Forum:Interface admins

I would like to revisit the discussion about adding a separate "interface admin" role, which would grant the ability to edit MediaWiki pages including CSS, JavaScript, and interface messages. With the growing backlog of dark mode issues and other interface improvements (such as a mobile dark skin), it might be useful to have more people who are knowledgeable with CSS/JS and can be trusted to verify and implement changes.

I would support at least violine1101 getting these permissions. I'm not sure if it makes sense to give the right to everyone suggested in the original thread, however. People can still get the rights on the dev wiki and work on improvements there; however, we should still be careful about implementing changes in the live wiki and have them be reviewed by someone knowledgeable, in particular with JavaScript. It would help to have just enough interface admins (in addition to knowledgeable regular admins) to be able to implement changes in a more timely manner. –Sonicwave ^talk 00:00, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

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 Strong support the creation of an interface admin role. This would mean a user could freely help with dark mode fixes and the like without needing to clear the bar of entry of the administrator role. I personally nominate Dianliang233 for the role if it is created, as they did an immense amount of dark mode fixes while the fork was being worked on. They're a trusted user as they're a director and admin the Twitter account. Though I think if the role is created we should hold nominations in separate forum topics instead of cramming everything into this topic. Harristic | Talk 👁 DungeonsEntitySprite penguin-onesie.png: Sprite image for penguin-onesie in Minecraft
13:22, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

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 Strong Oppose Interface Administrator group was created to be a superset of admin group. In other words, by default, regular "Administrator" group does not have editsitecss and editsitejs permissions, meaning they cannot edit CSS and JS pages [1].

If somebody is so trusted that we want them to give these rights, we should rather nominate them for admin instead of creating an unnecessary group. --TreeIsLife (talk) 14:59, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Your second point doesn’t make sense (and I’m confused about the relevance of the first point anyway). Obviously just because you’re known to be very knowledgable on css and js does not automatically mean you are qualified to have the full permissions of an admin. You’re not automatically a good candidate for a moderator-type figure just because you’re trusted. We shouldn’t bloat the admin list with people who aren’t using or really should be using three quarters of their power. - Harristic | Talk 👁 DungeonsEntitySprite penguin-onesie.png: Sprite image for penguin-onesie in Minecraft
16:03, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

I think you don't understand the full power of site-wide JS or the ability to edit other user's CSS and JS. Several years ago, some Fandom admins used JS for a phishing campaign. But that is just a tip of an iceberg and there more ways to abuse JS. And now I'll partially touch the "full permissions of an admin". Since Interface admins can also edit other user's JS, theoretically you could run deletion and block scripts on sysop accounts (as an example). It is true that you can do that as an admin too, but the chance is much much lower than just giving "half-trusted people" (like you propose them) admin interface rights, which could be abused as bureaucrats' rights.

It's true I have dramatized this a bit and surely there is no reason to believe Dian or Violine would do that, but theoretically this is possible.

As for the first point - As I said, it was created to be an extension to admin rights, not to be used separately. --TreeIsLife (talk) 17:09, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

"much lower than just giving "half-trusted people" (like you propose them)" I think you misunderstand, nowhere have I proposed half-trusted people or even really implied that becoming an interface admin wouldn't require as much trust due to the smaller amount of permissions. My point is that trusted doesn't equal qualified, all interface admins would be trusted individuals, but that doesn't mean they're going to make any use of, or should make any use of moderation tools. Your point about interface admins being able to abuse their powers to use moderation tools anyway is null to me since it's being provided based on a misunderstanding that I suggested "half-trusted people".

I don't think the intended use case dictated by the whoever originally created the role is terribly relevant. I've already seen the role be used separately elsewhere and using it separately is not just a drastic change. - Harristic | Talk 👁 DungeonsEntitySprite penguin-onesie.png: Sprite image for penguin-onesie in Minecraft
17:38, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

It is true there are some wikis using it, but I want to point out it has been designed to be used the way I have just described. I still think you underestimate what you can do with JS (and how simple it is). Yeah, some wiki have it without admins, but I think that is not correct, because they make wiki much more vulnerable. --TreeIsLife (talk) 19:20, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

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 Question TreeIsLife - I have to ask, how would we implement this second point you have, if we were to? Your second point implies, in my mind, that we shouldn't make a new user group for interface admin. I do have some problems with this. How would we implement this user right to access other user's scripts, without creating a user group? I know I probably shouldn't be the one asking this, as I don't have any experience with adminship and granting user rights, but I do wonder how that can happen. Basically, what I'm saying is, how would we give interface admin to a user who already has normal admin, without giving them a new user group? Also, I know some users like to go to user pages and see what user groups they are in (I know because I'm admittedly one of them). If they were to go to an interface admin's user page, they'd never know that user is an interface admin. They'd be even more confused, if, say they have a script on their user page, and the admin has to edit it for maintenance. We might even get an admin noticeboard post on this. I do want to know how not having a user group would work, and how it'd help. --ThatOneWolf ^{(talk|contribs)} 18:02, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

"How would we implement this user right to access other user's scripts, without creating a user group?" and "Basically, what I'm saying is, how would we give interface admin to a user who already has normal admin, without giving them a new user group?"

You'll assign these rights to admins (sysops), through LocalSettings.php file (basically a file which configurates most of the aspects of the wiki, such as user groups, extensions, skins, namespaces and general wiki settings). Here's the demonstration of enabling both rights.

$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['editusercss'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['edituserjs'] = true;

"If they were to go to an interface admin's user page, they'd never know that user is an interface admin."

I think you did not understand my opinion. I think editing other users' CSS and JS is something only people of admin level trust (or higher) should be allowed to do. Adding it to users who are not even admins can create a big security hole. On other hand, if Harri and Sonic trust these users that much, they should be proposed admin rights and not to give them one of the most powerful rights out there, just slightly behind CheckUser. --TreeIsLife (talk) 19:20, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Ok. I get the first point now. "If they were to go to an interface admin's user page, they'd never know that user is an interface admin." What I meant by this is that, it would show that they are administrators on their user page, but not interface administrators. No one would have any way to tell that they are interface admins, not just normal admins. Hopefully this explanation is clear. In a nutshell, I'm saying that, on the userpage, you can see the "Administator" user group, but you wouldn't be able to see the "Interface Administrator" user group because it doesn't exist. My question is, how would anyone know that said user is, in fact, an interface admin and not a regular one. -- ThatOneWolf ^{Time for a chat?_{See my edits?}} 19:42, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

I've already this twice I believe, but just because a user is of admin-level trust doesn't mean they need to use moderation tools. An interface admin would be of admin-level trust, I mean admin is literally in the role name, but just because they have that trust doesn't mean they need or want to be a full admin. What is the point of bloating up the admin list with people who have only become admins for the sake css and js editing when there exists a role for giving solely those permissions? The user could be opposed or even decline their own adminship because they don't want to bear the responsibility of moderation, since they are only interested in using the interface admin tools. If you're just an interface admin, you are not taking on any of those extra responsibilities that comes with being an administrator. Yes, technically no responsibilities are forced upon you with adminship, but I have no doubt that feeling is present anyway. - Harristic | Talk 👁 DungeonsEntitySprite penguin-onesie.png: Sprite image for penguin-onesie in Minecraft
13:33, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

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 Unsure - I don't really know where I'd stand. I see Harristic's point of view on this, which is pretty good. However, TreeIsLife does make a point that we can just nominate a user and just give them the permissions that interface admin would give, without giving them an unneeded permission. I would probably be leaning towards a 👁 Image
 Weak oppose, merely just because if we were to nominate them and they passed, we could just allow them to do what interface admin would give. The thing is with this, I've realized, how would we implement this? 👁 Image
 Neutral for now. --ThatOneWolf ^{(talk|contribs)} 15:04, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

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 Extremely strong support for the addition of an interface admin role given to people with admin-level trust who don't want to administrate anything other than css or js.

The fandom wiki has only 3 things over this wiki:

1. Higher in search results

2. Website is more trusted

3. More polished visuals

The first two will come with time, but for the third one, people need to put work into it. If there aren't enough people who can put work into it, how are we going to actually do it? Yes, these users will have a lot of power, so they need to have admin-level trust. However, these people would not need to know how to administrate, per se - they just need to be fully trusted. Dark mode has SO many issues and doesn't even exist on mobile. The "save changes" button I'm about to press has bad contrast in dark mode (2.53:1) and that is far from the worst dark mode problem. Point is, we really need people who can work on the interface here, and this would be a great way to do it. 👁 Image
plighting_engineerd (talk) 17:17, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

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 Extremely strong support - IMO I'd like to see the bugs with dark mode get fixed. That's really it for me or other end users. I'm not entirely sure. Delvin4519 (talk) 18:48, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

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 Strong Support - Said when I brought this up before but it would be really helpfull. Some people don't want to have admin responsibility, but are extremely proficient (some more so than the admins) so a separate role is needed. Consumed (Talk│Contributions) 19:39, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

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 Comment - It looks like something like this has already been implemented, with the global interface maintainers user group in effect. -- ThatOneWolf ^{Time for a chat?_{See my edits?}} 20:58, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

That is a global role, meaning the user has that role across every language wiki, the proposed role would apply only to the individual language wiki. Also this proposal was made by an admin who (I believe) already knew GIM was going to be implemented. I still support the role being made, but since both Violine and Dianliang have GIM, there's no obvious candidates for an interface admin role if we did make it. So this is a bit of a weird situation. - Harristic | Talk 👁 DungeonsEntitySprite penguin-onesie.png: Sprite image for penguin-onesie in Minecraft
21:29, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

To be honest, I didn't expect the global role to get set up this quickly, even though it was proposed in the board meeting (along with MCW:CATS) right before I created this discussion. I think the global role is sufficient (as with the people in it) and an additional local role wouldn't be necessary. Someone trusted enough to get this role should hopefully be trustable across all language wikis and be able to apply the same fixes on other wikis, unless they really don't want that for some reason. –Sonicwave ^talk 06:55, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

That's fair, it is true that if someone is doing a dark mode fix it should be applied to all language wikis. This discussion could probably be closed then. - Harristic | Talk 👁 DungeonsEntitySprite penguin-onesie.png: Sprite image for penguin-onesie in Minecraft
10:36, 26 November 2023 (UTC)