Our current policies require that all prospective candidates or nominees for Assistant or Content Moderator first attain either Chat Moderator, Rollback, or Discussion Moderator rights on the wiki. I could just go ahead and modify the requirements myself, without seeking input from anyone who happens to notice this thread. But I have decided to propose that these requirements to obtain Assistant and Content Moderator rights are removed.
It's important for us to understand why the requirements were originally put in place, and the effects they currently have. When the Assistant and Content Moderator user-groups were first introduced, it was decided that a user must obtain either Chat Moderator, Rollback, or Discussion Moderator rights, before obtaining Assistant or Content Moderator rights.
There are no requirements to become a Chat Moderator, Rollback, or Discussion Moderator on this wiki, since none of these user-groups so far, especially the Chat Moderator and Discussion Moderator user-groups, have a significant impact on the wiki. Very few users use chat here, so the need to ban users is almost always overlooked. The forums on this wiki aren't used very often, and talk pages are used on this wiki instead of message walls, so the need to archive threads is increasingly limited.
For users with Rollback rights, they are more likely to cause a problem since if a user is promoted to rollback on this wiki, and they are later revealed to be a troll, they may use rollback to revert good faith edits. The editing side of the wiki is significantly stronger than the social side, which probably explains why there has been one incident of an inappropriate use of rollback on this wiki, but no incidents of inappropriate uses of kicking and banning users, or inappropriate uses of taking over thread conversations, or article comments.
Users that misuse rollback on this wiki receive warnings as a result of their blatant misuse of the tool, or if the situation is serious enough, they may risk loss of rollback privileges altogether. But since the rollback tool is the only thing roll-backers have that regular users do not, there remains to be no requirements to become a rollback here. Users who apply for Chat Moderator, Rollback, or Discussion Moderator rights here always tend to have their requests approved, unless they been found to have a history of negative contributions on this wiki, or on other wikis.
For Assistant or Content Moderator rights meanwhile, a user must have Chat Moderator, Rollback, or Discussion Moderator rights. In addition to those requirements, there are several recommendations that can mean the difference between an approved request and a non-approved request. These recommendations are: having made edits to templates and categories, and use of more "complex" tools or features such as tables, and knowledge of or experience with JavaScript or Cascading Styling Sheets. These recommendations are not compulsory, but they can strengthen the chances of the outcome of the request.
It is possible for a user to not be very experienced, and still have their requests for Assistant or Content Moderator pass. But it's a relatively uncommon occurrence, and is unlikely to happen, unless the user is considered trustworthy to use the Assistant and Content Moderator tools appropriately, and not abuse them for their own gain, and to cause havoc. The main reason why Assistant and Content Moderator rights are held to a higher standard is because they can view deleted contributions, change the protection levels of pages, and edit fully protected pages.
Content Moderators can delete and un-delete pages whereas non-Content Moderators can not. And Assistants have access to several tools such as importing pages, marking reverted edits as bot edits, enabling and disabling article comments in blog articles, editing other user's user blogs, and editing wiki-style forums which are locked and archived on this wiki, and un-editable by non-Assistants.
But to be honest, I feel that Assistants and Content Moderators are held to a high enough standard without needing to have one of the following pre-requisites - Chat Moderator, Rollback, and Discussion Moderator rights - because like I mentioned, there are several recommendations may have or may not have which can determine the difference between a successful request or an unsuccessful request. Chat Moderator, Rollback, and Discussion Moderator candidates meanwhile will always have their requests approved unless they have been found to have had a negative history on this wiki or on another wiki.
Also I do feel that having those prerequisites in place doesn't do much to encourage users to apply for Assistant and Content Moderator rights, especially since Chat Moderators, Roll-backers, and Discussion Moderators will usually just want to apply for Administrator rights which are available for them to request. Users who apply for Assistant or Content Moderator rights are less likely to have their requests declined than if they were to apply for Administrator rights, since there are slightly more requirements to become an Administrator which are just recommendations to Assistant or Content Moderator candidates. There hasn't been a single user on this wiki yet that has had their Administrator request approved that wasn't once an Assistant - Content Moderator rights didn't exist yet at the time.
For all the reasons listed above, I feel that with these changes, not only will Assistant and Content Moderator rights potentially receive more recognition, but users will no longer need to apply for any lower tiered rights first, which will serve as a benefit for users wanting to work their way towards obtaining administrator rights, having a choice between five user-groups to apply for, instead of three. Considering that the process of filtering out users who are unqualified for Content Moderator, Assistant, or Administrator rights is good enough, allowing regular users to apply for Assistant or Content Moderator rights as a first request will do much more good than harm, if there is any harm that is.
- Should we remove the Chat Moderator/Rollback/Discussion Moderator requirements for Assistant/Content Moderator candidates, and give them the option to apply for Assistant/Content Moderator rights to fulfill the requirements needed to apply for Administrator rights later?
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