> To cement their authority over the YouTube codebase during the integration into Google, the early engineers created a specialized permission set called “OldTu

> To cement their authority over the YouTube codebase during the integration into Google, the early engineers created a specialized permission set called “OldTuber”. OldTuber granted you the ability to completely bypass the new Google-oriented code enforcement policies, enabling anyone holding it to commit code directly to the YouTube codebase, with only the most glancing of code reviews from anyone. No need for code readability. No need for exhaustive tests. No need for maintaining code coverage. If you broke the site by improperly wielding OldTuber status, it was on your head and you would lose the privilege immediately, if not your job. So you just had to be a good citizen and never break the site. Oh man. At our org, we called this "being a cowboy." We have a lot of process to prevent cowboys now. Oh, the good ol' days haha.