Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-12-19/Semi-protection

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Semi-protection

Semi-protection policy passes

After a

semi-protection policy
is set to be enacted once the MediaWiki software is updated to allow it.

The idea for a semi-protection policy had been brought up previously. Bug 675, started by Elian in October 2004, proposed protecting pages from IP addresses only. Mysekurity first created the policy page last month, in response to vandalism on George W. Bush. The original idea was to require a minimal amount of edits in order to edit oft-vandalized pages. However, the policy as enacted would allow administrators to lock pages to the newest users, likely the newest 1% of accounts.

It was stressed that the policy is not meant to be used indefinitely. Rather, it would be used in cases such as articles linked from high-traffic sites like

stable versions
of articles.