Wikidata:Flooders

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When to use the flood flag

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Users should use the flood flag to avoid flushing other edits and actions from the RecentChanges (RC) feed when making repetitive changes. Such actions must never be controversial, as using the flood flag decreases the amount of oversight they may receive. Examples of acceptable use would be deleting a large number of pages according to Wikidata policies and guidelines, reverting a large number of non-constructive edits, or blocking many open proxies. Unacceptable uses include attempting to circumvent legitimate oversight of any controversial action, regardless of whether it is an administrator task or not.

Users may also wish to equip the flood flag when performing log actions on large numbers of usernames that are offensive or libellous (ie. bureaucrats renaming accounts, administrators performing local blocks and so on).

Adding and removing the flood flag

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The flood flag is set and removed using Special:UserRights. Administrators can add the flag to their own account; other users can request it to be granted by a Bureaucrat at Wikidata:Bureaucrats' noticeboard.

Every user who has been granted the flood flag can remove it on their own after having finished the repetitive task. In some cases, a bureaucrat may remove the flood flag to force flooder's edits to appear in RC. This should be done in cases where the flooder has forgotten to remove it, or when the changes should be seen by default in RC.

Room for abuse?

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One issue with the proposal as it stands is that there is room for abuse from flooders; if a flooder is making contentious edits or actions, they would be able to toggle the flood flag to prevent them from being seen or monitored from Recent Changes, which is the primary source at which new edits are displayed and observed.

Granting the flood flag is logged, and shown in recent changes. Users who abuse the flood flag should be sanctioned.

Flood flag or bot flag?

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This is intended to replace requesting temporary bot flags from bureaucrats. Users who would otherwise request a temp bot flag may simply flag themselves using the flood right or request it from bureaucrats.

Cases where a permanent bot flag should be given remain the same—the user should create a secondary account and request a bot flag as normal. Only temporary bot flags are replaced with this flood flag.

See also

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