Revi C.
Joined 27 May 2014
Latest comment: 3 years ago by -revi in topic Changes to editing access and login setup
Changes to editing access and login setup
Hello @-revi: First, thank you for your efforts here on Foundation Wiki and now Governance Wiki over the years. Second, I wanted to make sure you were aware that as we complete the transition to the planned Governance Wiki setup, we will be making further changes to editing access and the setup of logging into accounts.
Over the coming weeks, we will be enabling Single User Login (SUL) on this wiki - allowing all registered users edit access to the talk pages as well as translation pages. Editing on main namespaces will be limited to approved accounts. You can find additional information about these planned changes on the Meta-Wiki page for Governance Wiki. Once this transition is completed, we will begin reviewing what additional access and setup changes may be necessary to best support the purpose of this wiki. Again, thank you for all of your assistance over the years, and we look forward to seeing you utilizing the new setup. --Gregory Varnum (Wikimedia Foundation) [he/him] (talk) 01:48, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
- Hey, is it correct that anyone who is not WMF employee/contractor will lose access to this wiki (as in main NS)? Thanks for checking! — regards, Revi 23:28, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
- @-revi: While we test and finalize settings for this wiki, yes, all editing on the main namespaces will be limited to a small group of staff (and of course, the Stewards). We may begin to expand that group over time. However, as of today, people are able to edit talk pages and will also be able to edit translation pages once that extension is fully setup (hopefully early next week). --Gregory Varnum (Wikimedia Foundation) [he/him] (talk) 15:17, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
- Gotcha. Thanks! @GVarnum-WMF, That reminds me for one more clarification request: are we (Stewards and GS) authorized to perform cleanups (of vandalism/spam) on non-limited namespaces? Thanks! — regards, Revi 23:04, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
- Great question. At this point, Global Sysops do not have the same "edit rights" as some staff and Stewards. As far as non-limited spaces, yes, I think we absolutely would welcome support from any group. As we more appropriately welcome the community onto this wiki, we will see how things play out for admin and other rights for others - and what type of vandalism we get on translation and talk spaces. I am optimistic, but aware we could face challenges. In regards to the Stewards, I think in general there is a great deal of trust between the Foundation and Stewards on matters like this. That absolutely extends to my personal view of things. Any desire to restrict on this wiki, although I am confident some will happily argue with me, is genuinely a desire to protect volunteers from some of the "obligations" that making edits on behalf of a legal internet entity (in this case, the Foundation) brings with it. Keeping that in mind, I think Stewards have a clearer than most understanding of these risks (and the Foundation a commitment to protect), and as a result, I think there is confidence that in the same way Stewards did not present problems for Foundation Wiki, there is confidence Stewards will appreciate the balance between service and risk, and not create problems with this new wiki configuration. That said, if the Stewards as individuals or as a group opt not to engage in maintaining this wiki because of the risk associated with editing the main namespace, I think the Foundation would absolutely respect that decision. So put another way, I think we absolutely welcome - but do not expect - the assistance of Stewards. The assistance of Global Sysops on the editable spaces is also welcome, but again, not a demand/expectation. And all of that said, a part of the reason the Foundation is trying to limit edits is so that volunteers are not burdened with vandalism on a vital piece of content (aka our policies and governance documents). In theory, any vandalism will appear on translation or talk namespaces - in which case we absolutely welcome help, but also recognize it may not reach the level of importance that other situations present to groups like the Stewards. In the highly unlikely event that an approved main namespace edit account is breached, I think the protocols that currently exist to support/protect/guide Stewards on other wikis regarding a Foundation-level breach applies here as well (simply put - alert and fix). Personally, if it were me, I would probably ping a staff contact for an issue on main namespace, even knowing it is okay to fix, if for no other reason than I would want to alert to a failure in process (or possible breach of a Foundation associated account) that the Foundation should be aware of and own (as this is "the Foundation's wiki"). On talk or other spaces, I would essentially feel confident reverting/suppressing as necessary within generally accepted practices. My understanding (from long ago times) is that is true for the Foundation hosted affiliate wikis as well. We all have a collective interest in reputation management, but ultimate responsibility for an individual private wiki lies with the entity identified with that wiki (in this case with this wiki, the Foundation). But realistically is a Steward going to be "talked to" for fixing something caused by say a hack of a staff account? I would be disappointed if that happened and would be happy to "talk to" whomever on staff initiates that. In my view, our goal with changes to this wiki are absolutely about both protecting volunteers and facilitating discussion, as well as (frankly) cleaning up some of the mess created on Meta-Wiki by Foundation governance materials (and again, I acknowledge not everyone will see it that way). Whichever ways individual Stewards feel best supports that goal, I would personally advocate for us welcoming. Extending that opportunity to others is genuinely more a consideration regarding mitigating risk more than a desire to restrict access or deter volunteer assistance. To be blunt, in my volunteer capacity, I would leave most of this to Foundation if for no other reason than process suggests it is "on the Foundation" to fix any process/setup errors and ultimately as volunteers the focus should be on knowledge content (again, in my humble opinion). However, as the person spearheading the changes to this wiki, I would be incredibly disappointed if the Foundation did not rally around our Stewards in regards to any logical and well founded maintenance actions they took on this wiki - particularly in regards to vandalism/spam. I recognize that is not a fully authoritative answer (and full disclosure I did not run my answer past others), but I hope it answers your question, and I am confident a Steward could cite this reply as justification/permission for addressing spam/vandalism on this wiki. --Gregory Varnum (Wikimedia Foundation) [he/him] (talk) 12:53, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
- Ha! That was a lengthier response than expected for sure (Hehehe) - my position on this was clear before the reply - though yes, this is WMF realm and since we already have enough problem on our own to deal with (ie. Spammer, Long-Term Abuse, xwiki abuse, other day to day work), so we don't really want to create a new problem for the sake of problems - I (or we the Stewards?) am basically offering you to help when we detect some problems we can solve without much thinking. Most people won't be able to edit Main (and other protected - which I have to figure out which one is protected) namespace so as far as I can see, those who like to create problems are mostly focusing on those area where you can edit (ie. user/user talk, talk pages etc etc.) I guess we don't really need to think about the risk of editing main NS. (Those who had edit privileges before the migration might want to risk it, but those who didn't have that doesn't have any particular needs will simply not edit it, as it is ... useless).
- Below is the response to other points...
- "My understanding (from long ago times) is that is true for the Foundation hosted affiliate wikis as well." - I think WMF still does, and those fishbowls are also usually self-managed with us helping with the spambots and other obvious business. (Or... they are usually just there for reading so they don't really care about spambots? Who knows.)
- "But realistically is a Steward going to be "talked to" for fixing something caused by say a hack of a staff account?" - outside WMF realm (ie. Wikitech, here, phab), I think (generally) yes. WMF (I mean, T&S) contacts Stewards about various things, and I think I'd be bit surprised if dealing with compromised account doesn't fit in them. Most of the time, we are the first responders involving compromised account (ie. phab:project/profile/3717/), not T&S. (This is not an emergency@ worthy situation so their usual ca@ queue will take some time, and we - are lightening faster than that when we get
!stewardping on IRC. - "(frankly) cleaning up some of the mess created on Meta-Wiki by Foundation governance materials (and again, I acknowledge not everyone will see it that way)" - You are talking with the guy who doesn't see it that way - I don't really mind using Meta for WMF materials - m:Meta:About says Meta is "a wiki for coordinating amongst the Wikimedia projects" -- WMF is the organization doing the coordination and fits in the Meta-space.
- — regards, Revi 04:00, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
- Great question. At this point, Global Sysops do not have the same "edit rights" as some staff and Stewards. As far as non-limited spaces, yes, I think we absolutely would welcome support from any group. As we more appropriately welcome the community onto this wiki, we will see how things play out for admin and other rights for others - and what type of vandalism we get on translation and talk spaces. I am optimistic, but aware we could face challenges. In regards to the Stewards, I think in general there is a great deal of trust between the Foundation and Stewards on matters like this. That absolutely extends to my personal view of things. Any desire to restrict on this wiki, although I am confident some will happily argue with me, is genuinely a desire to protect volunteers from some of the "obligations" that making edits on behalf of a legal internet entity (in this case, the Foundation) brings with it. Keeping that in mind, I think Stewards have a clearer than most understanding of these risks (and the Foundation a commitment to protect), and as a result, I think there is confidence that in the same way Stewards did not present problems for Foundation Wiki, there is confidence Stewards will appreciate the balance between service and risk, and not create problems with this new wiki configuration. That said, if the Stewards as individuals or as a group opt not to engage in maintaining this wiki because of the risk associated with editing the main namespace, I think the Foundation would absolutely respect that decision. So put another way, I think we absolutely welcome - but do not expect - the assistance of Stewards. The assistance of Global Sysops on the editable spaces is also welcome, but again, not a demand/expectation. And all of that said, a part of the reason the Foundation is trying to limit edits is so that volunteers are not burdened with vandalism on a vital piece of content (aka our policies and governance documents). In theory, any vandalism will appear on translation or talk namespaces - in which case we absolutely welcome help, but also recognize it may not reach the level of importance that other situations present to groups like the Stewards. In the highly unlikely event that an approved main namespace edit account is breached, I think the protocols that currently exist to support/protect/guide Stewards on other wikis regarding a Foundation-level breach applies here as well (simply put - alert and fix). Personally, if it were me, I would probably ping a staff contact for an issue on main namespace, even knowing it is okay to fix, if for no other reason than I would want to alert to a failure in process (or possible breach of a Foundation associated account) that the Foundation should be aware of and own (as this is "the Foundation's wiki"). On talk or other spaces, I would essentially feel confident reverting/suppressing as necessary within generally accepted practices. My understanding (from long ago times) is that is true for the Foundation hosted affiliate wikis as well. We all have a collective interest in reputation management, but ultimate responsibility for an individual private wiki lies with the entity identified with that wiki (in this case with this wiki, the Foundation). But realistically is a Steward going to be "talked to" for fixing something caused by say a hack of a staff account? I would be disappointed if that happened and would be happy to "talk to" whomever on staff initiates that. In my view, our goal with changes to this wiki are absolutely about both protecting volunteers and facilitating discussion, as well as (frankly) cleaning up some of the mess created on Meta-Wiki by Foundation governance materials (and again, I acknowledge not everyone will see it that way). Whichever ways individual Stewards feel best supports that goal, I would personally advocate for us welcoming. Extending that opportunity to others is genuinely more a consideration regarding mitigating risk more than a desire to restrict access or deter volunteer assistance. To be blunt, in my volunteer capacity, I would leave most of this to Foundation if for no other reason than process suggests it is "on the Foundation" to fix any process/setup errors and ultimately as volunteers the focus should be on knowledge content (again, in my humble opinion). However, as the person spearheading the changes to this wiki, I would be incredibly disappointed if the Foundation did not rally around our Stewards in regards to any logical and well founded maintenance actions they took on this wiki - particularly in regards to vandalism/spam. I recognize that is not a fully authoritative answer (and full disclosure I did not run my answer past others), but I hope it answers your question, and I am confident a Steward could cite this reply as justification/permission for addressing spam/vandalism on this wiki. --Gregory Varnum (Wikimedia Foundation) [he/him] (talk) 12:53, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
- Gotcha. Thanks! @GVarnum-WMF, That reminds me for one more clarification request: are we (Stewards and GS) authorized to perform cleanups (of vandalism/spam) on non-limited namespaces? Thanks! — regards, Revi 23:04, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
- @-revi: While we test and finalize settings for this wiki, yes, all editing on the main namespaces will be limited to a small group of staff (and of course, the Stewards). We may begin to expand that group over time. However, as of today, people are able to edit talk pages and will also be able to edit translation pages once that extension is fully setup (hopefully early next week). --Gregory Varnum (Wikimedia Foundation) [he/him] (talk) 15:17, 28 October 2021 (UTC)