In the interests of security, I removed special_asksqp.php from the live server. I didn't change anything else, so the link still appears for is_sysop, but is an error page now.
I think we should bring this function back, but...
1. Passwords should be encrypted in the database. In this way no one, not even me, can see them.
2. This function should be an is_developer function, so that we can freely hand out sysops even to people who might not know SQL at all -- or, like me, know just enough to be dangerous. :-)
In general, under the moral codes of wikipedia social culture, we want to avoid against the creation of hierarchies of power *over the content*. This doesn't imply, though, that developers shouldn't have some tools for researching problems, tools that aren't made generally available. The main thing is that we don't want there to ever be a method for some people to "pull rank" over a content debate _within the confines of the NPOV_.
(What I mean by that disclaimer: if a large group of people showed up one day insisting the the true purpose of Wikipedia is as a humor site, or as an exposition of the truth of their particular religion, etc., then I'd be very much in favor of "pulling rank" to stop them. But so long as the debater is even loosely attempting to comply with NPOV, all of us should be equal -- it's that power which keeps us all honest, I think.)
(As I've said on wikipedia-l and elsewhere, there's nothing wrong with a humor wiki or a Christian wiki or whatever. It's just that none of those things are wikipedia.)
--Jimbo