Remove and empty useless user groups
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	Reedy
	Nov 10 2019, 11:53 PM

Description

User groups that should be emptied and removed after gutted OSM is deployed:

shell
cloudadmin
flood

Details

Subject	Repo	Branch	Lines +/-
wikitech: Drop names for removed groups	mediawiki/extensions/WikimediaMessages	master	+2 -14
[wikitech] Drop the 'cloudadmin' user group, no longer used and empty	operations/mediawiki-config	master	+1 -10
[wikitech] Drop the 'flood' user group, no longer used and empty	operations/mediawiki-config	master	+0 -1

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Related Objects
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Status	Assigned	Task
Open	None	T189531 All Wikimedia developer services should use single sign-on
Open	None	T161859 Make Wikitech an SUL wiki
Resolved	Clement_Goubert	T327920 March 2023 Datacenter Switchover
Open	Clement_Goubert	T328907 Post March 2023 Datacenter Switchover Tasks
Duplicate	None	T237771 Make Wikitech a normal wiki
Open	None	T305233 consider eliminating labweb/cloudweb hardware servers
Open	None	T237773 Move Wikitech onto the production MW cluster
Resolved	taavi	T237890 Remove and empty useless user groups
Resolved	Jdforrester-WMF	T196466 Remove 'shell user' right on wikitech
Declined	None	T246405 On wikitech, make sysops unable to edit site JS, and then retire contentadmin

Event Timeline

Reedy created this task.Nov 10 2019, 11:53 PM

bd808 moved this task from Backlog to Config on the wikitech.wikimedia.org board.Nov 11 2019, 12:05 AM

Reedy added a subtask: T196466: Remove 'shell user' right on wikitech.Nov 11 2019, 12:08 AM

I don't think we should remove 'flood'. It allows (content)admins to avoid flooding recent changes when doing uncontroversial mass changes. In a wiki with so little activity like Wikitech, maintaining Recent Changes readable for others is a priority IMHO. No comments re. cloudamin or shell. Thanks.

Meno25 added a subscriber: Meno25.Nov 19 2019, 6:34 AM

Jdforrester-WMF closed subtask T196466: Remove 'shell user' right on wikitech as Resolved.Feb 28 2020, 1:21 AM

What about contentadmin?

Change 575390 had a related patch set uploaded (by Jforrester; owner: Jforrester):
[operations/mediawiki-config@master] [wikitech] Drop the 'cloudadmin' user group, no longer used and empty

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/575390

Change 575391 had a related patch set uploaded (by Jforrester; owner: Jforrester):
[operations/mediawiki-config@master] [wikitech] Drop the 'flood' user group, no longer used and empty

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/575391

In T237890#5925430, @gerritbot wrote:

Change 575391 had a related patch set uploaded (by Jforrester; owner: Jforrester):
[operations/mediawiki-config@master] [wikitech] Drop the 'flood' user group, no longer used and empty

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/575391

Flood isn't meant to have users in it most of the time. It is temporarily added for mass actions to avoid flooding RecentChanges. It looks like @MarcoAurelio has been the only person to use it, most recently in 2017.

In T237890#5925460, @JJMC89 wrote:

In T237890#5925430, @gerritbot wrote:

Change 575391 had a related patch set uploaded (by Jforrester; owner: Jforrester):
[operations/mediawiki-config@master] [wikitech] Drop the 'flood' user group, no longer used and empty

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/575391

Flood isn't meant to have users in it most of the time. It is temporarily added for mass actions to avoid flooding RecentChanges. It looks like @MarcoAurelio has been the only person to use it, most recently in 2017.

That's right. Flood is a temporary self-added group to avoid flooding recent changes. It is not meant to be used permanently (that's what 'bot' would be for).

Anyone with +bot can just mark their edit as non-bot as they're making it (or via the API). If this was a key need that the group was a valuable group that has consensus to use, I'd expect we'd define it as a standard on more than a couple of dozen wikis.

I don't have any objections to removing it. I just wanted to point out that it should usually be empty.

In T237890#5927512, @Jdforrester-WMF wrote:

Anyone with +bot can just mark their edit as non-bot as they're making it

How do you do this using the web UI?

Oh, did the checkbox not get added to the UI? Meh. Why don't we fix that instead?

I don't see one when I use the web UI to edit on my bot account. All edits are bot flagged.

For non-edit actions, there isn't a way to toggle it using the API or web UI. All are bot flagged.

Personally, I wouldn't block removing the group on fixing it since the group doesn't get much use.

In T237890#5927936, @JJMC89 wrote:

I don't see one when I use the web UI to edit on my bot account. All edits are bot flagged.

For non-edit actions, there isn't a way to toggle it using the API or web UI. All are bot flagged.

Initial version at https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/575628 but it doesn't work quite yet.

Personally, I wouldn't block removing the group on fixing it since the group doesn't get much use.

Understood.

Couldn't you just temporally add yourself to the bot usergroup?

bd808 closed subtask T246405: On wikitech, make sysops unable to edit site JS, and then retire contentadmin as Declined.Mar 1 2020, 8:19 PM

In T237890#5930305, @TerraCodes wrote:

Couldn't you just temporally add yourself to the bot usergroup?

Content admins/standard admins can't do that.

Honestly, the content admin group is pointless and I suggest merging it with admin, like T246405 (but then that task got declined, so...)

Zabe added a subscriber: Zabe.Dec 25 2021, 12:24 AM

Change 575390 merged by jenkins-bot:

[operations/mediawiki-config@master] [wikitech] Drop the 'cloudadmin' user group, no longer used and empty

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/575390

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2022-01-19T17:50:51Z] <taavi@deploy1002> Synchronized wmf-config/InitialiseSettings.php: Config: [[gerrit:575390|[wikitech] Drop the cloudadmin user group, no longer used and empty (T237890)]] (duration: 00m 50s)