Forum:Archive Pages

Since they shouldn't be edited, maybe it'd be a good idea to sysop protect all of the archives ? Prevents people editing them. --Speysider Talk Page 19:06, October 13, 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm cool with that. Let's see what others think. Omnibender - Talk - Contributions 19:16, October 13, 2012 (UTC)
 * Support.--Cerez 365 ™Hyūga Symbol.svg(talk) 20:31, October 13, 2012 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. But it is really inefficient. I mean are you really going to go through every archive on the wiki and protect it?~ 01:06, October 14, 2012 (UTC)
 * I support the idea. And it doesn't take that long to protect them Jacce | Talk | Contributions 07:45, October 14, 2012 (UTC)
 * @UltimateSupreme: Yes. At least, those with protection powers will :lol: --Speysider Talk Page 11:24, October 14, 2012 (UTC)
 * If no one has any problems, I can use my bot. Is it Ok with everyone?~ 11:34, October 14, 2012 (UTC)

Why do archive pages need to be protected? Are people actively being stupid and editing them? This idea doesn't seem to scale well. You protect all the existing archives, then what? Users make more archives, and now you have to protect even more pages. Every time a normal user simply archives a talkpage that edit needs to be followed up by and admin or a bot. ~ Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (Local Talk &#8285; Animanga Talk) 14:02, October 14, 2012 (UTC)

"Are people actively being stupid and editing them?"
 * Yes.

"You protect all the existing archives, then what? Users make more archives, and now you have to protect even more pages."
 * So ? Isn't that the point ? Archives are created when needed, but users still keep editing in the archives, not the main talkpage themselves since they can't read the warning saying not to edit them. --Speysider Talk Page 14:04, October 14, 2012 (UTC)

They aren't doing it actively to the point where it has become a nuisance, but there have been cases where people have edited archived articles believing it to still be an active discussion/talk page. Protecting it would preserve the pages "forever" and deter people from editing archives. I also agree that when normal users archive a page it should be followed up but most recently at least, we haven't really had an issue with normal users unnecessarily archiving pages. I don't know if it'd be too much work for admins to do it, but we do seem to have two willing admins and to be honest pages aren't archived that often here.--Cerez 365 ™(talk) 14:17, October 14, 2012 (UTC)

Archiving is supposed to be a normal user action. Any system that requires a privileged user to take an action for every normal user action is a failure. If done at all that's the kind of thing that should be part of the software. There are also valid reasons for normal users to edit an archive, especially the owner: Fixing broken archive template usage. Unarchiving a section so it can be re-opened on the actual talkpage. And appending to an existing archive when you forget to archive one or two sections.

The issue right now is not that it's possible for people to edit an archive, but that it's so easy for users to make a mistake since the software is tricking them into thinking that's a good idea. For now lets see what lowering the priority of the edit button does. ~ Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (Local Talk &#8285; Animanga Talk) 15:18, October 14, 2012 (UTC)

Thats what I had said in another forum few months back. Nevermind if its being implemented a bit late.~ 15:31, October 14, 2012 (UTC)


 * Hiding the edit button won't do much good. If they can't see the edit button, they'll just click on the dropdown arrow and edit the page anyway. I'm still going to support sysop protection of archives. --Speysider Talk Page 15:47, October 14, 2012 (UTC)

The script can be modified.~ 16:12, October 14, 2012 (UTC)

The only archive pages that I see being edited by regular users are the ones of general articles. User talk page archives aren't being edited, so that's one less concern. And when have we ever unarchived any discussion back to the main talk page? At the very most, I think creating a new topic including a link to the archived discussion would suffice. The only reasons why editing an archive would be necessary is to update a template, which doesn't happen often, or to remove red links, which doesn't happen often either. Omnibender - Talk - Contributions 16:30, October 14, 2012 (UTC)