Category talk:Protected deleted categories
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All of these should be changed to red links using the cascading protection option. The status of a "protected deleted category" is currently not obvious when viewing an article that such a category has been inappropriately added to. — CharlotteWebb 00:33, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- The categories here are traversed by a bot which removes any pages that have been added to one of these protected deleted categories. The bot would need to be updated to use whatever list would be created at Wikipedia:Protected titles, and this category with {{deletedpage}} would still be kept for the foreseeable future for several reasons. Other protected deleted pages are being slowly migrated, perhaps eventually by bot, but there is less reason why these categories would need to be under Wikipedia:Protected titles in comparison to the more substantial reasons why pages in the main namespace should have cascading protection. —Centrx→talk • 01:20, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- I disagree, of course. An article is created by posting content all in one location, whereas a category is created by populating it, by editing several articles. I mean, yeah, we have a bot, but it doesn't do much. Somebody adds a bogus category to an article, the bot reverts it. The bot doesn't identify who made the edit, doesn't block the user for disruption, just carries on a potentially large-scale slow-motion revert war without notifying anybody. Casual editors of the article might not even realize there's a problem, as the bad category may be hidden in the middle of the 10-20 other categories listed at the bottom of a high-profile article. And, from a practical standpoint, there might not even be a problem until the wrong person reads the article at the wrong time. While a {{deletedpage}} works perfectly well for an unwanted article, a red link would be much better for an unwanted category, as a human editor will be more likely to spot the red link, realize there is an ongoing problem and quickly put an end to it. Of course, any page can be created at a handful of reasonably similar titles, whether it's an article or a category, so that consideration is equal for both types of pages and thus not a major factor in determining how to handle either situation. — CharlotteWebb 10:14, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- That's a good point. —Centrx→talk • 03:32, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
- For reasons which appear to be unrelated to this, the bot operator RobertG seems to have quit the project (see his final edit). While we can hope he and his bot eventually return, I think this would be a good time to abandon the {{deletedcategory}} method. — CharlotteWebb 16:35, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
- There's no way to abandon it en masse. {{deletedpage}} and its redirect {{deletedcategory}} can and should still be usable, as these are the well-known ways to protect pages, and are much quicker and simpler for the protecting admin. Ultimately, both of these methods are going to be superseded by a technical solution in the MediaWiki software for protecting deleted pages. —Centrx→talk • 18:36, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
- I thought cascading protection was the long-awaited technical solution to this issue. — CharlotteWebb 06:29, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
- Protected titles was just a happy unexpected effect of cascading protection. I don't think it was even remotely intentional, and it requires some template gymnastics to pull off (see Template:Protected title). The purpose of cascading protection was so that, template vandalism does not circumvent the protection of a page on which the template is transcluded, and was motivated in large part by a series of incidents in which grossly vulgar images appeared on the Main Page because of vandalism to unprotected templates that were transcluded there. —Centrx→talk • 06:45, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
- I thought cascading protection was the long-awaited technical solution to this issue. — CharlotteWebb 06:29, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
- There's no way to abandon it en masse. {{deletedpage}} and its redirect {{deletedcategory}} can and should still be usable, as these are the well-known ways to protect pages, and are much quicker and simpler for the protecting admin. Ultimately, both of these methods are going to be superseded by a technical solution in the MediaWiki software for protecting deleted pages. —Centrx→talk • 18:36, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
- For reasons which appear to be unrelated to this, the bot operator RobertG seems to have quit the project (see his final edit). While we can hope he and his bot eventually return, I think this would be a good time to abandon the {{deletedcategory}} method. — CharlotteWebb 16:35, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
- That's a good point. —Centrx→talk • 03:32, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
- I disagree, of course. An article is created by posting content all in one location, whereas a category is created by populating it, by editing several articles. I mean, yeah, we have a bot, but it doesn't do much. Somebody adds a bogus category to an article, the bot reverts it. The bot doesn't identify who made the edit, doesn't block the user for disruption, just carries on a potentially large-scale slow-motion revert war without notifying anybody. Casual editors of the article might not even realize there's a problem, as the bad category may be hidden in the middle of the 10-20 other categories listed at the bottom of a high-profile article. And, from a practical standpoint, there might not even be a problem until the wrong person reads the article at the wrong time. While a {{deletedpage}} works perfectly well for an unwanted article, a red link would be much better for an unwanted category, as a human editor will be more likely to spot the red link, realize there is an ongoing problem and quickly put an end to it. Of course, any page can be created at a handful of reasonably similar titles, whether it's an article or a category, so that consideration is equal for both types of pages and thus not a major factor in determining how to handle either situation. — CharlotteWebb 10:14, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
