Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-10-01/Discussion report
Interface Admin policy proposal, part 2
Stop the presses... The interface admin proposal has at long last been closed. The process for admins requesting the right will be as follows:
- Venue: WP:BN
- Process: Admin makes a request, with a rationale, at the correct venue, to request access to the permission. The request will remain open for 48 hours for first-time requests. Re-admin requests, not under a cloud, will not have a waiting period. No notice at other noticeboards is required. Bureaucrats may inquire about why admins are requesting access at their discretion. Users may discuss the applicant, but the final decision rests with the reviewing bureaucrat.
- Duration of right: Permanent by default, can be temporary if requested.
The closer, Cyberpower678, also laid out a process for nonadmins to request the right, but it is not active right now, per the consensus on another RfC. More info is available at WT:INTADMIN and WP:INTADMIN. pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 13:21, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
The originally published article is below:
Interface Admin policy proposal heads to a vote... I mean !vote
Discussion on proposed policies for interface administrators (hereafter intadmins) on the English Wikipedia are continuing at Wikipedia talk:Interface administrators. The availability to edit Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), JavaScript (JS), and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) pages in the site-wide MediaWiki namespace, or in the subpages of other editors, will be restricted to editors with the interface-admin user right. There are currently 9 intadmins.
The main RfC concerns the current (as of writing) version of the proposal page, which reads as follows (condensed for clarity):
- Process for requesting
Administrators who wish to request this permission may make a new request at Wikipedia:Interface administrators' noticeboard. A notice should be posted to WP:VPT and WP:AN to invite community participation. Those making a request are encouraged to answer the following two questions:
- Please describe any relevant on-wiki experience you have for this role.
- Please outline, without breaching your personal privacy, any off-wiki experience or technical expertise you may have for this role.
Requests will be open for one week, during which any editor may comment on the request. Editors are encouraged to comment on the requester's level of trust and technical ability. An uninvolved bureaucrat will close the discussion and provide the user right to the requester if there is consensus in the discussion.
- Removal of permissions
Permission should be removed by bureaucrats in the following circumstances:
- Interface administrators who have made no edits or logged actions for at least 12 months.
- Voluntary request by the interface administrator at the bureaucrats' noticeboard.
- After misuse of the access, by consensus at the administrators' noticeboard.
- Upon removal of administrator access, for any reason.
- By request of the Arbitration Committee.
The main RfC currently has 37 supports and 29 opposes. A few supporters expressed a "perfect is the enemy of good" mentality, while some opposers mentioned not wanting to create a new WP:RfA-style process. Several alternative proposals have also appeared attempting to address some of these concerns. These proposals include: one with no RfA-like process, just a request that bureaucrats decide on, one with a waiting period of 48 hours, and one that requires applicants to indicate a need for the tools.
While discussions continue, a de-facto "RfTA" process has popped up on the busy talk page, where candidates who pass get the permission for 60 days. Since the last article, several more intadmins have now been given the tools by community consensus, adding Oshwah, Cyberpower678, Deryck Chan, and former Signpost editor-in-chief Ragesoss to the group, which previously consisted of TheDJ, MusikAnimal, MSGJ, Xaosflux, Mr. Stradivarius, and Amorymeltzer.
Another (less critical) discussion going on at the page is what the intadmin logo should be. The most popular suggestion is a pliers logo, but other suggestions include a caliper or some variation of the wrench.
Should highlighted signatures be banned?
A discussion at Wikipedia talk:Signatures was had on whether highlighting in signatures should be banned as disruptive. The proposer, Rhododendrites, says that highlighted signatures distract from the content of discussions. Other supporters of a highlighting ban want to ban all custom signatures (which some opposers of the proposal pointed out as a perennial proposal). Some opposers opposed a blanket ban because some highlighting could be considered acceptable, so long as it was not disruptive and meets accessibility requirements like those pertaining to color. Other opposers questioned whether this is a problem at all.
Other discussions this month
- On Wikipedia talk:Shortcut: Should WP:2SC be changed to say that only "the most common shortcuts" should be put in link boxes? (It currently reads "one or two common shortcuts". Supporters point out pages like What Wikipedia is not, where a large number of shortcuts are listed for each section because they are all believed to be useful; others just dislike having an "arbitrary" number listed. Some opposers question whether the large amount of shortcuts are actually needed on pages like WP:NOT. 20 supports and 7 opposes as of September 29.
- On WP:RSN: Per community consensus, Breitbart News "should not be used, ever, as a reference for facts"; shortcut WP:BREITBART. It is now semi-officially listed alongside such sources as The Daily Mail.
- On Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Taiwan stations): Should Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Taiwan stations) be made a guideline?
- On the village pump: A proposal has been made to prevent new users (less than either 20 edits, 30 days/500 edits, or 90 days/500 edits) from being able to index their userpages in search results. The purpose of this would be to prevent spam. The proposal was made in response to a log-only edit filter (Special:AbuseFilter/930) being created.
- On the talk page for the infobox manual of style: Should genres be removed from music infoboxes?
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