User talk:Sjc/August 2008

Sjc, please don't move articles by deleting their entire contents and moving it to a newly created page; this breaks the edit history across two pages, which is very annoying to deal with later on -- especially when some smart aleck comes along later and decides we should delete the old page with the redirect because it has a lame title.

The software has a "move page" feature (currently restricted to sysops) which preserves the entire editing history in one place under the new title; until decisions are made on how to allow normal users to use it, feel free to ask someone who does have 'sysop' status (such as myself or Maveric149) to rename pages. --Brion VIBBER

I was unaware of this and this seems to be another example of the way the goalposts have been moved inexorably in this project. I have always felt the sysop status role was one which would be arrogated by precisely the sort of people I would not want to have it; the fact that we now have normal users and the sysop elite indicates this retrograde slippage. I expect we will have to have permission soon to be able to edit a page. I have no intention of ceasing to edit pages as I have always done, pragmatically, intelligently and efficiently. Stop me at your peril. user:sjc

Are you not listening to the part where I'M TRYING TO GET THIS NEW FEATURE MOVED INTO THE REALM OF NORMAL USERS SO THIS ISN'T A PROBLEM ANYMORE? Sorry for the shouting. --Brion VIBBER

No, it's you who isn't listening. THE REALM OF NORMAL USERS, eh? First it was the Normal Users, next it'll be the bicyclists... See Godwins Law. user:sjc

I fail to see how bicyclists relate to Godwin's Law, but if you want to interpret "everybody should be able to rename pages" as "I am Hitler, see how I am trying to take power away from other people", well that's between you and your psychiatrist. ;) --Brion VIBBER

It's an old Milan Kundera joke about the creeping nature of power, and how, having picked off one set of innocent bystanders, power elites move on (inexorably) to the next. "First it was the Jews, next it'll be the bicyclists..." Now, really, the point I'm making here is that the sysops by and large seem to be getting bigger and better toys, more and more privileges which they have arrogated unto themselves and have come up with a set of largely unpublished rules which they have decided upon and are undermining the (once) open nature of the project. This is just the thin edge of the wedge and I suspect I am not the only person on here beginning to draw their own conclusions in this respect. user:sjc

(This is all rather ironic, since here we're talking about devolving a once sysop-only ability to all users and making the system more open. --Brion VIBBER)

I am a strong advocate of democratizing all short-cut type functions of sysops to long time users such as yourself (leaving sysops only the special ability to delete pages, block IPs of vandals and decide which pages need to be protected or unprotected). I don't see any problem, for example, for letting you or any other user that has been around for more than a month the ability to edit any protected page or to use the administrative move feature. The trouble with the move feature though, is that it has been devilishly buggy for a long time and still lacks basic features such as the ability to move talk pages of any page moved or the ability to fix redirects automatically. That is the main reason why this particular feature is still sysop only (damage control -- the sysops were told to use the move feature carefully and to clean up after moves by also moving talk pages and fixing misdirected redirects -- that is too much to get across to users at large). --mav

Yes, but I think there are many long-term users who would have the same sort of problems in this respect that I do. I think we need to either a) need to have some sort of clear separation between the role of contributor and sysop or b) sysops should fully annotate their actions and the reasons behind them. Option b is clearly unwieldy and unnecessarily bureaucratic and option a) would certainly be unpopular with e.g. your good self. Which leaves option c. IP blocking and protected page editing by sysops as their only defining characteristic. Page deletion is a necessary administrative function but certainly there have been a number of abuses of this on occasion and it should be an act of recourse only after consideration and the flagging of the article for deletion for a specified length of time to allow for objections and comments. user:sjc

Option c. sounds like where things will lie once the page move/rename feature is democratized. As far as page deletion... could you point to some specific instances of "abuses"? I've from time to time proposed an "undelete" function by which pages that have been "deleted" can be restored by any other "sysop" (which is oh so the wrong term!) within some period of time, but this has never gotten done. I'll add another feature request... --Brion VIBBER

Off the top of my head, probably not. But I'll have a poke around. There were certainly a few pages missing as I recall, either deleted or lost in one of our moves. user:sjc