[Wikipedia-l] Sysop status

[Brion VIBBER]

lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:

>>There are also a handful of 'developer' features available only
>>to a few of the programmers for purposes of finding and fixing
>>bugs: database queries, showing the PHP configuration variables,
>>and enabling/disabling a read-only mode to prevent edits to the
>>database in the middle of certain upgrades. --Brion VIBBER »
>>    
>>
>
>Sysops can do "SELECT" queries on the database.  Only developers
>can do updates and deletes.
>
There had been some discussion a while ago of changing that and 
restricting all direct DB access to developers; I guess I got it mixed 
up with the implementation in my memory. As I recall the points of 
contention were:

1) Users' passwords were stored in the database in plaintext. (Since 
changed; hashes are now stored so they aren't much good if you get them.)

2) The number of 'sysop's is rapidly rising, and the chances of somebody 
accidentally (or maliciously) performing a slow, complex query that tied 
up the database for a long time would increase.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)