Last modified: 2011-03-13 18:05:25 UTC
After Main Page on en: was deleted for second time last months, I think it's maybe time to make it fool-proof.
Created attachment 3469 [details] Patch that pervents Main Page from deletion Trivial patch
Second time? When was the first deletion? Anyway, this should be a no-brainer some pages just shouldn't be deleted and protected against such a thing. Mgm
I concur with Mgm the main page is not the only page needing such protection. If someone would manage to delete Monobook.css, the affect would be a lot worst — same goes for many controversial pages we have. Perhaps leave this ability in bureaucratic discretion? Michaelas10
The ability should go to devs only, there's simply no need for any changes to it.
Of course it should be possible to delete the main page. WTF?
(In reply to comment #5) > Of course it should be possible to delete the main page. > > WTF? Does risk of having thousands of people see Hello.jpg on Main page worth it?
You already have that risk, deletable or not. Anyone who can delete the page can unprotect it, move it, or edit it.
If this is an option it should be enabled on Wikipedia:Sandbox since last time someone tried to delete that it locked the database for a few minutes until domas stopped the deletion.
MediaWiki currently follows the credo of "don't second-guess the sysops, do whatever they say", which is nicely complemented by its attitude of "everything is reversible". I definitely think it would be a bad thing if this were to change. This kind of request is liable to have unforeseen negative consequences for some users. A nonexistent Main Page for a couple of minutes isn't a huge issue, when you think about it. Slightly embarrassing, but not like it happens often. (In reply to comment #7) > You already have that risk, deletable or not. > > Anyone who can delete the page can unprotect it, move it, or edit it. I believe the point is that if it's accidentally deleted, the protection goes away, so any schlump can add whatever they like to the page that everyone visiting the site will immediately see.
I for one do not see a point in this. Sure, it is horribly embarrassing for a large wiki like the English Wikipedia, but for smaller wikis, the main page is just... a page, like any others. Sometimes there's legitimate reasons for it to be deleted. A "are you *really* sure you want to do this" prompt would be a possible option, but that's a completely different issue here.
I would like to protest the inclusion of the move tab in this change, I was going to propose moving en's [[Main Page]] to [[Portal:Main Page]] this week, and now even if it does get consensus it can't be done (and why is this marked as WONTFIX when this apparently actually was done?)
Note that Tim has hacked in a plugin that stops main page deletion on all Wikimedia projects. (He said that on wikitech-l 8 hours ago, I don't see it in the online archives yet.) This is, of course, a different issue, since it's Wikimedia-specific. I'm still not sure if it's the best solution, personally, since then people will just vandalize random articles instead. How about a steward-bot that auto-desysops deleters of main pages instead, and then undeletes them? That sounds like a more effective prevention tactic.
(In reply to comment #12) > I'm still not sure if it's the best solution, personally, > since then people will just vandalize random articles instead. Yes, the main page has generally served as a honeypot for compromised admin accounts. Its incredibly noticeable when it happens and even some minor vandalism by a compromised account inside an HTML comment on the main page a few days ago was noticed, reverted, and the account blocked and desysopped within minutes. The actual damage caused by deleting the main page is minimal.
