Last modified: 2012-05-08 19:06:01 UTC
Currently inlining an image on a cascade-protected page protects the image, which is good. Bug 6579 introduces functionality that allows only the file to be protected, not the description page. Only changes which actually affect the cascade-protected page should be prevented, which in this case means changing the file pointed to. So cascade protection of inlined images should be to protect the file, not the description page.
See: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Cascade_protection_of_Main_Page I feel cascade protection is a problem for Commons where it is impossible to modify the file description page of the highlighted file. This prevents possible improvements such as categorization of the file, translation of file description, update of assessments template (to match WMF blog).
The cascade protection may be used to protect the file descs, too. I think it would be stupid if the behavior would change after several years (for some users). Maybe a new option should be there: "except file descs from cascade protection"([edit=<unaffected>] just move and upload cascaded). The cascade protection only would need to apply to upload and move.
Saibo: The reason for cascade protection existence is to protect the page and everything that it's included on the page from being changed. Templates are protected because their contents are transcluded on the page. Since editing the template would change the contents of the article, cascade protection prevents the edition of the template contents. For images/files, what it's included in the page is the image itself, not the description, so the upload or revert of versions of the image should be prevented. Uploading a new version of a file is like editing a transcluded template. There's no point in prevent the edition of the file description since editing it won't affect the protected page in any way. If you want file descriptions to be protected just transclude them on the protected page, like {{:File:Example.png}}. That would be consistent with other namespaces. Otherwise I don't see any point in using cascade protect just for file description pages.
