Requests for Comment/Changes to CVT group

This proposal is intended to add additional rights to the CVT group so that they may better deal with global threats.

Proposal 1
The rights  and   are added to the CVT group. This can either be assigned to a local group on meta, or to the global group, however the creation of a local group would be best suited.

The reason I'm making this request is due to the fact that recently, I have followed two vandalism only accounts across over a dozen wikis each, where I blocked and reverted the mess that they were creating. In each case, my ability to respond was really limited to whenever a steward became available. Having these rights would have much sooner prevented further abuse.

These two rights are rather powerful. As such, they should only be used in cases where the user is: Further applications of use may be decided in this RfC.
 * Policy wise
 * 1) Clearly a spambot/vandalism-only-account of some sort
 * 2) Clearly a sockpuppet with intentions of disrupting multiple wikis
 * 3) Has currently disrupted more than one or two wikis

Support

 * as creator. -- Void  Whispers 01:02, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I believe that following the recent cross-wiki abuse dealt with by Void are a clear indication of why this can really help, as I was unable to load the website on my phone and lock the account, so Void had to wait around repeatedly cleaning up more abuse before the account was locked. I think as long as CVT members (at least those in the local group that should be created, since all locks/blocks should be done on meta) -- Cheers, NDKilla ( Talk • Contribs ) 01:20, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * The purpose of the CVT group is to deal with cross-wiki vandalism. Currently, this is difficult as if a user/IP spams on more wikis, they need to be blocked individually on each wiki. As NDKilla said above, stewards are not always available when issues like this happen and just yesterday a sysadmin has had to emergency grant themselves steward to clean up the mess. Therefore, I really think that the CVT group should be granted the rights in question to better, and more effectively stop cross-wiki vandalism/spam. Reception123 (talk) ( contribs  ) 04:57, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * CVT should be able to block globally vandals, spambots, etc... Zabshk (talk) 15:10, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Abstain

 * This idea seems to me quite good and would certainly facilitate the work of this group (given that there are also few stewards, as indicate Reception123), however, I think that you have to be cautious in the sense that to begin with, I do not see any community process where these users are chosen (not described as they are Chosen on the group's information page). The ability to disable and block accounts globally requires the community to know and trust that user. For now I refrain, since I'm not against, but I can not be in support for now. —Alvaro Molina (✉  - ✔ ) 21:33, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Oppose

 * I would oppose either of these two rights being added globally, as even the global steward group doesn't have them, and usually global locks and blocks are only done by stewards. I would, however, support the creation of a local group on Meta that contains . I would oppose global blocking regardless, because in order to block an IP range you would need CheckUser (for logged in accounts) and I would strongly oppose granting CVT global or local checkuser access. --  Amanda   (talk)  11:32, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * There are also IP spambots/vandals, not only global ranges to be blocked. No one is talking about granting CU to CVT. Reception123 (talk) ( contribs  ) 11:39, 1 May 2017 (UTC)


 * procedurally until the group is established through an RfC. Locking accounts is a fairly dangerous tool which isn't one I'm happy giving to a group made without community consensus with no policies and no accountability on appointment. The group has (and still does) serve positively but I'm against expansion until a policy is in place with evidence of community suppport. John (talk) 11:43, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree that this is a serious concern that should be addressed before this RfC comes to a close. This may be achieved by an additional proposal, or a new RfC altogether. -- Void  Whispers 20:27, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Proposal 1.5
Sorta just hit me, but I also realized that the ability to edit global filters  would also be an improvement, as some of the abuse is quite systematic and easily prevented by simple abuse filter rules. Other possible uses include maintaining the spam filters, which don't stop everything. While it may be fine to put this through stewards, it still does slow down the response time, and requests may go unanswered for some time. Also, it is kinda pointless for CVT to be able to edit filters on all public wikis when the spam/vandalism we are dealing with can occur on many different wikis.

Global filters should only be managed by CVT in cases where: Further applications of use may be decided in this RfC.
 * Policy wise
 * 1) The condition would match a large amount of spam/vandalism recently encountered by the CVT member.
 * 2) The CVT member is responding to a large number of false positive results on the filter.

Support

 * as proposer. -- Void  Whispers 01:02, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * per comment on proposal 1. Although this is a [possibly] more serious permission, I think granting them hand in hand is fair. Also, I have made changes to global filters at Void's request without question. Mostly because he created a local abuse filter that I just made global. -- Cheers, NDKilla ( Talk • Contribs ) 01:20, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Per above, I don't see why not as this should go in CVT's "job description". Reception123 (talk) ( contribs  ) 04:59, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I think that this could be helpful. -- Amanda   (talk)  11:33, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Abuse filter can really help fighting vandalism. Zabshk (talk) 14:58, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * : adds a new layer of defence in case of global vandalism. LulzKiller (talk) 15:25, 1 May 2017 (UTC)