Administrators have the ability to "protect" pages or images such that they cannot be modified except by other admins. This ability is only to be used in limited circumstances.

Policy

1. Do not edit a temporarily protected page except to add a protected page notice.
2. Do not protect a page you are involved in an edit dispute over.
3. Protect the page supplying a reason
4. Add {{protected}} (or {{vprotected}} for vandalism) to the top of the temporarily protected page and make mention of the protection in the edit summary.
5. List pages you protect on Ireland Information Guide:Protected page; if it is protected due to a conflict, you may want to list all user names/IPs involved in the conflict.
6. Consider encouraging a resolution between the disputing parties.
7. Remove the protection (while supplying a reason) once the conflict has been resolved
8. Remove {{protected}} from the top of an unprotected page and make mention of the removal in the edit summary.

See Ireland Information Guide:Protection policy for more detailed advice and the purpose of protected pages.

Requests for page protection, Protection log, This page is protected, Maintaining this page, m:Protected pages considered harmful, m:The Wrong Version

Rationale

See meta:Protected pages considered harmful, meta:edit wars

Viewing the source of a protected page

To view the source of e.g. Main Page, use one of the following:

• http://www.irelandinformationguide.com/Main_Page?action=edit
• Special:Export/Main Page

The latter also gives metadata (see m:page metadata) about the last edit. It is an XML file; tags are coded in its source, and plainly shown when rendered by the browser. However, blank lines in the wikisource are shown in the xml-source, but not in the rendering.

List of protected pages

If you protect a page, or find a protected page not listed here, please add it to this list. Please also add a short description of ten words or less indicating why you protected it. If you need to say more, discuss on the talk page of the page you protected. Also see Ireland Information Guide:protection log for recent unprotections, which replaces the manual list of recently unprotected pages. The {{protected}} header automatically adds Category:Protected to the page, adding it to the Category's listing.

Semi-permanently protected pages or images (various reasons)

• Main Page (protect from vandalism). Discuss any changes to the Main Page at Talk:Main Page
• Image:Wiki.png and Image:Wiki.PNG (Ireland Information Guide logo)
• Ireland Information Guide:Copyrights, Ireland Information Guide:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License (copyright and license pages)
• Text of the GNU Free Documentation License (redirect to the above)
• Press releases: January 2002, January 2003, February 2004 (should remain static indefinitely)
• Ireland Information Guide:designated agent (see meta:designated agent)
• Ireland Information Guide:Foldoc license
• Ireland Information Guide:Donation addresses (It should not be possible to falsify donation addresses.)
• Ireland Information Guide:General disclaimer (linked from every article. It also needs to keep its precise wording in order to protect us and warn our readers.)
  • Ireland Information Guide:Risk disclaimer - (linked to from the General disclaimer)
  • Ireland Information Guide:Legal disclaimer (same)
  • Ireland Information Guide:Medical disclaimer (same)
  • Ireland Information Guide:Content disclaimer (same)

1. Ireland Information Guide:Press_releases/February_2004/Text-Only
2. Ireland Information Guide:Block_log/Archive1
3. Ireland Information Guide:Blocked_IPs
4. Ireland Information Guide:MediaWiki_interface_messages
5. Ireland Information Guide:Popular_articles

These template pages

1. Template:Biology
2. Template:Cc-by
3. Template:Cc-by-nc
4. Template:Cc-by-nc-sa
5. Template:Cc-by-nd
6. Template:Cc-by-nd-nc
7. Template:Cc-by-sa
8. Template:Cc-nc
9. Template:Cc-nc-sa
10. Template:Cc-nd
11. Template:Cc-sa
12. Template:CompactTOC
13. Template:CompactTOC2
14. Template:CompactTOCwithnumbers
15. Template:Controversial
16. Template:Copyrighted
17. Template:CopyrightedFreeUse
18. Template:CopyrightedFreeUseProvided
19. Template:CrownCopyright
20. Template:Disambig
21. Template:Disputed
22. Template:Fairuse
23. Template:GFDL
24. Template:GPL
25. Template:Gnunote
26. Template:Ifd
27. Template:LGPL
28. Template:LandRegistryCopyright
29. Template:LearningandSkillsCouncilCopyright
30. Template:NHSCopyright
31. Template:NPOV
32. Template:NationalAuditOfficeCopyright
33. Template:Noncommercial
34. Template:PAphoto
35. Template:PD
36. Template:PD-US
37. Template:PD-USGov
38. Template:PermissionAndFairUse
39. Template:QualificationsandCurriculumAuthorityCopyright
40. Template:Sandbox
41. Template:Sitesupportpage
42. Template:TeacherTrainingAuthorityCopyright
43. Template:Test
44. Template:Unverified
45. Template:Verifieduse
46. Template:Wiktionary
47. Template:Winad
48. User:Michael/Dispute - Michael Dispute template.

Semi-permanently protected (system administration reasons)

The following pages are automatically generated and are usually protected for system administration reasons:

• Auto-generated logs: Deletion log, Upload log, Protection log, Block log, Bureaucrat log and their archives
• Ireland Information Guide:All pages by title (for Special:Allpages)
• Ireland Information Guide:!Long articles (for Special:Longpages)
• Ireland Information Guide:!Most wanted articles (for Special:Wantedpages)
• Ireland Information Guide:!Orphaned articles (for Special:Lonelypages)
• Ireland Information Guide:!Dead-end pages for Special:Deadendpages
• Ireland Information Guide:!Short articles (for Special:Shortpages)
• All pages in the MediaWiki namespace except for the unprotected ones.

User pages

User pages and their subpages are frequently targets for vandalism, and may be protected upon request of the user associated with the page if there is a history of vandalism. Add protected user pages to this list. User pages should not be protected unless there is a history of vandalism, and should be unprotected as soon as practicable -- see Ireland Information Guide:User page for more.

• User:Eloquence/Boilerplate texts - This is a user subpage that has no relevance whatsoever to anyone except me. When I copy & paste from there, I want to be sure that these are my words without checking the history. As such, protection is entirely appropriate, and user subpages of that nature are hardly relevant enough to be listed on Ireland Information Guide:Protected page. —Eloquence. 23:25, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)
• User:RickK. Too many vandals attacking the page. It's my User page and nobody else needs to edit it. That's what the Talk page is for. RickK 19:32, 8 Nov 2003 (UTC)
  • Also User:RickK/stuff and User:RickK/temp. RickK 22:05, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
• User:Snoyes, User:Snoyes/boiler.
• User:Ilyanep + Some Subpages - Talk Page. I want these to be my words.
• User:David Newton/Bird Dispute
• Evercat 20:23, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
• Subpages of User talk:Francs2000: User talk:Francs2000/Archive1, 2 etc - have had some vandal troubles and no-one needs to edit these pages but me. -- Graham  :) | Talk 16:53, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
• User:Kaihsu - protected by Kaihsu, 25 March 2004.
• User:Perl - a redirect to Perl's page on wikibooks. Protected at his request (on the requests for page protection). →Raul654 22:13, Apr 19, 2004 (UTC)
• Maximus Rex 01:25, 1 May 2004 (UTC)
• User:Ugen64 - there's no reason for anyone to edit this page; among other things, I edit as User:Cryptfiend64 now. ugen64 01:41, May 14, 2004 (UTC)
• User:Chris 73 and the subpages User:Chris 73/CompletedWork, User:Chris 73/Images, User:Chris 73/Boilerplate. I should be the only one with the need to edit these pages -- Chris 73 | Talk 07:27, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
• User:Ingoolemo (protected by Raul654 upon request)
• User:Schneelocke - If you want to leave me a message or something, use my talk page. ^_~ -- Schnee 21:48, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)
• User:Flockmeal & User:Flockmeal/Welcome - personal user page and template for a welcome message to new users. No need for others to edit. --Flockmeal 21:32, Jun 23, 2004 (UTC)
• User:Zoe - protected by Zoe, 1 Jul 2004.
• User:Zenogantner (he requested it). Vandalism by de:Benutzer:Herbye, banned on German Ireland Information Guide. He probably will go to vandalise more german Admin-pages on EN. Any help is welcome :-) Fantasy 15:25, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

1. User:Deb
2. User:Kenneð
3. User:Montrealais
4. User:Roozbeh
5. User:WhisperToMe

• Though my main userpage has been unprotected, I think User:Blankfaze/Greet and User:Blankfaze/VW need to stay protected. These are a welcome template and a vandalism warning template, respectively, and it could be very bad-ish if I used one of them after it was vandalised. blankfaze | (беседа!) 22:15, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• User:Mr. Treason due to repeated vandalism by Mr. Treason. Snowspinner 19:05, Jul 31, 2004 (UTC)
• User:Lupo/Do not copyvio is a boilerplate message of mine; I don't want to have to check it before each use to make sure nobody has tinkered with it. Lupo 18:32, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

User talk pages

User talk pages should only be protected in cases of persistent vandalism, and then only for as brief a period as possible.

User talk pages presently protected include:

(none)

Pages protected due to edit wars or vandalism

latest at bottom

• Israel Shahak - edit war RK, Zero and DanKeshet, in mediation so don't unprotect please
• Nazism edit war172 02:19, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Menachem Mendel Schneerson - link spamming and paragraph removal by a whole array of new users and anons who feel this rabbi was the Messiah. Will unprotect in a week (2/9/2004) to gauge if the attack is over yet. JFW | T@lk 15:39, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Jew protected due to an edit war over a link to a Neo-nazi site lited under Criticism section. BCorr|Брайен 17:42, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Unit 731. Continual reverts over accuracy of photo, text cut and pasted to Talk page. Fuzheado 01:56, 23 Aug 2004
• Acronym, revert war. -- Grunt (talk) 23:15, 2004 Aug 28 (UTC)
  • Actually a disagreement over wether or not to use a broad definition of acronym, which one user is solving by reverting rather than discussing. . As per m:The wrong version, I contest that the current state is "the wrong version" as it propagates the broad definition, and this edit has deleted info from the page. 23:26, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Robert Conquest - NPOV dispute. PMA 15:29, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Trash. Constant addition of nonsense to a redirect page. Angela. 00:08, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)
• Efraín Ríos Montt edit war between User:172 and User:Sam Spade AndyL 02:25, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Chechnya; edit war with User:Gene s and 194.251.240.114. -- Grunt User:Grunt/euflag 14:16, 2004 Aug 31 (UTC)
• Slashdot; sustaining attacks from multiple vandals in the space of an hour. -- Grunt User:Grunt/euflag 14:40, 2004 Aug 31 (UTC)
• Micronation (edit war) - Fennec (はさばくのきつね) 00:21, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Lyndon LaRouche—edit war.
• Clitoris - edit war between User:Cantus and several other users. Some discussion on talk, but I saw no end to the reverts. Dispute involves the decency of an image; I protected the page with the original image solely primarily because Cantus' image has no source or copyright info. -- Hadal 05:54, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • The image you replaced the drawing with has this copyright information: "According to JohnQ (aka Marymary), this image is public domain ("free of any copyright") and was taken by a friend of theirs."
    This is hardly evidence that that photo is not copyrighted. Plus, it is highly suspicious that it was "taken by a friend," when this is clearly a pornographic picture lifted from the web. Anyway, your revert & protection in the same edit was illegal. You will be RfC'd. --Cantus 07:38, Sep 1, 2004 (UTC)
    • A sourceless image is a dangerous image to use in an article (and if you want to dispute the source of the "pornographic" image, this is not the place to do so). Some choose to remove them until a source is given, and/or list them on Ireland Information Guide:Copyright problems. I chose to remove it, especially since you have a history of violating copyright. Also note that I can favour a version edited by the user(s) most closely following the three revert rule, which you were closest to violating. Have fun with the RfC. -- Hadal 08:02, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)