On 5/28/06, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Not that I'm sold on it, but if you're going down *that* avenue, just RFA in batches of twenty or thirty and hand out accounts en bloc...
I'm not sold either, but the debate should perhaps be had. There are basically three broad options:
1. "The borg" - all admins by default act through the same account. It is possible, but with difficulty, to determine who performed which administrative act. - Major problems of accountability of course. 2. "Pseudonyms" - each admin has an account used exclusively for administrative actions. At his discretion, he may disclose this link. Problems - maintaining the secrecy, convincing users that accountability is maintained, users having no idea of the history of each admin (where they suddenly came from...) 3. As current - problems: targetability, admins having more sway than is reasonable when acting outside their role (eg, content disputes) etc.
Comments and opinions pls.
Steve
On 5/28/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/28/06, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Not that I'm sold on it, but if you're going down *that* avenue, just RFA in batches of twenty or thirty and hand out accounts en bloc...
I'm not sold either, but the debate should perhaps be had. There are basically three broad options:
- "The borg" - all admins by default act through the same account. It
is possible, but with difficulty, to determine who performed which administrative act. - Major problems of accountability of course. 2. "Pseudonyms" - each admin has an account used exclusively for administrative actions. At his discretion, he may disclose this link. Problems - maintaining the secrecy, convincing users that accountability is maintained, users having no idea of the history of each admin (where they suddenly came from...) 3. As current - problems: targetability, admins having more sway than is reasonable when acting outside their role (eg, content disputes) etc.
Comments and opinions pls.
This proposal doesn't seem to have any advantages that I can see, but I can think of one or two major ones.
If you can't tell the identity of the person who performed an administrator action, then there's no way to detect administrators who abuse their powers to gain advantage during a content dispute.
If you have the "borg" solution then it becomes very difficult even for the system to track who actually performed which sysadmin action.
If instead you have a shadow admin account for each admin user, we're back where we started, but with the disadvantage that we can't see anything about an admin except his admin actions. I cannot see what possible good such concealment could do. Administrators need to be accountable. We need to see who is up to what.
On 5/28/06, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
If you can't tell the identity of the person who performed an administrator action, then there's no way to detect administrators who abuse their powers to gain advantage during a content dispute.
In the pseudonym system, you could have a sort of low-powered checkuser, which checks whether the admin has ever edited the account with their nonadmin account.
If you have the "borg" solution then it becomes very difficult even for the system to track who actually performed which sysadmin action.
Well, it would need some modifications to the mediawiki software.
If instead you have a shadow admin account for each admin user, we're back where we started, but with the disadvantage that we can't see anything about an admin except his admin actions. I cannot see what
Are non-admin actions necessarily relevant? Is the fact that an admin spends all his time editing Pokemon articles relevant when he blocks someone for racist propaganda? These aren't rhetorical questions.
possible good such concealment could do. Administrators need to be accountable. We need to see who is up to what.
Accountable to the extent that they could get rung up at work? How accountable?
Steve
On 5/28/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/28/06, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
If instead you have a shadow admin account for each admin user, we're back where we started, but with the disadvantage that we can't see anything about an admin except his admin actions. I cannot see what
Are non-admin actions necessarily relevant? Is the fact that an admin spends all his time editing Pokemon articles relevant when he blocks someone for racist propaganda? These aren't rhetorical questions.
Well it is relevant if he blocks someone who is editing a pokemon article that he is also editing. And if you don't know what he edits, there is also the question of his motivation. Far better that editors can plainly see that the administrator who blocked them was not involved in a content dispute on the article.
On 5/28/06, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
Well it is relevant if he blocks someone who is editing a pokemon article that he is also editing. And if you don't know what he edits, there is also the question of his motivation. Far better that editors can plainly see that the administrator who blocked them was not involved in a content dispute on the article.
Is that not problem not solved by a cut down "checkadmin" that tells you whether an admin has been involved in a given article?
Steve
On 5/28/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/28/06, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
Well it is relevant if he blocks someone who is editing a pokemon article that he is also editing. And if you don't know what he edits, there is also the question of his motivation. Far better that editors can plainly see that the administrator who blocked them was not involved in a content dispute on the article.
Is that not problem not solved by a cut down "checkadmin" that tells you whether an admin has been involved in a given article?
Steve
Not really. It just so happens that our admin who works on pokemon articles has never edited [[Raticate]]. in any case it would be fairly trivial to use brute force searching to figure out who was doing what.
On 5/28/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Not really. It just so happens that our admin who works on pokemon articles has never edited [[Raticate]]. in any case it would be fairly trivial to use brute force searching to figure out who was doing what.
Yes, if we allowed brute force accessing of it.
Anyway I'm just brainstorming here. What if we had classes of admins that were "secret", but agreed not to involve themselves in edit disputes at all (eg, protecting pages, rolling back...) How can we reduce the likelihood of admins getting WR'd?
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 5/28/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Not really. It just so happens that our admin who works on pokemon articles has never edited [[Raticate]]. in any case it would be fairly trivial to use brute force searching to figure out who was doing what.
Yes, if we allowed brute force accessing of it.
Anyway I'm just brainstorming here. What if we had classes of admins that were "secret", but agreed not to involve themselves in edit disputes at all (eg, protecting pages, rolling back...) How can we reduce the likelihood of admins getting WR'd?
That was the intention of my original post. I did say that it was a radical proposal, not my final solution.
On 5/28/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/28/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Not really. It just so happens that our admin who works on pokemon articles has never edited [[Raticate]]. in any case it would be fairly trivial to use brute force searching to figure out who was doing what.
Yes, if we allowed brute force accessing of it.
Anyway I'm just brainstorming here. What if we had classes of admins that were "secret", but agreed not to involve themselves in edit disputes at all (eg, protecting pages, rolling back...)
Litits thier usefulness somewhat.
How can we reduce the likelihood of admins getting WR'd?
We can't really. All we can do is warn people what they are taking on. Some will be careful as to their idently others will be less concerned.
On 5/29/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
We can't really. All we can do is warn people what they are taking on. Some will be careful as to their idently others will be less concerned.
Eh? Warn them when? The first time they sign onto Wikipedia? If I became an admin now, there's nothing I could do - my username and name are linked, and there's plenty of info to track me down.
Let's attack the problem from that point of view: is it possible for me to become an admin, from the position I'm in now, without being an easy target for WR?
Steve
On 5/28/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/29/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
We can't really. All we can do is warn people what they are taking on. Some will be careful as to their idently others will be less concerned.
Eh? Warn them when? The first time they sign onto Wikipedia? If I became an admin now, there's nothing I could do - my username and name are linked, and there's plenty of info to track me down.
Let's attack the problem from that point of view: is it possible for me to become an admin, from the position I'm in now, without being an easy target for WR?
Steve
Create a new account start from scrach and make some styleistic changes to your writeing style and where you edit. Other than that probably not.
Ultimately you either try to hide or you accept being out.
On 5/29/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Create a new account start from scrach and make some styleistic changes to your writeing style and where you edit. Other than that probably not.
Ultimately you either try to hide or you accept being out.
Goodie.
Steve
On 5/29/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
- "The borg" - all admins by default act through the same account. It
is possible, but with difficulty, to determine who performed which administrative act. - Major problems of accountability of course.
Oh yes please, then when trolls complain at being blocked we can tell them that "resistance is futile".
On 5/28/06, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/29/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
- "The borg" - all admins by default act through the same account. It
is possible, but with difficulty, to determine who performed which administrative act. - Major problems of accountability of course.
Oh yes please, then when trolls complain at being blocked we can tell them that "resistance is futile".
-- Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
i vote for this