You all know the IRC channel, no? #wikipedia on irc.freenode.net? And its small army of related channels? http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_channels has the dirt.
Up until this point, our relationship with Freenode has largely been ad hoc. Eloquence registered #wikipedia some time ago, and for a long time that and the other channels were just managed as necessary.
However, Freenode also allows groups to set up an official contact with Wikipedia. A few months ago, I took some initiative, filled out a little form and answered a phone call and got designated as Wikipedia's Group Contact with Freenode. (I wanted a .wikipedia username cloak, and you needed a group contact to manage that, so...) I've used this position mostly to give out similar IRC cloaks.
Recently, I used my group-contact status with Freenode to gain temporary operator status to ban Michael and Lir, who had just joined the channel to brag about their recent exploits on WP:RFA, and to stir up ill will. Profanities were being thrown. About this time, Fire had also set himself up as a contact, using the same credentials (some sysop power, et cetera), and has undertaken to straighten out the Wikipedia-related channels. In particular, he got added as a level-30 contact in #wikipedia, and added several people with ChanServ access which would allow them to become operators.
While this is useful, and the people added were trustworthy, this brings up a salient point. We don't just want anyone- or even any sysop- to be able to come on and reorganize the channel structure or anything. I think it would be useful if the Board could appoint an Official Freenode Liason to be the #1 group contact, and if we could decide how we would like to have these sorts of affairs managed.
The contact has a few properties: he (or she) can contact Freenode staff and ask for a change in ownership of a project-related channel, for access to the channel, for temporary operator status, or anything related to the projects' channels which he cannot do by himself.
Additionally, the contact is responsible for asking Freenode staff to apply "cloaks" for the users' hostmasks. I have used this and page on the English wikipedia to set up people with username "Foo" as "Foo.wikipedia" on IRC. This provides a way to prove that you are who you say you are on IRC. However, we are running into the problem of language-related requests, and since we don't have a unified login, there is room for confusion. At present I have reccomended to Fire that we keep cloaks a per-language setting, and having user.XX.wikipedia as a cloak, where XX is a language code, *except* if the language is English, in which case it is not used (although we could change this if desired).
There has also been talk about a Q: line for the Recent Changes bots' nicknames. This would prevent someone using the <enrc> or categorically similar nicknames without authorization.
I think that all of these issues could be best resolved if we had official sanction for at least one #1 Head Honcho group contact, and a good place to manage these affairs.
On Sat, 31 Jul 2004 11:39:25 -0400, Fennec Foxen fennec@gmail.com wrote:
I think it would be useful if the Board could appoint an Official Freenode Liason to be the #1 group contact, and if we could decide how we would like to have these sorts of affairs managed.
An addendum from lilo, the manager of Freenode and the Peer Directed Projects Center: <lilo> hi, you around? <FennecFoxen> yes <FennecFoxen> as a matter of fact <FennecFoxen> I was just firing off a letter to the Wikimedia foundation about IRC. :) <lilo> tell me about the 'wikimedia board of trustees' <lilo> ahhhh <FennecFoxen> Okay. The Wikimedia Foundation owns and manages Wikipedia and its sister projects. <lilo> kay, perfect 8) <lilo> may I offer suggestions? <FennecFoxen> oh, sure. <FennecFoxen> I've suggested that they appoint an Official Contact <lilo> perfect <FennecFoxen> rather then letting ad hoc contacts like myself manage everything ad-hocly. :) <FennecFoxen> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_of_Trustees has information on the board's composition... <lilo> let them know that PDPC would prefer that, and that they can delegate any specific aspects of contact in any way that they see fit, and that PDPC would prefer an official contact, and that setting one up does not in any way commit them to doing anything in particular with their channels here :) <FennecFoxen> okay. :) <lilo> that's pretty much our take 8) <lilo> I just got a message with some complaints about having Fire as group contact <lilo> and if you're reacting to those, I think you're doing exactly the right thing <FennecFoxen> yeah. Fire is well-meaning, but some consider him Annoying. :) <lilo> from our standpoint, we just want to make sure that (1) your board has control over your presence here, and (2) any users labeled as being officially involved with your project are being labeled so correctly <FennecFoxen> but his credentials are just as valid as mine in this matter, really. :) <lilo> I'm going to tentatively mark Fire as 'withdrawn' and we can leave that up to your board
He has also left me with an official phone number for contact in this matter. :)
Fennec Foxen wrote:
However, Freenode also allows groups to set up an official contact with Wikipedia. A few months ago, I took some initiative, filled out a little form and answered a phone call and got designated as Wikipedia's Group Contact with Freenode. (I wanted a .wikipedia username cloak, and you needed a group contact to manage that, so...) I've used this position mostly to give out similar IRC cloaks.
While I agree that we need a group contact, I'm against the use of cloaks. It creates an IMO unnecessary distinction between "official" and normal users and can lead for newbies to the false impression that they get an somehow more "official" answer from someone with a cloak when it's in fact only a personal opinion like that of many other users. It destroys the fundamental equality of the people involved in Wikimedia.
If we use cloaks, it should be reserved to people on the board or people with an existing official function (like developer liaision, press contact...) not distributed arbitrarily by an "I trust you policy".
But even for those I think it's not necessary: Jimmy, Angela and Anthere are anyhow known as members of the board, so a cloak would have no effect whatsoever. Or differently put: a cloak is for speaking "ex cathedra" and I doubt that this will happen very often.
FYI: the german channel elected JeLuf as main channel administrator - this was done when the need of a channel registration (and ops) arose. The german wikimedia channels are handled AFAIK by DaB.
greetings, elian
Elisabeth Bauer wrote:
While I agree that we need a group contact, I'm against the use of cloaks. It creates an IMO unnecessary distinction between "official" and normal users and can lead for newbies to the false impression that they get an somehow more "official" answer from someone with a cloak when it's in fact only a personal opinion like that of many other users. It destroys the fundamental equality of the people involved in Wikimedia.
If we use cloaks, it should be reserved to people on the board or people with an existing official function (like developer liaision, press contact...) not distributed arbitrarily by an "I trust you policy".
I thought so too, until I realised that they were useful for technical reasons, especially +I modes. That caused me to go from grumpily complaining about their problems to requesting one. Cloaks aren't highly visible, especially when users join the room before identifying with NickServ, as they often do. Some users have a cloak but don't bother identifying at all. I usually don't notice cloaks unless I go looking for them.
Most #wikipedia regulars seem to have a cloak now, so I'd expect a bit of opposition if we tried to take them away. Also, the Freenode staff seem to be very much in favour of the idea.
I often talk on IRC without having identified, and I've never been challenged by a newbie wanting "official" answers. I can't remember anyone ever commenting on the presence or absence of a cloak in relation to any kind of officialness.
-- Tim Starling
Elisabeth Bauer wrote:
But even for those I think it's not necessary: Jimmy, Angela and Anthere are anyhow known as members of the board, so a cloak would have no effect whatsoever. Or differently put: a cloak is for speaking "ex cathedra" and I doubt that this will happen very often.
Maybe I don't quite understand the issue, but one thing I like about the cloak is that I don't have to worry about people pretending to be me. This seems like a legitimate danger since I'm pretty easy to impersonate, ha ha, because I always say the same things.
--Jimbo
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
Maybe I don't quite understand the issue, but one thing I like about the cloak is that I don't have to worry about people pretending to be me.
You don't need a cloak to have this security. If you simply identify yourself using NickServ, you will get something like this:
(your nick) is an identified user
in your whois.
Timwi
Timwi wrote:
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
Maybe I don't quite understand the issue, but one thing I like about the cloak is that I don't have to worry about people pretending to be me.
You don't need a cloak to have this security. If you simply identify yourself using NickServ, you will get something like this:
(your nick) is an identified user
in your whois.
That identifies you as the same person each time on IRC, but it doesn't identify you as the same person as whoever is using that nick on Wikipedia.
If someone registers "timwi" before you do on IRC they could pretend to be the Wikipedia Timwi - and there is no way to tell differently. Cloaks have only been given out to people who have confirmed their nick on Wikpedia.
Like Jimbo - I like the security of knowing that I can be seen to be the same "sannse" on IRC and Wikipedia.
--sannse
On Tue, 10 Aug 2004 21:35:32 +0100, sannse sannse@tiscali.co.uk wrote:
That identifies you as the same person each time on IRC, but it doesn't identify you as the same person as whoever is using that nick on Wikipedia.
If someone registers "timwi" before you do on IRC they could pretend to be the Wikipedia Timwi - and there is no way to tell differently. Cloaks have only been given out to people who have confirmed their nick on Wikpedia.
Like Jimbo - I like the security of knowing that I can be seen to be the same "sannse" on IRC and Wikipedia.
--sannse
I agree with sannse here -- I like being able to map someone I talk to on IRC, via the IRCnick--to--WPusername linkage provided by cloaking. Then even when someone is fooling around and switching names back and forth, you can have a private conversation with them and ask them to switch to their cloaked nick.
+sj+
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