Wikipedia talk:Account creator/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Propose change to give access to anyone doing outreach

In response to NOTICE:_EducationProgram_extension_is_being_deprecated at Wikipedia:Education_noticeboard I am proposing a change that the rule be to routinely grant account creator userrights to anyone engaged in a Wikipedia outreach program. This would change the text about granting the userright to anyone engaged specifically in the Wikipedia:Education program, which starting from about 2014 has transformed into all the activities which anyone can now track with the meta:Programs and events dashboard.

The archives of this talk page have records of discussion about all the challenges associated with granting this user right for events. I asked @Xaosflux: to support this policy change because that user is facilitating some changes to the policy about the education userrights which this policy references. Blue Rasberry (talk) 22:14, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm in general support of letting people that regularly run events to hold on to account creator access. I don't think we need to be too formal about it either. The way I see it is, put in a request at WP:PERM/ACC - if you find you are coming back regularly ask for it to not expire - if you don't use it for a year or so then someone will probably remove it. General comments anyone? — xaosflux ^Talk 22:47, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

@Mlpearc, BU Rob13, FastLizard4, Stwalkerster, and Cyberpower678: In the past you all commented here about regulating access to account creator rights. My perspective is that the infrastructure here creates a conflict between wiki event organizers, who need to create lots of accounts for new users at in-person events; and wiki security enthusiasts, who need some standard of quality control which is not currently defined and which frequently is counter to the needs of doing events.

Please see that the WMF is deprecating the old education module and with it the userrights which, until the change in this thread, was one of the checks on who gets account creator rights. With this change I am advocating for anyone who is hosting events to be able to get account creator rights. With current rules I anticipate that this will bring a trend of easier access to account creator rates and more long-term granting of this right, even among people who are not actively using the tool. There are dozens of people like me, for example, who rarely make accounts, but who present lots of wiki workshops and serve as a backup if things go wrong and other account creators are unable to manage the registration process. Recently there was a review at "Can bluerasberry be an account creator?" about whether I should have account creator userright long term. The soon-to-be-deprecated education module granted this to me; as we are re-writing the rules, I still want to retain long-term access to this userright, and also I want a trend of more people who routinely organize in-person wiki trainings to get access to it.

I acknowledge that these changes can cause a range of social and security challenges. If anyone has anything to say about this, now would be a good time to speak up while paid WMF staff are overseeing the changes. Paid WMF staff set up the old wiki policy and they might be able to make commitments to smooth over aspects of the transition if anyone had any development requests. Thoughts from anyone? Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:35, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry: To be clear, the WMF does not control the English Wikipedia's policies on this, the enwiki community does. With SUL in place, this does have cross-wiki implications, which could have cross-project impact. (E.g. if an local project account creator creates a bunch of accounts that violate guidelines on other projects -and- then the accounts are used on those projects). I think where WMF can be of great use would be in getting account creation bundled in to the PEM Dashboard, having the event dashboard do the creations (completing avoiding IP throttles). — xaosflux ^Talk 14:11, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Account creations may create a global SUL but they're not really global. There may be a username that violates some local policy on some Wikipedia, but if it doesn't for the wiki it's going to be primarily used on, then it's not really the concern of the global community. As a global renamer we are mostly concerned if the requested username violates the home wiki's username policy. We also of course use common sense when evaluating requests.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 14:15, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: I do not think there is any clarity in where WMF engagement starts and stops. Yes, I confirm, nominally the wiki volunteer community establishes policy and outranks WMF decisions. In practice, the WMF allocates a US$ 100 million / year budget and that money and power comes with influence. It is a statement of fact that WMF staff are a major drivers in developing ENWP policies.

Yes, I agree, I would very much like for account creation to be bundled with the P&E dashboard. There would be many obvious benefits of that, including being able to identify which new user registered in association with which event, and creating a communication channel and chain of responsibility between any given program and the team organizing it.

I want the development you describe for the meta:Programs and Events Dashboard to happen. The WMF probably right now has a budget allocation of US$ 100-300,000 tied up in the tools for program management and is likely to make 1-2 million dollars of investment in outreach management and grant reporting over the next 5 years, with that amount aside from the actual funding of programs and events. On the wiki community side there are about 10 volunteers on this page advocating for policy, most of whom have never organized an event and who have 0 budget for engaging in this policy process. The wiki community has challenges convening the right conversations about policy or even articulating needs. I am not sure how to promote a discussion which matches the impact that this policy has but I expect that what happens here will direct the near-future flow of millions of dollars for tens of thousands of people on a global scale. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:33, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

• Sure Why not?—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 13:44, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
• Comment I thought we had not long since had a discussion about this somewhere, perhaps at the Pump or ANI, and there was huge opposition to the idea that just because someone was running an outreach program then that did not mean they should hold the account creator right. Perhaps my memory is wrong but I'm pretty sure it is not. The problem is, I cannot remember the details. Maybe advertise this in some more well-trafficked forum?

Purely from my own perspective, I'm not wonderfully happy about it because we've had an awful lot of rubbish - including loads of copyvio etc - when events such as Dalit History Month have happened. They've taken masses of time to find and fix, and that despite supposedly being supposedly overseen by experienced Wikipedians. - Sitush (talk) 23:26, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

@Sitush: new accounts can't really do much more then IP editors - has any of the "rubbish" you've seen been related to the actual creating of accounts though? — xaosflux ^Talk 00:00, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Well, if newly-created accounts then run amok at an edit-a-thon then, yes, I've seen it. Obviously, actually creating an account is a purely administrative/bureaucratic thing and cannot in itself be classed as "rubbish" ... but the immediate result of doing so can be. I've just dug around VPP and ANI archives for a few minutes trying to find the past discussion, which involved some very long-term contributors etc, but I'm blowed if I can find it and for some weird reason (perhaps related to bot activity?) the last edited dates on a lot of the archives bear no relation to the date of the thread, eg: I found a thread involving me from 2014 that was timestamped in the search results as 2017 - that makes it much harder to dig stuff out. The discussion was within the last 14 months, and probably much more recent. - Sitush (talk) 00:13, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Found it here. It is actually about a slightly different issue but given the concerns raised there regarding who was granted thr AC right, it may still bear noting. - Sitush (talk) 00:22, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

I remember that, and was a general opposer as well (to non-experience editors being account creators, especially indefinitely) - but assuming there is actually an edit-a-thon, they can edit without logging in, so have you seen any specific problem that only came across because the editors had an account? — xaosflux ^Talk 00:29, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

No, except for what I consider to be a fact: that AGF or no AGF, people tend to trust named accounts rather more than anons and so things slip through. Turning this on its head: what benefit is there to them having a named account created for them? I'm not familiar with the ins and outs of the outreach programs, except in so far as they seem to cause a lot of problems. Of course, perhaps it is only that they appear to cause problems because when they are running ok there is rarely a mention of them, so perception is biassed. - Sitush (talk) 00:48, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

@Sitush: You are right to have concerns. In the past the wiki community has opposed the change I proposed here. I do not have complete data to show you, but I have some. In the United States maybe there are 300 wiki community events and another 400 programs for students in classes. Maybe 5000 new editors sign up and actually edit through outreach in a year in the US, but I do not have good data. Any kind of event - whether community event or class program - gets tracked in something called the "meta:Programs and Events Dashboard" and would produce a report like for this physical therapy class. The change since about 2014 is that there is more awareness that WMF funding programs provide maybe US$2 million/year to encourage this kind of outreach but there is limited tracking on how well outreach works. Regardless of the problems, the WMF will continue to encourage more outreach with funding and staff support.

You asked about the benefit of anyone having an account made for them - the benefit is so that the event organizers can track them for reporting to sponsors and also so that the wiki community and WMF get research data about who has the most effective outreach and training. Most programs in the United States work fine but here also there are a lot of highly trained wiki outreach people providing support. For other places I cannot say.

To see an example of the simplest kind of new article that a new user might make at an event check out Quail and Millet (Kiyohara Yukinobu). For this a museum donated images of most of its art and supported Wiki editors in making articles for each one. The standard here was that there had to be some citations. This model for new users making new articles is expanding. This is not the usual kind of outreach, which usually asks people to add more, but it might be surprising to experienced Wikipedians because it starts off new users with an image, some sources, and an infobox. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:32, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that old discussion is relevant because during wiki events often the goal is for people to make new articles.

• I'm fine with trusted editors having this right long-term. I'm not fine with outreach folk who do not have on-wiki experience being granted this long-term. As long as such a distinction is drawn, I support this change. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 01:18, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

@BU Rob13: Under what circumstances can you support someone with 0-25 edits getting account creator rights for 10 days? A trend in wiki outreach has been encouraging librarians, museum staff, and subject matter experts to recruit a community base to host a wiki event. Often the event coordinator has a skill set of being popular and a good socializer, but might not edit wiki themselves. This happens at least 50 times a year in the US already. The user right being nominated for deprecation gave "course coordinators" the social privilege of giving these kinds of new editors account creator rights. There have been protests about this in the past where some people said that only experienced Wiki editors should get the rights, even temporarily. I do not have good advice about this! I want these events to happen, I say that I am not aware of any history of security breach, but it is correct to say that the account creator userright carries risks to pass around. What do you think about new users with the right? Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:36, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry: I think you are worrying a bit more than needed, a recent review of Wikipedia:Requests_for_permissions/Archive shows that most anyone asking for this access related to events has been getting it without much issue (and almost all of the denies are either obvious denial reasons or come back when your event is going to take place). Also, on follow up to PEM improvements - I think the request an account process is working a lot better now. See my example event here. There is now a request an account button, I think it is still using the address of the user clicking it though - I saw WikiEdu recently got a permanent exemption for their dashboard (dashboard.wikiedu.org) in phab:T126541 - perhaps it can be replicated by outreach? — xaosflux ^Talk 14:16, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: I tried out your "request an account" feature. It worked great! I can only see the new user side of this and not the interface for the event organizer to get an alert and approve new accounts, but assuming that the requests immediately go to the organizer then this is a viable system for managing events. You have demonstrated that you understand the challenge to address and yes, this is a solution. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:28, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm always fine with such editors getting the right for a verifiable event. I just don't want them given the right long-term. They should come back to the requests page every time they have an event if they don't have a record of good contributions on Wikipedia. We're happy to help them run events, but we need more checks when we don't have an on-wiki history to know they're trustworthy. (To be clear, I'm not saying anything about the value these editors add to the project; conducting in-person events is incredibly impactful. It's just harder to judge trust/competence in these cases.) ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:17, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

@BU Rob13: Okay, thanks for that. There has been some ambiguity in the past and I would like to firm up the practice of routinely giving new users account creator rights when they can verify that they are hosting an event in any of the usual ways. What you describe works. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:28, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

• Comment: Could the proposer or anyone else compare and contrast the proposal to the current way of doing things? Is gaining ACC a burdensome process now? ☆ Bri (talk) 19:58, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Event coordinator

With the pending creation of the event coordinator user right, do we want to update this page to shift individuals who are currently granted account creator to request that right? It will have (noratelimit), but without the ability to override the blacklist or the anti-spoof mechanisms. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:44, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

I'd think so, in general if they are here because they are "coordinating an event" they should go to a new EC intake instead of AC. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:19, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

My thoughts as well, but I did want to raise it before making any changes. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:49, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm happy to remove the outreach provisions and turn this into a mainly ACC-only thing. Do we need additional community consensus around this, or is it just natural cleanup? TheDragonFire (talk) 03:04, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Natural cleanup. There are only a few admins who regularly patrol that PERM page, and they are all semi-reasonable people. ;) No need for an RfC for basic stuff, especially if no objections here. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:19, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

• Agree. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:15, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Userright established

• Wikipedia:Event coordinator

Thanks TonyBallioni + others. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:35, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

"Account creators" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Account creators. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 April 14#Account creators until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. TAXIDICAE💰 16:55, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Note 2

Note 2 to this page is currently written such that it seems to apply to all title blacklist entries. However, basically all of the ACC requests I see requesting override of the blacklist match only an entry that is marked <newaccountonly>, meaning that account creation requires the tboverride right, but page creation should be completely unaffected.

I was either unaware of or forgot about this note, and have been overriding the blacklist accordingly without those users having any apparent issues. Is anyone aware of any issues with creating accounts that only match newaccountonly entries, or do those only apply where the blacklist entry lacks the newaccountonly attribute?

Cc. @Oshwah as writer of this note. — Mdaniels5757 (talk • contribs) 00:47, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi Mdaniels5757! As far as I know, the option to override the title blacklist applies to all entries that are saved to the blacklist. Entries within the title blacklist that are tagged with <newaccountonly> only apply the restriction to new accounts (meaning that only new accounts are not allowed to contain the current entry). I'll review the note and revise if needed. Please let me know if you have any more questions or if I can help clarify anything else. Thanks for letting me know about this! ;-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 01:03, 14 August 2024 (UTC)