On mer, 2002-05-15 at 22:28, Daniel Mayer wrote:
What is the "Edit user settings" feature? I hadn't heard anything about it before, but apparently now any sysop can edit the privileges of any other user -- including other sysops. A privilege formerly only granted to Jimbo.
This could be a useful feature if the sysops knew what each level does and there was some type of framework for sysops to follow (thinking of checks and balances here).
Bah! Always asking for documentation, you people! :)
Also, what does it mean to be a:
System operator (I assume this means a sysop since this is checked for the registered sysops
Yes.
-- does this also mean that any sysop can promote any user to sysop status, or demote any sysop to a common user? If so, then a feature like this probably should have been discussed here -- on the policy mailing list -- before it was implemented.)
It does seem a potentially controversial point... I think Magnus stuck it in specifically so he could grant himself developer priviledges and fix a problem with the database that was causing trouble (see below). I'm not sure whether this is intended as a permanent feature or if it's a entirely good idea.
In any case, having a convenient interface page for setting user priveleges is probably not a bad thing; if it's preferred that only the guy who owns the server gets to wield it, that's easily fixed.
System developer (Does this refer to one of the wikiware gods (Like Brion or Magnus)? Probably should have been discussed before implementation too)
This grants the ability to run SQL queries directly on the database that could affect the data.
This is occasionally useful to fix something: for instance, Magnus was recently able to recreate the "unlinked" link table which had been corrupted and was no longer accessible -- thus breaking 'Most Wanted' and several other things -- which could then be fully rebuilt by a script run by Jimmy. But it's easy to, say, delete the entire database if you don't know what you're doing; hence the restriction to known developers.
I'm quite sure that was discussed on wikipedia-l a month or so ago... Yeah, here it is: http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-April/001707.html
Trusted hand (What privileges does this grant a user beyond the defaults?)
As far as I know there is nothing in the code that currently checks for this, and I'm not sure what it's intended to mean. Magnus?
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)