Forum:Dummy admin account for extra special users?
Because of the tragic losses of both Rc and Brad to the cold, hellish outside world, some of us regular peoples have been concerned with the timeliness of featured articles. I, being drunker than usual for 10:00 in the evening, started pestering ZB (our valiant de facto featurer) about this, and found he also works! By all accounts, this is a good thing, except in the case of regulating time; understandably so, ZB may not always be around to feature an article, and as such, some stay up longer than others, some get taken down earlier, etc.
Now, I've said before that I definitely don't want to be an admin. But, I do want to keep the good ship Uncyc running at full capacity: the more professionally presented the site is, the higher our level of satire and the better we accomplish our mission of good humor. As such, I propose a dummy account which will be granted admin status. The password to this account will be granted only to a VERY limited number of users with the express purpose of regulating VFH and getting articles featured.
I thought the idea was kind of far-fetched, but ZB made the good point that all edits are revertable, and would all be tied to the single account. If needed, the password could be changed regularly or something to ensure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands.
What'dya think, sirs? --THINKER 02:37, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
- Well, I'm glad that I made "a good point" about it being revertable, because I feel that I'm about to make a few more. You see, we admins are sterotypically lazy. I'm not saying that we all are lazy. Some of us pretend that we're busy. Some of us pretend to be in rehab for 12 months. But, over all, we'll let things lie fallow. This is how I came to be doing the featuring. It was fallow, and it needed doing. Now, my first point, is that it doesn't matter what time articles are featured. A very select few users ever see the edits that change the featured article zoom by on the recent changes. Even less open a browser window to the mainpage and refresh it ever few minutes looking for a change. In the long run, it doesn't matter. Now to the meat of it. This account idea sounds mad. Who'll decide who gets the password? Will we vote? Well, if we vote, then why not just stick to using VFS? You see, despite what "good points" ZB may make, it will never work. Someone will be bound to abuse it, and then we'll be stuck cleaning up. And, like I said at the beggining, we don't like cleaning up our own messes, when we can just not make them in the first place. -- Brigadier General Sir Zombiebaron 02:48, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
- Well obviously sysops would vote on it, it could be voted on right here (lock page if necessary), and would decided who gets the password. And if the right people are allowed, it wont be a mess; it would be the exact opposite. How does one become an admin? By proving themselves worthy of the position. I think anyone who cares enough about something this trivial would care enough not to abuse it. And if it does become a mess, so what? You said yourself you're the deleter; if it goes astray even one time, revert those edits, delete the account and forget it ever existed. --THINKER 02:56, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
- Far be it from me to speak for all the admins, but I'd much rather just stick to things the way they are. Its worked for 2 years (with some changes, I know) and it'll work for at least 2 more. So, in 2009, we'll talk, okay? -- Brigadier General Sir Zombiebaron 02:59, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
- I agree with ZB, who the hell cares if the feature doesn't change at the same precise moment every day? And if you do care, its because RC has done such an awesome job at faithfully changing it at the same time, so its lulled you all into a false sense of timeliness. Our admins do a good job, for no thanks and no pay, and I appreciate that you propose a way to "lighten their load" however I have to wonder why this load in particular is the one you want to lighten. Its really, in my opinion anyway, of little concern. People seem of late to be trying to fix things that aren't broken. I KNOW that the work of categorising every article, proofreading every article, Pee Reviewing all the requested articles, rewriting all the stubs and crap articles can't be complete yet. So perhaps there are bigger fish to fry? And the thought of several users having access to an opped account quite frankly is so fraught with problems as to be laughable. Be grateful that someone will do it at all and don't complain about the time they manage to find to give to the task as far as I'm concerned. ~ Dame Ceridwyn ~ talk DUN VoNSE arc2.0 03:41, 27 July 2007
Just my two bits, but couldn't it be auto-magically done with the magic of a template with a {{CURRENTDAY}}, and just copying the first-paragraph into the template/subtemplate ahead of time? This way, it's semi-automagical. This way, it doesn't matter when the featured article is added to the queue during the day, and it can be added days in advance, IE, as it passes VFH. Again, just my two bits. EugeneKay wuz here (whine thank)
- I made a working demo. User:Ekashp/Featuredarticle. Notice that it includes User:Ekashp/Featuredarticle/{{CURRENTYEAR}}{{CURRENTMONTH}}{{CURRENTDAY}}. To use it, just copy the first paragraph of each day's featured article into a new article, then huff the previous day's, and add it to an archive somewhere to keep from crapping up the database too much. As an argument for this method, it will change at the same exact moment each day, so long as somebody remembers to keep the "queue" full. I'm sure I could gin up some crappy "do in case of non-existant article" wikicode just in case, and have it feature This Page Does Not Exist. EugeneKay wuz here (whine thank) 03:46, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
- Oh absolutely, I'd much rather have it automated than go the dummy account route. I brought this up because automation has been discussed in several instances regarding features but was never solidified. --THINKER 03:56, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
- Not a new idea. I think that fr: already was using some variation on the {CURRENTDAY} trick and pt: is using the random choose/option algorithm to just randomly display any of the featured-article blurbs on Desciclopédia's mainpage. --03:59, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
We still need to automate this process... 
2007.07.30.02:21
- Seconded (x5 now) --THINKER 02:25, 30 July 2007 (UTC)