Changes ot user group rights

Planned release date: 9 October 2014

Next week we will roll out a significant change to user groups and user rights. Read on for details.

Changes to user group rights

Briefly: All registered users will have additional, useful privileges such as the ability to move pages and most users who currently belong to bureaucrat or sysop groups will be removed from those groups.

Why are we making these changes?

To ensure that MozillaWiki is curated and maintain efficiently, we need a coherent process for organizing users and groups.

Prior to now there has been no process. Users who wanted access to additional features requested they be added to user groups and those requests were granted without a vetting processes. Additionally, features normally available to regular users such as move, were not available to them on MozillaWiki.

As such, many, many users belong to bureaucrat and sysop groups unnecessarily. These groups have powerful privileges that should be granted to users who understand those privileges and who commit to mindful, regular administration of the wiki.

What rights will each user group have under this new configuration?

• Registered users who have confirmed their email addresses will be able to edit and create pages.
• Once users have made 10 edits, they will be "autoconfirmed" and able to move pages, delete pages, rollback edits, and upload files.
• Bureaucrats will have the ability to delete pages, block users, patrol pages and rollback edits.
• Administrators (sysops) will have the ability protect pages, delete (hide) revisions, import pages, edit semiprotected pages, and edit the user interface.
• Account approvers will be able to view and approve account requests.

For a complete list of the new group rights that will be rolled out, view this page on our dev instance of MozillaWiki:
https://wiki-dev.allizom.org/Special:ListGroupRights

How can I try out the new group rights to make sure I will be able to do my work?

You can log into the dev MozillaWiki. The same username and password you use on MozillaWiki should work unless you've changed it within that past month.

How can I request to be added to a user group such as Bureaucrat, Administrators (sysop), etc.?

If your work requires that you have access to the rights of one of these groups, file a bug to request that you be added. In the bug, please include your MozillaWiki username, which rights you need and why.

I have additional questions. Where can I go to have those answered?

You can stop by #wiki on irc.mozilla.org (webchat) or email tools-wiki@lists.mozilla.org.

What about pages I have protected? Will I be able to edit those after the group rights changes?

Page protection should be applied to pages that have be subjected to repeated vandalism, and on pages for which vandalism would unusually disruptive (e.g. on highly visited pages).

Page protection should not be used to enforce an approval process for editing content.

If you are concerned about misinformed edits to pages, you should add pages you care about to your watchlist. Anytime someone edits a page on your watchlist, you'll receive an email notifying you of the change. This will give you an opportunity to review the change and roll it back or edit as necessary. Additionally, you can use the email user feature to communicate with whoever made the edit.

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Protecting_and_unprotecting_pages