm
forbidding a sysop to edit
a protected page. At least, on the english and
french wikipedia, I do
think the rule of no-edit on a protected page
exist. Maybe not on all
projects ? Can you from your data gather such an
information ? I mean,
are there situations when a long-protected article
actually grow and
evolve during the protection ?
I can't automatically check it with the current script, though I could theoretically check for each article how many revisions there have been after the protected one. On the German Wikipedia, the general pattern seems to be that the article simply "dies" after the protection, with the exception of a few minor edits by sysops, like these:
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=B%C3%BCrgerrechtsbewegung_Solidari...
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Verlag_Heinz_Heise&diff=676005...
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=P%C3%A4dophilie&diff=6769462&a...
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Erich_Honecker&diff=7926076&am...
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vertreibung&diff=9105694&o...
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Egon_Krenz&diff=6801089&ol...
These are often requested on the talk page, and sysops seem to stay away from controversial edits to protected pages. In that way, I don't think the German Wikipedia is fundamentally different from any other, it's just that the number of pages where sysops have to act as gatekeepers for long periods of time is[*] far larger. Speculating, I think this must give a different impression of the role and importance of sysops to newcomers.
[*] For the record, admins Bdk and APPER have now unprotected many of the affected pages on the German Wikipedia. I'll re-run the script in a week and report the results here.
Erik _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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