Until someone comes up with a good reason for them to be unlocked. In most cases, the lock is permanent (policy pages, the Permanent Redlink Club, pages that have been unlocked only to descend into madness again within a day, etc.), but in many cases, the lock is until things calm down a bit, and someone sane shows up to ask for the unlock.
I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.I think work pages would stay locked 2 weeks maximum. These need Wiki Magic the most.
We have a stickied thread in this section if you feel something should be added or edited on a locked page.
“I just think that's really shady." "Shady?!" - Stephanie & Chad, The Amazing Race 17Artman, works pages are locked for a number of reasons. A hard-and-fast time limit on how long they can be locked ignores that.
Here's a fair point though - before The Situation, anyone could edit any page simply by clicking edit, putting what they wanted and then saving their changes. That's not the case anymore. Now anyone that wants to edit has to have an edit account. So shouldn't we trust people now not to act like idiots, at least if the reason the page was locked was because people were edit-warring? And if they do, they need to be warned. And if they do it again, then they need to be blocked or banned. Not locking the page so that nobody else can edit it.
“I just think that's really shady." "Shady?!" - Stephanie & Chad, The Amazing Race 17Which reasons specifically would you consider vague? A list of all pages that are locked can be found at https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LockedPages
along with the reasons why they were locked. Additionally, in many cases there is a more detailed explanation on the locked page itself.
edited 28th Nov '10 4:06:54 PM by Agent0042
“I just think that's really shady." "Shady?!" - Stephanie & Chad, The Amazing Race 17But again, if people are abusing that trust, aren't those people that we want to know about and be potentially removed as a disruptive element? Again, everyone must have an edit account now, so if people don't behave, they can be blocked. Of course, come to think of it, IP block could be done before, but I don't know if that was very effective.
“I just think that's really shady." "Shady?!" - Stephanie & Chad, The Amazing Race 17Tracking down vandals and banning them is kind of a pain in the ass for mods, so if that's the only page someone is vandalizing and they're a productive troper otherwise, it's better to have it locked.
“Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”Ah, okay, that makes sense.
“I just think that's really shady." "Shady?!" - Stephanie & Chad, The Amazing Race 17Actually, all pages that are locked aren't on Locked Pages.
The admins don't tend to it often, for some reason.
That's not entirely true. I will banhammer people (usually temporarily) for vandalizing pages if I need to; I don't care how productive they've been elsewhere. Gotta bring it to our attention, though, via Ask The Tropers. Before The Situation, it wasn't possible to reliably ban people on the basis of IP alone, which was why locking was used in cases of dedicated anon vandals. Now we have to create handles to edit, which makes things easier.
Re: Locked Pages - anyone can edit it. What someone probably ought to do (maybe me if I have some time this week) is compare the official list to the wiki article and make any needed corrections.
I'll make it a personal project soon to run through the list and see which ones can be unlocked.
edited 28th Nov '10 7:54:37 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Yeah, bad explanation on my part. What I meant is that if a Flame Bait page is unlocked and someone vandalizes it, but vandalizes nothing else, we might have lost a productive troper by leaving the page unlocked, whereas they might still be contributing normally if the page is locked. Either way, I'm guess the "It's a pain in the ass to track down vandals" statement still applies?
“Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”With one exception, no locked page has ever been unlocked. I wouldn't hold your breath.
Sorry about the pseudo-necro.
edited 3rd Dec '10 5:23:27 AM by Anthologist
False. I've unlocked several problem pages, particularly after we switched to requiring user accounts to make edits. Blood Knight and Starfish Aliens among them.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"This was already mentioned on Big page lock thread, but since no action was taken, I'll ask again here.
Is there any reason the Touhou page remains locked after it was split? A couple of people want to edit it, so can someone please unlock it or at least give an explanation for the continued lock.
edited 3rd Dec '10 10:53:13 AM by Killomatic
Regulated fun - the best kind! I don't make the rules, just enforce them with an iron fist.I wonder when It Was His Sled will be unlocked since there's really no need to keep it locked now.
Why? Is there a good reason for it to be unlocked?
“I just think that's really shady." "Shady?!" - Stephanie & Chad, The Amazing Race 17

How long do most of them remain locked?