ਵਿਕੀਪੀਡੀਆ:Protection policy

See also: Wikipedia:Requests for page protection ਅਤੇ Wikipedia:Lists of protected pages

"WP:PP" ਅਤੇ "WP:PROTECT" ਇੱਥੇ ਰੀਡਾਇਰੈਕਟ ਹੁੰਦਾ ਹੈ। other uses ਲਈ, ਦੇਖੋ Wikipedia:Perennial proposals। and ਲਈ, ਦੇਖੋ Wikipedia:WikiProject Parliamentary Procedure। and ਲਈ, ਦੇਖੋ Wikipedia:Party and person। and ਲਈ, ਦੇਖੋ Wikipedia:Child protection। and ਲਈ, ਦੇਖੋ Wikipedia:WikiProject Protected areas।

Wikipedia policies and guidelines are developed by the community to describe best practices, clarify principles, resolve conflicts, and otherwise further our goal of creating a free, reliable encyclopedia. There is no need to read any policy or guideline pages to start editing. The five pillars is a popular summary of the most pertinent principles.

Although Wikipedia does not employ hard-and-fast rules, Wikipedia policy and guideline pages describe its principles and best-agreed practices. Policies explain and describe standards that all users should normally follow, while guidelines are meant to outline best practices for following those standards in specific contexts. Policies and guidelines should always be applied using reason and common sense.

This policy page specifies the community standards related to the organization, life cycle, maintenance of, and adherence to policies, guidelines, and related pages.

Derivation

Wikipedia is operated by the not-for-profit Wikimedia Foundation, which reserves certain legal rights (see here for a list of its policies). See also Role of Jimmy Wales. Nevertheless, normally Wikipedia is a self-governing project run by its community. Its policies and guidelines are intended to reflect the consensus of the community.

Role

Policies have wide acceptance among editors and describe standards that all users should normally follow. All policy pages are in Wikipedia:List of policies and guidelines and Category:Wikipedia policies. For summaries of key policies, see also List of policies.

Guidelines are sets of best practices that are supported by consensus. Editors should attempt to follow guidelines, though they are best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. Guideline pages can be found in Wikipedia:List of policies and guidelines and Category:Wikipedia guidelines. For summaries of key guidelines, see also List of guidelines.

Essays are the opinion or advice of an editor or group of editors (such as a WikiProject) for which widespread consensus has not been established. They do not speak for the entire community and may be created and written without approval. Essays that the author does not want others to edit, or that are found to contradict widespread consensus, belong in the user namespace. See Wikipedia:Essays.

Other pages that can be found in the Wikipedia: namespace include community process pages (which facilitate application of the policies and guidelines), historical pages, WikiProject pages, or help pages (also found in the Help namespace), community discussion pages and noticeboards. These pages are not policies or guidelines, although they may contain valuable advice or information.

Adherence

Use common sense when interpreting and applying policies and guidelines; there will be occasional exceptions to these rules. Conversely, those who violate the spirit of a rule may be reprimanded even if no rule has technically been broken.

Whether a policy or guideline is an accurate description of best practice is determined by the community through consensus.

On discussion pages and in edit summaries, shortcuts are often used to refer to policies and guidelines. For example, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, and WP:LIVE. Similar shortcuts are sometimes also used for other types of project page. A shortcut does not necessarily imply that the page linked to has policy or guideline status. Additionally, remember that the shortcut is not the policy; the plain-English definition of the page's title or shortcut may be importantly different from the linked page.

Enforcement

ਹੋਰ ਜਾਣਕਾਰੀ: Wikipedia:Enforcement policies, Wikipedia:Active sanctions, ਅਤੇ Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement

Enforcement on Wikipedia is similar to other social interactions. If an editor violates the community standards described in policies and guidelines, other editors can persuade the person to adhere to acceptable norms of conduct, over time resorting to more forceful means, such as administrator and steward actions. In the case of gross violations of community norms, they are likely to resort to more forceful means fairly rapidly. Going against the principles set out on these pages, particularly policy pages, is unlikely to prove acceptable, although it may be possible to convince fellow editors that an exception ought to be made. This means that individual editors (including you) enforce and apply policies and guidelines.

In cases where it is clear that a user is acting against policy (or against a guideline in a way that conflicts with policy), especially if they are doing so intentionally and persistently, that user may be temporarily or indefinitely blocked from editing by an administrator. In cases where the general dispute resolution procedure has been ineffective, the Arbitration Committee has the power to deal with highly disruptive or sensitive situations.

­Content

Policy and guideline pages should:

• Be clear. Avoid esoteric or quasi-legal terms and dumbed-down language. Be plain, direct, unambiguous, and specific. Avoid platitudes and generalities. Do not be afraid to tell editors directly that they must or should do something.
• Be as concise as possible—but no more concise. Verbosity is not a reliable defense against misinterpretation. Omit needless words. Direct, concise writing may be more clear than rambling examples. Footnotes and links to other pages may be used for further clarification.
• Emphasize the spirit of the rule. Expect editors to use common sense. If the spirit of the rule is clear, say no more.
• Maintain scope and avoid redundancy. Clearly identify the purpose and scope early in the page, as many readers will just look at the beginning. Content should be within the scope of its policy. When the scope of one advice page overlaps with the scope of another, minimize redundancy. When one policy refers to another policy, it should do so briefly, clearly and explicitly.
• Avoid overlinking. Links to policies, guidelines, essays, and articles should be used only when clarification or context is needed. Links to other advice pages may inadvertently or intentionally defer authority to them. Make it clear when links defer, and when they do not.
• Not contradict each other. The community's view cannot simultaneously be "A" and "not A". When apparent discrepancies arise between pages, editors at all the affected pages should discuss how they can most accurately represent the community's current position, and correct all of the pages to reflect the community's view. This discussion should be on one talk page, with invitations to that page at the talk pages of the various affected pages; otherwise the corrections may still contradict each other.

Not part of the encyclopedia

Wikipedia has many policies and guidelines about encyclopedic content. These standards require verifiability, neutrality, respect for living people, and more.

The policies, guidelines, and process pages themselves are not part of the encyclopedia proper. Consequently, they do not generally need to conform with the content standards. It is therefore not necessary to provide reliable sources to verify Wikipedia's administrative pages, or to phrase Wikipedia procedures or principles in a neutral manner, or to cite an outside authority in determining Wikipedia's editorial practices. Instead, the content of these pages is controlled by community-wide consensus, and the style should emphasize clarity, directness, and usefulness to other editors.

These pages do, however, need to comply with Wikipedia's legal and behavioral policies, as well as policies applicable to non-content pages. For example, editors may not violate copyrights anywhere on Wikipedia, and edit warring is prohibited everywhere, not merely in encyclopedia articles.

Life cycle

Many of the most well-established policies and guidelines have developed from principles which have been accepted as fundamental since Wikipedia's inception. Others developed as solutions to common problems and disruptive editing. Policy and guideline pages are seldom established without precedent, and always require strong community support. Policies and guidelines may be established through new proposals, promotion of existing essays or guidelines, and reorganization of existing policies and guidelines through splitting and merging.

Essays and information pages may be established by writing them and adding {{essay}}, {{Information page}}, or similar templates to the page.

Current policy and guideline proposals can be found in Category:Wikipedia proposals, and failed proposals can be found in Category:Wikipedia failed proposals. All editors are welcome to comment on these proposals.

Proposals

See also: Wikipedia:How to contribute to Wikipedia guidance, WP:POLL § Policy and guidelines, ਅਤੇ WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY

Proposals for new guidelines and policies require discussion and a high level of consensus from the entire community for promotion to guideline or policy. Adding the {{policy}} template to a page without the required consensus does not mean that the page is policy, even if the page summarizes or copies policy. Most commonly, a new policy or guideline documents existing practices, rather than proposing a change to what experienced editors already choose to do.

Good practice for proposals

The first step is to write the best initial proposal that you can. Authors can request early-stage feedback at Wikipedia's village pump for idea incubation and from any relevant WikiProjects. Amendments to a proposal can be discussed on its talk page. It is crucial to improve a proposal in response to feedback received from outside editors. Consensus is built through a process of listening to and discussing the proposal with many other editors.

Once you think that the initial proposal is well-written, and the issues involved have been sufficiently discussed among early participants to create a proposal that has a solid chance of success with the broader community, start an RfC for your policy or guideline proposal in a new section on the talk page, and include the {{rfc|policy}} tag along with a brief, time-stamped explanation of the proposal. After that, you can provide, if you want, a detailed explanation of what the page does and why you think it should be a policy or guideline. The {{proposed}} template should be placed at the top of the proposed page; this tag will get the proposal properly categorized.

The RfC should typically be announced at the policy and/or proposals village pumps, and you should notify other potentially interested groups. If your proposal affects a specific content area, then related WikiProjects can be found at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. For example, proposed style guidelines should be announced at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Manual of Style, which is the WikiProject most closely related to style issues. If your proposal relates to an existing policy or guideline, then leave a note on the talk page of the related policy or guideline. For example, proposed style guidelines should be announced at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style, which is the main guideline for style issues. Try to identify the subcategory of guideline or policy (see {{subcat guideline}}). Proposals involving contentious subjects or wide-ranging effects should normally be listed on Wikipedia:Centralized discussion for the duration of the RfC. Rarely, a particularly important proposal may be advertised via a watchlist notice; sitenotices (which are displayed to all readers, not just to active editors) are not used for proposals. RfCs for policy and guideline proposals are normally left open for at least one week, and sometimes as long as a couple of months.

To avoid later complaints about insufficient notice, it may be helpful to provide a complete list of the groups or pages that you used to advertise the proposal on the talk page.

Editors should respond to proposals in a way that helps identify and build consensus. Explain your thoughts, ask questions, and raise concerns; all views are welcome. Many editors begin their response with bold-font 'vote' of support or opposition to make evaluation easier. Editors should sign their responses.

Ending a discussion requires careful evaluation of the responses to determine the consensus. This does not require the intervention of an administrator, but may be done by any sufficiently experienced independent editor (an impartial editor not involved in the discussion) who is familiar with all of the policies and guidelines that relate to the proposal. The following points are important in evaluating consensus:

• Consensus for guidelines and policies should be reasonably strong, though unanimity is not required.
• There must be exposure to the community beyond just the authors of the proposal.
• Consider the strength of the proposed page:
  • Have major concerns raised during the community discussion been addressed?
  • Does the proposal contradict any existing guidelines or policies?
  • Can the new proposed guideline or policy be merged into an existing one?
  • Is the proposed guideline or policy, or some part of it, redundant with an existing guideline or policy?
• A proposal's status is not determined by counting votes. Polling is not a substitute for discussion, nor is a poll's numerical outcome tantamount to consensus.
• If consensus for broad community support has not developed after a reasonable time period, the proposal is considered failed. If consensus is neutral or unclear on the issue and unlikely to improve, the proposal has likewise failed.

Discussion may be closed as either Promote, No consensus, or Failed. Please leave a short note about the conclusion that you came to. Update the proposal to reflect the consensus. Remove the {{Proposed}} template and replace it with another appropriate template, such as {{Subcat guideline}}, {{Policy}}, {{Essay}}, {{Wikipedia how to}}, {{Information page}}, or {{Failed}}.

If a proposal fails, the failed tag should not usually be removed. It is typically more productive to rewrite a failed proposal from scratch to address problems than to re-nominate a proposal.

Demotion

An accepted policy or guideline may become obsolete because of changes in editorial practice or community standards, may become redundant because of improvements to other pages, or may represent unwarranted instruction creep. In such situations editors may propose that a policy be demoted to a guideline, or that a policy or guideline be demoted to a supplement, informational page, essay or historical page. In certain cases, a policy or guideline may be superseded, in which case the old page is marked and retained for historical interest.

The process for demotion is similar to promotion. A talk page discussion is typically started, the {{Under discussion|status|Discussion Title}} template is added to the top of the project page, and community input is solicited. After a reasonable amount of time for comments, an independent editor should close the discussion and evaluate the consensus.

The {{Disputed tag}} template is typically used instead of {{Under discussion}} for claims that a page was recently assigned guideline or policy status without proper or sufficient consensus being established.

Essays, information pages, and other informal pages that are only supported by a small minority of the community are typically moved to the primary author's userspace. These discussions typically happen on the page's talk page, sometimes with an RfC, but they have at times also been conducted at Miscellany for deletion (despite the MFD guidelines explicitly discouraging this practice). Other pages are retained for historical reference and are marked as such.

Content changes

Policies and guidelines can be edited like any other Wikipedia page. It is not strictly necessary to discuss changes or to obtain written documentation of a consensus in advance. However, because policies and guidelines are sensitive and complex, users should take care over any edits, to be sure they are faithfully reflecting the community's view and to be sure that they are not accidentally introducing new sources of error or confusion.

Because Wikipedia practice exists in the community through consensus, editing a policy/guideline/essay page does not in itself imply an immediate change to accepted practice. It is, naturally, bad practice to recommend a rejected practice on a policy or guideline page. To update best practices, you may change the practice directly (you are permitted to deviate from practice for the purposes of such change) and/or set about building widespread consensus for your change or implementation through discussion. When such a change is accepted, you can then edit the page to reflect the new situation.

Substantive changes

Talk first. Talk page discussion typically precedes substantive changes to policy. Changes may be made if there are no objections, or if discussion shows that there is consensus for the change. Minor edits to improve formatting, grammar, and clarity may be made at any time.

If the result of discussions is unclear, then it should be evaluated by an administrator or other independent editor, as in the proposal process. Major changes should also be publicized to the community in general; announcements similar to the proposal process may be appropriate.

If wider input on a proposed change is desired, it may be useful to mark the section with the tag {{Under discussion|section|talk=Discussion Title}}. (If the proposal relates to a single statement, use {{Under discussion-inline|Discussion Title}} immediately after it.)

Or be bold. The older but still valid method is to boldly edit the page. Bold editors of policy and guideline pages are strongly encouraged to follow WP:1RR or WP:0RR standards. Although most editors find advance discussion, especially at well-developed pages, very helpful, directly editing these pages is permitted by Wikipedia's policies. Consequently, you should not remove any change solely on the grounds that there was no formal discussion indicating consensus for the change before it was made. Instead, you should give a substantive reason for challenging it and, if one hasn't already been started, open a discussion to identify the community's current views.

Editing a policy to support your own argument in an active discussion may be seen as gaming the system, especially if you do not disclose your involvement in the argument when making the edits.

Conflicts between advice pages

If policy and/or guideline pages directly conflict, one or more pages need to be revised to resolve the conflict so that all of the conflicting pages accurately reflect the community's actual practices and best advice. As a temporary measure during that resolution process, if a guideline appears to conflict with a policy, editors may assume that the policy takes precedence.

More commonly, advice pages do not directly conflict, but provide multiple options. For example, WP:Identifying reliable sources says that newspaper articles are generally considered to be reliable sources, and Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) recommends against newspaper articles for certain technical purposes. Editors must use their best judgment to decide which advice is most appropriate and relevant to the specific situation at hand.

Naming

The page names of policies and guidelines usually do not include the words "policy" or "guideline", unless required to distinguish the page from another.

See also

• Wikipedia:List of policies and guidelines
• Help:Contents/Directory § Community standards and advice, a descriptive directory of community norms and advice for editors
• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia policies and guidelines, a listing of policy and guideline proposals advertised through Wikipedia:Requests for comment
• Wikipedia:Centralized discussion, a centralized list of ongoing policy discussions
• Wikipedia:The difference between policies, guidelines and essays, a discussion of policies, guidelines and essays
• Wikipedia:Perennial proposals, proposals that come up very often
• Wikipedia:Product, process, policy – the place of policies in Wikipedia
• Wikipedia:Template messages/Wikipedia namespace for the templates associated with each type of policy page.
• Help:Introduction to policies and guidelines, an introduction to the major policies and guidelines for very new users.
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide § Advice pages about advice pages written by WikiProjects
• Wikipedia:Principles, an index of essays about the community's principles and values

Further reading

• Mission statement - The Wikimedia Foundation
• Wikimedia values - The six values of the Wikimedia Foundation
• Wikimedia founding principles - Principles generally supported by all of the Wikimedia communities

	Pending changes protected Whitelock
	Semi-protected Silverlock
	Extended confirmed protected Bluelock
	Template-protected Pinklock
	Fully protected Goldlock
	Interface protected Redlock
	Move protected Greenlock
	Create protected Skybluelock
	Upload protected Purplelock
	Cascade protected Turquoiselock
	Protected by Office Blacklock

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 cannot be prevented through other means such as a block. Otherwise, Wikipedia 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 states 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, although any user may request protection. Protection can be indefinite or expire after a specified time. The various levels 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 source code (wikitext) of the page can still be viewed and copied by anyone.

A protected page is marked at its top right by a padlock icon, usually added by the {{pp-protected}} template.

Pre-emptive protection

Applying page protection as a preemptive measure is contrary to the open nature of Wikipedia and is generally not allowed if applied solely for these reasons. However, brief periods of an appropriate and reasonable protection level are allowed in situations where blatant vandalism, disruption, or abuse is occurring by multiple users and at a level of frequency that requires its use in order to stop it. The duration of the protection should be set as short as possible, and the protection level should be set to the lowest restriction needed in order to stop the disruption while still allowing productive editors to make changes.

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 (also known as "salting").
• 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:

• Pending changes protection (only available for edit protection) requires any edits made to the page by unregistered users and accounts that are not confirmed to be approved by a pending changes reviewer or an administrator before the changes become visible to readers who are not logged in.
• Semi-protection prevents the action by unregistered users and users with accounts that are not confirmed.
• Extended confirmed protection, also known as 30/500 protection, prevents the action if the user's account has not yet reached at least 30 days of tenure, and has not made at least 500 edits on the English Wikipedia. In most cases, it should not be a protection level of first resort, and should be used where semi-protection has proven to be ineffective. Activation or application of this protection level is logged at the Administrators' noticeboard.
• Template protection prevents the action by everyone except template editors and administrators (who have this right as part of their toolset).
• Full protection prevents the action by everyone except administrators.

Any type of protection (with the exception of cascading protection) can be requested at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. Changes to a protected page should be proposed on the corresponding talk page, and then (if necessary) requested by adding an edit request. From there, if the requested changes are uncontroversial or if there is consensus for them, the changes can be carried out by a user who can edit the page.

Except in the case of office actions (see below), Arbitration Committee remedies, or pages in the MediaWiki namespace (see below), administrators may unprotect a page if the reason for its protection no longer applies, a reasonable period has elapsed, and there is no consensus that continued protection is necessary. Editors desiring the unprotection of a page should, in the first instance, ask the administrator who applied the protection unless the administrator is inactive or no longer an administrator; thereafter, requests can be made at Requests for unprotection. Note that such requests will normally be declined if the protecting administrator is active and was not consulted first. A log of protections and unprotections is available at Special:Log/protect.

ਫਰਮਾ:Protection table

Semi-protection

See also: Wikipedia:Rough guide to semi-protection

Semi-protected pages like this page cannot be edited by unregistered users (IP addresses), as well as accounts that are not confirmed or autoconfirmed (accounts that are at least four days old and have made at least ten edits to Wikipedia). 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, especially when it occurs on biographies of living persons who have had a recent high level of media interest. An alternative to semi-protection is pending changes, which is sometimes favored when an article is being vandalized regularly, but otherwise receives a low amount of editing.

Such users can request edits to a semi-protected page by proposing them on its talk page, using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template if necessary to gain attention. If the page in question and its talk page are both protected, the edit request should be made at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection instead. New users may also request the confirmed user right at Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Confirmed.

Guidance for administrators

Administrators may apply indefinite semi-protection to pages that are subject to heavy and persistent vandalism or violations of content policy (such as biographies of living persons, neutral point of view). Semi-protection should not be used as a preemptive measure against vandalism that has not yet occurred or to privilege registered users over unregistered users in (valid) content disputes.

In addition, administrators may apply temporary semi-protection on pages that are:

• Subject to significant but temporary vandalism or disruption (for example, due to media attention) if blocking individual users is not a feasible option.
• Subject to edit warring if all parties involved are unregistered or new editors. This does not apply when autoconfirmed users are involved.
• 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.
• Article discussion pages, if they have been subject to persistent disruption. Such protection should be used sparingly 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 page and its talk page are both protected, the talk page should direct affected editors to Wikipedia:Request for edit through the use of a non-iconified page protection template, to ensure that no editor is entirely prevented from contributing.
• Protection should be used sparingly on the talk pages of blocked users, including IP addresses. Instead the user should be re-blocked with talk page editing disallowed. When required, or when re-blocking without talk page editing allowed is unsuccessful, protection should be implemented for only a brief period not exceeding the duration of the block.

Today's featured article can be semi-protected just like any other article. However since the article is subject to sudden spurts of vandalism during certain times of day, administrators should semi-protect it for brief periods of time in most instances. For the former guideline, see Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection.

Pending changes protection

ਹੋਰ ਜਾਣਕਾਰੀ: Wikipedia:Pending changes

Pending changes protection allows unregistered and new users to edit pages, while keeping their edits hidden from most readers (specifically, unregistered editors – the vast majority of visitors to Wikipedia articles) until those changes are accepted by a pending changes reviewer. An alternative to semi-protection, it is used to suppress vandalism and certain other persistent problems while allowing all users to continue to submit edits.

When a page under pending changes protection is edited by an unregistered (IP addresses) editor or a new user, the edit is not directly visible to the majority of Wikipedia readers, until it is reviewed and accepted by an editor with the pending changes reviewer right. When a page under pending changes protection is edited by an autoconfirmed user, the edit will be immediately visible to Wikipedia readers, unless there are pending edits waiting to be reviewed.

Pending changes are visible in the page history, where they are marked as pending review. Readers that are not logged in (the vast majority of readers) are shown the latest accepted version of the page; logged-in users see the latest version of the page, with all changes (reviewed or not) applied. When editors who are not reviewers make changes to an article with unreviewed pending changes, their edits are also marked as pending and are not visible to most readers.

A user who clicks "edit this page" is always, at that point, shown the latest version of the page for editing regardless of whether the user is logged in or not.

• If the editor is not logged in, their changes join any other changes to the article awaiting review – for the present they remain hidden from not-logged-in users. (This means that when the editor looks at the article after saving, the editor won't see the change made.)
• If the editor is logged in and a pending changes reviewer, and there are pending changes, the editor will be prompted to review the pending changes before editing – see Wikipedia:Pending changes.
• If the editor is logged in and not a pending changes reviewer, then ...
  • If there are no unreviewed pending edits waiting, this editor's edits will be visible to everyone immediately; but
  • If there are unreviewed pending edits waiting, then this editor's edits will be visible only to other logged-in users (including themself) immediately, but not to readers not logged in.

Reviewing of pending changes should be resolved within reasonable time limits.

When to apply pending changes protection

Pending changes can be used to protect articles against:

• Persistent vandalism
• Violations of the biographies of living persons policy
• Copyright violations

Pending changes protection should not be used as a preemptive measure against violations that have not yet occurred. Like semi-protection, PC protection should never be used in genuine content disputes, where there is a risk of placing a particular group of editors (unregistered users) at a disadvantage. Pending changes protection should not be used on articles with a very high edit rate, even if they meet the aforementioned criteria. Instead, semi-protection should be considered.

In addition, administrators may apply temporary pending changes protection on pages that are subject to significant but temporary vandalism or disruption (for example, due to media attention) when blocking individual users is not a feasible option. As with other forms of protection, the time frame of the protection should be proportional to the problem. Indefinite PC protection should be used only in cases of severe long-term disruption.

Removal of pending changes protection can be requested of any administrator, or at requests for unprotection.

The reviewing process is described in detail at Wikipedia:Reviewing pending changes.

Creation protection (salting)

Administrators can prevent the creation of pages. This type of protection is useful for 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 can be found at Special:ProtectedTitles (see also historical lists).

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.

Pages that have been creation-protected are sometimes referred to as "salted". Editors wishing to re-create a salted title with appropriate content should either contact an administrator (preferably the protecting administrator), file a request at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection#Current requests for reduction in protection level, or use the deletion review process. To make a convincing case for re-creation, it is helpful to show a draft version of the intended article when filing a request.

Administrators should choose the appropriate level of create protection—autoconfirmed, extended-confirmed, or full. Due to the implementation of ACPERM, non-confirmed editors cannot create pages in mainspace; thus, semi-creation protection should be used only for protection of pages outside of mainspace.

While creation-protection is usually permanent, temporary creation protection can be applied if a page is repeatedly recreated by a single user (or sockpuppets of that user, if applicable).

Move protection

Move-protected pages, or more technically, fully move-protected pages, cannot be moved to a new title except by an administrator. Move protection is commonly applied to:

• Pages subject to persistent page-move vandalism.
• Pages subject to a page-name dispute.
• Highly visible pages that have no reason to be moved, such as the administrators' noticeboard and articles selected as "Today's featured article" on the main page.

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

As with full edit protection, protection because of edit warring should not be considered an endorsement of the current name. When move protection is applied during a requested move discussion, the page should be protected at the location it was at when the move request was started.

All files are implicitly move-protected; only file movers and administrators can rename files.

Upload protection

ਫਰਮਾ:Policy shortcut Upload-protected files, or more technically, fully upload-protected files, cannot be replaced with new versions except by an administrator. Upload protection does not protect file pages from editing. It can be applied by an administrator to:

• Files subject to persistent upload vandalism.
• Files subject to 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. (e.g., ਤਸਵੀਰ:Map.png)

As with full edit protection, administrators should avoid favoring one version over another, and protection should not be considered an endorsement of the current version. An exception to this rule is when they are protected due to upload vandalism.

Extended confirmed protection

See also: Wikipedia:Rough guide to extended confirmed protection

ਫਰਮਾ:Policy shortcut Extended confirmed protection, also known as 30/500 protection, allows edits only by editors with the extended confirmed user access level, granted automatically to registered users with at least 30 days' tenure and at least 500 edits.

As escalation from semi-protection

Where semi-protection has proven to be ineffective, administrators may use extended confirmed protection to combat disruption (such as vandalism, abusive sockpuppetry, edit wars, etc.) on any topic. Extended confirmed protection should not be used as a preemptive measure against disruption that has not yet occurred, nor should it be used to privilege extended confirmed users over unregistered/new users in valid content disputes (except as general sanction enforcement; see below).

As general sanction enforcement

Four topic areas are under Arbitration Committee "extended confirmed restrictions" as a general sanction, in which only extended confirmed users may edit affected content; one is under a similar community general sanction. The extended confirmed restriction slightly differs from the earlier "30/500 restriction", which was independent of extended confirmed status. Administrators are authorized to enforce this restriction through extended confirmed protection or any other means. It applies to:

• The Arab – Israeli conflict (WP:ARBPIA4—ArbCom extended confirmed restriction since September 2021, superseding previous sanctions dating to May 2015)
• The history of Jews and antisemitism in Poland during World War II (1933–1945) (WP:APL—ArbCom extended confirmed restriction since September 2021, superseding previous sanction dating to May 2020)
• The Russo-Ukrainian War (WP:GS/RUSUKR—community extended confirmed restriction since October 2022)
• The Indo-Pakistani conflict (community 30/500 restriction imposed in February 2019, rescinded and folded into the India–Pakistan ArbCom discretionary sanctions regime in October 2021)

Discretionary usage

When necessary to prevent disruption in designated contentious topic areas, administrators are authorized to make protections at any level. (This is distinct from the topic-wide restrictions discussed above.) Some community sanctions grant similar discretionary authorizations.

High-risk templates can be extended-confirmed protected at administrator discretion when template protection would be too restrictive and semi-protection would be ineffective to stop widespread disruption.

Extended confirmed protection can be applied at the discretion of an administrator when creation-protecting a page.

Logging and edit requests

As of September 23, 2016, a bot posts a notification in a subsection of AN when this protection level is used. Any protection made as arbitration enforcement must be logged at Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement log. A full list of the ਵਰਤੋਂਕਾਰ:MusikBot/ECPMonitor/Total pages under 30/500 protection can be found here.

Users can request edits to an extended confirmed-protected page by proposing them on its talk page, using the {{Edit extended-protected}} template if necessary to gain attention.

Template protection

ਮੁੱਖ ਸਫ਼ਾ: Wikipedia:Template editor

ਫਰਮਾ:Policy shortcut A template-protected page can be edited only by administrators or users in the Template editors group. This protection level should be used almost exclusively on high-risk templates and modules. In cases where pages in other namespaces become transcluded to a very high degree, this protection level is also valid.

This is a protection level that replaces full protection on pages that are merely protected due to high transclusion rates, rather than content disputes. It should be used on templates whose risk factor would have otherwise warranted full protection. It should not be used on less risky templates on the grounds that the template editor user right exists—the existence of the right should not result in more templates becoming uneditable for the general editing community. In borderline cases, extended confirmed protection or lower can be applied to high risk templates that the general editing community still needs to edit regularly. A full list of the pages under template protection can be found here.

Editors may request edits to a template-protected page by proposing them on its talk page, using the {{Edit template-protected}} template if necessary to gain attention.

Full protection

ਫਰਮਾ:Policy shortcut A fully protected page cannot be edited or moved by anyone except administrators. The protection can be for a specified time or can be indefinite.

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. Placing the {{Edit fully-protected}} template on the talk page will draw the attention of administrators for implementing uncontroversial changes.

Content disputes

See also: Wikipedia:Stable version

"WP:PREFER" ਇੱਥੇ ਰੀਡਾਇਰੈਕਟ ਹੁੰਦਾ ਹੈ। what title name should be preferred ਲਈ, ਦੇਖੋ Wikipedia:Disambiguation § Primary topic।

While content disputes and edit warring can be addressed with user blocks issued by uninvolved administrators, allowing normal page editing by other editors at the same time, the protection policy provides an alternative approach as administrators have the discretion to temporarily fully protect an article to end an ongoing edit war. This approach may better suit multi-party disputes and contentious content, as it makes talk page consensus a requirement for implementation of requested edits.

ਫਰਮਾ:Policy shortcut When protecting a page because of a content dispute, administrators have a duty to avoid protecting a version that contains policy-violating content, such as vandalism, copyright violations, defamation, or poor-quality coverage of living people. Administrators are deemed to remain uninvolved when exercising discretion on whether to apply protection to the current version of an article, or to an older, stable, or pre-edit-war version.

Fully protected pages may not be edited except to make changes that are uncontroversial or for which there is clear consensus. Editors convinced that the protected version of an article contains policy-violating content, or that protection has rewarded edit warring or disruption by establishing a contentious revision, may identify a stable version prior to the edit war and request reversion to that version. Before making such a request, editors should consider how independent editors might view the suggestion and recognize that continuing an edit war is grounds for being blocked.

Administrators who have made substantive content changes to an article are considered involved and must not use their advanced permissions to further their own positions. When involved in a dispute, it is almost always wisest to respect the editing policies that bind all editors and call for input from an uninvolved administrator, rather than to invite controversy by acting unilaterally.

"History only" review

ਫਰਮਾ:Policy shortcut If a deleted page is going through deletion review, only administrators are normally capable of viewing the former content of the page. If they feel it would benefit the discussion to allow other users to view the page content, administrators may restore the page, blank it or replace the contents with {{Temporarily undeleted}} template or a similar notice, and fully protect the page to prevent further editing. The previous contents of the page are then accessible to everyone via the page history.

Protected generic file names

Generic file names such as File:Photo.jpg, File:Example.jpg, File:Map.jpg, and File:Sound.wav are fully protected to prevent new versions from being uploaded. Furthermore, File:Map.jpg and File:Sound.wav are salted.

Cascading protection

"WP:CASCADE" ਇੱਥੇ ਰੀਡਾਇਰੈਕਟ ਹੁੰਦਾ ਹੈ। ਹੋਰ ਵਰਤੋਂਆਂ ਲਈ, ਦੇਖੋ WP:CASCADE (ਗੁੰਝਲ-ਖੋਲ੍ਹ)।

ਫਰਮਾ:Policy shortcut Cascading protection fully protects a page, and extends that full protection automatically to any page that is transcluded onto the protected page, whether directly or indirectly. This includes templates, images and other media that are hosted on the English Wikipedia. Files stored on Commons are not protected by any other wiki's cascading protection and, if they are to be protected, must be either temporarily uploaded to the English Wikipedia or explicitly protected at Commons (whether manually or through cascading protection there). When operational, KrinkleBot cascade-protects Commons files transcluded at Wikipedia:Main Page/Tomorrow, Wikipedia:Main Page/Commons media protection and Main Page. As the bot's response time varies, media should not be transcluded on the main page (or its constituent templates) until after it has been protected. (This is particularly relevant to Template:In the news, for which upcoming images are not queued at Wikipedia:Main Page/Tomorrow.) Cascading protection:

• Should be used only to prevent vandalism when placed on particularly visible pages, such as the main page.
• Is available only for fully protected pages; it is disabled for lower levels of protection as it represents a workflow flaw. See below as well as this bug ticket for more information.
• Is not instantaneous; it can be several hours before it takes effect. See Phabricator:T20483 for more information.
• Should generally not be applied directly to templates or modules, as it will not protect transclusions inside <includeonly> tags or transclusions that depend on template parameters, but will protect the documentation subpage. ਫਰਮਾ:Xref, for alternatives.

The list of cascading-protected pages can be found at Wikipedia:Cascade-protected items. Requests to add or remove cascading protection on a page should be made at Wikipedia talk:Cascade-protected items as an edit request.

Permanent protection

Icon for pages that can be edited only by interface administrators

Administrators cannot change or remove the protection for some areas on Wikipedia, which are permanently protected by the MediaWiki software:

• Edits to the MediaWiki namespace, which defines parts of the site interface, are restricted to administrators and interface administrators.
  • Edits to system-wide CSS and JavaScript pages such as MediaWiki:common.js are further restricted to interface administrators.
• Edits to personal CSS and JavaScript pages such as User:Example/monobook.css and User:Example/cologneblue.js 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 such as User:Example/data.json are restricted to the associated user and administrators.

Such protection is called permanent or indefinite protection, and interface protection in the case of CSS and JavaScript pages.

In addition to hard-coded protection, the following are usually fully protected for an indefinite period of time (though not necessarily with interface protection):

• Pages that are very visible, such as the Main Page.
• Pages that should not be modified for copyright or legal reasons, such as the general disclaimer or the local copy of the site copyright license.
• Pages that are very frequently transcluded, such as {{tl}} or {{citation needed}}, to prevent vandalism or denial of service attacks. This includes images or templates used in other highly visible or frequently transcluded pages. See Wikipedia:High-risk templates for more information.

Office actions

See also: Wikipedia:Office actions

As outlined in Meta:Office actions § Use of advanced rights by Foundation staff, pages can be protected by Wikimedia Foundation staff in response to issues such as copyright infringement or libel. Such actions override community consensus. Administrators should not edit or unprotect such pages without permission from Wikimedia Foundation staff.

Former deleted protections

Superprotect

See also: Meta-Wiki:Superprotect

Superprotect was a level of protection, allowing editing only by Wikimedia Foundation employees who are in the Staff global group. It was implemented on August 10, 2014, and used the same day to override community consensus regarding the use of the Media Viewer on the German Wikipedia's primary site JavaScript, common.js. It was never used on the English Wikipedia. On November 5, 2015, the WMF decided to remove superprotect from all Wikimedia wikis.

Restricted namespace protections

The Gadget and Gadget definition namespaces have namespace-wide protection, and the permissions to edit them are only available to WMF Staff. There is one page on the English Wikipedia in these namespaces. A request for local access to this namespace has been pending since 2019.

Cascading semi-protection

Cascading semi-protection was formerly possible, but it was disabled in 2007 after users noticed that non-administrators could fully protect any page by transcluding it onto the page to which cascading semi-protection had been applied by an administrator.

Pending changes protection level 2

Originally, two levels of pending changes protection existed, where level 2 required edits by all users who are not pending changes reviewers to be reviewed. Following a community discussion, level 2 was retired from the English Wikipedia in January 2017. It was suggested then that "Pending changes level 1" be referred to in the future as simply "Pending changes".

Protection by namespace

Article talk pages

ਫਰਮਾ:Policy shortcut Modifications to a 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. Placing the {{Edit protected}} template on the talk page will draw the attention of administrators for implementing uncontroversial changes.

Talk pages are not usually protected, and are semi-protected only for a limited duration in the most severe cases of vandalism.

User talk pages

ਫਰਮਾ:Policy shortcut User talk pages are rarely protected. However, protection can be applied if there is severe vandalism or abuse. Users whose talk pages are protected may wish to have an unprotected user talk subpage linked conspicuously from their main talk page to allow good-faith comments from users that the protection restricts editing from.

A user's request to have their own talk page protected is not a sufficient rationale by itself to protect the page, although requests can be considered if a reason is provided.

Blocked users

Blocked users' user talk pages should not ordinarily be protected, as this interferes with the user's ability to contest their block through the normal process. It also prevents others from being able to use the talk page to communicate with the blocked editor.

In extreme cases of abuse by the blocked user, such as abuse of the {{unblock}} template, re-blocking the user with talk page access removed should be preferred over applying protection to the page. If the user has been blocked and with the ability to edit their user talk page disabled, they should be informed of this in a block notice, subsequent notice, or message, and it should include information and instructions for appealing their block off-wiki, such as through the UTRS tool interface or, as a last recourse, the Arbitration Committee.

When required, protection should be implemented for only a brief period, not exceeding the duration of the block.

Confirmed socks of registered users should be dealt with in accordance with Wikipedia:Sockpuppetry; their pages are not normally protected.

User pages

Base user pages (for example, the page User:Example, and not User:Example/subpage or User talk:Example) are automatically protected from creation or editing by unconfirmed accounts and anonymous IP users. An exception to this includes an unconfirmed registered account attempting to create or edit their own user page. IP editors and unconfirmed accounts are also unable to create or edit user pages that do not belong to a currently registered account. This protection is enforced by an edit filter. Users may opt-out of this protection by placing {{unlocked userpage}} anywhere on their own user page.

User pages and subpages within their own user space can be protected upon a request from the user, as long as a need exists. Pages within the user space should not be automatically or pre-emptively protected without good reason or cause. Requests for protection specifically at uncommon levels (such as template protection) can be granted if the user has expressed a genuine and realistic need.

When a filter is insufficient to stop user page vandalism, a user may choose to create a ".css" subpage (ex. User:Example/Userpage.css), copy all the contents of their user page onto the subpage, transclude the subpage by putting {{User:Example/Userpage.css}} on their user page, and then ask an administrator to fully protect their user page. Because user space pages that end in ".css", ".js", and ".json" are editable only by the user to which that user space belongs (and interface administrators), this will protect one's user page from further vandalism.

Deceased users

See also: Wikipedia:Deceased Wikipedians/Guidelines

In the event of the confirmed death of a user, the user's user page (but not the user talk page) should be fully protected.

Protection of templates

See also: Wikipedia:High-risk templates ਅਤੇ Wikipedia:Template documentation

Highly visible templates – those used on a large number of pages or frequently substituted – are often edit protected based on the degree of visibility, type of use, content, and other considerations.

Protected templates should normally have the {{documentation}} template. It loads the unprotected /doc page, so that non-admins and IP-users can edit the documentation, categories and interwiki links. It also automatically adds {{pp-template}} to protected templates, which displays a small padlock in the top right corner and categorizes the template as protected. Only manually add {{pp-template}} to protected templates that don't use {{documentation}} (mostly the flag templates).

Cascading protection should generally not be applied directly to templates, as it will not protect transclusions inside <includeonly> tags or transclusions that depend on template parameters, but will protect the template's documentation subpage. Instead, consider any of the following:

• If the set of subtemplates is static (even if large), protect them using normal protection mechanisms.
• If the set of subtemplates is unbounded, use MediaWiki:Titleblacklist to protect all subtemplates using a particular naming format (as is done for editnotice templates and subtemplates of Template:TFA title).

Note: All editnotice templates (except those in userspace) are already protected via MediaWiki:Titleblacklist. They can be edited by admins, template editors and page movers only.

Sandboxes

See also: Wikipedia:About the sandbox

Sandboxes should not ordinarily be protected since their purpose is to let new users test and experiment with wiki syntax. Most sandboxes are automatically cleaned every 12 hours, although they are frequently overwritten by other testing users. The Wikipedia:Sandbox is cleaned every hour. Those who use sandboxes for malicious purposes, or to violate policies such as no personal attacks, civility, or copyrights, should instead be warned and/or blocked.

Available templates

The following templates can be added at the very top of a page to indicate that it is protected:

On redirect pages, use the {{Redirect category shell}} template, which automatically categorizes by protection level, below the redirect line. A protection template may also be added below the redirect line, but it will serve only to categorize the page, as it will not be visible on the page, and it will have to be manually removed when protection is removed.

See also

• MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext
• Special:ProtectedPages
• Special:ProtectedTitles
• Wikipedia:Edit lock
• Wikipedia:List of indefinitely protected pages
• Wikipedia:Requests for page protection
• Wikipedia:Rough guide to semi-protection
• Wikipedia:Make protection requests sparingly, an essay
• Wikipedia:Salting is usually a bad idea, an essay
• metawiki:Protected pages considered harmful
• metawiki:The Wrong Version
• Wikipedia:Protection policy/Padlocks