*By the powers vested in me by the Wikipedia power structure, I hereby declare those changes to be de facto official, subject of course to overruling by other sysops **Is this implying that sysops have special powers in regards to the formulation of policy, I thought they were no better than the rest of us...
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A [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:
*By the powers vested in me by the Wikipedia power structure, I *hereby declare those changes to be de facto official, subject of *course to overruling by other sysops *Is this implying that sysops *have special powers in regards to the formulation of policy, I *thought they were no better than the rest of us...
Adam is right of course. I don't know who he is quoting, and maybe that was only a joke, but sysop is always and everywhere supposed to be a purely technical matter, not a position of authority and power of any kind.
I think maybe I need to say that a lot more often, eh?
And maybe we need to focus on what technical changes could be made to reduce the differences between sysops and ordinary signed-in-users.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
A [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:
*By the powers vested in me by the Wikipedia power structure, I *hereby declare those changes to be de facto official, subject of *course to overruling by other sysops *Is this implying that sysops *have special powers in regards to the formulation of policy, I *thought they were no better than the rest of us...
Adam is right of course. I don't know who he is quoting, and maybe that was only a joke, but sysop is always and everywhere supposed to be a purely technical matter, not a position of authority and power of any kind.
I think maybe I need to say that a lot more often, eh?
And maybe we need to focus on what technical changes could be made to reduce the differences between sysops and ordinary signed-in-users.
This will probably be opposed by those who'll see it as just another step into hierarchical organization, but I think it might be a good idea to create a new, more-inclusive class of users, that has authoritative significance but no technical powers. Basically any user who has been here for some period of time (maybe 2-3 weeks or so), and shown him/herself to be editing in good faith. As we get bigger, I think there will be a lot more "fake" users trying to influence things, so restricting things like policy formation and votes to "real" users in some sort of formal way might be a good idea. I'd envision it being very easy to gain this status: even someone who's invovled in lots of edit wars should be considered a "real user", so long as they aren't purely a troll or vandal, or someone who just signed up 3 hours ago.
This might actually have the effect of reducing the hierarchy somewhat, because right now sysops are a sort of de facto group of "trusted users", since the only defined groups we have are "sysops", "logged-in users", and "anonymous users". Sysops are too small a group, and logged-in users are too big a group (anyone can create 100 accounts if they wish). Making a larger group of trusted users without technical powers would reduce sysops to being just a subset of that group with additional technical powers, but no additional powers of any other sort.
Ideas?
-Mark
On Fri, 2003-12-05 at 22:13, Delirium wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote: >Adam is right of course. I don't know who he is quoting, and maybe >that was only a joke, but sysop is always and everywhere supposed to >be a purely technical matter, not a position of authority and power of >any kind. > >I think maybe I need to say that a lot more often, eh? > >And maybe we need to focus on what technical changes could be made to reduce >the differences between sysops and ordinary signed-in-users. > > This will probably be opposed by those who'll see it as just another step into hierarchical organization, but I think it might be a good idea to create a new, more-inclusive class of users, that has authoritative significance but no technical powers. Basically any user who has been here for some period of time (maybe 2-3 weeks or so), and shown him/herself to be editing in good faith. As we get bigger, I think there will be a lot more "fake" users trying to influence things, so restricting things like policy formation and votes to "real" users in some sort of formal way might be a good idea. I'd envision it being very easy to gain this status: even someone who's invovled in lots of edit wars should be considered a "real user", so long as they aren't purely a troll or vandal, or someone who just signed up 3 hours ago.
This might actually have the effect of reducing the hierarchy somewhat, because right now sysops are a sort of de facto group of "trusted users", since the only defined groups we have are "sysops", "logged-in users", and "anonymous users". Sysops are too small a group, and logged-in users are too big a group (anyone can create 100 accounts if they wish). Making a larger group of trusted users without technical powers would reduce sysops to being just a subset of that group with additional technical powers, but no additional powers of any other sort.
Ideas?
-Mark
I for one love this idea. In addition to addressing the problems that Delirium lists above, it would have the added benefit of giving users a modicum of validation from very early on, thus maybe reducing the number of walk-in walk-outs, and also reducing the number of folks applying for sysophood after 2 weeks and 100 edits who only really want validation for their existence on wikipedia.
Now at the other end of things, maybe at this point on the English wikipedia we have enough sysops in attendance at any one time, that it would not be unreasonable to require two concurring sysops to perform sysopactions which are uncommonly needed but potentially particularly controversial. I am thinking about unprotection of pages and undeletion as well. Perhaps protection of page as well, with the proviso that only one of the sysops participating in the protection be uninvolved in editing the page or having taken a strong view about it. Is this technically feasible?
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen (aka Cimon Avaro)
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote in part:
Delirium wrote:
This will probably be opposed by those who'll see it as just another step into hierarchical organization, but I think it might be a good idea to create a new, more-inclusive class of users, that has authoritative significance but no technical powers. Basically any user who has been here for some period of time (maybe 2-3 weeks or so), and shown him/herself to be editing in good faith.
How is this different from the requirements for sysophood? Jimbo is always trying to convince us that sysophood is no big deal, and that we restrict it only for technical reasons because it's so powerful.
Now at the other end of things, maybe at this point on the English wikipedia we have enough sysops in attendance at any one time, that it would not be unreasonable to require two concurring sysops to perform sysopactions which are uncommonly needed but potentially particularly controversial. I am thinking about unprotection of pages and undeletion as well.
Undeletion should never require more official validation than deletion.
-- Toby
Toby Bartels wrote:
Undeletion should never require more official validation than deletion.
And generally less, right, since after all a person can always 'undelete' by just starting the article over and copying and pasting the text?
--Jimbo
On Fri, 2003-12-05 at 23:15, Jimmy Wales wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote: > Undeletion should never require more official validation than deletion.
And generally less, right, since after all a person can always 'undelete' by just starting the article over and copying and pasting the text?
--Jimbo
Right. Got me. Although there is the possibility of putting something in place of the deleted page and protecting it. So in that sense the most powerful action a sysop can do (apart from blocking users) is to protect and unprotect pages, and those are the crucial actions to concentrate on.
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen (aka Cimon Avaro)
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote:
Undeletion should never require more official validation than deletion.
And generally less, right, since after all a person can always 'undelete' by just starting the article over and copying and pasting the text?
Not entirely.
For one thing, your solution destroys the edit history. Also, only admins can even view the text that they want to copy and paste (although that point is not relevant to current issue, since it is only about relative numbers of administrators).
In short, undeleting by your method is not as good as undeleting by software. That is one reason why undeleting shouldn't be unduly restricted.
-- Toby
Toby Bartels wrote:
Undeletion should never require more official validation than deletion.
Jimmy Wales wrote:
And generally less, right, since after all a person can always 'undelete' by just starting the article over and copying and pasting the text?
Toby Bartels wrote:
Not entirely.
For one thing, your solution destroys the edit history. Also, only admins can even view the text that they want to copy and paste (although that point is not relevant to current issue, since it is only about relative numbers of administrators).
In short, undeleting by your method is not as good as undeleting by
software.
That is one reason why undeleting shouldn't be unduly restricted.
If undeletion were made unrestricted then I think we would also have to allow everyone to view the text of deleted articles. Otherwise we would have people undeleting in order to view the text and (unless deletion was also unrestricted) being unable to delete again once they had done so.
I can also see a big increase in "deletion wars" if the ability to undelete is general.
I'm not saying that I think the ability to undelete /shouldn't/ be opened up, just seeing a few problems that should be looked at first.
Regards
sannse
[Sent both the wikiEN-L and directly to sannse.]
sannse wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote:
For one thing, your solution destroys the edit history. Also, only admins can even view the text that they want to copy and paste (although that point is not relevant to current issue, since it is only about relative numbers of administrators).
In short, undeleting by your method is not as good as undeleting by software. That is one reason why undeleting shouldn't be unduly restricted.
If undeletion were made unrestricted then I think we would also have to allow everyone to view the text of deleted articles. Otherwise we would have people undeleting in order to view the text and (unless deletion was also unrestricted) being unable to delete again once they had done so.
I can also see a big increase in "deletion wars" if the ability to undelete is general.
I'm not saying that I think the ability to undelete /shouldn't/ be opened up, just seeing a few problems that should be looked at first.
I think that you may be interpreting my remark out of context. The "undue" restriction on undeletion that I'm arguing against is to increase the requirement from 1 administrator to 2, ''while at the same time'' keeping deletion at only 1 admin.
I'm ''not'' suggesting that undeletion be ''completely'' unrestricted, while keeping deletion restricted. Although in another post, I mentioned the ideal of making ''both'' of the operation unrestricted, I do believe that this would require some software changes. At the moment, neither deletion and undeletion is handled very smoothly.
-- Toby
Toby Bartels wrote:
I think that you may be interpreting my remark out of context. The "undue" restriction on undeletion that I'm arguing against is to increase the requirement from 1 administrator to 2, ''while at the same time'' keeping deletion at only 1 admin.
I'm ''not'' suggesting that undeletion be ''completely'' unrestricted, while keeping deletion restricted. Although in another post, I mentioned the ideal of making ''both'' of the operation unrestricted, I do believe that this would require some software changes. At the moment, neither deletion and undeletion is handled very smoothly.
Sorry about that! Yes, I misunderstood your point, somehow missing the earlier context.
Thanks for clarifying.
Regards
sannse
On Fri, 2003-12-05 at 23:06, Toby Bartels wrote:
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote in part:
>Now at the other end of things, maybe at this point on the English >wikipedia we have enough sysops in attendance at any one time, that it >would not be unreasonable to require two concurring sysops to perform >sysopactions which are uncommonly needed but potentially particularly >controversial. I am thinking about unprotection of pages and undeletion >as well.
Undeletion should never require more official validation than deletion.
The inclusion of the word "never" in your argument; and the absence of a stated justification for your view; suggests that your position is a dogmatic one. Am I mischaractericising your attitude?
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen (aka Cimon Avaro)
Cimon Avaro (Jussi-Ville Heiskanen) wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote:
Undeletion should never require more official validation than deletion.
The inclusion of the word "never" in your argument; and the absence of a stated justification for your view; suggests that your position is a dogmatic one. Am I mischaractericising your attitude?
Yes, you are. I will clarify.
The word "never" indicates that I consider a matter of principle. I don't merely mean that I don't think that this should happen ''now'' -- I mean that it should ''never'' happen. On principle. Of course, principles can be challenged, and I might change my mind. Thus this is not the same as dogma.
I left out stating any justification, because I hoped (and believed) that the principle, once mentioned, would be widely viewed as correct. If somebody challenges the principle (or its application to this case), then I would want to respond with justification for my position. If I expected people to change their minds ''without'' doing so, then that would be dogamatic. But I don't.
I half expected you to say «When you put it that way, I agree.» -- on grounds of principle. And I half expected you to say «I disagree with that principle. What are your justifications?» -- and then I would justify it. As it is, you began a meta-discussion about my attitude. That's OK, The Cunctator does the same thing. ^_^
But I'll elaborate on the principle anyway, since I'm talking. The main principle is this:
: On a wiki, undoing an action should always be as easy as doing it.
We violate this in various ways -- page creation, for one thing, which is what deletion undoes. But that is handled by the software in completely different ways, so there's a reason to violate principle. But that's because software needs trump other principles:
: When the Right Thing is impracticable, then do the Wrong Thing for now.
-- Toby
Toby Bartels wrote:
Undeletion should never require more official validation than deletion.
Perhaps undeletion should be available to everybody, not just sysops. Deletion itself could still be limited to sysops.
Ec
Eclecticology wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote:
Undeletion should never require more official validation than deletion.
Perhaps undeletion should be available to everybody, not just sysops. Deletion itself could still be limited to sysops.
Ideally, all of these features would be available to everybody. Deletion was made an admin-only process because undeletion was impossible (check old talk history on deletion policies). Now it might be expanded.
Unfortunately, deletion is handled so differently by the software (and what's most relevant here is the inexperienced user sees it) that I doubt that people would easily treat is as just another edit. If the software can be made to treat it as just another edit, then there would be no reason to restrict it (hence also not undeletion).
Another problem is our reliance on ''page'' deletion as a way of deleting ''specific revisions'' that infringe copyright. Since this is only effective when the infringement is a page creation, it's not a permanently workable method. That software may change too.
-- Toby
Toby Bartels wrote:
Another problem is our reliance on ''page'' deletion as a way of deleting ''specific revisions'' that infringe copyright. Since this is only effective when the infringement is a page creation, it's not a permanently workable method. That software may change too.
It isn't really a workable method at all. If there's something we're not allowed to distribute, we're not allowed to distribute it to anyone. Deleted pages are still available to sysops, and I think also in the backup dumps.
Ideally, all of these features would be available to everybody. Deletion was made an admin-only process because undeletion was impossible (check old talk history on deletion policies). Now it might be expanded.
Yes, I think it's high time for this. Then discussion about an article can go on its talk page, and we can get rid of the flamewar-magnet 'Votes for Deletion'.
-M-
From: Matthew Woodcraft Toby Bartels wrote:
Another problem is our reliance on ''page'' deletion as a way of deleting ''specific revisions'' that infringe copyright. Since this
is
only effective when the infringement is a page creation, it's not a permanently workable method. That software may change too.
It isn't really a workable method at all. If there's something we're
not
allowed to distribute, we're not allowed to distribute it to anyone. Deleted pages are still available to sysops, and I think also in the backup dumps.
Actually, the law ends up being forgiving for internet hosts who have copies of copyrighted material as long as it's clear that they're not intending to publish; for example, even though deleted pages are available to sysops and in the backup dumps, as they're well hidden they're not a threat to the legitimate publisher/copyright owner.
Obviously, we need to make a good faith effort to respect copyright, but we don't need to suffer from copyright paranoia. This is not to say that the current system of dealing with copyrighted, unlicensed material on Wikipedia isn't broken. But I don't believe that the only legally sound solutions require total guaranteed erasure of any copyrighted text.
Think of Google and its cached copies of websites.
Ideally, all of these features would be available to everybody. Deletion was made an admin-only process because undeletion was impossible (check old talk history on deletion policies). Now it
might
be expanded.
Yes, I think it's high time for this. Then discussion about an article can go on its talk page, and we can get rid of the flamewar-magnet 'Votes for Deletion'.
You can add my rah rah here. With the stub-marking feature, deletion of entry histories just to get back the ? (or red) link is unnecessary.
Delirium wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Adam is right of course. I don't know who he is quoting, and maybe that was only a joke, but sysop is always and everywhere supposed to be a purely technical matter, not a position of authority and power of any kind.
I think maybe I need to say that a lot more often, eh?
And maybe we need to focus on what technical changes could be made to reduce the differences between sysops and ordinary signed-in-users.
This will probably be opposed by those who'll see it as just another step into hierarchical organization, but I think it might be a good idea to create a new, more-inclusive class of users, that has authoritative significance but no technical powers. Basically any user who has been here for some period of time (maybe 2-3 weeks or so), and shown him/herself to be editing in good faith. As we get bigger, I think there will be a lot more "fake" users trying to influence things, so restricting things like policy formation and votes to "real" users in some sort of formal way might be a good idea. I'd envision it being very easy to gain this status: even someone who's invovled in lots of edit wars should be considered a "real user", so long as they aren't purely a troll or vandal, or someone who just signed up 3 hours ago.
This might actually have the effect of reducing the hierarchy somewhat, because right now sysops are a sort of de facto group of "trusted users", since the only defined groups we have are "sysops", "logged-in users", and "anonymous users". Sysops are too small a group, and logged-in users are too big a group (anyone can create 100 accounts if they wish). Making a larger group of trusted users without technical powers would reduce sysops to being just a subset of that group with additional technical powers, but no additional powers of any other sort.
I'd like to see statistics about how many users create multiple ID's for the purpose of mischief. When a vote or policy making takes place, how much influence do these newbies have now. If a newbie's opinion is overly naïve it will stand out like a sore thumb and be ignored. On voting, I don't think that most newbies feel confident enough to participate, and those who do will not be in significant numbers. Reducing hierarchy by adding another level of hierarchy doesn't make sense. I don't support the proposal. It's trying to solve an imagined problem, not a real one.
Ec