Nookipedia:Protection policy

In some circumstances, pages may need to be protected from modification by certain groups of editors. Pages are protected when a specific damaging event has been identified that can not be prevented through other means such as a block. Otherwise, Nookipedia is built on the principle that anyone can edit it, and it therefore aims to have as many of its pages as possible open for public editing so that anyone can add material and correct errors. This policy explains in detail the protection types and procedures for page protection and unprotection and when each protection should and should not be applied.

Protection is a technical restriction applied only by administrators (note that Bureaucrats and Directors are also inherently administrators). Protection can be indefinite or expire after a specified time. The are different kinds of protection are detailed below, and they can be applied to the page edit, page move, page create, and file upload actions. Even when a page is protected from editing, the (text) of the page can still be viewed and copied by any user.

A protected page is marked at its top right by a padlock icon, added by the  template. Pages that are automatically protected and certain pages with permanent protection (such as the Main Page) do not need to display this indicator.

Types of protection
The following technical options are available to administrators for protecting different actions to pages:
 * Edit protection protects the page from being edited.
 * Move protection protects the page from being moved or renamed.
 * Creation protection prevents a page (normally a previously deleted one) from being created.
 * Upload protection prevents new versions of a file from being uploaded, but it does not prevent editing to the file's description page (unless edit protection is applied).

The following technical options are available to administrators for adding protection levels to the different actions to pages:
 * Semi-protection prevents the action by unregistered contributors and contributors with accounts that are not confirmed.
 * Template protection prevents the action by everyone except Trustees, Patrollers, and administrators (who have this right as part of their toolset).
 * Full protection prevents the action by everyone except administrators.

Interface protection
Administrators cannot change or remove the protection for some areas on Nookipedia which are permanently protected by the MediaWiki software:
 * Edits to the MediaWiki namespace, which defines parts of the site interface, are restricted to administrators.
 * Edits to system-wide CSS and JavaScript pages are further restricted to interface administrators.
 * Edits to personal CSS and JavaScript pages are restricted to the associated user and interface administrators. Interface administrators may edit these pages, for example, to remove a user script that has been used in an inappropriate way. Administrators may delete (but not edit or restore) these pages.
 * Edits to personal JSON pages are restricted to the associated user and administrators.

Permanent protection
In addition to hard-coded protection, the following are usually permanently fully protected:
 * Pages that are very visible, such as the Main Page and Contents Portal.
 * Templates that form part of the site interface, such as file licensing templates.
 * Policy pages. Changes can be implemented by administrators per consensus.
 * Pages that should not be modified for copyright or legal reasons, such as the general disclaimer, and about.
 * Files that are declared in the site's CSS

Full protection
A fully protected page cannot be edited or moved by anyone except administrators. The protection may be for a specified time or may be indefinite. Full protection should be applied to:
 * Pages that are deemed unsuitable for editing by non-administrator users, such as the Administrators' how-to guide
 * Archived pages, these should be preserved in its state at the time of archival. They should no longer be edited other than to add the  template or to perform maintenance edits.
 * User pages per the user's request at the Staff noticeboard.

Full protection should be avoided in the main or talk namespaces, in disruptive situations blocking individual users is preferred. Files should only be move and/or upload protected instead of being fully protected, unless there is persistent disruption on the file description page.

Modifications to a fully protected page can be proposed on its talk page (or at another appropriate forum) for discussion. Administrators can make changes to the protected article reflecting consensus.

Semi-protection
Semi-protected pages cannot be edited by unregistered users, as well as accounts that are not autoconfirmed (accounts that are at least seven days old and have made at least ten edits to Nookipedia). Semi-protection is useful when there is a significant amount of disruption or vandalism from new or unregistered users, or to prevent sockpuppets of blocked or banned users from editing. Semi-protection may also be granted to user pages upon the user's request at the Staff noticeboard.

The Template and Schedule namespaces are semi-protected by default. The Item namespace is also semi-protected, however it can be edited by users who are not autoconfirmed provided that they are logged in.

Modifications to a semi-protected page can be proposed on its talk page (or at another appropriate forum) for discussion.

Guidance for administrators
Administrators may apply temporary semi-protection to pages that are:
 * Subject to heavy and persistent vandalism, edit warring or violations of content policy, as long as blocking individual users is not a feasible option. Semi-protection should not be used as a pre-emptive measure against vandalism that has not yet occurred or to privilege registered users over unregistered users in (valid) content disputes.
 * Subject to vandalism or edit warring where unregistered editors are engaging in IP hopping by using different computers, obtaining new addresses by using dynamic IP allocation, or other address-changing schemes.

Protection should be used sparingly on article discussion pages because it prevents unregistered and newly registered users from participating in discussions. A page and its talk page should not normally be protected at the same time. If a talk page is protected, the  template should be added to the talk page to direct affected editors to the Community Fountain to ensure that no editor is prevented from contributing.

Template protection
A template-protected page can be edited only by trustees, patrollers and administrators. This protection level should be used almost exclusively on high-risk templates and modules where full protection is not required.

Modifications to a template-protected page can be proposed on its talk page.

Move protection
Move protected pages and files cannot be moved to a new title except by an administrator. Move protection is commonly applied to:
 * Pages and files subject to persistent page-move vandalism or a page-name dispute.
 * Highly visible pages that have no reason to be moved, such as the Staff noticeboard or Community Fountain.
 * Files that should not be moved, such as images used in the interface or transcluded to the main page.
 * Redirects, these should typically be kept to preserve page history and avoid breaking external links (see Deletion policy for more information).

Fully edit-protected pages are also implicitly move-protected.

Upload protection
Upload protected files cannot be replaced with new versions except by administrators. Upload protection does not protect file description pages from editing. Upload protection may be applied to:
 * Files subject to persistent upload vandalism or a dispute between editors.
 * Files that should not be replaced, such as images used in the interface or transcluded to the Main Page.
 * Files with common or generic names.

Creation protection
Administrators can prevent the creation of pages. This level of protection is useful for bad pages that have been deleted but repeatedly recreated. Such protection is case-sensitive. There are several levels of creation protection that can be applied to pages, identical to the levels for edit protection. A list of protected titles may be found at Special:ProtectedTitles.

Pre-emptive restrictions on new article titles are instituted through the title blacklist system, which allows for more flexible protection with support for substrings and regular expressions.

Contributors wishing to re-create a creation-protected title with appropriate content should either contact an administrator, or file a request at the Staff noticeboard.