This thread is about SCP-458, but it's come up repeatedly for years for many classic SCPs, such as relatively recently 682 and 914.
I'm going to be harsh here, because I think this is serious. Please forgive me.
With SCP-458, the original author's last edit in 2008 was:
Further testing on SCP's may reveal some odd characteristics about the SCP's themselves, and is suggested.
-Dr. Kreign
And from the discussion:
Palhinuk 14 Feb 2009, 19:41
sure, feel free to add anything to the list you'd like, keeping in mind that the box can't, or won't, use human elements in the pizzas
It's starkly clear that the author intended for people to be able to add new logs to this.
Yet, here are some posts from that discussion thread, from staff:
This is to note a revert from the previous edit by user cormac596, where an entirely new footnote has been added onto the article. That would count as an edit in content, which is not permitted (unless with staff deliberation). Only edits in grammar and spelling would be acceptable under normal circumstances.
Noting that a recent edit by 5tr4 was reverted, as it introduced new material without permission from the original author or staff. Editors, please keep in mind that we only allow grammar/spelling/formatting fixes to be made without permission.
Now: All the staff here have good motivations. Zyn's actually trying to find a middle ground in the quote above, suggesting that people could suggest new additions in the comments, but in every previous case we've tried that, see: 682 termination test log — there's a chilling effect that prevents good additions along with bad, and staff often simply ignore suggestions because it's low-priority; most people won't go through the effort of dealing with so many barriers, which contravenes the wishes of the original author. So I can't agree with the suggested solution.
The problem is twofold.
First, staff are responsible for killing much of the collaborative aspect of the wiki, by overstepping our powers in the past. That's why Series 1 is permanently enshrined as the most important part of the wiki; not just age, but the wiki-walk only leads within the ancient parts of Series 1, with few exceptions. Like… imagine if TV Tropes stopped linking people to other articles in most cases past 2010, and locked all those pages down so people couldn't keep expanding them because too many newbies added bad entries. …That's what we did!
So the least we can do is not make that worse by locking down older articles like this.
But even if you disagree with me… second: We don't have the right to do this. In fact, with this SCP, as with several older SCPs like this (and plausibly more I don't know about — are we going to have to go through and check?) — staff have overstepped their bounds, repeatedly, by going against the original author's wishes to keep this page open for new additions.
We've long established that staff can edit or remove shitty new entries to old SCPs when the author is absent. We can still maintain quality control. Same way we can edit articles to change them to metric or assorted improvements via the rewrite team.
But we do not and never have had the right to forcibly remove collaborative aspects from existing SCPs.
I suspect that this was totally unintentional, just overworked moderators and operational staff trying to get the job done and keep things smoothly with a minimum of fuss. (I know for sure Zyn fits here. <3 Zyn for all the incredible amounts of work you do.) In that case, no worries, let's just please be more careful about this.
However, if this is not the case — if any of you guys want to grant ourselves the power to override clear author wishes on classic-style open collaboration logs, you're going to have to actually use an official policy discussion to make that happen.
Until then, I'm unlocking SCP-458. Additionally, if there are other SCPs or logs like this, please unlock them as well.