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A bot could help clerk for WP:CHU?

Hey, I've been reading WP:CHU occasionally, and today, MBisanz gave Cobi and I a suggestion for a bot to analyze requests. I realize that this could be possible, and would probably be beneficial. It would detect whether the request was made by an IP, or if it gives the reason as "Reason for requested renaming." (the default). Those are just a few examples, and I'd like to get some crat's ideas on the matter. It seems like it would save a lot of work. Soxred93 (u t) 04:47, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Yea! He spelled my name right. A wiki-first. MBisanz ^talk 04:50, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

The clerk in the heading threw me off, since that usually means a person and we have those. But yes, anything to automate the process and reduce the human overhead would be good. The things you've outlined sound like a good idea and try to think of anything else that can be automated. Personally I think we should mostly do away with renaming, since it draws important resources away from editing and adds little value, but strangely enough I don't seem to be joined by many people in that opinion. - Taxman ^Talk 23:18, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

For clarity, I replaced the heading. It was: Clerk for WP:CHU? EdJohnston (talk) 14:43, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Mind you, some editors may desire performing these clerk activities. Such experience could be used as a stepping-stone toward becoming a Bureaucrat. Automating these activities might take take this potential experience away from interested editors. Kingturtle (talk) 16:45, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Kingturtle. If editors or clerks, don't familiarise themselves with username policy often enough, they'll potentially forget it, being a hindrance if they wished to pursue the line of bureaucrat. Rudget (Help?) 16:52, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I disagree strenuously with you both. The purpose of our project is not to peddle influence with easily automated ceremonial tasks. Bots are good and we should not let political "stepping-stone[s]" get in the way of a useful idea. Andre (talk) 03:22, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

There is no back log at WP:CHU. Such a bot is unnecessary at this time. There are however a number of other issues with large backlogs that could use the service of a bot. Kingturtle (talk) 04:23, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Mind pointing out where? Soxred93 (u t) 21:18, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

A BRFA for this bot has been added at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SoxBot VI. Soxred93 (u t) 23:42, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Crats may want to take a look

At this discussion: [1] . Maxim_(talk) 13:49, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Problematic rename by a steward

I would like some thoughts on how to deal with a recent renaming that is rather problematic. Today, steward Darkoneko temporarily gave himself bureaucrat rights here in order to perform a usurpation [2]. The usurped account had nearly 6,000 edits but has been inactive for some time. A request to usurp this account was made by a frwiki admin who edits using the same name for SUL compliance in March and declined by myself on the basis that it lay outside the our current local policy for renaming accounts without their agreement. It was in my opinion totally inappropriate for a steward to give himself bureaucrat rights on a project which already had local bureaucrats, let alone to perform a request already denied by a locally appointed bureaucrat and I have taken this matter up with the steward concerned.

The question remains whether this action should be reversed. I am aware that though I may be entitled to simply rename the account back, this would in effect be a "crat wheel war" so I am looking for consensus on the matter. Should the situation be left as it, or should I rename the account back? WjBscribe 17:54, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Rename it back; stewards cannot override local policy. Darkoneko knows full well enwiki has its own bureaucrats, and this action was very inappropriate. Additionally, it's not a "wheelwar" as Darkoneko isn't a bureaucrat. You are free to override at your choice. Al Tally (talk) 17:56, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Yup, rename it back seems the most appropriate course of action here. Usurping an account with 6000 edits without permission is simply wrong, especially with no local discussion. I would expect this sort of thing to be done after serious community discussion, although I highly doubt it would ever succeed. Ryan Postlethwaite 17:58, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I concur here with Majorly: Darkoneko's action was, all things aside, inappropriate. The action circumvented our relevant policies here on enwiki, and it would not be prudent for it to stand. WJB, I'd support any action you take, that reverses this; furthermore, I support your move to take the matter up with the Steward in question. Perhaps the underlying issue was a lack of understanding as to the processes in question; as we're assuming good faith, I for one presume it was, in which case, it will need to be remedied. To answer your original enquiry, however, as a matter of principle, and per our community's long standing consensus (reflected in the usurpation policies) the action needs to be reversed. Anthøny 18:01, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

The action should definitely be reversed - that's a shocking violation of the steward policy. Happy‑melon 18:54, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the above comments, and someone active at Wiktionary should let them know the same name change was performed there. NoSeptember 19:10, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

It has been pointed out to me that as User:Serein has unified their global login, I cannot reverse the Darkoneko's action - the global account will need to be deleted by a steward first. I will ask him to do so. If he refuses, I will see if any other stewards will do it. WjBscribe 19:44, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Hello

My apologies for the ruckus I caused. I'm inviting you to read the reasons for this action at meta:User_talk:Darkoneko#User:Serein.40enwiki.

Putting that event aside, I believe that this renaming policy will be causing problems with the SUL, as on the long-term, all accounts are to be "global-ized".

thanks. DarkoNeko x 21:17, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Be that as it may, there are absolutely no circumstances in which a steward is permitted to make an action such as this, to deliberately override the previous action of a local bureaucrat. SUL does not, by policy or common practice, provide exempt from these rigid rules. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 06:21, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

WJScribe, what would be the resources needed to effect such a rollback, with respect to the server processing and the effect on SUL? If the hit is hard, then effecting a rollback may create a big mess. However if not, then I support a rollback. My reasons are:

• The move transgresses the authority of bureaucrats. Bureaucrats are created as they would be better able to serve the local large wikiproject. The steward in this case is not aware of the rules.
• SUL does not advocate a forcible renaming on any wiki. As per our policy on en-wiki (and I think all over), a single edit by an account negates any claim for it to be usurped.
• This has serious implications. Tomorrow, if I go on a wikibreak, a person can can create an account on another wiki, and then use a bot to jack up his edit count to beat mine. So, when I log in to account on en-wikipedia after a month, I am left out in the cold. We cannot allow this to happen.

Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= 09:47, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

The original SUL process proposed by Brion, would have allowed the person with the most edits at the time of unification to win control of all accounts bearing a given name (everyone else be damned). The SUL test process that has been implemented is somewhat different than that original proposal, but I think some people may have been thinking of the original proposed process. Currently EN, DE, PL, and IT require that the target account has no edits. ZH and AR wikis apparently allow usurpation of any inactive account provided the user doesn't object after a 7 day notice. FR (Darkoneko's primary wiki), allows usurpation if the target has only a few or old contributions (without a lot of clarification). Dragons flight (talk) 10:13, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Darkoneko definitely went about this the wrong way, but that doesn't change that he is probably right about the conflict with our usurpation policy and SUL. The FR usurp policy apparently changed to adjust for SUL since I had read that previously they were not allowed at all, even for SUL. I don't read French though, so I didn't verify that myself. We may very well need to change our policy to make way for SUL as well. - Taxman ^Talk 12:39, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, DarkoNeko remove the SUL for Serein, so a 'crat can undo the rename at will per our local policy. Maxim_(talk) 12:46, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Even though it was done the wrong way, I'd rather we left it, now that it has been done. It has cleared the way for the global account, and it's probably what's going to have to be done eventually anyway. - Taxman ^Talk 13:47, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Meta's m:Help:Unified login currently gives discretion over the handling of SUL usurpations to local communities. Personally, unless absolutely required on technical grounds, I would be opposed to SUL usurpations that rename established accounts (e.g. those with substantial local history). Dragons flight (talk) 12:57, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I agree it does give that discretion, but we don't need to use it to make SUL harder. Although my preference would be that SUL simply keeps track of the numerical account IDs and tracks them that way. Then we don't have to deal with any of this mess. Then I could still log in once and use any of my accounts, whether or not the username matched, and it could be verified they are all mine and are a global account. Seems easier to me, but nobody called me to ask how to do it. :) Yes, I see the downside in that people have different names on different wiki's, but we already have that and we manage. Currently to have a global account you have to have your username in the same script, ie on the Hindi wikipedia, I can't have my username be in Devanagari and have it part of my global account. - Taxman ^Talk 13:47, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

The right to attribution is one of the few fundemental rights granted to authors under the GFDL. In my opinion, tampering with the way edits are attributed against an editor's will is unethical and one could make a plausible argument that it is a breach of the GFDL as well. I realize that not usurping established accounts will lead to global accounts that are perpetually "incomplete" by leaving conflicts in place. In my opinion, however, it is less offensive to deny someone a complete global account (which they don't currently have) than to forcible take away someone else's chosen name on their local wiki. Dragons flight (talk) 14:01, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry because I made a mistake. I should not have to ask Darkoneko rename my account. However, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that my problem will certainly happen again for other people and it serves no purpose to the archive without benefit of SUL to resolve it, as you did. I have a number of contributions are allocated to me when they were made by another. This is in contradiction with the GFDL. Fortunately, my namesake English has the air of having been a good contributor, but it can cause problems for others. Please forgive me yet, I understand that this is a big mistake. (Excuse me, I do not speak English perfectly) --Serein (talk) 14:27, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem is as an admin and trusted user, you should have known ahead of time that you shouldn't have done what you did and not done it. Because of the poor way you handled this and the improper way DarkoNeko implemented it, I am also tempted to reverse it, but I believe those are the wrong reasons to do it for. - Taxman ^Talk 15:29, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but the right to attribution does not require the account maintains the user's chosen name. Attribution is maintained with renaming. At any rate, we're way off topic here into things that should be discussed on pages specifically dealing with SUL. - Taxman ^Talk 15:29, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, we are off-topic. Though you were the one that suggested that enwiki change its policy in light of SUL. I am merely offering my opinion that enwiki's policy is appropriate even in the face of SUL. What forum would you suggest? There is also a short discussion of these points on foundation-l. Dragons flight (talk) 15:37, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

There unfortunately doesn't appear to be a really good place. Wikipedia talk:Changing username/Usurpations seems the best candidate as there was a previous discussion on the issue before the current global account system was properly finalized and explained I think. The problem is this intersects WP:SUL (which doesn't exist here on en.wiki) and the username policy (which doesn't have the material from the top of Wikipedia:Changing username/Usurpations in it currently. - Taxman ^Talk 15:58, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I tried to start a general discussion at Wikipedia:SUL/Consultation on renames, which I advertised fairly broadly at the time, but there was little interest. Perhaps this noticeboard is as good a place as any. I think it would make sense to expand the range of accounts we allow to be usurped where the request is for SUL compliance. WjBscribe 17:14, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

To expand on my brief comment above: I think that it is especially important to reverse this move (given that now Serein's global account has been deleted to allow it) to ensure that we can have an open discussion about this. The hell wiki doesn't operate on precedent: the difference between the perceptions of "someone did this in direct contravention of policy, so we reverted it, but it does raise some legitimate issues so we're discussing them" and "someone did this in direct contravention of policy, but it raised some issues so we left it as it was and started thinking about them" is tremendous: the latter leaves no choice but to conclude that the issues are insurmountable. In fact, the architects of SUL have explicitly indicated that we make the decision about whether to allow SUL usurpations or not, so we should be left free to make our own minds up without an overlying perception that our policy is so misguided that stewards can ignore it. Happy‑melon 19:13, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I strongly disagree that the difference is tremendous or, more to the point, important. We can or should all be able to separate the issues. Something was done improperly. Now we discuss what we should do going forward and whether we should reverse the action because it was the wrong thing to do. Reversing it because it was done improperly is a waste of time and resources, particularly if we decide it should in fact have been done but now through the proper channels. What do you propose we do then, go and do another 6000 edit rename (which would make the third time) just so we can say we did it right? That is certainly not needed in order for everyone to know that the way it was done was wrong and that it should never be done that way again. Below we are having the proper discussion about what should be done and I posit that that is the only important discussion that impacts whether this rename should be undone or not. - Taxman ^Talk 19:47, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

It's certainly true that there is much less danger of it setting a precedent in the sense of other people proceeding to do the same thing before we've had the appropriate discussion, as this is a function which a much smaller group of users have access to - I think we can trust our 27 bureaucrats and 40 stewards not to try a stunt like this again. I guess you just have more faith in the community's ability to separate past from present than I do... Happy‑melon 21:59, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

So, has this been reversed yet? It should be. R. Baley (talk) 03:07, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Easier said than done. I don't think anyone expected something like this could happen... bibliomaniac15 03:43, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't see the problem, he asked to usurp, and was turned down. Then, against enwiki policy/guideline -whatever, he later used his steward position to give himself bureaucrat tools and did it anyway. He has asked us to look at arguments in favor of this action, but personally I wouldn't look at anything, until the situation was restored to as it was before this out of process violation took place. 6000 edits, and he just took them -like they didn't mean a damn thing. Undo please -then discuss- that's fundamental. It's not a "ruckus", it's offensive. (btw, don't know if the account holder is a "him" or her" -no offense intended if wrong.) R. Baley (talk) 03:57, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Not exactly. The problem is that it is technically impossible to undo it until a steward deletes the global account (I think this may have already been done). Also, after being turned down, he asked a steward, he is not a steward himself. He also did not "take" the edits, when the account was renamed, the edits were re-attributed to the new name as well. But, yes, it does need to be undone and then discussed. -- Cobi^(t|c|b) 04:16, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Guys, please read above. We're discussing whether it should be undone by discussing the issue in general in the below section. A general mark of maturity is being able to separate issues that are in fact not dependent on one another. That is the case here and we don't need to reverse this action in order to be able to decide whether it should be reversed or kept where it is. There is no rush, so feel free to read the analysis in the section below and add your opinions there. - Taxman ^Talk 13:12, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, based on the information below that full implementation of SUL isn't likely to be a forced situation and instead can remain on a case by case basis, I too now agree that this usurp rename should be undone. It appears that is the consensus here as well. - Taxman ^Talk 13:05, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Usurpation and SUL: To expand or not to expand?

Ok, given the above discussion and that there is no really good place to discuss this, why not here? I understand what Dragons flight is saying I just don't agree that it is a problem. As mentioned above, the GFDL does require attribution is maintained, it's just that renaming does maintain that attribution. No one has been promised their username is going to be theirs forever no matter how long they are inactive for. My solution for allowing different account names with global accounts doesn't appear to be on the near horizon, though others have suggested it, so we need to do something. Remember the original SUL plan was to automatically usurp accounts and given them to the one with the highest edit count. What we have now is a bit of a compromise where we can have some middle ground and choose better metrics than just edit count. So in short, while I would rather have the better solution implemented so we don't have to deal with this, I agree with WJBscribe that we should expand the range of accounts that can be usurped for SUL. That said, an example of one that perhaps shouldn't have gotten it is Serein above since he had very little en.wiki contributions and thus had no demonstrable need for the account. Another good example would be myself. I certainly didn't need to get 'Taxman' on de.wiki since I don't edit there, it just ended up getting to be part of my global login because the German user that carried that username voluntarily changed username in order to make way for SUL. I'm not sure we need to require substantial previous contributions in English in order to usurp for SUL, but it's something to consider as a way to ensure we don't do it frivolously. Also I would have moved much of the above down here, but it was intertwined enough I didn't want to make a mess. If anyone sees a good way, go for it. - Taxman ^Talk 18:56, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I support changing the usurpation policy to permit renaming users who are inactive here if an active user on another project wishes to unify the account. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:16, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Support per CBM. By expanding the usurpation policy we can allow inactive accounts here (most of which have made no significant edits anyway, apart from some which have made important GFDL contributions) to be unified with those on other wikis. Makes sense. Rudget (Help?) 19:19, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Taxman, thank you for opening this discussion. For me there are several arguments that I find compelling against any broad expansion of SUL usurpation. Firstly, though there are some exceptions, many users use SUL primarily as a convenience to visit wikis other than the ones they are most active on. I don't consider facilitating the convenience of an occasional visitor as sufficient benefit to justify usurping an established local user, either an active one or an inactive one that might plausibly return. Being forced to relinquish a username one has invested time and effort building a reputation around is likely to be a hurtful experience that would discourage an existing user from continuing or an inactive user from returning. By contrast, asking the off-wiki visitor to use a different username is already a familiar experience that probably will have little impact on that visitor's resulting contributions. In addition to damaging our relationship with a well-established local user, there is the additional problem that well-established users come with baggage in the form of a reputation and dozens (if not hundreds or thousands) of talk page references to their account. Right now we have no established facility for cleaning up those old userpage links, and even if we did have such a power it would be even harder to wipe away the prior associations in people's minds. For example, if we had a new Radiant! or Bluemoose or Newyorkbrad, how long would it take to overcome the confusion in the community. For these reasons, I think there has to be some not-too-high limit at which we say established accounts (both active and retired) are ineligible for usurping.

Given your comments above, you may even agree with me that we shouldn't be usurping well-established users. The tricker question is what do we do with accounts that have some good history but are not well-established. Here I know we disagree. I look at this way: If you write a report and place your name on it, e.g. Anthere's 101 Recipes for Linguine, then it would be ethically wrong for me to distribute "Anthere (whose account was renamed for SUL)'s 101 Recipes for Linguine", because I am identifying the authorship in a different way than the author intended. I'm not sure whether doing that violates the GFDL. I'm certain that it would be a violation to change the name and distribute Chef Pierre's 101 Recipes for Linguine without mentioning Anthere, but whether the addition of the parenthetical is a violation or not would probably require a lawyer and/or judge to answer. Regardless of its legal status, I still would not consider it ethical to tack on parentheticals like that. Or to address Taxman's point more directly, as long as we are publishing a user's work, I would consider that we have made a de facto promise to continue attributing it to them in a manner consistent with their original declaration. So for me the threshold for the ethical exercise of usurpation would have to be accounts with no significant acts of authorship. That's not as terribly limiting as you might think since more than half of all registered accounts never edit at all, and a substantial fraction beyond that contribute only vandalism.

That being said, there is really an overriding issue that is outside the scope of an enwiki discussion. How far is the WMF planning to go with SUL? If the WMF really does intend to drive SUL to completion so that no duplicate accounts will remain then my opinions are moot and the global community would be forced to invent some method of conflict resolution. The alternative is to manage global accounts only in the limited form that they are now, and allow local accounts and incomplete mergers to exist perpetually. I've seen several comments to suggest that the later state may be where we are really heading. If so, then there is no incentive to pursue usurpation except where is likely to be immediately reasonable and useful. I emailed a dev to ask about the future of SUL but have not gotten a reply. Dragons flight (talk) 21:43, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't entirely agree with all the above, but you make some very good points. Your last paragraph though, is indeed the crux of the issue. Because of the way SUL has been presented, most of us I think have been operating under the assumption that your first alternative is what is going to happen. I know I have and that is what I based my above opinion to expand the usurp criteria on. If not, then I agree we can be more selective and do not need to expand our usurp criteria. The question is how do we find more about this? That seems to be the most important thing to find out right now to resolve the issue. The various places where this should be more clear do not seem to be. As noted above my personal preference would be to have different accounts merged in one global account and that potentially could be hastened if we clamp down and don't expand our usurp criteria, though I don't like the idea of holding things hostage that way. Upon re-analysis though, the best option without question is to not expand them until we know for sure what is going on. - Taxman ^Talk 13:02, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Tim Starling got back to me. He expressed the opinion that we probably are heading for the second track. In other words, global accounts will become more widely available, but conflict resolution will still be handled manually via local wiki policy with no imperative to complete the merge. That would imply that local accounts and some naming conflicts would be allowed to persist indefinitely. Dragons flight (talk) 14:25, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Well based on that new information then I don't see a need to expand the criteria. Yeah it's nice to have a unified login, but it's not so important that we need to be usurping established accounts. I'd like to see something more definitive, say from wide community input, but at this point as long as full SUL implementation isn't going to be forced we can stop assuming that it is going to be until we get definitive information otherwise. - Taxman ^Talk 13:05, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Just a note, I believe that SUL is still currently limited to those with +sysop permissions (or more) - am I correct? Pedro :  Chat  19:33, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Currently yes, per m:Help:Unified login. My understanding is that this is to test the process and get some of the outstanding bugs fixed. - Taxman ^Talk 19:53, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

To build on Taxman, I believe the ultimate goal is to roll out m:SUL to all accounts; administrators are currently, in essence, being used as the "test cases" for single user login. Anthøny 20:30, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Dragon Flight's assessment completely. seresin ( ¡? ) 22:04, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with Dragon's Flight that we should worry about renaming established but inactive users for SUL. Once SUL is rolled out more broadly, these established users will also own their names everywhere else, so once the initial round of SUL usurpations is completed, there won't be any more of them. In the initial round, if there is an established active user and an established inactive user with the same name, I feel the active user should get the name. In the case of two active users, I hope they can come to an agreement between themselves.

As to whether it breaks GFDL to change someone's name, I think we can fall back on the argument that when someone contributes to they implicitly grant us permission to change things for the purpose of administering the site (this is also the reason, I believe, that we don't worry about other minor GFDL issues such as accidentally lost attribution, etc.). If you feel renaming users against their will is an issue, it would be more compelling to everyone if you could convince Mike Godwin to comment on it, especially since other projects appear to do so, and so if it's a GFDL violation they need to change their practices. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:21, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

(<--outdent)Thanks for that Dragons flight. So I think I'm reading this that in terms of the policy at WP:CHU/U nothing needs to be done? However it may be prudent to consider some relaxation of the rules (depending on GFDL issues). I'm mostly thinking that our requirement In order to ensure that usurped usernames be put to good use, we prefer only to grant requests from reasonably well-established users. would be second to a request for the purposes of SUL, and that we may have to set some reasonable bar of edits/tenure on en.wiki, above which we will not allow usurption of the account, irrespective of it being a SUL related request. Pedro :  Chat  14:31, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Well the reasonably well established could be determined by contributions to other projects. As above my personal preference though is that someone should have a certain number of contributions at en already or have at least a babel 2 or 3 so that we avoid usurping accounts at the high end of our limit just so someone on another project can have a placeholder account. Again to use me as an example, I do not need the de.wiki Taxman account because I know no German and as a result I have not contributed to that project and I am not likely to. I don't know what everyone thinks, but I'd like to see that taken into consideration. - Taxman ^Talk 13:05, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

This is my concern - that we usurp an account with, say, 200 edits but no contributions for a year and then it's just used as a place holder. So I agree "reasonably established" can be judged by contributions to other wikis, but we would need some form of establishment on en.wiki as well to justify usurption (take you point on babel here - good thinking). Noting the conversation on Will's talk page here clearly we're already heading into issues. It seems clear to me that we need some input on our wiki to justify usurptions that are outside of our usual parameters but being made under SUL. Having said that, usurptions of accounts with zero or negligible edits under SUL should be made easier. In summary; our current requirement that a usurped username will "be put to good use" would be secondary to an SUL request. However usurption of an account with a more than negligible level of edits would/should require evidence of more than just "place holding" under SUL. Pedro :  Chat  13:17, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Well that's what I'm saying. It's not that we need to make will "be put to good use" secondary, it's just that we need to judge it differently. For SUL we still want to know it will be used. As above I don't think we need to do usurpations outside our normal criteria (which would amount to expanding them) unless maybe just by a small amount. I don't know though, maybe if global accounts were more useful I'd feel different. Currently you still have to log in to every other wiki. - Taxman ^Talk 13:28, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

There's still some issues on meta, and yes I agree that the individual log in is one thing as well. I'm also marginally supprised that SUL accounts don't become autoconfirmed - all though obviously an auto confirm limit is down to the individual wiki. However they're meta problems! So yes, I agree, we should need ot see some benefit to en.wikipedia given how little benefit SUL seems to be giving at the moment. I do think we are going to get some usurp issues on borderline cases though. An es.wikipedia bureaucrat with 20k edits (random example) might well feel a touch miffed If they were unable to usurp an account here with 200 good edits but no activity in three months (which we for sure would not usurp at present). Of course one can hope that such accounts would willingly relinquish their name, but as noted by my diff to the conversation on Will's page, things can go awry and an unanswered e-mail may not actually indicate account abandonment. If we have a relatively fixed local positon (with some minor discretion one way or the other) then that's it. It's en.'s position on where we go to for SUL usurp requests and if you can't have the account, well sorry but that's the way it is. Just my thoughts - we have some way to go on this, IMHO. Pedro :  Chat  13:37, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm a massive fan of SUL (though I do a lot more wiki-wandering than most), but I'm forced to agree that eschewing a local user for an admin on a different project, when said admin has no plans to edit here, does seem like a sub-optimal solution. I do solidly believe in the benefits of a single login, though... I'd be comfortable with a six month period of inactivity being grounds for usurpation, with any usurped account being given preferential treatment when they come back and want a rename (ie: they get it done immediately, rather than the sometimes sizable delays at WP:CHU. *shrug* EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:15, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

(de-dent) - I too like the idea of SUL. For me though, the crux of the issue is how do we determine "inactive"? In my opinion the loss of your account name is far more "meaningful" than (let's say) the loss of adminship. (Comparing this to the proposal which suggested that inactive admins be non-controversially desysopped, with them regaining adminship non-controversially upon simple request to a bureaucrat.)

One of the questions for that discussion was "how long is inactive?" A year seemed comparable to what's being done on meta and elsewhere.

But in losing one's name due to being inactive? For that, the length of inactivity should be longer. 2 or 3 years sounds better, at least. And that's 2 or 3 years of no edits whatsoever. (And presumes that several attempts have been made to contact the user.) - jc37 05:49, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I have seen at least 2 examples of users returning about 2 years of inactivity, so I would err towards the lengthy side, if any period of time is deemed appropriate. MBisanz ^talk 08:59, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree with the ideas expressed above: I think we're entitled to be a bit selfish on this issue; the most important thing for us is that SUL provides benefits (or at least minimal disadvantages) to our project. That means that when we usurp an 'experienced' account (thereby incurring the potential problem of pissing off a returning contributor) we should be able to expect a reasonable benefit to the project (ie that the usurper will actually make use of their SUL and be active on this project). Remember, at the moment everyone with access to SUL has crat or sysop rights on another wiki, but that won't always be the case. I think the only people who should have the automatic right to usurp anyone who gets in their way are the stewards, and only because of the nature of their userrights and the work they do. My heuristic for deciding when to allow a usurpation would be: "has the target account been inactive for more than a year... and has the usurping account been more active than the target account on en.wiki over the past three years"?? You can play around with the numbers a little, but I think that this covers most of the options correctly: when the target account is not inactive (=no usurp), when the usurping account is not very active here (=no usurp), and when en.wiki stands to gain a more useful contributor than we could potentially lose (=usurp). Just my £0.02. Happy‑melon 10:25, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

RBAG

DHMO's RBAG is ready for closing --Chris 09:41, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I closed it and added Dihydrogen Monoxide to WP:BAG because I went and looked at it and it was a clear consensus. In the past we had held that bureaucrats did not need to get involved in RBAGs unless they were close. Are we still thinking that way? - Taxman ^Talk 13:40, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I think we're shifting in the direction of having bureaucrats close more, or possibly all, new RfBAGs - it seems a fairly simple way to ameliorate some of the concerns that are constantly floating around about BAG. Like everything else BAG-related, there isn't really anything inequivocal either way :D Happy‑melon 15:16, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I really don't care either way, but if it makes people happy, then I'm for letting crats close it. Aaron Schulz 15:23, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Taxman. I concur with the above that having 'crats close BAG nominations (wherever we host them) is probably the best idea, if they are willing to do it. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 07:34, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Mine is also about ready to be closed --Chris 10:37, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

On the contrary, I would argue that the habit of closing RfBAGs with that level of interest is a significant cause of many of BAG's problems. Happy‑melon 14:41, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I disagree, Its been over ten days and there are 8 !votes, double the average for most brfas. The only reason why the other ones got more input was because there was the big hype with rbag on rfa. --Chris 21:43, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

The fact that it's double the average for the old RfBAGs is indicative of a problem with those nominations, not a lack of one with yours :D. To be perfectly honest, I'd personally consider an RfBAG to be borderline consensus with eight unanimous supports; your RfBAG is currently running at ~(5|3|0), which is 63% support. I'll be completely frank: if a bureaucrat closes your RfBAG now, it will fail - I would call into serious question the judgement of any bureaucrat who acted otherwise, because as a hard number that's a ridiculous level of involvement in a candidacy for a position which entitles you to give instructions to bureaucrats. You have several opposers who argue that you haven't publicised this nomination widely enough: remembering that there is no deadline, what have you got to lose from publishing it more widely and waiting another week? You'll get more non-protest involvement, and you might even persuade some of those who have opposed your nomination to change their minds. Happy‑melon 22:19, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Sigh. RfBAG's at RFA did indeed attract wide community involvement and give 'crats more meat to work with, based on their ability to weigh contrasting arguments. And one of the widespread criticisms of BAG was the lack of community involvement. I won't beat that horse, I'm just sayin'... Franamax (talk) 22:28, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I personally fail to see what publicising it will do, there has been lots of discussions with many users below my post(hey, even Majorly and East commented in the post - but still didn't !vote), so I don't think publicising is the problem. However if you think it will help, I will spam all the notice boards --Chris 23:04, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done --Chris 23:12, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Chris, please do not spam the noticeboards, this is considered canvassing. I have reverted your self-proclaimed spam. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) @ 23:14, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, so we have three users who think I should spam and one who thinks I shouldn't. Well that is just GREAT --Chris 23:17, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

WP:CANVASS, could you imagine if someone did this with their RFA? I have nothing wrong with an uninvolved editor posting on some noticeboards requesting more community input as a whole, but having one editor "spam" noticeboards about their own nomination is way too blatant canvassing. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) @ 23:21, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

The thing is, everyone looks at WP:RFA - very few people look at WT:BAG. --Chris 23:27, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Posting notices regarding BAG noms on WP:AN is standard practice. [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] - auburnpilot talk 23:34, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I will reiterate what I said on Chris' talk page, if I am in error, then I apologize. As I can see it seems posting to AN is common practice. I do want to point out that Chris posted to AN, but also posted to the Village pump and the bot owner's noticeboard, which is what led me to believe that this was canvassing. There is a difference between notifying a relevant noticeboard, and as Chris stated "spam all the noticeboard." But personally, I no longer really care. So whatever you decide, go for it. Cheers, « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) @ 23:51, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll note I made public my RBAG run at WP:AN, WP:BN, WP:VP/PR, WP:BON,WT:BOT, WT:RFA as well as using {{BAG-notice}} on my userpage. I did this to make sure no one could claim I tried a stealth run to avoid opposition. And since then I've encouraged WP:BOT be amended to list what sort of public notice is required for RBAGs. MBisanz ^talk 00:18, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Backlog

If any bureaucrats happen to notice this message, Slp1's RFA is about 4 hours overdue and there's a pretty sizeable backlog at WP:CHU. Useight (talk) 02:26, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Change my username

Hi to everyone. I am User:MARKELLOS of greek wikipedia. I would like to change my username to english wikipedia from User:MARKELLOS GR to User:MARKELLOS. Although there is already a user called User:Markello, he is a suspected sockpuppet and hasn't contributed since more than a year ago. I would be grateful if you could fix this. Thank you --MARKELLOS^{Leave me a message} 13:00, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

You will probably want to file a request at Changing Username. It will get more attention there, and that is ultimately the correct place for such requests. Thanks. RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 13:59, May 25, 2008 (UTC)

Thank you.--MARKELLOS^{Leave me a message} 17:34, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Temporary bureacurats

Given that SUL is coming for all users on Tuesday, we're in for a treat with the huge backlogs that we'll no doubt have at WP:CHU. There will be no forced renames, and all renames will have to be done manually at the minute. Now, we need to consider our options before we get hit hard. I'd like to propose a number of users are given temporary bureaucrat status to aide in the CHU backlogs, with a clear understanding that they are only permitted to do renames. We wouldn't need loads, I'd say around 5-10 would be sufficient with a status as a bureaucrat for one month, until the backlogs go down. Renames are not hard to do, and there are many capable admins who understand the process and the username policy who easily handle this task for a month. I hope this is something we can consider. Ryan Postlethwaite 22:10, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm considering running via RfB, but I am simply worried about having it immediately shot down. :) Folks have been offering to use {{RfB-nom}}, but I'd rather source thoughts here. Comments? Anthøny 22:14, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

(ec)I think this a very good proposal; it seems to work fine at meta. The major problem with RfB is that yes - everyone can get SUL, tomorrow, and RfB run seven days. The purpose of the RfB would be moot. In the event that this proposal gets consensus to work, I volunteer my services for this. Maxim_(talk) 22:16, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

It works fine at meta, but this isn't meta. This is English Wikipedia - really, imagine the potential abuse someone could make!! It couldn't be reversed, and they MUST go through RFB I'm afraid. It's a position that requires GLOBAL and ABSOLUTE trust. In all seriousness, there's no way this will be implemented without the cry of people who love opposing everyone coming here and ruining everything. There's no way we'll be able to agree on who can do this either. Al Tally ^talk 22:23, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Or, we could get a new temporary usergroup that would allow admins in that usergroup to rename accounts. I've just asked on IRC, and it wouldn't be hard to do. Ryan Postlethwaite 22:20, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

What on earth has IRC to do with this? Are there no limits to what you and IRC can come up with Ryan, in your ever increasing thirst for power, Ryan Giano (talk) 22:23, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

That would probably be the best idea; and probably the one with the best chance of success. - Rjd0060 (talk) 22:21, 26 May 2008 (UTC)