User talk:Kylu/Archive

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Ideas to chuck at various developers

1. Removal of an article name from logs. For instance, if a vandal creates Jimbo Wales Home Phone is 555-555-5555 and the article is deleted, at the moment we have to contact a developer to remove the entry from logs.
2. Likewise, User:Brion Lives at 1234 Mockingbird Street, even renamed, is a problem. (Shows up in the bureaucrat rename log)
3. An ability to blacklist names (usernames, pagenames, edit summaries) by regex could really come in handy. Perhaps there's something in the MediaWiki: space, or could be? Kylu 19:18, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Kylu, you may have a look at these ideas. Regards --:Bdk: 10:48, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm already familiar with this (ran across it on Brion's page) and with the current incarnation of oversight. The catch is, rev deleted and oversight only work with edit revisions, not log entries.

Here's an example: A vandal makes an article, Jimbo Wales Home Phone is 555-555-5555 and I, as a Wikipedia admin, delete it: The article is gone, sure, but with a title like that, the information still hangs around in the deletion log. Oversight affects revisions, not log entries, so there's no way to hide that title without annoying our overworked Developer staff. This can be done with nearly any page title, including userpages linked to in the username list. I won't mention my WP:BEANS related ideas here.

I'm a bit curious how Wikimedia would handle these sorts of permissions: They're more sensitive than oversight (somewhat) and yet it'd make sense to the enduser if they were combined into one function. Like many other things, it's mostly going to boil down to who you trust. Kylu 01:57, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

More ideas

• Add checkboxes next to usernames in checkuser, plus one "master" reason and duration field, to block multiple abusive sockpuppets at once.
• Add "checkuser lite" to allow for people to retrieve autoblock #'s instead of IPs to perform blocks without endangering IP privacy needlessly.
• Possibly, "Antibureaucrat" (or maybe "PHB"?): a method (besides stewardship) for desysopping, but not sysopping or debureaucratting. Just a silly separation-of-powers concept, that one.

Kylu 02:43, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• Note that the desysop extension is already on svn. Voice of All 05:21, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

See how good an idea it was? So good they got right to work and implemented it! Kylu 05:37, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Can you explain your autoblock thingy? It might be interesting to write a tool to show the IPs of autoblockees for checkusers at Special:Ipblocklist, perhaps links there can be added to a Special:CheckAutoblock to pull the IP of an autoblock. I'add add it checkuser directly, but users might happen to have names like #45454.Voice of All 05:52, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay:

1. Kylu performs checkuser on VoiceOfAll
2. Instead of returning 10.20.30.40 as your IP, it returns an autoblock # (it returns #12345, for instance)
3. I can perform a checkuser on #12345 and see that VoiceOfAll is in actuality ... Willy on Wheels!
4. Voila: Checkuser evidence without needing to expose someone's IP addy.
5. I can then block #12345 if need be.

• CON: Nearly impossible to perform rangeblocks this way.
• CON: No way to determine if a block based on this would include collateral damage (from blocking an AOL IP, for instance)
• IDEA: Allow checkusers to pop in an autoblock # and have it return User/IP.

Hope that helps! Kylu 06:01, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Hrm. I don't see any need to bog down checkuser any futher, as it already slow and tedious to read. The idea of being able to pull IPs for #autoblocks is nice though. I ought to write that.Voice of All 06:06, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

See User:Voice_of_All/CheckUser2.0. Any suggestions are welcomed.Voice of All 18:26, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Semirelated to CU2.0

How hard would it be to change the IP pagenotice (the one with the WHOIS links at the bottom, I'm too lazy to look up the MediaWiki: page we use) to provide a note for "This IP is static", "This IP is dynamic" or "This IP is of unknown permenancy" (or similar message)? Kylu 03:31, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Interwiki concept

Let's say we've got an article... oh, Wikipedia. Every language version of Wikipedia has this article, either translated, untranslated, or somewhat-in-the-translation-progress.

I want to add the Sinhala article on Wikipedia (w:si:Wikipedia) to the site and interwiki it:

1. Create the article,
2. Go to, say, enwiki and copy the interwiki list, by hand, add the en interwiki to the list, and dump it on Siwiki's article, then,
3. go to every other single copy of Wikipedia and add the interwiki links by hand

This sucks.

Now, step 2 can be mostly automated, and step 3 can be completely automated using bots.

This also sucks.

So, my idea is you have an "interwiki server" that uses linked lists: If I add [[en:Wikipedia]] to the siwiki article, the software sees the link, adds it to the linked list, and adds the update to the linked list to the job queue at some later time.

Later on, when the job is started, it looks at the linked list and updates the interwiki links on all the articles marked as updated.

Possible problems:

1. People who don't know how to use interwiki links (say, on a sig that points to another wiki?) and end up with User_talk:Anthere linked to xx:User:Newbie
   • Possible solution: Don't let cross-namespace interwiki links exist. Either automagically fix the broken interwiki link, or, better yet, put up a giant error message box at the top of the screen, which the user must read and check the "yes I really want to do this" and possibly enter letters into a CAPTCHA to continue.

Questions:

1. Will this use up more or less processing power than the currently running interwiki linking bots?

Opine. Kylu 08:49, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

AnonDiss's bureaucrat request

Hi I'm wondering why you didn't promote Anonymous Dissident? He has been an admin here a lot longer than yourself, and before you were given bcrat rights, there was a very sure need for more bureaucrats. He's not exactly untrustworthy - he's an admin on 5 other wikis, as well as a bcrat on Species. I just find it a little disappointing that you have come on here, with basically no experience on this wiki at all, and taken over and basically said no to a highly suitable individual (who in fact was endorsed by two people, which you've seemed to ignore). What gives? Majorly (talk) 08:54, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Note: the original discussion regarding rights is at Project:Requests/Bureaucrat/Anonymous Dissident

I explained this to you on IRC, I tried to explain this on AD's bureaucrat request, and will explain it here one last time:

1. I was on the -tech channel when Simetrical mentioned they were starting to get some rename requests on here, specifically on bureaucrat talkpages.
   1. I did suggest that I could handle rename requests if they were going to pick up.
   2. I did suggest that a central place to request rights and renames would be a good idea.
   3. I never suggested I'd promote anyone to either sysop or bureaucrat.
2. As far as I'm aware, the only people on this wiki who usually get either sysop or bureaucrat rights are developers of some sort. Simetrical's wording of the header at Project:Requests tends to emphasize that.
3. This wiki, along with the *.labs.wikimedia.org and test.wikipedia.org, are in my mind "developer wikis", meaning that those of us who have local rights have them only given the tolerance of our various developers and shell users. Being neither, I am in no position to grant permissions to others.
4. I am, in my opinion, bureaucrat here solely to take load off of the developers for SUL-related rename requests. I suspect that once the SUL mergers are finished, I'll be turning the bit in myself or they'll remove it for me.
5. My hold request was based off of a discussion with one of the developers. In the absence of more rename requests, I was told there is no reason to promote anyone else to bureaucrat.
6. I'm personally disappointed that you've come here, where I volunteered in an honest attempt to help, and decided to grill me about a decision that I did make clear on the request page was not mine to give. I also find it odd that you would do this after I explained the situation to you on IRC (I do have the logs if you'd like), and that here you take a decidedly chiding tone about it all.
7. The developers have no desire, I'm sure, of our bringing wiki-drama to this location as exists elsewhere. The request was placed on hold, and after AD's comments on the request page and this note, I have no intentions of promoting anyone at all on this wiki unless otherwise instructed by either a local bureaucrat or developer.

I do fully expect that the matter is settled. If you disagree, please leave the messages regarding the issue at Project talk:Requests/Bureaucrat/Anonymous Dissident. Kylu 00:06, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

AnonDiss has decided to drop it. Majorly (talk) 20:50, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[1] So has Simetrical. I'm doing renames, nothing else (at least for now). I don't really know what all that was about, but I really do expect better of you than to go pouncing me like that next time. Kylu 23:08, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Unprotection of Installation/ar

This has been created only twice. SALTing is not yet warranted, especially because this is the legitimate title of a prominent translation of a high priority and visibility page. Protection here completely discourages translators, who may not think to check the logs and may not know who to ask. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 09:34, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to unsalt the page if you'd like. I do think, however, that the person who does the majority of Arabic and Persian translations knows how to read the logs. That, and we chat on IRC nightly, so I'll toss it on his "to do" list. Kylu 02:19, 1 September 2008 (UTC)