Talk:Alexander Chancellor

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Protected[edit]

There's some reason this is indefinitely semi-protected, I imagine. I just can't seem to find a good one. Perhaps we can unprotect it? Protonk (talk) 01:03, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The indefinite semi-protection on this article, relates to this - where this article wrongly listed the subject as dead and the vandalism persisted for a week. Our usual quality control systems horribly failed on this article - causing distress to its subject that should have been avoided. Having subjected the subject to this once, we have a responsibility to make sure we don't inflict this on him again. Semi-protection in this case is a no-brainer. There's been an extensive discussion on my talk page - on reflection that discussion should probably have happened here.--Scott Mac (Doc) 01:12, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • How is it a "no brainer"? I mean, we are doing a bang up job locking the gate up now that the horse has left. And this is all the more interesting considering that the vandalism was corrected by an IP editor. Protonk (talk) 02:23, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Have you got any other suggestions? Our systems spectacularly failed here and someone got hurt. It isn't acceptable to say "sorry that happened, hopefully it won't happen again - but we aren't going to do anything to prevent it". See the discussion on my talk page.--Scott Mac (Doc) 08:21, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Have I got any other suggestions? What? First of all if it is going to become practice to indefinitely protect BLPs which are the subject of vandalism, that's news to me. Second, it is asinine in the extreme to protect an article which was vandalized once so that we can pat ourselves on the back about preventing vandalism like this ever again. Is it embarrassing to get caught? Sure. But that doesn't mean we lose our minds trying to take action. Short of inventing a time machine and blocking that IP, there isn't a solution right now. Please unprotect this article. Protonk (talk) 16:23, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • No. First of all to speak of this as "vandalism" as if it is just another piece of generic nonsense is unhelpful. This was a credible lie inserted and unreverted. And no, I won't unprotect since two other admins agreed with the protection (indeed Lar was the one who last protected it).--Scott Mac (Doc) 16:30, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • Fine. Call it what you want. One change was made to the article and six days later it was reverted. Now the article is indefinitely semi'd. It seems to me that this is some fallout from our desire to look and sound tough on BLPs, but frankly it just makes us sound stupid. I guess I'll take this up on RFPP. Protonk (talk) 16:34, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • Wikipedia:Requests_for_page_protection#Alexander_Chancellor. Protonk (talk) 17:07, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
            • I've suggested that the discussion happen here. Let's avoid too many fora.--Scott Mac (Doc) 17:10, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Our usual quality control systems horribly failed on this article" What a load of rubbish, where were the 'usual quality control systems' for Frank X. Gaspar, John Keay, Pat Hutchins, Dania Krupska and Mark Sinker? And where is their protection? The amazing thing is that all these articles appeared on the removal of cat:living people tag that none of your 170 petitioners (who care so much about BLPs) could be bothered to check. Also from my reading of Alexander's article he wasn't "distressed" by this he took it in the manner he should have - Wikipedia can't be trusted. --79.71.168.39 (talk) 10:21, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct. Wikipedia can't be trusted to get this right. But the least that can be done is that when we get it wrong, we don't let it go wrong again.--Scott Mac (Doc) 10:23, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If so why aren't the articles I listed above being protected? --79.71.168.39 (talk) 10:32, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The short answer is, because no one has chosen to protect them. Wikipedia isn't consistent.--Scott Mac (Doc) 11:43, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry but that makes no sense at all, your argument for this article's protection is that you don't want his 'fake death' to be repeated calling it "unacceptable" not to act. I point out article's in the exact same position and you choose not to protect them. You're being even more inconsistent than Wikipedia. --79.71.168.39 (talk) 11:59, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The IP's argument appears to be that since wikipedia generally fails to protect the subjects of its biographies from the insertion of unsourced, false information by IP vandals it therefore must (in the interests of consistency) fail to protect the subject of this particular biography. That's sort of an epic fail of an argument. Since we know this biography is subject to such anonymous malice, the least that can be done is the protection.Bali ultimate (talk) 16:37, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No that's not my argument, I couldn't care less whether this page is protected or not. I'm just interested to know why Scott Mac is so desperate to uphold indefinite protection here, when similar attacked pages get no protection at all. --81.170.69.141 (talk) 17:05, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Because we can do something here. I can't be everywhere, although I'd support action by others.--Scott Mac (Doc) 17:11, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
How tedious Ip. The right thing is being done here. Who cares why the right thing is being done? (Well, obviously you -- but it appears to be some bone to pick with the admin and not about content at all). If you have a case to make that the wrong thing is being done somewhere else, go make it there.Bali ultimate (talk) 17:13, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If the right thing is being done here then why aren't Frank X. Gaspar, John Keay, Pat Hutchins, Dania Krupska and Mark Sinker being protected? I REALLY don't understand why there is this major discrepancy but as know no-one is willing to offer an explanation I shall go back to vandalising articles. --81.170.69.141 (talk) 17:20, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ip, i suspect you and i agree on a lot. But this kind of pointy game playing is not fit for adults. But I'll play along for one more beat: There is an organized constituency of people on wikipedia who, due to a combination of ahistorical internet utopianism and a junior high school grasp of libertarianism, are opposed to semi-protection. They care very little for quality and accuracy. They share, to paraphrase Abbey, the ideology of the cancer cell (growth for its own sake). They can not be politically defeated at the moment. I could not imagine a set of circumstances any time soon in which they could be defeated. That's why Ips are generally free to vandalize here to their hearts content.Bali ultimate (talk) 17:32, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, we can't do anything here. Unless by "do something" you mean we have enough of a pretext to fully protect an article (where there wasn't a column about the other subjects). We aren't "doing" anything. The subject was reported dead for six days until another IP came along and fixed it. How does indefinite semi-protection help that? Seems a bit like asking everyone to take off their shoes to me. Protonk (talk) 17:43, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Semi is the best defense we have at this time. Indefinite doesn't mean "permanent"... it means until something changes that means it's no longer the best choice. Perhaps if the article is on enough watchlists, or if we get flagged revisions, or something else changes (such as the subject actually dying)? ++Lar: t/c 18:28, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Also, another point is that the risk to this article of future vandalism (or specifically the risk of that vandalism sticking) is basically nil. Assertion that someone died isn't something that RCP is supposed to catch and revert (at least not working from the front of the q.), but it is something that watchers should catch. My guess is that the number of people watching this page has gone up considerably. As such, indeffing this page makes less sense (in terms of preventing vandalism) than indeffing the other mentioned pages. It's close but not the same as a common fallacy, and we should be mindful of the difference. Protonk (talk) 21:25, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To the IP, if there's a list of articles you're aware of that need protection and taking them to WP:RFPP was tried and didn't get the needful results, leave it on my talk page and I'll take a look. ++Lar: t/c 18:28, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd semi the others - Frank X. Gaspar, John Keay, Pat Hutchins, Dania Krupska and Mark Sinke too. In fact I semi alot of articles I feel are at risk of drive by vandalism. Anyone can edit semi articles, they just have to register and edit a bit first....Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:59, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Why not semi everything? Anyone can edit articles, they just need to register first. Protonk (talk) 21:25, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Works for me. But it's not policy here. Leaving most things unprotected while using semi and full protection judiciously is the best we can do right now. This is one of those judicious cases. ++Lar: t/c 23:24, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed it isn't policy. And I think that rather than viewing policy as some sort of arbitrary constraint on our action, we ought to explore the motivation. Why isn't it policy to semi everything (or even liberally semi)? Protonk (talk) 23:44, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Because the community is broken. Consensus doesn't scale. ++Lar: t/c 05:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You're smarter than that. Don't throw platitudes in my face. Protonk (talk) 20:57, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

PS: I think semi works well, having seen and used it alot on heavily vandalised articles - thing is, you never see the attempts to vandalise by IPs becuase they are not recorded at all, just invisible. I also think a proportion of folks intending to add negtive material to a BLP will think twice if they've had to make an account (not all obviously but a few at least I'd wager). Fact is, resoruces of editors are limited and we do what we can. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:06, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Did you protect those? LMK, if not, I will. ++Lar: t/c 23:24, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with semi-ing those articles is that a certain class of actor is simply driven to more obscure articles, until a tragedy of the Ccommns occurs. However it should be Ok to un-protect this article now? Incidentally does anyone watch the "living people cat removed " logs? Rich Farmbrough, 06:17, 23 December 2009 (UTC).[reply]

Why is it OK to unprotect? I'm not seeing a compelling reason to do that. ++Lar: t/c 15:47, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Because there was never enough vandalism to warrant it. Because by the time we got around to protecting it the single edit had been reverted by another IP. Because there is no cause to indefinitely protect something. And frankly, because this seems to be morphing into some stalking horse for the BLP crowd. You're drawing some line in the sand over this for some reason. I mean look. The whole point of this site is grounded in easy access to editing. We have this enormous temptation to say "hey, we have enough articles and enough contributors, let's just cut that off", but that would be rank foolishness. You know what happens to wikis when they restrict the franchise (so to speak). You know (or should know) what happens to organizations when they decide that expansion is no longer necessary. They wither and die. Now I know that some of you are willing to let that happen over a few BLPs. That the tradeoff is "one person defamed is unacceptable". But I'm not. That's not a tradeoff. That's a suicide note. That's the elimination of reasonable discourse and discussion. It's the replacement of practicality with zeal. This encyclopedia represents a tremendous net positive for the world, and largely because we allowed anyone to edit with few barriers. That is the premise of our protection policy. That is the tradeoff we undertake when we foreclose access to editing. And so we need to weigh that against potential damage. And...frankly, if your weighing system literally does not allow for comparison between the benefits of the site and the possibility of vandalism, then that's your failure. Protonk (talk) 21:05, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I actually thought the whole point of this site was to produce a reliable and free encyclopedia. In this case allowing the IP edit that stood for a week goes totally against that aim. That it was reverted by another IP is totally irrelevant, as we allowed the error in the first place. To agree with unprotection I would need to see some compelling evidence that similar vandalism will not occur in the future. Either something technical like flagged revs, or having the article on so many watchlists that recurrence becomes unlikely. I don't see anything like that here. Kevin (talk) 02:09, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, there are currently less than 30 editors watching this article, and that's after the kerfuffle of the two last weeks!! What hope does any other of the myriad BLPs have? - Alison ❤ 03:59, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pre-emptive protection?[edit]

Since when do we protect articles on the premise that they might be vandalised at some point in the future? Protection should only be used when there is an obvious need for it, and that is not the case on this article - as far as I can tell, it has only been vandalised once in its five-year history. Keeping this article protected makes us look paranoid, and arguably harms Wikipedia, by making it harder for our readers to edit. If this article had been semi-protected on December 16, the anonymous IP user that removed the vandalism would have been unable to do so. The protection should be lifted. Robofish (talk) 21:01, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It was semied in response to vandalism. Anyone with a burning desire to improve this topic can get a user name.Bali ultimate (talk)
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