In T113109#1662692, @Mdann52 wrote:

In any case, this is something that I believe can be implimented by stewards (as this user group appears to be), as opposed to anything on the MW side.

No, I don't think so.

The discussion (linked as "Wikiversity consensus,") showed high consensus. This wasn't my idea. This is not enwiki. No, stewards cannot do this, this requires a change in user groups. Stewards may act in individual cases to assign or remove rights, this is to avoid the need for steward action -- which isn't discussion, either.

Local policy has been, for many years, that a sysop (custodian) offers to mentor a probationary custodian., and a bureaucrat implements this, without discussion. All this does is to eliminate the need for a bureaucrat to action the request.

It increases safety because any custodian (or bureaucrat) can remove the right, whereas it has been necessary to go to meta for removals, meanwhile a rogue probationer can cause significant damage. (That's been very rare, but it's happened.)

Enwiki policy is not relevant., what was being considered there was a wide right to view deleted content. This proposal doesn't set that up at all.

It sets up what exists at present, mentored custodianship, which has been a problem sometimes because the mentor disappears. This allows any custodian to take over mentorship, or remove the right without needing to give any reason. (Then the community might discuss the matter, if it's considered worthwhile).

The proposal was made by a bureaucrat, and the only opposition was from a brand-new user who did not understand it.

I investigated the close and closing arguments and re-opened this, and would appreciate attention from an experienced user, particularly a developer, who could do this in minutes.

@Abd: I think you might be misunderstanding Mdann52's point. WMF Legal has made it clear at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Viewing_deleted_content that they do not want sub-administrator user groups to have access to deleted content. You can see that that page pertains to English Wikipedia and Commons at least, and I don't see why it shouldn't apply to all WMF projects. (Arguably it should be moved to Meta.)

I think this request would be much less controversial if the "Assistant" group did not have the deletedhistory, browsearchive, and deletedtext rights.

In any case, I'll add WMF-Legal to this task to get their opinion on this.

Thanks, TTO.

Semantics.

Wikiversity has always had probies ("probationary custodians.") They were assigned the same rights as all custodians, the software did not know they were probies, they were in the custodian usergroup, which is administrators, not "sub-administrators." There have been times when all Wikiversity maintenance was being by probies.

When a mentor recommended that a probie become permanent, or otherwise, a vote was started, and, with consensus, the probie was declared permanent, or a "full custotdian." There was no actual rights change, since that had already happened.

The setup worked, and problems were rare. However, a probie went rogue in 2014, wheel-warring with a full custodian, and steward intervention was needed. The steward did not see the status difference, apparently. The rights setup caused confusion.

Hence the proposal, providing for a rights change when a custodian becomes "full," i.e., community-approved. They gain the right to appoint custodians, and to remove them.

This is really, as to standard naming conventions, a bureaucrat right. Full custodians, however, would not be given the right to name full custodians. Just regular ones (probies), without that new user right.

Wikiversity has never required a discussion to become an administrator. Rather, a mentor is required. This proposal effectively extends mentorship to the full custodian body, and allows a mentor to remove the rights, without discussion.

The community has already approved the new rights for "custodians." The intention was to assign these rights to all existing full custodians. However, there is, at this point, one probie.

Hence the implementation, given the concern, would be to keep the existing custodian group, to add a new user group, call it "mentor," and give it the right to assign users to the custodian group and remove them. This group would not have the right to assign users to the mentor group. That would be reserved for bureaucrats, who would be given the right to add mentors. .

This, then, would require a bureaucrat to act before implementation of the change. If the existing policy is followed, a 'crat would assign all existing custodians except the single probie to the mentor usergroup.

As this would then give the Wikiversity community the power to implement this change, I request that it be made. It is harmless if no crat implements, and 'crats already have the authority to assign sysop rights.

The only difference between this modified proposal and what the community approved is the name of the groups and the new 'crat right.

As to not including deletion rights, most tool use on en.wikiversity is handling deletions. The purpose of probationary custodianship is to allow a user to learn to handle the tools while supervised, and then to request full custodianship with an observable record. While the reduced toolset could still be valuable, it would not be what Wikiversity has done since about 2006. This does not create the risk behind the prior WMF concern. This is about Wikiversity's process for becoming an administrator.

In T113109#1666245, @Abd wrote:

As to not including deletion rights, most tool use on en.wikiversity is handling deletions. The purpose of probationary custodianship is to allow a user to learn to handle the tools while supervised, and then to request full custodianship with an observable record. While the reduced toolset could still be valuable, it would not be what Wikiversity has done since about 2006. This does not create the risk behind the prior WMF concern. This is about Wikiversity's process for becoming an administrator.

In that case, if only one user decides before a user is granted access, then maybe the existing tool needs pulling as well - however we better wait for WMFLegal's opinion.

It has always, in fact, been one user who actually decides, a bureaucrat. It is that, everywhere. They may or may not follow policy (and policy is entirely local). Bureaucrats are also not identified to the WMF, and I've never seen WMF interference in this. Stewards have intervened only when there was massive local disruption and complaint. So, yes, WMF-Legal opinion, interesting!

Yes, but in most cases, this should be following a community discussion prior to the steward applying the bit, which this does not seem to incorperate

The discussion that we've had so far, the consensus, encompasses all of your concerns. All custodians who voted, all who voted but one noncustodian, are already aware of each of the risks you've mentioned. This proposal allows all active custodians on any given day, usually between 3 and a dozen, to supervise each assistant. This actually reduces problems for WMF including legal ones.

Let me add by reducing problems, I'm referring not just to below preponderance but to below reasonable doubt; i.e., less than 2% chance of problems for WMF. Three custodians for four to eight hours a day, up to almost 24/7 coverage. Add in eight active stewards and two bureaucrats and six to eight more custodians and you're well below 2% chance of problems. The one problem that did occur was because no one could remove the probie from an assistant group because we didn't have an assistant group such as we are asking for.

Hi all, just a note to let you know that Legal is looking at this issue, and will be providing their opinion as soon as they can.

Hi all,

I agree with Geoff’s and Mike’s previous statements. It’s extremely important for the health and protection of the projects to limit access to deleted material that may include sensitive content. For this reason, we can’t support a proposal to create an assistant admin class that has access to deleted content before going through any kind of community selection process. We would not have the same concerns with a class of probationary administrators (or custodians) who have undergone a community selection process, even if other “full” administrators were given the right to add and remove their advanced user rights. We applaud the idea of having experienced administrators (or custodians) mentor new users with advanced rights; what is important is that users who receive access to deleted content have gone through a community selection process first.

Our request is that you create a community review process to select all custodians who would have access to deleted content prior to giving them that access. We are fine with this proposal to create different levels of admin rights as long as that community review process is completed.

Please document this as a WMF policy on meta.

In T113109#1691041, @Jrogers-WMF wrote:

Our request is that you create a community review process to select all custodians who would have access to deleted content prior to giving them that access. We are fine with this proposal to create different levels of admin rights as long as that community review process is completed.

So this is actually blocked by communtiy consensus for a community review process, so you need to ask the community for consesus, that the accept a review process.

Just FYI, we already have a consensus policy in effect for full custodianship. What we are looking at are levels below full custodian and tasks that each level can perform. Current discussion about levels is at [[v:Wikiversity:User access levels|Wikiversity:User access levels]] and its talk page.

Here's the url for the current discussion: Ongoing discussion

After thorough discussion and voting on Wikiversity user access levels, available at https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity_talk:User_access_levels, the community supports the creation of a new Curators group with rights listed at https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:User_access_levels. The discussion was listed with a site-wide notice, https://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Sitenotice&diff=prev&oldid=1455933, and open for two weeks. The Curators group will not have access to deleted content, addressing concerns noted above.

The Curators group will have:
CreateAccount
Delete
Edit Protected
Import
IPBlock Exempt
Merge History
Move Category Pages
Move Files
Move
Move Subpages
Protect
Rollback
Suppress Redirect
Upload

In addition, we would like to make three changes to the Custodians group:
Add the ability to add users to the Curators group
Remove Mass delete
Remove Unblock self

This then results in two changes to the Bureaucrats group:
Add Mass delete
Add Unblock self

Please let us know if you have any additional questions or concerns.

Thanks!

@Dave_Braunschweig Who can remove the Curators group? You just said, Custodians can add people to them, but who can remove? I guess not only stewards...

Sorry, I missed that detail. The intention was that Custodians would be able to both add and remove Curators. I will update our documentation accordingly.

Thanks!

Clarifying: It was already in the proposal at https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:User_access_levels that Custodians would be able to remove Curators. I just forgot to include it here.

Thanks!

(Removed, because the new group can only delete, not undelete or view deleted content)

Change 252012 had a related patch set uploaded (by Luke081515):
Add new group to enwikiversity

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/252012

Change 254029 had a related patch set uploaded (by Luke081515):
Remove rights from sysop group, and give them to the bureaucrats group at enwikiversity

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/254029

Change 252012 merged by jenkins-bot:
Add new group "curator" to enwikiversity

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/252012

Change 254029 merged by jenkins-bot:
Nuke and unblockself only for bureaucrats on en.wikiversity

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/254029

Thanks!

No problem :)

For allocating Curator tools or removing such tools, what resource or Custodian page should be accessed?

I've looked at several of our Custodian pages but the only one that currently lists all of our Curators is our User list for Curators which even as a Custodian I cannot edit. So, since our Curators are listed, nominated and approved on url=https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Candidates_for_Custodianship either checking done on this page activates these additional tools or another page does.

@Marshallsumter What do you exactly try to achieve concretely (ie what's your root problem)?

If you wish to review or edit the rights of someone, try
https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Special:UserRights/<username>

Thank you for your question and interest! I've just learned recently that Curator tools are activated for a particular user by checking the appropriate box under User rights management.

It's okay to close this request.