[Cz-editcouncil] Editor application system requirements

Wed Jan 2 11:28:30 CST 2008

Hi Aaron,

I'm cc'ing the Editorial Council, the Executive Committee, the Constabulary,
and the tech guys so they are apprised of this.  (It potentially impacts all
of their work!)

OK, as far as the automated editor application, here's what I'd like to have
(i.e., requirements & desirements).

Requirements for an absolute minimal system (that is, if you want to do
anything like this at all):

*	A checkbox added to Special:RequestAccount, clearly separated,
visually, from the other fields, which people can check if they want to be
considered as an editor, which
*	Generates an e-mail to an address (personnel at citizendium.org in our
case) when an editor-checked application is received (not approved, but
simply received).
*	That's it!  If (a) you can do this right away with minimal trouble,
and (b) if you think the rest of the system will take more than, say, a week
to work up, then can you do it?  Note that the e-mail to
personnel at citizendium.org would have to be turned off later after you coded
the more complicated system.

Desirements for a minimal system (these two go together, and are applicable
only if you don't want to create the "more automated system" below):

*	If editor application checkbox is checked, then confirm that either
there is a document uploaded (a CV) or a link (to a CV).  Do not let the
person submit the application without one or the other.
*	Give a way for us to access people's CVs easily.  So either (1)
Create a new permission/right (CZ might call it "epa" or Editorial Personnel
Administration) within the system.  In this case, only an account with that
permission can approve an editor-checked account.  Or (2) do item #2 on
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_talk:ConfirmAccount#Feature_requests
_from_the_Citizendium , i.e., allow sysops to view uploaded CVs/links after
an account has been approved, which stay there until deleted from the system
by a bureaucrat.

Seriously, if you don't want to go to the trouble of the more automated
system, the above minimal system would help us a lot!  Really!

Requirements for a more automated system (this would really help get editors
involved with editorial personnel administration, or epa--which is something
we badly need):

*	As above: a checkbox added to Special:RequestAccount, clearly
visually separated from the other fields, which people can check if they
want to be considered as an editor.
*	When the editor application checkbox is checked and the account
request is completed, the account request/editor application is placed in a
special queue very similar to Special:ConfirmAccounts.  As to who can access
the queue, see below under "desirements."
*	As to the different acceptance & rejection functions: replace
"Accept (create account)" with two new choices: (a) "Create account and make
editor" and (b) "Create account but do not make editor".
*	Upon (a)-type acceptance by an epa (editorial personnel
administrator...or sysop, if you don't make a new user group), of course
there will be a new kind of e-mail preferably from the epa.  Similarly, upon
(b)-type acceptance-and-rejection, there will be a new kind of e-mail from
the epa.
*	Note that "hold" has its own queue separate from the regular
application queue.  (By the way, Aaron, the existing hold queue works well,
well done on that.)
*	Completely rejected account requests (both author and editor) could
go in the main rejected account queue, if that's consistent with your
system.
*	There must be a way for epas to indicate workgroups.  Multi-select
drop-down boxes (with the lists editable by epas) are a "desirement," but at
least we need multiple text fields (give us at least three).
*	When an epa accepts an application, at least one workgroup must be
indicated.  If it isn't, the epa is prompted for one.  This needn't be
checked against a master list, but again, a desirement is that epas be
forced into pre-set choices in a drop-down box.  Note that the workgroups
are included in the acceptance e-mail sent to the new editor.
*	Then, when an epa accepts an application, in addition to sending out
the acceptance mail and creating the account, the system adds [[Category:CZ
Editors]] and [[Category:____ Workgroup]] for all workgroups listed and adds
{{ewelcome}} to the editor's user talk page.

Desirements:

*	Create a new right/user group (CZ might call it "epa" or Editorial
Personnel Administrator) within the system.  Only an account in that user
group can approve an editor-checked account.  It's barely acceptable (though
it is acceptable at this point) that all sysops be able to do this
(constables who are not epas would just have to be instructed to stay out of
the editor application queue), but we'd prefer to have the different user
group.
*	Create another, normally greyed-out checkbox, for "mark me as
author, too."  This is ungreyed-out if someone checks the editor application
checkbox.  When "mark me as an author, too" is checked, then (and only then)
do we add [[Category:CZ Authors]] to the editor's user page and {{awelcome}}
to the editor's user talk page.  No need to add anything extra or special to
the e-mail sent to the editor, though (that's overkill...).
*	Allow applicants to indicate their workgroups when applying.  Use
multi-select drop-down boxes (with the lists editable by epas).  List one
drop-down box as "main request" and then list two more as "secondary
requests (optional: indicate only if you have real expertise in the area)"
Let these lists be editable by epas: we might want to accept someone for one
requested workgroup, but not another.
*	There is no need for a "rejection" queue for account requests that
were turned down for editorship.  However, Editorial Personnal
Administrators should be able to see the information (wherever you save the
archived CV, links, and comments info) that a person did apply, and was
rejected (and when and by whom).
*	The following would be really cool, and we will have to do it at
some point...and this might be a good time to do it: create a new user group
(but with no special permissions at this point), for all accepted editor
apps.  As a name for the user group, we'd prefer "editor" (not
"wikieditor").

Heroic efforts:

*	Create different application queues (application and hold) for
different workgroups or supergroups--by the latter I mean things like
"Natural Sciences," "Social Sciences," etc.  See
<http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Workgroups>
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Workgroups .  Then allow bureaucrats to
assign narrowly-focused rights to narrowly-focused epas.  For example, then
I might make biology editor Chris Day an epa, and give him special epa
rights over a special "Natural Sciences" application queue.  To make this
work, we'd need (epa-editable) drop-down boxes, multi-select, for
workgroups, and assign workgroups to supergroups.
*	If you do the latter, however, then it would be great to put the
workgroups into the database, and make them editable there...something that
eventually we will want to do...but this opens another whole can of worms...
*	Make the system fully extensible.  Allow a zillion queues to serve a
zillion different application and permission types in the system.  (This is
probably more trouble than it's worth at this point, but it's worth thinking
about a little, just for planning purposes.)

You should probably be aware that at some point, we are going to want to
give editors, as a (new) user group, the right to approve articles via a
new, more efficient approval system.  This would require that the system
keep track of which editor is in what workgroup, however.  We will also want
to let authors put articles into a queue, such that the articles in the
queue are sent out by mail, for review, to everyone in the relevant
workgroups.  These functions will make both epa and editor user groups very
convenient, if not practically required.

--Larry

-----Original Message-----
From: Aaron Schulz [mailto:jschulz_4587 at msn.com] 
Sent: Saturday, December 29, 2007 6:31 PM
To: Larry Sanger
Subject: RE: Of interest...

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_talk:ConfirmAccount#Feature_requests
_from_the_Citizendium

Are there any more details to this?

-Aaron Schulz

  _____  

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