[WikiEN-l] Streamline the sysop recruiting process

[Poor, Edmund W]

Actually, sysops can query the server; they are limited to "read-only" queries, however.

What I was suggesting was that some Wikipedians other than the Developers have the technical ability to:
* grant "sysop rights" to users
* block a signed-in vandal

I don't think a sysop blocking a signed-in vandal should need to see their IP address. Even I as a developer never bothered to look up the IP of the half-dozen or so users I've been told to block. I just ran an UPDATE query in the database.

Similarly, with promoting a contributor to sysop, I think Brion or Magnus could add a page called "Nominate user for sysop". After enough sysops nominated a user, they would automatically get sysop rights.

The point is, I don't want to do Gatekeeper Functions any more. Not only is it time-consuming (up to 10 minutes per operation), but the task of determining whether a person is a foe or a friend should not be centralized on 4 or 5 people.

And, yes, mav, I know I should put this on the main list, but I only subscribe to this one, so I hope anyone who responds will cross post back to wikien-l. And yes, Brion, I know you made a meta-page, but...

lazily, but non-hierarchically,

Ed Poor