How Wikipedia works (part 3)

    Hello, Habr!
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    Given the interest in previous publications about the Wikipedia device, we continue the story. Briefly intercept the wand from a colleague. The topic of this publication can be formulated “Who are Wikipedia Moderators?” - it is dedicated to who has what rights when editing on Wikipedia.

    Previous articles:



    “Wikipedia moderator deleted my article”, “Wikipedia moderator canceled my edits” - such messages are often read by Wikipedia participants, they are often left by newcomers and people who decided to “fix a mistake” in an article about a favorite movie, character or something else. So who are they - Wikipedia Moderators? Understanding the various statuses of Wikipedia participants from the outside is not so simple, the purpose of this post is to talk about it.

    To begin with, I will answer the question about moderators - they are actually all Wikipedia participants. Any participant (even unregistered) can technically cancel any editing in an article, unless this article is protected from editing. Unfortunately, the concept of "Free Encyclopedia" is not widely understood by many. They understand freedom as an opportunity to write anything about anything. In reality, the concept of freedom refers to the fact that Wikipedia can be ruled by anyone who wants it. At the same time, there are participants who track the latest edits - they are the ones who most often cancel incorrect edits if they contain vandalism, advertising, spam, etc. It should be borne in mind that different participants may have different technical capabilities for such actions. Someone might just cancel editing Someone can take some measures to prevent such violations. So let's try to figure out who has what rights.

    Registered and unregistered participants


    First, a little about terminology. All people who make changes on Wikipedia are referred to as participants (in English user terminology). In addition, usually the concept of "status of the participant" is avoided, they say that the participant has some kind of flag.
    There are 2 fundamentally different categories of participants.

    1. Unregistered participants

    Sometimes they are also called anonymous participants, although this is not completely correct in terminology. Oddly enough, but unregistered participants leave much more information about themselves. The fact is that for any Wikipedia page you can see the history of edits. And it always has information about who makes what changes. For unregistered participants, their ip address is recorded. So if you don’t want someone to know more about you than you need, it’s better not to edit Wikipedia anonymously - you can learn a lot about the author of the edits (especially if it's static) (for example, place of work - if the participant rules from the working computer). In addition, unregistered participants can edit far from all pages, and the attitude of many Wikipedia authors towards them is very ambiguous (for example, and English Wikipedia even unregistered participants cut off the possibility of creating new articles). Although there are participants who basically do not want to register, but believe me: a registered participant gets much more opportunities for writing articles.

    2. Registered members

    What does a participant get if he signs up? First, he will have a permanent account and a discussion page. If an unregistered participant has a dynamic ip, then running after him to get some information, it’s a pleasure (I know from my own experience). After some time, a registered participant will be able to upload illustrations and rename articles. In addition, a registered participant can create articles in their personal space - no one will interfere with working on the article there, after finishing the work, the article can be moved to the main article space (without different prefixes). But Wikipedia spaces are a topic for a special conversation. In short, that is the main space where all the articles are located (there are no prefixes in front of the title of the article). There are various office spaces, which are not so few. They contain pages that are not articles. One such space is Personal Space. For him there is a prefix Participant. For example, you registered under the name Goga. Then your personal page will have the name Member: Goga (the synonymous name User: Goga is also supported). The talk page may be called Talk: Goga. What else does a registered member get? He can mark articles that he is interested in (or that he created) as trackable, and then he can track any edits in them - each registered member has a special “Watchlist” page, where all edits in the monitored pages are displayed for a certain period of time. Besides,

    After some time has passed after registration and the registered participant will make a certain number of edits, his capabilities will expand. After 4 days from the date of registration, the participant who made at least 15 edits is automatically transferred to the “Autoconfirmed participant” group. What does it give? He gets the opportunity to edit partially protected pages, rename pages, add external links without confirmation (captcha). After 14 days, participants who made more than 20 edits automatically receive a upload flag, which makes it possible to upload files to Wikipedia (primarily illustrations). Although everything related to files is not so simple - there are very serious restrictions on which photos can be downloaded and which not, but this is a topic for another discussion. In short: You can only upload files that you personally created (with certain restrictions), as well as files in the public domain or created under a free license. In principle, non-free files can be downloaded, but with very significant reservations. The issue of licensing images is generally one of the most difficult on Wikipedia. At the same time, if you violate the rules for licensing images, then the flag of the uploader may be removed from you.

    Flags assigned to members on Wikipedia


    However, these flags are not the only ones existing on Wikipedia. The Wikipedia community is a self-organizing mechanism; for the normal functioning of Wikipedia, competent participants are needed who can receive additional technical rights. Briefly consider what these rights are.

    Wikipedia-related flags

    First of all, this is the Administrator flag.. An administrator is an experienced member who knows the rules of Wikipedia. He has a number of technical rights, including the ability to delete / restore articles, as well as blocking participants for violations. Also, administrators can assign (and clear) members some flags. At the same time, administrators also have a social component - administrators summarize the discussions (deleting articles, for example), act as intermediaries in complex issues, they are contacted to respond to various violations. Also, administrators can protect pages, and there are 2 levels: to auto-confirmed participants and to administrators. Usually protection is imposed in the event of constant vandalism or a war of revisions. At the same time, preventive protection is possible. There is also an alternative - stabilization of the article. In this case, the article can be edited by anyone,
    Now there are 89 administrators in the Russian Wikipedia, and far from all are active. The administrators flag is assigned based on the results of the voting of active Wikipedia participants, which lasts 2 weeks, to receive the flag, certain requirements for the length of service and the number of edits are presented to candidates.

    As you can easily see, there are not very many administrators (for comparison, there are 1,400 of them in the English Wikipedia), work is not so small for them, and getting a flag is generally not so simple: you need to have some experience and experience, but to assign a flag you need to score more than 2/3 of the vote (66%). As a result, some other flags were introduced, assigned as a result of the discussion:
    • flag of the Summing-up , the owners of which can summarize (with some restrictions) on the discussion pages of deleting pages, as well as delete articles;
    • flag renaming files (its essence is clear from the name).

    The administrator flag is assigned by bureaucrats, the other 2 by administrators.

    Bureaucrat flag

    It can be obtained by administrators by voting, which is carried out in the same way as receiving the flag of the administrator, only need to get at least 2/3 of the votes (66%) as administrators, but 3/4 (75%). The presence of this flag expands the capabilities of the administrator, the bureaucrat can assign the flags of the administrator, bureaucrat, arbiter and bot. Accordingly, bureaucrats summarize the results of applications for the status of administrator, bureaucrat and bot, and also summarize the results of the elections to the Arbitration Committee, a re-elected semi-annual special commission on Wikipedia in the amount of 5 to 7 arbitrators, which serves as the last stage for resolving disputes, as well as It has the authority to remove flags, including the flags of the administrator and the bureaucrat, as well as unblock participants and impose various restrictions on participants in case of violations. If it’s interesting, the arbitration committee will be discussed separately. Until recently, bureaucrats were also involved in renaming user accounts and usurping accounts, but soon - from September 15th - they would remove this function, renaming local accounts would no longer be, instead, there would be a renaming of global accounts that stewards would carry out. Previously, only bureaucrats had the right to take stock in complex discussions (for example, rules), but now any experienced participant can sum up. instead, there will be a renaming of global accounts that stewards will carry out. Previously, only bureaucrats had the right to take stock in complex discussions (for example, rules), but now any experienced participant can sum up. instead, there will be a renaming of global accounts that stewards will carry out. Previously, only bureaucrats had the right to take stock in complex discussions (for example, rules), but now any experienced participant can sum up.
    There are currently 6 bureaucrats on Russian Wikipedia. It should be noted that bureaucrats are not in all sections, but in Spanish Wikipedia, the flag of bureaucrats is assigned to all administrators.

    Flags of patrol and autopatrol

    One of the challenges facing the Wikipedia community is creating quality articles. It is clear that this process is very lengthy. One of Wikipedia’s problems is that anyone can edit it. And a lot of changes in the articles - vandal. To combat vandalism, spam, hoaxes, etc. at one time, a special mechanism was created - article patrolling. A patrolman can mark an article as patrolled if they meet certain requirements. First of all, this is the absence of obvious vandalism in the patrol, advertising, obviously inaccurate information, etc., as well as when the article meets certain requirements for filling and design.
    To accomplish this task, a special patrol flag was introduced.. It is assigned to bona fide participants who have shown their understanding of the requirements for patrol articles. At the same time, if the patrolman makes an amendment to the already patrolled article, then it will remain patrolled. If the article (or, more precisely, the current version of the article) was not patrolled, then the patrolman must manually set the mark on patrol. This mark demonstrates that the article meets certain quality requirements.
    In addition, the flag of the auto -patroller was introduced - it is assigned to bona fide participants, whose patrols do not need to be verified. If the auto-patroller makes an amendment to an already-patrolled article, then it remains patrolled, but they cannot leave a note on patrols manually.
    In the load to the flag, the patrolman usually issues two more flags:
    • rollback flag - when using it, you can roll back all the latest edits of one participant with one click. This is mainly used to quickly cancel vandal edits;
    • flag renaming without redirects - allows you to suppress the creation of special pages when redirecting articles - redirects that automatically redirect from one page name to another.

    Flags are assigned by administrators following a discussion lasting, as a rule, 3 days, although the administrator has the right to assign a flag to a bona fide participant at his own risk without discussion.

    Other flags

    In addition to the above, there are a number of flags for performing specialized tasks.

    Flag of the auditor

    With its help, you can hide versions of pages from visibility so that their contents will not be visible to anyone except the auditors themselves. By the way, administrators have already had a similar tool for several years, but auditors can hide the visibility of article versions from administrators. Basically, auditors hide personal information (for example, if someone published a phone number, credit card, etc.) A flag is assigned only by decision of the Arbitration Committee by stewards, and auditors are required to prove that they are at least 18 years old and must be prepared Provide personal information about yourself to Wikimedia Foundation employees. There are now 4 auditors in Russian Wikipedia (according to the rules there should be at least 2 of them).

    Checker flag (checker, from English. CheckUser - checking participants)

    Validators can view a list of all the IP addresses of the user account, a list of all edits from a specific IP. They can see the log of actions of all reviewers. The main area of ​​activity is the identification of serial violators and bypassing locks by indefinitely blocked participants. There are strict rules - when such a check is possible, as well as what personal information can be reported ( CheckUser policy ). The flag is assigned only by decision of the Arbitration Committee by the stewards, while, as in the case of auditors, inspectors must prove that they are at least 18 years old and must be ready to provide personal information about themselves to Wikimedia Foundation employees. There are 5 reviewers on Russian Wikipedia.

    Bot flag

    Wikipedia has many routine tasks that can be automated. To solve them, participants register separate accounts for which you can get the status of a bot. The flag is assigned by bureaucrats following the discussion. Bots work in automatic or semi-automatic mode, and by default bot edits are not displayed in the list of recent edits or the watch list. This was described in detail in the previous part .

    Member of the Arbitration Committee

    The flag is assigned to the participants selected by the arbitration committee who do not have an administrator flag. It adds arbitrators some of the functions of administrators. After completion of work in the Arbitration Committee, the flag is removed. Currently, out of 7 arbitrators of non-administrators, 2 are members, they are assigned a flag.

    Steward flag

    This is one of the global flags; stewards are assigned globally for all Wikipedia language sections by the Wikimedia Foundation through a special procedure. Stewards can issue and remove any flags to any user in any Wikipedia section administered by the Wikimedia Foundation. At the same time, for local sections, stewards assign / remove flags only when they do not have participants with the appropriate rights. Recently, stewards can also be engaged in renaming global accounts, although it seems that a special flag will be created for this, which bureaucrats can receive by a simplified procedure.

    IP Block Exclusion Flag

    The owners of this flag do not fall under the influence of automatic blocking and blocking of a specific IP address or the entire range. The flag can be assigned to bona fide participants if their ip-address is periodically blocked. For example, if a vandal rules from some dynamic ip-address, then the only way to deal with it is to block the entire range. At the same time, bona fide participants can fall under the lock. To prevent this from happening, they can be given a special flag, though they should be ready to check for identity with this vandal (see below on the checker's flag).

    There are several more flags, but they are either very specific, or not yet used.

    Conclusion


    More details about all flags can be found on Wikipedia pages, the main page is here . Finally - a small statistic. Now on Russian Wikipedia:
    • Registered Members: 1,338,642
    • Active participants (who have performed an action in the last 30 days): 10 517
    • Bots: 113
    • Uploaders: 35,370
    • Patrol: 1705
    • Auto Patrol: 1615
    • Rollbacks: 1564
    • Renaming without redirects: 466
    • IP Block Exceptions: 47
    • Administrators: 89
    • Bureaucrats: 6
    • Totals: 50
    • Renaming files: 48
    • Members of the arbitration committee: 2
    • Auditors: 4
    • Validating participants: 5


    I hope the information provided is helpful. If you have specific questions, I am ready to answer them.

    See you soon!

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