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Over the last few days, I drafted, created, and edited (with very minimal help from other users) the entire 2024 Ohio State University pro-Palestine campus protests article. I am in the process of making significant updates to this article because I have lots of information about the events I would like to add and many sources I have not yet added. I also have contacts who are sending me media, including photos and videos they've taken at the event (with copyright permission), to upload to this article.
A Wikipedia Administrator recently made this article Extended Protected. I am very glad that they did this, because I was worried about the potential of vandalism on this article.
However, this Wikipedia account no longer qualifies for editing this article because I created this account recently. As a result, in order to streamline my ability to quickly make changes, I would like to request that this account is whitelisted to edit this article. Please let me know if this will be possible.
My take is that we should grant the extended confirmed status. The editor's account is four days old and has 200 edits, but if you look at the contributions to 2024 Ohio State University pro-Palestine campus protests, I do not think we are at any risk that this user is going to push POV improperly on other extended confirmed articles. Given that it is rare to grant these requests, I figured I would voice my support for this and let somebody else endorse or raise issue with it. Malinaccier (talk) 02:28, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My view, for what it's worth, as someone only active in the PIA topic area nowadays, is that there should be no exceptions. Making judgements based on subjective assessments of an editor's resemblance to a normal rules-based person rather than, let's say, a camouflaged manipulative sociopath who uses deception without hesitation because 'the ends justify the means', is unreliable and opens a channel that you can be sure will be exploited by bad actors in the PIA topic area. No offense Onlineone22, I'm sure you are fine, but I just think adding a subjective component to the granting of the extendedconfirmed privilege is not a good strategy given the nature of the PIA topic area. It will be exploited by the people who use sockpuppetry. It will be used to make accusations of pro-Palestinian bias, pro-Israel bias, antisemitism, you name it. Sean.hoyland (talk) 08:20, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Your response is true that there is risk in making exceptions to this custom. However, I have three counterpoints:
The hypothetical sociopath you mention could just as easily make 500 insignificant edits and sleep an account for 30 days in order to gain extended protection. If the risk was completely eliminated by forcing me to wait for 30 days, then I could understand forcing me to wait for that time period to expire. However, this is not the case, and the risk remains of extended-protection editors being untrustworthy regardless of whether you make me wait 30 days.
I have devoted significant time and resources to the article in the past, and it has so far turned out to be unbiased. I also personally know people who have taken photos and videos at these protests, meaning that if I have access to the article, I will be able to upload media to which others do not have access. If I need to go on the talk page 30 times per day for each edit, I will no longer have the time nor motivation to continue editing this article. I will resume my job soon, at which point I will have significantly less time to devote to this article (all to say if I do not have edit power now, the article will be significantly worse for a long time before I can catch it back up to speed). So it really is a question of: should we assume the extremely small probability that waiting an extra 26 days will deter me from defacing the article into which I have already poured significant time and resources while reporting in an unbiased way just because this is the established custom? Or should we instead take that small risk, allow me to edit which will significantly improve the quality of this article which already has high traffic, and promptly ban me from Wikipedia if I deface it or uncharacteristically edit it in an unbiased manner?
Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Extended confirmed exists. Therefore, exceptions should be made in some cases, or else Wiki admins would not allow requests to be made. If my case is not an exception, then what case is?
I hope these points are persuasive, and I look forward to hearing your reply.
The first thing to consider is that my opinion doesn't matter because I can't grant or deny user privileges. So, feel free to ignore it.
To your first point. I agree, not granting the privilege to you has no impact on those risks. And scenarios similar to the one you described happen frequently in the topic area. The extendedconfirmed privilege is a barrier but it clearly doesn't prevent determined and patient bad actors, and there are many. But my comment is not about you. It's about opening a new channel. No one is making you wait. You can participate in the topic area via edit requests (see WP:EDITXY for requests with the best chance of success) and there are millions of articles you can edit right now. Bear in mind that strictly speaking you were not allowed to generate that PIA related content in the first place because to do so requires the extendedconfirmed privilege. Maybe the rules are suboptimal and cause collateral damage in many cases, but for me, exceptions based on subjective (and non-deterministic/non-repeatable) value judgements won't help, despite helping you personally.
On your second point, there's no deadline or urgency for content creation.
"If my case is not an exception, then what case is?" any case that doesn't open a new channel that can be used to tunnel through the WP:ARBECR barrier.
Anyway, whatever happens, I hope you stick around and if your request is granted you won't hear any complaints from me. Sean.hoyland (talk) 10:05, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A point to consider is that this new article is an ongoing protest, so ability to edit now that the article exists I'd consider time sensitive, ie it will quickly become outdated without continued contributions. This isn't quite the same as any other article where naturally the user could and should just wait a month or so until they are able to continue improving an article.
Suggestion, what if the user agreed to only edit the article in question, and refrain from editing any other ECR articles, until they have the required 500/30? As I do understand the overall concerns of providing some sort of "pro-Palestinian bias", even if the same exceptions could be made for a user regarding a "pro-Israeli" protest article within the same context.
Overall, I agree with the Onlineone22's logic, that if this isn't a good cause for an exception, then there almost certainly are none. Hence my suggestion of approving a form of conditional ECR, that wouldn't "open a new channel" to bypass ABEECR. Assuming the user would be willing to abide by such conditions, which I believe would be the case. CNC (talk) 11:51, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your comment—I would certainly be willing to abide by these conditions!
This is my thought too: I'd be inclined to grant but with the strict condition that they only edit this article, and stay away from any other extended-confirmed-protected articles until they would've been automatically granted the permission. Elli (talk | contribs) 15:18, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As someone who's been quite involved in the pro-Palestinian protest articles, based on the considerable flaw in how this article has been approved, I think an exception could be made. In other examples drafts were refused because users weren't ECR, and other editors such as myself had to "adopt" the articles in order to move them to mainspace. My point is it seems this article draft shouldn't have been approved given the end result is an ECR protection followed by the main contributor no longer able to contribute. It's otherwise a shame there isn't the ability to allow requests for certain users to edit certain articles, as opposed to ECR articles broadly, such as in this case with a creator. As my only concern would be by approving this user, they could then edit any other contentious article, potentially without the foresight or understanding how to navigate these topics. Even if that concern, with this particular user, remains pretty low. CNC (talk) 11:41, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Of course this whole thing is messy because of arbcom and the content topic, I'd much rather have some sort of "you can keep editing THIS article" sort of exception than a "you should bypass all of the arbcom topics restrictions on the entire project because you did fine on one page" sort of exception... --- any creative options for something like that? — xaosfluxTalk 15:39, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't support that. What we have is a new account that created this as their first edit, and is now 40 percent of the way to extended confirmed with only ECR violating edits. When ECR exists in large part to clamp down on sock edits do we want to create a method to create an article in the topic area, edit solely in the topic area, and then become extended-confirmed? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:48, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For context, it's not possible to know if the user was aware, as the page restriction editnotice was never applied to the article that "must be used for announcing active page restrictions", nor did they receive an alert on their talk page. There was only the optional notice on the talk page which is quite simply not enough for enforcing such a restriction. So I don't believe this was deliberate, not that this was implied either, simply to clarify the situation and what has occurred here. I'd also hardly call it a violation when the ECR restrictions weren't enforceable, but that's just my perspective of how things work here. This is just another example of how if the restrictions had been applied correctly, there wouldn't have been these so-called violations. CNC (talk) 16:43, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WP:ECR is enforceable without awareness. Enforcing ECR through reverts, protection, edit filters, and even blocks is allowed before any CTOP alert is given. I normally won't block until I've made sure they've seen an alert, but if someone is on a highly dynamic /64 how do you make sure they have been alerted? As the sanction applies to a topic area anywhere on Wikipedia there is no way to provide the edit notices and such preemptively, but ECR violations can still be reverted. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:34, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify, I meant against the user directly. Realistically, reverts should only occur if there is a page restriction in place "Edits that breach an editor or page restriction may be reverted". Without using the template as referenced and as required based on documentation, then reverts shouldn't be taking place based on ECR. It's very simple (even if not always practical) to make sure the user has seen the restriction (or at least had the opportunity to) and that is is to add the required template to the page. Ideally users shouldn't be adding the talk page template prior to adding the edit restriction to page, as this only encourages incorrect enforcement against users. Have you otherwise read the "breaches of a page restriction may result in a block or editor restriction only if" (emphasis added) part of CTOP enforcement? Quite clearly no user should ever be blocked due to violating ECR without an edit notice, there is no ifs or buts about that part. CNC (talk) 19:27, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@ScottishFinnishRadish edit requests are likely the best way forward here, what I was calling out is that I think that a single-page-exception would be better than a wikipedia-wide exception; not really considering if simply 'no exception' is the best response. — xaosfluxTalk 16:46, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not done. I really don't see how we can carve out an exemption here. ECP exists for good reasons, and although I appreciate what seems like good intentions from this user, that is not among the very, very few reasons we grant this permission early. Currently, this is probably the most contentious topic area we have, and although I am a firm believer in the idea that rules can have common-sense exceptions, I just don't think it would be wise to set this precedent, and agree that edit requests will have to do for now. Just Step Sidewaysfrom this world ..... today 17:46, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It seems like your main concern is that if you set an exception for me, then bad actors in the future might take advantage of this precedent. It also seems like you believe that I am a good-faith actor and that were it not for your precedent concern, then you would believe in the common-sense exception of granting me WP:ECR permission to edit only this article.
Therefore, if you make a one-time exception for me and explicitly establish that you will not make exceptions for similar cases in the future, then this would A) address your concern that bad actors might attempt to abuse precedent, because precedent cannot be established from a one-time exception; and B) be a common-sense exception that would be in the best interest of the article (with rapidly-developing information that needs to stay up-to-date in order not to become obsolete), considering how you believe I am a good-faith actor, and therefore presumably believe that this is the best course of action for a rapidly-developing article.
On @ScottishFinnishRadish's point, I am sorry for violating ECR, but I did not think ECR was in effect because the article was not ECR locked. I also did not realize that even though I had the article approved, I was not allowed to make subsequent edits to that same article.
You're basically asking me to declare you to be a very special new editor who is more trustworthy than other new editors. I don't think that is what the community expects from its administrators. This is already the longest discusion I've ever seen at a permisssion request, this isn't really a place for policy debates or for carving out new and unique exemptions to policy, this is for simple yes or no answers and the answer given is no. Just Step Sidewaysfrom this world ..... today 15:47, 15 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I primarily make grammatical changes/fixes (adding commas, fixing possessives, it's vs. it's, that sort of thing). I have no interest in getting involved in contentious content or edits. Vsabio (talk) 16:25, 15 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not done Per the notice at the top of this page, there are very few circumstances in which this is granted early, as it is automatically granted when certain conditions are met: an account thirty days old, with at least five hundred edits. I'll admit your case is a bit unusual as you've been editing since well before this permission even existed, but you do not meet the very narrow crieria the community has set for granting this right. Just Step Sidewaysfrom this world ..... today 21:06, 15 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not done. I really don't see how we can carve out an exemption here. ECP exists for good reasons, and although I appreciate what seems like good intentions from this user, that is not among the very, very few reasons we grant this permission early. Currently, this is probably the most contentious topic area we have, and although I am a firm believer in the idea that rules can have common-sense exceptions, I just don't think it would be wise to set this precedent, and agree that edit requests will have to do for now. Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 17:46, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
