is there a wikipedia api call that can retrieve restriction status of the article? - wikipedia-api

Question

Otherwise I must do querySelector on the page content to find if there is a some kind of padlock and by try and error check what (id or class) is unique to that icon.
Other source to find is this info is to go on information page by adding $action=info to the url params. But then another problem comes in that the protection status is written in that's particular wiki language.

Answer 1

Using the API is the right way to do it, but you need to use action=query. The padlocks icons are inconsistent across wikis, and most wikis probably don't even have them.
If you use the right parameters for your API query, you should be getting the results you're looking for.
Example for the English Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&prop=info&format=json&inprop=protection&titles=Elton%20John gives you this result:
{
"batchcomplete": "",
"query": {
"pages": {
"5052197": {
"pageid": 5052197,
"ns": 0,
"title": "Elton John",
"contentmodel": "wikitext",
"pagelanguage": "en",
"touched": "2015-10-02T03:49:24Z",
"lastrevid": 683730854,
"length": 115931,
"protection": [
{
"type": "edit",
"level": "autoconfirmed",
"expiry": "infinity"
},
{
"type": "move",
"level": "sysop",
"expiry": "infinity"
}
],
"restrictiontypes": [
"edit",
"move"
]
}
}
}
}
Here the protection array tells you that only sysops can move the page, and only autoconfirmed users can edit it.
If you make a similar query on another wiki, say the French Wikipedia: https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&prop=info&format=json&inprop=protection&titles=Malia%20Obama , you get this in response (trimmed):
"protection": [
{
"type": "edit",
"level": "sysop",
"expiry": "infinity"
},
{
"type": "move",
"level": "sysop",
"expiry": "infinity"
}
],
"restrictiontypes": [
"edit",
"move"
]
In this case, sysops are the only one who can move and edit the page.