Requests for Comment/Meta usergroups reform

Autopatrolled, patroller and rollback In 2020, the autopatrolled and patroller groups were split through community vote in an RfC, resulting in two distinct limited-permissions roles alongside the already-existing rollbacker. With 3 years of history to review, it's clear that the three limited-rights roles (autopatrolled, patroller and rollbacker) on Meta today are not meeting the project's needs.

These groups are frequently requested by inexperienced users (sometimes as a matter of hat collection) without adequate understanding or intention to use the permissions effectively and positively contribute to the Meta community. While these permissions *can* be useful, they should be awarded based on discretion and intent, not as titles that users are pursuing because they think they "deserve" it.

Determining who should have these rights without any established criteria can also be a challenge -- If one user requests rollbacker, why not give it to everyone else? This RfC will propose changes to the current system to help codify criteria and consolidate duplicative roles into ones more helpful to the community.

Thank you to NotAracham for his assistance with drafting.

Proposed by:

Proposal 1 (Elimination of rollbacker)

 * The rollbacker group is eliminated and  permissions are given to the patrolled group

Note: If Proposal 4 is successful, this proposal is superseded

Rationale: Rollbacker only contains one right ('rollback'). Vandalism is rare on Meta and there's few ways users can really prove that they need this role. There are few dangers to give rollback to patrolled users as worst case rollback can easily be rolled back with a Javascript script. There's no need to have this extra role on Meta and have users constantly request it after helping once or twice to revert vandalism. All rollbackers are currently patrollers so in terms of a transition wouldn't make any difference currently and also serves as proof that it's not needed as a separate role.

Proposal 2.1 (Appointment Criteria for autopatrolled)
1. OR 2.
 * Meta administrators will generally grant the autopatrolled right if a user:
 * has been a user on Meta for at least 30 days and
 * has made at least 50 edits (excluding edits to their own userpage or other minor edits)
 * has been a user on Meta for at least 15 days and
 * has made at least 150 edits (excluding edits to their own userpage or other minor edits)

Proposal 2.2 (Revocation Criteria & Discretion for autopatrolled)

 * A Meta administrator may use their discretion and refuse to grant autopatrolled even if the criteria is met and may also use their discretion in deciding whether to revoke autopatrolled. Examples of reasons for this would be: violating Meta or global policies, their edits having to be frequently undone by other users, demonstrating a lack of understanding about how Meta functions.

Proposal 3 (Transition)

 * All autopatrolled users who do not meet the requirements set out in Proposal 2.1 will be revoked.

Proposal 4 (Elimination of patroller)

 * The patroller group is eliminated and  permissions are given to the autopatrolled group

Support (as well as the inclusion of 'rollbacker' in the autopatrolled group)
(Note: The effect of this is that there will be a single group remaining - 'autopatrolled')

Support (but not the inclusion of 'rollbacker' in the autopatrolled group)
(Note: The effect of this is that there will be two groups remaining - 'rollbacker' and 'autopatrolled')

Oppose
(Note: The effect of this will be that either all three groups remain or rollbacker is eliminated if you also supported Proposal 1)

Rationale: Some have argued for this and believe that the function of patrolling isn't really that "high risk" or important to deserve its own group.

Comments

 * 1)  It is interesting to me that the proposer themselves in 2020 suggested that "it doesn't really make sense for the "Autopatrollers" group to also be able to patrol others' edits as that defeats the purpose of its name.". While I cannot say that I would be decidedly against this proposal and while I do not particularly appreciate lengthy debates regarding names rather than substance I must agree with the proposer's original assertion and say that it may be preferable to search for another name for this new user group that would combine two or three current existing groups. I would suggest that in case all three permissions are combined into one group the new group is simply named patroller' as patroller can encompass autopatroller but autopatroller hardly can encompass patroller. --DeeM28 (talk) 14:30, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Translation Translation is currently an issue on Meta. The truth is that the process is less than ideal. Important pages lack full translations in many languages and pages with very little need to be translated are translated. In addition it must unfortunately be said that there are often translations being made with classic machine translators or simply due to a lack of knowledge of the target language where it can be said that a machine translation such as DeepL or even ChatGPT could have done that translation better. We must then ask ourselves whether we want to have some pages with low rate translations when users could simply use performant machine translation services instead and have better quality. Therefore, there are two main solutions to this issue: (if technically possible) integrate machine translation (preferably DeepL) on Meta and have translators simply review it and correct it or keep the current model but only allow certain users to translate. Because we haven't been able to figure out the integration idea, I propose in the meantime we at least strive for better quality translations on Meta.

Proposal 5 (Translator group)

 * Only users in the 'translator' group are able to translate pages.

Proposal 5.1 (Criteria for translator group)
In order to be appointed translator, a user must:
 * Translators are appointed at the discretion of Meta administrators. Translators will initially be appointed for a trial period of 15 days. If a Meta administrator is satisfied that they have performed well they will be appointed indefinitely
 * confirm that they have read mediawikiwiki:Help:Extension:Translate and also understand how to prepare a page for translation
 * have at least level 3 (Babel) competencies in the target language and in English
 * provide a few examples of pages that they intend to work on if approved

Proposal 5.2 (Removal)

 * If it is found that a translator has repeatedly translated pages poorly or otherwise misuse their rights they may be revoked.

Proposal 6 (Translation administrators)

 * The translation administrator group is eliminated and the 'translationadmin' right is given to translators.

Rationale: Similarly to rollback this group is of very limited scope and it's unnecessary to have to assign it separately. If translators were to misuse the group they can easily be revoked.

Proposal 7 (Pages excluded from translation)
Examples are: pages in the Tech namespace, pages that contain lists of users, guides for certain advanced user groups
 * Pages which only present an interest to a limited/select group of users or which are very short should not be translated.