UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard/Archives/Archive Protection

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Archive Protection?

This is something that happens every so often and, whilst it's not a serious problem, I'd rather months-old discussions weren't re-opened unnecessarily. What would you say to putting full protection on archive pages whenever they are created and adding it to the ones that already exist? I'm not hugely bothered one way or the other but it's a thought I just had so I thought I'd bring it up here. Thoughts? –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 17:05, 29 April 2008 (EDT)

I think that would be more trouble than it is worth. --Ratwar 17:28, 29 April 2008 (EDT)

Umm... I'd have hoped for a bit more feedback than that. All it would mean is clicking about four more buttons when archiving a page. I can see objections in that it would be overprotective but in terms of work, I don't see a problem. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 18:27, 29 April 2008 (EDT)

I was talking about the work that would be needed for any editor to change the categories on the article or the even create archives. I don't think either of these is necessarily administrator tasks (though we often end up doing them). If we protect them, then people need to talk to an administrator every time they wish to do something with the archives. I see no huge advantage to protecting them, and at least a bit of hassle associated with it. --Ratwar 18:58, 29 April 2008 (EDT)

I'd have to say no as well - there are times when someone might need to re-open an older discussion, and it shouldn't be impossible to do so. Of course, the appropriate action would probably be to move the dicussion back onto the main page instead of continuing the discussion on an archive page. Protecting the archive pages essentially implies that the conclusions of those discussions are now immutable laws, set in stone for all eternity. When in fact, it's entirely possible for new issues to crop up related to those old discussions, which would warrant a re-examination of their results. While I mostly agree that dragging skeletons out of the closet is not usually a good idea, there are times when it makes sense to do so, and I don't think we need to completely disallow that in all cases. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 19:02, 29 April 2008 (EDT)

Okay, good points... but we already have warnings at the top of some pages such as this and this. I'd thought that our policy was to disallow edits on archive pages; certainly I've reverted edits on that basis in the past. I'm not trying to shut down older discussions - perhaps a link to the latest talk page on an archive notice would help here? I'm trying to work out what people think should happen and how that relates to what has already happened. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 19:21, 29 April 2008 (EDT)

I don't think we want editors posting to archives; if an editor wants to reopen an old discussion it should be done on the active talk page, with a link to the old discussion or a copy of some of its contents. Nevertheless, I'm not sure that adding protection to archive pages is appropriate. It is an additional step that has to be done by an administrator (two steps in fact: clicking the "protect" tab and adding the appropriate category to the page). It's not a huge amount of work. But on the other hand, it's also not a huge amount of work to click "undo" when an edit is made, and undoing is something that can be done by any editor. Also, there are times when edits need to be made to archives, in particular when pages are moved or links need to be updated. I'd prefer not to turn those tasks into admin-only tasks.

Overall, it doesn't seem like it fits with the existing Protection Policy, and my guess is that it will create more work than it will save. --Nephele^Talk 18:21, 6 May 2008 (EDT)

Okay. Good points. Thanks everybody. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 00:56, 7 May 2008 (EDT)