Help:View source/diq
When a page is protected, certain users can't edit it. Semi-protection disallows IPs and new users from editing a page, while full protection stops anyone but sysops. The user can also not edit when they are blocked, and will get "view source" when they are blocked from editing. However, no matter what level of protection a page is given, any user is free to view the source, an action that is denoted view source where the edit tab typically is. In this way, anybody can copy and examine the wikitext of a page to their heart's content, but no changes can be made.
The appearance of view source is not limited to inability to edit due to page protection or blocking. For example, users without the editinterface permission will see "view source" when trying to edit a page in the MediaWiki namespace.
Often, the view source function will be forced to all users when the database is locked down by developers for maintenance or when the slave server needs to catch up to the job queue.
The view source form is shown below.
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