Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
On 10/19/05, Anthere <anthere9(a)yahoo.com>
wrote:
Pakaran made a comment on irc which really makes a
lot of sense to me
Why could not be bureaucrat be allowed to give bots on their local
projects ? They are more likely to know the peoople as well as the rules.
This is a deliberate constraint put in place for reasons unknown to
me, I can't see why local bureaucrats can't be trusted with the full
Makesysop interface, which would allow them advanced control over user
rights such as granting/revoking any right on the wiki. I can't see
this becoming a problem, as it would cut down on the overhead of
getting a steward to grant bot rights and in case some bureaucrat goes
AWOL we can always quickly clean up the mess (which I don't see
happening in the first place since these are trusted individuals).
The current power structure reflects the outcome numerous discussions I
had on the subject, with developers, users and probably most
influentially, Sunir Shah. My personal preference was for an IRC-style
model, a two-level system where sysops could sysop or desysop anyone.
But I was talked out of it by IRC and wiki experts alike.
The bureaucrat model was pioneered by Brion and Snok, and I introduced
stewards as a way to completely displace the power of developers within
the wiki power structure. The current model has a population of people
holding various rights proportional to the quantity of demand for use of
those rights. The aim is to give away the minimum amount of power needed
for oversight and a timely response, not to give the maximum amount of
power allowable by considerations of trust. This seems to mirror
sentiments in the general community. Desysopping is rare and potentially
destructive, so the ability is only given to a small number of people.
To answer Avar's objection directly, you can be a trusted individual and
still be rash or arrogant. We minimise power to minimise the damage done
when trusted individuals act in anger. I'm not talking about damage to
articles, I'm talking about damage to egos, and there's no rollback
button for that.
It may be that there's not enough active stewards at the moment, and
that may be leading to tensions. But I think the system we have has been
quite effective in general, so if steward workload is a problem, we
should just get more stewards.
The fact that bot access can only be granted by stewards is not a
deliberate constraint, and I would have no problem allowing bureaucrats
to both grant and revoke it. The steward interface is general, so they
can grant and revoke anything, but the bureaucrat interface has to be
extended for each new ability. Rollback is another example of a right
which could potentially be granted at the bureaucrat or sysop level. It
certainly wouldn't be practical to require stewards to grant it.
-- Tim Starling