RC Wiki:Protected page guidelines
From RC Wiki, the RC site that anyone can edit.
It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that everyone should follow. Except for minor edits, please make use of the discussion page to propose changes to this policy.
On our site, anyone can edit anything. Usually. Sometimes, pages are protected, so that only sysops can edit them. This is usually temporary, but is occasionally permanent or semi permanent. Below is a list of reasons why a page may be protected.
- Constant vandalism - Sometimes, a page has to be protected because it is constantly being vandalized. This is always temporary, and is used as a last resort only.
- Templates - Some templates are protected. This can be just for constant vandalism, or permanently for things like copyright tags.
- Revert wars and edit wars - Sometimes people do silly things like fight over what version of a page should exist. This should be avoided, but protection is sometimes neccesary to stop it.
Sysops should not protect their own user pages so that only they can edit them. This is unwiki, and unfair to users who are not sysops. If you do not want someone to edit your user page, then leave a note on the bottom. Most users will be good and not edit it.
Protecting a page is not an endorsement of a particular version of a page. When protecting a page, the sysop should leave a good reason, and try not to favor one version of an article over another. They should avoid editing it, as it is unfair to normal users. The page should be unprotected as soon as possible.