Thread:Project:Support desk/Changing rights for users with @ in their name/reply (3)

Hi!

MediaWiki 1.16 has been released in June 2010, the last update to it is from 2011. So, if you are running the wiki in the public, I would consider this a security problem.

I don't know, how the previous bureaucrats got their rights. If they used the MediaWiki interface, then there will be an entry telling that rights of user changed from a to a,b when you enter their name on Special:UserRights. However, since you say that this interface is not working, I think it's unlikely that they used it. I think they modified the DB directly.

In your situation the "easiest" way to give you bureaucrat rights might actually be to manually add a row to the DB. Go to the database table "user_groups" and add a new row: In the field "ug_user" write your user ID (which you can e.g. see in the user preferences, when you are logged in into MediaWiki), in the field "ug_group" write "bureaucrat" and save.