User talk:Ajpolino/Med protection

Original discussion

The first thing I knew was going to be on this list was Triple X syndrome, an article I've been swearing to rewrite from near-scratch to a GA/FA level for years and haven't done. The problem is -- obviously -- the title. The issue is that there are at least two "common names" for this syndrome, that and trisomy X, and I suspect if the page were titled the latter there would be no need for semiprotection. I made a move discussion a few years ago that found consensus to move another page in the same family, but was split over trisomy X. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 00:42, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks so much for getting after this, Ajpolino; we want more medical editors, and one way to get them is to actually let them edit!

I can suggest three to start with, but want to take this slow to see if issues recur. Does someone know how to “pin” this section meanwhile, so it won’t archive too fast as we work through these? On the three (I believe?) that we have unprotected since I first raised this concern about a year ago, there have been no problems. So I can handle three more as a start on my watchlist.

I can take on watching the following three, and suggest they do not benefit from semi-protection.

1. Multiple sclerosis; I suggest removing protection, and I am willing to watch. If that doesn’t go well, we can switch to pending revisions. MS is no longer featured, and is completely dated, so we have no rationale for keeping out IPs. It was indefinitely protected in 2012, and that was based on one or two problematic editors.history at the time We have other means of dealing with that.
2. PANDAS has been semi-protected many times. It is a contentious FRINGE-ish topic (for which there are reliable sources) that has been the subject of WP:RECRUITING coming from fringe-supporting parent advocacy groups. [1] It is possible (fingers crossed) that has died down, and if we can switch it to pending revisions, I can keep an eye on it and possibly later recommend removal altogether of protection.
3. Parkinson’s disease like MS is no longer featured, extremely dated, and we have no good reason to keep out IPs. Similar to MS, it was indefinitely semi-protected in 2012, in this case because of student edits, which we have other ways of managing. Rather than keeping out all IPs, we can block classes per MEATpuppetry in cases like this. Like MS, the article is so badly dated now that we should encourage edits by anyone. I think this one could be unprotected and if that doesn’t work, we could move to pending revisions, and I will be watching.

I will add more over time depending on how these go, so hope we can keep this list on the page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:46, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Great! I've unprotected the two more-straightforward ones: MS and Parkinson's. I've watchlisted both, but if you start seeing vandalism that I'm missing, please let me know and we can figure out how to best address. Will look into PANDAS when I get a moment. Ajpolino (talk) 19:24, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

PANDAS switched to pending changes protection for now. If it seems calm for several months, perhaps we can try unprotecting. Ajpolino (talk) 23:16, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

1. Healthy diet was autoconfirmed protected 23 May 2020. IP 70.98.10.197 and Ddp1991, the vandalizing editors, both stopped editing back in May 2020. Suggesting removing the auto.
2. Potasium was autoconfirmed protected 12 May 2019. Crapholio, the vandalizing editor, has been indefinitely blocked. Suggest removing the auto.
3. Vitamin was autoconfirmed protected 30 May 2020. Bshamahakanykasa, the vandalizing editor, has been indef blocked. Suggest removing the auto.
4. Veganism was autoconfirmed protected 28 November 2019. The brown cows, the vandalizing editor, has been indef blocked. Suggest removing the auto. I will put this on my Watch list, as it has been semiprotected several times in years before the Nov 2019 decision.
5. Miracle Mineral Supplement was Extended confirmed protected 15 March 2020. Not after vandalism. There was an edit war that ended with the contested content added by Eonds of Mollusk remaining in the article. It remains to this date. There is no subsequent vandalism or edit warring. Suggest removing the Extended.

None of these five show any more recent vandalizing by other editors. David notMD (talk) 21:44, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

David notMD, they could not “show any more recent vandalizing” if they were protected :). Are you offering to watchlist all five in case issues recur? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:37, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Unprotected and watchlisted Healthy diet. For Potasium, will defer to @Materialscientist: for now, since they did most of the earlier protections and edit heavily in this topic. MS, thoughts on us trialing un-protection for Potasium again? Ajpolino (talk) 16:03, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

@Ajpolino great idea to have a look at this. Quite a lot of the articles at first glance don't seem particularly contentious so might have related to a period of media interest or one-editor vandalism Is it possible to include the date that the restriction was placed? And would it be possible to do the same for anatomy articles over at WT:ANAT? --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:33, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

@Tom (LT): it would be great to have the date restrictions were placed in that table, but sadly I don't know how to do it without manually adding for each (any takers?). If anyone speaks Quarry, here is Cryptic's query that gave me the table above. I assume some small tweak could give date restrictions were placed as well? For anatomy articles, I've just posted the analogous table at User:Ajpolino/Med_protection. Feel free to repost at WT:Anatomy or wherever you'd like, and I'm more than happy to help. As above, I removed move protections and redirects, but if you'd like to see those too check the page history. Also this made me notice that pending changes protection didn't show up in the original list, so I added them manually and I'll check the same for the MED pages above. Ajpolino (talk) 16:17, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

If I can butt in here, a lot of these pages seem like they should stay protected. For the more controversial pages, I don't think it should just be up to us to lift protection. I think we should invite users from those talk pages to comment on possibly lifting protection. When you look in the edit histories and archives, you can see that some of the users have been with the pages for years, and so they have a better idea on whether the pages should stay protected. When the pages are unprotected, it's harder to get them protected again. I've seen complaints on talk pages that WP:Pending changes doesn't really help. I think whether the articles are rated good or featured on the scales isn't the only thing to consider. Cancer isn't featured, but I think we can all agree that it's a bad idea to lift its protection. Topics like rape and urination are vandal and POV magnets and should always be protected, in my opinion. Well, rape at least. Near the very top of the list, there are controversial topics like abortion, acupuncture and ayurveda, and all of them have a long history of disputes, and all should stay protected. Veganism may seem like a harmless topic to some at first, but it appears to be protected partly because of the FAQ at the top of its discussion page. Checking the archives, some of that was discussed recently too. A lot of politics with veganism. So some of the stuff I'm seeing in the histories of these pages tells me that these are case-by-case considerations. If a page has a long history of disruption without protection, it's a no-brainer that it will have a lot of disruption again once protection is lifted and that protection quelled a lot of that disruption. RandoBanks (talk) 01:42, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Page protection is normally set by a single admin, often without any discussion or at the suggestion of a single editor, and it's okay to remove the protection later. "Indefinite" isn't usually supposed to mean permanent. We choose that setting when we don't want a vandal to make a note on his calendar that the article will be open on a certain date. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:09, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Edit histories show that page protection is normally set by a single admin after the admin has assessed that the article is a vandal and/or POV magnet and/or after a user has listed a page at WP:Requests for page protection because an article is a vandal and/or POV magnet. You think we shouldn't heed the reasons why articles like abortion, acupuncture and ayurveda were protected in the first place? We should override the concerns of editors who think some of these pages should always be protected? Do you think a controversial topic like abortion will cease to be as controversial as it is any time soon? Lift its protection, and we know what will happen. It will need protection again within minutes or an hour. RandoBanks (talk) 02:25, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

First, Ajpolino did not offer an opinion about which do or don’t need to have protection removed; clearly, some controversial topics need protection. Second, Ajpolino can reinstate protection if vandalism returns just as quickly as protection was removed. Third, pending changes works just fine if someone is watching the article, and is a good intermediate trial. Yes, they are case-by-case consideration, and that is precisely what we are doing here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:32, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Ajpolino is taking suggestions about which pages to remove from the protected class. The discussion also tells us that a bit of it will be a testing phase depending on the article. My thought is that there are pages that shouldn't be removed from protection at all, especially if someone suggests removing it from the protected class and don't even watch after that to see if removing the protection was wise. RandoBanks (talk) 02:40, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

I think we can trust Ajpolino not to do anything so stupid as to remove semi-protection from abortion or rape or sexual intercourse, much less without someone agreeing to watchlist and let Ajpolino know if vandalism ensues. He has removed semi-protection from three articles so far which I have promised to watchlist, and based on what I think is sound reasoning I provided. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:44, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

And for pages that aren't as obviously controversial as those? I wouldn't have even known about the disputes that have taken place at some of these pages if I hadn't looked. I guess you're saying that Ajpolino will do due diligence. As for removing a controversial page from protected status, users sometimes want to give it a trial run to see if things have changed. We see that above too. I'm saying the need for protection won't change for many of these pages. RandoBanks (talk) 02:53, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Given that four of the five I listed were only autoconfirmed protected, they could easily be vandalized even if that protection was retained. If this exercise is "What auto-protections can be removed, I would err on the side of more rather than fewer. David notMD (talk) 03:20, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

I just read WP:Autoconfirmed. You say "only autoconfirmed protected" like that isn't what is usually requested and doesn't quell much disruption. Getting an account takes extra effort. Even with an account, there are thresholds to cross before people can edit autoconfirmed protected pages. Right now, I can't edit them. That's why "only autoconfirmed protected" is usually enough to stop disruption, most of the disruption, or cut the disruption in half. "Extended confirmed protected" is heavy duty. RandoBanks (talk) 03:30, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi RandoBanks. My purpose in posting here is to identify pages that no longer need protection. Your concern that some pages still need protection, and indeed may always need protection is well taken. But the fact that Abortion is best left semi-protected, doesn't mean that everything else is best left protected as well. To Ajpolino will do due diligence, well yes of course that's why I'm posting here to garner more attention and opinions. But due diligence doesn't mean seeing the future. Some of these pages may return to being vandalism targets once we remove or reduce protection. If the vandalism is persistent, we will probably re-introduce semi-protection. That doesn't mean this whole experiment has failed, just that we were wrong in that particular case. With multiple sets of eyes on each article, hopefully we'll catch any "failed experiments" quickly. Your eyes could certainly help in that regard. Additionally if there are any pages in the table you look into and think "protection should definitely be retained here", that's helpful feedback as well. Ajpolino (talk) 15:08, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, Ajpolino. Yes, I agree with "doesn't mean that everything else is best left protected as well." RandoBanks (talk) 20:36, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Just a general comment from someone who's answered several hundred edit semi-protected requests – it's disappointingly common for such requests to languish in the queue for weeks, and for perfectly coherent requests to be dismissed for being misformatted or other trivial reasons. I can only imagine how off-putting this must be to potential contributors. Reducing the number of protected pages is well worth the effort, as is watchlisting or otherwise monitoring Category:Wikipedia semi-protected edit requests. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 13:57, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Ajpolino it is OK to remove pending changes from management of Tourette syndrome; I didn’t realize it was there. Of course I have that watched :). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:31, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

But now I am quite confused about what we have at Tourette syndrome? I don’t know how to read the log, but it doesn’t show on your list. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:33, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Done! Yes, Cryptic generated the list for me in November, but I didn't get my act together to post here until now. So anything protected between November and now (include Tourette syndrome, in December) will be missing from my list. I figured that's good enough to find long-protected articles, though we could re-run Cryptic's Quarry query to generate a new list anytime. Ajpolino (talk) 16:43, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

OK, I missed a step. I do not know why Primefac reset Tourette syndrome based on one edit, when I was having no problem managing pending changes there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:47, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

When I come across PC with few to no accepted IP edits (generally either over a dozen ish IP edits or a few months), it's clear that it is not worth having and thus switch it over to semiprot. Primefac (talk) 17:07, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Primefac. Ajpolino and you are sysops and know the policy, while this is above my paygrade, but I thought that Tourette syndrome was doing fine, I was able to manage, and the typical coprolalia or Tourette’s guy-related vandalism from a decade ago had died down. On a coprolalia-related topic like TS, some ongoing vandalism is expected, but it seemed mild and manageable. But I defer to both of you ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:24, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Primefac faulty ping above. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:25, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Primefac, that's another thing I've seen on talk pages about pending changes. RandoBanks (talk) 20:36, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

This discussion has degenerated into whether to remove any articles from autoconfirmed protected, to what it started as, which was which to remove. In addition to the five I listed, many I looked at since then, I consider were over-reactions to one-time vandalism (by IP and autoconfirmed accounts!). If this exercise is to be useful, I suggest we persist at identifying articles to remove from autoprotected. Be BOLD. Many articles on the list already have watchers, so criteria does not have to be we add delisted to our own Watch lists (albeit a valid precaution). That said, I propose removing Calcium, Constipation, John Snow and Plant-based diet. The last has frequent reverts, but based on good-faith edits, not vandalism. Lastly, Kelli Ward is not a medicine article. David notMD (talk) 16:51, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

I’m not entirely clear what you are saying about the discussion, but if we *don’t* agree to watchlist unprotected article, we are leaving the entire burden on Ajpolino. After he was kind enough to do the initial work here of providing a list, that doesn’t seem right. And constipation strikes me as a typical vandal-attracting topic. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:55, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Actually, diarrhea (also autoconfirmed protected, back in 2010) was much more vandalism-prone than constipation. Even after AP. I think because there are more diarrhea jokes than constipation jokes. To my argument in favor of removing autoconfirmed protected, my thoughts are that either Watchers have protection authorization, or can apply to have an article protected, so the burden does not all fall on Ajpolino. David notMD (talk) 19:03, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree with SandyGeorgia about constipation. We can try lifting its protection, but I suspect it will need protection again sooner than later. RandoBanks (talk) 20:36, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

The watchers list in the history of a page isn't always full of active watchers. I sometimes see vandalism or some other disruption in pages that have a healthy watchers list, but it seems the watchers are inactive or that few are paying attention. Those pages mostly count on the vandal fighters with those automatic warnings and varied revert capabilities to take care of them. RandoBanks (talk) 20:46, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

@Ajpolino and Zefr: first failed experiment at Parkinson disease, probably needs re-protection, sorry my computer is in repair, iPad will not allow apostrophe in title, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:06, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

@Ian (Wiki Ed): see post above, this looks like student editing. Do you want to try to reach out? It is ridiculous that we have to semi an article because students descend. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:09, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: I revdel'd the copyvios. I agree it looks like students. I'll leave them a note asking their instructor to reach out to us or to ENB. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:22, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

It's working so far! The problem at Parkinson's has resolved itself (by dealing with the students directly), so ... so far, so good on experimenting with lessening semi-protection. I suspect we will see increased problems at the end of university terms as students try to cram in edits, but even that can be dealt with via semi-protecting for a week (not indefinite). Other than the student editing, I have had no problems on those I am watching, and suggest we could cautiously try more.

I am not understanding the logic of RandoBanks when they say that "we can all agree that it's a bad idea to lift ... protection" on certain articles. User:Adrian J. Hunter points out the valid reasons that make it worthwhile to at least try. The worst that happens is we revert and re-protect, while the best case scenario is that we might actually recruit or retain some new editors. RandoBanks, are there no others on the list you might contemplate as worthy of a trial? On many of these, when you actually look at the history before the semi-protection, it turns out to be students, or one passing editor, or just not too much to deal with. Or at least try. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:20, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia, correct me if I'm wrong, but posts you made above me mostly show an understanding of what I meant. You expressed an understanding of not lifting protection on controversial topics, but I also commented on lifting protection on articles that aren't obviously controversial until the user does some digging into it. For example, the veganism thing has reared its ugly head again. Ajpolino understood my concerns, and I am satisfied with his reply. Primefac gave his experience with "pending changes" and you said something to David notMD, and both of these replies address my concerns about pages that may not be well-watched.

Suggestions from me? Hm, is it worth giving Asthma a trial? Is it really vandal and POV-prone? I haven't looked deeply into why it's semi-protected. RandoBanks (talk) 00:27, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

When I said "I think we can all agree that it's a bad idea to lift its protection", I was talking about the cancer page. I suppose cancer isn't a controversial topic to some, but it's a big target for vandals and POV-pushing regardless. We could try lifting its protection, but I don't foresee any positives to doing that. RandoBanks (talk) 00:41, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, yes, RandoBanks; I thought cancer was a good one to explore re why you believe “it’s a big target for vandals”. I also wonder about others like Finnish heritage disease; it went along for most of its Wiki-life with no problems, and then got hit over and over on one day by some IPs, and is still semi’d almost ten years later ... so another to explore. What is it about cancer that makes you reluctant or that make you consider it vandal prone? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:11, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

The same reason I wouldn't want the protection at HIV/AIDS lifted. Both are contentious (aka controversial) topics, with many contested or fringe treatments that need to be refuted for the laypeople who just aren't aware (or who don't know what the contested or fringe things are). For cancer, the controversies include screening, clinical trials, survivorship, lung cancer, breast cancer, and so forth.[2][3][4][5][6][7] There's also the alternative cancer treatments (one of the "and so forth" things to look out for) people sometimes consider. And like HIV/AIDS, the cancer jokes are plentiful. For some, the jokes or humor are said to help,[8] but we don't need that in Wikipedia pages. Regardless, I'm not in your way if you and others here want to push forward with lifting protection on the cancer page rather than the asthma page, or if you and others here want to lift protection on both. RandoBanks (talk) 20:05, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi all, I've had less time to dedicate to this of late, and I see discussion has petered out. If no one objects, I'll move the tables to User:Ajpolino/Med protection, and allow this to be archived. Folks interested in helping with this medium- to long-term project can watchlist that page and continue to suggest pages to trial de-protection of. We'll de-protect in small batches over time and see if we can slowly identify pages that can be safely unprotected. Any objections to that? Ajpolino (talk) 18:07, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

@Vaticidalprophet, David notMD, Tom (LT), RandoBanks, WhatamIdoing, and Adrian J. Hunter: Pinging those who participated to let them know about the new location. If you're interested, feel free to watchlist this page, and propose pages for un- or re-protection any time. I'll keep an eye on this page and update you on progress. Tom (LT), it looks like there wasn't much discussion at WT:ANATOMY either, so if you'd like to consider the anatomy articles here as well, I'm happy to do so. Thanks all for your comments so far! Ajpolino (talk) 01:17, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Also if you look into one of the protected pages at User:Ajpolino/Med protection feel free to annotate the table(s) with your thoughts. Ajpolino (talk) 01:22, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. With respect to Anatomy articles, I've requested unprotection for the ones that I think are suitable, the rest either have policy based reasons for protection (e.g. high visibility templates), or commonsense reasons (you can probably imagine what those ones are in the anatomy space). Tom (LT) (talk) 22:29, 20 April 2021 (UTC)