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Crat tasks
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Requests for adminship and bureaucratship update

RfA candidate	S	O	N	S %	Status	Ending (UTC)	Time left	Dups?	Bericht
Asilvering	99	0	0	100	Öffnen Sie	09:15, 6 September 2024	4 days, 9 hours	no	report

It is 23:53:32 on September 1, 2024, according to the server's time and date.

Soft, gentle request: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Godsy

Hello all. The candidate's gone through enough. Just a most gentle request to perhaps initiate the closure of the Rfa. Lourdes 03:37, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Several editors have commented that this should go to a bureaucrat discussion. Mkdw^talk 03:53, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Godsy/Bureaucrat chat for ease of navigation. Mkdw^talk 04:53, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

• I have just commented that it's high time the RfA be closed to voting pending a decision of some sort from the Bureaucrat camp. Leaving it open to gather more votes is not fair on the candidate and not fair on the community. Either close it right now pending a result, or now declare an official extension. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:43, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

FWIW, pinging active-ish bureaucrats: @Nihonjoe, WJBscribe, Warofdreams, Wizardman, and Xaosflux:. Am I the only one alarmed that those five plus a couple others are the only ones who have edited at all in the last several days? Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 05:56, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Ks0stm I'm active. Have I fallen off a list somewhere? --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 13:55, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

"...plus a couple others...". Lourdes 13:58, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

I've placed the RfA on hold and started a crat chat. I have very limited time as about to start a day of meetings (I'm in Moscow on business so in an earlier time zone than usual). I would be very grateful if someone could help by dropping a note to all my fellow bureaucrats asking them to participate. Many thanks, WJBscribe (talk) 07:05, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

I have now sent a talkpage notification to all bureaucrats. WJBscribe (talk) 11:35, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping and talkpage note, I've now commented. Warofdreams talk 23:31, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

 The discussion has been closed as no consensus. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 19:46, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

I just wanted to thank everyone who participated in the chat. It was professional and thorough, and adequate time was given to address merits on all sides. Once again, I feel profoundly privileged to be trusted by the community and given the opportunity to work with you all. -- Avi (talk) 19:50, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

New usergroup to access deleted content

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Hello, so I am a long term contributor here. I have been editing since 2005. Since 2005 RfA has been consistently broken. Attempts to fix it has been made. How much it improved the situation is debatable. An admin has 5 types of main access:

1. Ability to rollback a revision
2. Ability to edit protected pages
3. Ability to protect/unprotect pages
4. Ability to delete/undelete pages
5. Ability to block/unblock users

One of the main problems is people are uncomfortable with giving all five of these options in an "admin" bundle. Each individual participant in an RfA has their own arbitrary criteria. I do not see a reasonable way to change this since each user can have different expectations.

Since 2005, of the above five user rights only one of these items has been made available to non-admins: the Rollback. I will like to note that people applying for adminship typically do not focus on all five of the usergroup access. Some people focus on RC patrolling, others on hunting down copyright violations for example.

To be more specific, let me give myself as an example. This block of text concerns a specific case to consider.

I have no interest in items 3, 4 and 5. I do not have the time to administer English Wikipedia. What little volunteer time I have, I use it on Wikimedia Commons where I am an administrator and OTRS where I am a volunteer. Furthermore, on this wiki I have a block log. It is ancient in my view but it is there. I am above all else with faults. I can completely understand why my RfA requests have failed four times already.

The odds of my RfA passing positively is non-existent which is fine since I do not seek adminship. What I would fine helpful is the ability to see deleted content. I often come across a file on commons that was transferred from English Wikipedia to Commons. Because the English Wikipedia file is deleted, I have no way of reviewing if the claim in the upload matches the file deleted on English Wikipedia. Even if the file is identical, I still need to verify if the attribution is correct.

Furthermore, I recently had to deal with something similar on OTRS. A file (File:Theresia Gouw.jpg) was originally uploaded to English Wikipedia twice, see file log. The OTRS ticket with a link only gave permission to the en.wikipedia copy. I had to bother an admin to undelete the file temporarily so that I can verify the two files as identical in order to close the ticket.

The proposal I have in mind is to have a new "See Deleted Content" usergroup that lacks other usergroup access. This group isn't admin-lite or junior admin. In fact this access is purely passive, so the user isn't "administering" anything. It isn't a step between regular user and admin. Just like rollback, it is its own thing. Any user can apply for this usergroup access and the community would decide weather to grant the right or not. Just like an RfA and RfB it would go through the same process. Viewing deleted content requires some sort of community discussion like RfA per WMF practices unlike rollback access.

Other usergroups (items 3, 4 and 5) can be discussed later. I feel it would be disruptive to introduce so many usergroups at once.

I would like to know the thoughts towards this before this is morphed into a community proposal.

-- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 23:26, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

• You fundamentally misunderstand so many things. Most protected pages can be edited by most editors, save for a few fully-protected ones. There are so many more functions associated with adminship than the four you outline above. And Bureaucrats don't have any influence on user right policy (at least no more than you or me). To view deleted content, you can ask any admin for assistance (or ask on AN if you don't know an admin). You would probably be better off taking this discussion to WP:VPP. You should also read Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Deleted pages should be visible and Wikipedia:Viewing deleted content. You can also read the full previous discussion on the topic (Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Persistent proposals/Straw poll for view-deleted) where WMF Legal chimed in on the reasons why this proposal is not likely to be a possible one: "To be frank, community adoption of such a disastrous policy would create an actual emergency that would likely require Board intervention." ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 01:54, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
• What you're proposing looks a lot like m:Requests for comment/Global file deletion review. That RfC was closed as successful, but myself and a couple of other stewards objected to the closing reason so it was never implemented. If you'd be interested in helping to refine that proposal, to take into account the concerns that were presented, I'd be glad to help do that. It was never my goal to effectively veto the proposal... -- Ajraddatz (talk) 01:58, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
  • @Salvidrim!:@Ajraddatz: While it may have similarities, my proposal is fundamentally different. My proposal isn't global. It isn't intended to act as a deletion review. I'd be happy to restructure this proposal to meet any requirements or suggestions you may have. There are four potential uses of a "see deleted content" usergroup.

    1) Ability to review deleted content (this is what was rejected, I am putting it here to be exhaustive).

    2) Ability to review deleted files to verify licensing and attribution for files moved to commons. This can be processed by humans and bots alike. There are thousands of files so it isn't something that one can reasonably rely on a local admin.

    3) Ability to review deleted files to verify content for OTRS tickets. Typical scenario here is that the file would be reuploaded to commons based on the OTRS permission.

    4) Research where information from the deleted content is used to train Artificial Intelligence algorithms. This can help with backlogs where reupload or recreation of deleted content is flagged for human review. A system to triage problematic content basically. Advantage in this kind of a scheme is the deleted content does not leave the servers.

  • Mind that the usergroup would go through the same process as an RfA/RfB where community would discuss if the rights are to be granted or not. It would still be granted by Bureaucrats. This is as per WMF requirement that any access to deleted content should go through an RfA like process.

  -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 22:08, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

  • The Foundation legal has made it very clear that in order to see deleted material, a person must have gone through a vetting process like RFA (adminship), which is correct. You can propose it at the village pump, with the understanding that you aren't the first or second or third. The Crats have nothing to do with it, raising it here is pointless and wastes time. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 23:15, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
    • That is a rather hostile response. I am trying to get some feedback from the crats to shape the proposal. If you are unwilling to assist, just don't comment at all. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 09:52, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
      • It might seem hostile, but I think he's just trying to say that this is a perennial proposal which has failed to gather enough consensus to be implemented many times before, and that 'crats aren't necessarily more competent at making proposals for new user groups than others. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 10:07, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
        • Based on the discussion here, this issue has been successful at community level but failed at WMF level. I am sure bureaucrats have a better understanding on what the community is more sensitive towards in RfAs. It may not be necessary but their feedback can be more than helpful. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 11:32, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

In my opinion, the ability to view deleted content is the most sensitive part of the admin toolset, not the least. WJBscribe (talk) 10:30, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

@WJBscribe: How so? Sensitive information is Oversighted out. We are mostly talking about deleted files & their description pages. We have users that has access to a lot more of the deleted content on commons. Some users even have an even more sensitive access to OTRS. What would be the fear here towards such users? You can tact an NDA just like oversight users if that is whats deemed necessary. Mind that not everyone will be granted this right as it will be vetted just like RfA. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 11:32, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

The contents of the deletion log on enwiki is practically the inverse of the Commons deletion log, i.e. only a small fraction of the pages deleted on enwiki are files and their description pages. I'm not a Commons admin, so I don't know how much sensitive information gets deleted there, but unfortunately, a lot of sensitive information here never gets sent to the oversight team, so it is still visible to anyone able to see deleted pages or revisions. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 14:02, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

@DoRD: Then the usergroup could be restricted to the file namespace (and possibly file talk)? That is technologically possible. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 16:09, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

• Why is this on BN? The bureaucrats have no discretions over something like this, and since it would require a change to the Mediawiki software they couldn't implement it even in the (vanishingly unlikely) chance they thought this was a good idea, since the WMF would certainly veto both the necessary software changes, and the changes to Wikipedia policy. (Can admins even see deleted files on en-wiki, anyway? I've just tested on half-a-dozen recently deleted files, and all I'm seeing is the deleted file descriptions, not the files themselves.) ‑ Iridescent 16:50, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

  @Iridescent: Yes, you can see deleted files. But the file on the undelete page is a header below the file description. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:52, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

MusikBot II needs review

See approved task at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/MusikBot II. This is for an admin bot that will maintain the AWB CheckPage. As the bot approver, Xaosflux rightfully has not flagged the account himself. Please review at your convenience. Thanks! — MusikAnimal ^talk 05:16, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

 Erledigt. Should User:ListManBot be de-flagged now that its replacement is approved? 28bytes (talk) 05:35, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Based on User talk:Kingpin13#User:ListManBot it looks like it. --Jnorton7558 (talk) 05:46, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

 Erledigt. 28bytes (talk) 05:55, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Request for de-adminship

I have not been active in some years and I think it's time to give up the tools and make the admin count a tiny bit more accurate. I was an admin for ten years, albeit with varying activity levels, and I enjoyed the work and found it interesting; I recommend it and hope that the RFA rate goes up. Thanks to you all. Chick Bowen 02:29, 11 December 2016 (UTC)