As a long-time cross-platform user, I have been checking user rights for
years. These flag systems have strong differences among platforms.
They originate from lack of perspective, sometimes.. some long-time users have
no interest in analyzing them, there is a lack of literacy about flag systems
that is quite critical due to language barrier or limited interest in metrics.
Such users often do not grasp differences of similar names in different
scenarios. I have witnessed long-time users who "dominate" many of these local
discussions mixing up concepts... when you have no strong clue how validation
of whole page version, single edit or users' edit actually work, or can work...
and how different or specific namespaces can also exist with different
protection rights, you just follow some long-term local "prejudice" that are
more or less different among platforms. Or simply, that some very active users
like or dislike.
Personally, I am in favor of a standard universal autoconfirmed flag and more
flexible project-oriented autopatrolled flag (that is, mostly manually given)
or "extended autoconfirmed" flag (that is, mostly based on automatic metrics)
adapted to a specific platform. Please notice how I am trying to use reasonable
definitions from different local scenarios, but they are not really defined
anywhere IMHO.
For the universal autoconfirmed flag, the 4 days and 10 edits threshold are
IMHO correct for a "limbo" before getting some basic user right. it's practical
to have them always like that by default. I enter with the SUL system with my
account on a new platform, and by default I know to get that metric for some
basic functionalities. 4 days is "a little bit more than a week end" or "half a
week" for example, not too long or not too short.
A.
Il lunedì 4 ottobre 2021, 18:11:03 CEST, Risker <[email protected]> ha
scritto:
There's no evidence behind the majority of policies of any Wikimedia project,
so I don't think that's really an expectation.
As to enwiki, it appears that the 4-day threshold was in place well before
2008, but the 10-edit threshold was added in 2008:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Autoconfirmed_Proposal/Poll
The related "bugzilla" (now phabricator) ticket is here:
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T16191
It was pretty clearly the position of Brion, the lead developer at the time,
that even making the change from 0 to 10 edits would be essentially
inconsequential; however, he did make that change. (Most of that ticket is an
argument that the Enwiki community wanted a 7 day/20 edit threshold, and
complaining that it wasn't applied.) My sense is that adding the edit
requirements actually did make a difference, although not really because it
resulted in vandalism/trolling accounts being left unused. It made them easier
to spot. I believe they also reduced the move vandalism that we were
experiencing at a ridiculous rate at the time.
I'm sure you'd be able to find similar discussions at other projects; I just
remember this one because I participated in it.
Risker/Anne
On Mon, 4 Oct 2021 at 06:19, Amir E. Aharoni <[email protected]>
wrote:
I've been involved in this lengthy circular debate: What should be the
autoconfirmed age and article count in the Hebrew Wikipedia? See
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T243076 if you curious about this particular
one, but I'd love to ask a more global question:
How were these numbers calculated originally?
For the account age, the default is four days, or five or seven days for a few
wikis.
For the edit count, the default is zero, but several wikis have 5, 10, 25, or
50.
(See https://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/highlight.php?file=InitialiseSettings.php
and search for "wgAutoConfirmAge" and "wgAutoConfirmCount".)
Some wikis have groups, usually called "extended confirmed", and with higher
counts; for example, 500 edits in English and some other languages (search for
wmgAutopromoteOnceonEdit on the same page).
So, how did the people arrive at these numbers? Why is it four days by default?
Is it all just intuition and guesses, or was there any research behind it?
Is it *good* that four days is the default for everyone, until someone bothers
to update it (most wikis don't)? Or is it just a coincidence that was defined
for a certain wiki and applied elsewhere? And when it's updated, why is it
updated to one number and not some other?
While I am an ardent supporter of the "anyone can edit" principle, it makes
general sense to have some restrictions based on edit count, account age, and
perhaps other parameters. But HOW are they calculated? Would it make sense to
anyone to start making some calculations around it and optimize the number for
wikis of different sizes?
I'd imagine that there could be a calculation that says "in a given wiki, the
chance of being reverted or blocked goes down after X days and X edits", and
this number is probably different for every wiki (maybe there already is such a
calculation somewhere). This could possibly be a starting point for a good
calculation of a threshold; it wouldn't be perfect, because in some wikis it
can perpetuate community practices which may be biased against new editors, but
at least it's based on data and not on guesses.
In the English Wikipedia 2016 discussion[1] about adding the "extended
confirmed" group, I found one comment, by User:Opabinia regalis, which
corresponds to my thinking on the topic: "The thresholds being used for these
restrictions are essentially arbitrary, and we don't have a strong evidence
base yet that they are well-chosen."
Perhaps after twenty years we could start actually calculating these
thresholds, and not just come up with arbitrary numbers? Or is there really no
demand for smart and research-based decisions about these thresholds?
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_129#New_usergroup_with_autopromotion_to_implement_arbitration_%2230-500%22_bans_as_a_page_protection
--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T.
Moore_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- [email protected], guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/ONYNFNACK34LQLTBRHI6M56LBJHFBSKW/
To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- [email protected], guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/4CFVX64LV2XCJG6J53LVCP7AKMIKFNSW/
To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] _______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- [email protected], guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/UJXVQOG4TJOJKBKDEREBOZJRQUJ3FWF7/
To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
