Wikipedia Sucks!

This is a thought experiment on how someone could become a steward without following policy or even being elected at all.

Requirements: be 16 or more, know some PHP.

Step 1: Become a community developer. One way you could start would be a hackathon. See also: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Good_first_bugs
Step 2: Contribute for a while.
Step 3: Get familiar with the process and get on the "good side" with a few emeployees.
Step 4: Sign the NDA. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/wmf-nda/
Step 5: File an SRE-Access-Request on Phabricator. Make up excuses to why you need it. Maybe you could even "cause" a problem with your bad-hand account to be "fixed" by your main account.
Step 6: Leverage the support of the previously mentioned employees. https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Vol ... _support_2
Step 7: Get their boss to approve you.
Step 8: See this
Step 9: Wait for the WMF bureaucrats to approve you.
Step 10: You now have shell access.
Step 11: Read this and go to SRG(P).
Step 12: Now you are a sysadmin.
Step 13: Make yourself a steward.
Step 14: Congratulations! You have gamed the system.

And if anyone questions you, just cite some non-existent policy, or lock their account.

It's possible, but it will be a hell of a lot of work and probably take at least a couple of years. You don't rise in the Wikimedia gang by actual achievements, you rise by sucking up and gaining the trust of untrustworthy people.

ericbarbour wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 23, 2023 7:16 pm

It's possible, but it will be a hell of a lot of work and probably take at least a couple of years. You don't rise in the Wikimedia gang by actual achievements, you rise by sucking up and gaining the trust of untrustworthy people.

And you can lose "the keys to the kingdom" in a day.

This board documents many hard-core editors, check-users, autistic folks, and administrators who have been eaten alive (or thrown out) by Wikipedia on a whim. "Wikipedia eats its own." Imagine being so vested in something only to lose "your reason for being" in a day

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... /for_cause

Even your nemesis-block-head was on the chopping block;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... _for_Bbb23

(the above jibber-jabber has an astronomical word-count - there is more gibberish being generated than content)

n April, the Arbitration Committee privately warned Bbb23 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) that his use of the CheckUser tool had been contrary to local and global policies prohibiting checking accounts where there is insufficient evidence to suspect abusive sockpuppetry ("fishing"). The committee additionally imposed specific restrictions on Bbb23's use of the CheckUser tool in ambiguous cases otherwise considered to be within the discretion of individual CheckUsers. Bbb23 has subsequently communicated to the committee that he is unwilling to comply with these restrictions, continued to run similar questionable checks, and refused to explain these checks on request. Accordingly, Bbb23's CheckUser access is revoked.

It's sort of pointless to have a "fixation" or "hard-on" (can you say that these days) for any particular editor or Administrator; as participation in a toxic platform never ends well..


But they're cousins, Identical cousins all the way. One pair of matching bookends, Different as night and day.