UDWiki:Administration/Policy Discussion/Autoconfirmed Group Trial

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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

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. --Karekmaps?! 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)
    Not what I was talking about, it's a distinction that you don't quite seem to understand. Probably a life experience thing. --Cyberbob 11:49, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
    Then what exactly were you talking about?--The General T Sys U! P! F! 11:59, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
    Fuck should I tell you for? You aren't the one the comment was directed at, you nosy prick. --Cyberbob 12:01, 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) ;x You rated this wiki '1'! Great job, go hog wild! @ 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 DORISFlag.jpg LOE ZHU | Яezzens 06:41, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
  17. Anything is worth a go. Liberty 10:12, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
    How far would you prepared to go to back up that use of the word "anything"? --Cyberbob 11:48, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
    To the stars. I'm a petty user like you Bob, responsibilities mean nothing to me. Liberty 05:32, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
    LOL IT TOOKED YOU LYK 8 DAYS 2 CUM UP WID THAT CUM BAK!!!elvn --xoxo 05:33, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
    I wish I could have known he was trying to kick up a stink earlier but I don't venture onto voting pages once I've voted. Liberty 05:40, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
  18. I'm not a great fan of the idea, but I can see both sides to the idea. A trial period is worth a try.-- Adward  16:00, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
  19. Sure, why not --Kooks 12:26, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
  20. If it works it works if it doesn't it doesn't. Let's see.--Ryvyoli Y R 21:22, 6 February 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! Conndrakamod 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)
    Discussion moved to talk Linkthewindow  Talk  05:22, 28 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. --Globetrotters Icon.png #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)
    YUS BECOZ HES SOOOOO GOING TO REVEAL ALL TEH SPECIFICS AND INCRIMININATUN DETAYLS OF HIS PLANED VNADALISM (also see katthew's vote in the For section). WHAT A CUNNING PLAN YOU HAVE THERE --Cyberbob 12:09, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
    meh, I didn't think anyone would care enough to deliberately get themselves banned over a policy so I thought it worth asking before making an assumption.--The General T Sys U! P! F! 19:26, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
    Among other things, you clearly don't know the goons. --– Nubis NWO 21:21, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
  9. as above and if it does pass i'm going to do the same #99 has in mind me thinks.----SexualharrisonStarofdavid2.png Boobs.gif 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 Domo.gif 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 Domo.gif 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)
  13. If I had a child this flawed, I'd drown it. -- To know the face of God is to know madness....Praise knowledge! Mischief! Mayhem! The Rogues Gallery!. <== DDR Approved Editor 14:29, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Result

  • Voting Failed - 20 For to 13 Against. 61% Majority. -- Cheese 17:48, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
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