Meta:Babel/Archives/2009-04

Removal of rights and confirmation

In the spirit of the threshold discussed and communally accepted here in January, I have removed the rights of User:Benjamin-no following pertinent discussion on my talk page. The user has not been around for drawing on a year, and Finnrind indicated to me that he wanted his rights removed, so I boldly went ahead and did it. Coincidentally, Herby brought up a relevant issue at Meta talk:Administrators at around the same time concerning our confirmation process (or lack thereof). Do we have consensus on the way in which future admin "confirmation" is to be conducted? It seemed to me from discussion at meta talk:Administrators/confirm that we decided that admin access would be stripped after 6 months' inactivity; if this is the case, how will these half-yearly checks be conducted and logged? —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 13:22, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

We start from today and simply look at who does not meet the criteria. I have provisionally made the criteria as fewer than 10 edits or logged actions in the last six months. Only two users actually fit that, though there are some that are borderline. The two users are FrancoGG and Nakon. Majorly ^talk 13:36, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

10 edits sound good, but we might want to leave that up for discussion for a bit. I personally wouldn't think that dropping the bar any lower would be appropriate; but perhaps raising it some would be an okay idea. See what people think. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 13:39, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather look at admin actions - no rights are needed to edit after all.

On the Benjamin-no one I was aware of the issue anyway as I handled some issues on Commons at the same time & was aware that they were "leaving" wikis. Regards --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:42, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that looking at admin actions seem more relevant for this than merely edits. At Commons that is counted as "logged actions", here we may want to include editing protected pages as MediaWiki editing and spamlistadditions are important parts of Metasysop work. At Commons the bar is as low as 5 adimistrative actions in six months, but at Commons we are in constantly desperate need of administrative help and thus any help by qualified admins is needed. That is hardly the situation here at Meta (as far as I can tell after having been admin here one day)... Finn Rindahl 14:11, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Frankly it amazes me that anyone can be an admin on Commons & only find 5 things to delete in a day :). However it really is about actions to me wherever the bar is. I think Vasiliev's tool does count most ([1]) - I do take a look from time to time ;) --Herby ^{talk thyme} 14:56, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I wasn't aware that that tool counted mediawiki, blacklist and portaledits as well. Then I think a certain number of actions the previous half year is what would constitute "activity". I'll let the more experienced metaadmins try to fix where the bar for that should be :) Finn Rindahl 16:39, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Please see here. Less voting, more discussing I think. Please comment on talk. Majorly ^talk 18:06, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Sidebar update!

Time to make the sidebar useful and meta more portalful - spring cleaning on meta :-) See MediaWiki_talk:Sidebar. -- sj | help translate |+ 18:22, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Stewards and oversight rights

As you may recall, Meta had (quite briefly) local oversighters. After a while, that was deemed unnecessary - Drini and I had our rights removed so the stewards as a group would handle oversight for meta, since that would (and did, I think) result in better "service" in terms of availability/response time.

With the activation of revision deletion, oversight has become far more useful to us - in particular to hide usernames. Since stewards lock+hide the accounts, this leaves behind log entries which must in turn be hidden. Currently this is done by granting ourselves oversight rights temporarily, which is a hindrance when (trying to) work quickly.

I'd like to suggest two ideas for community discussion:

1. Stewards who want it (not all of us are active in lock+hiding accounts for example) could leave oversight on all the time. This would avoid bloating userrights logs, would make hiding such things a bit more discreet (which is a good thing!), and would make workflow easier as described above.
2. Meta could reinstate the local oversighters and/or elect new ones.

I am partial to the first option because when such log entries are created, they are created by a steward. That means there is a steward available to hide the log entries. That means that if a local oversighter isn't available (which, if we had 2 oversighters as we did previously would be quite likely), the steward is permitted to do so.

Thanks for your consideration.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 02:09, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Makes perfect sense to me. New developments in the oversight right make it something quite necessary, and there is no reason why Stewards should continually re-equip this right on Meta when they're all trusted enough to perform the actions anyway. In fact, I'd have no oppositions to development to the effect of rolling CheckUser and Oversight access on Meta into the Steward user right. It just makes sense. I think local Oversighters would also be a good idea. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 02:14, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Well we had local oversighters. (I was one of them, briefly... very briefly :) ) and the community decided to go the way it is now. Do we want to undo that? I support just leaving the rights turned on for stewards that are consistend workers in this area rather than going back and having new elections. But I'm not opposed to new elections if that is what everyone wants to do. AD can you clarify which things you favour the most? ++Lar: t/c 02:32, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I favour both. I think increasing our oversight coverage by both electing local oversights as well as allowing Stewards who need it to have it is a sound idea. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 02:39, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Well... Stewards who need to use it already have that power, that's what the community decided... what this is about, I think, is waiving what the WM:MSR page says about logging everything that possibly can be logged by preference, as it relates to just running with the bit turned on instead of turning it on and off a lot. A list could be put somewhere (hung off the oversight page) of those stewards currently running with it always on, maybe. ++Lar: t/c 03:30, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

1. 1 seems easiest in my mind, and I have no objections to it. Cbrown1023 talk 03:45, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

No objections to either alternative, but 1 seem easiest. Finn Rindahl 10:25, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Just a note that rolling oversight and CheckUser into one user group has been discussed (quite favourably, to my surprise) recently. I don't think this is the place to discuss it, but if people are interested in that idea, Talk:CheckUser and Talk:Oversight are ready & waiting :)  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 03:11, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm in favor of this myself, and started a discussion at talk:CheckUser. It would also be nice to get rid of camelcase in whatever name is given to such a combined group... -- sj | help translate |+

I have no real issues with OS being left turned on for active stewards on Meta. However if there is a demand of some sort I'd probably support local OS users (who were not stewards). I'm not a fan generally of people with too many rights & it would mean that some non stewards could at least keep en eye on the log. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:50, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I would like to see local OS users as well. -- sj | help translate |+ 23:41, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Upon reflection, I think my preferred course would be to reinstate the local oversighters we had previously, and add more. Now that oversight has become so useful to us, there is a lot of demand for it's use. I would suggest adding perhaps 4 stewards and 1 or 2 non-stewards on top of the 2 local oversighters we had previously. This sounds like a lot, but I think that'd be sufficient to allow the local oversighters (whether they happen to be stewards or not) to respond quickly when hiding log entries is necessary, and we would still (if necessary) have WM:MSR which permits stewards to use oversight if the locally-elected ones aren't available. I have in mind some names, but getting support for the idea in general would be a better first step, I think. This is, in essence, a combination of my two suggested ideas above. We want some people to have oversight all the time, but this also gives them explicit sanction from the Meta community to leave the bit on all the time - no technicalities or hand-waving. At the same time, it leaves stewards in a position to take action if necessary (ie emergency situation, log entries needing to be hidden, no local oversighters available).  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 18:15, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

As a former overisghter: Yes, we removed our bits because at the time, with the old oversight, it was barely used. Now with the new one, I think as Mike said, it's more useful, so I wouldn't mind having the bit back. es:Drini 21:56, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't matter for me, if 1 or 2 is favoured as long as there will be local oversights. It's annoying to switch that user right on and off again and again. The problem with Special:Log/globalauth would be partially fixed when bugs bugzilla:18060 and bugzilla:18183 would be fixed, too. Kind regards, —DerHexer (Talk) 14:41, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

For what it is worth I agree with Mike's thought here & would completely support the return of rights to Drini & Mike anyway. Add a couple more active stewards & see if anyone "ordinary" is interest? --Herby ^{talk thyme} 15:00, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Both of suggested methods are acceptable but first one is simply much easier --Mardetanha ^talk 04:17, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I've made a request for the return of oversight rights to Drini any myself. I'd like several more RFOs to take place sooner rather than later. I won't nominate anyone, but the stewards who use it know who they are.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 00:29, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I use it from time to time but not nearly as much as Mike or Drini... I'm open to requesting it again if desired. ++Lar: t/c 15:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Hello

Hello. I am Belinda and I will be working with the Wikimedia Foundation. I am bound by contract so can't fully disclose what or why. Anyway, if you need more info, email belinda.speed@clyde1.com. --Belinda Speed 20:28, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi Belinda, you haven't shown up to work so I expect that you're fired. Oh, and the money from the till is missing too. bastique ^demandez! 21:58, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Off-switch for cross-wiki sign-in?

Problem. So, I experience a bit of trouble corrupting various IP addresses (hotels, coffee shops, government installations, etc.) when I inadvertently follow a link from here (where I am a good citizen in good standing) over to En-Wikipedia (where I am unjustly banned). Should I happen to touch any "edit" link or page, then the IP is auto-blocked, and even if I leave the modem, I've "tainted" it for anyone who will follow me. Wanting not to leave this trail of destruction wherever I go, is there some way to disable the "cross-wiki auto-sign-in" feature? Best regards to everyone, especially the kind soul who answers me. -- Thekohser 03:06, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

As far as I know, the only way to do that would be to request that your global account be deleted. I could be wrong, though. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 04:15, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Of course, the other option would be for an enwiki admin to change the block setting on your account to no longer autoblock IPs the account tries to edit from. There'd be an argument for that if it's causing collateral damage. On the other hand, it may be that those autoblocks are thought to be useful in tracking down accounts that you might be using to edit despite your ban (by seeing what other accounts have edited from the IPs that get autoblocked). Might be worth asking for the block settings to be changed though... WJBscribe (talk) 10:46, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Hello, I don't see much of a problem, the edit link is quite descriptive and always at the same spot, so I don't understand how it can be touched without wanting it, resolution would be not to touch it. You may request unmerging of the en.wiki account at SR/SUL. Best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 10:55, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Spacebirdy, the auto-block can be invoked by things other than the "edit" tab. For example, clicking on "E-mail this user" in the left sidebar will do it. Another example, clicking on a red-link word or phrase in an article will do it. I'm looking into an ArbCom appeal of my unjust "community ban" on English Wikipedia (as far as I know, the only Wikimedia property where I am blocked, much less banned), so we'll see how that goes. -- Thekohser 19:37, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I already gave You the link where to request unmerge of en.wiki account, note that we will not delete the global account only unmerge en.wiki, that should solve the problem. Br. --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 20:30, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to sound dense, but... couldn't you just not do those things? The "Email this user" page and redlinks aren't exactly the sort of thing that you can easily accidently stumble into... EVula // talk // ☯ // 14:44, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

What if I wish to contact via e-mail another Meta Wikimedian, but their User page here says to contact them on English Wikipedia? What do I do, then? -- Thekohser 18:48, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough, though you could still leave them a message, banking on the fact that they may have the "email me when my talk page is changed" option turned on. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:28, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Questions about Wikipedia article depth

Hello, is somebody able to answer the questions at Talk:Wikipedia article depth, please? Thanks--JFKCom 15:56, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Many thanks for the answers!--JFKCom 22:01, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to instate non-admin rollback

The following discussion is closed: Seems clear that, for now, we don't need it. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 05:24, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

---

I would like to propose that we instate non-admin (and non-global-rollbacker) rollback here at Meta. Commons already has it installed, and I think it can be helpful here, too. See WM:RFH#Help and w:WP:ROLL for more information. Warm regards, Dylan620 _{Talk to the left,} ^{stalk to the right.} 19:57, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't really see the need. This is the homewiki for stewards, global rollbackers, etc and we have quite a few admins. You are free to fight vandalism without it and then apply to be an admin. :-) Cbrown1023 talk 21:26, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I'll leave this open in case anybody disagrees, but OK. My time here at Meta will revolve around fighting vandalism; once I could use the rollback button, I'll apply for adminship (boy, I wonder what being an admin at Meta is like?). Not only will I be able to use the rollback button, but I'll also be able to block vandalism-only users and delete vandalism and attack pages! No plans to become a 'crat here though, unlike the other wikis where I'm active. --Dylan620 _{Talk to the left,} ^{stalk to the right.} 21:50, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I have to state my agreement with Cbrown. See my comment at Meta:Requests for help from a sysop or bureaucrat. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 21:54, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Cbrown and AD; our sysop (or other) to vandalism ratio is far, far higher than most other wikis, so individual rollbackers aren't as necessary as, say, Wikipedia. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:58, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

@Dylan - you have to be an admin already on another content Wikimedia project before being granted adminship here. Majorly talk 22:05, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Does simple.wiktionary count? --Dylan620 _{Talk to the left,} ^{stalk to the right.} 22:11, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but you're not an admin there. Majorly talk 22:14, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I know, but it's where I'd like to be an admin most. --Dylan620 _{Talk to the left,} ^{stalk to the right.} 22:15, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

So I guess the consensus is "we don't need it"? I definitely agree with that.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 22:56, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I could see it being potentially useful, but not necessary at the moment. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 14:14, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Not seeing the need... ++Lar: t/c 03:28, 27 April 2009 (UTC)