[Foundation-l] "seeall" privilege Was Fwd: [WL-News] Wikimedia Foundation in dangeroflosing immunity under the Communications Decency Act

[Brian McNeil]

As many will be aware, English Wikinews very recently desysopped fourteen or
fifteen people - including Jimmy Wales. This was done by project consensus,
and despite jwales asking for the privilege back the consensus seems to be
"no" or "only on a temporary basis".

Since there are no visible sysop actions for jwales, the only real use has
been to see deleted stuff.

A suggestion has been floated that a third way would be a new privilege to
see everything. Something that - I think - should be granted to all board
members and likely all staff. I don't just mean for Wikinews, but across all
languages and all projects.

This doesn't strike me as something particularly difficult to implement, but
there are some wrinkles to iron out with it.

First, my assumption is all Board members should have this priv.
Staff? Probably, but most definitely Mike Godwin.

Should it include oversighted edits? Is this even technically feasible?

Are there any circumstances where someone could be elected to a project
ArbCom without sysop? Should they then have this privilege?

Who should be permitted to grant the privilege? Bureaucrats, or just
stewards?

Anything else?


Brian McNeil