Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-12-26/Semi-protection

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Semi-protection policy enabled

By Ral315, 26 December 2005

A new layer of protection, labeled "semi-protection", has been enabled. The protection, meant to stop vandalism from IP addresses and newly created accounts, has met wide usage.

Last week, the semi-protection policy became official policy, after a nearly unanimous straw poll, and the approval of Jimbo Wales (see archived story). On December 22, brion enabled semi-protection, and installed a new protection interface (left).

When a page is semi-protected, it cannot be edited by IP addresses, or by accounts younger than about 4 days old. As a result, semi-protection has proved very popular on high-visibility pages, including George W. Bush and John Kerry, where it was immediately applied to test the effectiveness of semi-protection on highly-vandalized articles. There was significantly less vandalism on the articles, though some editors worried about whether the trend would continue long-term.

About 30 articles are currently semi-protected. Woohookitty, an administrator who supported the policy, said that the number of semi-protected articles would likely stabilize at around 40.

Also this week: Semi-protection — ArbCom update — Steward elections — Wiki tools — News and notes — Press coverage — Features and admins — B.R.I.O.N. — T.R.O.L.L.