Wikipedia talk:Super-user

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[edit] Similar ideas

How about a sub-category of admins? No powers to do the 'sexy' things, but the power to do the tedious chores? I don't envision people signing up because they're eager to do the work, but a public-spirited user could adopt a particular housekeeping duty (say, dealing with copyvios), and do a few whenever she feels like it. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:12, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Has anyone been considering an intermediate level for "super-users"—people who spend a lot of time on Wikipedia but don't get bogged down in VfD debates, etc.? In particular, I would like the ability to revert vandalism, and perhaps some marginally greater ability to move pages would be nice, though I'd probably just end up causing trouble ;-) —User:Mulad (talk) 05:13, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)
There's an advanced new "user levels" system coming in a future version of the software that will make such ideas possible. For now, though, you're either a sysop/admin or you're not. (Note that "super-user" wouldn't be such a good name, because it sounds like the person who can do everything...) - IMSoP 18:54, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Actually, it's the "user groups" system (create other groups like sysop/bureaucrat with rights assigned to them) that's only in the future MediaWiki 1.5. You can already assign rights like rollback, protect and such to an individual user, although only developers and stewards can do this. Goplat 03:27, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yeah. It's kinda like the old-style WWIV BBS's, where there was a range of access levels from 0 to 255 (255 being sysop, where you could drop to DOS remotely, etc.) You could create any type of co-sysop you wanted by customizing a particular access level. Rad Racer 12:58, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I would actually not like to create another class of users requiring a nomination system, as it would just create more bureaucracy. I've actually been thinking about this since seeing mention of it on VP. One idea to consider would be an automatic upgrading of users after a certain amount of time or edits on the assumption that they are not a troll, and have accumulated enough experience to avoid ignorant mistakes. For example, have the system set up to grant a user who has been registered for more than three months and has more than 1000 edits the ability to do rollbacks and add to In the News, etc. A full-admin could revoke "trusted user" privileges if she feels that they are being abused, and there could be a community review process to have them restored. Because it would be an "automatic" upgrade, I would be uncomfortable with the full-set of powers outlined in the main article. - BanyanTree 15:20, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • Given the backlog on certain kinds of cleanup pages (in particular, VfD/CfD/TfD) it wouldn't hurt to have a couple extra people who could do that. I wouldn't mind people volunteering. Then again adminship is supposed to be 'no big deal', so maybe we should just nominate a few more capable users. After all, if they can be trusted to do cleanup work, they can also be trusted not to abuse their blocking rights. Radiant_* 12:13, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)
    • "No big deal" was the original idea, but in practice the standards for adminship are continuously rising. If you look at Wikipedia:Recently_created_admins, it's apparent that in years past people would basically say, "Are they a troll? No? Good, let's promote them," whereas now people do a lot more detailed parsing of user contribs, and some are willing to reject candidates for relatively minor reasons. It only takes a few "oppose" votes to sink an RFA. Rad Racer 13:01, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Image deletion is dangerous

Image deletion is the only admin action that can't be undone. "Super-users" shouldn't have this ability. Otherwise, I'm in favor of this proposal. dbenbenn | talk 1 July 2005 16:38 (UTC)