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It was once possible to edit the privileges page for everyone with more than 2k rep on Meta.SO.
I think this is a good thing:

  • Moderators have other things to do.
  • Wrong content can be easily fixed.
  • More involvement of the community.

Downside:

  • The help center should be the definitive source. (Could be solved with reviews)

So could this please changed again?

The actual needed reputation doesn't matter.
Some quotes to support my request:

At the high end of this reputation spectrum there is little difference between users with high reputation and ♦ moderators. That is intentional. We don’t run this site. The community does. Source

Ehhm, yes. We run the site, and we should be able to edit the privileges page.

Moderators are human exception handlers, there to deal with those exceptional conditions that could otherwise disrupt the community. Source

Editing the privileges pages are not an exception. Again, moderators have other things to do.

Edit

As animuson ♦ pointed out, not even mods can now edit the privilege pages "wiki", so adding

An other edit

Before I accept an answer (chameleon question WHEE) I'd like to hear some reason for this change.

I would just wait for their response. This could be a temporary bug or oversight that wasn't meant to be done, or they could have some specific reasons why they changed it that we're not aware of. – animuson ♦

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  • If this is considered. 2k is too small. It should be around 5k- 10k IMO
    – Walker
    Commented Dec 1, 2013 at 12:06
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    It doesn't matter. As long as it is not a "mod-only" privilege. Mods are human exception handlers, editing the privileges page is not an exception.
    – Johannes Kuhn
    Commented Dec 1, 2013 at 12:07
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    @Tijesunimi it should be same like tag wiki in my opinion, any user can suggest, two 5K can approve and one 20K can edit without review.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Dec 1, 2013 at 12:07
  • I agree with @ShaWizDowArd. That would be nice
    – Walker
    Commented Dec 1, 2013 at 12:08
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    @Tijesunimi plus, it won't be rolled out to all sites automatically but rather manually by a dev after reviewing the changes, e.g. once a week. This way it's a win win situation and that's how it was before as far as I remember.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Dec 1, 2013 at 12:10
  • How about only >2k can suggest (or the number could change of course), and only mods can approve/reject? That way it's still "the definitive source", but there is community involvement.
    – Doorknob
    Commented Dec 1, 2013 at 17:01
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    I just checked. As a moderator, I am not able to edit the privilege wikis. So it appears editing was disabled completely, for whatever reason.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Dec 1, 2013 at 17:29
  • @animuson That is bad. So we need a SE employee to do that kind of thing?
    – Johannes Kuhn
    Commented Dec 1, 2013 at 17:34
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    I would just wait for their response. This could be a temporary bug or oversight that wasn't meant to be done, or they could have some specific reasons why they changed it that we're not aware of.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Dec 1, 2013 at 17:35
  • I removed the bug tag...just because a particular type of user can't do something doesn't make it a bug – and you shouldn't need to use both bug and feature-request on the same post. It's one or the other. :)
    – Laura
    Commented Dec 2, 2013 at 16:18

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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Some articles (like privileges) have network wide defaults, which can only be edited via meta SO, by SE employees. Only site specific help center articles can be edited by that site's moderators.

There are things (like privileges), that work the same way across all network pages. We don't want to end up with each site having it's own, although fixed, variant of a network wide help article, but rather fix it once for all sites, even if we have to fix it ourselves.

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  • 1
    So is it status-declined?
    – Himanshu
    Commented Dec 2, 2013 at 9:56
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    more like status-bydesign
    – m0sa
    Commented Dec 2, 2013 at 9:57
  • It was once designed in an other way.
    – Johannes Kuhn
    Commented Dec 2, 2013 at 9:58
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    @JohannesKuhn I think you're missing a "t" somewhere...
    – Qantas 94 Heavy
    Commented Dec 2, 2013 at 9:58
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    @Qantas94Heavy assuming it was "I was once designed in an other way" - you can never know... ;)
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Dec 2, 2013 at 10:06
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    @ShaWizDowArd yes i was
    – m0sa
    Commented Dec 2, 2013 at 10:08
  • @ShaWizDowArd: indeed he was, probably attempting to hide his true origins...
    – Qantas 94 Heavy
    Commented Dec 2, 2013 at 10:13
  • @m0sa you can see comment revisions? Cool! ;)
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Dec 2, 2013 at 10:15
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    @ShaWizDowArd unfortunately not; I've seen the original
    – m0sa
    Commented Dec 2, 2013 at 10:16
  • Although the privileges page were global before too (you could only edit it on MSO) I've accepted this answer.
    – Johannes Kuhn
    Commented Dec 2, 2013 at 10:22
  • its / it's
    – This_is_NOT_a_forum
    Commented Dec 2, 2013 at 22:48
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m0sa's answer is correct (this behavior is by design), but since you asked for reasoning...

When we rolled out the help center, it was requested that the help center's search include the privileges pages as well. We agreed that including those pages in search made a lot of sense, but in order to make that happen, we needed to change the way they were structured on the back end. As I wrote in my answer to the request:

A side effect of this change is that privilege pages are no longer wikis editable by users here on MSO; in order to index them with the help center pages, we needed to relocate those pages to a place with different permissions. The community team is now in charge of making any updates that may be required going forward, so if you see any out-of-date or missing information from a privileges page, post to meta requesting it to be updated.

The privilege wiki pages very rarely need to be changed, so it's a manageable task for employees, and users posting meta requests to update/correct information shouldn't cause too big a wave for any metas, either.

TL;DR: It was more important for us to allow the privileges pages to be indexed in the help center than it was to keep them in a wiki form.

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  • Thanks. Makes sense. Now I'm unsure wich answer I should accept now.
    – Johannes Kuhn
    Commented Dec 3, 2013 at 7:46

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