Hi,
etc. These are important capabilities of the wiki that have been used for many clearly beneficial purposes. In the long run, we will want to apply a code review process to these changes as with any other deployed code, but for now the system works as it is and we have no intent to remove this capability.
I first thought when witnessing the explicit removal of some lines of code from the German MediaWiki:Common.js [0] followed by the alteration of permission (meaning the assignment of the newly created <superprotect> right) to the same page was a coincidence.
Now, having observed that not only user Eloquence (aka Erik Moeller) himself engaged in the enforcement of <superprotect> right on de.wp [1] but soon after a workaround was published a change was deployed [2, 3] as counter measurement to block any possible interference can no longer be interpret as acting in good faith but rather strikes me as a form of oppression (or worst as censorship).
This protection level provides an additional path to manage these situations by preventing edits to the relevant pages (we're happy to help apply any urgent edits) until a particular situation has calmed down.
What situation did emerge that such drastic measures were/are necessary?
[0] https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Common.js&diff=prev...
[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki%3ACommon.js&action=...
[2] https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/153345/ + https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/153351/
[3] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=69380
Cheers
On 8/10/14, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi folks,
Admins are currently given broad leeway to customize the user experience for all users, including addition of site-wide JS, CSS, etc. These are important capabilities of the wiki that have been used for many clearly beneficial purposes. In the long run, we will want to apply a code review process to these changes as with any other deployed code, but for now the system works as it is and we have no intent to remove this capability.
However, we've clarified in a number of venues that use of the MediaWiki: namespace to disable site features is unacceptable. If such a conflict arises, we're prepared to revoke permissions if required. This protection level provides an additional path to manage these situations by preventing edits to the relevant pages (we're happy to help apply any urgent edits) until a particular situation has calmed down.
Thanks, Erik -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l