Dear pywikibot users,

Please be advised that "sysopnames" is now deprecated. For all actions that rely on a sysop account (such as deletion or protection), the code now checks the rights of the bot user (as defined by the "usernames" array) and if that user has the necessary right to perform the action, it will be used. If not, an attempt will still be made to use the sysop account as defined in the "sysopnames" array. However, we will soon clean up the code to remove this feature altogether.

If a user wants to use different accounts for different actions, then the bot script must explicitly use multiple instance of the Site class. Once we completely remove support for "sysopnames", users who relied on the dualism it caused will be left with a few choices: either get their main account promoted to sysop (or any other group that has the desired rights), or update the bot script such that it explicitly enforces the use of a second account. While we are working on proving a cleaner example of how to deal with two accounts in the bot script, you can refer to this comment on Phabricator as a starter.

This has been a long-desired change in pywikibot code base (see T71283). You can contribute to this movement by removing "sysopnames" from your bot's user-config.py and reporting any issues that arise afterwards. You can also help us by updating the documentation on the MediaWiki wiki (for instance here).

Sincerely,

Huji