Wikibooks:Requests for permissions/Withinfocus

+Administrator
I've been active around Wikibooks for almost a full year, and think I can add a lot to the site with administrative tools. I manage a rapidly-expanding book here, the Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter, and perform a lot of cleanup for the many pages within the book. I patrol RC from time to time and would appreciate the revert and delete tools. I think I know a lot about policy here, interacting with many users around Wikibooks, and would be a help with getting more books on Wikibooks to conform to them. Thanks! -Matt, 1 July 2006

Discussion

Votes
 * Support. I know that there is going to be some apprehension stemming from the fact that you stick mostly to your own pet project, but that's something that I can wholeheartedly understand. You have a good contribution history, and you are definately active in matters of policy and vandalism. People who are good, established editors, who are active and who mean well should definately be given the privledges if they so desire. I think that you fit all the qualifications, and so you have my vote. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 22:53, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Support. --Cspurrier 16:57, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Support - Seems to have a firm grasp of Wikibooks policies and has been a very active Wikibooks user. The Muggle's Guide seems to be almost a full Wikimedia project unto itself that perhaps needs its own admin just to patrol that content :)?  --Rob Horning 12:49, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Support - Could have sworn you were an admin already. Understands policy, which is the important tidbit.--Dragontamer 18:42, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Done. Congratulations, you are now a sysop. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 20:53, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

+Bureaucrat
Matt has been an active contributor here for longer than many of the people who will be voting on this. He contributes to his own area but also makes thoughtful and constructive contributions to more general matters that suggest consideration and reflection rather that reaction. My recent contact with him has shown him interested and concerned about a number of matters. I am sure that Matt would make a very good bureaucrat and would never abuse his position. I am equally sure he will strengthen the team and I look to the community for support for this nomination. -- Herby talk thyme 13:00, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I accept the nomination. Working on the administration issues that I have, I think my use of this tool will be helpful to the community in future adminships. -within focus 02:31, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Votes
 * Support. I don't always agree with matt, but one thing that I can't deny is that he always acts in the best interests of the project. As I pointed out above, I dont think there is a gigantic workload for the current bureaucrats, nor is there any pressing need to promote others to the position. However, it's because there is no real additional responsibilities to be added that I am willing to vote for people. I don't know that I'd cast votes in favor of giving our prolific editors more administrative work to do around here, because I want active editors to add lots of good content. Having a third bureaucrat around will alleviate situations where I or Derbeth don't act to promote an admin, because we have been involved in the nomination process. While this support vote may seem awfully lackluster, I don't mean it to disparage matt in any way: He's an excellent contributor, a hard worker, and a benefit to the wikibooks community as a whole. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 03:01, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Support. I've worked with matt on the Muggles' Guide for some time and appreciate his patience and skill. I personally tend to believe that it is a bad idea to have only two active bureaucrats; having a tie-breaker is always good, and it is my belief that matt is well-suited to the position. Chazz 09:05, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Support. I don't know how long Matt has been around here, but he knows what he is doing, and I can trust him with these powers. --Dragontamer 15:49, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Support -- Matt's "conservative" approach to new administrators makes him an ideal choice for what I want in a B'crat. He is an obvious choice for this sort of position, and he will use the tools conscientiously and wisely, just as he uses his admin tools. -- SB_Johnny | talk 15:57, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Support Matt has proven to be a responsible person and I think he will be a good bureaucrat. --Derbeth talk 19:07, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Support Not sure why I missed this one. Withinfocus is one of the most active users on Wikibooks and can certainly be trusted. Xania 15:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Support --Panic 03:04, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Support. I always forget that you aren't already an admin, withinfoucs. You may as well be now. I have no objections, and plenty of support. :) --Iamunknown 05:40, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
 * This vote is for bureaucratship. I am in fact already an admin. -within focus 07:49, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah. Well. Then. That explains a lot. I feel foolish. I amend my vote for you as a bureaucratship, then. --Iamunknown 08:03, 13 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Made bureaucrat. --Derbeth talk 12:56, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

-- Herby talk thyme 13:59, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

+Oversight
I'd like oversight permission here to help clean up edits here that display inappropriate personal information that involves people who don't want it listed here. Although used sparingly I believe giving this tool to myself and the other bureaucrats will be a benefit here. Please see WB:SL for a discussion. -within focus 00:54, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Discussion


 * I confess I have not seen any real instances where this might be used although I am not against it as such. However I do have a couple of questions. -- Herby  talk thyme 08:48, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Questions
 * Do we know what the voting requirement is on this?
 * Can we be clear what circumstances it would be used in? (This is not fully clear from the discussion in the staff lounge, for example would vandalism be included, could be quite a bit of work)
 * I think I can answer these questions, in short:
 * I have not heard about any official policies concerning the granting of this permission to users. I do know, however, that several users have it already on english wikipedia (if not also on other wikipedias), and that stewards also already have this power by default. given the fact that this is essentially a "privacy" thing, I would assume the rules are similar to checkuser elections (need at least 25 votes, must have at least two on a project).
 * Wikimedia policy is that this can only be used in a few specific instances: When sensitive information is uploaded to the database, and this information can cause criminal/legal problems, to our users and to the project itself. Examples of this would be the inclusion of sensitive personal information (either accidentally uploaded by the individual in question, or uploaded by a vandal to bring attention to the personal details of a well-meaning user). Even though this is the only places prescribed by the WMF to use this ability, I think it should be acceptable to remove other types of vandalism from the history pages of sensitive pages (removing bad words from the history of wikijunior modules, for instance). I would be surprised if this permission were used even once per year.
 * I hope this helps. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 14:41, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I think the vandalism bit make take rather more than once a year (I guess if you are using a checkuser basis for the vote we will have to hope that there is less than at present). It's much reduced but far more than once a year (Az & I would have nothing to do!).  I brought to Withinfocus's attention the fact that there is personal info around.  Given that it is usually put in by IPs I guess it is a moot point as to whether we can be sure it is "freely" given? -- Herby  talk thyme 15:07, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I know that i've included a certain amount of personal information about myself, and that's a voluntary type of thing. I am typically very careful not to include information such as my email address (in machine-readable form), my telephone number, detailed information about where I live, etc. All it takes is for a person to write down their email address, and to have a spam-bot read it and put it on a spam mailing list. Other times, especially with classroom projects, students and teachers alike can be tempted to include far too much personal information (real name, email address/phone number, grades, id numbers, etc). Also, i can imagine situations where people post their wikibooks passwords in notes to other users ("hey, check out my account"). We would want to delete those as quickly as possible too. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 15:14, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I've posted a question at meta, asking about the oversight permissions, and the election process. Hopefully the answer to that question will shape the elections here. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 15:30, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

User_talk:Withinfocus will give you some insight into the personal information around - how we can tell it is "freely" released I have no idea (I've yet to see - "here is my password" I confess) -- Herby talk thyme 15:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * reset
 * I personally took the stance after our discussion at the Staff Lounge that oversight would be used only according to the terms listed at Meta. -within focus 03:09, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * According to the people on meta, there is no particular policy in place to govern this permission. They made some argument that it would likely be better not to have this permission, because the stewards are very available (and a handful of wikibookians are not nearly as available). It is something to consider. General opinion there is that we should obtain at least 25-30 votes, and follow the rules for checkuser elections. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 15:35, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Perhaps instead we should invest the time in setting up a process whereby people can request information be permanently removed if need be, take these requests to the stewards and then only if that process is not effective, revevaluate whether some wikibooks administrators need this particular ability. --xixtas 16:04, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I think this is a pertinent comment - I was just considering posting this
 * When was the last time someone with oversight was requested to use that right and what type of material was removed?
 * Please point me to two items that are felt to require this treatment (and at the same time request someone with oversight to remove whatever it is)
 * This would at least begin to establish the need -- Herby talk thyme 16:09, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I might be inclined to agree with User:Xixtas. Perhaps we should come up with a policy page about the oversight feature, telling what it does, when it can be used, and create a standardized method for requesting the use of the tool. At first we could just move all our requests to the stewards, but once we get the system down, we could start to take care of it ourselves. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 16:59, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Best thing I've heard so far -- Herby talk thyme 17:11, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with dropping all of these votes then and just creating some sort of central information point for all of this. I think we could have a "requests for information" page where users could make requests for things like this and such admin actions would be logged, and that page would correspond to a sort of "administrative actions" policy that lists everything the Wikimedia system offers to any user at this wiki or abroad. I'm not that fond of the administrator's noticeboard and perhaps that and maybe even other pages like vandalism in progress could be consolidated into one unit. The non-integrated pile of policies here could use some organization. -within focus 22:23, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Let's do that then. We will abandon these votes, and try to consolidate a number of pages such as the administrators noticeboard (that I dont like either), WB:VIP, and all other requests for help. We can call it "Requests for Help", or something similar, and we can ask that all administrators keep that page on their watchlists. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 00:04, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * resert

Wasn't the general idea that we think we don't really need the right, are we now creating a policy or guideline to a right that we don't have a need for ?!? This was stated on the Staff Lounge, this is only a prevention measure if a more evolved stance on the topic is needed the user with the right can then request it, the thing to aim is only to remove the need to ask an outsider, giving a local admin the right will solve this and keep any future decision "in house", if and when the need arises we can address it, but a guideline about oversight should be initiated and some of the thoughts expressed here should be reflected there. --Panic 17:27, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I like the idea of a general request for help page. We could roll in requests for bots, admin actions, VIP, transwikis, etc. if that made sense. One page to watch. I like "Requests for help"... "Somebody bring a mop" might be a more descriptive title ;-) . --xixtas 04:14, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Votes
 * Oppose - I will only support one and User:Withinfocus doesn't have Checkuser rights, so he probably isn't the best option. --Panic 15:19, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Why would you support only one user? Also, what does Checkuser have to do with oversight? These two tools serve very different purposes. -within focus 03:04, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Didn't you read the discussion on the Staff Lounge? 1)There is no pressing need for granting this right 2)Checkuser is neeeded to validate if the user has the right to ask for removal of information (or may be needed) 3)Having only a user will prevent abuse and reduce errors, it's easier to check what he does and will remove the need to ask a community outsider to do the job. --Panic 04:19, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * No, meta says the log of oversight operations is "private" so I understand only oversight rights owners can see the log. Consequently, I think that there should be always at least two people with these rigths so that the community has some control of use of this function. --Derbeth talk 10:43, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes I did read it all, but its like having an atomic bomb that his not particularly needed and making a second in case the first fails, the objective is to have an escape route not to ask an outsider if the need arises, when and if it does the user with the rights can deal with it and/or propose a second user to observe his actions if he is unsure, the log will remain there and the user that initiated the action will act publicly and will observe the change, if a third party is affected we will ear about it. --Panic 16:42, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Support. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 15:35, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Neutral is the best I can do until such time as the need is fully established and a rather more precise definition of what may in practice be deleted. -- Herby talk thyme 15:38, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose Oversight permission is not needed at this time (if it was Withinfocus would be a fine choice for it). It is only really to be used in the very most extreme cases. I am yet to see a case on Wikibooks that would require it. If it is needed at any point, we have many stewards who could do it.--Cspurrier 00:54, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Closed - abandoned - will archive in the next couple of days -- Herby talk thyme 15:07, 1 February 2007 (UTC)'