MEpedia talk:Bureaucrats
What is a bureaucrat, anyhow[edit source | reply | new]
As a small clarification--maybe it varies from wiki to wiki (I'm sure it does), but the main user right that only a bureaucrat can alter is to add users to the administrator group. If eventually more user rights are created (say, a group exempt from CAPTCHA), oftentimes it's set up so that administrators (as well as bureaucrats) have the ability to assign that user right. (Not to burrow too deep into the details, but for instance even if the CAPTCHA-exempt right is set up to be conferred automatically after 500 edits, in this hypothetical an administrator could still give it to someone sooner if they are a known quantity--say, a new MEAction staffer or a significant researcher who wants to help.) So, true for now but may not always be the case that bureaucrats are the only ones who assign user rights. We just only have one user right at the moment! Canele (talk) 23:26, 29 March 2019 (EDT)
- Excellent explanation! Thanks! Copy-paste it to the page ;)
- Oh, by the way, I heard that the setting to force captcha on anonymous and “new” users was turned off when someone complained about it. Just a bit o’ history. Cheers!
- Pyrrhus (talk) 04:12, 30 March 2019 (EDT)
- Good idea, done! And thanks for the info, that is clarifying. Hrm. I see how it might offend some but the end result of reducing accessibility for all is a shame. That's actually sort of why I mention that the right can be altered manually as well as automatically--Wikipedia for instance similarly has some brakes on new users, and even though they're automatically removed after just a few days/edits, a user can still ask an administrator to remove the restriction early. (They basically set up a forum not unlike MEpedia:Editor help desk to field requests.) I don't know if that would be a sufficient compromise to keep from alienating newcomers? Canele (talk) 12:17, 30 March 2019 (EDT)
- I also heard that installing the captcha module automatically created a user right called “skipcaptcha”. But let’s first see what happens when the email confirmation error is fixed, the devs are working on it. This may let email confirmed users skip captcha altogether. Then we can talk about turning back on the setting for anonymous and “new” users, and/or updating the whitelist.
- Pyrrhus (talk) 13:38, 30 March 2019 (EDT)
- I think there must be something I'm missing because I don't quite follow about what's currently turned on or off, but, the dev side is above my paygrade anyhow, so yeah we can see what they're able to do and then go from there! Canele (talk) 20:02, 30 March 2019 (EDT)
- Yeah, I don't understand the setting, either, but if you're ever really bored and want to investigate it further, here's what I know:
- This line in a config file has apparently been commented out: $wgCaptchaTriggers['edit'] = true;
- Here's some relevant documentation: https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Newly_registered_user https://m.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ConfirmEdit
- Pyrrhus (talk) 20:48, 30 March 2019 (EDT)
- I think there must be something I'm missing because I don't quite follow about what's currently turned on or off, but, the dev side is above my paygrade anyhow, so yeah we can see what they're able to do and then go from there! Canele (talk) 20:02, 30 March 2019 (EDT)
- Good idea, done! And thanks for the info, that is clarifying. Hrm. I see how it might offend some but the end result of reducing accessibility for all is a shame. That's actually sort of why I mention that the right can be altered manually as well as automatically--Wikipedia for instance similarly has some brakes on new users, and even though they're automatically removed after just a few days/edits, a user can still ask an administrator to remove the restriction early. (They basically set up a forum not unlike MEpedia:Editor help desk to field requests.) I don't know if that would be a sufficient compromise to keep from alienating newcomers? Canele (talk) 12:17, 30 March 2019 (EDT)
