On Fri, Aug 5, 2011 at 1:02 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Raimond Spekking wrote:
A few month ago Frank Schulenburg asked me if it would be possible to exempt single IP addresses from the account creation throttle. He filed https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25000
Besides the existing way of defining an exempt in the config files I hacked a bit and committed http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:Code/MediaWiki/72959
An easy way, a bit too easy: it was reverted *hides*.
Now he asked me again on Wikimania what to do because he will need in the future more exempts for bigger groups. All known ways seem not very nice:
- Account creation by admin does not scale for > 100 new accounts
- Edit the config file is restricted to sysadmins
I think about writing an extension with a special page where admins can define IP address, start and end time of the throttle exempt.
What do you think? Have I missed an easier way to approach his needs?
I think your first approach was fine.
The objection to this revision, at least in my understanding, was not that it was hackish or cumbersome (though it is). The objection was that it was hackish and cumberson _in core_. You could put the exact same system into an extension and then ask that the extension be enabled on Wikimedia wikis and be fine. I think that this is the best solution given current constraints.
Rewriting the frontend and backend systems to be able to handle a feature like this (and many other features) in a sane and clean manner is a large undertaking. I understand (and agree with) the view that putting more configuration into the MediaWiki namespace, particularly in core, is bad. But doing it in an extension? Well, that's why extensions exist. :-)
As I was the primary objector in that revision, I think the idea of doing the same within an extension is suitable as an immediate solution. Should be very trivial to implement/review/deploy and would keep core clean.
-Chad