Forum:Wiki-Wide Locking Feature

I can't recall the exact number of times those fellas from "GNNA" or whatever came onto our Wiki in groups and made spam page after spam page in an obvious effort to both disrupt steady activity around the Wiki and promote themselves (by my count, three times? Four?) Some of them even vandalized some of our articles in the past in order to spread their message. However, GNNA's members are far from the only people that have spammed/vandalized the Wiki en masse. I'm beginning to think that we should adopt the Wiki-lock feature, which will allow us to lock all the Wiki's pages in a single action for a set period of time in case of an emergency. Granted, the latest spam attack that we just experienced earlier today wasn't anything we couldn't handle, but I'm starting to get annoyed having to being left with large amounts of messes that these people leave for me and other Administrators to clean up, when our only deterrent is hoping for them to get bored enough to stop causing trouble. There's also the possibility that even larger, more organized attacks may occur in the future, which so many Trolls could be a part of that any active Admins who're around at the time might not be able to keep up with them, allowing these people to cause more damage faster than we can fix.

The Wiki-wide locking feature is a tool I've seen in use with M.E., when they've had some vandal/spam attacks of their own in the past, so I know the tool exists. And it works. So, I would like to see if anyone else agrees that we should impliment such a tool for future use. However, I would like to stress again that, while I think this could be a very useful tool, we should use it only in emergencies, because this feature locks all pages on the Wiki from being edited by non-Administrative staff. This tool should only be used if a situation occurs on the Wiki that becomes too much for any present Administrators to handle. So any thoughts? Lloyd the Cat "I don't die. I just go on adventures."  23:54, September 11, 2012 (UTC)


 * I support. There is a tool Wikia Staff gives out to larger wikis who get a lot of vandalism/spam, and I'm sure they wouldn't mind giving us the tool. -- 23:56, September 11, 2012 (UTC)

I support as well. It will drastically lower the damage and cleanup in the event of a significantly larger spam attack if we added this tool. The downside with it being for emergency use is almost a given, and with our current administrators I don't think there'll be a problem with random lockdowns. -- 00:01, September 12, 2012 (UTC)
 * Which is why I pointed out that currently active Administrators (as in ones who're on the site doing whatever) could get overwhelmed if the spam attack in question is undoubtedly large, and having such a tool handy could help them greatly. We do have a large number of active active Administrators, yes, but not even I can be online all the time to help fix any problems that could arise. The same applies to all other Administrative staff. I'm not doubting anybody's abilities here, but I think that leaving, say, 1-3 Administrators who're dealing with an attack that has close to a hundred participants would be a bit too much to ask for the Admins in question. Lloyd the Cat  "I don't die. I just go on adventures."  00:07, September 12, 2012 (UTC)
 * I wasn't doubting the abilities of our fellow staff, I was just pointing out that we wouldn't have a problem with misuse of this function if it were to be implemented. -- ALSigNew1.gifALSigNew2.gif 00:10, September 12, 2012 (UTC)
 * Wait, when did I say that you were doubting anyones' abilities? I thought I said that I wasn't doing that, when I was trying to get my point across? Lloyd the Cat  "I don't die. I just go on adventures."  00:17, September 12, 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm agreeing with your points, Gen. I wasn't saying anything about doubting the staff's abilities besides agreeing with you on the fact that we won't have to worry about the misuse of the function. -- ALSigNew1.gifALSigNew2.gif 00:29, September 12, 2012 (UTC)

I'm quite certain we already proposed this program a long time ago, but I support nonetheless. 00:14, September 12, 2012 (UTC)


 * Did we now? I'll have to look at the archives. Lloyd the Cat  "I don't die. I just go on adventures."  00:17, September 12, 2012 (UTC)
 * I just checked the archives. I don't see anything that pertains to the feature I'm proposing in this particular site discussion. Are you sure that you weren't thinking about a previous site discussion where someone suggested that we only lock articles under certain circumstances (which didn't get passed), or perhaps the blog comment locking feature (which did pass)? Lloyd the Cat  "I don't die. I just go on adventures."  00:24, September 12, 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm quite certain it was discussed before. Either that, or it actually didn't get created as a site discussion. I'll take a look myself. 00:27, September 12, 2012 (UTC)