Template talk:Page is goat

This should definitely be protected in light of the recent repeated vandalism. 01:30, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I would agree, but as this links to so few pages, let them attack it instead of a template that is used on many pages. It is only a quick reversion to fix.  As of now, this template only links to, like, 5 pages as opposed to 500, as some of the templates doubtlessly do.  Not too bad.   02:01, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Why do we have this template, we could easily do without it? 10:15, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Let the vandal play with this one, it doesn't do much harm. -- Nx  / talk 10:28, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed, I'm pretty sure most of these are automated somewhat, protecting an article could have unexpected results. They could move on to an article where vandalism could be more damaging or just keep clicking "random page" and valdalising it to stay ahead of the blocks. Even removing anonymous editing, it's just a case of a bot creating an account and doing the same thing - not particularly difficult. So just let it distract itself on a relatively unused template. 10:31, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Idea
Because of the recent string ov wandalism/spam-bottery to this page, suppose we take this template, move it to a similar name, replace all of the 4 links to it with the new template, and leave this page for the wandals/spambots to attack? Then they'd only be replacing "comment3" with "comment5" and so forth. Then we wouldn't have to worry about watching this page. I suggest maybe "Template:Page is a goat" for the new template. 14:00, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
 * And by "move" I mean copy the code and put it in the new template, not "move" in the traditional wiki sense.  14:02, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Protecting or altering things just tends to send them elsewhere - when we were receiving bot like attacks on the Fred Phelps article, I tried reorganizing the closing statements of the article to try and "put them off the scent" as it were, but it failed. It usually passes after a few days and it's not difficult to revert providing people are on the ball. Besides, doing that would mean switching everything that uses the template over to another one (this happen work automatically), far too work for just a mindless vandal. 14:03, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Didn't the vandal move on to another template (Template:C I think) -- Nx  / talk 14:10, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I guess the vandal did move on for a bit (or is a completely different one altogether), but is still attacking this one as well. It was just an idea I hatched, anyways.  Armondikov, there are only 4 pages that link to this page, and I figured that wouldn't be too hard to switch over if we were to make the move.   14:22, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Maybe, but in principle you could make the same suggestion for some of the templates that actually have 100s of links to them and the way the bot gets around it is the same either way. Indeed, Media Wiki gives them a handy link to get around it. Although this doesn't explain why the recent wave has stuck to the template space only (possibly because someone out there knows that templates are a good way to mess with the server load?). 14:25, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, anyway, it would probably work. But the only permanent and universal solution is to close off anonymous editing of the wiki; which I think most people agree isn't worth it. 14:30, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Editing pages in the template namespace now requires passing a captcha test. -- Nx  / talk 14:33, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Or that. I assume that's anon only. 14:36, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes. Registered users get skipcaptcha (since they have to pass the test to register) -- Nx  / talk 14:44, 19 November 2009 (UTC)