Wikipedia talk:Edit filter manager

RfC about the status of this page

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Should the Wikipedia:Edit filter manager page be promoted to a procedural policy? EggRoll97 ^(talk) 19:03, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Because the edit filter helper page is a procedural policy, and this page is not, I would have no objections to this. Codename Noreste 🤔 Talk 19:12, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. The content and guidelines on this page have community consensus and are followed regularly, so promoting this to a policy page is a good idea. – DreamRimmer (talk) 07:26, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Makes sense - it's comparable in importance, structure and level of consensus to the EFH page which is a procedural policy. Thryduulf (talk) 10:19, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Support. Seems reasonable, and this is essentially already followed as such. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 22:35, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Support: per everyone supporting above. – PharyngealImplosive7 (talk) 18:20, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Support This makes sense. Nobody (talk) 05:19, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

No objections, but I'll add that self-noms should be added as a requirement per Special:PermaLink/1217561114#Extending time for EFH discussions, where discussion clearly reached a consensus to require self-noms for both EFM and EFH requests. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 05:40, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

That seems sensible as well. Thryduulf (talk) 09:20, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree, but I am wondering why EFM wasn't mentioned in that closing argument. Nobody (talk) 09:48, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

@0xDeadbeef: No objections personally, though I'm not sure if DreamRimmer found consensus for EFM self-nom requirements in addition to the consensus for EFH self-nom requirements in that discussion. Speaking on my own, when I !voted in that, I wasn't necessarily under the assumption it covered EFMs, but that it was intended to stop third party nominations of EFHs. Uncontroversial none-the-less, though, and the only non-self-nom I can find for EFM is Danny's nomination by SoY. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 20:37, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

I think there was no objections to that being applied to EFMs in that discussion, and which means there would be consensus. The close not mentioning that is unfortunate but the statement could always be amended. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 14:27, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

@0xDeadbeef: I have added it to the Process for requesting section. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 03:58, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 07:18, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

• Support: Makes sense. C F A 💬 22:23, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Consistency with Wikipedia:Edit_filter#User_right and past practice

There are a few proses in Wikipedia:Edit_filter#User_right, the prose historically governing this right, which are absent here. Since this page is largely copied from EFH I'm not sure if that's by design, but there are material changes in how this right was granted and revoked historically.

1. The old page was a lot more conservative on the granting of the right. The assignment of the edit filter manager user right to non-admins is highly restricted. It should only be requested by and given to highly trusted users, when there is a clear and demonstrated need for it. I think the loosening of prose is probably fine, just making sure this is intentional.
2. Revocation criteria used to be If an edit filter manager is misusing the user right, the concern should first be raised with them directly. If discussion does not resolve the issue, a request for discussion or removal of the user right may be made at the edit filter noticeboard. As the right is granted by community consensus, I think revocation should also be by community consensus. That's consistent with all other rights/groups granted by consensus (EFH being an edge case, as I suppose it can be unilaterally granted in some cases). In general, I don't think consensus grant -> unilateral revoke makes sense. Unilateral grant -> unileral revoke historically has been acceptable, although cases likely to be controversial tend to be referred for discussion anyway. The prose in this page also changes the venue at which that discussion takes place; I think EFN continues to make sense as it's the venue that grants the right and it's a less contentious board than AN. I'm not sure if these changes have been discussed and motivated somewhere?

I'd also suggest removing information on using the right, and instead referring to WP:EF, where the content already exists. It's content duplication and likely to fall out of sync. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:00, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I'd be inclined to shorten or remove the Wikipedia:Edit_filter#User_right section, since I think this info is more at home in the EFM and EFH pages, and it is a maintenance burden to keep multiple pages in sync.

I wouldn't mind unilateral revokes of EFM by admins, and I wouldn't mind it being discussed anywhere (AN, EFN). That keeps the process simple and similar to that of other perms. EFM revocation comes up so infrequently that it seems a bit unnecessary to give it a special process that is different / more complex than the normal process. I don't feel that strongly about it, but those are my thoughts. –Novem Linguae (talk) 15:02, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

tbh, more generally speaking, new policy pages on obscure topics worry me, because they're not likely to be watched by a broad audience. WP:EF has 529 watchers; this page has less than 30, and it's not realistically going to get more. In future, it's substantially harder to add a controversial change to WP:EF than here. The change is probably only going to be noticed when it's used, which IME just causes heartache down the road. Aside from that, this page takes a lot more words to express what the previous section did in four paragraphs, and I don't see what problem it solves.

I'd probably have opposed for this reason in the above discussion, and if anything would have been in favour of folding WP:EFH into WP:EF, as with WP:BAGREQ in WP:BOTPOL, distinct from the overview at WP:BAG.

That said, I'm worried of creating the situation discussed at WP:POLFORK - where creation of a new policy page is easier than amending an existing one. I'm not sure if these changes would have consensus if explicitly brought up at WP:EFN or WP:VPR. I don't see any problem they solve, while I do see potentially controversial situations that don't happen under the current guidance. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:05, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

While I'm not sure what the historical revocation requirements were, as there hasn't been one since I started editing. I do believe there should be a activity requirement. EFM and EFH are high trust rights, there shouldn't be accounts with them that haven't edited in years. Also EFH and EFM revocation requirements should by the same. Nobody (talk) 05:29, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

In practice, we generally remove EFM for anyone that is inactive for a year. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:26, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader: I'm not against the idea of restricting revocation to discussion-only, though I still maintain that revocation for inactivity over a full year or for failure to maintain account security should be enforced, given the massive damage this right can cause in the wrong hands. As a side note, I did advertise the RFC itself at WP:EFN, WT:EF, WP:VPP, and WP:VPR, so I wouldn't say it's not well-advertised. This was also workshopped for a short bit here. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 06:01, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

A year of inactivity makes sense, and I see xaosflux notes above that it's already the current practice. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:55, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader: Would you object to having the inactivity provision and account security provisions for revocation re-added? EggRoll97 ^(talk) 22:55, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Readding an inactivity provision makes sense. It's objective to enforce.

Re account security. I agree with the principle, but IMO this policy is best left saying nothing on the matter. Most EFMs are admins, and I don't think it makes sense to say an admin's account security is too poor for EFM but acceptable for adminship. It's also potentially controversial for a single admin to unilaterally pull a permission from another, as a form of sanction. I think it's best for WP:SECUREADMIN to apply; if adminship is pulled, so is EFM; if adminship is returned, so is EFM. In the case of a non-admin, 🤷; it's probably a very unlikely case so could be handled by whichever admins are dealing with the situation if it arises. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:45, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader: This is fair, and as long as the inactivity provision is added back I have no objections. EFM is probably about as close to adminship as one gets on enwiki, to the point that it might well be synonymous in standing. If nothing else, WP:LEVEL1 does cover more than just adminship, so I imagine ArbCom could pull the right from a non-admin just as easily as an admin if the issue ever arose of a compromised account. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 01:17, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

As an update, I have re-added the inactivity revocation provision. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 17:51, 1 September 2024 (UTC)