The Argument for a Wiki Admin

[Sirryan2002]

Alright, so after having some discussion in the wiki-dev portion of the discord(and learning that pinging headmins is a gamble that you don't often win) and mulling over this for a month beforehand, I wanted to make this forum post so we could have an official discussion over this(and so I can be specific in what I'm asking for).

As of now there are only a few User Group rights on the wiki. Those are:

• Regular autoconfirmed users
• Game Admins
• Interface/Bureaucrats Sysops Admins.

Currently there is no in-between role for Regular Users Vs. Fully fledged administrators on the staff team. While we have a large team of admins, their primarily role is on the server and interacting with the community on the forums. Headmins/Admins also have to deal with Ban Appeals and generally fixing the server when it goes to shit. Additionally, editing the wiki can be a boon for people that aren't interested in it.

I'm content with pinging an admin to delete one page, however there's the issue with there being around 500+ unused files on the wiki. In order to remove those from the wiki, I'm supposed to mark them as Slated for Removal and then personally ask someone with wiki perms to delete them. That's not only inefficient but inconsiderate to ask for because those files would take over 2+ hours to fully delete all of them.

What I'm proposing is a Wiki Admin of a sorts, they have slightly elevated permissions(as I've listed below). Issues on the wiki would be something that could be continually taken care of and prevent buildups. We have one of the best wiki's out of most SS13 servers, rivaled only by Baystation and Yogstation. I think it could be better by having people who's job on the server is to primarily maintain and improve the wiki.

IF we made a Wiki Admin role this is the User Rights I am asking for (Specific rights listed under points)

• The Ability to delete things

  • Delete, delete-redirect

• Be able to view deletion logs

  • deleterevision, deletedhistory, deletedtext

• The Ability to Block Users (mostly for fighting vandalism and bots)

  • Block, hideuser

• Merging/Moving of Certain Things

  • mergehistory, suppressredirect 

• Ability to Rollback Edits

  • rollback

• General Administration Stuff

  • autopatrol, noratelimit, unwatchedpages, patrol, browsearchive, suppressionlog, viewsuppressed

IF we made a Wiki Admin role this is the User Rights I am specifically NOT asking for (but ill take if headmins want it)

• The Ability to Edit Protected Pages
• The Ability to alter protections on pages
• Anything that gives permissions to edit the CSS and JS files of users/pages/the site
• The ability to edit the interface, a.k.a the sidebar toolbox stuff
• Ability to delete logs
• The ability to edit user rights
• The ability to delete site change tags
• The ability to delete pages with large amounts of edits(see bigdelete)
  • For this one specifically we may need to raise $wgDeleteRevisionsLimit if it is not above 20-30 to make this restriction work

 

I highly encourage anyone who is interested or has a stake in this conversation(wiki contribs, Paradise staff) to discuss what user rights you think are ok for this kind of role below. These User rights that I have described gives people with those rights, significant power on the wiki. However, it is not enough to do irreversible damage or to touch the database, JSON, or CSS and while they can view the logs, they cannot edit them and attempt to erase their actions which makes it much easier for administrators to step in and be able to trace when problems arise(which they likely won't).

What this does give these admins the power to do is be able to delete unnecessary item on the wiki, block vandals and bots, be able to view certain logs, and a few quality-of-life improvements.

I propose that this kind of role, whatever it would be called, is given to Wiki-Contributors that fall under a certain criteria:

1. Are active on the wiki
2. Have a significant amount of wiki edits(think 250-500+ edits)
3. Have a thorough understanding of mediawiki, for example:
   1. Templates
   2. Special Pages
   3. View Histories
   4. General Structure of the Wiki(think namespaces)
4. Can thoughtfully create an application like we have for mentors, PR reviewers, and admins

 

I realize this is a lot to ask from the Head Staff team because it would result in changes needing to be made in roles on the site, wiki, and the discord. However, I see this as something necessary and an overall positive improvement to the server. Thank you for your consideration and anyone who wants to chip in on this discussion.

 

 

 

Edited February 28, 2021 by Sirryan2002
Clarifying what a certain user right actually gives

[Kyet]

I am fine with having a dedicated staff member whose job it is to oversee the wiki.
I am also fine with giving expanded permissions to:

- Mentors (e.g: patrol, autopatrol, maybe rollback?)

- Wiki Contributors (unsure what I'd give them)

- Some sort of new not-an-admin-but-has-curator-permissions-on-the-wiki role (maybe delete pages, probably not bigdelete/blockuser)

 

[Sirryan2002]

If we added an additional curator role, the wiki contributor would likely just be a vanity role as I can't think of anything they would actually need outside of what a general user gets. A Curator should prob get autopatrol, noratelimit, unwatchedpages, patrol, delete-redirect and possibly delete pages like you said. Mentors could likely just get the same as a curator. 

If we were to make Wiki-Admin a full fledged staff role then I would amend the user rights to possibly just be full Sysops/Interface rights outside of what Bureaucrats get.

Edited February 28, 2021 by Sirryan2002
phrasing fix

[Kyet]

Here is what I propose granting:

Mentor:

- autopatrol, patrol (we should not need to double-check the edits of mentors, and they can check others' edits, giving both of these out more widely would make the unpatrolled edits list special page much more useful)
- rollback (any editor can already revert someone else's changes, this permission makes it a bit easier)
- suppressredirect (players can already move pages, this just lets them do so without a redirect - useful in a few cases but not something most editors need)

Admin:
- delete, delete-redirect, deleterevision, deletedhistory, deletedtext, browsearchive (all these permissions are about removing stuff or seeing removed stuff, so maybe admin-only, but since deleted stuff can be viewed with the "undelete" permission its less "delete" and more "hide for most people". Even then we basically never use these - the best argument for "delete" is "lets us delete old/outdated files" like old images of which there are over 200 on the slated for removal list)
- block, hideuser (this is basically banning, but only for the wiki, and given how the wiki requires forum auth, we should probably keep this admin-only, I don't see us ever needing it, its really just an emergency-use-only button)
- mergehistory, suppressionlog, viewsuppressed (this covers "private logs", so perhaps admin only)

Nobody:

- unwatched pages (useless, its a list of basically every page/file, its not helpful)

[Sirryan2002]

reviving this topic a little bit. This discussion has lead to possibly adding more wiki rights to Mentors(and giving them a wiki user group) and Game Admins. One part of this discussion that I really wanted to hone in on is having someone specifically overseeing the wiki. There is no official designated wiki lead right now and we haven't had one since ShadeyKins retired from the server roughly 3 years ago. 

Even if they didn't have necessarily more permission on the wiki, having someone approving/setting rules for the wiki is important to ensuring quality and establishing direction for it. Administratively, I'm not sure how Headmins would want to handle this role but I think it should be up for discussion soon. Baystations wiki is a perfect example of what can happen when you put a well-qualified person(or a few people) specifically in charge of a wiki. Their wiki looks amazingly good it is arguably the best ss13 wikis out there and I want our server to either reach that level of quality or surpass it.

[AffectedArc07]

@Shadeykins and @Sirryan2002 are now wiki managers