Last modified: 2011-03-13 18:04:52 UTC
At nl.wp we have the "Kluis"(in English:The Safe). We keep there important documents ( like a list of phonenumbers, emails with information about the use of copyright photo's, information about the chatchannel), of whitch it is not the meaning that everyone can read it. The idea is that admins can read and adept these files. Now we have a pretty barbaric system. We upload a .zip-file with a password in itself. But it works very bad. And information is very easy lost. Is it possible to make a secured area in wikipedia, in which only sysops can enter, the changes do not appear in the recent changes list? In here we can place private information, reachable in case we might need it. If this works fine, we can also store the discussions we had per modmail (sysop-mail), and of whitch it is not ment that everyone can read it, but we can find it, if necessary. Could this be created? It would be a great deal. thanks, Effeietsanders (nl.wikipedia-sysop)
Wikipedia is committed to open access and open discussion. A private sysops-only area is contrary to the project's ideals and goals, and would not be acceptable.
I disagree with Brion here. This has nothing to do with "open access and open discussion", but with keeping semsitive data out of the way. We (on nl:) do that allready with this .zip-file, but like to have a more secure and professional solution. So what you (Brion) is saying is that we should publish our e.g. phonenumbers for the whole world to see. I think you understand that this not a smart thing to do. You can't push the "open access and open discussion"-philosophy (that I absolutely support) over the edge. Why not give the root passwords from the Linux server park to everyone? Off course we don't do that, because we have a security policy, the same applies (on a smaller scale) with sensitive moderator/sysop-data. I think this can easily be done. Right now it is possible to deny read-access for certain user-groups, wiki wide. It should be easy to have a few blacklisted pages that only can be read and modified by the sysops. Cheers, Jeroenvrp [[:nl:Gebruiker:Jeroenvrp]]
Extra note: Off course changes on these "sysop"-pages should not be listed for "normal"-users on recentchanges.
These are not part of the wiki.
Suggestion: You could install a separate NLSysopWiki somewhere (i.e. not being part of a Wikipedia spawn) and make the access to that Wiki password protected. Installation of a fresh wiki is usually less than 30 seconds work. Wouldn't that solve all you problems ?
Brion, you just say you don't want to do this. But can you give reasoneble arguments? The argument of "wiki should be open" is just incorrect imho. We deal here with information whitch can not be shared with normal users, but has to be accessable in certain situations. If we need the information of de kluis, or if we have to put extra information into it, it brings now a great risk of loosing other information. This should not be so. Wiki is for information, and open. But to let wiki funtion properly, we have to make certain information whitch cannot be shared with all users open for as mutch users as possible. If we leave it this situation, we just increase the openness of wiki, because we cannot let everyone know we save these things, because they can very easely hack a zipfile. I already understood you are against it, but please clarify your "decision" to give us no chance to explain our point, to defend our view, and to open information to a limited group, instead of a even more limited group. Thanks. Effeietsanders
I support this idea. I think it is a good contribution to the project. I know, we are an open wiki, but sometimes it is necessary to protect some parts to preserve wikipedia. And i think the Kluis/Safe isn't protected enough from vandalisme. I also agree with comment #2 from Jeroenvrp. Remy Overkempe/Empoor ([[:nl:Gebruiker:Empoor]])
I really don't think this is SO MUCH against wiki, that it isn't even an option. This idea doesn't mean the whole wiki would be protected, just these files, that are suppose to be protected. Or else they can be used against the project.
The problem is that you're not just asking for a little place for a few people to share their phone numbers with each other. You're asking for an entire section of the wiki which is inaccessible to users who are not members of the "cabal". That's not what a wiki is, it's not how it works, and it creates and enforces a stricter user access hierarchy which is contrary to the way this project is supposed to be organized. There is no particular reason to believe that such a restricted area, once added, would be used only for sharing private contact information. Additionally your secret sysop pages would be accessible to everyone in the next week's public backup dump, which is probably not something you'd like. If you want to have private conversations, do it in private as individuals, where you can maintain your privacy.
Reopening to correct the resolution.
