[Foundation-l] Policy proposal: Anti-vandal fighter role

[Milos Rancic]

Please, discuss at the page
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Anti-vandal_fighter

* * * * *

{{proposal}}

'''Anti-vandal fighter''' is a global role on [[Wikimedia]] projects.
They have permissions on all Wikimedia projects comparable with
[[administrator]] rights on particular projects which they are using
at the projects without ''enough'' active administrators.

== Design ==

While anti-vandal fighters should have similar permissions to
administrators, their role is not to maintain wikis at the regular
basis, like wiki administrators are doing. Their role is to fight
against vandals and to allow to the community at a particular project
to take care about their own wiki. Because of that, while anti-vandal
fighters need and have permissions like deleting pages and blocking
users, they don't need and don't have permissions like "Mark others'
edits as patrolled", which is generally a feature which every
administrator should have.

== Permissions ==

This is the list of permissions with explanations which '''anti-vandal
fighters''' have.

=== Editing permissions ===
* '''Edit semi-protected pages''': This is a permission which has
every [[registered user]] after 4 days of the time when account is
registered. However, it may be useful to give to anti-vandal fighters
this permission explicitly because of possible technical problems.
* '''Edit other users' CSS and JS files''': As it is assumed that
anti-vandal fighters are technically skilled contributors, they may
help to other contributors in fixing their CSS and JS files.
* '''Move pages''': Similarly as the option from the first paragraph.
* '''Quickly rollback the edits of the last user who edited a
particular page''': This is "rollback" function. One of the most
important permissions for anti-vandal fighters.

=== Delete / undelete and protection premissions ===
* '''Delete pages''': Vandals and destructive users are making
(nonsense) pages often.
* '''Mass delete pages''': This may be very useful to anti-vandal
fighters. <small>As far as the proposer of this policy understands,
the number deleted pages is limited. However, if a vandal already made
a very large number of pages, anti-vandal fighter should be able to
delete them with or without help of a program.</small>
* '''Change protection levels and edit protected pages''': Anti-vandal
fighter should be able to protect and unprotect pages.
* '''Overwrite an existing file''': This is useful when some vandal
made mess by moving pages.
* '''Undelete a page''': While this is the only option for undeleting
pages, anti-vandal fighers should have this permission. As the only
reason for undeleting pages is to fix their own mistakenly deleted
page, when/if the permission "undelete if I deleted" start to exist,
the new permission should substitute the old one.

=== Blocking permissions ===
* '''Block other users from editing''': This permission will be
obsolete when centralized blocking system starts to work. After that,
anti-vandal fighters will work on centralized blocking system together
with [[stewards]].
* '''Block a user from sending email''': The same as previous.
*

=== Other functions ===
* '''Purge the site cache for a page without confirmation''': This is
a permission with has every [[registered user]]. However, it is useful
to force such permission because of possible technical problems.

== Policy for requesting anti-vandal fighter status ==

An admin of any Wikimedia project, following the requirements listed
below, can request being an anti-vandal fighter.
* Having been a participant for at least 2 months on at least one
project other than Meta (at least 100 contributions in the last two
months).
* Having a user page on Meta, with link(s) to a local project user
page, and a valid contact address (registered and valid wikipedia
email address in preferences, or an email address indicated on their
user page)
* Being (or perhaps having been some time ago) an active contributor
on Meta (more than 100 contributions)
* Being a sysop, bureaucrat or checkuser on a local Wikipedia or related project

The request shall be done on [[Requests for anti-vandal fighter
status]]. A time for opinion of at least one week will be given. The
candidate will be named sysop here only if they are approved by a
qualified majority of at least 75%. All editors with an account on
Meta, at least one active account on any Wikimedia project, and a link
between the two, may participate and give their opinion on the
candidate.  In case of an opposition, enough people must speak for the
candidate for them to become sysop on Meta.

If the candidate becomes an anti-vandal fighter, they should add their
name to the anti-vandal fighters list, and ensure they keep a valid
user name page, links to at least one other project, and valid
contact. Anti-vandal fighters not respecting these rules will loose
their privileges.

See also: http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/count_edits?user=UserName&dbname=metawiki_p

== Permission usage ==

Anti-vandal fighter should deal '''only''' with projects which don't
have enough of active administrators in a particular time frame. If
some wiki doesn't have administrators, they should take care about it
all of the time. If another wiki doesn't have administrators just in
some parts of the day (like night ours in a specific time zone are),
they should take care about those wikis in those times.

Even their permissions are global, anti-vandal fighters are not
allowed to use their rights on any developed project (e.g.
[[w:|Wikipedia in English]]) without explicitly asking the community,
even for usage of rollback permission. Anti-vandal fighters not
respecting this rule will loose their privileges '''immediately'''.

== Discussion and policy adoption ==

This page is a proposal and it should be discussed before adopted. If
the discussion goes normally, it should be finished at June 15th at
23:59, after which the community should vote about the policy
adoption.

=== Discussion ===

We should discuss about all issues related to this policy.
<small>Please, fix proposal's English, too :)</small>

=== Voting ===

For successful adoption of the policy the next conditions are necessary:

* at least 30 votes in favor;
* at least 80% overall votes in favor, with neutral votes not counting
toward the overall total;

Right to vote has every Wikimedian with at least 500 edits on all
projects and 100 edits on all projects in the period January 1st, 2008
-- May 31st 2008.

{{user classes}}

[[Category:Policy proposals]]