Wikipedia talk:Requests for permissions

==Discussion at Template talk:New Page Reviewer granted § Survey on what bullets/tips/Discord links to include== You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:New Page Reviewer granted § Survey on what bullets/tips/Discord links to include. – Novem Linguae (talk) 19:04, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Issue with Requests for permissions/New page reviewer?
In spite of being logged in, I get a message in a green box that reads I'm IP-block exempt and wonder if that might be the issue (but I get the same message with my VPN temporarily off)?

I had the same issue during a previous drive, and I just worked around it by manually added myself in a page edit. If this is a general issue, however, it might be worth addressing at the source. Since NPP is a relatively thankless task, I think Wikipedia should make it as easy as possible for anyone plausibly qualified to have a trial go—especially during a backlog drive.

Admittedly clueless, however, about the underlying technical infrastructure —

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 21:36, 17 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Prob something wrong with the pagenotice, are you still able to edit the box below that, or is it read only? — xaosflux  Talk 22:32, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
 * There should be a CSS that hides that from you, be sure you are not blocking scripts. — xaosflux  Talk 22:34, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I have not attempted to make any changes, but it appears that, as an autoconfirmed user, I could could make edits basically anywhere.
 * My usual browser is Firefox, and I have multiple ad/script–blocking add-ons installed. I get the same issue, however, on Safari, which I have not loaded up with the same kind of privacy protection. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 22:47, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Also, there is no "box below": this disqualifying message cuts directly to the list of individual requests for permissions.
 * I believe I can still add myself, but only by manually adapting the format of the requests above—which I think is not how this is supposed to work and appear. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 22:57, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
 * A screenshot could be helpful for diagnosing here, if you're willing. – Novem Linguae (talk) 00:11, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Just responded by email. Could not get Wikipedia to accept my screenshot. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 00:43, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * [[File:Screenshot for diagnosis of new page patrol review permissions (17 April 2024).png|thumb|Just for troubleshooting]]
 * Per your email response, the default screenshot filename was indeed the problem. Hope this helps! Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 00:53, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * That's helpful, thank you. Bear with me while I techno babble a little bit, which may help me or someone else solve this.
 * From that screenshot we can tell 1) you're for sure logged in, 2) it's not an edit notice that's the problem but rather the template Requests for permissions/Subpage.
 * From a technical perspective, anything that is only to be viewed by someone with X perm is given an HTML class of something like  or , both used here. These are selectively hidden through some wizardry in MediaWiki:Common.css and related .css files.
 * If your ad blockers or noscript browser extensions were interfering with this process, I'd expect there to be two green boxes there, like I get when I visit the page with ?safemode=1 on. It's very interesting that you're logged in but you do not see the "guidelines for granting" box.
 * Can you try blanking User:PatrickJWelsh/common.css and see if that does anything? Right now you have JavaScript in this CSS file so the file is broken and won't run.
 * Can you also try visiting the safemode=1 link above and tell me which 1 or 2 boxes you see? – Novem Linguae (talk) 01:29, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * [[File:Screenshot no. 2 for diagnosis of new page patrol review permissions (17 April 2024).png|thumb]] Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 01:51, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * , it would be good if you could add a category to files when you upload them to Wiki Commons.  Schwede 66  02:52, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * OK, 2 boxes with safe mode. That makes sense since safe mode turns off MediaWiki:common.css. And blanking your User:PatrickJWelsh/common.css didn't fix anything in normal mode?
 * Maybe try temporarily disabling your privacy extensions in your browser and see if that does anything? – Novem Linguae (talk) 06:28, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * It seems to look like it should now. No idea what the issue was; did not change any settings. I'd be happy to participate in further diagnostics, but probably that's not a great use of our time if no one else has reported similar problems. Thanks for your attention to the issue! Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:00, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Shortcuts to criteria for granting & revoking permissions
In short, what do you believe to be the best format for shortcuts to the criteria for granting and revocation of permissions?

Full disclosure, most of these redirects were created by me after I noticed Joe Roe had created WP:NPRCRITERIA, but I went with using "CRITERIA" in the shortcuts. This is the table I'm working with at the moment for shortcuts:

reached out to me about these redirects I've created and suggested that a format such as WP:TPEGRANT, WP:NPRGRANT, and so on. I'm not sure if that makes the most sense, based on the granting guidelines listed for admins at Administrators' guide/Granting and revoking user rights, but SilverLocust made the argument that the criteria for granting, as opposed to the admin granting guideline pages, would be the primary target. WP:TPEGRANT is the outlier, but it's the oldest of these redirects by far. I would have ironed this out sooner probably had I realized that WP:NPRCRITERIA used a different naming scheme instead of just running with that.

I don't ultimately care what we settle on, but I believe shortcuts for the criteria for granting and revocation are useful, so I'd like to establish a consistent format and would appreciate feedback on the matter. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:19, 8 May 2024 (UTC)


 * I think the status quo is fine. Nothing strikes me as so problematic that it'd be worth editing all these pages and redirects to change them. WP:TPEGRANT appears to be the only inconsistent one, and WP:TPECRITERIA already exists, so I think that's fine too. – Novem Linguae (talk) 13:50, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I particularly had an issue with WP:PMCRITERIA, since Page mover has a longstanding shortcut that stands for "page mover criteria", but refers to the criteria for use (namely of suppress-redirect) — WP:PMRC/WP:PM/C/WP:PMVRC (because WP:PMR and WP:PMVR stand for "page mover"; WP:PM and WP:PMC were already existing shortcuts for other pages).
 * And because these user group information pages are written for a general audiences – not just for admins patrolling WP:PERM — I don't think they should assume that the "guidelines for granting" a user group is a predominant set of "criteria" over both criteria for using a right (e.g., WP:ROLLBACKUSE) and criteria for revocation — given there is a highly unambiguous and concise option GRANT right there.
 * (Disregard the bother of editing those pages, I'm perfectly willing to add GRANT shortcuts to them. The status quo before April was just WP:TPEGRANT from 2014 and WP:NPRCRITERIA from 2023. My earlier discussion with Josh can be found here.) SilverLocust 💬 17:59, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Redirects are cheap and they don't have to be consistent. Just create any you find useful. If there's the potential for confusion, that's what hatnotes are for. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 20:15, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
 * @Joe Roe: While I entirely agree about redirects being cheap, my intention is to add these as shortcuts to the relevant sections. That's the only reason I'm concerned about consistency. Hey man im josh (talk) 20:19, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Script issues?
Have any of the patrolling PERM admins had issues with the (assign permissions) link added by User:MusikAnimal/userRightsManager.js to give perms lately? Right now (like... the last three days) when I click the link the box says "Grant Page mover to t" in the header and when I fill out the information and hit "Submit" I just get a "Something went wrong" error (with the option to either "dismiss" or "try again"). It's not a browser issue as I've tried on a couple of different devices. Thanks in advance. Primefac (talk) 07:43, 18 May 2024 (UTC) And a courtesy ping to, though I don't see any changes to the script recently... feels more like a THURSDAY issue.


 * Any WP:CONSOLEERRORs? – Novem Linguae (talk) 12:16, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Sure:


 * Primefac (talk) 12:21, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
 * That jQuery.Deferred exception in the second one is great debug info for MusikAnimal. Thanks for providing. Will let him take the lead on it. – Novem Linguae (talk) 14:48, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I went to find the issue with no awareness of this conversation here since I couldn't assign user rights through this script as well.
 * The correction to be made is at line 50, from:
 * to:
 * This is due to the recent code changes at rfplinks which changed the resultant HTML output. – robertsky (talk) 18:58, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Would it be easier to change rfplinks back to its old behavior? Cc @SilverLocust – Novem Linguae (talk) 01:05, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I've now moved that userlink to within the plainlinks span. If that doesn't allow the script to work normally, feel free to revert to the March 7 version. SilverLocust 💬 03:42, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Seems to have sorted out the issue. Primefac (talk) 06:50, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi! Apologies as I was AFK all weekend. Sounds like is resolved now without any action from me? Since breakage from changing rfplinks has happened a few times now, I've added a warning to the documentation page. &mdash; MusikAnimal  talk  22:20, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Seems to have sorted out the issue. Primefac (talk) 06:50, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi! Apologies as I was AFK all weekend. Sounds like is resolved now without any action from me? Since breakage from changing rfplinks has happened a few times now, I've added a warning to the documentation page. &mdash; MusikAnimal  talk  22:20, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Secondary rfpliks issue

 * , not sure which edit did it but the elink to xtools edit counter is busted for usernames with a space in it, see e.g.
 * Primefac (talk) 12:51, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I’m honored to be the one who broke xtools –Sincerely, A Lime 14:38, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Hah! Probably should have used an example name, but since I had just finished with your PERM it seemed appropriate. I'm happy to change it if you prefer! Primefac (talk) 14:42, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * It would be me at fault for anything broken recently. I reverted the template for now as I don't have time to fix it now. I need to add |PATH to urlencode basically. SilverLocust 💬 20:51, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Fixed this issue with this edit. SilverLocust 💬 03:18, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks again! Primefac (talk) 05:42, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks again! Primefac (talk) 05:42, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Private requests for permissions
From time to time I receive emails from editors asking me to grant them a permission. I don't know why they do so via email rather than PERM (I guess they contact me because I'm active there), but I direct them to make a request on-wiki, for several reasons: our long-standing principle that, although there is no rule against off-wiki discussions, decisions affecting Wikipedia should be made on Wikipedia; to leave a documentation trail that all editors can follow; to give a chance for other editors to share relevant information on the request; and, because WP:PERM is frequently backlogged, to avoid the impression of someone pushing in the queue. I do make quite frequently make grants (especially of autopatrolled) without any request or following discussions elsewhere on-wiki, but I don't think that's quite the same.

I've noticed that not all admins agree with me on this point. Grants that don't go through PERM are relatively common, and sometimes an off-wiki request is explicitly mentioned in the log. For example, looking at one user today, I noticed that they managed to accrue autopatrolled, PCR, page mover, rollbacker, trial new page reviewer and permanent new page reviewer with only a single PERM request – the rest were all apparently solicited from different admins on one of the unofficial Wikipedia Discord servers.

This doesn't feel right to me, so I thought I'd ask for other opinions on the practice of requesting permissions privately. Is there a guideline on this somewhere? If not, should we have one? –&#8239;Joe (talk) 07:10, 10 June 2024 (UTC)


 * The occasionally mentioned "discussion on Discord" is at least sometimes just the admin asking the user if they would like the perm (rather than the other way around). At least one admin who has done that discourages perm requests from being made on Discord.
 * But some users might be shy about having a request declined at WP:PERM (like a much smaller version of WP:RFA).
 * Since perm grants are entirely at an admin's discretion and don't require consensus (which is what should be done on-wiki), I think it's fine to leave it up to them to decide whether to entertain requests by email or direct message. SilverLocust 💬 09:03, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Permissions grants require consensus, just like everything else. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 09:31, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * There could be a requirement for consensus, but each perm page generally says something like WP:PMCRITERIA's "An administrator may grant page mover rights to users they otherwise deem competent and may deny the requests if they do not see a need for the tools or have other concerns." SilverLocust 💬 09:56, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure saying they require consensus is the correct phrasing. For instance, administrators are allowed to grant autopatrolled at their own discretion, that's part of the toolkit that we trust admins with. Hey man im josh (talk) 12:23, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes but if two (or more) admins disagree on whether to grant autopatrolled, what do we do? Seek consensus. It doesn't come up very often, but there certainly have been e.g. AN threads where a grant has been challenged and overturned on that basis. Even if there's no discussion, consensus is still there, implicitly.
 * I understand the "discretion" language in many (not all) of the PERM guidelines to mean that an editor is not automatically entitled to a right if they might the guideline criteria (and vice-versa) – not that it's literally only up to single admins to decide, with no community oversight. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 13:19, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * We don't have a minimum time that a request for a permission must stay up, so an admin can immediately process a request and then it'll be cleaned out. If there's issues with that user then yeah, ANI. I don't think it's always entirely necessary to force a request at perm simply for the sake of bureaucracy. I do not like to handle perm requests at my talk page either, but in rare circumstances for exceptional users, I'll be more than happy to grant them tools that may help them to improve the encyclopedia. If there's a chance it may at all be controversial, or I don't know them enough to make that call without digging deeper, then I too send them to perm (which is most of the time).
 * I think, unless it states otherwise anywhere, the implication has always been that an administrator may grant permissions at their own discretion without a formal request in most situations. I don't personally see an issue with that until an administrator's judgement comes into question.
 * Also, APATCRITERIA states Administrators may grant this user right to anyone at their discretion if they feel that the user's page creations are prolific; this reduces the workload of new page reviewers. In these cases, they are free to assign the user right to other editors (including themselves) without a formal request or discussion beforehand. – This makes the autopatrolled example not a good one, since, I believe, it's the only perm with this type of language specifically called out. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:59, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I outright decline direct requests and point editors to the respective pages instead. That said, I have also granted permissions to editors without them asking about it; this applies to editors whose work I'm familiar with.  Schwede 66  11:10, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * This is what I do as well; if I know the editor (and they need it) I'll usually grant, otherwise I'll send 'em to PERM. Primefac (talk) 11:59, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Just noting that I am firmly opposed to requiring that permission requests go through PERM. Primefac (talk) 12:01, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * To be clear, I'm not suggesting that. My basic question here is whether granting permissions following a private request is something we should discourage, and if so whether we should write that down along the lines of Blocking policy. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 13:23, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * It's very admin-discretionary. In general, if someone asks me for a perm I'll ask them to drop a request at WP:PERM. It certainly shouldn't be a requirement as there are all sorts of use cases were it would be unnecessary paperwork. — xaosflux  Talk 19:55, 10 June 2024 (UTC)