On Feb 19, 2008 5:57 PM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
This struck me as relevant to our interests. The
extension referred to
is very hacky and not ready for prime time at all. But of course it
would be a Simple Matter Of Programming to make a suitable page on the
toolserver for our own use, multi-image uploads (the way Commonist
does), etc.
Uploads from the toolserver always suffer from the
can't-get-user-password policy.
I have two tools there that upload to Commons "anonymously", but they
use either Wikipedia or Flickr-free-license images, which for a vandal
is more trouble to go through than uploading stuff under throwaway
user names.
I'm currently pondering a way to offer centralized authentication of
user accounts on the toolserver. There was one tool that does it
through a key given in an edit summary, but only for that tool.
I was thinking:
* Apply for a "authorized toolserver user account", e.g., as "Magnus
Manske" on "en.wikipedia", with a /new/ password just for the
toolserver
* You get a link to a pre-filled edit on your user page. If you're
logged in, just click save.
* You go back to the toolserver page and click on "verify". It checks
recent changes, your user name has edited with the key, you're
confirmed to be that user.
* Now, all toolserver tools that want to can verify that you are who
you claim to be, and add this information to the upload/edit/whatever
done through this tool.
Feasible in practice?
Magnus