Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Change to sysop activity requirements

The following is a draft working towards a proposal for adoption as a Wikipedia policy, guideline, or process.
The proposal must not be taken to represent consensus, but is still in development and under [[discussion|discussion]], and has not yet reached the process of gathering consensus for adoption. Thus references or links to this page should not describe it as policy, guideline, nor yet even as a proposal.

Please edit this proposal

Reconfirmation of Adminship is no longer bundled with this proposal. The draft {{tls|Reconfirmation of Adminship template}} is currently at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Change to sysop activity requirements/Reconfirmation of Adminship template.

current activity policy is summarized at Wikipedia:Inactive administrators#Criteria

Ideas are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Proposals for best practices are helpful and welcome.

Idea B[edit]

The text of the policy at Wikipedia:Administrators should be changed as follows:

Frequently Asked Questions

What will happen to administrators who become inactive under this new definition?
This is undecided. Current proposals for how to handle these cases are:
1. Desysop them if they are still inactive after following the standard notification periods
2. Notify them of the policy change, and provide a 3(?) month grace period for them to become active before requesting a desysop
3. Feel free to add other ideas
How many administrators will be affected by this definition change?
The answer is currently unknown.
Could administrators still game these new inactivity requirements?
Yes, but it will be more difficult and time consuming. Under the current inactivity policy, administrators only need to make one edit per year and may retain their administrator tools if they do that indefinitely. Under the proposed policy, an administrator can only do that twice as they would accumulate 22 inactive months using that strategy. If they do not make another edit the next month, they go up to 23 inactive months. From this point on, they need to make at least one edit every month for the next three years to retain the tools. If they become inactive again within those three years, then they are liable to be desysoped. So while it can still be gamed, the process becomes harder the more it is gamed.
What if an administrator returns to activity after 23 months of inactivity, but then goes on vacation for a month resulting in them hitting the 24 month limit? Would they be desysoped?
Maybe, but the potential for currently active administrators to be desysoped is low. The proposed policy allows but does not require bureaucrats to remove administrator tools. If notified of an absence (but not necessarily the reason), they may decline to desysop based on their own judgment. Even if bureaucrats do desysop the administrator, the potential damage is limited to roughly 24 hours without the tools after they return. Under the proposal, Wikipedia:Administrators#Restoration of adminship would still apply, specifically: Former administrators may request restoration of administrator status by placing a request at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard....Before restoring the administrator flag, a bureaucrat should be reasonably convinced that the user has returned to activity or intends to return to activity as an editor. If the administrator had in fact returned to activity prior to the absence, then policy allows them to be resysoped after a 24 hour hold. Common sense applies, so if an administrator is truly active, they should not be desysoped on a technicality.
How would this affect editors with lengthy off-wiki commitments such as those in the military, with seasonal jobs, or other hobbies that take them away from the wiki for long periods? Would we be creating an expectation that editors disclose the reason for their inactivity?
As proposed, editors can take 4 months away from the wiki every year and will still be four months away from the listed threshold. This may not be sufficient in some cases and the proposal would place an added burden on these editors. Editors could effectively increase the number of months away to 6 per year by making one edit in each of seven months where they would be otherwise inactive. Another possibility given above is notifying bureaucrats of an expected absence. Wikipedia has long welcomed editors to volunteer when they can without needing an explanation for being away, and this proposal would not change that. For expected absences, an anticipated return date should be sufficient; activity prior to that date could indicate a compromised account and be more easily scrutinized which would increase wiki security while minimizing disruption to or disclosures from the administrator.

After a total of N (non-consecutive) calendar months of inactivity (no edits or logged actions), an admin must hold and pass a reconfirmation RfA or the tools will be removed for inactivity. reset counter after M consecutive months of activity?

what's a reconfirmation rfa and how does it differ from a regular rfa?

New standard questions, otherwise something that looks the same as a current RFA.

Montanabw has suggested a kind of continuing education for admins. Reconfirmation questions could be tailored to recent policy changes to incentivize or demonstrate having "read up" on the most recent norms

No standard questions initially, to be determined by an RFC after the community has experience with RoAs.

The discretionary zone is between 50% and 60% "retain".

What should we propose as N?

36, 24

How many notices should be given?

One notice by talk page and (if enabled) email, when an editor is 3 months away from the limit.

What is to be done with admins who are currently inactive?

As-written, they will be immediately be subject to desysopping.

Grandfather/grace-period?

3 months from implementation to request removal or launch an RoA (hopefully after becoming active), otherwise desysop

Idea D[edit]

The following text should be added to the Lengthy inactivity section of Wikipedia:Administrators#Restoration of adminship:

** Over six years with minimal activity Admins who have fewer than ~~600~~ 100 edits or logged actions in the last 6 years will be desysopped for inactivity.

Will a new RfA be required? Should crats not restore on request?

Since such admins have insufficient activity in recent years to have kept up with community norms, a fresh RFA after a period of resumed activity would be appropriate. A warning a month in advance should be sufficient for those who are lurking.

Idea C[edit]

Add the following text to Wikipedia:Administrators#Security

Administrator who have been, or know they will be, inactive for longer than 6 months should voluntarily request desysop on the Bureaucrats' noticeboard. This allows Wikipedia to minimize the risk of compromised administrator accounts causing damage (see privilege bracketing). Administrators who voluntarily relinquished their tools within the last two years may have their tools restored on request at the Bureaucrats' noticeboard. Administrators inactive for longer than six months who do not make such a request will be viewed as not having followed best account security practices. If best security practices were not followed and you are subject to a level 1 desysop, Bureaucrats may decline to resysop and instead require a new request for adminship.

Idea A[edit]

after N consecutive inactivity notifications we require a reconfirmation RfA (idk, maybe N=2 or N=3 since if I remember right that would put it around 4 to 6 years of 1 admin action per year). Having watched BN for a while, this seems like it would result in a handful of discussion per month (spreading out the start-up cost) and makes the criteria hard to game since you've essentially got to return after a half-decade absence or give the community a good reason not to yank the tools.

see also c:Commons:Administrators/De-adminship for a similar schema

Idea F[edit]

Once an admin has received the notification of imminent suspension, simply making any edit at all will no longer be sufficient,they most post at WP:BN affirming that they wish to retain administrative tools.

Idea G[edit]

Add to Wikipedia:Administrators#Procedural_removal_for_inactive_administrators: Contact notifications for administrators with less than 10 edits, or less than 10 logged actions, in the last two years are not required.

Adapted from meta:Meta:Administrators#Removal_criteria

Impact[edit]

Approximate number of users which meet the requirements for the following ideas.

#Idea B Administrators affected: 329 – 340 (list)
#Idea D Administrators affected: 147 (list)
#Idea G Administrators affected: 349 (list)

Chatter[edit]

Please edit this proposal (no, seriously) — Wug·a·po·des 00:42, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

After 36 (non-consecutive) calendar months of inactivity (no edits whatsoever), an admin must have a reconfirmation RfA or the tools will be removed for inactivity. power~enwiki (π, ν) 00:58, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The non-consecutive part sounds like a pain to keep track of, but I think "reconfirm after N cumulative, non-consecutive months inactive since last RfA" is a clever idea. — Wug·a·po·des 01:09, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I picked that metric since it's on the XTools edit count tracker, so it should be understandable. power~enwiki (π, ν) 17:38, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Someone will keep track. :) But that 36 months should be within a limited timeframe. 36 months of inactivity in 48 months is one thing. 36 months of inactivity within 1200 or 2400 months is another. Many experienced editors with decades of service could have 36 months where they were inactive. —valereee (talk) 19:38, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's actually what I thought was clever about it: having a total "vacation time" pool allows us to have term limits. As an admin's tenure increases, their pool of vacation months decreases, and at some point every admin would need reconfirmed (unless they literally never take a month-long break). Meanwhile, those who are here less frequently will need reconfirmed more often. I see it as an elegant way of applying term limits on an as-needed basis, which I think was part of the tension in Worm's 10 year plan. — Wug·a·po·des 19:46, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ah! Okay, if that's the idea, I'm cool with it! —valereee (talk) 20:11, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Although waitaminnit...I think I need reconfirmation already...:D —valereee (talk) 20:13, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This is not possible. You only have your flag since July 2019, which is about 18 months ago. You could not have had 36 months of total inactivity.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:26, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, if we only count from when I've been an admin. :) I've been editing since 2006, though. Many months of inactivity, especially since I often edited logged out :) —valereee (talk) 21:10, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Power~enwiki, any special reason why 3 years? Seems to me quite long, I would suggest 24 months. CommanderWaterford (talk) 17:10, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I remembered a proposal where people would be de-sysopped after their third 1-year inactivity warning (three strikes and you're out). If people like some other number, that's fine. power~enwiki (π, ν) 17:38, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Power~enwiki, well, currently it is one year ... Wikipedia:Inactive_administrators#Criteria and IMHO thats ok. CommanderWaterford (talk) 20:46, 13 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Some number of consecutive months of activity should reset the count to zero, to prevent anomalies when an admin takes a break for 35 months, returns to active editing, and then (potentially years later) happens to make no edits for a month. Aside from that, I like this proposal. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 23:05, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not opposed to this as long as it's a very significant amount; this should be a substantial return to activity and not just an effort to reset a counter. My first suggestion is 1000 logged actions (admin or not); for context my last 1000 logged actions goes to September 2020. power~enwiki (π, ν) 17:54, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm ... having a flat "5 years" (now 8 years) time is certainly much simpler than my "since their most 1000 recent logged actions" suggestion. 力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 21:29, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That was my thought. I'm worried it's still too convoluted though (a point of contention in Tony's proposal). Also, I'd rather we lower the number of inactive months to 24 than raise the evaluation range to 8 years. That way we keep the relative ratio, while making it more likely that it applies to admins who recently got inactivity warnings without disrupting admins who recently returned. So for example, say an admin got the bit in 2010. They took a break from 2015 to 2018 but are active right now. Under the 24-in-5 policy, they wouldn't need to reconfirm as long as they stay active every month. But under 36-in-8 policy, they'd need to hold an RoA. I worry that could result in a lot of RoAs outright, but also a lot that are essentially foregone conclusions, which was a significant opposition to Worm's proposal. tl;dr The two major consensus blockers I expect are complexity of the policy and the number of reconfirmations at startup. Revising with those in mind would probably be most productive. — Wug·a·po·des 23:36, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm convinced; I've switched it to 24-in-5. One wording concern: The administrator should initiate a reconfirmation of adminship discussion feels wrong. If an admin is inactive, "expecting" them to do anything seems impolite. I'd prefer a wording which notes they can start a RoA early, but if they don't they can do so (at any time?) after they are procedurally de-sysopped. 力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 17:11, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Nosebagbear, Isaacl, and Thryduulf: you expressed interest in a follow-up RFC to "confirm that reconfirmation RfAs are permitted", which this currently does. Thoughts? 力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 23:54, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In terms of this specific proposal I personally think it will struggle to get consensus, but I have no objections to it. In regard to the "reconfirmation RfAs are permitted", if that's being linked in, rather than a distinct proposal (which I still intend on creating) it would need something more like: "Reconfirmation RfAs are specifically permitted at the request of the Admin (for any reason), as well as such other reasons as may be specified by the Community in future RfCs. Should an Administrator trigger a Reconfirmation RfA then its outcome is binding and a desysop enacted should a successful reconfirmation not be received." The proposal needs further discussion for things like whether the same thresholds will be used etc. I wouldn't suggest binding it into this proposal as reconfirmation RfAs being triggered under specific circumstances doesn't inherently make them permitted (and binding) if called by the admin. Nosebagbear (talk) 01:09, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
As distinct from the above comment, I think we'll have issues with admins dropping in monthly to keep up, but I think the issue will be less problematic than the annual equivalent. I would suggest specifically noting in any proposal that the possibility is specifically recognised but viewed as a limited issue, otherwise people will assume it's not been considered. I think the 50-60% is not unreasonable for its use here. I do think it may come with issues as setting a default for any reconfirmation proposals which will make it even harder for non-inactivity/voluntary ones in the future, but that's not inherently a reason to oppose this proposal. I would like to know (before progressing) how many admins would currently not meet this requirement - and of those, how many are currently active. Nosebagbear (talk) 01:15, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Are you talking about idea B, A, or something else? These ideas sound like a new framework for requiring reconfirmation discussions. That's something different than an administrator running a voluntary RfA to reconfirm community trust based on their own personal recall criteria, which was the sticking point in some of the objections to earlier reconfirmation RfAs. Obviously a community-approved mandatory framework wouldn't have an issue with being permitted.
- The first comment is on what got discussed on the recall page - it is very distinct to the proposals here, and as I noted, shouldn't really be merged. The second comment is on the main proposal that's showing the "before and after" phrasing Nosebagbear (talk) 01:55, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  Just an fyi: I was responding to power~enwiki. isaacl (talk) 03:03, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm referring to the "Reconfirmation of Adminship" (ROA) section in "Idea B" (in the diff-formatted area). I think if there's going to be an RFC about a general ROA proposal, that should happen with or before an activity proposal that relies on an ROA process. I don't see anything reason why that discussion couldn't be separated and occur first (other than the annoyance of a six-week RFC cycle). 力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 04:14, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Leaving that aside: even with the bookkeeping being automated, I think a significant number of people will find it more complex than they like, and that it imposes a greater demand than desirable on volunteers. So while it's creative, I'm dubious about it being able to get consensus support.
My personal feeling is that the community likes to feel its admins are "one of us", and so some degree of engagement helps them feel assured of this. (Often people talk about policy and community norm knowledge, but it can be hard to gain agreement on how to map that to a level of activity.) From this perspective, it might be more fruitful to propose having administrative privileges suspended temporarily when activity falls below a threshold, and then reactivated after a period of re-engagement. But I suspect this would fail too, with people asking for evidence that this would have stopped specific problems in the past.
The current notion I'm toying with is using fixed terms for new admins to encourage more people to help out. Of course that wouldn't change anything with existing admins, but based on the attrition numbers cited by Worm That Turned, that's going to be less and less of a problem over time anyway. isaacl (talk) 01:31, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- I think that would struggle with the new admins being reticent to go into areas that would hinder a second term. Proposals like this also struggle because they rely on the Community having a zeitgeist change and becoming more permissive for new admins (now being easier to remove/wait out). This probably would happen but I would expect it to take a long time (probably 2 years or so) Nosebagbear (talk) 01:55, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  It's OK if new admins don't sign up for a second term. The community can continue to be selective; I think a key issue is that administrative tasks are basically chores and so it's hard to find volunteers to do them. I feel it may be easier to attract people to help out if they can do it for a fixed term, and then move on (if they want) to other things. (As I said in the comment I linked to, of course they can do this now, but I think the psychology is different when you know at the start that you've volunteered for a fixed period of time.) isaacl (talk) 03:13, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
My thoughts are pretty similar to Nosebagbear's. This should not be conflated with voluntary reconfirmations, which are an entirely separate thing. As for the details of the proposal - the principle that admins are expected to stay in touch with the community is going to be uncontroversial, but the mechanics sound overly complicated and so will get opposition from several sides. Given the pushback the current proposals are getting, I think it will be most fruitful to take baby steps. First get consensus to add the principle about keeping in touch to policy - nothing else, just the principle. Then get consensus for voluntary reconfirmation and only after that introduce mandatory ones. Thryduulf (talk) 03:06, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- "First get consensus to add the principle about keeping in touch to policy" - I'm not wasting my time with a month-long "sense of the editing community" RFC that won't do anything. I would consider just BOLD-ly adding that: will anyone seriously argue that admins should be out of touch with policy? 力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 04:14, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  Idea B doesn't mention keeping in touch with policy, though. It says Administrators are expected to remain reasonably active as editors, and those with prolonged or frequent inactivity may be desysopped or asked to reconfirm consensus for continued access to the tools. I think there will be disagreement about whether "reasonably active" is required to remain in touch with policy, and questions asked if any previous problems would have been solved, and what would be deemed reasonable (if this were to be added without more details). isaacl (talk) 05:03, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Two things:
First I modified the proposal to address the concern of complexity and community time. The thrust was to make it more similar to our existing desysop policy, but with a modified time calculation. I also added an FAQ to explain some of the edge cases that might be anticipated based on the recent feedback, but feel free to add others (with or without the answer, it's a collaborative proposal). The two FAQ answers to note are an explanation of how this penalizes WP:GAMEing, and an explanation of how this avoids collateral damage to admins who returned to activity. I added one question recent commentors were concerned about---how many current admins will be affected---but I don't have an answer yet.

Second, I think we're making a mountain out of a molehill on this "reasonably active ?= in touch with policy" point. The current trend in the community is to tighten admin activity requirements. This 2018 modification was a couple sentences and wasn't sunk by WP:CREEP concerns. A year later, the inactivity requirements were strengthened further in Wikipedia:Requests for comment/2019 Resysop Criteria (2)#Statement 7 by Amorymeltzer. In that same RfC (here) the community also decided to grant bureaucrats the discretion to refuse resysop to people they think have not actually returned. I don't see why the general spirit of this proposal would be sunk by questions that were not problems in other recent proposals. Even just based on the response to my comment in an ongoing RfC, I think editors are generally want to further strengthen inactivity requirements. It's important to point out places where disagreement might lead to the particular proposal failing, but I think the core concept has a viable consensus, so we have a some slack in the precise wording. Some things will have to be figured out in the actual RfC, and we don't need to waste time making it a two-parter. If the first sentence is really controversial, we can just cut it without affecting the core of the proposal when the time comes. — Wug·a·po·des 00:10, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It occurs to me I may have misread @Thryduulf:, are you proposing "to add the principle about keeping in touch to policy", or are you proposing "to add the principle about keeping in touch to policy"? I assumed the second (an argument about why de-sysopping some admins is a good idea; that inactive admins may not be in touch with policy), but on a re-read the first (a requirement that admins are expected to be regularly active on the project) makes much more sense. I still think a two-step RFC to first add a principle is unnecessary. 力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 01:06, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I was proposing, as a first step, to add the principle "admins should keep in touch with the community and changes in policy" to the requirements for administrators. It probably doesn't require a full RFC but a consensus discussion somewhere wouldn't be a bad idea so that if it does prove contentious somehow then we can go to an RFC if necessary. Once that is established other things can be based on it. Yes this is time consuming but every proposal so far has failed to introduce the basics because they have been bound together with controversial higher-level changes, so take the time to get the uncontroversial foundations sorted before building on them. Thryduulf (talk) 01:18, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Relying on "Before restoring the administrator flag, a bureaucrat should be reasonably convinced that the user has returned to activity or intends to return to activity as an editor." rather than any re-confirmation process is a good idea. It makes the proposal simpler, it makes the burden on returning editors easier, and it allows this RFC to progress separately from one for an ROA process. 力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 01:14, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The concerns I raised are based (in my memory) of issues brought forth during previous discussions to increase the activity requirements, and in my view, are why more stringent requirements did not gain consensus before. There is a significant vocal population that wants to see evidence of a problem to be solved, and doesn't see inactivity as a problem in itself. I appreciate others have different views and I'm not arguing for or against anyone's viewpoint. I'm only bringing up these concerns so opposing rationales can be taken into account. isaacl (talk) 01:20, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a new talk page for "Reconfirmation of Adminship" discussions? 力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 01:25, 22 March 2021 (UTC) (@Nosebagbear: 力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 01:37, 22 March 2021 (UTC))[reply]
Wikipedia talk:Administrators is a commonly-used page, though as mentioned by Wugapodes and listed in the Notes section of the Wikipedia:Administrators page, there have been other venues, such as the proposals Village Pump and a subpage under Wikipedia:Requests for Comment. isaacl (talk) 01:34, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I was interested in the number of people who would fit in the group of 24 months of no edits in 5 years and so ran a check that I made... I got a result of 217 admins. Although this does not account for when the RFA occurred and I may have made an error in my check. I manually checked a few through xtools and it seems accurate enough. Results are on my sandbox if you are interested in the full list. Terasail^[✉] 02:44, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks so much. There are a few false positives (ProcseeBot only does logged actions, and Valereee's inactivity was before the RFA) and a few counts look low (Justinc appears to be well above 25 inactive months) but it's close enough for now. I'd be fine with the list as-is so long as there's a 3-month grace period, but for finding consensus I think 30 months out of 60 will be better than 24, and it might need to be 36 or 40. There are some admins on that list that I'd like to see on-wiki more often, and others who appear to have retired but are hanging on to the bit because why not. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 03:05, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  I changed it slightly and seperated out people who have had their sysop flag added in the last 5 years, but this does not account for anyone who desysoped and resysoped (such as security concerns) so I labled them possibles. There are only 7 anyway. Terasail ^[✉] 18:01, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Hi Terasail, could you do the same for the 600 edits or logged actions in 6 years proposal? That should pick up all the barely still here admins while leaving out any who oscillate between very active and dormant. Ϣere SpielChequers 09:07, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  @WereSpielChequers: I checked, and found 329 accounts which met this, although I am not as sure that the check for this is completley accurate but the ones I have checked seem good enough. There are some bots and non users such as User:Edit filter included aswell though. The full list is on my sandbox. Terasail ^[✉] 18:04, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - Thanks Terasail. Yes that works. To be honest, having looked at quite a few edits by several of those editors I think I'm moving back to my original position that there is no benefit to the project in removing the mop from these people. Ϣere SpielChequers 21:48, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    - But maybe a 100 edits or logged actions in 5 years test would be at a level where little would be lost, and we would have culled more than a tenth of our admins. So no real benefit, but not a great loss either. Ϣere SpielChequers 11:07, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      - One benefit that I see that I think doesn't get talked about much is an accurate accounting of admins. Having a list bloated with inactive admins makes it seem like we have more people doing or available to do work than we really have. — Wug·a·po·des 02:01, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        Perhaps, but does activity measure availability to do admin actions? About once a month I get an email or talkpage notice asking me to perform an admin action. I'm not sure whether this is because I appear on some list of currently logged on admins or I opted into some list of admins willing to be emailed with revision deletion requests. But maybe if people were to ask inactive admins to do a particular action such as a revision deletion we might find out which of those inactive admins were unavailable. Ϣere SpielChequers 12:41, 4 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm planning to start a pre-RFC discussion on adding the "Reconfirmation of Adminship" text (check page history) at WP:VPI very soon after the admin-recall RFC is closed. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 01:43, 2 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think Montanabw hit on it above, and I haven't read all the chatter here so apologies if I'm repeating something that's already been said, but I kind of like the idea of continuing education for admins, certainly a lot more than I like tinkering with arbitrary thresholds in policies we already know don't really work (activity is not an indicator of competence, in either direction). Many professions (my own included) have a "continuing professional development" (CPD) requirement, which (in my field) means a designated professional has to complete some number of activities (attend a seminar, read a book, take a course in specific tools or soft skills) in a year to make sure you're up to speed on core competencies and new developments in the profession. That way you hopefully avoid designated professionals operating as though none of the relevant rules and regulations have changed at all since they got their certification 20 years ago. You know, kind of like an admin who passes RfA and then never reads a policy page again, and wonders why a cowboy block that would have been perfectly acceptable in 2008 gets them hauled to Arbcom in 2021. Of course it would be a lot of work to do this here: for one thing we'd need someone to create materials that could be used as pretty standard refreshers for admins, and some kind of system to account for admins actually doing the activities. That's all well over my head especially at 3 in the morning on Easter but I thought this was a good place to put it out there. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 06:35, 4 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Ivanvector: any thoughts on how you'd handle the issue of knowledge outside field of activity? Just like I didn't need to know anything about DYK prep procedures when I applied to RfA, I wouldn't need to be educated on changes to it (unless I suddenly got interested in it, in which case I'd do my research). While that's a fairly rare case, not all admins do blocks and certainly not all admins do, say, AfD. To stay educated would require more than ultra-short summaries on changes, but to stay educated on even all of the common admin fields would be a significant undertaking and irritate quite a few to whom it was irrelevant. Nosebagbear (talk) 08:11, 4 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Great question, but actually this part isn't too complicated, I probably didn't explain well. My designation requires 14 hours of CPD annually; there's a list here of types of activities that the organization recognizes, but you'll see the list is not specific activities, just broad suggestions. It's up to me to find things to do to earn CPD credit and self-report to the organization. I think this would be pretty straightforward to implement here, other than the task of actually creating materials, but creating those materials could also be something that earns you credit. To your point, an admin who's interested could choose to do a refresher in the DYK process, or review the blocking and banning policies, or write a Signpost article on an issue affecting the community, or attend a seminar on conflict resolution (that's a lofty one, I know), depending on what each admin thinks are their areas of interest, or their strengths and weaknesses, and/or what the community thinks are appropriate materials for this purpose. As the materials get developed, they become a resource for admins to self-assess their own suitability to work in different areas, and also for editors considering adminship, sort of a self-driven WP:ORCP. I'm speaking very broadly and generally of course: there would be quite a few details to work out. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:52, 4 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

With regards to "gaming the system" - one of the main functions of the current desysop policy is to desysop accounts of editors who have died or lost access to their account. Making a trivial edit to prove that a real person has access to the account is not "gaming" that system, it is how the system is designed to work. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 22:46, 4 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It might be part of the system, but it isn't exactly useful when an admin will just do an action and then revert it, in order to not have the right removed for another year. For example: Special:Log/Joe_Decker the last 6 logs have been just that. (Not a comment on this administrator, just an example). Terasail ^[✉] 23:23, 4 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Activity requirements can be meh IMO, ST47's comment here (and their activity graph) being an example of why. However, there's no logical reason why only early admins who happen to already hold tools should have that benefit, but it also doesn't hurt to have inactive admins. If even a couple become active again, it seems a net plus overall. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:00, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I added Idea G, the values could be adjusted - the core of the idea is that if we stop aggressively chasing down barely-there admins we may escape the trivial activity cycling. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:15, 3 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]