[WikiEN-l] Re: semi-permanent protection of (very) contentious

If we start getting a lot of pages that are protected for this reason, I am afraid we will see creative bad behavior that it intended to bypass this protection. In order not to stimulate such behavior I will not give examples of some possibilities that occur to me. Just as we make reversions easier for sysops, but not impossible for regular users... and just as some shareware does not require payment, but has an annoying countdown timer and delay before the program starts if you have not paid... I suggest we ask the developers for a way to "soft-protect" pages. A "soft-protected" page could be edited by anyone, but would require some annoying, time-consuming and (wishful thinking) thought-provoking steps to be performed first. For example, if you get to a soft-protected page by any usual route and click "edit this page," it might take you to a screen that explains that the subject is contentious. The only option to proceed takes you, not to the article's Edit box, but to the article's Talk page. From the Talk page there would be the usual link to the article, but it would carry some special tag in the URL such that clicking on the article's Edit links _when reached via this route_ would allow you to edit as usual. Or something like that. "Slow down, fella, let's talk this over," instead of "admission to authorized personnel only."