Hello,
for a wiki I administer, it's sometimes desirable for admins to work as another user, either by
- "becoming" the user without having to manually login (sudo-like behaviour), - or manually changing the username in the page history on newly created or modified pages
so it looks like another user edited the page rather than the admin.
I wasn't able to find an extension that does so. Is that possible with MediaWiki?
Thanks Florian
Florian Effenberger wrote:
Hello,
for a wiki I administer, it's sometimes desirable for admins to work as another user, either by
- "becoming" the user without having to manually login (sudo-like behaviour),
- or manually changing the username in the page history on newly
created or modified pages
so it looks like another user edited the page rather than the admin.
I wasn't able to find an extension that does so. Is that possible with MediaWiki?
Thanks Florian
No. Why would you want to do it?
Hi,
No. Why would you want to do it?
for "ghostwriting" on behalf of other users. The admin of one of my wikis asked me. I agree it's quite unusual, but if there's a solution -- other than writing my own little script to exchange user's passwords "on the fly" -- let me know. :)
Florian
Florian Effenberger wrote:
Hi,
No. Why would you want to do it?
for "ghostwriting" on behalf of other users. The admin of one of my wikis asked me. I agree it's quite unusual, but if there's a solution -- other than writing my own little script to exchange user's passwords "on the fly" -- let me know. :)
Florian
So, the admin wants to make it look like someone else wrote a text that in fact he didn't? Doesn't look a good idea :) On any sensible community the admin would be able to write the text with its account saying after signing / in the comment "On behalf of user X who asked me during lunch to write this." Instead of changing passwords, you could write the script to change attribution for the edit.
On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 10:06 PM, Florian Effenberger floeff@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
for a wiki I administer, it's sometimes desirable for admins to work as another user,
Try Special:Piggyback The code for it is here: https://svn.wikia-code.com/wikia/trunk/extensions/wikia/Piggyback/
Angela
On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 12:43 AM, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 10:06 PM, Florian Effenberger floeff@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
for a wiki I administer, it's sometimes desirable for admins to work as another user,
Try Special:Piggyback The code for it is here: https://svn.wikia-code.com/wikia/trunk/extensions/wikia/Piggyback/
Angela
it sounds like a can of worms to me though. if you can no longer trust the history of contributors, where would transparency, trustwortyness of attribution (and attribution rights) go, or responsibility and accountability in a corporate environment?
is this extension when installed visible in [[Special:Version]] ? are there any open wikis you know of that use it?
oscar
On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 3:06 PM, oscar oscar@wikimedia.org wrote:
Try Special:Piggyback
is this extension when installed visible in [[Special:Version]] ? are there any open wikis you know of that use it?
It does show in Special:Version. There's also a private log (viewable by the same people that can use the extension) on the wiki showing who logged in as who. It's used on Wikia to track down bugs. For example, if someone says they can't edit, you can log in as them and work out why.
Angela
Hello Angela,
Try Special:Piggyback The code for it is here: https://svn.wikia-code.com/wikia/trunk/extensions/wikia/Piggyback/
thanks a lot, that's exactly what I've been looking for! However, it doesn't seem to work for me. I downloaded all of the files and added this to my LocalSettings.php:
require_once("extensions/Piggyback/Piggyback.php"); $wgGroupPermissions['piggyback']['piggyback'] = true;
After giving my user the piggyback group, I can see the special page, but it doesn't work. No matter what I enter - even if the username does not exist or is left blank - the form is loaded again. Did I do something wrong?
Thanks Florian
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