Neutral - I have thought about this for a little bit now, and have come to the conclusion that I just can't make up my mind. Avraham is a very trustworthy editor whom has served the community in a variety of different ways, and I do not feel he would misuse the 'crat tools in anyway. That said, the main reason for this RfB is to assist with renaming bad usernames. While that is all fine and dandy, RevisionDelete has recently been implemented allowing for oversighter's to simply hide accounts making renaming of abusive names almost obsolete. On top of that, I feel that giving one user too many hats only adds to backlogs. In addition, I personally feel that we do not have a need for 'crats, and really the only area that could use a few more is around bots which is something that Avi does not have a lot of experience in.
Tiptoetytalk01:34, 3 April 2009 (UTC)reply
There are specific reasons that a rename in addition to or instead of revision-deletion may be needed to deal with specific types of hurtful vandalism and attacks (e.g., if the improperly named user has been able to make a substantial number of edits before being detected and blocked). Many of these situations are exceptionally serious; if we do not have bureaucrats who can deal with them, I will have to consider proposing that we confer the renaming function directly upon checkusers or oversighters, in addition to bureaucrats. Electing one or more bureaucrats who are committed to addressing this problem directly, and have other tools that will assist in doing so, would help ameliorate this issue. I do agree that it would also be worthwhile to elect a bureaucrat or two with experience and expertise in bot-related matters.
Newyorkbrad (
talk)
03:41, 3 April 2009 (UTC)reply
Hm, interesting. I was unaware of these circumstances and as such I will be reconsidering my !vote. Thanks for the information Brad.
Tiptoetytalk03:44, 3 April 2009 (UTC)reply
As a steward, I vouch for the circumstances NYB outlines not being solvable with revision deletion in all cases, and also for how serious of a problem it can become in some circumstances. If the community does not grant 'cratship to several hardworking and trustworthy CU/OVs I would strongly support granting the rename right to all CU/OVs on en:wp as an alternative approach to solving the problem. ++
Lar:
t/
c05:49, 3 April 2009 (UTC)reply
Lar, and Newyorkbrad, this is simply not correct. If a user has made edits then hiding the account just as effective as always, which is to say, more effective than renaming the account. This is what happens:
[1]; the name is simply removed. It is renaming that is the poorer choice in all cases; it actually creates bad log entries that someone with oversight is going to have to clean up, as well as not affecting things like deletion and protection logs of the user pages. There is no circumstance in which renaming is a better option. I feel like I am repeating myself, both here and on the mailing list. Perhaps you two should try the tool out?
Dominic·
t08:55, 3 April 2009 (UTC)reply
Dom, there are situations where hiding is the better solution. There are situations where renaming is the better solution. And there are situation where neither is ideal. Your example is one... the very next edit needs its edit summary oversighted, presumably, since it reveals the username anyway in the edit summary. Neither hiding nor renaming fixes that, only revision deletion or oversight. I stand by my principal comment, (the project will benefit from more people who have both CU and rename...) without necessarily disagreeing with you. ++
Lar:
t/
c19:06, 3 April 2009 (UTC)reply
No, there just aren't situations where renaming is the better option, and I don't understand why you would repeat that; it's a bit nonsensical. There is no reason to ever rename users in these situations. That is an old ineffective workaround for a problem that has now been solved. It's true that neither hiding nor renaming fix some things, but renaming does not make sense. I'm baffled, because this is a simple technical issue, and not a matter of opinion. Just try the tool out to see what it does. Please explain why you actually think renaming is ever more useful than hideuser (perhaps somewhere else, because I don't like feeling like I have hijacked this request).
Dominic·
t19:16, 3 April 2009 (UTC)reply
I'm not sure why you think I haven't used the hideuser tool already. I'll try to catch you on IRC sometime, because we should not let this side issue overshadow what really is a very good candidacy. ++
Lar:
t/
c19:38, 3 April 2009 (UTC)reply
<offtopic>Good old IRC eh Lar? Always better to keep it off Wikipedia and nicely hidden if we can? We have talk pages of all kinds for a reason. Sigh....</offtopic> Pedro :
Chat 21:27, 3 April 2009 (UTC)reply
Well, I had a chance to talk (in IRC) with Dom and Prodego about this topic. Now I understand the distinction here... I was wrong, and rename is not as good a tool for this as Hideuser. It was a rather involved conversation in both cases, one that would have taken probably 20 talk page postings to get to the point we got to in about 3 minutes of back and forth conversation. To Pedro: There are multiple modes of conversation available to us. Sometimes using talk pages is better. Sometimes IRC is better. Sometimes email is better. Sometimes saying nothing at all is better. Knowing when to use which is not easy. I suggest in this case, rather than making a snarky comment about my use of IRC, the last choice may have been best for you. ++
Lar:
t/
c16:15, 4 April 2009 (UTC)reply
the last choice may have been best for you - To be honest Lar I had a big long response here, but let's just say we're not back in the school yard and your bullying doesn't work anymore. No one is impressed by the big boy kicking sand in the faces of others after we have grown up. It becomes rather sad. Pedro :
Chat 22:04, 5 April 2009 (UTC)reply
Disappointing, to say the least. I'm staggered you cannot see that the expedient route of "simplicity" is fundamentally damaging and odds to a project the relies on open and recorded communication and debate. Pedro :
Chat 20:46, 4 April 2009 (UTC)reply
Right, if they were suppressed with hideuser (which isn't the same as oversight, though the user class with that permission is still called "oversight"), then it will no longer show up on Special:Listusers.
Dominic·
t08:09, 4 April 2009 (UTC)reply
If there are legitimate technical questions you have, please shoot an e-mail to wikitech-llists.wikimedia.org. The people there are generally incredibly helpful. And they're far more knowledgeable than most of people who have been commenting on these complicated technical matters thus far. --
MZMcBride (
talk)
00:06, 6 April 2009 (UTC)reply