Wikipedia:Protected editing rights

This is a proposal to grant non-administrator users a specific user access level to edit fully protected pages.

Background

Recently, an administrator from the German Wikipedia requested adminship so he could edit the English Wikipedia spam blacklist. The discussion is ongoing, but many of those in opposition do not want to grant him more rights than he needs to edit that blacklist. Currently the editprotected right applies only to administrators and bureaucrats.

Many templates are given indefinite full protection against abuse, as are some sensitive pages in other namespaces, such as MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. Allowing trusted regular users to edit these pages would reduce the workload of existing administrators and would allow those who wish to work in these areas to avoid the bureaucracy of requesting adminship and avoid the community having to hand out tools like "view deleted edits" or "block user" to those who don't really need them.

Proposal

A new user access level is created, similar to 'rollbacker' or 'accountcreator', which only grants editprotected rights to a selected user and no other tools or rights. The users who could assign this permission and under what circumstances can be discussed at a later RfC, probably bureaucrats either on their own authority or through a lightweight RFC, but possibly administrators through a requests process. Users who abuse this right can be stripped of it immediately. For example, a user who abused this tool in order to bypass protection invoked during an edit war would be removed from the editprotected usergroup and blocked immediately. A user's editing history would come under scrutiny before it is determined whether to grant the tool or not.

Supporting arguments

• Argument: It would allow users who are not administrators to update and maintain templates and other pages, reducing the workload and any possible backlog for administrators.

Counter-argument: A user could possibly damage template coding, which may require administrator intervention, creating more workload for adminstrators.

• Argument: Users would not have to have to make an RfA to be granted the tools for editing a single page or very few pages.

Counter-argument: Adminship is "no big deal" and comes with the "full set".

• Argument: It is far safer to give users who only wish to edit protected pages this particular right rather than adminship and the full set of tools.

Counter-argument: Administrators can double check editprotected requests, providing an additional layer of security to sensitive pages and templates. The community's trust of a particular user is determined at their RfA.

Opposition arguments

• Argument: The tool could be subject to abuse, potentially creating widespread damage to Wikipedia.

Counter-argument: The tool would only be granted to trusted users. Any damage from such a tool could be easily reverted. Only few users with high technical knowledge would be given an additional editinterface right and the highly technical MediaWiki pages would remain protected to users without this extra right in order to prevent damage to the internal structure of Wikipedia. A user who abused this right would be stripped of it immediately to prevent further abuse.

• Argument: Adminship is "no big deal", so we should grant users adminship and all the associated tools through a successful RfA.

Counter-argument: Giving a user more tools than necessary may not be in the best interests of the community. A user who merely wishes to edit one particular template, for instance, may not feel comfortable wielding additional tools and would also require technical training. The community may trust a user's judgment in editing protected pages, but not for blocking users and other administrative actions.

• Argument: Users should use {{editprotected}} if they wish for an edit to be made to a protected page.

Counter-argument: A user may wish to continuously make an edit to a protected page, such as the user from the German Wikipedia, and utilising this template would not be practical. Many editprotected requests go unfulfilled for long periods of time. It would also allow non-administrator users who are very active at WikiProjects to update high-risk templates associated with their project, helping maintenance and reducing workload.