Right now the MediaWiki namespace is protected from editing. However, if you add a template to a Mediawiki message and the template is unprotected, any user could edit the message by editing the template, creating a backdoor. There is no option to cascade protect MediaWiki messages on wiki, and there is no function in the MediaWiki software to cascade protect an entire namespace. Should this be fixed?
Techman224
This sounds like an issue. If others agree, I could work on this. On Apr 20, 2013 1:09 AM, "Techman224" techman224@techman224.ca wrote:
Right now the MediaWiki namespace is protected from editing. However, if you add a template to a Mediawiki message and the template is unprotected, any user could edit the message by editing the template, creating a backdoor. There is no option to cascade protect MediaWiki messages on wiki, and there is no function in the MediaWiki software to cascade protect an entire namespace. Should this be fixed?
Techman224 _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Why not just protect the template when you add it? I think you may be over thinking this just a tad.
On 20 April 2013 07:08, Techman224 techman224@techman224.ca wrote:
Right now the MediaWiki namespace is protected from editing. However, if you add a template to a Mediawiki message and the template is unprotected, any user could edit the message by editing the template, creating a backdoor.
Ummm... Don't do that, then? Sometimes you _want_ to include pieces of text editable by more than just sysops (say, by autoconfirmed users), so you use a template from a MediaWiki message. (Cf. e.g. https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Recentchangestext and https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0ablona:Ozn%C3%A1men%C3%ADRC.) Or, you do not want to do that, then why are you using an unprotected template? Either transclude another page in MediaWiki namespace as a template ({{MediaWiki:Something}}), or make sure you protect the used template (with possible cascade).
-- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]]
Some people are not aware of this, and they use templates to style Mediawiki messages. If the administrator forgets to protect the template, it opens up a backdoor for other users to edit the message.
Techman224
On 2013-04-20, at 4:25 AM, Petr Kadlec petr.kadlec@gmail.com wrote:
On 20 April 2013 07:08, Techman224 techman224@techman224.ca wrote:
Right now the MediaWiki namespace is protected from editing. However, if you add a template to a Mediawiki message and the template is unprotected, any user could edit the message by editing the template, creating a backdoor.
Ummm... Don't do that, then? Sometimes you _want_ to include pieces of text editable by more than just sysops (say, by autoconfirmed users), so you use a template from a MediaWiki message. (Cf. e.g. https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Recentchangestext and https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0ablona:Ozn%C3%A1men%C3%ADRC.) Or, you do not want to do that, then why are you using an unprotected template? Either transclude another page in MediaWiki namespace as a template ({{MediaWiki:Something}}), or make sure you protect the used template (with possible cascade).
-- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]] _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On 20 April 2013 10:07, Techman224 techman224@techman224.ca wrote:
Some people are not aware of this, and they use templates to style Mediawiki messages. If the administrator forgets to protect the template, it opens up a backdoor for other users to edit the message.
Incompetent sysops are a community problem; you can't usefully deal with these kind of issues in software. :-)
The English Wikipedia, for one, uses this feature intentionally to allow page-specific edit notices; they are transcluded (via a number of templates, yay fun) into the MediaWiki:Editnotice-0 etc. items on a per-page basis. The general namespace templates and page-specific transclusion templates are protected, but more from the "this is a major template that could break things" perspective.
J. -- James D. Forrester jdforrester@gmail.com [[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] (speaking purely in a personal capacity)
Mw namespace pages that expand templates generally arent the scary ones from an anon editing prespective. I don't think this is really neccesary, and can mostly be dealt with socially when needed.
-bawolff
P.s. $5 says someone will probably come up with an exception with in 10 seconds of me making such a statement.
On 2013-04-20 2:08 PM, "Techman224" techman224@techman224.ca wrote:
Some people are not aware of this, and they use templates to style
Mediawiki messages. If the administrator forgets to protect the template, it opens up a backdoor for other users to edit the message.
Techman224
On 2013-04-20, at 4:25 AM, Petr Kadlec petr.kadlec@gmail.com wrote:
On 20 April 2013 07:08, Techman224 techman224@techman224.ca wrote:
Right now the MediaWiki namespace is protected from editing. However,
if
you add a template to a Mediawiki message and the template is
unprotected,
any user could edit the message by editing the template, creating a backdoor.
Ummm... Don't do that, then? Sometimes you _want_ to include pieces of
text
editable by more than just sysops (say, by autoconfirmed users), so you
use
a template from a MediaWiki message. (Cf. e.g. https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Recentchangestext and https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0ablona:Ozn%C3%A1men%C3%ADRC.) Or,
you
do not want to do that, then why are you using an unprotected template? Either transclude another page in MediaWiki namespace as a template ({{MediaWiki:Something}}), or make sure you protect the used template
(with
possible cascade).
-- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]] _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Even ignoring the original problem, we have wgNamespaceProtection, wouldn't it make sense to have wgNamespaceCascadingProtection?
*-- * *Tyler Romeo* Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2015 Major in Computer Science www.whizkidztech.com | tylerromeo@gmail.com
On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 3:42 PM, Brian Wolff bawolff@gmail.com wrote:
Mw namespace pages that expand templates generally arent the scary ones from an anon editing prespective. I don't think this is really neccesary, and can mostly be dealt with socially when needed.
-bawolff
P.s. $5 says someone will probably come up with an exception with in 10 seconds of me making such a statement.
On 2013-04-20 2:08 PM, "Techman224" techman224@techman224.ca wrote:
Some people are not aware of this, and they use templates to style
Mediawiki messages. If the administrator forgets to protect the template, it opens up a backdoor for other users to edit the message.
Techman224
On 2013-04-20, at 4:25 AM, Petr Kadlec petr.kadlec@gmail.com wrote:
On 20 April 2013 07:08, Techman224 techman224@techman224.ca wrote:
Right now the MediaWiki namespace is protected from editing. However,
if
you add a template to a Mediawiki message and the template is
unprotected,
any user could edit the message by editing the template, creating a backdoor.
Ummm... Don't do that, then? Sometimes you _want_ to include pieces of
text
editable by more than just sysops (say, by autoconfirmed users), so you
use
a template from a MediaWiki message. (Cf. e.g. https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Recentchangestext and https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0ablona:Ozn%C3%A1men%C3%ADRC.) Or,
you
do not want to do that, then why are you using an unprotected template? Either transclude another page in MediaWiki namespace as a template ({{MediaWiki:Something}}), or make sure you protect the used template
(with
possible cascade).
-- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]] _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
It would have to be dependant on wgNamespaceProtection being set, else anyone could protect any page using transclusion.
Techman224
On 2013-04-20, at 6:17 PM, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:
Even ignoring the original problem, we have wgNamespaceProtection, wouldn't it make sense to have wgNamespaceCascadingProtection?
*-- * *Tyler Romeo* Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2015 Major in Computer Science www.whizkidztech.com | tylerromeo@gmail.com
On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 3:42 PM, Brian Wolff bawolff@gmail.com wrote:
Mw namespace pages that expand templates generally arent the scary ones from an anon editing prespective. I don't think this is really neccesary, and can mostly be dealt with socially when needed.
-bawolff
P.s. $5 says someone will probably come up with an exception with in 10 seconds of me making such a statement.
On 2013-04-20 2:08 PM, "Techman224" techman224@techman224.ca wrote:
Some people are not aware of this, and they use templates to style
Mediawiki messages. If the administrator forgets to protect the template, it opens up a backdoor for other users to edit the message.
Techman224
On 2013-04-20, at 4:25 AM, Petr Kadlec petr.kadlec@gmail.com wrote:
On 20 April 2013 07:08, Techman224 techman224@techman224.ca wrote:
Right now the MediaWiki namespace is protected from editing. However,
if
you add a template to a Mediawiki message and the template is
unprotected,
any user could edit the message by editing the template, creating a backdoor.
Ummm... Don't do that, then? Sometimes you _want_ to include pieces of
text
editable by more than just sysops (say, by autoconfirmed users), so you
use
a template from a MediaWiki message. (Cf. e.g. https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Recentchangestext and https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0ablona:Ozn%C3%A1men%C3%ADRC.) Or,
you
do not want to do that, then why are you using an unprotected template? Either transclude another page in MediaWiki namespace as a template ({{MediaWiki:Something}}), or make sure you protect the used template
(with
possible cascade).
-- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]] _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
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