| Forums: War Room → Safeguarding Mainspace Templates and Categories | 
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In lieu of edits like these, I am suggesting (as per Natsu's request as well) to protect our canon template and category pages such that new/unregistered users cannot edit them. Likely a very new user would not need to be making such edits, anyway - or would lack the understanding required to be touching said templates/categories. This does not block all users (likely, those of you who are reading this) from editing the them however. One major downside of not performing this, is that template and category edits do not show up in wiki activity, and thus are missed when vandalism occurs (unless using "RecentChanges"). Vulmen (talk • contribs) 17:44, August 20, 2011 (UTC)
- Well, I see your point. But personally, I don't agree. I don't think that one vandal would warrant protection of all templates. VJavatar The Last Wikibender(AR)
17:51, August 20, 2011 (UTC)
- This is simply the last example I'd seen, not the only occurrence. There was an "expert vandal" (supposedly) that knew this and came on here specifically targeting templates/categories, so nobody would see he was doing it. Naturally he got caught. But this isn't the only example. Again though, when do we see anonymous users/new users editing these mainspace categories/templates? For the most part, we do not want them to change at all, as they are already complete and used across numerous articles. Any changes made to them should already go through a forum discussion. Vulmen (talk • contribs) 18:02, August 20, 2011 (UTC)
- Well, If you think it needed. But I will only support a semi-protection. They less fully protected pages the better. VJavatar The Last Wikibender(AR) 18:53, August 20, 2011 (UTC)
- Well, if someone is a new user, that doesn't mean they don't know what they're doing. We've had new users join with previous wiki experience elsewhere and I don't see why they shouldn't be able to edit the templates like anybody else. As for the expert vandal scenario, I've only seen it happen once every few months and while we can't see the changes in recent changes, they soon become obvious. Then once the vandals account is found, all their other contributions are available and their "game" is over. I don't see the benefit in this protection. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon)
19:48, August 20, 2011 (UTC)
- Well, if someone is a new user, that doesn't mean they don't know what they're doing. We've had new users join with previous wiki experience elsewhere and I don't see why they shouldn't be able to edit the templates like anybody else. As for the expert vandal scenario, I've only seen it happen once every few months and while we can't see the changes in recent changes, they soon become obvious. Then once the vandals account is found, all their other contributions are available and their "game" is over. I don't see the benefit in this protection. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon)
- Well, If you think it needed. But I will only support a semi-protection. They less fully protected pages the better. VJavatar The Last Wikibender(AR)
- This is simply the last example I'd seen, not the only occurrence. There was an "expert vandal" (supposedly) that knew this and came on here specifically targeting templates/categories, so nobody would see he was doing it. Naturally he got caught. But this isn't the only example. Again though, when do we see anonymous users/new users editing these mainspace categories/templates? For the most part, we do not want them to change at all, as they are already complete and used across numerous articles. Any changes made to them should already go through a forum discussion. Vulmen (talk • contribs) 18:02, August 20, 2011 (UTC)
At least protecting them from edits by unregistered and non-autoconfirmed users is reasonable, I mean, why would they need to edit those pages? I think all mainspace templates should be protected to that level. Rassilon of Old (Talk - Teru - Help) 23:47, August 20, 2011 (UTC)
I agree. If we were to revert vandalism every time it surfaces, be it occasionally or not, why not take a step to protect it in one shot? With it, we should be able to discourage current/future vandals from performing such unconstructive edits again, and perhaps to other wiki-related pages as well. Semi-protection should do it (against anyone below auto-confirmed level). AvaFan MsgMe 06:24, August 21, 2011 (UTC)
- I agree, but only autoconfirmed protection/semi-protection should be applied. I highly doubt unregistered users will know about what templates are in the first place. Talking about good users from other wikis, they can simply ask/tell another user for the fix, which will be done by the user here. Also, we are only protecting templates with high usage, like the {{oa}}, infoboxes (some, not all), and maybe the notice templates. – Natsu11 · (wall • Nanatsu no Taizai) 06:38, August 21, 2011 (UTC)