[Wikipedia-l] is_sysop

[Brion L. VIBBER]

On mar, 2002-03-26 at 02:47, Lorraine Lee wrote:
> From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com>
> 
> > I made a bunch of people sysop.  I think I got everyone who requested
> > it.  Plus, I got a few more besides.
> 
> I didn't even know there was a sysop privilege.  Does 
> wikipedia come with a long laundry list of specific 
> privileges, like VMS?

As far as I know, there's just the one.

>  When was sysop implemented?  

Since we had the PHP script, at least. Before that, there were similar
priveleges conferred to users who had asked for the administrator
password. (Handed out pretty much willy-nilly to anyone who asked for it
-- not much of a cabal, eh?)

> What does it consist of?  I must confess that when I first 
> encountered the wikipedia, I was immediately attracted to 
> it because, unlike arch-rival nupedia, it didn't come with a 
> few dozen pages explaining why an intellectual lightweight 
> such as myself with no advanced degrees is unlikely to 
> have anything of value to offer.  Now I find out that even 
> the wikipedia organization includes the concept of a 
> "sysop".  This, in itself, is not something I find alarming, 
> but it does lower wikipedia a peg on my opinion scale and 
> potentially on larger scales such as the mythical "public 
> relations".

Is_sysop isn't *that* great. Here's what you get:

* Ability to permanently delete pages including their history. (Which
I'm not convinced is entirely wise a function to have at all.)

* Ability to delete uploaded files. (Regular users already can upload a
blank file to overwrite obnoxious material, so this just keeps the
upload directory cleaner.)

* Ability to edit pages that have protection set to "is_sysop"
* Ability to protect/unprotect pages

* Ability to ban an IP address from editing access. (However, this
function is limited and, I think, buggy.)

* Ability to run SQL queries on the database. Not useful unless you
really know what you're doing.

Jimbo:
> > If we have fights about deleted pages, then I think the best thing to
> > do is to implement some form of nondestructive delete.

What I would recommend for a non-destructive delete is to move the
article from the 'cur' to the 'old' table in the database, then remove
it from 'cur'. The article will then still be in the database with its
complete history, but wouldn't show up in regular links, searches, etc.

It ought to be relatively simple to then set up a "restore deleted
pages" function.

Lorraine:
> I assumed you already had.  Perhaps periodic posts of 
> compressed content to obscure administrative regions of 
> usenet?  Or if even that is no longer part of the commons, 
> maybe intellectual commoners like myself could be 
> recruited as volunteers for the relatively simple tasks 
> involved in downloading and archiving compressed 
> wikipedia content.

Speaking of which; Jimbo, we really need to have a periodically produced
database dump tarball available.

> > But, better to just not fight in the first place.  :-)
> 
> That would be a good first commandment.  Perhaps a 
> good second commandment would be that all records of 
> infighting that somehow arises within the wikipedia 
> organization be destroyed.

Trotsky who? :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)