[pydotorg-www] Fwd: Re: [Python Wiki] Update of "PythonEditors" by PaulBoddie

[anatoly techtonik]

On Sun, Feb 9, 2014 at 4:09 PM, Paul Boddie <paul at boddie.org.uk> wrote:
> On Sunday 9. February 2014 12.14.14 anatoly techtonik wrote:
>> Can somebody make Wiki send mails from some list address more suitable
>> for discussions?
>
> You can't argue with the wiki? ;-)
>
> But regarding the change I made...
>
> [...]
>
>> > The "PythonEditors" page has been changed by PaulBoddie:
>> > https://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonEditors?action=diff&rev1=557&rev2=558
>> >
>> > Comment:
>> > Added ACL.
>>
>> Why?
>
> Because I'm fed up of having to revert wiki pages all the time. Some people
> may subscribe to the idea that things should be super-easy for random people
> on the Internet to go in and make their oh-so-vital contribution to shared
> resources like the Python Wiki, because it's otherwise "setting a high
> barrier", "inconvenient for quick changes" or just being "elitist", but when
> it just means that people go in and vandalise it with their stupid link
> spamming, I'd much rather raise the barrier so that it's more likely that only
> people motivated enough to sign up and to actually demonstrate competence and
> benign intent get to edit those resources.

I'd say that spammers are more motivated than competent people
nowadays. The decline in Wikipedia edits shows a clear trend, so EAFP
becomes even more important to encourage valuable additions. The 2014
solution is not strict ACL, but ACL that just puts edits in
ModerationQueue, which MoinMoin doesn't implement.

>> > + #acl TrustedEditorsGroup:read,write,delete,revert All:read
>> > +
>> >
>> >   If you have anything to contribute -- e.g. configurations for editors,
>> >   new editors, or opinion -- don't hesitate to edit or create pages.
>>
>> Isn't it contradicting with ACL?
>
> Not really. Random spammers don't have anything to contribute, and short of
> introducing other measures (which exist but don't seem to be palatable to the
> admins, at least as far as I know),

No. The question is about this text -

>> >   If you have anything to contribute -- e.g. configurations for editors,
>> >   new editors, or opinion -- don't hesitate to edit or create pages.

people won't be able to edit or create pages under ACL, so after don't
hesitating they will become stumbled.

> be a resistance to do so. I think admin time and resources are limited (and
> I've been waiting for months for the go-ahead on something else that involves
> the python.org infrastructure, although I'm quite prepared to wait), and so we

For me such issues should be made public. There are many Python users who
are full time admins, who are mostly free if they good at what they are doing,
and they may help.

> just have to make the best out of what we have. But that doesn't mean asking
> more from me and others who de-spam the wiki just to make everybody else's
> lives, including those of random spammers, easier.

It would be more fun to use the best what we have and not build upon best that's
available. Because in Belarus I don't know people who would do through the
process of requesting permission to edit a page on Python wiki, and we have
about 10 mln. people. I'd also give edit privilege to any person who
made at least
one successful edit.