[WikiEN-l] Re: SERIOUS HELP NEEDED NOW!

[Jimmy Wales]

Sheldon Rampton wrote:
> As I stated in a previous post, I think it would help if Wikipedia's 
> tech people could work on some enhanced security features. We can 
> debate the details, but I think they should include:
> 
> (1) Flexibility on the part of the administrator (Jimbo).

I agree with Sheldon that it would help if Wikipedia's tech people
could work on my flexibility.  Having a 2 year old asking me to do
various tricks that she can do makes me realize how badly my
flexibility has declined in recent years.  ;-)

Just kidding...

> If there 
> are no vandals currently active, the current laissez-faire system 
> works fine. When there's a pest afoot, however, Jimbo should be able 
> to temporarily turn on additional security features, such as giving 
> sysops added powers.

My general feeling is that the wiki model of trust (trust everyone as
much as you can) suggests that whatever additional features we develop
can be trusted to sysops all the time.  We just agree not to use them
except when absolutely necessary.

> (2) The ability to temporarily restrict contributions from 
> non-registered users.

For this Saturday's problem, this would not have helped at all.  The
MIT vandal was logging in over and over, from different machines.
There was just enough time lag that I think he was hopping from one
machine to another in a lab.  I think at one point, he moved from one
lab to another, although it's hard to say exactly.

> (3) The ability to create some kind of registration barrier that
> will make it harder for vandals to get back in the door immediately
> by simply registering under a new name.

*nod*

> (4) The ability to push a button that will instantly send one million 
> megavolts coursing through the body of Ed Poor. (Just joking.)

I've already got that one installed.  It came with Phase II.  In phase
III, we hooked up *two* million megavolts to *you*.  I just haven't
used it yet.  ;-)

--Jimbo