Template:Edit protected/making a request
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Before asking an administrator to make an edit to a protected page, please consider the following points:
- Is administrator intervention necessary? Please do not use this template to request edits to pages which are only semi-protected. Edit suggestions from anonymous and new editors should be made on the talk page as normal, but any autoconfirmed user may make the change if it is sensible; administrator intervention is not required (the {{edit semi-protected}} template can be used to flag these requests). If the full protection on a page is of short duration or is about to expire, consider waiting a few extra hours for the opportunity to make the edit yourself. However, administrators will not usually deny editprotected requests purely on this basis.
- Is the request controversial? Administrators can only respond to requests which are either uncontroversial improvements (correcting typos or grammar, formatting references, etc in articles; or improving reliability or efficiency of template code) or are already supported by a consensus of editors, usually on the protected page's talkpage. Please do not add the {{edit protected}} template merely to attract attention to the change, as it clutters up this category with unactionable requests. If consensus is required for the change and you would like the request to be actioned on sooner, please indicate a clear consensus rather than requiring the admin to read pages of discussion.
- Is the request specific? Any editprotected request must be accompanied by a detailed and specific description of what changes need to be made. For edits to protected templates, clearly indicate which lines of code need to be changed, or (ideally) provide a link or diff to a sandbox which contains the entire code of the template, with the required changes. The admin can then simply replace the code in the live template with the code from the sandbox. For articles, clearly indicate which sections or phrases should be replaced, and what they should be replaced with.
- Is the request sensible? Edits to protected templates, except when they are trivial, must be tested in a sandbox first to make sure that they do not cause problems or corrupted output. For edits to articles, it is sensible to perform basic tidying such as ensuring all references are properly formatted using citation templates, and that the section still flows correctly after the text is changed.
Administrators may decline to make any edit, and are especially likely to reject edits that are controversial, violate Wikipedia policy, or do not have evidence of consensus. There is a forum at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection to discuss significant or controversial edits to protected pages.