Project:Requests

Requests for permissions

 * Archives: Autochecked user &bull; Translation administrator &bull; Administrator &bull; Bureaucrat &bull; Other user rights

Please fill out the form below to request rights, and then add the template here.

Other requests and requests for comments

 * Archives: Other requests and Requests for comments

Require formal RfA/RfB for applications
Yes, I'm aware of the fact that this website is controlled by the developers, but I think some formal record of why the user was given adminship should be needed. Just saying "trusted user" is quite generic. This problem cropped up when a MediaWiki sysop was attempting to become a steward - upon some digging, it turned out that the user never submitted an RfA and was just, quoting a user, "handled out by trust by a crat". In my opinion, this does not speak well for this site. Hence my proposal is simple: require that every user, developer or not, formally request adminship here. This is the case for every other Wikimedia site, and I am not convinced that this site needs to follow differently (even if it's not a "content site").

This does not mean that consensus should be obtained; unlike other sites I can see it reasonable for the developers to accept an application with no support votes, but I feel that record needs to be there. Leaderboard (talk) 10:37, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
 * ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I just don't see this being all that big of a deal. Per the box at the top of the page, all new requests for +sysop should come here unless the user is already a well-established developer. In practice, very few recent flags to +sysop have happened without an associated subpage here, so the change you're requesting is already de facto in effect (last one I can find was in April 2020). I'm not opposed to requiring it for everyone, but I feel that mountains are being made of molehills here. -- Skiz zerz  17:55, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I likewise don't see the point of this. * Pppery * it has begun 18:45, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
 * All that adminship requires is trust, and if someone is already trusted I don't see the point of extra bureaucracy. Having a wiki page is really no extra benefit than a log entry, it's just more work. And to be honest, I don't like dealing with spam and vandalism, but there are people who do enjoy cleaning that stuff up, and I am happy to do whatever it takes to empower them so I can get back to doing the stuff I enjoy. I'm also getting really tired of the trope that "mediawiki.org is not a content wiki" - please, there's a ton of content on this wiki. We too are equal partners in the movement for free knowledge. Legoktm (talk) 22:34, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi I agree that it's not right that MediaWiki is frequently considered as a "non-content" wiki. However, in every other wiki (except the test ones), there is no provision for someone to get adminship just by requesting a bureaucrat. This is true even for inactive wikis (as is often the case with very small wikis); users are required to post a RfA in a village pump or similar for a week. I do not see how MediaWiki should be any different.
 * Additionally, "Having a wiki page is really no extra benefit than a log entry" - this is not quite true. The reason is that a log entry gives barely any information on why that person was given adminship. In Charitwo's case, all the log said was "trusted user". That is no better than giving no detail at all. Leaderboard (talk) 15:18, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Most RfA processes on large wikis are dysfunctional, I don't think looking to them for comparison is a good idea. Adminship here still is "no big deal" and I think we want to keep it that way. Ultimately I think we practice SoftSecurity rather well for the most part. Legoktm (talk) 17:22, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
 * "Adminship here still is "no big deal"" - unfortunately, that's part of the reason the average Steward election voter has a (faulty) impression of MediaWiki as a non-content wiki (In theory I agree with you, not in practice however). Leaderboard (talk) 17:55, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I think the perception has far more to do with this wiki's intended audience. We're aimed primarily at technical users who are running their own wikis, with a smattering of content for wiki editors as well. Because this isn't for a "general" audience, we get treated as a second-class citizen. Having an informal RfA process has largely nothing to do with this. Lots of the smaller "content wikis" have an informal RfA process as well.
 * Besides, we shouldn't have to adjust what we're doing just to please some arbitrary people on some other wiki. If there was a benefit for this wiki to have every rights flagging go onto a subpage here, then make the case for that. Given that the vast majority of them will be closed as complete without comment, I don't really see the difference between saying "trusted user" and flagging someone without a page vs saying "trusted user" and flagging someone with a page where all they say is "I'm a developer and I want sysop." In short, I think you're raising this for the wrong reasons and it is therefore not very productive to pursue this. -- Skiz zerz  16:56, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
 * This page already serves as this wiki's RfA/RfB process, and in the time I've been observing it (a couple years or so) it seems to be working just fine. I'd be okay with changing things so any non-developers requesting adminship are required to use this page, but requiring developers to do so just seems like pointless bureaucracy - they've already been entrusted with commit rights; what, exactly, would a community vetting process accomplish that the developer vetting process didn't? 「 ディノ 奴 千？！ 」☎ Dinoguy1000 11:43, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The problem is that often it's non-obvious that the user was promoted to sysop because they were a dev, as in the above example. Leaderboard (talk) 17:54, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The developer community interacts on more than just this wiki. We also have Gerrit and Phabricator, for example. When I flag someone, I evaluate across all 3 for trustworthiness or to determine if they qualify for the "devs are entitled to sysop" rule. Catering to users of other wikis who are digging into why someone is flagged here is not a consideration for me whatsoever, and I have no plans to change that. -- Skiz zerz  16:56, 17 February 2021 (UTC)