We need more people with access to CheckUser, because I don't scale, and we're under a nasty vandalbot attack. Proposal at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Quick_and_dirty_Checkuser_policy_prop...
Discussion at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Quick_and_dirty_Checkuser_policy...
Also, it's really slow, and I've had it time out for five hour stretches before when the DB's been under heavy load. So if anyone with a good grasp of the MediaWiki data structures wants to rewrite it to be faster/less load, please do!
My comments at the above:
As the guy who uses it now on en: (mostly so Tim Starling can get on with development and sysadmin matters), a few notes:
* _You have to pick people you can trust, and then trust them all the way._ Various people are going to ask to have this logged seven ways to Sunday to protect against possible abuses - but adding red tape is just going to be a massive PITA and not actually affect whether the CheckUser checker can be trusted to act with confidence. Basically, we have to pick people we trust not to use the power for evil. Like we do admins and bureaucrats, but more so. * Access by all bureaucrats is good IMO. They're highly trusted people. If people aren't sure about this one, we can reconfirm all current bureaucrats one by one. * Remember that a small number of the developers (those who have access to the database) already have this power and use it. They control the horizontal, they control the vertical, they see all and know all — because they have to have complete control in order to administer a top-50 website. But they respect the privacy policy, because that's what you do as a sysadmin. The proposal is to extend access to just one power, so as to avoid a bottleneck of too few people for the job. * It helps if the person understands various network foo. If not I am most happy to help and show how to interpret stuff. It's an art, not a science. * I really need to write up a Help: page for CheckUser checkers. * taw on pl: has CheckUser for pl:, I think — worth asking for ideas?
- d.