Requests for Comment/CVT intervention

I never really understood why Global Sysops couldn't use their rights on Meta, especially in emergency situations. Any help we can get is appreciated, especially when a project is run entirely by volunteers. That prompted proposal 1, to allow GS to intervene on Meta in emergency situations. This has happened before and so that cemented further the demonstrated usefulness of having a GS intervene in emergency situations. Proposal 2 was prompted to clarify when GRs should use their rights to add legitimacy to the use of their tools, especially since GS can't intervene on Meta but no formal restriction exists on GRs. Proposal 3 was bundled in as the result of an interesting discussion, which took place here and which fits closely with the topic of this RfC. Agent Isai Talk to me! 00:03, 5 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Proposal co-sponsored by:

Proposal 1 (Global Sysops)

 * Global Sysops should only intervene on Meta in emergency cases of spam and vandalism attacks where Meta administrators are unavailable. If local administrators are around to block and delete spam and vandalism, Global Sysops should leave it to them, unless a local administrator requests their help in which case they may intervene.

Explanation: Presently, Global Sysops cannot intervene in Meta for any reason. They are limited by a wiki set which disables their abilities to use their rights on Meta. However, having Global Sysops intervene in emergency cases makes a lot of sense. While the current Global Sysop team is small and our only lone GS at the moment is also a Meta admin, in the future if the project grows, it'd be of much help if a Global Sysop intervened to thwart spam and vandalism attacks should local administrators be away. While not rooted in policy, this has happened before when a Global Sysop blocked a user on Meta for vandalism and endless socking despite not being a Meta admin, and people generally agreed that such a block and local intervention was appropriate because of the emergency nature of the situation and the unavailability of local administrators. The position of Global Sysop is one of high trust so we can trust our Global Sysops to use their abilities in accordance to policy or they can face a vote of no confidence if they repeatedly violate this. Agent Isai Talk to me! 00:03, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Support (1)

 * 1)  Per explanation and foreword.  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 00:03, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 2)  Per explanation. Makes sense to me. Universal Omega (talk) 02:20, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 3)  Global Sysop involvement on Meta should be the same as on any other Miraheze project. It should be restricted only by community consensus.  dross  (t • c • g) 02:46, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 4) Makes sense. --Zeus  (talk|contribs|accounts|email) 21:02, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 2 (Global Rollbackers)

 * Global Rollbackers may use their rollback and  abilities on Meta only to revert obvious spam and vandalism. They should not use their abilities to rollback in place of normal undoing if the edit they're reverting is not obvious spam or vandalism.

Explanation: There is not much harm with having Global Rollbackers use their abilities on Meta so long as they use them to revert spam and vandalism, in keeping with their scope of "revert[ing] spam and vandalism across all of Miraheze." Agent Isai Talk to me! 00:03, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Support (2)

 * 1)  No issues with GRs using their rights on Meta.  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 00:03, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 2)  Universal Omega (talk) 02:20, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 3)  Same as proposal 1.  dross  (t • c • g) 02:47, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 4) --Zeus  (talk|contribs|accounts|email) 21:03, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 3 (Opt-outs)

 * If a wiki has opted out of Global Sysop intervention, Global Sysops may nevertheless intervene in relation to enforcing global policies (i.e. Content Policy, Code of Conduct, etc.) only.

To accomplish this, the current wiki set used to restrict Global Sysops would be eliminated. While wikis will still be able to opt out of countervandalism intervention, they will not be able to opt out of global policy enforcement. Under this new system, Global Sysops would honor wikis' requests to not have any countervandalism intervention but there would no longer be a wiki set that restricts them.

Explanation: As stated by DeeM28 in the Global Rollbackers RfC, "by having an opt-out, wikis are able to restrain the people who are able to enforce policies. It is as if a city could "opt-out" from national police and only allow local police to enforce laws - it does not make much sense." Though the current GS team is small, in the future if it expands, it could potentially be curtailed in it's abilities to respond to global policy violations if a wiki decides to opt out of its intervention. Trivial things like removing a blatant attack page would have to be resolved by a Steward rather than by a Global Sysop who is unable to use their tools on wikis that are opted out of their intervention. In a project like Miraheze, any manpower is appreciated especially since we're all volunteers and may not always have time to check Miraheze to help resolve any issues. If a GS can take something off our plate, we'd appreciate it a lot so that we can get to more complex tasks like CheckUsers and such. Since Global Sysop is a position of high trust, I'm certain we can trust our Global Sysops to respect a wiki's desire to not be subject to Global Sysop countervandalism intervention and should they do that, they can always be subject to a vote of no confidence if they exceed policy. Agent Isai Talk to me! 00:03, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Support (3)

 * 1)  Per explanation and per CN post linked.  Agent Isai  Talk to me! 00:03, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 2)  In the scope of the United States, the example regarding a city opting out of national police is a poor example, as that does in fact happen. Analogy aside, it is more appropriate than restricting tools on particular projects for the projects opting out to establish appropriate local policy and advice for global functionaries (Stewards, Global Sysops, and Global Rollbackers). This comes, of course, with an exception in the pursuit of global policy enforcement.  dross  (t • c • g) 02:39, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 3) --Zeus  (talk|contribs|accounts|email) 21:04, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Comments (3)

 * 1)  This makes sense to me. But the question I do have is how would it be enforced to global sysops to not interven in countervandalism whereas it is okay to intervene to enforce global policies, where is such a list kept? How to we actually enforce it on global sysops? Where is the line drawn on countervandalism and policy enforcement? Can they revert the vandalism on opt-out wikis to revert cross-wiki vandalism or spam, or do they ignore such an instance on any opt out wikis? Meta is currently opt-out as of now, but proposal one counteracts this, they can interven in the instance of emergency spam or vandalism on Meta if that passes, does the same thing apply to any other potential opt-out wikis? Universal Omega (talk) 02:20, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * In this respect I'm of the mind that the entire opt-out concept is a bit silly; the only reason for intervention should either be vandalism/abusive and otherwise unwanted content or global policy issues with little room for ambiguity. If a wiki is handling things well enough on its own then global intervention won't be required in the first place. Perhaps this could be an additional proposal or RfC. --Raidarr (talk) 20:45, 5 October 2022 (UTC)