I guess we can define a new permission like 'editprotected', which is set to true for sysops. Wikis like wikinews can define a new group of users (like Trusted Bots or something) with that permission on LocalSettings.php and then a Bureaucrat can assign trusted bots to this group, so they can change protected pages.

If there is no objection (and no-one comes up with a good reason for avoiding the above solution) I will create a patch for it in a couple of days.

With r31247 it is now possible to give the 'editprotected' permission to a group of users, without making them sysops. For example, a line can be added to LocalSettings.php like this:

$wgGroupPermissions['bot' ]['editprotected'] = true;

to let all accounts with bot flag edit a protected page.

Thanks for the quick fix!

brian.mcneil wrote:

Can this be applied on en.wikinews? Do we need a vote on it?

I'm afraid the local community should reach agreement about it, and then you should open a new bug here (not under MediaWiki section, but under Wikimedia > Site request section) linking to the page where the agreement has been archived. A developer with shell access will then apply the required changes for that specific wiki.

As the feature requested here is fullfiled, I'm marking it as FIXED again.

With r31462, I undid the changes made to Title.php, because of a security flaw introduced with r31247. I and ialex are working on the correct solution to this bug.

With r32164 I fixed the bug again, taking care of the cascading issues. For the correct usage see comment #2.

Change 71536 had a related patch set uploaded by Anomie:
Fix protection rights usage

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/71536

Change 71536 merged by jenkins-bot:
Fix protection rights usage

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/71536

So what is the conclusion? Can bots edit protected pages now?