If there is no clear indication that the page is a collaborative effort between two or more authors, no changes will be made to the metadata until the posting user makes a change to the License box to indicate their co-authors.

There have been problems in the past when a posting user does not make any attempts to credit, continually fails to credit, or makes no effort to officially reach out to staff for a change, which would then leave the co-authors in a permanent limbo state because only the posting author has the power of weather or not anyone gets credit. With this policy change, how would this potential issue be combated or would there be any indication for what a co-author would be able to do if they were met with this type of situation?

Because Mod Tools staffers are already trusted by simple majority, it's reasonable to me that they be allowed to control their own metadata attribution.

Seconding Prismal — I would add the caveat that Mod Tools staff make a record in the proper channel, #metadata, whenever any attribution change has been made. A record would link the receiving message and list changes made, or provide screenshots of one/the other/both. As for metadata attribution requests from non-official channels, I think we can allow for a bit of laxity:

• If the user makes a request via non-sanctioned Discord server, it's reasonable for a staffer to direct them to a sanctioned Discord server.
• If the user makes a request via Wikidot PM, the request should be granted, and the user prompted to seek an official channel in the future.¹
• If via other means, we should just grant it without frills. The user may have good reason to have gone out of their way when simpler points of contact exist, as aismallard points out. I'm generally wary of adding unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles to the process.

Any fulfillable request from a non-official channel should still be recorded in #metadata, but with nonessential/PII redacted.

(Aside — I'd be willing to put my name up as a go-to ping in Staffcord for making attribution metadata edits.)

We should track records though, so staff can later look and confirm X person really did request an attribution metadata change. My point is that in some cases the desire for transparency and tracking conflict. Should we have separate screenshots, one redacted and public and one available to staff? I don't see that being consistently maintained given the extra work involved.

This is what I meant in my original comment. Most attribution metadata requests will be through standardized channels, but some of them will be in whatever medium happens to work for the requester given the circumstances. We need to have a system that supports both.

1. The way they are making the request has personally identifiable information (PII. example: an email titled moc.liamg|emanlaer#moc.liamg|emanlaer)
2. They are asking for an article to be fully anonymized in the metadata

In the first situation, I don't see any harm in just asking them to officially make the request in one of the spaces nico listed in the initial discussion post. There shouldn't be any PII in their wikidot account if they post on the mentioned thread. If there is, it's not information that would be further leaked by adding that very same wikidot account to an article's metadata.

In situations where the article is being fully anonymized, I admit I'm not fully sure what the process would be. How are records normally stored when an article is anonymized, if at all?

Are there any other situations where user privacy is relevant here that I'm not thinking of?

I think it would be reasonable to allow staff to make their own metadata edits, as long as they make a record of the changes they make in the #metadata channel of staffcord.

One thing that I will note is that I do a monthly sweep of co-authored and international pages that haven't made a metadata request as an ancillary part of my site news work. There's usually 5-15 pages each month where the authors clearly list a coauthor/translator on the page, but forget to submit their metadata request. Normally I just plop these in #metadata and let someone handle it. Under this new policy, would there be different requirements for making metadata requests on behalf of others?

1. It always has to be laid out in the licensebox first? Great!
But let's make sure those changing the metadata check who edited the licensebox to add that since anyone can do that, really.

and then there are some edge cases.
Imagine there are two people listed in the licensebox, can either of them add a third? just the poster? do they both have to be in agreement about the added attribution? what if they aren't?

2. Request has to be made in an official space now? Great!
Let's make sure to keep a record of that somewhere so that we can find it later! Throw a link in #metadata or a screenshot or a link in the description of the edit to the metadata when someone does that.

Who gets to make this request? any of the authors listed in the licensebox? just the poster?
Can they opt to make the request in a comment of their own work or in their authorpost or do they have to go to one of those spaces to make the request?

One thing I will suggest, no matter the specifics of the route we go with this:
Someone occasionally needs to have the job of peeking at metadata edits to make sure people are abiding by this rules and that requests are traceable.

3. As for the question of if mods and admins should be able to edit their own metadata?
Only if they're the ones initially posting the page, I say, and adding people. If they do that you can deduce the source = the author = the person making the change, and if there's an error that's on them as the one requesting.

If for some reason authors have to be removed from a work of theirs, I think someone else should do it to prevent any issues there.

Hello!

For the unfamiliar, "metadata" refers to the data of data. For our purposes here on the SCP Wiki, however, it refers to the information of who wrote what when it is not immediately evident. For example, Lt Masipag was the user who ported SCP-173 from EditThis to Wikidot, but the original author is Moto42. Though Lt Masipag created the page on Wikidot, its author is Moto42 and their name is the one that comes up when you lookup SCP-173. This also applies to collabs, since it is not possible for more than one user to post the same page on a technical level. By adding ones name to the metadata of an article, for example, SCP-3000, we know that it was written by A Random Day, djkaktus, and Joreth, and not just djkaktus.

For years, staff members with mod tools have been editing the site's metadata pages to reflect co-author credits, deleted accounts, new accounts, and the like. We have been a bit lax on it, which hasn't been a problem until recently.

THE PROBLEM

The issue with the current system is a lack of records of the metadata requests when those occur in unofficial spaces, sidechats, or DMs.

PROPOSAL

We want to make an official process for requesting metadata changes. The process would be as follows:

Co-author attribution must be listed in the article's License box. License boxes are mandatory anyway, so they should have them. Please consult this handy guide for information on how to use them. Failing that, the author post will be checked. If there is no clear indication that the page is a collaborative effort between two or more authors, no changes will be made to the metadata until the posting user makes a change to the License box to indicate their coauthors.

The only places one can request metadata changes are in the following locations:

• #site-17 in IRC
• #help-desk in the official Discord
• #observer-discussion in the official Staff Discord
• #metadata in the official Staff Discord
• A specific sticky thread on the forums, to be created at a later date.

BENEFITS

This helps us keep track of and organize requests for metadata edits a lot easier.

DOWNSIDES

More work. Also, should people with mod tools be allowed to make their own metadata edits?

Discuss.

This discussion will go on for 7 days.