WebOS Internals talk:Policies and guidelines

Proposed: Protection

a policy similar to wikipedia:Wikipedia:Protection policy, where pages are only protected if they are repeatedly vandalised or if there is an edit war —X1011 04:19, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

see also Wikia's advice against protecting the main page and metawikipedia:Protected pages considered harmful. —X1011 03:42, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

It will be noted --Templarian 04:06, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Special:Protectedpages, We only have 3 pages protected, and 2 files. The main page will most likely always be protected, please use the discussion as you are now to point out suggestions. Thanks and hopefully this answers your question. --Templarian 13:13, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

we currently have 5 protected pages (one is move-protected only) and 2 protected files.

there is no consensus yet on whether the main page will be protected indefinitely. see Talk:Main Page#Protection.

i have not posed a question. i have proposed a policy. you have not yet stated whether you agree or disagree with it. if you state that you disagree, please explain why.

—X1011 06:16, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I'll jump in. I think the main page should be protected. I don't know about others, but the main page is our face to the world, and the risk of defacing that exceedsthe value. I am not unaware of the common mistakes described at http://help.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Common_mistakes and am willing to re-consider. But for today, the only argument in the wikia article that is meaningful is the idea that many users will not get beyond the front page and may not even realize that the wiki is editable. While that may have been true some time ago, in this self-selected and computer-literate group we're dealing with, I can't see it. rboatright 14:49, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

if the group we're dealing with is so enlightened, then they should also be less prone to vandalism and more likely to have useful contributions, even for the main page. to my knowledge, there has been no vandalism to this wiki so far. even if something does get messed up, whether with good or bad intentions, it can quickly and easily be fixed. the 1-week protection on the main page has just expired; i say we give it at least a trial and see whether it will get worse or better due to public edits. —X1011 08:25, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Are we really expecting non-editor contributions on the front page? If we are seriously expecting that (and there is sufficient structure and instructions on the front page that first-time visitor will not stuff up the formatting, or undo all the collaboration which has occurred so far on the front page look and feel), then I'm happy for it to be unprotected. But I'm skeptical that is the case. Otherwise, we should work how to protect the front page in a way that editors can edit it. RodWhitby 23:11, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

an editor is anyone who signs up for an account here and makes an edit. i'll assume you're talking about non-admins.

yes, i am expecting non-admins to want to contribute to the main page. Hopspitfire made a couple of edits soon after the protection expired, and i expect other users to follow.

—X1011 02:24, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm referring to the "Editors" group (which is different from Sysops), of which yourself and Hopspitfire are members. I expect that major contributors would be part of that group and exempt from page protection limits. RodWhitby 02:46, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

i just tried editing a protected page; i cannot. regardless, i still think it's an unnecessary barrier for people who may just want to make a small correction. also, Wikia's point about implying a hierarchy among editors is still valid. —X1011 03:08, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy to trial an unprotected front page, as long as we have the Editors group in place so that protection can be implemented at a moment's notice if there is vandalism without affecting the access of the major contributors if we need to do that. FYI, I'm not sure we've worked out how to allow the Editors group to edit protected pages yet, but that is definitely the intention, and is just awaiting someone working out how to do it. RodWhitby 03:13, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

BTW, I don't see an edit button on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page ... that's the example that I think we're following. RodWhitby 03:14, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

what can sysops do that 'editors' won't be able to, and why have the distinction?

Wikipedia's main page was not protected at first. it was only protected after vandalism became a persistent problem. i think that's the model we should follow.

—X1011 05:00, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Proposed: Redirects

i don't think we should delete redirects. see wikipedia:Wikipedia:Redirect#harmful for the reasoning. in our case, we also have redirects from the old wiki to preserve. —X1011 08:33, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

We killed the old wiki. Also most page movements are done to pages that are roughly very new. Some redirects have been left if they are for larger pages, but all internal links are redirected and that page becomes orphaned internally. --Templarian 04:06, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

the old wiki is still up, and there are links to it from other sites. i'm ok with deleting new redirects; we can add an exception for that to the policy. —X1011 05:06, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

All pages moved from the old wiki to the new wiki should have had redirects added on the old wiki. No exceptions. -- Rod

yes, that is part of the reason i want to preserve redirects within this wiki. —X1011 05:38, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

And as a general policy, I just don't see that redirects are evil on a plain old wiki. DOUBLE redirects (or deeper) are evil because they don't actually get REDIRECTED you end up on a redirect page.

So, it's my policy to go in and SPLIT double redirects, so the first side of the double ends up as a direct. But I don't DELETE them. As I said to Matt, one of my patrol pages at wikipedia has 27 incoming redirects, and that's a good thing. For example, I think we need redirect pages for Portal:Accessing Linux from rooting root login Accessing LinuxAccessing-Linux AccessingLinux and perhaps more. Redirects are good. rboatright 14:25, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

so it seems we're all cool with redirects existing; i will put this policy on the page soon. —X1011 05:09, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

proposed: off-wiki discussion

"Discussions establishing consensus on issues affecting the community at large (such as policies) must take place on the WebOS Internals wiki." —X1011 05:04, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I support that proposal, or any other mechanism that is equally available and convenient for all the editors. RodWhitby 07:06, 12 August 2009 (UTC)