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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. Please start a new section for each topic.

This is not a forum for grievances. It is a specific noticeboard addressing Bureaucrat-related issues. If you want to know more about an action by a particular bureaucrat, you should first raise the matter with them on their talk page. Please stay on topic, remain civil, and remember to assume good faith. Take extraneous comments or threads to relevant talk pages.

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It is 07:26:38 on April 28, 2024, according to the server's time and date.

Voluntarily Resigning Administrative Privileges (Atama)

Atama (t · th · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · manual reverts · rollbacks · logs ^{(blocks · rights · moves)} · rfar · spi · cci) (assign permissions)^{(acc · ap · fm · mms · npr · pm · pcr · rb · te)}

Hello, I have not been able to be very active for a number of years due to changes in my life, and I very much enjoyed my time serving the project in my administrative role. But I think it is best for me to voluntarily resign my privileges, as I will not be able to commit to an extended activity level any time soon. Thank you to the community that put their trust in me, and I hope whatever changes I have made over the years were a net benefit to the project. I will likely still be around from time to time as a regular editor. -- Atama頭 00:00, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Done And added rollbacker to your account. Thank you for your service, Atama. Acalamari 00:05, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'd also like to thank you for your service as an administrator Atama, and to wish you the absolute best as you encounter the changes before you in life. You can unequivocally repurpose your hope to other things for I assure you, without reservation, your admin tenure and the changes made by your presence and hand equate to far more than simple net gain. Sincerely. --John Cline (talk) 06:07, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

		Job Done
		Awarded to Atama for good services as an admin, and for resigning the tools in a noble manner. SilkTork (talk) 15:52, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Level II desysop of Athaenara

Athaenara (t · th · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · manual reverts · rollbacks · logs ^{(blocks · rights · moves)} · rfar · spi · cci) (assign permissions)^{(acc · ap · fm · mms · npr · pm · pcr · rb · te)}

Please action the following.

Level II desysop of Athaenara

The Arbitration Committee has determined that Athaenara (talk · contribs)’s behavior appears inconsistent with the level of trust required of administrators. Athaenara has not responded to contact from the Arbitration Committee. Accordingly, the Arbitration Committee resolves that Athaenara be desysopped in accordance with the Committee’s Level II removal procedures.
Support: CaptainEek, Enterprisey, L235, Maxim, Primefac, Worm That Turned KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:30, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Level II desysop of Athaenara

Thank you. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:31, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Done, also notified user. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:40, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Query about new activity requirements for admins

As all the 'crats who've chimed in have stated, we have not been given the authority to arbitrarily desysop anyone just because they might be gaming the system. If there are specific concerns, they can be brought to the attention of the Arbitration Committee, who can then make a decision regarding any action to be taken. Short of a change in policy, nothing more can be done here. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 20:11, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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.

Hello, Bureaucrats,

I should probably ask this on one of your User talk pages but other folks might have this same question. I just ran into an admin who I was unfamiliar with and when I checked out their contributions, they had done a bucketload of antivandalism work recently but their last 200 contributions go back to 2014!. And their user page had said they were inactive until today when they changed it to state they will occasionally be using their current account. Their admin log seems a bit forced with lots of IP blocks over a brief amount of time and revision deletions of the Sandbox. It seems rather obvious that they are fulfilling the letter of the new activity requirements but even AGF, I don't think they plan on contributing to the project much in the future.

My question to you all is how much leeway do bureaucrats have when these new activity requirements come into play? If an admin satisfies them by the letter of the law but seems to be gaming the system, would you remove their admin privileges? Or are your hands tied in this matter and you do not have discretion? I'm sorry for not being more specific but I don't want to make this admin the sudden focus of attention and I doubt this is the only example of this occurring. Thanks for any further elaboration you can offer. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:08, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The only areas that crats have discretion are when closing RfAs in the discretionary range or choosing to deny resysop requests. Everything else follows hard numeric rules. Everyone complains about admins gaming the activity rules but nobody knows what to do about it. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 03:10, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And even the discretionary range is kinda a myth. It's basically >70% pass, below that likely to fail unless a crat super votes. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:16, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Liz. Another ‘crat may correct me if I’m mistaken, but I believe the only “discretion” regarding activity requirements would be in taking into account things that the bot(s) don’t see as edits (such as edits from an alternate account.) We can’t “discount” edits just because they appear to be pointless or make-work just to fill the new requirements. Now, if the edits are outright bad, then that would definitely be something to flag for attention, but not here, since even bad edits could be used to satisfy the activity requirements. 28bytes (talk) 03:46, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed with the above; we do not have the authority to verify, qualify, or otherwise interpret for the sake of discounting edits (and I would argue, none of us would want to do this task). Primefac (talk) 09:34, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Of course the new requirements are gameable. Any such requirements are. These ones, like the previous one-edit-per-year one, barely even try not to be; in a few years' time, we'll be able to point at admins who have exactly twenty edits per year, done all at once in one or perhaps two bursts.

There's ways to minimize gameability (say, by desysopping some percentage or fixed number of the least active admins each year) or to ensure that gaming the system has useful side effects (say, requiring some number of logged actions in mainspace each year, with an expectation that admins near the minimum will have those actions examined and be referred to arbitration if they're frivolous or plain bad). The new requirements, though, were rushed straight to voting, so there was never a realistic chance to propose alternatives.

(We're down to 154 still on track to be desysopped in January, btw.) —Cryptic 04:00, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen so many RfC's fail - I put together one I could see passing. I was hoping some further tweaking would happen next year. Yes, it is gameable, and I acknowledged that at the time, but it took a modicum of effort to get from zero to minimal. Worm^TT(talk) 07:49, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think the RfC was well-thought out and well-structured. The problem is that there is a wide spectrum of views among editors on the purpose of the inactivity policy, and those views have shifted significantly over time, from the initial “we need to verify if they’re still alive for security purposes” to “we need some sort of meaningful engagement with the community.”

Likewise there’s a big disconnect over what constitutes “gaming”: if the single edit per year requirement is simply to confirm you’re among the living, it’s not gaming to say “yes, I am” once a year. But a lot of people view that as gaming since many of the people supporting activity requirements do indeed feel like people with the administrative toolset should contribute more than just a yearly confirmation that they still have a pulse.

There are other ways of gauging engagement than a numerical requirement, but those have their own set of issues and unforeseen side effects. That said, the door to another RfC is always open if there are new ideas for how to better handle inactivity concerns. 28bytes (talk) 14:19, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Liz, you may not think that admin intends to contribute much to the project in the future, but we have no way of knowing that. Unless we hear that an editor has died, there's always the possibility of a return, and we need to keep an open welcome for admins and other editors who come back after a divorce, career change or the kids growing up. Ideally the increased requirement will give us enough insight that the account is still in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing. In a few months time we will be in a position to judge whether this succeeded in removing a large number of currently inactive admins, in the long term we should be able to see what effect this had on the reactivation rate of longterm inactive admins. My assumption is that anyone who increases their activity in order to meet the new threshold is currently busy in real life but hopes to be able to return here. Ϣere SpielChequers 08:54, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Related query to Liz or others who may wish to guide me. If an administrator has significant administrative actions but falls short of the 100 edits/60 months rule, would crats apply policy to the hilt or would there be some IAR involved here? Thanks. Lourdes 09:47, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how somebody could make significant admin actions over a five year period but do fewer than 100 edits in that time. However if an admin has closed 90 RFCs/contributed 90 FAs so clear and complete that they don't generate more than an average of 1.1 edits each, there's nothing to stop them running an RFA. Or just contributing a few more edits. I mean IAR remains, but it is hard to imagine a scenario where an editor who has contributed less than 100 edits or other actions in the last five years could be considered to have made significant contributions in those five years. Ϣere SpielChequers 10:18, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think Lourde's query is purely a hypothetical; if you look at her logs and contributions, she isn't at risk of being desysopped anytime soon, but if her current pattern of contributions and admin actions(Since October of last year) continued, she would have over 1000 administrative actions and less than 100 edits in four years time, putting her at risk of removal for "inactivity" then. Jackattack1597 (talk) 11:33, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Jackattack. I've replied on Lourdes talkpage as I suspect this would be best handled there. Ϣere SpielChequers 12:16, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As 'Crats our actions are tied to the rules, and we tend not to fudge them. As volunteers we can choose to carry out a legitimate action or not, but we can't choose to carry out an illegitimate action. So, if as an individual we feel that an admin is making a good faith attempt to contribute to the project and stay in touch with the community, though their contributions may have fallen just below the figure needed to remain an admin, we can as an individual elect not to desysop, leaving it to another 'Crat to do the deed. But we can't as an individual pick out an admin who does meet the criteria, but that we personally feel is gaming the system, and desysop them, nor would we agree to do that as a body, because as a body we carry out the wishes of the community. If someone in the community spots an admin they feel is gaming the system and so they feel should be desysopped, they could raise a RfC to change the activity rules or open an ArbCom case under AdminConduct, but they could not come straight to us to ask for a desysop - we can only desysop under community rules, so if an individual (other than the admin themselves) asks us we say no, but if ArbCom asks us we say yes. SilkTork (talk) 10:45, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Like most of the notes above I agree, we are not going to desysop someone on inactivity grounds because we subjectively don't think some specific edits are should be qualified to count or not. The closest we have to discretion there is in deciding if certain non-edit actions count as 'administrative actions' or not, but that isn't in play here. If someone were to make lots of pointless edits, that could be considered disruption and standard behavioral processes can deal with it. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:24, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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.

WP:ELECTCOM2022 closure

Hello 'crats! Would an uninvolved 'crat please close WP:ELECTCOM2022, completing the creation of this year's election commission for the 2022 arbitration committee elections? Guidance on this can be found in WP:ACERULES, including notes at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2021#Commissioner_reservist_selections. Thank you! — xaosflux ^Talk 21:06, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Done, though for the record the consensus here was much clearer than last year, and an admin closed that one. Primefac (talk) 09:06, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Primefac xaosflux needs to be moved to reservist and Cyberpower to commisoner; xaosflux explicitly requested to be marked as reservist if there were thar least three{other accepted candidates Special note to closing party: As there are many candidates, if accepted and there are at least 3 others accepted, I defer to other accepted members and prefer to be a reserve commissioner. — xaosflux Talk 22:11, 8 October 2022 (UTC)) -- Asartea ^Talk ^| ^Contribs 09:20, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for that,

Fixed. I will admit that I did not think to look at the candidate statements when evaluating the consensus. Primefac (talk) 09:34, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Request for IADMIN rights: Ragesoss

Ragesoss (t · th · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · manual reverts · rollbacks · logs ^{(blocks · rights · moves)} · rfar · spi · cci) (assign permissions)^{(acc · ap · fm · mms · npr · pm · pcr · rb · te)}

I'd like to get interface-admin rights again, as I have some updates to make to the Wiki Education guided tours. (I don't use them often, so they got removed for inactivity.) --ragesoss (talk) 19:59, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ragesoss, I assume that you have 2FA still enabled? Primefac (talk) 20:07, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Primefac yes, I have 2FA enabled.--ragesoss (talk) 20:09, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Primefac (talk) 20:13, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Resignation due to unsupportive community and universally unpleasant interactions

19 year editor and admin here. Wikipedia used to be fun. You could add good content at your own pace and it would be well received. Today, in 2022, I hereby resign because every time I have added good content for the last few years I get hassled or it gets outright deleted. It seems nobody gives a damn. Wikipedia has clearly lost its way. Allied projects have the same problems. There are so many incidents at this point I can't see a future for me donating time here. At this point, I largely regret having done so. Furthermore, I believe the leadership is terrible, despite my best efforts voting for people it seems the whole thing is stuck in a quagmire of mis-conceived policies and self-service, meanwhile abusing volunteers. God only knows where the donation money goes, computers don't cost that much to run. There are also massive systemic abuse problems like paid editors (I recently had a great historic photo deleted by someone abusing copyright rules for a national government), policy quagmire, and a lack of experienced editors. There are lists of sources that are banned that basically disallow content from almost any online source in China, which means there's a widening cultural gap between China and the rest of the world. I used to believe Wikipedia was about sharing and making the world a better place. Now I believe it's worse than the rest of the media and systemic abuses rife. Some of the things I am proud of contributing include the Timeline of Buddhism, the Bitcoin article, early COVID statistics coverage in animated maps (many times daily), reports of corruption inside Wikimedia (nothing was done AFAIK), and positive support for new language Wikipedias at a Wiki conference. Things I can't stand: deletionists, over-use of policies and bureaucracy. I'd like to wish this place well but the English Wikipedia community clearly continues to decline. The degree of tolerability even for experienced editors is virtually zero. Wikipedia's replacement will probably be AI driven and superior. Goodbye. Thanks for the good times, old-school editors. To the abusers - you know who you are - you are destroying something that was once great. It will not recover. Should anyone take this seriously (hah, never!), here's a plan to restore positive direction. Step one: relax notability. Step two: stop flagging new content for deletion. Step three: Require that people make three articles for every one they flag. Step four: If foreign language wikipedias have coverage of something, allow it by default. BYE. prat (talk) 04:43, 19 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, for voicing your concerns but also for resigning your sysop permission. For the record, this is an under-a-cloud resignation after ADMINCOND concerns had been voiced at WP:ANI. It's a rather uncomplicated solution for these concerns I wish others had taken instead of letting things escalate to ArbCom. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 05:38, 19 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There's no cloud in my view, I just won't put up with it anymore. For the record, I'll bet nobody looks in to the deleted photo (abuse of copyright for censorship) or does anything about the constructive suggestions. prat (talk) 05:59, 19 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

ToBeFree, any existence of clouds is determined when and if a former administrator requests the bits back, not when they voluntarily give them up. Primefac (talk) 07:26, 19 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Done. I know you are planning on retiring, but should you change your mind and require any advanced permissions, please let us know (either here or at the relevant PERM board). Primefac (talk) 07:26, 19 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]