Memory Alpha:Protection policy

Administrators have the ability to "protect" pages so that editing and/or moving them is restricted. This ability is only to be used in limited circumstances as protecting pages is considered harmful.


 * See Help:Protect a page for the existing modes of page protection.

Summary

 * 1) Keep the length and level of protection to a minimum. Do not protect more than necessary.
 * 2) Do not protect a page if you are involved in the process that makes protection necessary in the first place.
 * 3) Add a reason for protection. Reason needs to be valid according to this policy.
 * 4) Do not edit a temporarily protected page. If you have to edit one, stop if asked to.

Protecting pages
In general, administrators should not protect pages which they have edited in the past (this includes discussing the article on the talk page). Administrator powers are not editor privileges – administrators are simply representatives of the community of contributors as a whole. If an administrator is involved with a page and wants that page protected, he should contact another administrator to do it for him.

Because wiki pages are supposed to be open to everyone, it's best to leave pages protected for as short a time as possible. Make use of the "expiry" feature when protecting a page – a temporary protection should not exceed one month at a time. Most often, protecting for a week will be enough. Also, consider if it might be enough to block unregistered users only.

The temporary protection of a page might be necessary under the following circumstances:
 * Enforcing a "cool down" period to stop an "edit war", upon request.
 * Protecting a page that has been a recent target of persistent vandalism or persistent edits by a banned user.
 * Preventing changes to a page while investigating a possible bug in the MediaWiki software.

Note that the protection of any particular version of a page is not intended to show support for that version. Talk pages should never be protected.

Exception: Permanent protection
Some elements are allowed to be protected permanently, so that they can only be edited by administrators. This includes:
 * Protecting pages to prevent vandalism.
 * The Main Page is protected so only registered users can edit it. Content that is visible on the main page for a short period of time only should only be protected temporarily. Make use of the "expiry" feature!
 * Protecting pages to enforce MA policy.
 * Pages like Memory Alpha:Nominations for featured articles are protected so only registered users can edit it, to enforce compliance with the policy that only registered users can vote for featured articles.
 * Protecting certain "system administration" pages.
 * Maintaining the integrity of templates, like the copyright and license pages.

Editing protected pages
The policy concerning the editing of protected pages does not apply to the permanently-protected pages. For pages that are only temporarily protected, administrators should never edit the page. Editing the page would constitute an imbalance in privileges between the administrators and the general community. Instead, discuss potential changes on the talk page first, and only make those changes when the page is no longer protected (Discussing potential changes to permanently-protected pages on the talk page first is also a good idea in certain cases).

The only cases in which an administrator may make changes to a temporarily-protected page are when he is adding a boilerplate message or other, similar notice.

Protected pages
A complete list of currently protected pages can be found at Special:Protectedpages. Reasons for protecting an individual page can be found in the protection log, which can be accessed via Special:Log.

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