Changes

Yes, I noticed some of it. I wasn't sure if Adam72 was actually trying to do something productive, or just vandalizing. It certainly wasn't a helpful edit.  As for the protection template and category, I would caution not to go too far in that direction. Perhaps a few pages more should be protected, but not many.  Protection can prevent vandals from attacking one specific page, but most of the time, they will just vandalize something else if they can't do that page. It doesn't stop the problem, just relocates it. Meanwhile, legitimate editors can't edit those pages either.  Page protection has been a significant problem for me, since many pages have been put under infinite protection either because they were vandalized once or twice, or they just seemed like things someone didn't think would need to edited again soon. The only thing harder to get than page protection, is getting a page unprotected. I have lists of pages and files which I want to edit, but cannot, because they are locked to the full administrator level. I'm not saying that page protection doesn't have its place, just that it should be used very sparingly. I also then to think that when a page is protected in response to vandalism, it should have an expiration date. Maybe 6 months, maybe even 2 or more years, but I think the default in most cases should be that they ultimately become unlocked again. We can't protect every page that might be vandalized and still expect our content to stay up to date.<br />

Yes, I noticed some of it. I wasn't sure if Adam72 was actually trying to do something productive, or just vandalizing. It certainly wasn't a helpful edit.  As for the protection template and category, I would caution not to go too far in that direction. Perhaps a few pages more should be protected, but not many.  Protection can prevent vandals from attacking one specific page, but most of the time, they will just vandalize something else if they can't do that page. It doesn't stop the problem, just relocates it. Meanwhile, legitimate editors can't edit those pages either.  Page protection has been a significant problem for me, since many pages have been put under infinite protection either because they were vandalized once or twice, or they just seemed like things someone didn't think would need to edited again soon. The only thing harder to get than page protection, is getting a page unprotected. I have lists of pages and files which I want to edit, but cannot, because they are locked to the full administrator level. I'm not saying that page protection doesn't have its place, just that it should be used very sparingly. I also then to think that when a page is protected in response to vandalism, it should have an expiration date. Maybe 6 months, maybe even 2 or more years, but I think the default in most cases should be that they ultimately become unlocked again. We can't protect every page that might be vandalized and still expect our content to stay up to date.<br />

Pardon the rant...I think this can be used beneficially, but it should be done sparingly. This is in large part why I made Minuteman. It can deal with vandalism wherever it occurs, by blocking the offending user and reverting the unwanted edits. However, at Andy's request, it has been offline recently to slightly reduce server load while we sort out that problem. --[[User:DavidB4|<font color="ForestGreen">DavidB4</font>]] ^{([[User talk:DavidB4|TALK]])} 20:53, 16 May 2020 (EDT)

Pardon the rant...I think this can be used beneficially, but it should be done sparingly. This is in large part why I made Minuteman. It can deal with vandalism wherever it occurs, by blocking the offending user and reverting the unwanted edits. However, at Andy's request, it has been offline recently to slightly reduce server load while we sort out that problem. --[[User:DavidB4|<font color="ForestGreen">DavidB4</font>]] ^{([[User talk:DavidB4|TALK]])} 20:53, 16 May 2020 (EDT)