Pakaran made a comment on irc which really makes a lot of sense to me
Why could not be bureaucrat be allowed to give bots on their local projects ? They are more likely to know the peoople as well as the rules.
And generally, it is not a sensitive issue such as removing sysop status or giving check user. It is not easily abusable either.
Of course, it still make sense to ask stewards for help for global bots. But frankly, what about giving bureaucrat the ability to give user a bot flag ?
Anthere
On 10/19/05, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Pakaran made a comment on irc which really makes a lot of sense to me
Why could not be bureaucrat be allowed to give bots on their local projects ? They are more likely to know the peoople as well as the rules.
This is a deliberate constraint put in place for reasons unknown to me, I can't see why local bureaucrats can't be trusted with the full Makesysop interface, which would allow them advanced control over user rights such as granting/revoking any right on the wiki. I can't see this becoming a problem, as it would cut down on the overhead of getting a steward to grant bot rights and in case some bureaucrat goes AWOL we can always quickly clean up the mess (which I don't see happening in the first place since these are trusted individuals).
Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
On 10/19/05, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Pakaran made a comment on irc which really makes a lot of sense to me
Why could not be bureaucrat be allowed to give bots on their local projects ? They are more likely to know the peoople as well as the rules.
This is a deliberate constraint put in place for reasons unknown to me, I can't see why local bureaucrats can't be trusted with the full Makesysop interface, which would allow them advanced control over user rights such as granting/revoking any right on the wiki. I can't see this becoming a problem, as it would cut down on the overhead of getting a steward to grant bot rights and in case some bureaucrat goes AWOL we can always quickly clean up the mess (which I don't see happening in the first place since these are trusted individuals).
The current power structure reflects the outcome numerous discussions I had on the subject, with developers, users and probably most influentially, Sunir Shah. My personal preference was for an IRC-style model, a two-level system where sysops could sysop or desysop anyone. But I was talked out of it by IRC and wiki experts alike.
The bureaucrat model was pioneered by Brion and Snok, and I introduced stewards as a way to completely displace the power of developers within the wiki power structure. The current model has a population of people holding various rights proportional to the quantity of demand for use of those rights. The aim is to give away the minimum amount of power needed for oversight and a timely response, not to give the maximum amount of power allowable by considerations of trust. This seems to mirror sentiments in the general community. Desysopping is rare and potentially destructive, so the ability is only given to a small number of people.
To answer Avar's objection directly, you can be a trusted individual and still be rash or arrogant. We minimise power to minimise the damage done when trusted individuals act in anger. I'm not talking about damage to articles, I'm talking about damage to egos, and there's no rollback button for that.
It may be that there's not enough active stewards at the moment, and that may be leading to tensions. But I think the system we have has been quite effective in general, so if steward workload is a problem, we should just get more stewards.
The fact that bot access can only be granted by stewards is not a deliberate constraint, and I would have no problem allowing bureaucrats to both grant and revoke it. The steward interface is general, so they can grant and revoke anything, but the bureaucrat interface has to be extended for each new ability. Rollback is another example of a right which could potentially be granted at the bureaucrat or sysop level. It certainly wouldn't be practical to require stewards to grant it.
-- Tim Starling
Tim Starling wrote:
Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
On 10/19/05, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Pakaran made a comment on irc which really makes a lot of sense to me
Why could not be bureaucrat be allowed to give bots on their local projects ? They are more likely to know the peoople as well as the rules.
This is a deliberate constraint put in place for reasons unknown to me, I can't see why local bureaucrats can't be trusted with the full Makesysop interface, which would allow them advanced control over user rights such as granting/revoking any right on the wiki. I can't see this becoming a problem, as it would cut down on the overhead of getting a steward to grant bot rights and in case some bureaucrat goes AWOL we can always quickly clean up the mess (which I don't see happening in the first place since these are trusted individuals).
The current power structure reflects the outcome numerous discussions I had on the subject, with developers, users and probably most influentially, Sunir Shah. My personal preference was for an IRC-style model, a two-level system where sysops could sysop or desysop anyone. But I was talked out of it by IRC and wiki experts alike.
The bureaucrat model was pioneered by Brion and Snok, and I introduced stewards as a way to completely displace the power of developers within the wiki power structure. The current model has a population of people holding various rights proportional to the quantity of demand for use of those rights. The aim is to give away the minimum amount of power needed for oversight and a timely response, not to give the maximum amount of power allowable by considerations of trust. This seems to mirror sentiments in the general community. Desysopping is rare and potentially destructive, so the ability is only given to a small number of people.
To answer Avar's objection directly, you can be a trusted individual and still be rash or arrogant. We minimise power to minimise the damage done when trusted individuals act in anger. I'm not talking about damage to articles, I'm talking about damage to egos, and there's no rollback button for that.
It may be that there's not enough active stewards at the moment, and that may be leading to tensions. But I think the system we have has been quite effective in general, so if steward workload is a problem, we should just get more stewards.
I'd like to make a comment about this. Some editors complain that they are not enough stewards because things do not get done in a speedily enough fashion (ie, within one hour.
I do not agree with that approach. There are mostly 4 situations * request for being a sysop on a small project. Most of the time, it takes at least two weeks because **some editors asked the status without signing with their names (eh :-) **we request that a "request for sysophood" be created and that editors list their names here and that they get support. We will wait AT LEAST a week then. If editors asking for sysop status were reading requirements before asking, they would gain time for sure.
*request for desysoping someone. Except for urgent cases, I, at least, wait on purpose before doing it. I know of many examples of people asking and retracting afterwards. Besides, often, editors asking for the desysophood fail to provide a link to justify the request. So, we wait.....
*request for having access to check user status. These are likely to wait for a long time, because I think no user should be given that access before a policy is set
* request for having bot status. And here, yes, there is a lONNNNNNNG waiting time. Because when we get request, we get them for 50 different projects sometimes. And mind you, this is *really* a boring task to do them one by one. Additionnaly, each project may have different rules for granting bot flag, so if we are serious, we must check each project rules. Not adding that sometimes, the bot creator fails to created the user name in the project, which is a loss of time for us.
All in all, the bot request is frankly the ***more*** painful by far. And granting bot access is likely not controversial. Which is why I support giving bureaucrat the ability of doing this.
The fact that bot access can only be granted by stewards is not a deliberate constraint, and I would have no problem allowing bureaucrats to both grant and revoke it. The steward interface is general, so they can grant and revoke anything, but the bureaucrat interface has to be extended for each new ability. Rollback is another example of a right which could potentially be granted at the bureaucrat or sysop level. It certainly wouldn't be practical to require stewards to grant it.
-- Tim Starling
Yes, I am aware it would require some technical changes. Rollback is also a good example. Still, I think both should move to the realm of bureaucrats... This is why I am asking for feedback. Till now, nobody opposed the idea...
This might be a little scare-mongering (and unlikely to happen since bureocrats are very trusted individuals), but if we give a number of users access to both the ability to run bots and admin them, they could do ALOT of damage. Imagine an image deletion bot, if you will. But, again, this is scare-mongering since bureocrats are really trusted.
Anyway, I think that if stewards have to high of a load, make more stewards, don't delegate some of the power down.
Although, it would be pretty neat for a bureocrat or admin to be able to grant rollback to trusted users.
--gkhan
On 10/19/05, Tim Starling t.starling@physics.unimelb.edu.au wrote:
Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
On 10/19/05, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Pakaran made a comment on irc which really makes a lot of sense to me
Why could not be bureaucrat be allowed to give bots on their local projects ? They are more likely to know the peoople as well as the rules.
This is a deliberate constraint put in place for reasons unknown to me, I can't see why local bureaucrats can't be trusted with the full Makesysop interface, which would allow them advanced control over user rights such as granting/revoking any right on the wiki. I can't see this becoming a problem, as it would cut down on the overhead of getting a steward to grant bot rights and in case some bureaucrat goes AWOL we can always quickly clean up the mess (which I don't see happening in the first place since these are trusted individuals).
The current power structure reflects the outcome numerous discussions I had on the subject, with developers, users and probably most influentially, Sunir Shah. My personal preference was for an IRC-style model, a two-level system where sysops could sysop or desysop anyone. But I was talked out of it by IRC and wiki experts alike.
The bureaucrat model was pioneered by Brion and Snok, and I introduced stewards as a way to completely displace the power of developers within the wiki power structure. The current model has a population of people holding various rights proportional to the quantity of demand for use of those rights. The aim is to give away the minimum amount of power needed for oversight and a timely response, not to give the maximum amount of power allowable by considerations of trust. This seems to mirror sentiments in the general community. Desysopping is rare and potentially destructive, so the ability is only given to a small number of people.
To answer Avar's objection directly, you can be a trusted individual and still be rash or arrogant. We minimise power to minimise the damage done when trusted individuals act in anger. I'm not talking about damage to articles, I'm talking about damage to egos, and there's no rollback button for that.
It may be that there's not enough active stewards at the moment, and that may be leading to tensions. But I think the system we have has been quite effective in general, so if steward workload is a problem, we should just get more stewards.
The fact that bot access can only be granted by stewards is not a deliberate constraint, and I would have no problem allowing bureaucrats to both grant and revoke it. The steward interface is general, so they can grant and revoke anything, but the bureaucrat interface has to be extended for each new ability. Rollback is another example of a right which could potentially be granted at the bureaucrat or sysop level. It certainly wouldn't be practical to require stewards to grant it.
-- Tim Starling
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Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
This might be a little scare-mongering (and unlikely to happen since bureocrats are very trusted individuals), but if we give a number of users access to both the ability to run bots and admin them, they could do ALOT of damage. Imagine an image deletion bot, if you will. But, again, this is scare-mongering since bureocrats are really trusted.
Off-topic but why images can't be restored ? Or at least if storage is a concern, create a trash which is cleaned every two or three days.
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