Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-11-11/Discussion report



Compromised accounts and security RfC
On November 4, in a protest against Wikimedia security practices, a grey hat hacker compromised the accounts of the administrators and  and, from those accounts, posted two messages to the bureaucrats' noticeboard requesting immediate desysopping of those accounts.

The hacker claimed responsibility for the breach on Reddit, criticizing the status quo of security on Wikimedia projects:

Although both administrators were able to regain access to their accounts, editors nonetheless raised concerns about account security on Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects. Some ideas were raised at the noticeboard discussion, including password complexity requirements and identifying privileged accounts with weak passwords. One day later, after consultation with the Wikimedia security team, opened a RfC to review the status quo of security and to receive proposals on how to strengthen account security.

In brief

 * BASC motions: On the ArbCom motion request page, two motions were proposed relating to the Ban Appeals Subcommittee (BASC). The former motion proposed narrowing the scope of BASC to functionary blocks and blocks unsuitable for public discussion, and the latter motion proposed disbanding BASC altogether.
 * WP:NOTHERE as a blocking rationale: A few weeks ago, added "not here to build an encyclopedia" (WP:NOTHERE) to Blocking policy as a suggested rationale for blocking. Concerned with the page's essay classification,  reverted the addition. A RfC was opened on whether 'NOTHERE' should be added as a suggested rationale. Some also suggested promoting WP:NOTHERE to a guideline or a policy.
 * Poetic militancy: An editor has proposed banning the promotion of violent acts ("poetic militancy") on user pages as a polemic.
 * RfA reform, again: Started by "to move past the disorderly and spontaneous discussion [on RfA reform]", the 2015 administrator election reform project is the most recent in many attempts to reform the requests for adminship process. Aimed at identifying the issues with RfA, the first RfC was closed very recently; reception has been mixed on most proposed issues, but most agree that RfA needs more participants and that RfA subjects candidates to a less-than-friendly environment.