UDWiki:Administration/Policy Discussion/Autoconfirmed Group Trial

The "problem"

Due to bad faith use by vandals, the ability to move pages is restricted to sysops. This effectively removes the ability for page moves to be used as a means to harm the wiki. At the same time, it also delegates yet more routine maintenance tasks to Sysops and takes powers away from the community.

The suggestion

The suggestion is to make use of the wiki's inbuilt "Autoconfirmed" group for the purpose of filtering those users who have tools with greater potential to harm the wiki. Autoconfirmed status is assigned to anyone who makes a certain number of edits and has been registered for a certain time period. Wikipedia assigns it after 4 days and 10 edits; on this wiki it has been indicated that a time period of 2 months and 200 edits would be more appropriate.

Autoconfirmed users would have the ability to move pages. It is also possible to protect a page so that only autoconfirmed accounts can edit them, this would afford frequently vandalised pages some level of protection while still allowing good-faith edits from established users.

This policy has had two previous incarnations only the later of which made it to voting. From comments from the community, it might be a beneficial idea to trial this change for a period of time and then after that period has ended ask for community opinion on whether this should become a permanent feature of the wiki.

The proposed trial period will be 2 months followed by a two week community discussion and a two week vote. If this policy is accepted it will run from the date it is activated by Kevan rather than the date the voting closes.

Protections

Move protections

High profile pages can still be protected from movement by anyone except for sysops. This will allow a two tiered protection, normal pages can be protected from single use vandal alts, while still allowing autoconfirmed users access, and at the same time high profile pages, and pages important to the wiki's administrative integrity can be protected from movement by all but sysops.

If a "move war" occurs over a specific page, the page can be protected from moving similar to regular page protection in the case of edit wars.

Semi-protection

Would be requested via the current A/P page, the same rules apply and any protections made by Sysops without a request must be listed on the page for future posterity.

Technical Implementation

This policy would be implemented by making the following changes to the configuration file:

Adding: $wgGroupPermissions['autoconfirmed']['move'] = true;

changing: $wgAutoConfirmAge = 0; to $wgAutoConfirmAge = 3600*24*56

and: $wgAutoConfirmCount = 0; to $wgAutoConfirmCount = 200;

Abuse

Misuse of move privileges is considered vandalism and would be handled through the current vandal escalation system.

Scheduled Protections

Upon passing, the following pages can be move-protected immediately by any sysop without having to go through A/PT

• Suburb pages
• Administration pages
• "Informational" pages (such as Category:Guides and Survivor Skills)
• Every page with over one hundred thousand views

Community Evaluation

After 2 months have passed, a discussion will be opened and the community as a whole will be able to voice their opinions of this feature. This can include problems, suggestions for improvement, criticisms and other opinions that the user may have. After two weeks of discussion to allow all community members to give their views, a new vote will be opened to decide whether to keep the Auto-confirmed group or to remove it. The vote will last two weeks and all users will be encouraged to vote on it.

Depending on the views gathered from the discussion, at least 3 options will be available in this vote:

1. To keep the auto-confirmed group and the move and semi-protection abilities as permanent features on the wiki.
2. To keep the auto-confirmed group and semi-protection ability as permanent features on the wiki but remove the move ability.
3. To completely remove the auto-confirmed group and the move and semi-protection abilities from the wiki.

The option that has gathered the most support will be the one that shall be carried out.

The Official Response

Kevan has been contacted about this and asked if he would be willing to implement this trial if it passes voting. His response follows:

Kevan said:

No problem. --Kevan 15:59, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Summary

• Adds an Auto-confirmed group to the Urban Dead wiki.
• Any user that has been on the wiki for longer than 2 months and has contributed more than 200 edits will automatically be placed into this user group.
• This group will allow auto-confirmed users to move pages that are set to allow movement by that particular group.
• High risk pages, such as the Main Page and the Administration pages can be protected from movement, can be protected from movement similar to the current ability to protect from editing.
• Semi-protection will be enabled. This allows high risk pages to be protected so that established users can still edit them, while preventing vandalism from just registered accounts.
• Abuse of move privileges will be treated as an act of vandalism and will result in vandal escalations according to the current escalation system.
• There will be a 2 month trial of this feature from the date it is implemented by Kevan, after this time a community discussion will be held and a vote will be carried out to decide if this should be made permanent.

Voting Section

Voting Rules

Votes must be numbered, signed, and timestamped. They can take one of two forms: # comments ~~~~ or # ~~~~ Votes that do not conform to the above will be struck by a sysop.

The only valid voting sections are For and Against. If you wish to abstain from voting, do not vote.

For

1. From the last version of this policy it was apparent that several people would prefer if this was trialled before it was made a permanent feature. Personally, I feel we should be able to restore the move ability to the community as it was in the past. If people misuse it, we take action. They keep messing about, the higher up the vandal scale they get. Easy as. -- Cheese 12:57, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
2. Once more, and for the last time. --—The preceding signed comment was added by Hagnat (talk • contribs) at 13:27, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
3. It's a good idea, and I voted for the last one. People who vandalize can be escalated, semi-protection can/would be useful on high-profile pages, and being able to move pages would safe effort for regular uses (although we should keep A/MR-both for the obvious and so people who may move a page can request comments.) -- Linkthewindow  Talk  13:35, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
4. Wikipedia has it and it works bloody well. No-one use it for vandalism.. --Janus ^talk 13:39, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
5. Meh, worth trying. --Midianian^|T|DS|C:RCS| 13:49, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
6. Several people suggested a trial period so here it is. This system works fine on Wikipedia and I personally believe that we should be able to trust regular users with the move privilege.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 14:36, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

   Please make sure to add the phrase "the will of the Community" there Iscar I mean, General.--– Nubis ^NWO 00:58, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

   I'm not quite sure what point you are trying to make with this comment. Could you elaborate?--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 20:45, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

7. It gets booted if it doesn't work, and there could still be some gain with option 2. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 18:51, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
8. On the principle that the trial period will give us more experience and information, and that in turn will help improve the choice at the end. --Toejam 00:28, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
9. Regular users will never be able to use this, but hey, I'll vote for it anyway. --dgw 08:36, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

   Am I to assume that that is a bad faith vote then? --Cyberbob 09:57, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

   No. What I mean is that I think this would be could be good for casual wiki users who maintain group pages and such. 200 edits is a lot. I think it would be good if it required fewer edits, but only counted edits that aren't in the userspace. I know that wouldn't pass though, so I'm voting for this. This is a real vote. --dgw 13:15, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

10. Azathoth wills it so. --Karek^maps?! 08:52, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
11. I am very ambivalent on this. Nubis' comment almost swayed me to vote No. And, do sysops really have such a massive work load with moves? However, in my dreams I can hear the cacaphonous piping of the blind, idiot gods at the centre of universe..... --WanYao 15:51, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
12. I suppose it's alright --Brian Eetar ^DTD|CFT|GMG 20:31, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
13. If this passes i get at least 3 months without having to vote on a damned autoconfirmed group policy.--xoxo 12:47, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

    You could also vote Against and rest in the knowledge that if it fails any more will be able to be counted as spam and thus be vandalism. --Cyberbob 12:56, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

    I wouldn't count on it -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 01:03 26 January 2009 (BST)

    It would be rather hypocritical of you to rule Not Vandalism on such a case... unless of course you're talking about other sysops. --Cyberbob 04:05, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

    Not really. You can be against a policy without believing it to be vandalism, it's a distinction that you don't quite seem to understand.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 09:03, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

14. God damn I cannot pro vote this enough. Being able to move pages around on the wiki will add a whole new dimension of awesome, especially for me. カシュー, ザ ゾンビ クィーン (ビープ ビープ) @ 01:07, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
15. More useful than not, problems from this will get taken care of in A/VB pretty quickly but issues with one sysop or another overextending their power are most likely going to last as long as this wiki. --Riseabove 05:27, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
16. Hope, Change, closing GITMO, and stimulus packages. --THE Godfather of Яesensitized, Anime Sucks ^{Yalk | W! U! WMM| CC CPFOAS LOE ZHU | Яezzens} 06:41, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
17. Anything is worth a go. Liberty 10:12, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Against

1. Just let it die already. --Cyberbob 13:01, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
2. In the name of most unholy Shoggoth, NO! Conndraka^{mod TAZM CFT} 18:49, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
3. There's quite a bit of trouble that can be caused with this.--Suicidal Angel - Help needed? 19:41, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
4. Don't say I didn't warn ya'll when this blows in your faces.--SirArgo ^Talk 19:55, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
5. Not only is this a bad idea the fact that a twice failed policy gets a "trial period" vote should make this Vandalism as Policy Spamming. --– Nubis ^NWO 22:03, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

   If someone tries it again after this one I intend on taking them to A/VB for that very reason. --Cyberbob 05:05, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

   It failed once and this is an alteration to the policy based on feedback gathered from voters. There is plenty of precedent for a policy being put up for voting for a second time after alterations have been made.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 18:50, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

   BULLSHIT! The only change to this policy from the previous version is that this is for a "trial period" of said policy. There is no alteration and the sections are even CUT AND PASTE copies of the other version. --– Nubis ^NWO 23:13, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

   The trial period was a change recommended by several voters, which is why it was put for voting with that alteration.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 11:26, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

   I also find it funny that you are so behind this policy when you were the one that voted: I would also agree with Nubis that we do not need extra people to prance around in red tape.--The General on this.--– Nubis ^NWO 23:19, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

   These are two different policies with different aims. My reasons for voting against the one linked are twofold. Firstly, it would allow practically anyone to gain Move, Deletion and Protection permissions with nothing more than a week's discussion. Deletion can be very damaging, even accidentally, and giving vast majority of people the ability to edit protected pages then it would make protection useless (or force us to protect everything to sysop-edit only, making the ability useless). Secondly, it's aim was to give more people the ability to carry out wiki maintenance. As legitimate deletions and page protection still have to go through the relevant pages and those pages do not have a significant backlog, giving more people to ability to carry them out would not speed things up but would merely tie yet more people up in red tape.

   As the requirements of this policy are stricter, page moves can be carried out on-sight and it does not attempt to give deletion of protection privileges, it avoids those problems.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 11:26, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

   Are you saying that moves no longer have to go through the Move Request page and that it is going to be the responsibility of the sysops to go through the move logs to make sure there isn't vandalism? Or are moves going to have to be posted still? Since you finally found A/MR the other day can we assume you will be as diligent with watching the move logs? So now instead of being able to discuss and/or deny requests we will have to pour through logs and track down whether or not that move is this vague "abuse" that you never gave me a definition of? Brilliant!

   Has it occurred to you that your move policy is going to give the ability to move pages to a vast majority of people and that you yourself said that sysops would have to move protect a lot of pages manually but somehow this is less work than having to to protect everything to sysop-edit only - you know, the reason you were against the other policy I linked? --– Nubis ^NWO 00:54, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

   Moves by those with the move permission never have gone through the page, so it isn't a change. People are still welcome to note down any controversial moves which require discussion. "Abuse" is the same as "vandalism" - a bad faith move is vandalism. I assume you simply want people to log down the moves they make, not that they should have to wait for someone else to carry out the move? One point I would like to make is that we don't require all edits to be logged on A/VB so we can patrol them for vandalism, yet anyone with an account can edit the wiki, so it doesn't particularly follow that we should require people to note down every move made. Having said that, I suppose I wouldn't object to moves being logged down on the page as a reference.

   My reason for voting against the other policy was not the extra work it would create but because making all protections sysop-only would make the Halfop level of protection useless as they could never actually use it. It's a catch 22, really: If we give lots of people the ability to protect and edit protected pages, we make protection pointless; If we counter that by making all protections sysop-only, then we make the lower level of protection useless.

   For the record: I am actually in favour of giving regular users extra privileges. However, there need to be decent requirements before giving them out and I believe that such a policy would be useless with the present level of red tape involved in the system.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 20:42, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

6. I would have to vote against. For one thing, the Wikipedia version has failed on a massive scale to prevent vandalism (check the histories of the entries for Uwe Boll and Evolution to see this), but this just adds a needless complication.--MorriganH 23:33, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
7. I voted against the last one, and my opinion hasn't changed. --ZsL 01:32, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
8. I know exactly what I plan on doing with this if it passes. -- #99 ^DCC 08:59, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

   And what, exactly, would that be?--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 18:50, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

9. as above and if it does pass i'm going to do the same #99 has in mind me thinks.----Sexualharrison 16:12, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
10. Is it really needed?--ShadowScope^{'the true enemy'} 17:40, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
11. Pointless, and the semi-protection is fucking gay.... people that have been registered for a month can't edit some pages? Totally fair.--/~Rakuen~\^Talk I Still Love Grim 19:59, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

    Currently no one other than sysops can edit those pages, this is at least fairer.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 21:37, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

    This policy in no way changes the ability to edit pages, it only deals with people moving some of them around. The protection applies only to that. Take some literacy classes, Rak. --WanYao 00:34, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

    "It is also possible to protect a page so that only autoconfirmed accounts can edit them" get the fuck off yer high horse and... take some mother fucking literacy classes you douche.

    And the General, that might be true, but this will probably bring about much more "semi-protected" pages since it would allow most to edit, but noobies would be denied. If you have no clue what I'm saying, doesn't matter, either do I.--/~Rakuen~\^Talk I Still Love Grim 03:39, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

12. The community seems to have made it clear a number of times that it has legitimate and significant concerns about the page move ability being available without a prior review process. The protections part of this would be useful, but it needs to ditch the move ability from being an autoconfirmed ability -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 01:03 26 January 2009 (BST)