User blog:C.Syde65/Technical Update: 8 September, 2016

{|width="100%" {|style="background: white; border: 3px solid navy; -moz-border-radius: 10px; -webkit-border-radius: 10px; font-size:95%; width: 95%" align="center" It's been a long time since I wrote a community blog, but here it is. The latest technical update blog. Well it's not just a technical update blog. It's mostly an announcement blog. We have had two changes to C.Syde's Wiki in the last couple of days that I'd like to announce. The first change is that I have expanded the width of the forum boards.
 * colspan="2" align="center"| Technical Update: 8 September, 2016

I have made the forum boards wider so that they fill up more space, so now instead of seeing blank pink space, we'll be seeing the forum boards instead. It always bugged me how the new forum boards and threads were always narrower than the old forums. Since the old forums used pages instead of threads, I have yet to see if it's possible to make the forum threads the same width as the old forum pages. Well, at least they aren't so narrow as they were before.

The other big change that I'd like to announce is that yesterday, a proposal to remove the chat moderator/rollback/discussion moderator requirements for assistant/content moderator candidates was passed. So now, regular users will now be able to apply for content moderator and/or assistant rights without the need to apply for chat moderator, rollback, and/or discussion moderator rights first. Assistants and Content Moderators are held to a high enough standard without those prerequisites, so I no longer see the point in needing those prerequisites for assistant and content moderator-ship.

For Chat Moderator, Rollback, and Discussion Moderator candidates, a user only needs to not have a history of vandalism or bad faith edits across wikia, and the chances of their request passing is in the bag. But for Content Moderator and Assistant candidates, the decision as to whether the candidate is ready to obtain those rights is a much more formal one. Content Moderators and Assistants aren't like Chat Moderators, Roll-backers, and Discussion Moderators, because they have access to various tools that Chat Moderators, Roll-backers, and Discussion Moderators don't have access to.

Content Moderators and Assistants are able to edit fully protected pages - not including pages inside the user interface which can only be edited by Administrators - and change the protection levels of pages. They are able to re-name images, and pages without leaving behind re-directs, and view deleted history entries, and deleted text and changes between deleted revisions. Content Moderators can delete and undelete pages, and Assistants can edit old archived forums, blog articles, import pages, mark reverted edits as bot edits, move blog articles, override title black lists, search deleted pages, toggle comments on blog articles, use higher limits in API queries, and view lists of un-watched pages.

I'm not trying to say that they outrank Chat Moderators, Roll-backers, and Discussion Moderators, I mean those three user-groups still hold significance, and any user who happens to be part of those user-groups earned those rights by trust, which not every user has. Chat Moderators and Discussion Moderators are able to carry out administrative functions in chat by kicking and banning disruptive users. Roll-backers are able to carry out administrative functions with reverting vandalism by use of the rollback tool. And Discussion Moderators are able to carry out administrative functions with the social side of the wiki through archiving wall posts, deleting article comments, editing article comments and wall posts, moving article comments and wall messages, notifying users about forum threads, removing wall threads, and deleting comments on blog articles.

It's just that from my perspective at least, the tools that Assistants and Content Moderators are entrusted with have a more serious impact on the wiki, as they are able to edit fully protected pages, and also they have access to what is underneath, instead of just the things that can be seen by all users. In other words, they can access content that has been deleted, whereas non-administrators that don't have Content Moderator or Assistant status cannot access content that has been removed from the public eye.

Although the proposal to remove the Chat Moderator, Rollback, and Discussion Moderator requirements for Content Moderator and Assistant candidates did well and truly pass, a contributing factor may have been due to the fact that the forum thread was left unhighlighted for goodness knows how long without my knowledge. The result was that not everyone that was browsing my wiki was notified of this forum thread. But I definitely remember highlighting it, despite not saying anywhere in the forum history that I highlighted the forum thread. We only had one support vote and one comment during the 7 day time-frame. But I'm sure that even if the thread had been highlighted the whole time, the outcome wouldn't have been much different.

But anyway, best of luck. ― C.Syde  ( talk  |  contribs ) 23:03, September 7, 2016 (UTC)