WikiEducator:Community Council/Meetings/First/Motionsysops

WCC Meetings
1st Meeting	Agenda

Motion Text

This motion is to make every elected member a sysop which should have been done right after elections. No elected member of council should be barred from editing locked pages and shall have highest access to WikiEducator being an elected member. This issue has been raised in google forums and should be resolved immediately.

(: This motion was tabled by Minhaaj at 17:57, 27 October 2008 (UTC))

Point of order

this motion should be signed off and seconded BEFORE voting for or against can begin. --Victor P. K. Mensah 13:12, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

This is true. No one has seconded this motion as of yet. --SteveFoerster 22:43, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Personally, I loath the idea that a central hierarchy of access and control is possible in MediaWiki. If it is possible for Users to manage their own permissions - this would be preferable to me. Again, I would refer to Wikispaces as a model - where communities can form within the Wikispaces project, and manage their own permissions for the pages they claim responsibility for.

So, while I would appose Council Members obtaining Sysop access over any page, I would support Sysop access to any Council related page.

Similarly I would want to see a User being granted Sysop access to their user page and any subpage to their user page. --Leighblackall 03:15, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi Leigh, To the best of my knowledge, Mediawiki does not have the user management capabilities to specify rights for distinct categories of pages. For example, we can't specify sysop rights for Council members on council pages. Certainly this is a feature request that we could explore by examining the pros, cons and specification to determine the costs for code development. Currently WikiEducator does not have a basis or policy for awarding sysop status and corresponding duties/responsibilities associated with this task. I think there's a missing step here --- we should ask the community to help us in developing a set of guidelines for awarding sysop and/or bureaucrat status. What do you think? --Wayne Mackintosh 19:44, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi Wayne, I would refer to my first paragraph as a response to the idea of making formal a process of "awarding" sysop/bureaucrat. I would sooner spend time and money developing the functionality I describe and adding it to the Wikieducator, rather than go down the WMF way of doing things. --Leighblackall 08:36, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi Leigh -- the next step is for us to start working on a draft set of guidelines by way of community discussion on the basis for awarding sysop/bureaucrat, eg criteria, responsibilities etc. When I get back from international mission -- I'd like to work with you and others in starting to draft these guidelines. I also agree that WE must develop its own way of doing things. We will need to develop a technology plan and corresponding "business" plan to figure out how we will fund dedicated technology refinements for our project. All of which is perfectly doable in my view. --Wayne Mackintosh 10:16, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Votes

Approval

--minhaaj 17:57, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Result

Motion fails for lack of a second. --SteveFoerster 19:47, 9 December 2008 (UTC)