Forum:More rights for regular contributors

Forums: Index > The World that Never was > More rights for regular contributors

Shard of Truth Once you believe, truth and lie are quite the same thing.

If it was just my decision I would promote TheSilentHero, TheFifteenthMember and Chainoffire to admin and be done with it but we have a lot of policies, other rules and differents opinions on this matter here so let's find a way to circumvent them. ;-)

Users who regularly make edits here that contribute to the wiki as a whole should have all tools that are useful for making these edits and probably deal with vandalism too without having to ask for support every time, it makes life easier for everybody.

So my proposal is to create a new group with important rights (move, delete, protect, block etc.) and give it to everyone who (reasonably) asks for them. Our active user list is really not that big anymore so in a way we know each other pretty well (hey, it's that guy with all the image space edits), there is certainly no harm done in the long run and the "active" command chain stays intact.

KrytenKoro - "Hey, I want to settle down. And as soon as I find the right small group of girls, the seven or eight women who are right for me, my wandering days are over, buddy."
TALK -

Agree, though you all know that I also advocate the RationalWiki model where we give sysop rights to anyone who isn't a lunatic.

Based on that, how about "has edited for at least three months and performed at least eighty edits that were not reverted"? I feel that would be a strong enough vote of confidence.

Shard of Truth Once you believe, truth and lie are quite the same thing. ^{— 17:25, 21 November 2015 (UTC)}

That sounds even better. So how do we get this started? Open a vote and write every staff member to voice his opinion?

Webber 22 "Good men don't need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many."

Not saying I disagree with this, but there is one thing I noticed here: This place has more administrators than of any other type of staff member. Maybe you guys should re-organize and clean that up before creating another special permissions group? That, or simply make this the new moderator group.

TheFifteenthMember Yes. You're creepy. I can't say we'll miss you while you're gone, so it'd be best if you did go. We all win that way. ^{— TheFifteenthMember 16:01, 28 November 2015 (UTC)}

I'd just like to say that I'd be uncomfortable with giving rights to anyone who has received a warning for sockpuppeting, spamming or vandalism.

NinjaSheik - All of this might have started with a lie...But I'm really am glad that I could meet you...
TALK - One day, the light-it will be ours, and it will bring us together. Til then, I'll be in your heart...

I'm pretty busy with doing papers since it's nearing the end of the fall semester, but here are my two cents of the matter: I'm supportive of the idea of TheSilentHero, TheFifteenthMember and Chainoffire being promoted, but to admins? I don't think that's necessary. We already have quite a few admins already, as Webber22 pointed out. So, how about promoting them to mods instead? Currently, the users with mods right are Chitalian8, LevL, Troisnyxetienne, and UnknownChaser. However, everyone here knows LevL has not contributed to the wiki in a VERY long time. LevL's last mainspace edit was back in Feb. 2015 and UnknownChaser hasn't been active since the beginning of the month. Pushing UknownChaser aside, LevL hasn't contributed to the wiki in over 6 months. Chitalian8 and TNX are active again, leaving two active mods altogether.

It's not like we get a lot of vandalism in the first place, there are some articles labeled for moving but hasn't been discussed yet, rarely any edit wars, and if anyone wants anything deleted, we have the Pages of Deletion of that very purposes. Sure, the admins may not get to it right away, but it's not like we're going to forget about it as long as the articles are labeled properly and are notified on the Deletion page. That's why I think it's unnecessary to promote them to admins, but I'm not oppose to it, either. They're good and helpful users, and all of them done a lot for the wiki. :)

Shard of Truth Once you believe, truth and lie are quite the same thing. ^{— 19:18, 29 November 2015 (UTC)}

This is not really about who deserves to be admin and who doesn't or if we have enough admins or not. I simply don't think there is a reason to keep these tools from contributors just to validate the admin position.

I also agree that harm can be done with these tools but as with any other edits they can be reverted. I'm also not saying that admin and mods positions should be abolished because the staff should remain the first to be contacted in case of questions or when conflicts need to be resolved.

Webber 22 "Good men don't need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many."

But that's exactly what's going on. Again, I'm not disagreeing with your idea. But those tools are one of the things that make mod and admin positions unique. Giving them out renders those positions (at least mod) obsolete. And look at the current admin situations - we kind of already have too many. We only need like...two or three, ideally ones who are perfectly suited for that kind of thing like you and Kryten. The rest? Move them down to mod. The ones who have been inactive for a long time, I'm honestly not even sure they'll need any of these tools, and when/if they return, they could simply ask one of the current admins for their permissions re-implemented. It's a crass term, but you basically just kind of have to trim the fat if you want to optimize the userbase. And for the record, the users whom you suggested should have these revved up permissions, I DO believe they should just be bumped up to moderators. It'd be kind of a clutter the other way anyhow. That's just what I think, and I think we just need to be efficient about it: The fewer ranks we have, the less to deal with. Tweak moderator permissions and tools, then simply promote more moderators.

TheFifteenthMember Myes, but THEY didn't know that! We have to consider THEM! And yet we must also be mysterious, myes, myes... ^{— TheFifteenthMember 20:22, 29 November 2015 (UTC)}

I've always seen the role of an administrator as more than just a user with special tools. Admins are role models, mediators, representatives and editors with knowledge of the wiki. I'm completely against moving down any current admins to mods because they're all excellent at their job. Yes, some are currently inactive, but they're marked grey on the staff page for a reason and will come back eventually.

I don't see a need to create a new "sysop" group because I always thought that's what moderators were for. They're one group to me.

Personally, I'm not too fussed about getting any special powers. I've always thought adminship is unwanted responsibility that I don't want to be burdened with and I don't think I'd use the mod tools too often, aside from deleting a page here and there.

KrytenKoro - "Punch your lights out, hit the pavement. That's what I call entertainment. Causin' problems makes you famous - all the violence makes a statement."
TALK -

Then promote the "shiny" editors to bcrats, and all the other editors to admins. If we can trust them to use the tools responsibly, there's no need to keep it out of their hands just because other wikis get it into their heads that the tools signify kingship of little fiefdoms.

Webber 22 "Good men don't need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many."

That's.....a risky as hell experiment, man. Good chance it'll get to someone's head (certainly has happened before...) and they might end up doing some damn fool thing with it - that's not a matter of responsibility so much as it is a matter of mood. And what's to stop someone else from locking out other admins? Let's not make a decision too quickly in the name of a noble experiment just yet.

Chitalian8 ^Say...— And here's me, playing the world's tiniest violin.

_{Your face is priceless. — 04:31, 30 November 2015 (UTC)}

Eh, I've got no issue with giving trusted non-staffers expanded rights (moving/deleting images, suppressing redirects, editing protected pages). I still think things like blocking users should be left to admins, and of course user right changing should be a bcrat thing.

EDIT: Also, granting non-staffers additional rights should definitely be a case-by-case thing, not just a "this user was here for X amount of time and has made Y edits" thing, though that might be obvious.

KrytenKoro - "Space Corp Directive 195—In an emergency power situation, a hologrammatic crew member must lay down his life in order that the living crew members might survive."
"Yes, but Rimmer Directive 271 states just as clearly: 'No chance, you metal bastard.'"
TALK -

It's not an experiment, because we wouldn't be the first. We can remove blocking from admin rights if y'all want, but stuff that isn't userbase management, such as deleting articles, moving images, etc., there's no reason not to trust experienced editors with that. Restricting it causes more deadlock than anything, and we've yet to have a problem with an admin abusing their tools that wasn't quickly solved by the bcrats.

Webber 22 "Good men don't need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many."

Well, if you're sure nothing bad will come of it - if you trust the community enough - then go ahead with it. Like I said, I never really disagreed with this idea - just needed to point out the cons to the pros. As long as you know there's risk potential, then blast off I guess.

TheSilent Hero Prepare yourself! ^{— 17:49, 30 November 2015 (UTC)}

Here are my thoughts on this:

I don't think everyone should be able to block/protect. We have enough staff members, so whenever a page needs protecting/user needs blocking, the staff members can take care of it.

Like NinjaSheik pointed out, there's a page for requesting deletions, and when someone tags something for deletion and adds it to that page, it's usually taken care of within 24 hours.

For the moving files and moving without leaving redirects, I agree with giving these powers to regular users. However, instead of promoting everyone to a new rank, why don't we just add those tools to the regular user usergroup, so everyone will be able to do it, without the need for promoting everyone. (The chances of vandalism of this is pretty low, as we don't get a lot of vandals in the first place, and if someone intends to vandalize by moving things, they can already move pages.)

KrytenKoro - Ṱ͐͒H̫̾̃E͈͔͍͔̾̋ͦ̕ ͇̜͖͉̘̬͙̃̇̊͜N͙͉̑̓̌ͤĬ̸͇̖͈͒̃G̮̠̟͖̝̩ͧ͊̈́H̽͌̀T͚̹̝̐ͬ̂̔̄ ̿̈́̊̃ͦ͆͑A̘̝̖ͪͯ́̀ͣ̿̃͝I̟͑ͬR̡͎̩̚ ̠̪̈́̑̏̏̋C̯̲ͩ́͐͒͂ͪ͜Ä͍̜̣̼̹́͌̋̀͒͂ͅN̅͐̆ͪ̓̋ͩ ̣ͮͧͧ͌Ả̼̤̜̫̩̜̾̕L͓͓̺̤̘̠̀W̷̭̯̼͗͂ͦ̾͒A̘͓̰̠͉͇̬Y̵̒ͧͩ̇ͅS ̦̻̯̟̮̭̟̓̒͑͋C̮̱͔͔̖̯ͦͧͨ͋̑A̤ͩ̉̅ͪR̞͉̣̦̪̜̮͛̉̎̀ͩ̍̇R̢̥̳̝̟̺̣̈Y͗͋̅͏͇̳̪͎̺ ̭͈͍̝̣͍̒̎̑͘O̖̗͇̲̲̖͊̈́̿ͨ͑ͅN̩̰͉͍͍͖͙E̩̹̣̰̣͓̖̽̊͡ ̲̮͔̯̦̋̿ͧͫ̓ͅM͇̌͌̔́O̱̫̯̬̤̗̲͛R̙̽Ȅ̥̦̫̺͙̩̒ͯͭ́ ̖̫̯͉̱ͣͯͩ͊͐͆ͫS̰̿̊̑̋ͩ̇ͅC̘̣̜͍̆̆ͧ͜R̞̾͐̋̆̚Ë̡͇̓A̙͈M̡̤̙̈
TALK -

"It generally will get dealt with in 24 hours" is not a good argument, though. You're foisting more responsibility for maintaining a large amount of articles on a small group of editors who would very much like to be making more substantive contributions to the project. Honestly? Other admins might be monitoring the deletion request page, but I think I've looked at it maybe three times while I've been on this project.

I really need a good reason why we think we can't trust our fellow editors to use fairly simple tools. This isn't a FREEDOOOOM!!1! issue, I won't go down that path, but so far I've been seeing arguments why it's acceptable to restrict these tools, not why it's better.

"And what's to stop someone else from locking out other admins?"

The software doesn't allow that level of page protection.
Testing vulnerability to hostile takeover...
1. ~~Bureaucrats can be banned by themselves (confirmed)~~
2. ~~Bureaucrats can be banned by administrators (confirmed)~~
3. Porplemontage can be banned and cannot unblock himself without active staff help (in progress)

Results are not promising so far. I formally rescind my suggestion that blocking rights (and thus, adminship in its current form) be extended to all longstanding users, unless porple can tweak the software so that blocks have one-way hierarchy (only developers can ban bcrats, only developers or bcrats can ban admins, etc.). Without that modification, I modify my proposal to giving janitorial tools to Mods, and promoting all longstanding users to that group.

Webber 22 "Good men don't need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many."

Lol, toldyaso! It had the potential to turn into a shitstorm. Just look at me.....I probably would've banned Sheik just because she was mean to me! You can't have that sort of power in the hands of that kind of irresponsibility! ...But I digress. I'm all for giving regular contributors more toys to play with for the sake of streamlining the processes. As long as we can't hamper or mess with each other.

On the issues raised thus far:

Promotion to modship for TSH, TheFifteenthMember and COF: I'm all for it. I wouldn't mind. That being said, we do have a relatively high staff-to-active user ratio at the moment, so is now the right time? Just how many of us have rollback capability at the moment, and how many of us are active a lot of the time?

Retired and inactive staff: There's been a cleanup initiative of this sort on the Staff page, but I suppose that right now it's been collecting dust. Ish. We need to do summat about it...
- Even more on this subject: Once we had a timetable denoting just how active staff members can be. Well, this doesn't as much apply to us mods as it does to admins and above. Is that timetable still up-to-date?

Hostile takeover: By the time something like this happened on the Kingdom Hearts Francophone Wiki (if I remember correctly, this was in 2012), Unbirth and myself were already promoted to bureaucrat status. Our third admin, Thomaskh2, would have been in the running for that sort of power but unreasonably blocked people for even the most minor of editing mistakes, and had become a general douche where previously, he wasn't. I think that other admins were also given that sort of treatment. It'd become unbearable and Unbirth and I had to demote him. I'm using this as an example. Thing is, we were fortunate, I guess, because Thomaskh2 didn't dare block the bureaucrats. This wouldn't have ended well, and Wikia would have most certainly intervened. At least give them credit for that one thing.
- I am all for one-way hierarchy in a situation like ours, because Porple is relatively active, in that he answers to distress calls reasonably quickly. I understand that such a situation would be subject to change, but not in the near future.

There are some things even the stars cannot tell me. • Trois Nyx Étienne — 22:41, 30 November 2015 (UTC)