Wikipedia talk:Administrators/Archive 19

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BN request from Andrew C

No, I'm not him, I read about it on the BN board. It was turned down for no other reason other than inactivity. Since I can't post on the crat board, as I'm not a crat, I thought I'd protest the decision. Andrew C's RFA had 61 supports, 1 decline and 1 neutral. He has a clean record on Wikipedia (way cleaner than mine), and declining his request and actually requesting him to go back through RFA again is moronic. We have WP:IAR for a reason, it would seem to fit for this reason.  ►К Ф Ƽ Ħ◄  R.I.P Trip Halstead 12:58, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

@KoshVorlon: FYI, "Trip Halstead" is "Tripp Halstead." —SerialNumberParanoia/^{cheap shit room} 13:16, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

@KoshVorlon: 1) "The Bureaucrats' noticeboard is a place where items related to the Bureaucrats can be discussed and coordinated. Any user is welcome to leave a message or join the discussion here." 2) Admin inactivity was the whole reason behind the recently concluded RFC above. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 13:32, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Crats kinda aren't allowed to IAR unless it is by ignoring a request and pretending they didn't see it (as no volunteer with advanced permissions can be forced to use them). The whole point of 'crats is that they only act within established policy and consensus, not on a whim. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:36, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

User:TonyBallioni WP:IAR is an established policy.  ►К Ф Ƽ Ħ◄  R.I.P Tripp Halstead 13:39, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Sure, and 'crats ignore the IAR policy. Their role is to only act with regards to admin rights based on the WP:ADMIN policy and community consensus through a relevant RfA. We want it that way. I don't want a 'crat removing might bit for funsies one day, nor do I want him granting it to his friend from back in the day that got desysoped for inactivity 5 years ago but was a good admin then. The role is very different than the admin role. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:44, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, but the canard that IAR is policy, while one of my favorite retorts, requires actually reading WP:IAR. The policy states, in full, If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. For the reasons Tony mentioned above, the entire point of bureaucrats on enWiki is to be bureaucratic and follow the rules. While Andrew may deserve to have his sysop bit, there's no argument that a segment of bureaucrats ignoring their role's description would improve Wikipedia. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 15:14, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Actually, Amory, I did actually read it. Re-equipping a sysop that was voted in on a landslide victory, who has no issues with the bit, would definetly help to at least maintain or improve Wikipedia. (Improve in that we're always short on Sysops , to say the least). This is a great case for WP:IAR.  ►К Ф Ƽ Ħ◄  R.I.P Tripp Halstead 21:20, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

• Just my bit that I do feel that an inactive desysopped admin who has not yet received a notice of at least a week about the new rule, should not have had his request for the bits rejected. Of course, I agree – the five year thing is perfect and I'm all for it. It's just a matter of decency; if we have been notifying admins of impending desysops because of inactivity, then we should have first informed the inactive desysopped admins and then brought them under the net of the new rule. Lourdes 14:31, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

• Maybe, but that wasn't part of the RfC, so we can't really say there's consensus to only start the five year timer now. If anything, I think most participants specifically wanted it to apply to editors who had already been away. Besides, there's a silly devil's advocate argument to be made that, if the new policy was enough to get them out of retirement (if only briefly), anyone staying up to date on policies would have been aware of it, and thus wouldn't need to be notified. At any rate, I mostly agree with you, but I don't read that the RfC does. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 15:21, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

• As the architect of the new rule, I have to say this is exactly the situation it was aimed at. I don’t recall interacting with this admin before and have nothing against them personally, but they flew through RFA back when it was easy, quit using their tools seven years ago, and quit editing entirely in 2016. They haven’t really been an admin in a very long time. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:25, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Reverts discussion clarity

@Amorymeltzer: It might be good to clarify what you disagree with.

You have reverted my edit about changing "Users and IP's" -> "Editors" and I replied by modifying it in this edit.

You then reverted my edit about page linking, unrelated (?) to the other revert. Regarding that, I disagree with the change back to Main article, since the guide is not the main article, but something prospective candidate should also see if they are interested in becoming an administrator. E to the Pi times i (talk | contribs) 15:02, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, unrelated. As I said, I disagree: when it comes to "becoming an administrator" I would absolutely say the guide should be linked as the main page. WP:RfA itself is arguably the main page, but I think it's patently unhelpful to link that page prominently. The guide is helpful, and links to plenty of other documents like WP:RFAADVICE, and is probably the main place someone interested should start their reading. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 15:19, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

First designs for Special:Block with Granular blocks

The Anti-Harassment Tools team enlisted the assistance of Alex Hollender, a User Experience designer at Wikimedia Foundation to create wireframe designs of the Special:Block with the Granular block feature included. Our first wireframes are based on the discussions on the Granular block talk page, Wishlist proposal, and Phabricator to date.

Because the Special:Block page is already at its limits with its current layout and we would like to propose a new organized layout for Special:Block. This will make it easier to add the granular blocking (page, category, namespace, etc) and whatever is to come in the future. All of the same functionality is available on this new layout, but in a more organized, step-by-step process.

Take a look at the wireframe and leave us your feedback. For the Anti-Harassment Tools team, SPoore (WMF), Trust & Safety, Community health initiative (talk) 19:12, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Interface administrators

I have started a discussion about the new interface administrator user group at WP:VPM#RFC: Interface administrators and transition. Please take a moment to review and/or comment. --Izno (talk) 14:45, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

WP:VPPOL discussion on WP:INACTIVITY

See this discussion on changing WP:INACTIVITY. Galobtter (pingó mió) 19:08, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Clarification of policy regarding restoration of adminship

I have refactored this section, combining several paragraphs that were redundant. My intent was to leave the actual policy unchanged, while expressing it more clearly. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 19:52, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

@UninvitedCompany: I have put the 1+2 bit back in. They were two separate proposals and don't overlap (completely). There will be former administrators where one applies but not the other. -- KTC (talk) 21:03, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

I think the new working on the "5 year rule" more closely matches the RfC, the "subsequently" part seemed out of place. I think "Over five years since administrative tools were last used" (at the time of the restoration request) seems more in line with the closing. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:41, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

I think it more closely matches the close of that RfC, but not what was actually originally proposed in the RfC though. -- KTC (talk) 23:12, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Clarifying "controversial circumstances"

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

At a WP:BN thread, Xeno said:

"While it could be said that [an editor] resigned in "controversial circumstances" (the only relevant criteria mentioned at Wikipedia:Administrators#After voluntary removal), their administrative actions were not called into question at the time and accordingly, their administrative status did not seem in jeopardy i.e. they were not "evading scrutiny of their actions that could have led to sanctions" (the criteria in place at Wikipedia:Bureaucrat#Restoration of permissions). Please consider this as your semi-regular reminder that these two pages are somewhat out of sync and that bureaucrats should generally defer to policy pages (Wikipedia:Administrators) over information pages (Wikipedia:Bureaucrats); accordingly, the guidance at the policy page should be clarified to reflect actual practice as it is presently rather vague." (redaction to make it clear this is not about any specific user).

I have also noticed that there is a theoretical conflict between this section and the lengthy inactivity section regarding users who voluntarily step-down but subsequently have an extended period of inactivity.

Accordingly I propose to change the wording on this page from:

To:

Notes:

• The first bullet uses the wording at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats which is the defacto standard the crats are currently using, so updating the policy to match actual practice.
• The second bullet defers to the inactivity standard and makes it clear that an admin who has a period of three or more years with zero edits after after the bit was removed (for any reason) will need to pass a new RFA. I don't believe this is a change from the current policy, and it certainly matches my understanding of the intent of the inactivity policy (and also matches the procedure at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats. The wording chosen means that should the standard for inactivity change then we don't need to make any changes to this section.
• The third bullet is unchanged.

I will advertise this proposal at WP:AN and WP:BN. Thryduulf (talk) 19:28, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Comments on clarification proposal

• I'm fairly certain this is following on Kudpung's recent request which was piled on a bit by users with the opinion that Kudpung's earlier resignation ought to have been considered avoiding scrutiny. These are supposed to be simple requests (either you meet the criteria to get the mop back on request or you don't) but I fear that the first bullet of the proposal opens up the process into a sort of back-door community desysopping, if enough people show up to convince the 'crats that the resignation was really under a cloud. I'm in favour of making this sort of clarification, but I think it needs a bit more work. There should be specific indicators that a resignation is avoiding scrutiny, rather than just a "feeling" that this was intended. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:39, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
  • This is explicitly not about any individual user and is intended only to match current practice. If you think things should be more explicit than at present then please make an alternative proposal that does that. Thryduulf (talk) 19:56, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

• No, I know it's not about any one user, I'm just referring to that discussion as an example of what we should be aiming to avoid. BN shouldn't be a venue for debating the merits of a resysop request, that's what a reconfirmation RFA is for. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 20:00, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

@Ivanvector: I think this proposal is on the same page as you, and you're perhaps misinterpreting it. The format of a bulleted list aside, the core of the proposal appears to be to convert "not considered to be in controversial circumstances" to "not evading, or attempting to evade, scrutiny". The other bullet points are just secondary procedural aspects. I think the more specific clarification of the wording would assist in our goal to prevent BN from turning into a drama board any time an admin associated with any type of 'controversy' tries to return. This has happened at least two times in recent memory, in which an admin was within their rights to have the tools back but was viciously mobbed by hostile users when making the request. It's not right, and the lack of clear written guidelines was an issue both times. I think this clarification would reduce the vagueness and uncertainty of written guidelines that currently allows users to attempt to desysop by retroactively establishing "controversy" at BN.  Swarm  talk  21:22, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

• Support the wording change. This should resolve the inconsistency between the two pages and codify current practice. 28bytes (talk) 19:42, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
• I don't think the proposed text is sufficiently clear. It changes the policy from "in controversial circumstances" to "evading scrutiny that could lead to sanctions", which is still incredibly broad. The de facto practice is that crats will resysop unless the requestee would have been desysopped had they retained the tools. So a better wording would be "when voluntarily requesting removal they were not evading, or attempting to evade, an already-initiated desysop process that would have likely resulted in the removal of their sysop access". Or something that accurately reflects the reality of the situation. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 19:54, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Your proposed wording would not cover a situation where an ANI thread was unambiguously leading to an arbitration request but where the admin in question resigned the bit before the request was filed. At present that situation would clearly prevent automatic resysopping. Thryduulf (talk) 20:00, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

• At present, the only path to a desysop for misconduct is through the arbitration committee, and so a determination that a resignation was "under a cloud" should also only be made definitively by the arbitration committee, if we're tying that to a condition under which an admin can be prevented from getting the tools back. I'm just thinking out loud here, I don't have a definite solution to suggest at the moment. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 20:07, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

• If an ANI discussion should be included, then my wording could be changed to something like "... an already-initiated process that would have likely resulted in the removal of their sysop access". That would be more clear than "sanctions" anyway. But I would generally agree with Ivanvector - since ArbCom is the only group that can desysop an admin outside of emergencies, it would make sense that they make the cloud determination. I'm not sure what the wording of that would look like, since I stay as far away from ArbCom as possible for the most part. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 20:16, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

• Ajraddatz: The current committee was nearly unanimous in stating their reticence to step in the last time they were queried about resolving cloud concerns, handing the responsibility back to the community/bureaucrats: https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?oldid=851052847#Clarification_request:_Return_of_access_levels –xeno^talk 06:11, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
• There are some cases where administrators have resigned without an ArbCom case, but where it should be considered to be "under a cloud": plagiarism/copyvios, socking, wheel warring, and other "serious" things like that There are examples on Wikipedia:Former administrators/reason/resigned where bureaucrats have declined to resysop under those circumstances. --Rschen7754 02:01, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
• I think it's important to note that a failure to resysop is not the same as a desysop, rather it is saying that there is sufficient concern that the community should decide rather than the bureaucrats. The result may not be much different for the end user, but there's a clear process difference between "You're clean, welcome back" and "Eh, this is muddled enough that the wider community should have a say." The community decides whether someone should have the bit, Bureaucrats interpret clouds and consensus about that decision. ArbCom can remove if they see fit, but we have crats for a job so let's let them do it. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 12:38, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

• The wording of this is a bit wider than intended, I think, because "sanctions" could include blocks and things like topic bans. --Rschen7754 00:38, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
• I'm uneasy about limiting the evading scrutiny condition to scenarios with filed cases that would have "likely resulted in the removal of their sysop access", because this requires bureaucrats to make a prediction based on a partially completed case. Resigning to forestall a case from being filed is also a scenario that I think ought to be at least evaluated with respect to evading scrutiny. isaacl (talk) 06:49, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the context and further discussion everyone - this all makes sense to me. Maybe part of the problem is that we're trying to condense what's actually a pretty complex series of situations into a single sentence? Maybe it would be better to have a small paragraph describing what could prevent resysop instead, if that could provide us with more clarity. Also interesting that ArbCom is hands off on this topic... you'd think they would want the work now that they only deal with a few cases per year. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 23:53, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

• Moral support. Good idea to make this consistent. However, would suggest using this opportunity to make it a bit clearer what level of sanctions are being referred to. Presumably, the chance of at most a troutslap or even a warning is not sufficient to be called "controversial circumstances". I have no problem in leaving bureaucrats some leeway, but would recommend somewhat tighter wording, like "significant sanctions, such as potential desysopping" to avoid this being interpreted as unintentional tightening of the requirements. That being said, Ajraddatz' version above to me seems like *too* stringent, but opinions may vary. Martinp (talk) 23:13, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
• Support This essentially keeps the status quo, and makes the wording consistent. If there is reason to change the standard, this should be discussed separately, for there is unlikely to be consensus there. DGG ( talk ) 18:02, 30 October 2018 (UTC)v
• Support idea, oppose specific wording would suggest something "were not currently under scrutiny for misuse of their admin tools or other sanctionable behavior" or something along those lines. The new phrasing does not capture the problem accurately; "avoid scrutiny" implies intent, which we cannot know. What we want to make clear is if an admin is currently under scrutiny for bad behavior, they can't resign to just get the tools back at a later date when the heat dies down. Basically, if there is a legitimate complaint which could reasonably lead to an admin being sanctioned (either desysopped or admonished) and they resign the tools during the discussion of that complaint, they need to re-apply for RFA. --Jayron32 18:16, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
• Support. Point 2 is an appropriate addition to align with the "3-years of complete inactivity rule". Point 1, while imperfect as discussed above, is still clearer than the current text in my opinion. I should note that setting a simple rule and then trusting bureaucrats' judgement to apply them is the only way we can prevent "mob-desysop by backdoor". Deryck C. 21:21, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Indeed, as noted the wording in point 1 is the defacto current standard anyway and has avoided mob-desysop, although not mobs. Thryduulf (talk) 17:34, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
• If there are no other comments in the next few days I think an uninvolved admin can close this - there hasn't been enough engagement for me to feel comfortable closing it myself even given the relative lack of expressed opposition. Thryduulf (talk) 00:57, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.