(now sharing beyond the WMF tech department)

Dear colleagues and MediaWiki contributors,

On behalf of the Platform Engineering Team, I am delighted to invite you to the MediaWiki Authority interface[1][2] evaluation during the Platform Engineering Office Hours[3] on Feb 04 1700 UTC. Dress Formal. Or not ;)

Before we commit to using Authority for permission checking throughout the codebase, we want to make sure that we didn't miss anything. So if you are working on code that needs to check user permissions, please join the PET office hour and give us your feedback!

During the meeting, we will present the new Authority interface, which defines a standard for checking user permissions, blocks, throttles, etc, and allows us to easily make the relevant context for permission checks available where it is needed.

We are going to explain the design and demonstrate its application in various areas using exploratory patches. We would love to hear your opinion on the approach we’re taking. If you contribute to the MediaWiki or extension codebase, you will likely have to use the new interface if it’s accepted, and this is your opportunity to raise concerns and objections before the interface is finalized.

The meeting during Platform Engineering Office hours will loosely correspond to the second step of the brand new Technical Decision Process[4] for which me made a "Decision Statement Overview"[5]. After the initial meeting, you will have two weeks for feedback on the ticket[2]. At the end of the two week period we may schedule a followup meeting, depending on the feedback we receive.

Cheers. PET.

-- 
Daniel Kinzler
Principal Software Engineer, Core Platform
Wikimedia Foundation