Wikipedia talk:Event coordinator

Art+Feminism event coordinators barred

I advocate for the status quo here in granting this userright.

There is no consensus in the documentation on this page. There might be forceful opinions, but nothing here has broad community support or the backing of any reasonable discussion. So far as I know, there has never been a single conversation with an exchange of understanding of other perspectives between the two camps on this userright. One of the groups at this userright is the security enthusiasts who have less experience organizing Wikipedia parties for the general public, and the other group are those who organize Wikipedia outreach in the manner which the Wikimedia community opinion, the Wikimedia Foundation strategic vision, and the Wikimedia grants program funding have incentivized and encouraged since 2011 or earlier.

Art+Feminism is the largest single Wikimedia outreach program with hundreds of in-person meetings worldwide and probably more than 10,000 participants a year. The 2018 report notes 3500 people at 271 programs editing 18,000 articles (3000 new) which so far 60 million people have viewed. Here is a previous discussion about getting rights to the people who organize this event:

• Multi-site events, August 2016

With the roll out of event coordinator, some security advocates are advocating to raise the barriers to doing Wikimedia outreach to discourage events which fail to meet a new higher standard for the event coordinator right as compared to the account creator right. See how there are comments that Art+Feminism's outreach model fails to meet the expected norm at

• Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_permissions#Art+Feminism_ACC_->_EVC_in_bulk?

I say that Art+Feminism and the established outreach programs define the use case, and that whatever process we design either meets the needs of this and all the derivative outreach programs or it is not a process with community backing and consensus.

This userright needs to conform to the needs of the culture of Wikimedia outreach. If there are to be rule changes then those need to get community consensus. Much of the documentation on this page is boldly written without input or endorsement from event coordinators and it does not match the needs of Wikimedia outreach programs. This documentation is not sustainable. The premise from which to start is that event coordinators do outreach in a certain way, and if anyone wants to direct them otherwise, then we need to discuss how we get to that point.

Program and event coordinators for Art+Feminism and all similar programs need the userright in the usual way by status quo. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:09, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

First, that is a complete mischaracterization: anyone who met the permanent granting requirements and was already an account creator was given this flag without them even having to request it. Second, this was put to the community with clear granting guidelines: experienced editors may receive it permanently, editors without experience may receive it temporarily. The RfC likely would have failed if we did not establish clear guidelines for use and granting, because there were some people who were concerned even about a temporary grant to inexperienced users.

Editors who aren't even extended confirmed and never even used the account creator permission they also never asked for do not fall into the guidelines the community established for granting this. If they want to request it for an event, it should be granted very liberally, but we should not be giving out permissions permanently to people who by all indications don't even know what a user permission is or how to use it, and who haven't even asked for it.

You have this completely backwards: Wikimedia outreach must follow the guidelines established by the communities on the projects they are volunteering to help, it is not the job of the policies and guidelines of the English Wikipedia to conform with the culture of Wikimedia outreach. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:28, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

@TonyBallioni: I fail to understand you and I see no evidence that you understand me. On wiki conversation probably is not the best channel for conversation. I am emailing you my contact information. Let's plan to talk by video chat. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:33, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Personally, I think the discussion about this should definitely be kept on-wiki, given it's somehow controversial. Gentle reminder about the third paragraph of WP:OFFWIKI. [stwalkerster|talk] 14:46, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

By status quo, do you mean that we shouldn't grant the Event Coordinator user right at all? Because that was the status quo as of a month ago. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:35, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Can you point to an actual issue that has occurred due to the user right changes ? I'd like hard evidence that the guidelines are wrong and need to be modified before beginning to think about how we might go about modifying those guidelines. I also think Tony's post is accurate, easy to understand and most importantly, correct. Nick (talk) 14:43, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Are there any current examples of a coordinator asking for access, being denied, and impacting an outreach event? The only ones I've seen denied so far had no imminent events- what am I missing? I denied one request today for someone with an event in July, well not so much as denied as asked them to come back when closer to their event. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:54, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Xaosflux, I think he's referencing the A+F request where I granted half of them, didn't act on half of them, and had revoked a few ACC unused rights before the A+F request was made. In terms of status quo, what I'd seen from the account creator PERM page was that temporary access in these cases was the status quo. What it looks like was that some people were preemptively given it permanently in 2015-2016 before user rights had expiries in anticipation of A+F events. Many of these have never been used or have been used once over a year ago.

As a compromise, because I really don't want for this to be a big deal and want to finish up cleaning up the ACC right, I think it could make sense to temporarily grant the A+F people who currently have ACC assigned EVC for a period of 6 months: that will deal with any upcoming editathons without them having to request it through the end of the year and most of the first semester of university in North America. Those who have used it can request it permanently. Those who haven't (which I suspect will be most of them based on the use of the account creator right) will have it lapse without them noticing, and they can request it again if they need it in the future. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:01, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

@TonyBallioni: seems reasonable. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:03, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

@Ahecht: The status quo is the way that users got WP:Account creator. When WP:Event coordinator was established the expectation was that it would be like Account creator, except only for events. No one expected changes in the standard of how it was granted.

@Nick: For a particular example check the Art+Feminism link above. Art+Feminism is an event series that has been running since 2014. Tony has proposed rule changes which take away the WP:Account creator userright which event coordinators in this series have and he has declined to give them the event coordinator right. There is no consensus in the establishment of wp:event coordinator that a significant number of the people who had account creator should lose their userright to create accounts at events. Nick, why do you feel that the standards for this userright should be so much higher than the historical precedent of the account creator right across the years and various programs?

That doesn't answer my question - that's just you complaining for no good reason. Do you have hard evidence that event coordinators are failing to receive the user rights they need in a timely manner and it's impacting on the event they are coordinating ? Yes or No.

I also disagree about increasing standards, historical precedent and all that shite, it's a user right not a reward or medal. The important thing is that a powerful user right is assigned for the correct duration to the correct people in an effort to minimise potential for misuse or outright abuse. I agree entirely with the idea for new editors lacking in experience and with no track record of trust, they get the right temporarily and for experienced users with a track record of trust, they get it permanently.

I also note there's some blatant mistruths creeping into your comments, Bluerasberry. I see nowhere has it been said that Art+Feminism will be refused event coordinator user permission. I see a situation where some existing users who were granted the account creator user right because of their involvement with Art+Feminism have had that permission converted to a permanent event coordinator user right and I see other users who were granted the account creator user right because of their involvement with Art+Feminism not receive a permanent event coordinator user right because, for the most part, they hadn't used the account creator user right or there are trust and competency concerns. Finally, I see a situation where some of those refuse a permanent event coordinator user right will be given a temporary event coordinator user right should they need it and should they ask for it.

I think everything and everybody (other than yourself, with your exaggerated claims of problems) has acted sensibly and fairly, balancing the needs of the Art+Feminism event with the more important needs of the project as a whole. Nick (talk) 15:28, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: I do not think that Art+Feminism actually has a particular event planned in the immediate future. It is just scary to see the event coordinator process here determine that Art+Feminism does not quality as the kind of program which can get event coordinator userrights, and to see a list of people who have organized multiple events User:Theredproject/sandbox/EVC but who are getting rejected to convert account creator rights to event coordinator rights.

@TonyBallioni: I am not sure that I can articulate exactly what compromise is appropriate but what you say seems useful. What I really want is assurance that in the future Art+Feminism and similar programs can request appropriate userrights in the manner that they have done in the past, until and unless there is community discussion and consensus to change. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:06, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry: - Maybe I'm "too lenient" but if an editor popped up and requested access for a planned event I'm pretty sure I'd grant them access and wish them luck, it being A+F, GLAM, some college library club, whatever doesn't normally play in to my consideration. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:13, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Bluerasberry: I think you're completely missing the point here. For a long time, even before the technical ability for user rights to expire, status quo was to grant +accountcreator temporarily - it just required manual follow-up for it to be removed. It has been the status quo that it is removed from users who are not using it - again something that required manual follow-up that was occasionally missed. What is happening now differs only because we're going through the entire list and acting on everything that should have been acted on already. Secondly, Tony has not proposed that A+F users do not get the EVC, but instead that those who don't use it can simply request it when they need it. A+F certainly does qualify as the sort of program which can get EVC, coordinators just need to request it when they need it.

Nothing has really changed here. Existing process is simply being applied en-mass instead of when-discovered. [stwalkerster|talk] 15:18, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm with Xaosflux. If someone has an event coming up, and they need it, we should grant it for the event, which is the current practice at PERM. I don't really ask questions. What I do want to avoid is situations like we saw with that request where we have users who aren't active in the slightest and have never used account creator permission holding on to something forever that won't likely be closely monitored (this being a concern, because likely compromised Lazarus-accounts are fairly common). TonyBallioni (talk) 15:19, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

@Xaosflux, Stwalkerster, and TonyBallioni: What you all describe is mostly the policy I want. The further assurance that I want is (1) a campaign coordinator overseeing multiple events can make a mass request for lots of users to get the right, perhaps in the context of a one-month campaign (2) confirm that 0 edit count new users can get the userright temporarily and (3) there is a standard for permanent or longer-term access, like maybe hosting 5 events or being an experienced Wikimedian or whatever consensus determines. I agree, there was not firm consensus about long term granting and now we have new options to make userrights automatically expire. I am open to change, but these points right now are norms, and if there is to be change I want thoughtful discussion.

It sounds like we might be in agreement about how to grant userrights but if any of you see a likely conflict or problem then raise the issue. I am excited to transition to something new even while I wish to avoid disruption of what already exists. Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:29, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Bluerasberry, yeah, that sounds like current practice, and I think is reasonable. The only thing here is that the request that was made included the permanent granting of EVC to accounts that likely should have had ACC revoked over a year ago. I want to avoid a situation like this in the future, which is why I didn't switch the rights over (nor revoke them). If everyone is fine with it, I'll switch them over to EVC with a 6 month expiry. All the experienced editors from that request have already had it granted permanently. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:34, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

I'd err on the shorter side, perhaps 2 to 3 months, given they look likely to use this permission once or twice over a short period. If 2 or 3 months is too short then we can look at extending (and perhaps going permanently, with a track record of reliable and sensible use). Nick (talk) 15:38, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and done the conversions of User:Theredproject/sandbox/EVC, using Nick's shorter 90 day date, which is what I was initially thinking before typing 6 months anyway. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:47, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi all. I'm late to the conversation here, having been mostly looking at Wikipedia talk:Requests for permissions where I had started the conversation. I really don't want to belabor this point, but I want to point out a couple of things:

1. The ability to make group requests for this right is essential for our organizing capacity, and we must retain that. We have been making group requests for the ACC right for our users by group for five years, and we will plan on continuing doing so going forward for EVC. Each year some active users retained those rights (typically those who returned to organize again) while the bulk of the users had that permission removed. Prior to the auto-expiry, I believe that Pharos went in and removed the permissions manually. I want to emphasize that we have never had any misuse of the ACC permission, and if you look at the numbers, I would at least 50% of all users who have held this permission have been A+F organizers. And no misuse. As Bluerasberry has said elsewhere, our organizers and editors are well trained (you might be interested to see that less than 1% of all articles created at our events are deleted, which is a remarkably low number.) So A+F is frustrated this resulted in the weakening of our organizing capacity by removing the bulk of our users with permanent rights.
2. The guidelines at Wikipedia:Event coordinator that were established via discussion do not specify an edit count. A+F objects to the use of an edit count of 500 as a cut off for the permanent rights, especially in combination with the requirement that the rights be used "recently" (as defined as...?)
3. I would like to suggest that you reconsider some of the decisions to not grant permissions to event organizers, especially those who have requested the right "too soon" or without an immediate planned event. While most requests on the request page several are being rejected for reasons that do not make sense. These are Wiki in Residence people whose job is literally to do outreach. And why penalize someone for being proactive and requesting these rights 5 weeks before their first event, rather than the week before. It is only going to add one more burden to their effort.

As Bluerasberry has said, please do not add any more bureaucracy to this effort. It is just one more barrier to action. Again, I don't want to belabor the point, and extend the discussion which has come to some degree of resolution, but I did want to respond. We thank you for your work on this. And we look forward to continuing to work with you to that effect. On behalf of my collaborators --Theredproject (talk) 00:38, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi Theredproject. Do you have a link to the WP:PERM request where these "group requests" were made? I don't recall seeing anything like that on WP:PERM, but I probably missed it.

I have definitely seen misuse of the accountcreator group (even by Pharos), whether by the A+F coordinators or just others I cannot quickly tell you. I'm running some searches now to try and figure out how widespread it is, but my queries are taking a while to execute and I wanted to reply to this sooner rather than later.

I don't see how not having permissions to act affects your ability to organise. From my perspective, it should be a trivial matter to simply go to WP:PERM a week or so before your event and put in a quick one-line request! I don't know what the cut-off for "recent" is, but common sense should prevail here.

Finally, there certainly has not been a decision to not grant this to event organisers when needed for an event. There is no penalisation for being proactive, just a simple "come back later" - hardly penalisation. [stwalkerster|talk] 12:58, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

FWIW @Stwalkerster: While I certainly disagreed with the manner that @Pharos: was managing these in the past, I think it was all with good faith coupled with being very busy - since the introduction of the automatic expiration system I don't think I've had any real concerns with Pharos' assignments. I do think that it would be best for anyone "coordinating brand new editors" should be experienced, but realize that for certain mass campaigns this can be difficult. As far as a "bulk" request, coordinating admins are not restricted from coordinating these outside of WP:PERM, and if I saw a request from someone well established with outreach for a batch of people for a special distributed event I don't think I'd turn it down. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:06, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Having looked over all of the assignments, I agree that since the expiration system was introduced, I didn’t see anything I was concerned with. That is somewhat the point here: the expiration system gives us the ability to easily give people the right when needed, but also manage for security concerns. It is also not that much of a burden for people to request before events or for the A+F leaders to make a mass request during busy season. This permission should be granted very liberally, but not so liberal as to where we have 80 edit accounts who likely don’t even know how to use the permission based on an examination of the logs being given something they have never asked for on a permenant basis.

On a personal level, I’m a bit taken aback by the presumptuousness here: I’m supportive of in-person events, but I don’t think that being on an email list exempts one from being an experienced member of the English Wikipedia community (and going as low as 500 edits to any namespace here is being generous). No one has a right to any permission on Wikipedia, and I personally find it very offputting to have demands made to give user rights to people who have never had a single editor-to-editor interaction on-wiki.

I’ll conclude with what I said above: it is the job of those involved in outreach efforts to follow the policies and guidelines of the English Wikipedia. It is not the job of the English Wikupedia’s policies and guidelines to conform with outreach culture. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:26, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: I agree that both the granting of the group and the usage of the group has been in good faith - and for the record I don't have an issue with the granting of this en-masse to those who need it, I just would prefer there to be some documentation somewhere that it's been done, and a note to WP:PERM seems like the obvious place for that to be.

I also admit that "misuse" might be a bit strong, so I'll stick with "misguided usage". By this, I mean the case where an event organiser is creating accounts by specifying a password directly. there are very few circumstances where creating account directly (ie: not via email) is appropriate, and this is what I mean by "misguided usage". If an account is created by specifying a password, it must be assumed that either the account is created for the usage of the person creating it, or the person creating it knows the password to the new account (thus technically compromised), or the person creating the account isn't actually the owner of the account being used to create the new account (thus the accountcreator is compromised). It's trivial for event organisers to protect themselves and their participants by simply checking a checkbox. Given how prevalent email and free email providers are these days, I find it hard to believe that large numbers of attendees don't have an email address they can use to receive an automatically-generated password. [stwalkerster|talk] 20:26, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

LGBT+ event coordinators barred

A long term event coordinator who has presented multiple LGBT+ events and who had account creator userrights in the past is now being barred from getting event coordinator userrights because of whatever new policies are appearing hear unexpectedly.

Give people the userright! Why are you doing this? June is LGBT Pride month.

See poor user:Sparrow (麻雀). It is so sad! At the user requested the right and got denied. At the notice that they were losing account creator rights obviously the user is expressing hurt and being hounded with the new bureaucracy.

Here are the some of the rules I want:

1. 100% of Event coordinator permissions granted immediately upon asking, until and unless someone proposes rules which have community consensus. People are being prohibited for unstated rules which just appeared!
2. Everyone who had account creator gets that converted to event coordinator with the same status - permanent or whatever! No one agreed to anything other than this!
3. Give the userrights for months - weeks in advance is not too early to ask. For month-long events the people coordinating benefit from having the rights weeks in advance and for trailing events. June is LGBT+ month but some events happen soon and sometimes new events appear after people have fun in the month.
4. No one should ever question why anyone wants the userright unless we establish a standard form. Free-form scrutiny without a basis in rules is very cruel!

This process is becoming cruel and discriminatory. Please just give the userrights to everyone who had account creator, and if you want to change the status quo, discuss it and do it later! Why is it necessary to change so much so quickly!

Who knows of other complaints elsewhere which they have not shared as this board? @Nick and TonyBallioni: why are you arguing with event coordinators but not raising the issue at this board? Please show some compassion. This is not sustainable! Is there anyone here who is unaware that all these changes are hurting the morale of people who coordinate events? Why are people choosing to bring conflict into this process when there is no need for it? Please, please, back off of the conflict!

Would it be helpful if I coordinated an RfC here where event coordinators !vote and establish the rules?

Please if there is anything I can explain just email me and I will talk to anyone by video or voice chat! If you all want to work with event coordinators then you must realize that voice to voice communication is the only option! I will talk with anyone here! Voice communication is the most effective way for humans to talk! Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:40, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

She never used the permission and it was assigned years ago! I told Xaosflux he was free to reverse me if he wanted. There was general agreement after this was passed that we would no longer be granting account creator for events and switching to this. When that happened, I suggested to two other administrators that are active in this PERM area (Xaosflux and Stwalkerster) that we do a general review of existing account creators, and either move them over to EVC, or if they didn’t meet current standards at PERM for permenant granting (based on what the practice was at the account creator board) that they be removed and given instructions how to apply for this when needed. I spent probably 4 hours total doing this. If you look through my logs, I simply transferred the overwhelming majority. I did not, however, do this blindly. If someone did not look active, I reviewed the logs and if there was no recent account creation (usually a year or more), I removed and gave them instructions on how to apply when neeed.

Quite frankly, I’m sick of the assumptions of bad faith here. I appreciate the work people do, but I also put hours into making it so that this permission could get up and running and making sure that anyone who was an experienced Wikipedian with a need got it without even having to ask. I usually do my best to avoid personalizing things here, but I don’t think I’ve ever been so demotivated to help in my entire time on Wikipedia as I do currently. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:01, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Also, you can check my logs. The A+F ones were discussed above and I implemented that consensus. Outside of those, my last 100 user rights changes show 62 changes to existing account creators. Of that number, 53 has the right switched permenantly and 9 had it removed with instructions given on how to apply. That’s 85% converted automatically. Some of the people I removed it from thanked me for the removal, and some I assigned it to permenantly told me they didn’t do outreach anymore. There is no hightend bureaucracy or attempt to undermine outreach. This was just a *very* simple activity review. Nothing more. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:28, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Hello Bluerasberry, thank you for the effort although I didn't ask for it. I don't really understand until today why other people had their accounts automatically converted to event coordinator while I haven't. I spend about one month of last year organising wiki events all on a voluntary basis. I don't see why I shouldn't have event coordinator status. @ TonyBallioni why was I not among the 53 who had their status changed automatically from account creator to event coordinator? If it was only the minority of users (9) who had their rights removed I don't get why I was among them. If you would look at my meta page you would see that I spent substantial amount of time in the last two weeks on creating an event page, setting up a project coordination page on phabricator and writing a grant proposal. I would just really like to have my status changed to event coordinator again. I organized three international events last year. Before that I supported and co-organized several edit-a-thons and projects and I've never misused the account creation right. As I also said I'm on wiki projects daily so I would definitely notice if my account had been compromised. @ TonyBallioni I don't assume bad faith here. I just think that if my activity on other wiki projects aside from en:wp would have been taken into account, maybe the decision wouldn't have been made that way. Again, I would just like to have my status changed to event coordinator. Once I stop being active I'll notify the user group and my rights can be removed. Best --Sparrow (麻雀) 🐧 15:15, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

As I explained on your talk page: I looked at the logs of editors who were not currently that active on the English Wikipedia (before I removed the permission, you had only edited on 5 days in 2018). Upon examining your logs, I noticed that you'd only created three accounts (two of which without sending an email), and the last time you had created an account was 14 months ago. You are, by your own admission, not an active user of the English Wikipedia, and you were not using this permission at all on this wiki. That is why I removed it, and it has been reviewed by other administrators multiple times now both on your talk page and at PERM/EVC. As I said to Xaosflux, at PERM/EVC, I have no problem with another administrator assigning it permanently if they disagree with me. I was just going off of logs and edits, which is all I had to go off of at the time. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:23, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

OK. But I explained now why it would be useful for me to have the right nonetheless and why I want to have it on the English wp version. This still feels like the efforts I put in all the events are absolutely not appreciated and makes me want to stop participating in the project. Yesterday I thought a lot of peoples account creator status was removed. Today I find out that I was among the few people who's status was not automatically switched. And there is no reason to not have me be part of event organisers user group. It will take me a lot of time to organise the event in Stockholm again. And then not even the simple thing can be done to include me in this group. I don't know.--Sparrow (麻雀) 🐧 16:47, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

@Sparrow (麻雀):, as I mentioned in the (mostly duplicated) discussion above: I don't see how not having permissions to act affects your ability to organise. From my perspective, it should be a trivial matter to simply go to WP:PERM a week or so before your event and put in a quick one-line request! At the moment, it looks like you're not in the middle of a need for this, so it's a simply a "come back later and we'll grant it", certainly not a "no, you can't have this". It amazes me how much this is getting blown up out of all proportion. [stwalkerster|talk] 20:39, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry: I'll be blunt - I'm having a hard time understanding why you're ignoring the above discussion which you started, and bringing the same issues back when you literally said above "It sounds like we might be in agreement about how to grant userrights"? [stwalkerster|talk] 20:39, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Look Stwalkerster, I find this absolutely terrible. There is no reason to not give me that right and have me give it back once I'm not active anymore. I will certainly not ask for that right. I don't care anymore. There will be an administrator there anyway organising the event with me. I guess he can do that. The last thing I'll do is the event in Stockholm. Unfortunately I can't give my scholarship to Wikimania Cape Town back. If I could I would do totally do it. But I can't be cause flights were booked in my name. I'm over this movement and how unkind the people in it are. Obviously not all people. I met some great people and friends but overall it's just too negative. Also I found the tone of how you, Nick and Toni communicated with me condescending at times. And the way that this change was communicated - again as I said in the beginning- without notifying the people that HAD account creator status about the discussion so that they could get involved. And then with no transparency as to why some peoples rights were removed and some other peoples not. As I said my account is not at risk of being compromised as long as I'm active. Please don't continue this discussion- it's over. Or if you continue don't include me in it and don't tag me or anything. Best --Sparrow (麻雀) 🐧 22:16, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Lane, I've offered to grant Sparrow (麻雀) the eventcoordinator user right temporarily, all I need to know is the date Sparrow (麻雀) would like the permission to become active. The permission will then be active for 90 days (or longer/shorter depending on what they request). I am not granting it permanently as Sparrow (麻雀) has failed to provide any explanation why they should be given the permission permanently and their past record of accountcreator shows only limited temporary need for the technical changes eventcoordinator provides. I'm going to be repeating this repeatedly, I'm sure, but eventcoordinator absolutely is not a trophy or badge of honour. That needs to stop, it's nothing more than a simple technical setting (very much akin to IPblockexempt) to remove some restrictions which would cause difficulty for editors (which we all are) who are running events. If Sparrow (麻雀) would get in touch I'll do the activation of the eventcoordinator permission and we can all get on with actually building an encyclopedia again. Nick (talk) 23:40, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

This sounds good, and was what the template message was intended to convey: this is certainly not a reflection on their work, just a technical change based on pass usage of the right and activity levels on the English Wikipedia. This is a local right and has no impact elsewhere, so I was only considering local things at the time. If there is an event that she needs it for, it should be granted the same as with anyone. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:47, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Anecdotal evidence is that for most editors who run editing events, the permission will be used for a short period of time each year; a day or a week or a month, and then it'll sit unused for the next 364 days or 51 weeks or 11 months. The changes are purely designed to make sure that for whatever period the permission would go unused, it's removed for security, but as we know and trust almost all editors running events, we will also make sure the permission is granted for that 1 day, 1 week, 1 month or however long it is needed and most importantly, will be used for. Nick (talk) 23:56, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Allowing people to sign up without email

I've seen a lot of message above about how to get people registered without dealing with email. I suggest that we let people using the outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org process for an event that allows "account requests" to let them request their password as part of the sign up process, and make email optional. It could still go through the same "approval" process and allow the organizer to create the accounts. Perhaps they could add a "notes" column just for this process, and also allow for processing the "+confirmed, 10 days" part. Thoughts? (N.B. I've asked the dashboard folks to read this). — xaosflux ^Talk 23:37, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

• Sounds good with me. I know from other posts that you want to move more towards this, and it seems much more intuitive and safe than the current method. Thanks for raising it Xaosflux. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:39, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

E-mail and password being sent via e-mail should be compulsory. Editors managing events (with or without the eventcoordinator permission) should not be providing the password to a user nor should the account really be created without an e-mail address. Nick (talk) 23:40, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

@Nick: if you are at an event sign up Kiosk/your own phone/an event computer, you could pick your username, and pick your password, give it an email if you have one, and possibly also a note for the coordinator. The coordinator could still approve the accounts and would not need to know the password, and you would not need to use the coordinators computer. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:43, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Also, I don't really think that the email addresses of new editors should be disclosed to coordinators unless they specifically ALSO want that to happen. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:42, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

This all sounds lovely. Top stuff. Nick (talk) 23:51, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Taking a break

I have been present in recent conversations. I just wanted to share word that unrelated to this discussion I am offline for Memorial Day, a holiday in the United States. Thanks everyone for the conversation and any ideas that anyone has to make events happen safely and in a way that pleases everyone. Blue Rasberry (talk) 02:48, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

is there a record of accounts created?

Hi, when I create an account with the Create Account page, is there a record of the account I create? Is that a record I can access? I'm wondering because I'm coordinating an event tomorrow where I would like to create accounts for a few people and then grant them confirmed status. If I do this in two parts, I need to record the usernames in-between somehow (usually I write them down manually). I'm just trying to make the process more efficient, so if the names of the accounts I create are recorded, I could then use that list to grant confirmed status (instead of writing them down). However, I understand if this information isn't available to me for privacy reasons. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 19:36, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

@Rachel Helps (BYU): absolutely! Your own log is right here. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:44, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

thank you! Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 19:45, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

2019 change affecting events that use the Programs & Events Dashboard

I learned that if account creations are being run through the Programs & Events Dashboard one no longer needs to request becoming an Event Coordinator- there is no longer a 6 account/day limit for accounts created via the dashboard. This should be communicated on the Event Coordinator article, right? TMorata (talk) 16:40, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

@TMorata: so yes: this fixes the number of accounts per day per IP problem (the dashboard bypasses that); but if an in-person event is expecting brand new editors to (a) create new articles or (b) upload non-free media - the coordinator may still need access so they can manually enabled the "confirmed" flag on attendees. Personally, I think this is a bad idea and first day editors should make new articles in sandboxes first - and if the coordinator isn't even autoconfirmed themselves then they shouldn't get this flag either really. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:54, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Thank you for the clarification and for alerting me. I agree with your points. I will be running a few edit-a-thons, all linked to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki4YearOfSound2020 and

https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/National_Institute_for_Occupational_Safety_and_Health/Wiki4YearofSound2020/home I expect brand new editors. TMorata (talk) 17:08, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Not affected by soft blocks with account creation blocked?

Surprisingly this doesn't seem to be mention although IMO it should. I assume an event coordinator isn't affected by a soft IP block with account creation blocked as the accounts are being created by the account and not the IP? And I guess hard blocks probably would prevent account creation just like they prevent editing unless the account is IP block exempt? Nil Einne (talk) 21:58, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

If an IP block prevents account creation, no accounts can be created from that IP no matter if you're logged in or not, nor what user rights you hold. Not even IPBE allows you to bypass an account creation block. stwalkerster (talk) 11:21, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

phab:T189362 stwalkerster (talk) 11:23, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Wikidata, grants, dashboard

Forgive me if this is slightly off-topic, but I have a few questions about this user group.

I am currently thinking of proposing that Wikidata adopts a similar user group. Is this user group working out well? Would you do anything different?

There has separately been a lot of discussion of WMF grants that involve training and other forms of community outreach. Would it be appropriate for the grant process to require a team member to request this user group on relevant projects?

I've seen notes that this user group is partially obsoleted by the account creation features on https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/ . Can someone explain to me how I can tell that an account has been created through this interface? Is there a widget that would help new page patrol? Bovlb (talk) 19:47, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Apparently, Special:Log/OutreachDashboardBot reports account creation done via the dashboard. Bovlb (talk) 19:24, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@Bovlb: If you like email me for a video chat. I do event organization including a lot of Wikidata. If we talked things through then I might be able to suggest something.

Responses:

• The term for this is "user right" or "Wikipedia:User access levels." Avoid saying "user group", because that has the specific meaning of meta:Wikimedia movement affiliates. "User groups" are off-wiki organizations which themselves use tools such as this event coordinator user right. "User group" is a common term in wiki community organization.
• No it would not be appropriate for the grant process to formally connect to this user right. You are correct that yes, it would be the best match for grants to track impact by using the tools associated with this user right, and you are spot-on understanding they are a natural pair. The reason why this would not work is primarily political, and secondarily for lack of infrastructure. The political reason is that Wikimedia grants have no mandate connecting grant-funded activities to Wikimedia community processes; grant-funded activities routinely are outside the norms of wiki community culture. The infrastructure reason is that even if we did connect grants to automated metrics collection, we would need documentation to enable that. I would estimate that producing such documentation would cost US$50k at wiki rates and while that is not much money at our scale, I do not currently see will or interest in doing this.
• In your link meta:Talk:Programs_&_Events_Dashboard#How_project_admins_should_use_this_dashboard you ask questions about what data is readily possible to view. All your questions are good but the tools we have do not readily report this kind of data. The tools do not exist because 1) there are not many communication professionals in Wikipedia as compared to any other social media platform where getting this kind of data is commonplace and 2) the most natural force which would grow a culture of developing communication professionals in Wikipedia is the grantmaking process, and that process does not seek reporting of such metrics for those political reasons.
• The use case for Wikidata having a comparable user right is different, as outreach in Wikidata is usually to informatics professionals whereas outreach in Wikipedia is usually to undergraduate students. While the dashboard can track Wikidata edits, it is designed to show a few Wikipedia editors per person and not 100s or 1000s of Wikidata edits. I would want to know what your goals are for Wikidata tracking.

I am curious how all these good questions got into your head at all and what you are thinking and doing. Bluerasberry (talk) 20:29, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your response.

On a technical note, my use of the term "user group" here is based on the definitions in mw:Help:User rights and groups. I accept that user groups in this sense are commonly referred to as "user rights", and that this technical usage may be confusing for those involved in community organizations.

I'm not sure where communications professionals fit into this. My ideal would be if there were an API for accessing this information that could be used on-wiki in the form of a gadget, or perhaps if a tag could be added to such edits.

I'm intrigued by your suggestion that Wikidata outreach is largely to informatics professionals. We continually see waves of new users creating Wikidata items with similar topics within a short time frame. While I have seen a few such waves where all the items were about librarians, and many that appear to involve academic faculty, most do not clearly arise from informatics professionals.

These questions arise largely from my experience of new-item-patrol in Wikidata, but also from certain incidents and other observations. For example:

• We commonly see waves of new users creating Wikidata items that fail to establish notability. Typically those users do not respond to feedback, and the items are eventually deleted. I suspect that many of these waves result from outreach events, but I have no way to tell, and I have no way to contact the event organizer. The ideal outcome here would be for the editors to learn to do better and for the items to be improved, but that is rarely what happens, and we waste a lot of volunteer time on the way.
• We have had multiple incidents where a sock farm was identified by checkusers and users were blocked, but it later turned out to be an organized community event. A recent such incident is currently being discussed at wikidata:Wikidata:Administrators'_noticeboard#All_the_participants_of_an_editathon_blocked. I feel really bad for event organizers and participants because this must destroy everything they have worked towards, but I also appreciate the position that administrators and checkusers are put in when it is not possible to associate edits and editors with any organized event.
• I have reviewed some WMF grant applications that are related to Wikidata. In several cases, including at least one approved grant, I found strong evidence that the team members were clearly unqualified to provide appropriate training in Wikidata, typically because they had a history of creating items that did not establish notability and not responding to feedback. Obviously I can't be certain, but it appears that one grant may have been associated with many disruptive item creations.

So it appears to me that the processes being followed for both WMF grants and outreach events are at odds with the needs and responses of local WMF projects. For some time, I've been working in various ways to try to bring them closer together, but frankly I'm finding it to be an uphill struggle. Bovlb (talk) 21:12, 8 February 2024 (UTC)