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Proposed change - No paid editing for admins

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
There is no consensus on the current wording. The points of view were well laid out and discussed, but the opinions for and against are to evenly split. There is consensus for some language on this issue, but what those words may be there is no consensus. AlbinoFerret 20:56, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

In the Orangemoody sockpuppet/paid editing fiasco socks were approaching AfC participants and claiming to be admins

Consider the following paragraph in the Guardian:

"The Wikipedia Foundation said the accounts were blocked over “black hat” editing – charging money for the creation of promotional articles – amid allegations that hundreds of businesses and minor celebrities have been blackmailed by scammers posing as Wikipedia administrators."

It would be very good if we could tell everybody - including participants at WP:AFC, all our readers, and any journalists - that "admins are *not* allowed to accept payment for any services on Wikipedia. Do not believe those who claim to be admins and ask for money."

This would be a bright line rule that would protect everybody involved, admins, the WMF, and the scam targets.

I am not accusing any admins of being paid editors, suggesting that admins were responsible for the Orangemoody fiasco, or singling out admins for criticism. This is just a simple way to stop future Orangemoodies.

Proposed text to be inserted at the bottom of the "Expectations of adminship" section

Payments not allowed

"No administrator may accept payment to edit articles or to perform any administrative function on Wikipedia. Admins who work for the the WMF or Wikimedia chapters are exempt when performing their duties for these organizations. Admins who work for other organizations which have missions that are aligned with the WMF mission, such as museums, libraries, universities and not-for-profit research centers, should declare a potential conflict of interest on their user pages and follow the conflict of interest guideline closely, but are also exempt when performing their duties for these organizations."

BTW, this proposal was developed at User:Doc James/Paid editing#16. Ban all Admins from paid editing and I will invite the participants there to comment here. Smallbones(smalltalk) 05:18, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

  • Support as proposer Smallbones(smalltalk) 16:26, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment Would this actually change anything? The people being scammed were obviously those without a large amount of interest in finding out how Wikipedia actually works, and I'm not convinced that our page on administrators, one of many in the maze of policies and guidelines on this site, stating that admins can't accept pay will help all that much. Sam Walton (talk) 17:00, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • I believe it would for three reasons. The first in that it would give the WMF the ability to notify victims or potential victims of scammers that no administrators on the English Wikipedia are permitted to engage in paid editing. Companies looking into paid editing will be able to find information regarding the restrictions of administrators around paid editing. Lastly, other tools and policies will clearly need to be put in place to stop scammers, but this will provide another means to desysop administrators who engage in paid editing/breach community trust. COI is cited a lot but it might not be a strong enough policy for desysopping. Mkdwtalk 17:14, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • The WMF can already notify potential good-apple victims that "no wikipedian, administrator or otherwise, is permitted to engage in paid advocacy" ... or for that matter, in advocacy whatsoever. The powerful effect is, as Smallbones points out at 18:59 on 4 Sep, something quite different: banning admins from getting money, for being admins, and doing admin-work. I disagree that is a good thing; I've always thought that there should be a donate-to-this-wikipedian button, which allowed me to upload my credit-card-details to the WMF, and when I saw a useful edit (to include admin-actions e.g. page-prot which as an anon I'm typically against :-)   that I could "send" some other wikipedian a dollar. The proposed wording is vastly stronger than is 'needed' to be able to warn hypothetical future victims (a goal I *do* fully support), and has many repercussions outside the narrow realm of preventing-future-orangemoody-type-incidents. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 13:12, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
  • I believe it would have a powerful effect because the 1st sentence is so simple and direct "No administrator may accept payment to edit articles or to perform any administrative function on Wikipedia." But this would work only if we take great efforts to get out the word; say in a box at WP:AFC, in any news article where the WMF legal or communications depts gives information (I'd think they'd be happy to give out this info), in any opeds people write for newspapers, at the help-desk when folks ask for info on paid editing. If we repeat this as a mantra, the point will get across. If we just leave it here without mentioning it, you are right - it won't do anything. Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:59, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Support - Smallbones makes an excellent case, and I support wholeheartedly. Jusdafax 23:32, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Reiterating my support for this. MER-C 02:05, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Support The media might report on something like this. And if more bad stuff is picked up at least we have a clear policy and admins cannot claim they didn't know. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:14, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Support I do think similar language should be added to the pages for bureaucrats, arbitrators, and other roles whereby a level community is required. Mkdwtalk 03:53, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose Careful; with so many knees jerking at once, someone's sure to hit their own nose eventually. This proposal is not responsive to any of the process problems exposed by the Orangemoody case. It will clearly not deter false claims of admin status or be visible enough to deter clueless potential scam victims from believing those claims. "It wouldn't do anything but at least we'd have a policy" is a bad reason to have a policy. Invest effort in things that might actually work, please. Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:04, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
    • No, it's not a feel-good exercise. If admins were not permitted to accept payments for actions as above, then that statement could be on a page somewhere, and company reps could be pointed to it. It would be possible to assure representatives that if someone claims to be an admin who will provide benefits for payment, the person is probably not an admin, and if they are, they are acting against outside guidelines so their efforts will fail. Johnuniq (talk) 06:48, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
      • This is about stating our values clearly. WP is working hard to maintain its independence from the topics we cover. This by the way is an important aspect of trying to be a reliable source. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:16, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
      • While I don't think such a thing would hurt, I don't think that the sort of people who buy these paid editing services are going to be reading through our policy pages for statements like these before forking out their money. Tokenism and instruction creep, I feel. Lankiveil (speak to me) 09:33, 5 September 2015 (UTC).
        • It isn't for those who buy paid editing services. It's for the journalists who report on same. They have gotten our policies wrong on several recent occasions, and a simple, clear, and prominent statement would help them to get it right. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:47, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Support If an admin needs to edit for payment, they can relinquish their tools. An ethical boundary has to be set somewhere to reassure volunteers and those outside Wikipedia that articles are not for sale. A rule is need so it is possible to tell company representatives to not trust anyone who claims to be an admin who will help them for a fee. Johnuniq (talk) 06:48, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
  • tentative Support - yeah I think Johnuniq sums it up well on how I am thinking about it. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:32, 5 September 2015 (UTC) switched to oppose as unworkable as is. Iridescent sums it up well as it torpedoes many of the contests about the place and encourages division between editors and admins. Also Andrew Davidson's point worries me too. (I do support the overall idea just not sure how we execute it, or if it needs executing in this way.) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:47, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose strongly - Everything that @Opabinia regalis: and @Lankiveil: said and more. Instruction creep and hobbling ourselves with more policy for "gotcha" situations with our admins means knee jerk policies like these are shooting ourselves in the foot. Do people here realize no actual administrators during the Orangemoody case were offering their services for pay? Only those "posing" as admins. The proposal here is a textbook example of how extreme cases make for bad law. -- Fuzheado | Talk 12:13, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) strong oppose as overbroad. There is no good reason, not even policy for the sake of policy, to prevent people who are administrators engaging in legitimate declared paid editing - the list of exceptions above just makes that clear. Prohibiting paid admin actions maybe, but I'd rather not make it an absolute - allowing something along the lines of the WP:BANEX exemptions would be preferable. Thryduulf (talk) 12:18, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
    • What good reasons are their for admins to be taking money to write articles outside of the exceptions above? If they wish to create Elance accounts and take bids to write articles they should resign as admins. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:57, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Support - having administrators for sale is both wrong and problematic and we should be able to tell the world that. We also had the objection that it was 'creep' and 'not needed', when the section RAAA was added to this policy - and the answer is that those objections are textbook examples of the perfect is enemy of the good and should not cause derailment - no policy is set in stone, it evolves, this may evolve too overtime but this is a good start. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:08, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose The proposal is too discretionary as payments would still be allowed when the payees have "missions that are aligned with the WMF mission". Such weasel words enable enforcers to pick and choose; sparing their friends and punishing their enemies. Andrew D. (talk) 13:20, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose - It's rule creep that will do nothing to help the actual problems that occurred with Orangemoody, since the victims are unlikely to discover such policies and no real admins appear to have been involved. More importantly, such a rule will be full of exceptions for the WMF, Wikimedia chapters, Wikipedians-in-residence, and many others who tangentially draw some income in the same areas that they contribute to Wikipedia. For example, I've gotten discounted admission to events by agreeing to give a talk showing how Wikipedia editing works. I also know academics that use Wikipedia as an example of an "outreach activity" in their grant applications (NSF generally encourages outreach) or in their tenure portfolios. We don't want to create a situation where anyone who shares knowledge that they are also paid for in their day job is at risk of being in violation of policy, and the only alternative to that seems to be a rule that basically says "No paid editing, except in the numerous cases we approve of", which makes for bad policy. Dragons flight (talk) 14:06, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
  • SupportSupport idea but recognize it may not be worth the drama, but with a recommended re-write of the exception clause,:
    No administrator may accept payment to edit articles or to perform any administrative function on Wikipedia without the express prior permission of the Arbitration Committee or Wikimedia Foundation or their authorized deputies. Any admin engaged in such "approved" paid editing should must declare a potential conflict of interest and provide a link to the authorization on their user pages and follow the conflict of interest guideline closely.
    Grandfather clause (expires 6 months after adoption):Admins who work for the the WMF or Wikimedia chapters are exempt when performing their duties for these organizations. Admins and admins who work for other organizations which have missions that are aligned with the WMF mission, such as museums, libraries, universities and not-for-profit research centers, are exempt from obtaining individual authorization when performing their duties for these organizations. Linking to this page will serve as a link to their authorization to engage in paid editing.
{{collapse top|original wording}}

"No administrator may accept payment to edit articles or to perform any administrative function on Wikipedia. Admins who work for the the WMF or Wikimedia chapters are exempt when performing their duties for these organizations. Admins who work for other organizations which have missions that are aligned with the WMF mission, such as museums, libraries, universities and not-for-profit research centers, should declare a potential conflict of interest on their user pages and follow the conflict of interest guideline closely, but are also exempt when performing their duties for these organizations." {{collapse bottom}}

This will
Give both the WMF and ARBCOM the flexibility to make individual exceptions and to delegate the power to make exceptions to someone else (e.g. a clerk or sub-committee) if they see fit,
Require the notices on the user pages rather than say they "should" be there,
Require those editing in "official" WMF and Chapter roles to follow the same rules as other "exempt" editors for the first 6 months
Require all administrators "officially exempted" in the original proposal have individual authorization after 6 months. It is expected that this will be granted as a formality by having ARBCOM and the WMF just update their lists of "authorized" people as needed.
davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 15:33, 5 September 2015 (UTC) Updated to add Support idea but recognize it may not be worth the drama, to the opening statement, will elaborate further down below. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 01:42, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
I could support the above, although I would maybe like the exemption to be a bit more specific, as (1) I guess it could not unreasonably be said that a WMF's "duties" could be a conflict if they edited in articles relating to topics perhaps indirectly relating to WP:FLOW or related programming, to bolster the view of the community itself regarding such proposals, and the like. I suppose similar problems could arise if, for instance, an employee of a museum were to use our articles to support a particular contention regarding a certain topic in such a way as to make the content, particularly the main article on that topic, more in line with something which they might be presenting as an exhibit in their museum now or in the future. Borderline conflicts of the type indicated above would probably be a good idea to more clearly address. John Carter (talk) 15:55, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment. Isn't the right answer here just to have a statement such as "Administrators are expected to adhere to the policies restricting conflicts of interest and paid editing. Violations of these policies may lead to the loss of administrative privileges." What is acceptable or not acceptable can be elaborated in more detail at those pages without special rules based on editor class. I think it is entirely clear that if any admin had been involved in the Orangemoody fiasco then they would be desysopped and blocked without the need of any additional policies. At same time, adding a new layer of rules to specifically apply to people who are nominally among our most trusted users seems rather unnecessary. More about the PR view than actually improving Wikipedia as far as I can see. Dragons flight (talk) 15:58, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
I see your point, but Wikipedia rules don't totally disallow paid editing. We do need to totally disallow paid adminning, except maybe for these allied organizations ... and I'd wager there is probably something rotten to be found if you dig deep enough into the WIR programs, for that matter. The conceptual difference is that if you own a company and there is (or isn't) an article about it, you face a crowd of ordinary editors and if one of them is trying to shake you down he is just one voice, and you may not have to deal with him. But if an admin is trying to shake you down, you have no choice whether or not to deal with him; he can involve himself and then the others defer. So an admin can plausibly extort you for money, having a credible threat of having sole control over what happens to your article, whereas a corrupt editor is just one harassing voice. Wnt (talk) 17:01, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
(e/c)@Dragons flight: Today, nothing prevents an existing administrator from accepting money from just anyone for paid editing as long as he adheres to the same rules as non-admins. I think that very possibility leaves a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths (I doubt any editor known to be a former shill will pass RfA in the foreseeable future without being asked to renounce his past behavior and disgorge himself of any related income, even if they have never violated any Wikipedia policy), and it allows went to the dark side administrators to silently wink-wink-nudge-nudge imply to their customers that they have some special authority to protect those articles when they do not (in many countries deceptive trade laws prevent them from actually coming out and making such claims). Likewise, it makes it easier for someone to pretend to be an administrator and pretend to have this ability without his customer becoming suspicious. Having a very public statement saying "no, administrators can't protect articles on behalf of 3rd parties" - which is already true (WP:INVOLVED, etc.) - will have a lot more weight if the "outside world" knows that Wikipedia administrators are banned from accepting payment at all outside of narrow, defined circumstances such as the ones already mentioned in this proposal, and it will make it that much harder for "fake admins" to deceive their victims. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 17:14, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
Have you checked for reds paid editors under the bed? Opabinia regalis (talk) 18:09, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Support. I don't like the text as written -- I would prefer "No administrator may accept payment for Wikipedia editing or administrative functions of any kind. Exceptions, for specific organizations aligned with the WMF mission, such as museums, libraries, universities and not-for-profit research centers, may be made a consensus of the Wikipedia community or by the WMF. Nonetheless, admins receiving payments should declare a potential conflict of interest on their user pages and follow the conflict of interest guideline closely." However, this is a long overdue policy and I will support it even in the current wording in the hope of seeing something down right away to shield the victims of Wikipedia-related scams from claims that they have to buy admin influence. Wnt (talk) 16:54, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Very strongly oppose. This just entrenches the meme that admins are some kind of elite class of super-users. I can't see any benefit that this provides over the existing terms of use, other than as an opportunity for the usual whiners to play gotcha games with any admin who accepts anything that could conceivably be considered "payment" from the subject of any article they've ever edited. As currently worded the two proposals would either get me blocked (in the case of the first proposal) or force me to seek consent from Arbcom (in the case of the second) were the York Art Gallery to buy me a pie as thanks for getting Preparing for a Fancy Dress Ball up to mainpage standard in time to run on the day it went back on display, while any admin who took part in something like this would be summarily banned. ‑ iridescent 17:05, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
    I would suggest that administrators who participate in contests where there are prizes of more than a token value should not accept the prize (I'm open to exceptions that are clearly for Wikipedia's benefit, like free access to subscription-only databases for use in editing WP), if only to avoid allegations of potential misuse of the bit in the future if they wind up taking action against an editor who happened to edit that article at the same time at some point in the future. As for someone buying you a pie after the fact, I would expect de minimus would apply. If you got a more significant "thank you" after the fact and it was at all feasible for you to disgorge yourself of it, I would expect you to do so. If you were "put on the spot" - say, instead of giving you a pie the New York Art Gallery invited you to lunch at an expensive restaurant and you really couldn't say "no," I would expect you to disgorge yourself of what you would have paid for lunch that day and try to avoid such situations in the future. This might mean talking with your supervisor afterwords and explaining that this put you in a situation where others might question your independence as an administrator and that this could, in turn, reflect poorly on the Gallery. If you could afford to (which is not a given), I would expect you to disgorge yourself of the entire cost of the meal. I see a parallel to politicians, corporate executives and managers, and other sin the "real world" who have "power" or "perceived power" over others: They need to not only avoid actual conflicts of interest but also the appearance of a conflict of interest much more than the "average person" does. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 17:31, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
    Out of curiosity, who do you consider "my supervisor"? This would ordinarily be a ridiculous question to ask of someone with 30,000 edits, but how exactly do you think Wikipedia operates? ‑ iridescent 17:56, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
    I misakenly assumed you asked the "pie" question because you had an employer/employee or formal volunteer/volunteer-organization relationship with the York Art Gallery. Since I misunderstood you, then most of what the details I gave don't apply. So, to re-answer your question as if someone not "close to you" (in a COI sense) offered you a "thank-you", consider doing whatever is needed so that there is no actual or apparent conflict of interest. For a slice of pie or other token "thank you" gift, no action may be required. For a gratuity that is much more valuable, you may need to decline it or give it to charity or take some similar action. This same advice to avoid an appearance of a conflict of interest goes for all editors, but it goes more for experienced editors and even more for those with advanced user-rights. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 23:31, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
    I'm glad that's cleared up; I really wasn't looking forward to watching iridescent disgorge a month-old pie. Belle (talk) 00:42, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
    You are aware that many Wikipedians-in-Residence have actual salaries from the library / museum / other organization that supports them, right? We can and should build alliances with other like minded organizations. Those connections need to be open and transparent, and any apparent conflicts made clear. However, you seem to be advocating for a kind of extreme position that would make it impossible for an admin to ever accept grants to support content creation. Do you think that being a WiR is incompatible with being an admin? If so, why? Do you object to all financial support for content creation, or just that offered to administrators? Frankly, I don't get it. Earlier you compared admins to politicians, which isn't a very good analogy, but let's go with it anyway. Politicians in the US are generally free to accept considerable support from special interests as long as they are open about who their donors are. Hypothetically, if an admin had funding from the National Science Foundation or the Smithsonian to produce content, I'd be glad to know but I wouldn't be upset about it just because some money changed hands. On the other hand, if they took funds from say a public relations company or a scandal-plagued company that appears very different. Context matters, and I don't buy that adhering to an extreme conflict avoidance policy makes sense, especially if it will make it harder to build relationships with GLAM institutions, academics, and other subject matter experts that we are often lacking. Dragons flight (talk) 00:47, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
    It has been repeated multiple times that this does not apply to WiR. We need to stop using WiR as a screen to protect those doing paid promotional editing which amounts to little more than adding spam to Wikipedia.
    We need to emphasise that the "Wikipedia editor" you picked up on Elance who promised to get the article about you, your wife, and your company restored is not an admin even though they claim they are (and if they are an admin they are one contravening the rules). Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:52, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
    @Dragons flight: Yes, I am aware, and I think Doc James's response should address your concerns. In the original proposal, they are categorically exempt. In the alternative proposal I favor, I would expect WiR editors to routinely be given approval to be on either an ARBCOM or WMF "individually approved exempt list, when editing in their capacity as an WiR." davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 01:24, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
    You both say WiR is exempt, but I don't think either proposal articulates a usable principle for why receiving financial support would sometimes be okay and other times not. If, as James says, the point is to attack Elance style hiring, then you should be much more direct about saying so. So far, the only clear differentiating principle I can really see between the things you say you want to ban and WiR / grant programs is that the editors in the latter programs are generally expected to play by Wikipedia's rules, while people like Orangemoody are generally saying that if you pay me then I will circumvent Wikipedia's rules for you. If that is really the crux of the issue then we don't actually need new policy, since it is already against policy to circumvent the rules. Dragons flight (talk) 09:59, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
    The reason for exempting WiR/grant programs is that the "missions [of those paying the money] ... are aligned with the WMF mission". Whether this exemption is "baked in" as in the original proposal or "by application to WMF/ARBCOM" as in my counter-proposal, the core reason to exempt such people remains the same. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 19:02, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
    Thing is, the wikimedia chapters work with varying degrees of independence at times from WMF central as it were, so it's not inconceivable that relationships will break down and you could have two groups pointing at each other claiming their aims are not compatible with the improvement of wikipedia etc. In which case this could become a tool to lynch admins. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:45, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
    "Aligned with the WMF mission" is going to mean totally different things to different people, depending what they view our mission to be and what aspects of that mission they choose to emphasize. In case you haven't read it, the actual WMF mission statement is exceedingly short, covers a very wide range of possible activities, and leaves out some of the foundational principles (like neutrality) that one might have expected. Altogether, I would say that "aligned with the WMF mission" is basically useless as a guiding principle since well-meaning people are going to disagree on what that really means. Dragons flight (talk) 21:42, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Very strong support - There's absolutely no reason, with the obvious exceptions properly accounted for, that any admin should be receiving money to edit Wikipedia. Discovery of paid editing by an admin should be ground for immediate desysop. BMK (talk) 22:58, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Support, but the exact wording needs to be discussed. I would further suggest that we create a "guide for journalists writing about Wikipedia" that links to this and selected other policies, discusses common misconceptions found in other stories, tells them where to get answers, etc. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:56, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
    • 'Exact wording' is crucial, yes. On your other suggestions, strongly support creating a guide for journalists, if we do, maybe fewer of them will confuse everyday English terms like 'banned' with the correct wikipedia terminology 'indef-blocked' for instance. However, to get journalists to read the guide, and follow the guide, is another matter. Hey... maybe we can flip orangemoody around... bluelinked publications, that refuse to correctly use wiki-terminology, and publish stories with incorrect content, get their bluelink sent to AfD? Oh... oh right. Bad idea, nevermind. (Just kidding.) But I do think a journalist's-FAQ is a very good idea. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 13:20, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment Does everyone remember Gibraltarpedia? It got us a fair bit of bad press. If admins / functionaries are taking money to write / promote content the movement needs to at least be made aware and given an opportunity to weigh in. While some types of accepted money while being a functionary are okay others are clearly not. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:27, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
And wouldn't policing future incidents be done with (a) monitoring COI editing by any/all editors and (b) holding admins to standards of impartiality? Anything not covered by that? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:51, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
I'm not sure if Bamkin was ever a "Wikipedian in Residence" formally, but his close relationship with a WMF organization and the ostensibly nonprofit nature of Gibraltar tourism make me think that there is no way that a clever person in his situation could not take advantage of the WiR/like-minded organizations loophole in the proposed text. I mean, Gibraltar's claim to fame is basically a sort of museum, or historic districts that are like a museum, so ... Wnt (talk) 15:23, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
Sure and I think what is requested is that the community be made aware so that they can determine if they think the type of relationship he had was okay or not. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:28, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Support - Yes, it's rule creep that will do nothing to help the actual problems that occurred with Orangemoody, since that horse has already bolted and we're now wondering why we left the stable door wide open. Just get the text right. Oi, and BTW, let's make it easier to desysop rogue admins... Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:41, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose as currently worded. The exceptions are too vague, and from the discussion above it appears what is "paid" editing severe enough to be affected by the proposed policy is still up in the air. When we're losing admins faster than we're gaining them, I loathe to think of someone being summarily desysopped for something so simple as accepting a slice of pie or a cup of coffee. I understand the need to avoid even the semblance of admins being compromised, but we need to have better wording. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 05:51, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Strong support of the first very simple wording Smallbones put on the table: "admins are not allowed to accept payment for any services on Wikipedia. Do not believe those who claim to be admins and ask for money" or similar more formally, such as the first sentence of Smallbones' longer version: "No administrator may accept payment to edit articles or to perform any administrative function on Wikipedia." I don't believe in adding any ifs and buts whatever. It's supposed to be a rule that WMF can point people to, mainly people who know little about Wikipedia's internal functions or arbcom or the WMF. For that pointing to be helpful, it needs to be a very simple rule. No creep please. Bishonen | talk 13:51, 6 September 2015 (UTC).
  • And the more I oppose it, as it would preclude anyone who was an administrator from becoming a WIR, getting expenses (e.g. for things like running an editathon, helping organise a Wikimania, etc) receiving grants from a chapter, or even receiving unsolicited gifts. Thryduulf (talk) 20:08, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
  • How about "with certain well-defined exceptions, admins are not allowed to accept payment for any services on Wikipedia, and they will never ask you for money. If someone pretending to be an admin asks you for money, report it here." with an appropriate title and page for the link I just made up? --Guy Macon (talk) 23:24, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
How about no? Take another look at this list. Not an admin amongst them. Anyone who told someone they were an admin and linked to one of those Wikipedia accounts was lying; they were violating the TOU right there. Anyone who told them they were an admin and linked to an admin's page was lying; we had many complaints about admins being asked about things they hadn't done and hadn't said. In fact, these proposals are just begging for people to joe-job administrators. Administrators need to follow the COI policy and the TOU, just like every other user on this site. There is nothing special about admins in this situation. Risker (talk) 00:56, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
Risker, I am generally partial to your thinking on this, but I'd suggest it's important to refrain from referring to a non-existent COI policy. We have a COI guideline but not a policy. Perhaps we should enshrine parts of this in policy, but to date we have not. -Pete (talk) 00:31, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
I think it is a good idea. The board members of the WMF are required to step down from non paying positions at other WM related charities. Specific other COIs are discussed and certain COIs are not allowed. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:27, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose I can understand the value of being able to say categorically that admins don't engage in paid editing, but a blanket ban would prevent admins from engaging in paid editing that is generally considered benign, such as grants from appropriate organisations, the reward board, expenses, Wikipedians in residence, and so on. The only way to deal with this is to add a long list of exemptions that makes the rule largely meaningless. Even without this rule I strongly suspect that an admin who did engage in prohibited paid editing could be desysopped anyway for violating WP:COI, and that page is long enough to set out the nuances of what is and is not considered acceptable conduct. Hut 8.5 20:22, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose. Wikipedians in residence, Wikimania scholarships, community-appointed administrators who are also WMF employees, anyone who uses the Wikipedia Library, anyone who successfully applies for a grant of any type from any Wikimedia-related organization (even if it's just to be reimbursed for the pizza at the edit-a-thon), anyone who's received a freebie t-shirt in appreciation of their work, special access such as that for Arbcom or other selected groups, anyone who does anything for a chapter, - well, right there you've knocked out a good half of the current ACTIVE administrator corps. No, this is just silly overreaction, and it won't change anything whatsoever, except to punish people who have been doing great work...and more importantly, to punish the encyclopedia that loses the services of those very people. Bad actors will still claim to be Wikipedia administrators and experienced editors, and people will still fall for it. It is very bad practice to cut off one's nose to spite one's face. Risker (talk) 20:26, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
    • I would find this acceptable: "Administrators are expected to rigorously follow the conflict of interest policy and the terms of use, particularly with relation to paid editing." Risker (talk) 20:43, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
      • As admins hold a position of authority whether we like it or not, they should be held to slightly higher standards wrt COI. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:29, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
        • Okay then, does not Risker's wording suffice? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:15, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
          • This means that I as an admin can take offers from pharmaceutical companies to "improve/correct" WPs content as long as I disclose they are paying me? That I can offer my services via Elance as long as I disclose? I do not think admins should be able to do this and Riskers wording says they can. Are people saying we should be allowing this? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:26, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
            • Let's consider some scenarios. On the one hand Bayer gives an admin $10000 to push positive content about their new drug for Crohn's disease. There is a clear implication that he would be writing non-neutral content and that is obviously not okay. On the other hand, suppose Bayer gives an admin $10000 to write about Crohn's disease generally, without discussing their specific products. If he discloses that payment and explicitly avoids writing about Bayer products, then I would consider that to be okay, even if the optics are a little ugly. Wikipedia is radically transparent and anyone can review his actions to ensure that he really does honor his commitment to write neutral content. A somewhat better process might be if Bayer gave money to the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America to hire a Wikipedian-in-Residence, and then CCFA conducts a general search and ultimately hires someone to write about Crohn's and colitis with no direct interaction with Bayer. For me at least, the problem is not that money changed hands, but rather whether the content creation work is openly declared and structured in a way that is consistent with our policies, such as NPOV. Dragons flight (talk) 09:34, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
              • We had a pharmaceutical company try to invent a new disease to go with their new drug. They than tried to create a bunch of links to said new disease in a bunch of articles. So no I do not think it is appropriate for companies to hire admins to promote diseases. Yes they can give money to third party charities that can hire WiR and that is what we are proposing we allow on a case by case basis. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:16, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
                • You're attacking the payment, but objecting to the notability / neutrality issues. We already have policies that oppose the use of any account (paid or not) for non-neutral / non-notable editing. Dragons flight (talk) 20:59, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
            • @Doc James: Risker's wording "Administrators are expected to rigorously follow the conflict of interest policy and the terms of use, particularly with relation to paid editing" would be violated as being paid by a drug company and editing material related to that money would be blatantly violating COI. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:52, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
              • Disagree that Risker's wording (which I support as much better than the original proposal) would be violated, by pay-the-admin. In point of fact, knowing the formidable reputation Doc_James has, I would actually be 100% okay with some drug company giving him ten million bucks, to retire from his career in the working-world, and concentrate solely on editing wikipedia. Quite frankly, he'd be harder and more of a stickler on their company-article, and on their product-articles, than he would on any other drug company, because he would want to avoid the appearance of pay-to-play. But I would 100% trust him, despite the ten million bucks, NOT to engage in advocacy, ever, even with that ten million bucks, because I don't think he's physically capable of so engaging. (We are really fucking lucky to have Doc_James, here on the 'pedia, in other words.) But I'm with User:Dragons_flight on this one: what matters is that the content of mainspace fully satisfies WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE and WP:SOURCES and all the rest of the WP:PAG... though I would not be unhappy if somebody at the WMF accidentally-on-purpose deleted the WP:MOS and all backup-copies thereof, that thing is a horror. Furthermore, if the admin in question complies with WP:COI and the ToU and WP:NOTPROMOTION and WP:NOTADVOCACY and WP:NICE and so on, there is no problem. Appearance of being paid to edit anti-neutrally, does not equal, actually editing anti-neutrally. And while I won't pretend subjective/PR/implied/structural appearances don't matter, they do matter... that said, I am a firm believer they don't matter as much as objective reality/actuality/results/etc. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 13:37, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
                • Thanks for the vote of confidence. While I agree that ideally we would love to address each issue on the basis of the best available evidence we do not have the volunteer community to do so. If you look through some of the issues at WP:COIN this becomes clear. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:20, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose I oppose for two reasons. First, I do not like the process. I understand that there are some who dislike the bureaucracy associated with more careful deliberations and want to just get things done, but this is not a tiny issue like deciding what color coffee cups to order. This is a big deal policy proposal, and should not be implemented simply on an up or down vote on someone's draft wording. There are significant issues at stake in the deserve more serious discussion than this RFC format allows.
My second objection is very much along the same lines as the one Risker just made and I'm hard-pressed to improve upon it. On the one hand, it might be nice if the WMF could make an unequivocal clear statement. MKDW summarized it above " no administrators on the English Wikipedia are permitted to engage in paid editing". On the positive side, clear,consise and unequivocal. On the negative side, not close to correct. The actual proposed statement already includes certain classes of exceptions. Risker identified some additional examples. I've seen someone state that Wikipedians in residence are exempted but that's not what the statement says. It identifies a certain class of individuals which sounds like WiR, but isn't exactly. For example, I've toyed with the idea of proposing a WiR for an organization but the organization isn't in the list above. However, the point isn't to simply modify the list. The point is to think through the goal and see how best to achieve the goal. A clear unequivocal concise statement meets a goal, but a statement that says admins can never accept pay except in situations A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L... no longer achieves the goal.
Let's put this on hold and think it through.--S Philbrick(Talk) 21:00, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment Comments by others the last few days clearly indicate that allowing non-admins to take payment for edits while prohibiting admins from doing the same could easily cause a significant amount of drama or, at the very least, hurt feelings. In other words, even if there is a clear consensus in support of this, there will at a minimum be a price to pay from admins and people thinking of becoming admins who will feel insulted and may pull away from the project. Furthermore, if those predicting things like people using this rule to "trap" admins turn out to be right, this rule will be the cause of no small drama in the future, perhaps more drama than if we do nothing and admins engage in fully-disclosed paid editing outside the exceptions contemplated in this proposal or if another Orangemoody-like group is able to sucker clientsvictims into thinking that they are Wikipedia administrators thanks to the lack of any rule against administrators making paid edits. As a community, we need to soberly ask ourselves: Is this proposed solution better than doing nothing, and if it is, is there an even better proposal that we can come to a consensus on (and, if "doing nothing" is better than this proposal, is there a solution to the problem that is better than doing nothing that we can agree on)? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 01:42, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Support, with reservations: a possible amendment would be to restrict paid editing by admins to use of alternative accounts without administrator rights. (e.g. User:Tokyogirl79LVA) The current wording is too vague, and as Iridescent and other editors have pointed out, can easily cause problems and may result in many good-faith administrators getting desysopped. sovereign°sentinel (contribs) 10:14, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose, "paid editing is good when done by WiRs, bad in other cases" isn't a clear policy at all, and whether the editor is an admin or not should have no influence at all on the evaluation of their edits. Risker's suggestion is a lot better. The real problem is not whether somebody gets paid for anything, but whether WP:NPOV is violated (WP:COI and related policies are just tools to help against likely NPOV violations). While I do also like the simpleness of Bishonen's / Smallbones' wording, I am not sure that asking admin WiRs to resign their bits is the best use of everybody's time. Nor do I like holding admins to significantly different standards than the rest of the community. —Kusma (t·c) 12:43, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Oppose as I've said many times I do not consider paid editing nearly as serious as editing motivated by liking disliking believing having faith being a fan or being a hater. This seems little more than rule creep.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:23, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

  • Extremely strong support per Smallbones. Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty | Averted crashes 17:34, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Obvious Support I think bringing WMF and employee issue here is not good reason to oppose. Asking "what if 'xyz'?, what if 'abc'?" is also not worth. This RFC simply means any admin or any editor should not do any paid editing. What's wrong in this? Some people are making this simple and clear issue complicated and making it confusing. My only question is that how people will identify that any editor is doing paid editing or unpaid editing? I think there is no tool for it. Any bot will not mark some edits as "paid edit". I don't know such committee exits or not but one committee can be formed for this purpose to overlook some editors. Not only admins but non-admin experienced editors should also be overlooked. Obviously we can't look for all thousands of editors on Wikipedia, many new editors are promotion only editors and they get detected while new page patrolling, no worry about them. But what about autopatrolled people? In new page patrolling pages created by autopatrolled people goes unreviwed. Wikipedia is so vast that it is very difficult to have look on everything. But if special committee is formed for this purpose then at least experienced editors will have terror of that committee. As we do investigation on "suspected sock puppets", same way there should be investigations regarding "suspected paid editing" and any editors should be allowed to open such case against any editor if he/she has enough multiple evidences for it. I don't know how successful it will be, but at least it will have terror on mind of paid editors that they will get reported.--Human3015TALK  00:56, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
    • So, Human3015, you're in favour of desysopping anyone who gets hired by the WMF? Exactly in what way is that beneficial to the encyclopedia?
  • Support. This issue is important enough to take a stand on. Andreas JN466 23:44, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
    • Jayen466, what issue are you taking a stand on? Are you too in favour of desysopping any WMF employees? Are you too in favour of desysopping all Wikipedians in Residence? Are you too in favour of desysopping anyone who gets a WMF T-shirt? (Full disclosure: I recently was awarded one for OTRS contributions, completely randomly or so I have been told, so I assume you mean I should have all permissions removed. Including CheckUser - which I just used very effectively to defuse a paid editing ring. But meh.) Are you too in favour of banning any of these people from adminship? Risker (talk) 23:58, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
      • The issue worth taking a stand on is that admin services should not be offered for sale to the highest bidder. (No one is talking about your or my T-shirt, and I commented on the WiR exception in the original discussion.) The principle at stake here is right and important enough to do the work fine-tuning the small print so that there are no absurdities like the ones you and others have mentioned. Perhaps it will be wise to leave some time for this – say three months – before the policy becomes fully effective. Regards, Andreas JN466 00:26, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
        • Well, we don't disagree on the admin services being for sale. But that is not, in any way, what this proposal says. We've both been around Wikipedia long enough to know that your interpretation might be the one that's proper, but it will never be used. It will be used to desysop anyone who accepts anything that anyone considers a benefit of any kind. It will be used to punish admins for doing good work that someone doesn't like. It will be used for putting admins in their place. We've been here long enough to know that the benevolent interpretation of policy is almost never applied. We know that "selling" admin services is already covered under the current policy, too. Risker (talk) 00:34, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
          • The issue concerns paid editing: entity X pays an admin to write about X—in principle the edits might be golden, but the COI is too ugly to ignore. WIR and other obvious exceptions are obvious exceptions. Unclear cases can be dealt with by asking for opinions at WP:AN, as is done for other issues that may be contentious. Per WP:BURO we don't have to worry about people who will post on Jimbo's talk claiming that some admin should be desysopped because they received a T-shirt. Johnuniq (talk) 00:42, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
            • Oh nonsense. Wikipedians in Residence are paid editors. I'm sorry, but they are. It's never been about paid editing, it's always been about someone gaining benefit from access to someone with admin tools. And guess what? That access usually has absolutely nothing to do with money. The expectation is that administrators do not use their admin tools in any area where they have a conflict of interest, and that is not limited to financial interests. It's right there in the policy already. The last three big "paid editing" cause celebres did not involve inappropriate behaviour by administrators, or use of admin tools in any way. Meanwhile, admins will get poked for niggling, piddly things like T-shirts. (Don't kid yourself - I got a snotty email tonight after "confessing" to receiving an OTRS t-shirt, something that is in no way dependent upon my being an administrator. Seems not everyone thinks it's benign.) Nobody seems to be willing to say "yes, it's fine to be a WMF employee and a volunteer administrator" either; this is really concerning to me, because some of the most responsive WMF staffers are people who continue to be active participants in the community at all levels. It is a mutually beneficial situation. Risker (talk) 02:00, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
              • You say, Nobody seems to be willing to say "yes, it's fine to be a WMF employee and a volunteer administrator; this is really concerning to me". The proposal at the top of this section says, Admins who work for the the WMF or Wikimedia chapters are exempt when performing their duties for these organizations. As far as I can see, nobody is saying it because it is taken as read. Andreas JN466 08:05, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
Comment: for what it's worth, WP:AFC already contains the following passage: "Bona fide reviewers at Articles for Creation will never contact or solicit anyone for payment to get a draft into article space, improve a draft, or restore a deleted article. If someone contacts you with such an offer, please post on Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Help desk." FoCuS contribs; talk to me! 02:12, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Wording

Basically IMO we want to disallow admin's from taking remuneration from a subject or their PR firm to write about the subject or their products (stuff the subject sells). Ie business X paying an admin to make article on business X "better".

We want to potentially allow admin's to take remuneration from an organization that shares our vision to work on improving a topic area. Ie Cancer Research UK requesting help making Wikipedia's cancer information better.

Are there people who oppose this? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:12, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Sort of. What we want is to disallow anyone from editing otherwise than in accordance with site policies, particularly NPOV, COI and copyright. What we want is to encourage organisations to facilitate improving Wikipedia in accordance with our vision and policies. Paid editing in and of itself is not relevant to either. Thryduulf (talk) 10:40, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
I think in an ideal world this is sound. What I worry about is indirect suffusion of impetus - e.g. there is an argument that drug companies founding/supporting organisations that heighten awareness of (for example) depression or schizophrenia would by their involvement promote a biological focus, particularly relevant in depression and early psychosis. There could be a bias that flows though if, say, one of these organisations has a WiR and there is alot of communication between them leading to pushing a particular focus on WP. Not saying this happens all the time but there have been concerns raised before. Look, I do think the WiR have been good overall in many areas of WP, just in two minds in medicine. Cochrane is a different story however as it is rigorously independent. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:59, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment Sir, doesn't matter. These scammers, spammers, PR agents will always find a way. Best would be that Notability guidelines for Companies and firms and newly appointed politicians should be made stronger (software companies, Electronics manufacturers, Building construction companies, Private nursing homes, restaurants , Business entities , Private insurance firms, Soft drinks, hard drinks companies, Travel agencies, Garment companies, Medicine tablet/capsule makers, Kitchen appliance manufacturers...._______etc), and all those Company and Biography of living person pages which doesn't have enough independent sources must be deleted.

    New page patrollers are one of the most unsung heroes of Wikipedia.

    I found that those pages created before 2010 stayed here without any sources. Nowadays Newly created pages are scrutinized heavily, but previously these process was not strict. I came across this page without any reference: Firdous e Bareen. I am assuming, there must be other articles like this Singori, where the only reference is a dead link. These articles are harmless to Wikipedia and can remain here, but if there is any unsourced article about a company in Wikipedia (created before 2011), it must be deleted.

    Administrators might disagree, but they should never make their E-mail public and we must not allow any account which is less than six months old with less than 200 edits to send private E-mail to administrators. Action Hero 14:40, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

  • Yes, I would oppose this, for a number of reasons. Currently, any editor may solicit and accept payment for working on business-related content provided they disclose the relationship, and their edits will stand provided that they follow the same policies on NPOV and sourcing that everyone does. Admins are editors before they are anything else. Trying to ban people from taking actions as editors on the basis of which other user rights those people hold perpetuates already-toxic internal social divisions on the basis of an unproven and implausible hypothesis of external benefit. Furthermore, the distinction offered between business-related content improvement and WiR-style content improvement is not robust. Opabinia regalis (talk) 17:29, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Slight alternative "Admins and functionaries must use a declared legitimate alternative account for any paid editing."
All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:12, 7 September 2015 (UTC).
  • Maybe - I would think competent paid editors would separate their paid contributions from their volunteer contributions, if any, and use their paid account as a portfolio - but why just admins? Shouldn't active editors do this regardless of which user rights they have? Opabinia regalis (talk) 17:29, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
    I think this one wants to say that an account with administrator permissions may not at the same time be a paid editing account. That is, have two accounts, one for admining and another for paid editing stuff. A separation of scopes.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:34, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
  • But again, there's the "what constitutes payment?" issue, which needs to be formalised if this is to work. Recently, the WMF gave an editor a grant to buy an obscure book that wasn't available in a library (I think it was Wehwalt but I may be misremembering)—did this constitute "paid editing", since it was presumably with the clear expectation that it be used to do work on Wikipedia? How about if I say to Rich Farmbrough "I've always been a fan of the sculptor George Blackall Simonds, and really appreciate the fact that you wrote Statue of George Palmer, is there any chance you could expand The Falconer as well and if you do I'll buy you a drink"? What about if the WMF, unbeknownst to Rich, have a huge Simonds fan on their staff and, unsolicited, send Rich a parcel of freebies under the Merchandise giveaways scheme? Certainly the first two examples constitute "paid editing" since someone is accepting a gift on the understanding that they perform a Wikipedia action they wouldn't otherwise have done, and arguably the third does as well since someone is accepting a gift in return for actions taken on Wikipedia.

    If these actions, and all those like them, aren't to be included in the proposal then there will need to be a formal list of exceptions a mile long, otherwise anyone who happened to take a dislike to any admin could quite legitimately demand to know who bought each round at any Wikipedia meetup they ever attended, under threat of blocking or desysopping. A policy with a formal list of exceptions a mile long is pointless, since it would just be a duplication of the existing terms of use.

    (Now would probably be the opportune moment to point out that "always use a declared legitimate alternative account for any paid editing" was the exact model proposed by MyWikiBiz, and I'm sure you recall just how well that went down with the WMF. There's no point even proposing such a policy if it's certain to be vetoed by our insect overlords in San Francisco; has anyone asked Lila what her thoughts on this matter are?) ‑ iridescent 12:11, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

What constitutes payment is an issue in Real Life™. I think that we need not concern ourselves with trivia, buying someone a pint is going to create a CoI that falls into the level of noise. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:46, 8 September 2015 (UTC).
Yes, but... You of all people should know that Wikipedia has a number of people who will insist on desysoping any admin breaching the letter of the law, no matter how trivial, and that even if arbcom dismisses their claims (by no means a given) it will tie users up in red tape. ‑ iridescent 13:50, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
Like ... tee shirts? Wikipedia:Merchandise_giveaways/Nominations/Archive_1#Doc_James NE Ent 00:35, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Two things you don't address: 1) The appearance of a conflict of interest is a much more serious issue if privileged editors like admins are involved than if un-privileged ones are, and 2) "Cancer Research UK requesting help making Wikipedia's cancer information better" may be okay as long as "Cancer Research UK" has an impeccable reputation and is strongly motivated to protect their reputation from the harm that would come if they were even accused of "paying Wikipedia editors to favor their cause". With a less-than-very-reputable charity or even a relatively-new or relatively-unknown charity I would be much more careful in the vetting- and educate-the-organization-about-the-role-of-a-WiR processes, especially "going forward" (practical realities mean existing WiR relationships will likely be grandfathered in, at least for a time). davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 21:24, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
Oppose per irisdescent and Risker -- admins are not supposed to be some elite genetically superior X-men, and they shouldn't have to give up privileges afforded to non-admin editors -- and per Ent (me): This notion that wording like "which have missions that are aligned with the WMF mission" is anything other than a recipe for wiki-drama has not spent enough time in the WP:CESSPIT and WP:AC spaces ; it all sounds very nice in the abstract but when it comes down to the sticking point as arbcom contemplates separating the sysop WP:UAL from an editor, it'll be a huge time sink that will end up leaving lots of people pissed off. Additionally, it will also declare open season on disgruntled editors trying to out (dox) admins in order to throw paid editing mud at them; again experience at ANI and AC venues show that when someone isn't getting their way, they will try to use whatever leverage to discredit the admin who enforced community policy. The real goal is to keep folks from tarnishing the wiki brand by conning folks (companies) into paying them for wiki based Search engine optimization; targeting admins in any way whatsoever is not a good way to accomplish that. NE Ent 22:59, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
Oppose very strongly. We don't need this, per Iridescent. We've gotten this far without it. We have only the vaguest idea where this would take us. There is such a thing as leadership and I applaud those responsible for the community trying to direct it in some manner. But there is such a thing as foolishness. A measures such as this has very great potential to divide the community. I just don't see where the gain is for the possible downside. For all of the kilobytes spent arguing in favor of this, I just don't see a convincing argument that passing this would improve the encyclopedia.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:37, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
Oppose I blogged about this topic in January. I do not think taking payment for normal, properly disclosed paid edits is a problem (though I do believe taking payment for performing admin services is certainly a problem). I think the bigger issue would be working behind the scenes, which could be done by admins or regular editors -- asking one's friends to perform actions, administrative or otherwise, without disclosure. To be clear -- I am an admin, and for the most part I do not do any paid editing. The exceptions would be things like running my online course, giving students feedback on the wiki, etc. This is one place where I would draw a distinction based on the nature of the payment; if there were a prohibition on edits when the payment is for an editorial objective on Wikipedia, that might be acceptable; but prohibiting (for instance) professors who have earned the admin bit from providing on-wiki feedback to their students seems like a bit of a stretch. -Pete (talk) 04:25, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
Pete, I understood the proposal to cover mainspace edits only. Indeed, this seems clear from the relevant part of the wording: "No administrator may accept payment to edit articles or to perform any administrative function on Wikipedia." So assuming that feedback would typically be given on talk pages, the ability to give such feedback would not be affected by this. (Interesting blog post, by the way.) Andreas JN466 15:36, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
Thanks Jayen466 -- but I don't think that's sufficient. Sometimes working on an article alongside a student or trainee is an important and legitimate approach to teaching. -Pete (talk) 16:03, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
Per the proposal "we want to disallow admin's from taking remuneration from a subject or their PR firm to write about the subject or their products". Profs do not take money to from a subject to write about the subject. They are paid to 1) teach students 2) do research. Thus User:Peteforsyth the proposal is not to prevent a prof from directly editing an article as part of working on a project with their students. If a prof is working to develop a new "treatment" that they personally own it would prevent them from writing about said treatment. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:09, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
I'm not certain I'm looking at the most current version of the proposal -- it's difficult to follow this discussion without reading every twist and turn. Doc James, I think if the policy change makes a distinction between "paid to advance an editorial objective" vs. "paid to teach or train somebody how to use Wikipedia", that would probably address my concern. The version I read initially did not make that distinction; rather, it exempted employees of certain institutions (WMF and chapters) which is a non-starter. It has to be about kinds of behavior, not granting special status to certain organizations. What is the current version of the proposal? -Pete (talk) 17:29, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
Regarding "to write about the subject or their products": This wording is sufficient for me to understand the intent of your proposal, but it falls well short of the kind of language that should be enshrined in policy. As a simple example: suppose the Belfer Center wanted to pay a Wikipedian in Residence to shift Wikipedia toward its view of foreign policy matters. That is not about the Belfer Center, it's not necessarily about its products (papers); but it is a threat to Wikipedia's integrity, and something that shouldn't be permitted by a policy on admin behavior. If we have a policy about admins and paid editing, it must be broad and high-level, not designed for a list of specific kinds of paid engagements. (This stuff is real; people approach my business often with a desire (sometimes more legitimate than others) to reshape the way their industry is covered, or to edit the articles in their non-profit's program area to meet their ideological goals. For me to take their money and perform administrative actions that advance that agenda would be absolutely, totally wrong. But none of the wording I've seen here addresses that kind of scenario.) -Pete (talk) 17:40, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
User:Peteforsyth can you think of better wording that would include your additional concerns? Often these sorts of issues come down to a list. What I propose is just one item. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:58, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
I don't think a list can ever be complete, Doc James, so I think more general language is necessary. (As an analogy, in the U.S. there is a driving offense called "reckless driving." There might not be a specific statute that covers driving backwards while blindfolded with a bird flying around in your car; there will always be cases where judgment is required, and in that case "recklessness" is a word that conveys the umbrella concept.) I also do not believe any organization -- not Cancer Research UK, not the WMF -- is 100% aligned with Wikipedia; conflict of interest is a matter of degree, not black-and-white. With all that in mind, I propose the following text. (Note to Risker, I have also tried to address your point about payment not having singular significance, as well.) I've put this in a new section below, to try to avoid confusion about who's commenting on what. See #Pete's proposal -Pete (talk) 01:29, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
Here is an example that might be worth considering -- in my role teaching a course on Wikipedia, I spoke up on behalf of my students on an article talk page: Talk:PhET Interactive Simulations#Problems due to conflict of interest editing. I was careful to avoid addressing the contents of the article, but to limit my discussion to modes of interaction. I am fine with a rule prohibiting me from directly editing the article in such a case (though I think that would be a bit of overkill, I could live with it); and I'm fine with a prohibition on using admin tools in a context like that, e.g. to semiprotect an article to make a student's experience easier. But I think the comments I made were legitimate, and not something an administrator should be prohibited from doing. -Pete (talk) 01:42, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
Oppose per NE Ent. Being an administrator is no reason to bound them to additional inhibitions. If paid-editing is permissible, there should be no qualifiers by way of a person's additional duties. ExParte talk | contribs 01:47, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
The WMF and a contractor parted ways over the issue of paid editing [1] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:44, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Pete's proposal

Per some discussion above with Doc James, and also considering points made by Risker, here is an alternative phrasing that I believe supports the original intent, but -- I believe -- without laying the groundwork for negative unintended consequences: -Pete (talk) 02:53, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Pete's proposal, to add between paragraphs 3 and 4 of "#Involved admins:
If an administrator has a significant conflict of interest, they must not edit related articles, perform related administrative actions, or privately lobby fellow Wikipedians to make such edits or administrative actions on their behalf. "Significant conflicts of interest" include, but are not limited to, paid arrangements with a client or employer; and positions of trust (such as board membership) in an organization. Paid projects whose purpose is education or training do not necessarily create a significant conflict of interest; but even in such cases, administrators are expected to exercise careful judgment, and consult with fellow administrators, if there is any doubt. Reverting blatant vandalism and taking relevant administrative actions (as discussed below) is permitted.

More limited wording

I propose wording more like this:

Administrators are forbidden from using their administrative tools in return for payment. In matters not involving use of administrative tools, administrators are bound by and must be well aware of Wikipedia's policies on wp:PAID and wp:COI, like any other editor.

This has the advantage of not binding administrators to stricter standards as regards editing, but still preventing administrative functions from being exchanged for payment. Yours, Aervanath (talk) 23:36, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Comment - I would like to suggest that the above and following discussion take into account those who are Wikipedians in Residence and Wikipedia Visiting Scholars. The Residences DO get a salary from their employers and some of them are administrators. Barbara (WVS) (talk) 10:43, 7 October 2015 (UTC)


Fuck yeah!

  • Extremely strong support, e.g. per Smallbones, Doc James, etc.

Enough! This RFC has been open for over a month. I'm tired of the efforts to talk these proposals to death. There's strong support for this change. Someone needs to close this, pick the best/most widely supported of the proposed wordings and put it in place. We can polish from there. Anything else would be foot-dragging.--Elvey(t•c) 03:54, 9 October 2015 (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.

ArbCom-only admins

Keeping the quickly approaching elections ahead; should some clauses be added to either A) Confirm or deny the granting of administrator rights to elected non-admin arbitrators, and/or B) Applying restrictions to the use of the tools of ArbCom-only admins? This has been brought up at several venues, and this is probably the most logical place to bring an actual discussion. Kharkiv07 (T) 15:36, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

  • WP:COMMONSENSE dictates that, at a minimum, elected functionaries will be given the tools they need to do their jobs (by "tools" I mean both the technical user-right(s) and the permission from the community to use those technical user-rights as needed for their job). Absent any proposal to the contrary, elected ARBCOM members who are neither administrators nor eligible to re-claim a resigned administrator user-right would get just the minimum toolset needed to do their jobs, including the sysop bit and access to the private admin-only mailing lists and IRC channels, and a mandate to use them only within the scope of their elected role. Anything less than this is basically telling everyone who voted for that arbitrator "sorry, if he can't get about 70% support in an RfA he might as well resign from ARBCOM because he won't have the tools to do his job." So for me, the question is: Do we want to a) give elected ARBCOM members who aren't admins already just the bare minimum privileges to get the job done, b) do we want to give them something more, such as making them full admins with all of the rights, privileges, and responsibilities therein for the duration of their service on ARBCOM, or c) do we want to go in the other direction and force them to run for RFA immediately upon being elected to ARBCOM, with the understanding that if they are not appointed, they will not be seated on ARBCOM? Or perhaps something in between "a" and "b" or something in between "b" and "c"? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 05:59, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Answering my own question: I would lean toward a hybrid of A and B, where they get "read" access to the mailing list, IRC channels, and the like for the duration of their appointment, but they are only allowed to "write" to those mailing lists, IRC channels, etc. in relation to their job. As for the sysop bit, it's too hard to tell someone "you aren't allowed edit a fully protected page if it's not part of your duties" since they may not realize it's fully protected as they are editing, and it's useful to give them full rights to see deleted edits, the only major restrictions I would put on them would be "no doing anything that affects any editor's ability to edit except as it relates to your duties." I would also encourage any non-admin elected to ARBCOM to go through RfA as soon as he thinks he has a decent chance of passing. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 06:08, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Succeeding in the ArbCom election is harder, and shows broader community support than passing RFA. Therefore, I support granting admin status to anybody elected. Candidates could make statements regarding how they would handle that upon appointment and departure, whether they would resign adminship or not. Jehochman Talk 08:41, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Jehochman I've raised this at the Bureaucrats' Noticeboard here as this needs urgently resolving. Apparently having a glass ceiling for non-admins will seriously disadvantage them and that is wrong.  Roger Davies talk

I am monitoring this situation, because if any non-admin arbs are elected and the community has not arrived at a clear consensus on what rights they should be given the Electoral Commission, of which I am a member, will have to intervene. Right now our main job is trying to make sure that we won't have a job to do. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:08, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Category for inactive admins?

I've discovered (very much to my regret) that User:Makemi – the user who welcomed me when I started editing Wikipedia, and who I was just reminded of because I found out that she (judging from the soprano voice, Makemi is female) contributed (among others) the recording on Scarborough Fair – used to be an admin but has not been active for over two years and, consequently, has been desysopped in the meanwhile. I've listed her on WP:MW as she left no reason for her disappearance, replaced the {{wikibreak}} template on her userpage with {{retired}}, and added the category for retired Wikipedians; but what about the category "Wikipedia administrators"? Shouldn't it be removed, as well? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:28, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

User:Florian Blaschke: There is Category:Wikipedia inactive administrators but that doesn't hold individual users. You can just respectfully remove or comment out the category. Not so sure about putting a 'retired' template, though- that is a somewhat loaded template. –xenotalk 17:01, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
You can certainly remove or comment out a category listing a user as an admin, along with the userbox identifying the user as an admin - it is fine to remove these from the user pages of users who aren't actually admins. I would not recommend changing wikibreak or retired templates, those are for the user to add themselves. Hut 8.5 17:13, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
Thank you; commenting out seems like the best solution to me, as I do not wish to erase the fact that Makemi is a former admin completely. The reason why I was being so bold replacing "wikibreak" by "retired" is that a "retired" template is already present on her talk page. @Xeno: What do you mean by "loaded"? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:31, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
Ah, I see. Well if it was already present on the talk page (though it was added by an IP). By loaded, I mean that whenever I see a retired template, it gives the impression that the user has become disillusioned by the project and wishes to announce it thru the template. People who just lose interest generally just stop editing without placing such things. –xenotalk 17:46, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
I see your point. The template may not strictly mean that, but it is easy to get this impression. I've found an alternative template, {{Not around}}, which makes it clear that it has not been added by the user themselves.
I have now restored the "wikibreak" template and placed it below the "retired" template, which I replaced with the "not here" template, but kept the "Retired Wikipedians" category in place. As suggested, I've commented out the admin userbox and category. What do you think of this solution? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:00, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

activity requirements RFC

Wikipedia:Administrators/RFC on inactivity 2015

Beeblebrox (talk) 01:07, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

RFA2015 Phase II RfC

Hello. Anyone who reads this message is invited to voice their opinions on the Phase II RfC for the RFA2015 reform project. The purpose of this RfC is to find implementable solutions for the problems identified in Phase I of the project. Thank you. Biblioworm 20:51, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Accountability...?

going nowhere. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:38, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

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.

What is the point of having this section is admins aren't going to abide by it? We give these editors these extra responsibilities, that they ask for, then they tromp around the project blocking people for allegedly violating the rules, yet they themselves ignore the rules whenever they wish. Is this a policy or not? Are admins expected to abide it? And what recourse is there when they don't? Perhaps this section needs expansion and clarification. - theWOLFchild 22:19, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Or you could just accept that your block was perfectly valid and try not to be so nasty in the future, which isn't an administrative isssue at all... Beeblebrox (talk) 23:23, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
Admins are required to justify their actions. They are not required to provide a justification that you will accept. --NeilN talk to me 23:36, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
Replies, from admins, that are hardly surprising. But as you say, Neil, they are required to justify their action. The issue isn't that they failed to provide an "acceptable" justification, the issue is they refused to provide any at all. If you guys are going to weigh in with very... opinionated... comments, I suggest you review the issues you are commenting on and acquaint yourselves with the facts, and base your comments on them, even if they don't suit you. Or, (as I've been told), you also have the option of not commenting at all. - theWOLFchild 00:41, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
Since you framed this as a general question, giving no indication or diffs that you were referring to a specific situation, what issue am I supposed to review? --NeilN talk to me 00:51, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Again, my question was, could we possibly look at expanding or clarifying the "Accountability" section of this page, to avoid future... issues. - theWOLFchild 00:44, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

  • One thing that may be useful is to state that there is a difference between "I don't understand" and "I don't agree". I don't know about expanding, seems to me like that could easily become an excuse for badgering or vexatious complaints.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 13:06, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Thewolfchild, perhaps if you could propose some specific changes instead of just grousing about your own situation this discussion would actually serve a purpose. As it stands now, that's not the case. Your block was thoroughly reviewed by nearly a dozen other admins on and off wiki. There was broad agreement that it was valid. You don't have to like it, but don't expect policy to be changed or epanded just becuse of that, and without you putting forward any actual ideas as opposed to just finding another forum to complain about it. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:56, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Will you relax please? I'm just asking a simple question. Can you tone down your replies and focus on the issue instead of me? Thanks.
The policy states: Subject only to the bounds of civility, avoiding personal attacks, and reasonable good faith, editors are free to question or to criticize administrator actions. Administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrator actions and to justify them when needed. It goes on to state that "Failure to communicate" is considered "problematic". As I said, perhaps you should better acquaint yourself with the actual facts of my block(s). You keep going on and on about how "thoroughly reviewed" it (they?) were by hundreds of admins, yet you are leaving out a crucial fact(s). In both cases I asked the admins to explain their blocks. The first one, despite numerous replies, flat out refused. The second one wouldn't even respond, despite multiple pings. To me, this completely flies in the face of this policy. So perhaps this policy is in need some change and/or improvement? Perhaps a template that a blocked user can utilize, where it's mandatory for the admin to respond? I'm not sure... this is why I'm asking.
Take note of the fact that I'm simply asking here, in general, instead of addressing my specific blocks. I'm not posting on the individual admins pages. I'm not posting a complaint to ANI, or WP:DR, or anywhere else. In short, I'm not challenging my blocks, I'm simply looking for a way to have this policy better adhered to, going forward. As it is right now, it seems any admin can just ignore it whenever they so choose. I don't think that's acceptable. - theWOLFchild 02:48, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
You realize that "Can you tone down your replies and focus on the issue instead of me?" and "As I said, perhaps you should better acquaint yourself with the actual facts of my block(s)." are mutually contradictory, right? Also:
  • " The first one, despite numerous replies, flat out refused." -> Flatly contradicted by this
  • "The second one wouldn't even respond, despite multiple pings" -> Explained why they blocked here
So perhaps my initial comment, "Admins are required to justify their actions. They are not required to provide a justification that you will accept" was on the nose? --NeilN talk to me 14:38, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
Wow... and I'm the one that's accused of WP:IDHT. I'll say it again; In short, I'm not challenging my blocks, I'm simply looking for a way to have this policy better adhered to, going forward. As it is right now, it seems any admin can just ignore it whenever they so choose. I don't think that's acceptable. - Now, I realize that doesn't suit many of the admins here, but I don't care. Admins should have to follow policy like everyone else. - theWOLFchild 15:15, 3 December 2015 (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.

IRC channel invitation

When I got the mop a couple of years ago I received information on joining the invitation-only #en-wikipedia-admins, but never bothered because I was unfamiliar with IRC. Now I'd like to use IRC as a tool (can't see myself hanging out on it, though) and join the channel, so if someone would invite me—and give me a pointer or two on following through :-)—I'd really appreciate it. I completed the application process for an IRC cloak a while ago but never got one for some reason, and have completed a second application. Thanks for any help and all the best, Miniapolis 16:28, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

If you need help setting up a client I've got instructions here for joining the help channel which you only need to swap "help" for "admins" in, once you've been approved access. Sam Walton (talk) 18:47, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
Thanks very much, Sam; I found Wikipedia:IRC/Access requests after I posted here and am awaiting approval, but will add #wikipedia-en-help to my channels list. All the best, Miniapolis 23:58, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Creating Gabriel Kunda

Hello, I want to create Gabriel Kunda (volleyball player at 1990 WOrld Championships), but it is protected from creation. Can an administrator please solve this problem :). Thank you, Sander.v.Ginkel (Talk) 13:59, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Would you please ask the protecting admin, CactusWriter, first. If they do not respond but continue editing, pls ping me, I will unprotect the page.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:14, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the ping, Ymblanter. Sander.v.Ginkel, the original protection was because of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gabriel Kunda, Jr. and the article's recreation under various titles. However, that bio was about a Zambian footballer, not an Argentinian volleyball player. I have unprotected the title for you to create an article. Good luck with your editing. — CactusWriter (talk) 17:11, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
Hi CactusWriter , thanks for your fast explanation and response! I also want to create the page of the volleyball player Laurent Tillie, can you also unprotect that page? Thanks, Sander.v.Ginkel (Talk) 19:42, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
Sander, as mentioned above, you should make your request to the protecting administrator first. In this case, that would be Elockid. Also, it is generally preferable to have prepared a draft or sandbox version of the intended article prior to making a request so that a quick comparison can be made. Thanks. — CactusWriter (talk) 20:07, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

My changes

I have updated this page to reflect recent community decisions concerning the RfA process. As required, these changes do indeed reflect consensus; the RfCs which led to these decisions were widely advertised and closed by trusted members of the community. (The two RfCs which provide the basis for these changes are Wikipedia:2015 administrator election reform/Phase II/RfC and Wikipedia:2015 administrator election reform/Phase II/Clerking RfC.) Bureaucrats have recently begun executing their mandate to clerk at RfAs, as requested by the community. Thank you. Biblio (talk) 05:39, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

You have to unblock me

BLOCKED, STILL NOT 100% SURE WHAT THIS WAS ABOUT
Another account was easily discovered, but it was not blocked either. Both are now, and as this discussion is not about admins in general further discussion of whatever block this user is referring to will take place either at their talk page or at an as-yet-unfiled SPI. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:39, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

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.

Eaglestorm thinks it was me who posts many death threats in his talk page and he thinks I did it! I never disturb his pages cause he thinks it was me who put these death threats as revenge. He has no reason that I did this to him and for no reason he accuses me that i put death threats to him. Please reason him! 20spokesperson (talk) 07:06, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Well your account isn't blocked. If it was you wouldn't have been able to post the above comment. If you're posting this on behalf of someone else please advise them that they would need to post an unblock request on their talk page rather than posting here. Eaglestorm was indefinitely blocked several weeks ago. Hut 8.5 07:35, 18 February 2016 (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.

Add about admonishment?

NO CONSENSUS
Myself, as starter of this section, understands that "admonishment" is not a neologism. Instead it means to "reprimand firmly", or warn strongly, perhaps? Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 22:37, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

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.

I was thinking about adding a section about admonishment (cross between "admin" and "abolishment"), following the mention with the discussion about User:Kiefer.Wolfowitz's ban from Wikipedia. some mention of Ironhold's permanent desysoppation, as seen in the Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Kiefer.Wolfowitz and Ironholds page. From what I was thinking, I thought that "admonishement" was defined as a complete ban from adminship. Would you think it is a good idea to add a section on admonishment? Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 22:05, 11 March 2016 (UTC)


Supports

Opposes

Sorry, I clarified myself now. I should've read better. By the way, why is there arbitration of two users on the same page? Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 09:30, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
Maybe just close it. Wow, I never knew I should've looked in the dictionary. Oh well, all solved. Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 22:37, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Further discussion

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.

Semi-protected edit request on 30 March 2016

Please unprotected me. Khalil5172 (talk) 10:51, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

@Khalil5172: you do not make clear what you want. If you want a page to be unprotected, the place to ask is WP:RFPP. If you have another account you want unblocked, read WP:GAB and place an unblock request on the talk page of the blocked account. If you cannot edit that talk page, apply by the WP:Unblock Ticket Request System. JohnCD (talk) 11:01, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Deleted Page

Sir, My page was deleted due to some policy reasons. I had requested to you to allow me to create it, and you allow me to by saying this: "I've reverted them, because they were made in the wrong place. Please see WP:AFTERDELETE for the information you seek. Sandstein 09:51, 22 April 2016 (UTC)" But still it is not saying that this page is protected from creation, so only administrators can create it. Kindly help me out. Waiting for your kind response. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cmh.mohsin (talk • contribs) 03:54, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

@Cmh.mohsin: This is the wrong talk page: please leave this message on the deleting administrator's talk page, or let me know if you have any more questions. Please also include the name of the page you are referring to. Thanks, Rubbish computer (HALP!: I dropped the bass?) 16:32, 1 May 2016 (UTC)


Bold change

I just made a bold change on this page. Under Accountability I made | the following change I changed this:

  • Conduct elsewhere incompatible with adminship (off-site attacking, etc.).

to this:

  • Conduct incompatible with adminship (on-site attacking, etc.).

It seemed like a common-sense change, since Wikipedia Admins are admins only on Wikipedia, and WikiMedia only owns Wiki spaces (i.e Wikipedia, Meta, ....etc....) that a policy cannot be made to regulate conduct outside of Wiki spaces. That and sometimes we all need to blow off some steam every once and a while, and since we can't do it on Wikipedia (ok, we can, but there would be consequences!) allow our admins to be human and blow off some steam elsewhere. Sure, I could see Wikipedia taking action if an admin, for example, posted the password for his account and invited others to take over his account and damage Wikipedia, because even though the password was posted off-site, it resulted in on - site damage. Or I could see Wikipedia taking action if an admin outed someone on Wikipedia off-site, again, this directly effects Wikipedia. But, in general ,blowing off steam off-site about some incident that happened or other should be no problem. Allow the admins to be human and blow off steam every once and a while. KoshVorlon 18:00, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Reverted, and don't re-remove it. If you want to propose a change this fundamental to how Wikipedia operates, at the very least you need a widely-advertised RFC and in this case the explicit approval of Arbcom and WMF Legal as well; removing admins for offsite conduct is rare, but it does happen, and removing the ability to take offsite activity into account when reaching decisions would be a massive cultural change with significant implications for how Wikipedia operates in future. If you can't edit on Wikipedia without "blowing off steam off-site about some incident that happened or other", Wikipedia is probably not the place for you and you certainly shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the admin bit. ‑ Iridescent 18:43, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
I won't revert you, however, I disagree with your removal, you are against my change and I am for it, this hardly constitutes consensus. I would have rather you allowed this to be discussed. You made your feelings known, but you're not everybody (nor am I), so rather than reverting my change, how about reverting your revert and allow it to be discussed ? As far as Arbcom and legal, not needed, Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, allowing admins to blow off steam is more-or-less WP:IAR , as long as it doesn't result in harm to Wikipedia. For example | this was allowed to stay even though it violated WP:Polemic, | this also violated WP:Polemic but was allowed to stay, in effect granting both users the right to blow off steam.Since we allow users that right on wikipedia we should allow our sysops that same right, off wikipedia. BTW - I've been a Wikipedia user for 10 years, I'm pretty familiar with how Wikipedia operates, Guidelines, policy, consensus (except in rare circumstances like Office actions, legal actions, and CU/Arb blocks :), we even have IAR which is the basis for what I'm proposing here Iridescent ). KoshVorlon 19:13, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
I can think of at least two incidents in the last year or so which reaffirm the existing policy - offwiki behaviour can have on wiki results. In particular the arguments as to whether an editor should have been banned for creating attack porn off wiki against another editor. Arbcom made it very clear that their inaction or belated action in that case was over uncertainty as to the link between the off wiki account and the onwiki account, not over whether the actions merited a ban. ϢereSpielChequers 20:15, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
The general rule is that sanctions won't be imposed on English Wikipedia for an editor's conduct off-wiki unless it has a clearly foreseeable, unjustified negative effect on the editing environment here. We (the collective we) don't usually consider an editor's behavior on another website—be it the French Wikipedia or Wikiquote or Commons, or Wikipediocracy or a blog or an e-mail or whatever—in imposing sanctions on an editor. It is quite difficult enough to administer this project without focusing on conduct outside! But there are obviously some limits. If an editor were, for example, to post revenge porn against another editor, or reveal another editor's real name and address and Social Security number on another website, or to deliberate incite harassment, or to send an off-wiki e-mail containing violent or harassing threats, or ... well, I don't think I need to continue with that list: it is quite clear that a policy of "we never consider anything off-wiki" would be drastically overstated. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:12, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
There have also been extremely high-profile recent desysoppings based (at least in part) on "speaking to journalists" and "making rude comments on IRC", as well as this desyopping based entirely on off-wiki conduct back in 2013 and this one just a few months ago. As NYB says, what's considered is potential impact on Wikipedia so something which doesn't have the potential to negatively impact someone's on-wiki activity is unlikely to be taken into consideration, but "only consider on-wiki activity" would be a major policy change with significant implications as to how Wikipedia operates. ‑ Iridescent 21:19, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Moderator proposal

A Request for Comment on a proposal to create a new user group with an abbreviated set of administrator user-rights, as an option for editors to request instead of requesting the entire sysop user-right package. I welcome everyone's thoughts on this. - jc37 21:15, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Yasin Arslan

Yasin Arslan is protected from creation. Can an administrator please move Draft:Yasin Arslan to Yasin Arslan. Thanks, Sander.v.Ginkel (Talk) 19:51, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

 Done--Ymblanter (talk) 20:29, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

What's the difference between a community ban, a consensus-imposed and admin-enforced indef block, and a unilateral indef block?

A certain user was indeffed in accordance with a pretty broad ANI consensus a couple of years ago, but I don't think the phrases "community ban" or "site ban" were specifically used. In cases like this, if the user appeals their block, is an admin allowed unilaterally unblock them?

I ask because, on the talk page of that user, a former admin essentially said that if they still had the ability they would remove the block. Contrition, motivations and everything else aside, I'm just wondering if it would be technically allowed for them to do so or if a community-imposed block on ANI qualifies as a de facto community ban?

Cheers!

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 00:54, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

I think the usual principle here (as mentioned at WP:CBAN) is that if someone places an indefinite block, that block is reviewed by the community and the user is not unblocked then this can be considered a siteban. It doesn't say whether this also extends to indef blocks which were placed as the result of a community discussion but I think it would probably be best if the block appeal was posted to ANI or a similar venue in these circumstances. Hut 8.5 09:29, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

WP:INVOLVED

If an administrator is WP:INVOLVED with an editor in content dispute, then is it okay for them to request another administrator on their talk page to topic ban the editor with whom they have content dispute, instead of visiting WP:ANI and WP:AE? This is like gaming WP:INVOLVED, if they ask their administrator wiki-friend (to topic ban the editor) instead of reporting the user at WP:ANI and WP:AE. --Marvellous Spider-Man 16:25, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Generally, no administrator can unilaterally topic-ban an editor. Is this a hypothetical, or is it real?--Bbb23 (talk) 16:40, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
It's real. An administrator "A" topic-banned editor "B" for three months, after they received a request from administrator "C" on user talk page. Administrator "C" was involved in content dispute with editor "B". --Marvellous Spider-Man 16:51, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
So who are the administrators?--Bbb23 (talk) 17:56, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
(MS-M e-mailed me) The topic-banned editor hadn't edited for 3 days before the ban was imposed and hasn't edited since. It's their responsibility to appeal the ban if they wish, not yours. Just so you know, administrators often ask other administrators to look at a situation in which they are involved. They expect the other administrator to exercise their independent judgment, i.e., not just act as a proxy for the first administrator. In this particular instance, the administrator who imposed the ban is absolutely independent in their decisions.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:23, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Bold edit

I added "When an administrator has had an emotional reaction to something they've dealt with in a purely administrative role then this caveat does not apply". Maybe someone who is a native speaker can phrase this more eloquently. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 06:18, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

WP:BOLD is a great policy for article editing. As is reflected in the bold editing guideline, it's not such a great idea in an important policy like this. Your addition seemed badly worded and not necessary, so I have reverted it. It ddin't seem to add anything crucial to the policy and was not discussed. Beeblebrox (talk) 13:14, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
Agreed with reverting this. I can see the ANI posts now conjecturing about how an administrator was definitely involved in a situation because they probably maybe might have had some feelings about it. Sam Walton (talk) 13:29, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
I hadn't seen that thread, but now that I'v had a look at it I would add that it is always a bad idea to edit policy due to one specific incident that you were involved in and can be considered WP:POINT editing. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:59, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter

Whilst discussing on IRC the need for administrators to keep up to date with guideline, policy, and technology changes, Nick suggested an administrators' newsletter, sent monthly, that would update administrators on relevant changes to the encyclopedia. Tonight I threw together the basics for such a newsletter at Wikipedia:Administrators' newsletter, with an example for this month. The current plan would be to run this for a few months with users opting in to subscribe, after which we can have a discussion about whether administrators should always receive this, should be able to opt-out, or if it should remain opt-in. Please go and subscribe, and leave any feedback you have on the talk page; I've put a few suggested topics for discussion there. Feel free to go ahead and make changes to any part of the setup, it's quite bare bones right now. Alternatively, if you hate the whole idea, that's fine too.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Samwalton9 (talk • contribs) 21:02, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

  • (Non-administrator comment) Interesting idea. As long as everyone can read it, of course, in the interests of transparency. Not sure about the 'Featured administrator' though- smacks of Page 3 or something! O Fortuna!...Imperatrix mundi. 21:14, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • 👍 Like. I'll sign up for the trial, I had missed Samtar and Ad orientem's RFAs, excellent promotions. Guy (Help!) 00:15, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
  • There is almost certainly no need for monthly updates. You couldn't even finish an RfC between successive posts. Quarterly at most. Or as-needed announcements on key changes that are archived and searchable would be good - tagged by topic, even? If you really want to distribute them in the form of a newsletter, feel free, but definitely make it opt-in. Opabinia regalis (talk) 00:37, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
I would not mind weekly, just as a reminder to check RFA and so on. Sure, some stuff is slow, but soem is not and some need speriodic checks even if it's just to see nothing has changed. Guy (Help!) 01:18, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
  • There's no real need for a lot of discussion about this kind of newsletter. It's an initiative that any responsible editor can take at any time. I sent the last one myself without cluttering the issue up with a lot of unnecessary talk for the sake of discussion.
IMO There is no need for regularly timed newsletters - there's no need for us to duplicate the work of Signpost - which is now also reduced to bi-monthly parution and is ofttimes sadly lacking on compelling reading. They should be sent on an 'as needed' basis particularly to notify of new policies, guidelines, usergroups, and important Arbcom outcomes, and perhaps to encourage lobby by influential admins for more correct handling of the encyclopedia projects by their statutory 'owner', but not with gossip as column fillers. For the rest, I disagree entirely with Opabinia regalis: I would definitely make it opt-out and not opt-in - there are literally dozens of users from w a y back who occasionally recall that they have the admin bit, creep out of the woodwork, and come out with the most amazing displays of ignorance of the current state of the Wiki. I was away once for only three months and I had a lot of catching up to do. Even Opabinia herself was away for so long she had to be resysoped...
I would be inclined to give it a bit of format (bkgnd, border, etc). I end my newsletterswith this clause:
Details

BTW: There is an admin mass message list here and the opt out clause I use is: 

<hr /><small>Sent to all administrators. Discuss this newsletter [[Wikipedia talk:Administrators|here]. If you no longer wish to receive these newsletters, you can remove yourself from the list [[Wikipedia:Administrators/Message list|here]]. </small>

Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:12, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, as a person who actually has the experience of returning after long-term inactivity, I think I'm in a pretty good position to identify what's useful in a project like this :) Good: an archive of informational updates on significant changes to policy and practice. Bad: Fluff posts and editorializing. I think using mass messaging to "lobby influential admins" is definitely out. Opabinia regalis (talk) 00:26, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
If you are going to make it a frequent newsletter, I'd prefer if you fork WP:ADMINMMS then use directly (especially if you want any editor to be able to subscribe) - it is useful to have that list for infrequent but urgent admin announcements. — xaosflux Talk 04:28, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
  • An occasional newsletter with updates on admin issues would be useful. I agree with Kudpung that it needn't be regular. A dated archived of the issues would be beneficial to admins returning after a break. And yes, non-admins might find it useful too, especially those planning to apply for adminship later.—Anne Delong (talk) 04:39, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I agree that making it monthly is probably not realistic. Quarterly perhaps? Beeblebrox (talk) 04:58, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
  • If it's going to be a compendium of occurrences relevant for editors with administrative privileges, then perhaps just get a crew of volunteers to update each section, and release it whenever there is a significant number of accumulated events. If there will be some feature writing, then a regular schedule will help motivate contributors. It may be better, though, to redirect feature writing to the Signpost and keep this as an update of matters interesting to administrators. isaacl (talk) 05:07, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I could see this newsletter as a vehicle for policy as well, given our community's preference not to take action until the target of that action has been informed a few times; failure to follow advice that was transmitted in the admin newsletter should be relevant in a desysop proceeding. Similarly, it could be used as a vehicle for "CAE" (continuing admin education), so we can ensure our admins remain informed as to changing processes, more niche procedures, and changing community standards. However, I don't think a newsletter, or even mandatory CAE should be the sole outcome of this discussion. Honestly, I see the above movement towards desysopping low-activity admins as a move towards more "no-fault" desysops, so a desysop can be achieved without having to drag a formerly-clueful admin through an adversarial ArbCom proceeding (and probably causing that admin to permanently leave the project). This should be seen as a move towards ultimately retaining and reconditioning editors who left the project and might try to come back. As Kudpung notes, we do see inactive folks come back and undertake actions that are utterly unacceptable in the modern admin climate. Out-of-process deletions, for example, are a common, low-visibility problem. The most humane means of addressing this is through expansion of the inactivity doctrine. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 19:06, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Stepping back, if we were to start from a blank slate, it would make sense to have an Administrators Notice Board, where we would post notices to admins. The newsletter would then be a filtered listing of the notices. It would excluded discussion announcements, and part of closing a major discussion that effects admins would become posting a notice of the result to the board. These notices, as well as the equivalents originating from Arbcom, or any other source that can bind admins, would BE the newsletter. It would be possible to filter WP:AN to mostly achieve this, as long as discussion closers posted results that widely effect admins. We could then add templates to tag those announcements to be automatically included in the newsletter. This would also allow an admin who has been inactive to pull up all the announcements covering any period of inactivity directly, without having to sift through all the one-off discussions that also occur there, and with confidence that they didn't miss any important RFC outcomes. Monty845 21:58, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
    We have admins noticeboards. They serve a useful function to inform admins of things currently going on that they need to know about. Someone returning after 5 years does not need to wade through five years of lists of new admins, alerts about sockpuppetry incidents and pleas for help at particular noticeboards. ϢereSpielChequers 06:42, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
I certainly agree with your concerns about newsletters being padded with unimportant details, WSC. The problem of noticeboards however is like horses, you can give people the links to them, but you can't make them read them. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:52, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
I prefer to think of the divide as ephemeral versus lasting. A note about a backlog at AIV is important at the time. Introducing wp:CorpProd or a new speedy deletion criteria is the sort of once or twice a year change that a returning admin could do with reading about. ϢereSpielChequers 23:32, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
You can absolutely make them read if you couple it with a continuing education requirement. Honestly, I think we could ditch the inactivity provisions entirely if we had such a system. And it would certainly be far more fair for sorting out the truly inactive from those lurking in the background. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 09:10, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Add any info people feel is significant to the {{Admin dashboard}} - that's an appropriate place to keep folks updated. SilkTork ✔Tea time 14:09, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Be bold. Do it. Figure out whether monthly, quarterly or weekly are the appropriate cycles once you've got some actual experience with the pace.
    Admin Dashboard is at the same time too sparse and too detailed. It's a bare page of links with no context for the relevance of the debates behind those links. It serves a different purpose than is proposed for this newsletter. Rossami (talk) 15:58, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Battle of the Boar's Head/Richebourg-l'Avoué

Battle of the Boar's Head Richebourg-l'Avoué I've separated the battle from the village article but I can't move the Richebourg-l'Avoué talk page. Might I request administrator assistance to resolve this please? Keith-264 (talk) 13:37, 13 February 2017 (UTC)  DoneKeith-264 (talk) 14:49, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Request Move

Not an issue for Administrators. Referred elsewhere.

I want to move List of films produced and released by GMA Films to List of GMA Films for more shorter article name. Since, it's already represent a GMA Films. Kazaro (talk) 23:44, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Please see WP:MOVE, you can just do this yourself, or see WP:RM if you'd rather someone else did it for whatever reason. Thanks. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:38, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

RfC at WT:COI

I've relisted an RfC that was run here in Sept. 2015. It is at Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest#Concrete proposal 3 as there are a number of similar proposals going on at the same place. Better to keep them together. Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:15, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Workshopping an RfC on the inactivity policy

The community appears to be unsatisfied with this request for resysop, and it seems like it may be time to strengthen our inactivity policy for administrators. I propose the following changes. I welcome counter-proposals, but let's try not to make things so complicated that we get no consensus for anything. Note that this is a discussion, not a vote, so let's discuss before throwing down votes. Consider this a work-in-progress, and this is not an RfC at the moment.

  1. In WP:INACTIVITY, change "no edits or administrative actions" to "no administrative actions". This has the effect of considering an administrator inactive even if they edit unless they actually use the tools.
  2. In WP:INACTIVITY, add a line stating that an administrator will be considered active for an additional year if they respond to the requisite user talk messages with a note that the admin wishes to continue holding the tools. This is intended to benefit administrators who may use their administrator status to close difficult discussions, participate at WP:AE, or other administrator activities that don't show up in the logs as an administrative action.
  3. In Wikipedia:Administrators#Lengthy_inactivity, remove all references to needing continued inactivity in order to require a new RfA. Essentially, if a former administrator voluntarily gave up the tools, they would need a new RfA if they don't reclaim them in three years. If a former administrator was desysopped for inactivity, they would need a new RfA if they don't reclaim the mop within an additional two years.

Thoughts? ~ Rob13Talk 02:33, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

  • Not a terrible idea, but I think we would need to have a clearer idea of what would constitute "administrator actions". Bu Rob13 has mentioned a few. As an oversighter, I could do a lot of actions that don't result in any logged activities, such as turning down requests, or participating in discussions about a specific oversight request which is then acted upon by another oversighter. Reviewing unblock requests that don't result in unblocks (which is the majority of reviewed requests) doesn't require the use of tools, but does require an administrator bit. Reviewing deleted content requires the bit but most times does not lead to undeletion (e.g., when responding to a request to email the content of a deleted article to the originating editor). Closing complicated or controversial XfD's is in the scope of administrators but unless the page is deleted, there is no logged action.

    I do, however, share BU Rob13's concern that people who appear to maintain just a little more than the bare minimum activity in order to keep the bit are not what we're really looking for in an administrator. I'd support a minimum 150 edits per year or a minimum 150 combined admin actions/edits per year in order to retain tools, with one opportunity to regain tools after inactivity, following the completion of at least 100 edits prior to the request for resysop. Risker (talk) 04:25, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

    • @Risker: I agree with a higher threshold of activity requirements. Not as high as you say, but maybe something like 10 admin actions per six months. That's far more controversial, though, so I think we should be trying for something of an improvement over a massive improvement right now. Administrator actions are defined as showing up on AdminStats on Commons, and I suggest borrowing that definition. Note that my second bullet point above covers those who are making non-logged actions. It's as simple as saying "Yup, still using those" when you get an email about inactivity. That's a lot more simple than requiring that a bureaucrat dig through contributions to determine the last edit made in an administrative role. ~ Rob13Talk 04:37, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
      • The AdminStats tool on Commons, last I checked, ignores both edits to protected pages and "no-action" decisions such as closing an AfD as keep. It is utterly unsuitable as a gauge for admin activity. The last RfC we had on the subject failed in part because of this problem. Also, didn't know I was that high on the activity list... Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 09:55, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
        • Which is why we have the elegant solution that an administrator can just say "Yo, still using the tools" to retain them, as noted above. It's impractical to ask a bureaucrat to review all edits by an inactive administrator to ensure they're not editing in an administrative area, so this is probably the best we can do. Besides, if an admin is closing as "keep", they are likely also closing as "delete". This is an extreme edge case. ~ Rob13Talk 10:11, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
          • Following on to what Risker wrote, please be aware that CheckUser and Oversight actions generate logs that are only visible to users with those permissions. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 15:15, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
I would be open to writing a bot to generate reports tracking administrator edits to fully protected pages. If there's interest, let me know and I'll get started. -FASTILY 00:03, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
    • To be honest, I do not think this is a real problem. Indeed, there are admin actions which are not logged such as editing protected pages. However I can hardly imagine an admin who would perform these actions but no logged actions during a year. Moreover, if such an admin exists and would be about to be desysopped, we can add a clausure that they may present their non-logged actions to be counted against desysop. Usually we deal with people who do not log in the project for years, not with someone who is active on a daily basis and just for whatever reason does not perform logged admin actions.--Ymblanter (talk) 22:55, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
  • This was the most recent RFC on the matter - Dec. 2012 - Feb. 2013 RFC on Resysopping practices. Leaky Caldron 10:48, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
There were two more recently than that. See here and here. Any new proposal will need to address those concerns. Sam Walton (talk) 11:40, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
  • I don't think we should get too hung up on the fact that certain types of admin actions generate fewer logged actions than others. Admin actions are like edits: while number of edits is not an accurate indication of level of contribution to Wikipedia and certain areas require people to make far more edits than others, it's rather hard to argue that you contribute to Wikipedia if you don't edit it at all. Similarly I don't think someone with zero logged actions can claim to be a vaguely active administrator, whatever areas they work in. Sure, closing an AfD as Keep doesn't count as a logged action, but anyone who spends any time at all closing AfDs will close some as Delete and get at least some logged actions. Other types of admin action will either generate some level of admin actions or won't be the only thing an administrator does. I find it rather hard to believe that the large number of admins who perform few or no admin actions are actually all sitting around reviewing unblock requests or editing protected pages. Hut 8.5 11:52, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
    Commons has had disputes on the inactivity deadminning because it arbitrarily counted some actions and not others. And "no actions" are rather common. It's not a merely philosophical issue. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:54, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
    It is not a philosophical issue, but it is easily fixable. Commons just counts logged in actions, one can debate whether this is reasonable but it is not arbitrary.--Ymblanter (talk) 22:57, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

We should adopt the maxim of qui tacit consentire and dispense with the 1 month advance warning. As our own article puts it, "silence gives consent. ......when he ought to have spoken and was able to". No reminders are needed and would prevent the current overly generous and gameable situation. Leaky Caldron 14:32, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

  • The more I think about it the more this seems like a good idea. Sending an editor a message informing them they're going to be de-sysopped for being inactive just encourages gaming the system. Sam Walton (talk) 15:26, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
  • I have closely monitored the inactivity policy since it was initially created four or so years ago. My concerns then were about administrators gaming the system with 1 edit equaling 1 resysop whenever they please. And just like I suspected, we right now have 1,274 administrator accounts, and 738 of them don't make 30 or more edits every two months. Making it one administrative action, while better than 1 single edit, is not exactly going to prevent any situations that have similarly come up. What is to prevent an administrator logging in to protect their userspace, unprotecting it and logging back out to keep it? And what about performing one trivial CSD and logging out for a year? If we are truly dissatisfied with the current inactivity policy, one administrative action or one anything won't be satisfactory. Being an active member of the community doesn't mean logging in once a year to reclaim your bit, no matter how good that one edit is. If an administrator makes ten edits or deletes ten things for ten years, they are not demonstrating a need for the tools. They also don't have a body of work to base whether they are knowledgeable of policy anymore. There is really only one option here. First, there has to be a set number of logged actions counted every month/6 months/year which count towards activity (preferably 10-12 actions/edits or more). This would give a very small body of work for the community to look at to judge competency when using the tools. The other change that needs to be made is the length of time. It needs to be changed to something such as two years, and after which they can't automatically regain adminship because they have been inactive for too long. One inactivity desysop and then they would need a new RFA. No regaining adminiship, disappearing and reappearing ad nauseam. Also, warning of a pending desysop unless they meet X criteria is counterproductive and encourages the current gaming. Like I said when this discussion happened the first time: years from now, we're going to have a bigger problem than dormant accounts if we don't make it more strict. Right now, we're seeing the consequences of it because it's going to get harder to confirm identities of older administrator accounts when there is no policy to restrict them from getting the tools back. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 14:37, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
  • I'm just wondering why inactivity needs tinkering with particularly? Is there any particular reason why the current standards are inadequate? All it seems to do in my mind is to add to red tape. RfAs are at an all time low. An every shrinking pool of active admins. And yet all the recent RfCs and so forth seem to focus on ever decreasing the pool of admins. Until someone can come up with a convincing argument otherwise I shall oppose such measures. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 17:14, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Because we're about to give administrator rights to a user who was given the rights to see what they looked like and has hardly edited in 10 years let alone used the tools and that makes some of us uncomfortable. Sam Walton (talk) 17:16, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Because I think it's fair to say that the state of the encyclopedia when this user was active is very different to how it is now, and a 10 year editing gap leaves them almost as clueless as a brand new editor. We're simply trusting that they will read through the rules and understand them well enough to use the administrator toolset properly, which is completely at odds with the high bar set by the community at RfA. There are hundreds of editors who wouldn't pass an RfA due to lack of tenure/experience that I would trust more than someone returning from a ~10 year break. Sam Walton (talk) 17:29, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
  • OK well let's say we have this hypothetical admin "x", who hasn't been particularly active for the last 10 years, but has done enough to keep the bit even so. But they want to return to, let's say, WP:AIV or some other area that requires the admin toolset. Now I'm willing to bet that they would reacquaint themselves with the relevant policy and procedures before doing so. Why? Generally people don't change enormously. If they were trustworthy enough 10 years ago it is very likely they are trustworthy now. And even if they made mistakes they would likely learn quickly, or get dragged before a relevant noticeboard to dealt with. The thing is Wikipedia has mechanisms in place for errant admins, whether or not they have been active recently or just returned after a hiatus. For some reason returning admins seem to arouse suspicion, but in my mind they should be encouraged to contribute. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 17:44, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
  • This is not a hypothetical situation. People may not change much, but the standards for evaluating trustworthiness have changed drastically since the user in question was promoted via this RfA. At BN, someone stated this user has only made three admin actions ever and none in over a decade. As Sam Walton observed, this user is effectively a brand new editor. No way should we be giving them the mop. Lepricavark (talk) 18:10, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Fair enough. But I am highly uncomfortable with the notion that we should still trust this user because he was deemed trustworthy at a three-participant RfA from 13 years ago. Standards from 13 years ago are far too light to be a useful reflection on whether Cyp is qualified to be an admin today. Lepricavark (talk) 18:48, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
  • This is not about "decreasing the pool of admins." Inactive admins are not doing anything anyway, so desysopping them ultimately has no bearing on actual admin activity. This should not impact our ability to promote new admins. We are not trying to add red tape, but instead we want to refine the present measures relating to how ex-admins are handled. Lepricavark (talk) 18:10, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
  • This is about the decreasing the pool of available admins, as I was discussing returning admins. And I see further tinkering as red tape, as I see it as solutions in search of problems.--Jules (Mrjulesd) 18:34, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Back in July 2015 I looked at the numbers and 99.9% of administrator actions were carried out by the 45% of administrators who made more than 10 administrator actions in the past year, so tightening the requirements and desysopping a few hundred is unlikely to have a significant immediate impact on admin load. Sam Walton (talk) 18:39, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
  • This is not a solution in search of a problem. It has been clearly demonstrated above and at BN that the problem is very real. I seriously question whether we want someone who has barely edited at all in the past decade to be in the pool of available admins. The solution to the lack of available admins is to nominate and promote currently active editors. The solution is not to hang on to former admins who longer actively participate on this project. Also, Sam is quite right that desysopping inactive admins will not have an immediate impact. Indeed, I doubt if it would have a future impact either. Inactive admins, by definition, are not actively doing admin tasks. Lepricavark (talk) 18:49, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
  • I think we should move away from arbitrary statistical requirements like x edits in y days. We should expect administrators to be active members of the community. That may be too difficult to define or too easy to game to use for desysopping, but could be used for resysopping. If a former admin returns after a long absence, it's not unreasonable to ask that they spend a little bit of time reacquainting themselves with the place before they're restored to a position of trust. Having said that, though, we perhaps ought to be stricter still with admins who got the bit before there was a formal voting process. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:33, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) Two observations. Not sure these translate easily into formulations for an RfC, and even less sure any is politically feasible, but still.
  1. "Edit" vs. "administrative action" requirement: if the spirit is that the candidate must show admin activity, it does not really matter whether it is logged or not. Allow any admin action to qualify, and let candidates for a resysop point to the diffs where they closed a keep AfD, denied an unblock request, or whatever, if the logs fall short.
  2. Edit conflict: basically a reformulation of HJ Mitchell's point above. More importantly, the problem right now is 10-year-old returning admins that may or may not be out of touch with recent changes. I think it could be left to bureaucrat discretion to evaluate ; something along the lines of provided the bureaucrat is satisfied that the returning administrator has enough familiarity with significant changes in guidelines that occured since the procedural desysopping (clarify to mean this is a lower threshold than RfA if needed). If a number is absolutely needed to constraint bureaucrats, add as a general rule, a candidate to resysopping with more than x (edits/admin actions) (per year/since the desysop) will usually have kept up with the changes, while a candidate well below this threshold might not have - what is important is that when the candidate has x+1 edits bureaucrats may still pocket veto the resysop without having to resort to WP:IAR. In the case that made this discussion happen, I feel the bureaucrats most leaning to restore sysop rights do so binded by the guidelines rather than by their judgement.

TigraanClick here to contact me 22:56, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

  • I'm not sure the problem is really 10-year-old returning admins; I'd say it's admins who are making one or two token edits a year just to keep the bits. If we manage those accounts more closely - and at this point I think there's a reasonable chance that we could put some additional activity levels on the account, even if it's just 50 edits a year - then we won't have the issue of 10-year-old accounts asking for the admin bit back. I'd also shorten the length of time between removal and reinstatement to a maximum of one year if there are fewer than 50 edits in the intervening year, with only those having 50+ edits/year being eligible to reclaim the bit for up to 3 years. We're one of the few larger projects that doesn't have some sort of genuine activity requirement; one edit a year really isn't evidence of activity. Risker (talk) 04:14, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
  • IMO the recurring discussions about how Something Must Be Done about the horrible scourge of people not volunteering enough of their time are far more of a nuisance than anything ever done by the admins in question. I'm still waiting for examples of actual problems caused by this pattern. "It looks like we have more admins than we really do" is nonsense; it's easy to measure who's actually active. "They might screw up" is just handwaving; you need to point to examples of screwups that are at least plausibly related to long inactivity, and demonstrate that these problems are widespread or serious, and demonstrate that your proposed solution is not worse. As someone who did return after long inactivity, I might well have done the "token edit every year" thing if I'd noticed that I should - I'd see the message and, probably, think something like "Oh yeah, I used to do that stuff a lot; maybe I'll get back to it when I have some more time". I always think it's very strange that people skip over that kind of motivation and assume that inactive admins are "gaming the system" or "hanging on to power" - trust me, if you're not really engaged with Wikipedia, then the politics of adminship are Not Interesting. Maybe before we try more invasive solutions to this non-problem, we could invest some of that time in doing something useful like developing an admin-specific (and sanely formatted) version of WP:UPDATE to point returning admins to. Opabinia regalis (talk) 05:54, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
    • There is a possibility that we will end up giving the bits to a user who has done almost nothing in over a decade. Do you see why some of us are concerned? I ask because you didn't really address the specific situation that prompted this discussion. Lepricavark (talk) 06:15, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
      • This thread was seemingly created specifically to separate discussion of the general issue from discussion of a particular case. But no, actually, neither thread makes a good case for what specifically is a concern other than account compromise, which was handled. Conversations about inactive returning admins usually seem mostly like opportunities for people to advocate their views on the politics of adminship. Opabinia regalis (talk) 19:49, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
        • Huh?! Multiple users are concerned because an editor who has not been especially active for over a decade has been granted administrator privileges. This isn't just about account compromise. This is about the blatant lack of evidence that the user is in any way qualified to be an admin. This has nothing to do with politics. Lepricavark (talk) 20:07, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
    • (edit conflict) @Opabinia regalis: Compromised accounts are the biggest problem I have with having many inactive administrator accounts floating around, but I also abide by the philosophy that an administrator serves at the will of the community and should step aside if the community no longer views them as qualified for the role. ~ Rob13Talk 06:17, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
      • Every known case of admin account compromise in the last two years was of a currently-active account. There's no evidence that old accounts are more likely to be compromised. More to the point, is being an admin a "role"? I keep trying to push back on this idea that adminship is or should be a social class rather than a form of technical access. All of this stuff about returning admins always seems to be an argument about "this person isn't of the right social class", not "this person would use their tools incorrectly". Opabinia regalis (talk) 19:49, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
        • Talk about "promotion" needs to be ended then. Not many more socially divisive term than promoting someone. Leaky Caldron 19:55, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
        • I'm starting to think that you've done absolutely no review of the discussion at BN that prompted this discussion, which has nothing to do with social classes and everything to do with concerns that an editor may misuse the tools. The editor in question has not been an active editor in over a decade. There is no evidence that he is qualified to use the tools. I don't know where you are getting this "social class" stuff from, but it is completely irrelevant. Lepricavark (talk) 20:07, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
    • Take the case that spurned this (where a 'crat restored the bit for what I think are valid reasons). The returning admin will probably not go on a vandalizing rampage, that is for sure, but an RfA candidacy with similar stats would have been a snow fail in the 2010-2016 period (at least). I am all for weakening RfA standards, and I'm still waiting for examples of actual problems caused by this pattern is a powerful argument for that. But I do not agree with doing so by the backdoor, clinging to a procedural policy that lets older accounts get away with not less, but much much less qualifications that the recent promotions. If anything, that is not fair.
    • My $0.02: this is only one head of the hydra born from the hysteresis in current adminship requirements, where you need outstanding contributions to pass but outstanding misconduct to be desysopped, so that adminship is effectively a big deal and for life. The only solution remotely feasible I see out of this is to make administrator stand for reconfirmation at regular intervals - with a much simpler process and still a higher threshold to remove an incumbent than to block a candidate, but something that forces them to defend their actions if they want another mandate, and an opportunity to mount a desysop challenge with a lower "personal animosity" malus. TigraanClick here to contact me 17:16, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
      • "Wouldn't pass today's RfA" is true of lots of currently active admins. The huge majority became admins at a time when RfA standards were much more reasonable. The conclusion to be drawn from that is not that we should start retroactively applying modern standards to old admins, but that modern RfA standards are not evidence-based. (And by that I mean "a steaming pile of useless bullshit" ;) Opabinia regalis (talk) 19:49, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

While rooting around, I found an interesting statistical anomaly that I thought I would share. I was going to compare the (in)activity of administrator accounts shortly after creating the inactivity policy to the present day. On July 31, 2011, we had 1,541 administrator accounts broken down as such (according to WP:LA standards): 760 active administrators, 553 semi-active, 228 inactive. During the most recent round, we had 1,274 administrator accounts: 537 active, 551 semi-active and 225 inactive. It's interesting to say the least. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 13:08, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

  • The current thread at WP:BN is the perfect example of the weakness of our surrent policy on inactivity. That user was never an active admin by any reasonable standard. They used their tools to delete three pages in 2005. That's pretty much it. No blocks, no protections, no changing of user rights, etc, one single time. No edits anywhere in project space for a period of over ten years. Didn't know until yesterday that rollback is no longer only for admins. (that happened in 2008) And yet, because they made this edit in 2014 they still qualified for an immediate resysop for another three years. That's just ridiculous. This situation is limited toa small number of admins, but it is a loophole that needs to be closed. We should not have admins who never really were admins coming back after ten years of almost no activity at all and all they have to do get all the tools is ask and then wait 24 hours. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:44, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Let’s take stock of what’s been assumed or said up to now and dispel some conjecture:
  • This is not a hypothetical issue. It really happened, but some commenters have not read this request for resysop, the discussion that led to this. And that’s why it needs to be brought into ‘legislation’.
  • It’s not about decimating the pool of active admins. A non active admin is a non available admin.
  • Let’s be clear about what constitutes an admin action that counts, and make a responsible decision about it. Risker’s suggestions appear to be realistic. Admin stats per X-Tools or {{Adminstats}}, while tasks that can be done as NAC should not count.
  • Sending reminders to admins about to be desysoped encourages gaining the system: probably - run a check against those who have done so and see how many admin actions they have done since.
  • There should be more than 1 logged admin action to prevent desysoping.
  • All cases of compromised accounts in the last 2 years were to active admin accounts.
My opinions (FWIW):
  • I don’t see any evidence at all supprting this comment ’’All of this stuff about returning admins always seems to be an argument about "this person isn't of the right social class", not "this person would use their tools incorrectly” by Opabinia regalis.
  • Term duration would require term limits which again would discourage people from running or re-running - something we cannot afford right now.
  • There is no evidence that the huge majority became admins at a time when RfA standards were much more reasonable - have they ever been reasonable since 2007? Are we not confusing standards with the perennial unpalatable environment at RfA that no one wishes to address when mentioned in the appropriate venues?
  • There is no evidence that ‘modern’ standards are "a steaming pile of useless bullshit”. There are indeed occasions when a voter’s oppose is based on some ludicrous criterion such as not having been registered for at least 3 years, or not having created 25 articles, or not having made 10,000 edits, or having no GA or FA, but these are relatively rare, come mainly from children, raw newbies, or trolls, and such anomalies have been on RfA since its dawning.
  • There is no evidence whatsoever that it is generally harder to pass RfA today, based on user criteria, than it was in the threshold year of 2007. A problem arises however, when a disingenuous vote gives rise to a lot of pile ons.
  • Every Wikimedia project has something different in the way it manages its administrator systems; in this instance, making comparisons/drawing parallels doesn’t help
Back on topic, Beeblebrox sums up perfectly, among all the of-topic stuff, what this discussion is all about, and that's what an RfC should hinge on.
Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:57, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
An example of admin inactivity would be User:Davidcannon. I fail to see what admin tasks this editor has peformed since their RfA in 2004. They are a prime example of the crux of this issue. Looking at their "contributions", a load of gnome-ish edits in Dec 2015, then disappears for most of 2016 to make token edits here and there. When he was active at the end of 2015, his main goal was to update his stats page. I challenge anyone to find a single contribution he's made that's required admin rights to so. Chances of desyopping? Zero. Benefit to the project as an admin? Also zero. Lugnuts Precious bodily fluids 09:14, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
Davidcannon, who was sysoped by 23 voters six months after he stated editing only became only truly active years later during a very short burst of activity during 2015 when his edits were nearly all minor AWBs - which puts a rather very different aspect on his rather extraordinary content on his user page (also a staggering almost 900 edits), and another nearly 700 edits this short personal page. His major work was Index of Fiji-related articles with nearly 2,000 edits - a compilation that can be done by mechanical means. I can perhaps understand his pride in the very very early days of WP but for the rest of his tenure his participation on the project since his registration has either been negligible or non existent for blocks of many years. I would see no reason to maintain such a user’s admin status at this time and they would hardly be able to regard its removal as a slight to their early work. I think {{U|Lugnuts observations are perfectly valid. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:57, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
Kudpung — if you want to make comments about me, please take care to check your facts first. You obviously don't know, and haven't taken the time to find out, that I was the main author for over half of the articles listed on the Fijian page you mentioned. I don't intend to argue the point with you; I've made similar mistakes about others myself, but if you're going to use the point to support an argument, you'd be better off making sure you've got your facts straight. Otherwise, you undermine the credibility of your argument (on which I have no position, by the way). David Cannon (talk) 08:04, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
Can you show what admin work you've done in the last 2-3 years? Anything at all that a normal user would be unable to do with their editing rights. Or what discussions you've helped out with at WP:ANI. Thanks. Lugnuts Precious bodily fluids 08:50, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
Davidcannon, I spent a considerable amount of time on it and I reported the facts as they are without making any criticisms of your work. Don't discredit yourself with such an inappropriate riposte. For one thing, this is a disscussion about admin activity and not you contributions for content. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:37, 15 January 2017 (UTC).
Kudpung: I stand corrected. I thought your comments were in relation to the Fijian articles' list, as if that reflected something close to the sum total of my contributions. Sorry I misunderstood you. Lugnuts, you're asking a question that would have been irrelevant at the time I became an admin. "Sysophood" back then was not considered an office, a title, or an honour. It was simply a routine lifting of security features; almost all active contributors who made constructive edits and didn't get into too much trouble got that. It took me 6 months; I knew many others who got it in much less time than I did. I was just routine — as Jimbo said, it should be no big deal. Something has changed, and what is supposed to be no big deal has morphed into an "office" that has to be earned — by criteria whose goalposts keep moving and keep getting more and more unattainable. I, for one, am not happy about that change. Wikipedia has become top-heavy with bureaucracy. I know that you (and Kudpung, and MANY others, will disagree with me, as you are entitled to, but I honestly think my views are more in keeping with the spirit of what was originally intended. David Cannon (talk) 05:52, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
@Davidcannon: Your clear inability to answer a straight forward question shows quite clearly that you are not fit to be an admin in any capacity. What was the last admin-related task you did and when did you do it? Lugnuts Precious bodily fluids 14:18, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
@Kudpung: Excuse me for butting in, but considering the 10,000 edits requirements and such, I think a lot of that has to do with people with a clue and with less than 25 articles, 10,000 edits, etc. realising they won't pass and not applying in the first place. Thus, the people who do apply with e.g. 5,000 edits tend to be biased towards clueless, and the public at large gets the impression that all editors with 5,000 edits are still green. That would be a self-reinforcing trend. Daß Wölf 17:36, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
No need to apologise, but your comment is a bit off topic here, Daß Wölf. My reference to 25 articles, 10,000 edits, etc. was to rare, but ridiculously high demands that are usually made by newbies, children, and other users who are clueless about admins and the process we use to elect them.
My own criteria for example, which are among the most widely read (and possibly applied), are often considered by some to be rather strict, but they don't anywhere near approach such artificial demands. One thing is sure though: anyone meeting them is almost certain of passing their RfA unless there is something egregious lurking in their history to be discovered.
If you have time, your may wish to make a comparison table of the edit count, creations, and tenure of all successful RfA since the watershed year of 2007, or perhaps at least since 2010 which was the best year for promotions before the preciptous decline began and which was the reason for the first (and still only) truly in-depth study of RfA being undertaken. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:21, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
Kudpung, I didn't mean to imply that every standard mentioned is (un)reasonable, I'm just saying that the standards have increased over the years (for better or for worse). The admin responsible for this discussion has 3,000 edits, and it seems to me RfA hasn't seen serious candidates with such a low edit count in quite a while. (I might be wrong, I've only been here for a few years.) I'll try to find time to look at that study, but unfortunately I'm quite busy in real life at the moment. Daß Wölf 17:41, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
Daß WölfI read somewhere (and it's easily checkable) that the average edit count for successful admins, at least since the threshold year of 2007, has been around 10,000 but that's no reflection on any perceived increase in standards, it's just what the candidates had. Averages however, don't always paint a realistic picture because there have also been plenty of admins in that time who passed with much lower than that. An interesting example is this with a relatively short tenure which I albeit weakly but nevertheless supported with this comment this comment which in a similar set of of such special circumstances today I would probably (but of course with the greatest of respect) oppose. There have been others who had significantly more, in the high tens of thousands, and those are the ones we had to drag kicking and screaming to RfA. Edi count is not always one the bests criteria - it's the quality of the edits that martters, and where they were made. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:37, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I've been an administrator on Wikipedia since essentially the beginning, when I had root and helped get PHP to the point where Wikipedia was actually useful. _Those_ were trying years, and I'm glad we've come a long ways since then. I have maintained my adminship throughout the years through small amounts of edits and, to be honest, that's basically all I have time for these days. I have two small kids, and a busy career. But I do keep on top of changes to Wikipedia's administrative policies and I've never used my powers for evil. I get the sense that there are a few people who really want to make this happen, and I'll admit, I'll be bummed about losing my privileges. I'll get over it, but, that said, in however many years when my kids are older and I have more free time, there's approximately a 0% chance that I'll come back to Wikipedia and go through the entire RfA process again. Perhaps I'm alone in this, but I suspect that there are plenty of administrators who, once their privileges are taken away, will never again attempt to regain the momentum needed to be an active administrator. If somebody (like myself) is keeping their account secure through the use of 2FA and isn't showing any signs of abusing their privileges, I don't see what is to be gained from removing their privileges other than appearance of making things "better". Marumari (talk) 18:05, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
  • I've always felt that adminship should be easy-come, easy-go, but due to the lack of "easy-go" (and the drama involved when a sysop does lose the bit), standards expected of would-be admins have risen due to the lack of checks and balances. It has morphed into an office because of the reverence with which the position is held. Given that in practise it can directly influence the manner in which content evolves (through choice of which protection tool to use), the manner in which discussions evolve (through an admin's greater likelihood to have someone watching their back than a lesser-known user), and directly influence our content (through the ability to judge consensus on contentious discussions related to it), that reverence is to some extent justified. Though it wouldn't be there if it were easier to lose the bit for inappropriate usage.

    The obvious downside to the current system being that things which – for good reason – are technically limited to trusted users, are less likely to be done in a timely manner. StillWaitingForConnection (talk) 11:21, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Another alternative

Just throwing this out there without comment on how I feel about it. On Commons, they have requests for de-adminship, which is wide open for use for any purpose. That will never fly on enwiki, but how about requests for de-adminship which can only be opened on an administrator with no logged administrative actions in the past year or fewer than 10 logged administrative actions in the past two years? Basically, in addition to the "automatic" inactivity desysops, allow the community to examine cases of administrators with extremely low levels of activities if a community member decides to initiate that. This would allow a more tailored look at the editor's contributions, whether they're out-of-touch due to inactivity, and whether they're acting in an administrative capacity. ~ Rob13Talk 06:15, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't think this is the right approach. It would be be better to tighten the inactivity desysop settings so that everyone is playing by the same rules. We probably don't want to create a system where some inactive admins lose the mop and others don't. While I strongly believe we should have requests for de–adminship on this project, using such a system for inactive admins would needlessly personalize the process. Personalities and friendships should not come into play in the case of an individual who is no longer active, but I can envision a scenario in which an inactive admin account retains the bit at such a request for de–adminship because the admin in question had made many friends. In other words, I am concerned that requests for de–adminship would turn something that should be routine into a popularity contest. It would probably be best to begin drafting an RfC for the purpose of tightening inactivity desysop settings. Lepricavark (talk) 16:44, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
Admins are supposed to do something, so it is not strange to ask them to comply to certain activity demands. The nasty part is that the admin-logs do not cover the complete range of admin activities. Creating a whole administrative circus to cover everything, is not the best way forward. Assuming that one logged admin actions in fact represents 1 logged action and 4 or 5 unlogged actions, might be a better foundation to build on. The Banner talk 23:17, 10 January 2017 (UTC)


This issue is bigger than expected

I have just become aware of User:JamesR/AdminStats. It is a series fo sortable tables chronicling all admin actions by current admins. It has really opened my eyes to the scope of admins who are not, and never were actually active in administrative functions. The last table, listing all actions by all current admins is the most informative. There are over 100 current admins who have only used their bits one time, and hundreds more who have used them ten times or less over their entire tenure.

Adminship is not a trophy to be put on a shelf for bragging rights, any holder of advanced permissions should be expected to actually use them once in a while. It seems clear that over the years we have selected a large number of admins who it turned out didn't really want to be admins, didn't have the stomach for it, would rather do content work, whatever. If they had just left they would have been removed for inactivity, but apparently large numbers have remained at least marginally active but are admins in name only and have not made siginificant contributions in administrative functions.

This is a probelm in that it creates a security risk while providing no benefit, and it artificially inflates the number of admins, creating the appearence that we have several hundred more admins than we actually have. There is no reason for anyone who has been an admin for a year or more and only has one admin action in their logs to retain their advanced permisssions. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:56, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox:- coincidentally, something very similar occured recently- almost exactly the same problem- there was talk of an RfC, but I don't think it's started yet. O Fortuna!...Imperatrix mundi. 18:48, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
@Beeblebrox: You might find the adminstats tool useful - it's a bit more customisable than those tables. I quite like the statistic that 45% of administrators carry out 99.9% of all administrator actions, with the other 55% making less than 10 admin actions per year. Sam Walton (talk) 01:08, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Though I've just noticed that tool isn't correct anymore. It's tracking the 'redirect over move = G6 deletion' thing as an admin action and inflating the number of users listed there... Sam Walton (talk) 01:14, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
...Sort of (T154408). Sam Walton (talk) 01:20, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Beeblebrox' thoughtful and well-written comment makes me, for what little it's worth, wade in to the fray with a contradictory opinion. I think there's an implicit vision that to "Be an admin" means you're going to spend significant time running around the 'pedia doing adminny type stuff, and that if you're not, you're not really an admin, and it would be better/safer/more accurate/cleaner to take the admin bit away. That model (wielding the mop regularly and with dedication) is one version of what adminship means. But it's not the only one. An admin is someone who has the trust of the community to not screw up with extra tools and to even do some good. If they've done that x times, it's always a shame they haven't done x+1 times, or 10x times. But even if x=1, it's a net positive. And while we might debate whether it was worth the community's time to review someone at RFA if once promoted x is too small, it's even more guaranteed to be a waste of time if we cut them off. I'm happy if we have an admin who once in a blue moon deletes some obvious spam or blocks a disruptive vandal that needs it - that's one less action someone else needs to do.
I'm sensitive to security issues and so administrative, easily-reversible bit removal after inactivity is a sensible thing. However, for the above reasons, I'd advocate the community (and therefore bureaucrats) continue to be very lenient in returning the bit for admins/users "in good standing" (however defined) even after lengthy inactivity. However, since the admin bit is an expression of trust, I would be less lenient about returning the bit in the case of "under a cloud", where plausibly that trust has actively been lost. [Noting I have read the Cyp example.] Martinp (talk) 18:38, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
@Martinp: The problem I see with returning the bit easily after a long inactivity is that Wikipedia changes fast, or at least it has changed fast in 10 years (which is not such a large amount of time at the individual's scale). Is someone really in good standing if they have (almost) not been there for 10 years, and 99.9% of the active community do not know who they are? In my book, by default a former admin has a somewhat-better-than-average standing, by the mere virtue of having passed an RfA some time ago, but they do not have the golden legitimity to wield the mop. (Active admins that alienated the community since they got the mop are also a problem, and probably a bigger one - in both cases, the problem is that community support now is judged by an RfA in a more or less distant past (and the absence of desysopping since then, but again, that is a much lower bar than passing RfA)). TigraanClick here to contact me 18:54, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
From the perspective of someone who actually did leave for eight years and then come back, it really, really does not change that fast. Quite the opposite, everything old is new again. One of the things that has changed - and not for the better - is the expansion of this notion of admin-as-social-role, even while the actual scope of admin discretion has narrowed. Opabinia regalis (talk) 20:08, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
From the perspective of someone who actually did leave for four years and then come back, ditto. The only significant change in the admin role has been that a faction of admins and wannabees have far more of a misplaced sense of self-importance than ever used to be the case. ‑ Iridescent 20:12, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
@Beeblebrox, can you actually give an example of one of the 100 current admins who have only used their bits one time? While I don't recognise all the names and aren't going to check them all individually, I'm not seeing a single name in the "one action" tail of that list whom I recognise as a current—or even former—admin, let alone 100. Remember that moving a page which is protected against editing but not against moving counts as an admin action (as the moving of the protection is logged as an unprotect-and-reprotect at the new title), so Grawp and Willy on Wheels socks show up as "admins" for the purposes of that list (example). ‑ Iridescent 18:46, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
@Iridescent: (edit conflict) Stats like that table, and the admin stats tool linked above, are a bit messy at the moment because they track 'administrator actions', including deletion. Because moves over redirects now perform a deletion action, the tables are being inflated with non-admins. That said, see my stat above which was calculated prior to this issue: approximately 55% of administrators perform less than 10 admin actions per year. Sam Walton (talk) 18:51, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
@Iridescent: I've come up with a list here which is restricted to current admins. It looks like there's 4 current admins with only a single logged action. (If an admin has accented characters in their username then they may not show up properly in that table.) Hut 8.5 19:28, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
One of them is a developer, and two are legacy admins from the very early days of Wikipedia when the bit was given to almost anyone who asked, so in practice the only one who passed a conventional RFA and then never bothered to use the tools is Grandiose, who in his RFA specifically said that he only wanted the tools for a specific purpose. The sky isn't falling. ‑ Iridescent 19:38, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
Please also bear in mind that there are various things that can be considered "administrator actions," in the sense that only admins can (or are supposed to) perform them, but that don't show up in action logs. And also please bear in mind that every administrator is also an editor, and that there is nothing wrong with someone still spending much, most, or even almost all of his or her wiki-time working on content rather than administrating, even after passing RfA. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:49, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
Yes, for instance admins have the ability to modify the content of the main page, and some, sadly, do it without community consensus, many times. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:17, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
I had this page open in an edit tab and then forgot about it, but fortunately I can now just post "yup, what Martinp said". Opabinia regalis (talk) 20:08, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
@Tigraan: and others. I think over the past 10 years (approx the time I have been around, though only marginally active), WP has grown fast, in size and complexity (and also, not surprisingly, bureaucracy!). But I don't think it really has changed fast in a truly meaningful way. One doesn't need to be on top of everything to be a good admin; instead, one needs to be good at something and have the wisdom and good judgment to not mess other things up, including by not meddling where one no longer has (or never had) the competence. An admin who has, in the extreme, exhibited such cautiousness in not abusing his/her powers that they haven't done any admin actions for years hasn't lost my trust. If they want the bit back, I AGF that they think there continue to be areas in which they can help with the mop, and I assume they'll continue to not break the wiki, I think it is a good idea to send them the new admin reading guide (as is done for new admins, and was done for Cyp and others), just in case they haven't quite realized how much they might not know. Beyond that, welcome back and please share your wisdom from less complicated -- but fundamentally not that different -- times. Martinp (talk) 22:21, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

I think it would be instructive to have a list of administrators with less than 50 (edits + logged actions) in the past year. If one argues that continual involvement in the project, whether administratively or by edit content, should be a requisite for retaining +sysop, such a metric might be a better measure of activity. If you look at the contributions pages of administrators with say <100 logged actions lifetime from Hut 8.5, you will find that a lot will also have last 50 edits stretching back anywhere from 2015 (i.e. <50 edits in 2016) to as far back as 2009. As I had mentioned in my comments on WP:BN, Cyp was somewhat of an extreme case but not unique. Maxim(talk) 20:02, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

The histories of the admins with the fewest actions are more worrying than I thought they would be. One person who passed RfA in 2004 performed no logged actions for seven years before deciding to summarily delete an article for no apparent reason in the middle of an AfD which was obviously going to keep it. This person only has one other logged action (which also appears to be a mistake) and does not edit very regularly either. Hut 8.5 20:10, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

The statistics were really interesting, which illustrate so nice why admins should have terms. By any metric four or five years are a >>fucking long time<<, if the administration can't afford losing productive members at the moment it's because of a combination of the majority of admins that don't do nothing at all and the ever expanding functions, backlogs and bureaucracy that the real active admins can't cope with. Just expand the membership wouldn't work if just one of ten will be a productive member; as someone else said, adminship actually is just something for people show up in his/her main page and brag about it. People who are working hard for others should be the first to do something about it. Bertdrunk (talk) 04:22, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Am I an example of someone you want to eliminate? Some of you talk about 10 years of inactivity; others talk about counting logged administrative actions. User Hut's list shows I made 94 actions, but the AdminStats link says I only made one, a deletion. I have thousands of edits per year. I review everything on the Main Page for typos, and fix them regularly, which is what I said I would do when they made me administrator in 2006. But apparently editing protected pages isn't logged. So the Main Page would have significantly more typos, depending on how you define inactivity in my case. Art LaPella (talk) 06:12, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

You don't have one logged action, you have 94. That link is only counting logged actions made since 18 September 2016, you've only made one since then. Hut 8.5 07:35, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Publicising this now the holiday period is over

I think more voices would be useful. Any appetite for posting this discussion at BN, maybe CENT... anywhere else? --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 10:53, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

AN, and also one of the village pumps.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:36, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
I've been thinking over a proposal to modify the inactivity policy; perhaps something will be ready to post, perhaps at one of the village pumps, within a day or two. Hopefully it would push things along? Maxim(talk) 21:25, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
I'd be interested to see it; does your proposal alleviate concerns raised at the two most recent RfCs on the topic (1, 2)? Sam Walton (talk) 21:26, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
I'd suggest adding a watchlist notice as well -FASTILY 00:07, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
In fact, I'm just going to go ahead and do that; a change to the admin policy will obviously have widespread impact and so a discussion on this topic should absolutely involve the community as a whole. -FASTILY 03:04, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

A few meta-thoughts

  • The RFC should clearly be worded to apply the same policy to administrators and bureaucrats. This saves us from having to have a separate one for bureaucrats down the road. Of course, the additional requirements of bureaucrat activity should be left in place. The goal is to prevent from having non-admin crats like we briefly did in 2011 because we forgot to write that into the policy.
  • This discussion will likely be divisive. I would aim for slow, gradual progress that moves in the right direction rather than trying to get it completely perfect (my way or the highway), getting no consensus, and then leaving the status quo. Remember, people thought the 2011 proposal (1 edit a year, a bunch of notifications, and almost guaranteed regranting) was draconian. Nowadays, it's become more widely accepted. Ditto with the 3 year lengthy inactivity proposal in 2012. Both of those proposals didn't solve the problem, but moved in the right direction of removing the tools from hundreds of admins who were never going to return, and increased the scrutiny (both introspective and on BN) on those who wanted to resume adminship after a long time away. --Rschen7754 06:19, 4 January 2017 (UTC)


Proposal

Background: There was considerable concerns raised during a recent request for resysop [2] as to whether the existing activity requirements are sufficient. Namely, after years of minimal activity, can an administrator have sufficient knowledge of the ever-evolving community expectations and standards to effectively carry out their additional responsibilities? A perusal of the contribution histories of administrators with few logged actions over their years with the project will show many cases where the last 50 edits commonly date back several years - as far as 2008.

Proposed change: The existing policy for admin activity is procedural removal after one year with no edits or logged actions. A user whose bit has been removed can ask for the bit to be restored at WP:BN until such point they have been inactive for three years straight.

This policy is modified as follows.

  1. An administrator is desysoped for inactivity if he or she makes less than 50 edits and logged actions combined in the preceding year
  2. To regain the bit, a new RfA will be required.
  3. If an administrator has previously requested a desysop, they must meet the activity threshold to remain exempt from RfA.
  4. Wikibreak clause: at the bureaucrats' discretion, an administrator can be temporarily exempted from this requirement by posting a notice to WP:BN that declares an absence in advance. In that case, the months in question are skipped for the inactivity calculation. As an example, for an activity calculation for two months after the break, the 10 months prior and 2 months after the break are considered for the 50 edits + logged actions.
  5. The activity requirement applies equally to holders of other advanced permissions, e.g. bureaucrats.

Rationale: By adopting a standard where an administrator remains a somewhat active member of the community, regardless of using the admin toolset or not, ensures that there is more confidence from the community that they have an adequate knowledge of the ever-changing standards and best practices. In recognition of the common practice in the past and present to give sysop tools to trusted editors without the expectation that the editor will shift solely to administrative aspects (e.g. just deleting stuff), the proposed inactivity metric does not consider logged administrative actions exclusively. Furthermore, this metric would include non-logged administrative actions such as editing protected pages. This proposed inactivity criterion is in response to recent events and in an attempt to improve on the deficiencies of the two previous RfCs on the topic. A "wikibreak clause" is added to account for administrators on temporary leave who intend to return as an active editor in the future, in contrast to editors who do not foresee being active again.

Maxim(talk) 12:49, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Discussion

  • The crux of this proposal is to use an activity metric based on involvement in the project, so both edits and logged actions are considered. The choice of 50 edits+actions I think is definitely negotiable: I chose because it's easy enough to meet, and because the default contribution page length us 50 edits... Maxim(talk) 12:49, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Seems a bit overkill for the recent issues. While we cant see what may happen in the future, policy and practice has changed very little since say, 2013, but has vastly changed since 2009. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:01, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • The rationale should be expanded to explain thoroughly what aspects of the current policy the community has raised concerns about and how this proposal addresses them. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 13:03, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Question about the proposed change: a former sysop may request restoration of the bit "until they have been inactive for three years straight" - how is that period of inactivity defined? No admin actions obviously because they can't without the bit, but are we talking about complete absence from the project, or some threshold like the "50 logged actions" criterion? Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:07, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
    And 50 actions during which period? Every 12-month period?--Ymblanter (talk) 13:31, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
    It is 50 edits plus logged actions So 50 edits (not counting page moves and such) are acceptable. Every month, an adminstrator, regardless of holding the +sysop bit, would need to have 50 edits + logged actions in the preceding year. Maxim(talk) 14:03, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
    My question was actually about restoring the flag without RFA. Would a retired admin has to have 50 edits during a year preceding to the first day of every month they are without a flag (with the provision of an advance inactivity note)?--Ymblanter (talk) 14:11, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
    I was thinking a retired admin would have to meet inactivity requirements during every month as if they were an active admin. In other words, if the retired admin (without +sysop) would have /had/ +sysop during the "retired' time, they must not have met the criteria to be desysoped for inactivity at any point during retirement period. Maxim(talk) 14:15, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • With all respect to the proposer...No. Just no. First, this is a solution looking for a problem. The proposer has theorized a problem of an inactive administrator not knowing what they are doing, but has failed to demonstrate when this has ever...if ever...been a problem. 'Second, when we promoted an administrator, we trusted them with tools that could damage the project. Now we would be saying we don't trust them not to bring themselves up to speed before using the tools again? This is the wrong way of looking at it. Three and ever and ever on, we continue to raise the bureaucracy surrounding being an administrator. Why? We don't need this, there's no examples of where this has been a problem, and no claim this will somehow protect the project from would-be dangers of admins who we trusted before but can't trust now. The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:37, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • If you read over the bureaucrats' noticeboard referenced, apparently many community members thought that inactive admins could not adequately bring themselves up to speed. If this proposal goes nowhere at least there would be (less/no?) reason to use WP:IAR to decline to resysop an admin who was largely inactive for 7 years? Speaking with my bureaucrat's hat on, I think I'm better off regardless of how the proposal goes, namely either the existing policy is effectively (re)confirmed or it is changed to something that confirms to existing community expectations. *shrugs* Maxim(talk) 14:03, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
Which was rather my point above. You are using a sledgehammer to crack a peanut. The issue with the recent one was a combination of extreme length of inactivity as well as huge policy and practice changes. The above proposal would rule out people who have been inactive for a year. And very little has changed in the last couple of years that would require that level of scrutiny when they return. To be honest all that is needed is an addition that states where an admin has been inactive for more than (for example) 3 years, the beurocrats have freedom to discuss more (such as an RFA which falls in the discretionary range). The recent discussion (in which I participated) it seemed clear had the crats had policy-mandated *discretion* they probably would not have regranted the tools. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:17, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
I agree with Only in death - with the mild exception of being less certain about his last sentence. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 14:23, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
I have watched you a lot ;) Lets just say I highly doubt that a group of people who have been selected for their in-depth knowledge of consensus, policy, and ability to judge the communities feelings, are going to grant tools to someone who has not made that many edits in the last ten years - if given the leeway to use their own judgement. There is a significant difference between 'Policy does not allow us to do this' and 'Policy allows us to use our judgement here'. In the last case, if the opportunity existed to use your own judgement and knowledge of the communities expectations of an administrator, would you have granted tools? Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:38, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Maxim, the recent case was an extreme one of someone who had only ever made three admin actions, all in 2005—accompanied by very little editing—being resysopped (by you) in 2016. WP:IAR exists for precisely that kind of situation. SarahSV (talk) 18:08, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • This is the wrong solution to a rare problem. I think it would be reasonable to allow 'crats to recommend another RFA in the event of a requested resysop after lengthy inactivity, but any porposal like this risks people taking admin actions just for the sake of keeping the bit, which is just not a good idea. Guy (Help!) 14:51, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I would also feel more positively disposed towards a solution that just widens the discretionary options of bureaucrats here. Looking over the linked resysop case, multiple bureaucrats indicated the same, including, IIRC, the proposer, who felt nonetheless bound by the letter of the law. It might be more useful to give them room to assess each case individually, rather than set up a new catch-all solution supposed to cover everything but tailored to no one. -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:58, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I think that if an admin hasn't misused the tools in the past (if they did, they presumably wouldn't have remained an admin for long), then they probably aren't likely to in the future if they are resysopped, either. I think the main criterion we should base adminship on is trust not to misuse it (whether intentionally or otherwise). A RfA is for determining whether someone can be trusted with admin tools, but the ultimate test is seeing that they aren't misused once given. Are there any cases of resysopped admins going rogue, or somehow not getting up to speed? Anyway, I have to say that I oppose changing the rules in the proposed direction. Κσυπ Cyp   17:24, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
'Going rogue' isnt really an issue. As admins who down tools in controversial circumstances dont tend to get them back. Its that ENWP is less tolerant of mistakes now due to inexperience. After extended periods of inactivity, the requirements for the admin now may no longer be in line with the admin's previous experience. Its been a long time since just trusting people has been a requirement at RFA. Now you need a)to demonstrate you can create content, b)have experienced in a wide range of administrative areas (AFD, disputes etc depending on what the RFA crowd decide today) c)not have a controversial past etc etc. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:35, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • 1. contains a strict number binding bureaucrats, which I do not think is a good idea (cf. discussion above). I feel rather opposed to 2., but I have no particular arguments for or against - but in any case, this is nowhere near an incremental change and would probably need an unbundle. 4. is ok, but only with the addition of a reference frame, i.e. a (non-binding) number to indicate that "bureaucrat's discretion" can only go so far. I guess the "bureaucrat's discretion" bit is to avoid the declaration of a 1,000 year Wikibreak, but without a number it's still a guessing game to find the longest period of time that bureaucrats will still approve. 3. and even more 5. are details, but IMO necessary ones. TigraanClick here to contact me 18:01, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Good and reasonable proposals. Debresser (talk) 18:01, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • It seems the better solution from what I have read, is not to use a complicated set of (let's admit it, basically arbitrary) criteria, but to simply clarify that Crats can exercise discretion and recommend an RfA, especially if the community expresses concerns.
I would note though that doing so isn't actually granting anyone any extra power, since all it does is clarify that Crats are expected to use WP:COMMONSENSE, which they already are, and which is a fundamental principle and above all policy, including our policy on remopping. But it would perhaps ease the minds of the person who has to pull the trigger, and reassure them that they're not going out on a limb here. After all, part of the reason we have admins and crats is because they have a reputation for a sound and conservative approach to decision making, especially in any way that could be seen as going against the community consensus. TimothyJosephWood 18:14, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • @Maxim: Quick question do you mean 50 Edits and logged actions (50 each?) or 50 edits and or logged actions? ----Cameron11598 (Talk) 19:00, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • With tons of respect for the thought put into this, just No. Yes, concerns were raised during Cyp's resysop request, and his(?) case was one of extreme inactivity for many years. But fundamentally, there is no problem here that needs solving. The current policy seems to adequately address the account security/compromise concerns which were instrumental in its adoption. The push for a tightening of criteria as in this proposal, and as in previous 2 RFCs, comes from those concerned about inactive admins coming back and wreaking havoc by applying old community standards, but there don't seem to have been (m?)any such situations. However, the main reason I oppose is that in this proposal is language that assumes and promotes a view of adminship that I don't agree with. For instance, Maxim writes "carrying out their additional [admin] responsibilities" and "give sysop tools without the expectation that the editor will shift to solely administrative aspects". That implies that there is a "job" called "admin", and holders should be doing it at least some significant fraction their time. This may apply to certain professional, generalist admins. But there should also be space for admins who mop up a mess when they stumble across it and feel confident they can handle it, but who feel no weight of "additional admin responsibilities". They are trusted with a mop since they've persuaded the community they won't abuse it, and we should be comfortable extending that trust until they somehow show it was misplaced. I've picked on Maxim's wording here, but I think this type of thinking is implicit whenever some version of "we need to impose usage requirements to retain/noncontroversially return the bit" come up.
Proponents of this also raise a fairness/inconsistency argument with the inflation of community requirements at RFA. In my opinion, the reasons those standards keep inflating isn't that we truly value impressively deep mopping skills right out of the gate (those skills - and community standards in specific areas - evolve), but that as a community we bear the accumulated scars of trust that was misplaced, of admins who turned out to not have good judgment. There's a fear that it's easy for a user to join the community, stay out of trouble for months or even years and then somehow let the "power" go to their head once they get the bit. So we respond by insisting admin candidates have done their homework, engaged in a range of areas, not shown themselves to be a troll, not responded badly to provocation over a career of y years or z edits, etc. With that in mind, I actually have a great deal of confidence that a (former) admin who has stayed out of trouble for x years will continue to do so, and that if they have administratively lost their bit and feel it might continue to be useful to them, they will not abuse it if given back to them. And that's even if the reason they've stayed out of trouble is caution and low tool use, even low editing. Martinp (talk) 19:04, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • This is a strong argument. Adminship need not be a "job", and [I would add] admins don't become untrustworthy the moment non-Wikipedia responsibilities intrude on their time. So long as they're willing to help out and clean up messes, and able to do it properly, lightly-active admins don't pose any danger to the project. Wikiacc () 19:11, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Has anyone listed an example of an admin who came back without satisfying this criterion, and who subsequently caused problems? Samsara 19:21, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I agree with this. I know of at least one "admin" who makes approximately one edit per year to retain his bit yet does absolutely nothing for Wikipedia. While I accept there's no evidence that any such individual has caused any problems, being accepted by the community to become an admin is a vote of trust that they will do the right thing and be commensurate with the way Wikipedia works. One edit per year, for instance, doesn't demonstrate that. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:52, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • In the past, I have supported easy access to sysop tools and strict inactivity policies to get rid of those who don't use them anymore. I'm not sure about the wisdom of the second part of that. If adminship is no big deal, then there shouldn't be much concern with inactive admins retaining access to the bit. As such, I think the current relaxed policy is probably good enough.
I often hear that "compromised accounts" are the main reason to limit access, but I don't think this is a compelling argument at all. There is nothing that a sysop can do that cannot be undone (not entirely true, but BEANS). While our current methods for dealing with compromised accounts are bad at best, this is not a big issue and shouldn't be used to incite a moral panic over the dastardly inactive admins. Stewards can lock compromised accounts rather quickly, and we've never had any issues returning access to the proper people before. Also, I totally agree with what has been said above that adminship should be a set of technical abilities rather than a social status. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 21:54, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • If the BEANS case ever happens (it seems to be getting mentioned with increasing frequency), we have a backup. And we've not needed it yet, afaik. Samsara 00:40, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes, even in those cases, the damage would not be permanent, just a bit more intensive to undo. And if after 16? years now it hasn't been an issue, I strongly doubt it will become one. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 08:37, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Hard cases make bad law. Cyp's resysop request was an astonishing outlier. It's a bad idea to make a general rule from that extreme example. Jonathunder (talk) 22:02, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • It is arguably not an outlier. Go through [3] and pick a few admins with low overall logged actions. You will find many cases where the last 50 edits go back anywhere from 2014 to 2008. I don't feel really comfortable starting picking out a bunch of admins as examples and putting them on the spot, but Cyp is more I think along a continuum, and not at the most extreme end either. Maxim(talk) 00:56, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
  • If we must raise the threshold for activity (and I'm not convinced we need to), then it should be a worthwhile change. An admin who makes 4 edits a month is probably not an "active" administrator in any practical sense of the word, and is just as likely to be out-of-touch with the community as one who doesn't edit at all. Basically, 50 edits+actions per year remains potentially within the realm of "token edits" made for the purpose of gaming the system. Otherwise, I agree with others that this is a solution in search of a problem, given how infrequently we deal with contentious resysop requests. The best thing we can do is make it more clear that reinstatement after an inactivity desysop is up to bureaucrat discretion, and not automatic. – Juliancolton | Talk 22:12, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • By way of a totally trivial comment, I do not feel strongly one way or the other on the merits, but "less than 50 edits..." should be "fewer than 50 edits...". --Tryptofish (talk) 23:40, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Once again I don't really have to say anything beyond "what Martinp said", except maybe to add "what Ajraddatz said". But I have an idea about how we can deal with this seemingly endless recurring discussion. I know this is highly unconventional, but bear with me.... Before making a proposal, we should all forget whatever opinions we currently have on the topic and collect some actual data. And then we should look at the data - remember, no proposal-making yet! - and decide whether the data is consistent with the existence of an actual problem. Then, if and only if there is evidence of a problem, we should discuss whether a policy change might be able to prevent said problem. Then - no RfCs yet! - we should also discuss what other problems might be caused by the change and make sure that to the best of our knowledge solving the old problem would be of sufficient value to offset the introduction of new problems. Then you can start an RfC, secure in the knowledge that you are proposing something evidence-based and practical and not just experiencing a contagious outbreak of overactive patellar reflexes. Opabinia regalis (talk) 00:30, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I think that we should raise it to fewer than 100 edits+admin actions, with a minimum of 10 edits, so it can't all be admin actions, over a period of 1 year and 6 months. The rational for this is the fact that it would be a tiny bit harder to game (although not much harder). I would support this as better than what we have now, although. RileyBugzYell at me | Edits 00:05, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
Arbitrary break
  • The argument that we give out mops so they are not used and that we trust they will not be used appropriately is backwards. We give out mops so they will be used and trust they will be used appropriately - it's a mop, not a gold star, your teacher gives you to wear. Stop hanging on to it, as if it were a gold star - it's a mop. You wanted the mop, you imposed on the Community to ask for it - kindly mop. The floors don't get mopped by themselves. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:34, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I would support this proposal, but I would like to see an RfC to hammer out the specifics. With respect to 1, I think this is a reasonable limit, though options for 25 or 12 edits/logged actions may be more appealing as a compromise threshold that would weed out outlier cases but not be too difficult to make. Similarly for 2, I feel this is too harsh compared to the current standard. I suspect more people would support a proposal between instant desysop for < X edits and no recourse to recover and the current situation where anyone who edits within three years can get the bit back. Perhaps the standard should be something like X*n edits are required before the bit is restored, where X is the activity threshold and n = number years inactive rounded up, as long as n < 3; or by combining an edit threshold to regain the bit with a reduction in duration (i.e. Require X edits in the first year, and 2X between the first and second eyars after desysoping to allow a Crat restoration of the bit, after two years, RfA is required). I have no real issues with 3-5 at this point in time. ---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 04:36, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Absent an evidence that returning admins are causing problems I don't see the need for this. AIRcorn (talk) 06:06, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I don't see the need for this, and would not expect to support such a proposal. People who are trustworthy (as the community has found through RfA) remain so until proven otherwise, and the mop should remain unless they leave the project or screw up badly. I am struck by the comments of Hammersoft and Martinp.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:15, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I would support this, but I doubt the community would. The community appears wholly unconcerned with the security issues of dormant administrator accounts or the return of administrators who just simply don't understand any of our standards. Cyp has returned and performed actions that demonstrate they do not understand our policies. For instance, Baheith was deleted under WP:G3 as a blatant hoax with a note of "or at least WP:A7", which doesn't apply to articles on terminology. It should have been deleted as an attack page. He's deleted The brazilian conquest of 2017 under WP:A1 (no context) and WP:A7, but neither applies here. We do have an example of an administrator who doesn't know our policies returning to the project; it occurred about a week ago. Let's not sit idly by and do nothing to fix the gaping hole in our policies that allowed this to happen. ~ Rob13Talk 11:41, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
    Well.... So he's correctly deleted two blatantly speedy delete articles, and possibly put the wrong tags on the deletion. Baheith was nominated as a hoax, and clearly is one, so A3 applies... Well maybe an attack in there as well, so should have had that tag too, but at the end of the day a deletion's a deletion. We can see what others say on this issue, but personally a much bigger red flag would be a concrete example of a deletion that should not have been speedy deleted, or a very obvious declining of a speedy against current policy, or an injudicious block. I do agree that there was a lowish bar for entry ten years ago, but that applies just as much to existing admins who've never lost the bit, just as much as to previous admins seeking to regain it. If you feel there's an active need to overhaul this process, and can point to good exmamples of why it's needed, then you'd rather do it fully, perhaps by requiring regular re-admissions for all admins, rather than picking on just those individuals who show a renewed interest after being absent for some time. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 14:09, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
    (edit conflict)I'll try to be more careful with the reasons for deleting. As for Baheith, I agree G10 applies. I didn't delete the default reason it automatically gave (G3). If A7 doesn't apply, does that mean that it was notable, or just that if it hadn't been an attack page, that it should have gone through RFD instead? As for The brazilian conquest of 2017, do you mean it was deleted for the wrong reasons, or that I shouldn't have deleted it at all? Κσυπ Cyp   14:20, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
    @Cyp: For The brazilian conquest of 2017, A1 does not apply because "If any information in the title or on the page, including links, allows an editor, possibly with the aid of a web search, to find further information on the subject in an attempt to expand or edit it, A1 is not appropriate" There was a full paragraph of (granted, nonsense) content on the page, so A1 did not apply. That said, I'd argue A7 probably did apply, it appears to be an about an event with no credible claim of significance. Sam Walton (talk) 15:59, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
    @Cyp:, thank you for picking up your dusted off mop and mopping up messes you've stumbled across needing cleanup, in spite of the unusual attention clearly focused on you. @BU Rob13:, I respect the concern and passion you clearly have for Wikipedia, but I think your objection is itself a great example of bureaucracy run amok. Martinp (talk) 19:08, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
    There's a reason we don't just grant the mop to every Mensa member who shows up to the site. When you don't understand the basic policies you're applying, eventually you screw up in a less-than-trivial manner. Even here, I would hardly say it's trivial to apply the CSD incorrectly, as non-admins observe the work administrators do and use that as the basis for how they tag things. We educate non-admins through how we apply the CSD criteria, whether we intend to or not. As an aside, Samwalton9, A7 doesn't apply to unorganized events. The article in question actually states "The americans were disorganized", and it's described as a sort of spontaneous viral event, so it's really a stretch to call this an organized event. ~ Rob13Talk 23:32, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
    Before anyone starts judging Cyp too harshly, better check how many admins bother changing the deletion reason when they find something obviously deletable but arguably not tagged with the "right" CSD criterion. I bet not many. It's not as if the CSD criteria carve nature at its joints, so getting too fussy about the exact boundaries is a good way to make your brain leak out your ears trying to make it stop ;) Opabinia regalis (talk) 02:54, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
    Opabinia regalis, methinks you would lose that bet. I for one am a stickler for Korrektheit and while I might not quite always remonstrate with a rogue patroller, when I do the actual deletion I change the ES for "criterion X, not criterion B as tagged' check my admin actions if you don't believe. Perhaps you should do some CSD patrolling, or better still, some patrolling of patrollers. Remember, while the community granted us the right to install a new user right for fully qualified reviewers, it refused to disallow patrolling by raw newbies and other greatly inexperienced editors. We need more admins to patrol the work of the patrollers now more than ever because the quality of patrolling has't improved one iota, and the backlog is still growing. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:19, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
    As far as I understand, the article is about an event that happened on the iFunny server, and at most as notable as iFunny. Is it wrong to close articles about iFunny subtopics as non-notable, even if iFunny itself is non-notable (deleted 3 times as A7, plus AfD-deleted as non-notable)? Κσυπ Cyp   09:46, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
    I'd be more concerned had they charged into a block with incorrect policy. We can always fix a deletion. People make mistakes and learn, that does not negate the fact that they have been found to be trustworthy by the community.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:39, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I remain unconvinced that there needs to be any change. —Kusma (t·c) 15:05, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Consider the straw-man counterproposal: any editor who has made 500 edits in the last year automatically gets given a mop. We would laugh it out of the house. It would be a bad idea. The correlation between being trustworthy with a mop and being prolific is too weak to do this. So why, when we think that connecting edits to bits in this way is wrong, would we think that connecting them in the other direction is right? Can anyone actually point to meaningful evidence that once-trusted users who make few edits or take few actions do so badly? What problem are we trying to fix, and why is this the right way to fix it? (Don't tell me that "A certain long-inactive user got the bit back" is a problem. It's not a problem, unless actual problematic behavior followed.) —David Eppstein (talk) 08:27, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I'd oppose this. We make someone an admin because we trust them, not because they've been through a particular training scheme to come up to speed with every nook and cranny of policy. If we trusted them then, we should trust them now. GoldenRing (talk) 11:51, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I would probably have been desysopped under this proposal - I've definitely had some long gaps of activity. I'm unsure if I would have re-applied for an RfA. The unwritten RfA guidelines, having participated in some recent ones, looks more overwhelming than when I had one in 2007. That being said I've participated in hundreds (thousands?) of administrative actions since my various Wikibreaks that would not have otherwise occurred if I were desysopped. I don't outright oppose the idea but I think 50 actions within one year is too restrictive. I'd make it something like 10 actions in two years with several talk page notifications prior to any action taking place. VegaDark (talk) 23:41, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Without a single case being offered of an admin who has gone off the rails after a period of absence, this really is a non-problem. Any attempt to "solve" this non-problem with more rules is just useless bureaucracy. So unless some evidence is forthcoming, I oppose this proposal and any and all of the alt and counter proposals below. SpinningSpark 02:10, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I really don't see the need for all this. Once someone has gone through the... intensity of RfA, I really don't see a need to make them do it again. Yes, it's disappointing if admins don't help, but I don't see how it hurts the project. Without that, this becomes punitive. Tamwin (talk) 04:43, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I agree with comments from Leaky caldron and Kudpung. We certainly have a large number of inactive admins, many of whom appear to be gaming the system. It is against our ethic for anyone to hold an advanced permission which they don't use. Chris Troutman (talk) 05:25, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Something to consider (I just came across): Special:Contributions/GraemeL. Please note that a) those contributions only consider one user and b) my statement neither endorses nor rejects the user's adminship. --JustBerry (talk) 19:11, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
  • My own feeling is that the existing policy is fine, meaning that if an administrator is inactive for a year, that they get a warning or two, and if they don't respond, they're automatically de-sysopped, but can request it back later. I don't think that a minimum number of "logged actions" is a valid measure of whether an administrator is active. For myself, I have done my best work as an administrator when I *didn't* take logged actions, meaning I would wade into a dispute somewhere, and have discussions with participants, towards *avoiding* blocks or page protection. Unless you would call adding a warning template to an article's talkpage a "logged action". Regarding whether administrators are up to speed with current policies, it's a valid concern, but I think that most admins would be smart enough to re-familiarize themselves with policies before jumping into things. There have also been cases where I would spend a lot of time researching a situation, in order to post an uninvolved comment in an ArbCom case. The administrator tools would be helpful, especially to review deleted page edits, but ultimately all my work might only show up as one edit, that of posting the comment to the case. Anyway, in short, I don't think a change is necessary. --Elonka 15:32, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
  • I agree with Elonka that the existing policy is plenty fine. A minimum of logged actions is not going to make an admin more familiar with current community norms. I have been away for over a year and found coming back to be not that difficult. I don't see it being demonstrated that there is a problem in need of a solution here. HighInBC Need help? {{ping|HighInBC}} 15:59, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Perhaps I'm missing something, but as a pretty inactive admin, I'm opposed to this proposal. I don't edit much these days, but I do make edits from time to time and I've never had problems knowing where the limits of my knowledge are. I don't go rushing into things I no longer understand and I keep my admin actions to things I still have a good grasp on (like CSD and WP:SPLICE). I don't see how it harms the encyclopedia to have me do a small number of helpful things, or how it would be better off by having me do no, or fewer, helpful things. I have yet to understand the need for these policies --- if someone does something worthy of de-sysopping them, then we should remove their bit for that. Simply preventing someone from being potentially helpful out of an unjustified fear doesn't help in my opinion. Kyle Barbour 05:23, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Counter-proposal

As a major proponent in changing the way the current system is, I just thought of something that might be worth considering. If other proposals fail to change the way the current system is, I would at least like this one clause added to the inactivity policy. It might not be necessarily be written in this section (from Wikipedia:Administrators#Lengthy_inactivity), but it would be worded something like this:

Administrators who are desysopped after a year of inactivity can request reinstatement at the Bureaucrats' noticeboard. However, former administrators can only request resysop once every three years if the tools were removed for inactivity. If they are desysopped twice for inactivity within a three year period, then a new RFA would be required.

Meaning administrators can come back once, ask for the tools back and continue on. However, if they simply come back, disappear again and go into inactivity again, they can't simply ask for the tools back. This provides some leeway to give them time to return the first time. I would push for more strict standards for activity, such as 25-50 edit/logs per year and such, but it will never pass. If this passes, at least repeat requests for resysop won't be so often. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 23:17, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

  • This is not a theoretical if you actively followed the statistics surrounding the amount of desysops for inactivity, resysops and disappearances thereafter. That is the actual problem: ad nauseum re-requests for adminship after inactivity and treating adminship like a trophy. Editors are clinging onto their bit and doing nothing with it, instead of using the mop end to actually do anything. If their inactive, they don't demonstrate a need for the tools and re-requests for adminship after inactivity are getting more controversial (like in the case of Cyp). The proposal puts an end to repeated re-requests within a certain time frame (subject to change if better suggestions are made) to stop this behavior. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 10:59, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
  • No to all proposals, unless someone can demonstrate anything *ever* that has gone badly as a result of a re-sysopped admin coming back. We acknowledge that we need more admins, and someone who was trusted with the bit 10 years ago, and still would be if they'd maintained some nominal level of activity, should be welcomed back if they decide to step back up to the plate.  — Amakuru (talk) 11:19, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
    • @Amakuru: See my comment above with examples of how Cyp, the resysopped admin who spawned these discussions, is already making deletions that demonstrate he doesn't understand our policies. ~ Rob13Talk 13:49, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
      • Sorry to fork, but what happened to the supposed mentoring @Juliancolton: that helped to get the resysop. approved? Leaky Caldron 14:33, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
        • Maxim said nothing of the offer of mentorship in their statement with respect to re-granting administrative privileges. (Neither was the offer explicitly accepted by Cyp.) –xenotalk 15:47, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
          • (ec) Hi Leaky caldron. Just to be clear, the return of Cyp's admin rights wasn't contingent on my "mentoring" offer; in fact, WJBscribe and I agreed that it really should not have factored in at all, and accordingly Maxim never mentioned it in his closing rationale. My only goal was to help ensure the best outcome for the project in the event that Cyp was reinstated. That said, each day since the resysopping, I've checked on Cyp's contribs and logs to look for signs of trouble and have mostly found him acting sensibly and prudently, with clear receptiveness to guidance from fellow admins. There's been nothing to warrant my stepping in. Personally, I feel that BU Rob13 may be too critical in his assessment of Cyp's speedy deletions... neither of the examples he listed are of articles that shouldn't have been speedily deleted. For instance, deleting a blatant vandalism/attack page as a "hoax" (Baheith) isn't so offensive to me, and certainly doesn't signal "an administrator who doesn't know our policies." All of his other recent deletions, as far as I can tell, have been perfectly accurate. To be sure, you could find a few instances of misapplied CSD criteria from any admin, especially from new (or effectively new) ones. – Juliancolton | Talk 16:02, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Alt proposal

A number of editors have posited that we have or could have problems with admins returning after such long breaks that they have forgotten the role or their skills have become stale; And that current activity rules are being gamed by editors doing an edit a year. But proposals to tighten current arbitrary thresholds are missing the point - no one is seriously suggesting that this place changes fast enough that an active admin can't take a year long wiki break. What we need are procedures for handling a longer period of inactivity, and for bringing former admins back up to speed without a full blown RFA. The easiest one is that after a very long break we require a bit of normal editing, this would give the returning admin the opportunity to try out newish features such as BLPprod without having the admin tools, and give the crats the opportunity to notice if the returning editor clearly isn't the same person as had originally had the account.

Requests for readminship where the former admin has contributed fewer than 500 edits and or fewer than 50 logged admin actions in the last five years should be subject to the returning admin resuming normal editing activity for a month.
  • Support as drafter ϢereSpielChequers 04:47, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Of course this would beg the question of what exactly is normal editing activity and how much of it would be required, which would then subject bureaucrats discretion to whether it was enough. That might be problematic. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 08:30, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
    Agreed, sometimes that could be arguable. But one of the reasons for this is to reassure us that the returning editor is the same person who previously controlled the account. So without spelling out some of the things one would look at, this really does need to be a judgement call not a formula. ϢereSpielChequers 06:49, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I still don't believe that a change in the rules is necessary, but this is a fairly reasonable proposal if some tightening of the rules is seen as necessary for political reasons. —Kusma (t·c) 15:51, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I like this better, but I would change a lot of things. First, change the contributed edits to 250, keep the admin actions the same, and have it so that the editor has to have normal editing activity for 10 days, and with an added clause that they have to have at least 100 edits combined with the 10 days. RileyBugzYell at me | Edits 22:55, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
    Happy to concede that 500 edits in five years was plucked out of thin air. Can you tell me why 250 edits in five years is indicative that someone is sufficiently engaged with the site to have kept abreast of changes in policy? ϢereSpielChequers 06:49, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
    Well, maybe it should actually be something more like 400, but anyways, the reasoning is so that they don't have to edit too often, but it would still keep them aware of major policy changes because they would be on Wikipedia often enough to know about the changes. Also, along with the edit count, maybe we should also write in a clause that says something like the editor has to be making edits for at least, say, 25 days over the 5 years. This would be beneficial because then the editor wouldn't be able to just do one long edit session to keep their privileges. This would mean they would be more up to date on policy. (sorry if that was badly written) RileyBugzYell at me | Edits 20:39, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Some variant on this seems a sane proposal. I'd be inclined to give the bureaucrats some discretion over the threshold; 500 thoughtful edits to mainspace/deletion debates/policy pages are different from 500 edits to one's user page, and "logged admin actions" misses a fair amount of what some admins focus on (eg editing the main page). Espresso Addict (talk) 22:50, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
    I've struck "logged". If someone falls below the fifty and then wants to point out a bunch of correctly closed RFCs then so be it. I agree that 500 AWB edits all in one afternoon are not the same value as 500 carefully thought out manual edits many of which demonstrate extensive use of view deleted to review an RFA candidate. But we need an element of simplicity even at the price of things being a tad arbitrary. ϢereSpielChequers 07:59, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I'm not convinced there's a need for any formal measure. Simply clarifying that bureaucrats really are allowed to use their judgment would be enough. Nevertheless, if people are more comfortable with a specific rule this seems like a good proposal. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:17, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
For the benefit of exercising such Crats discretion, require those (re)applying to Crats, to answer the "standard" Rfa questions in their application, in addition to proving identity. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:31, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Empower the community and crats proposal

I think the real problem isn't being addressed with these proposals. With all these proposals that etch more restrictions into policy, and the persistence of crats being bound to policy, we should probably etch the following into policy instead:

In the event a request is made requiring the action of a bureaucrat, and if the request is open to discussion, the acting bureaucrat may choose to act with discretion if the discussion yields a potential outcome that is not in line with existing policy, provided the discussion has a consensus.

Thoughts?

Discussion

General comments on all proposals

I looked through the latest statistics and checked, on a sample basis, the history of some of the accounts I did not recognized, and noted the position in the list of a number of accounts that I do recognize. I offer these observations:

  1. Many, perhaps most, of the people in the "long tail" are not administrators. They are individuals who have deletions logged as the result of page moves. For this reason alone, I believe that much of the outrage is misplaced.
  2. The statistics are not complete.
    1. Reviewing the history of a deleted article is not logged.
    2. Editing a protected page is not logged.
    3. Actions taken prior to December 2004 are not part of the current logs and are not included in the statistics.
  3. Of the actual administrators in the "long tail," stories are widely varied.
    1. Some are WMF accounts. While these may be inactive and should probably have the bit removed, the handling of them is probably best considered separately.
    2. A few I recognize as having been active primarily before December 2004.
    3. Some are people who were, and perhaps still are, primarily active in sister projects or other languages.
    4. A few are people who have deep connections to the project -- former Arbcom members, former WMF board members -- who refrained from using the tools extensively due to conflict of interest concerns at various points in their involvement.
  4. There is little evidence of any real problems in the form of administrators emerging from a period of inactivity and then making mistakes out of ignorance or acting in bad faith.

I personally would be delighted to see some of the previously active admins return to the project. Many of these people became involved while they were in college or graduate school and have now moved on to professional careers.

The Uninvited Co., Inc. 19:35, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

  • We have at least one admin who is nearly inactive (less than 5 edits in the last year) but whose name, user name, and picture are being used on a site promoting paid editing. This one be one reason to remove the admin bit from those who are inactive as it will decrease doxxing / people pretending to be admins. The admin could get the site in question for example to take down the profile. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:51, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

There is much validity in the points The Uninvited makes. I suppose I generally support the issue that has been introduced by BU Rob13 and appreciate his initiative especially as it has also been endorsed by experienced users such as, but not only, Risker, Beeblebrox whose Adminship is not a trophy to be put on a shelf for bragging rights, any holder of advanced permissions should be expected to actually use them once in a while highlights the very real possibility that users might appear to have thought 'Goody, when I get that hat too, and the kudos the goes with it; I can drop it in the gutter but tell everyone in the pub or schoolyard what an important individual I am on the world’s 6th biggest website' . Let’s also not forget WereSpielChequers who has not only maintained a greater overview than most for many years, provided a detailed overview of it, and regularly expressed his concerns about the state of it as shown in this other very interesting, brand new set of stats where of the highest and longest scoring editors only 2 are still active.

I don’t believe we need the 'examples of actual problems caused by this pattern' demanded by Opabinia regalis but whose one comment we ca’ trust is 'trust me, if you're not really engaged with Wikipedia, then the politics of adminship are Not Interesting, and precisely those are the editors who probably should not be contributing to RfA and/or this discussion, and Opabinia herself whose: 'Conversations about inactive returning admins usually seem mostly like opportunities for people to advocate their views on the politics of adminship' without actively appearing doing much beyond commenting and rapidly collecting further positions of privilege and where, as underlined again by Lepricavark, stating that her comment on this "social class" stuff[…] is completely irrelevant.
I bow to these two very reasonable and well expressed contra argument and the longer further explanation here put forward very clearly by Martinp who has indeed given me cause to rethink my stance on the subject.

While I will concede on Opabinia’s suggestion and give her credit for recognising that: ’’then’’ you can start an RfC, secure in the knowledge that you are proposing something evidence-based and practical and not just experiencing a contagious outbreak of overactive patellar reflexes., because this RfC is also not fully fledged, and I suggest that Rob should not give up, but take this important issue back to the drawing board and come up with a proposal that will not degenerate into an endless discussion that will dwindle into no consensus to do anything either way. However, to make sweeping statements in her flippant and less professional comment based on her ‘bets’ contradicts her own need that ’’…we should look at the data.’’
The Gold Star comment by Alanscottwalker is worth it’ weight in , well, gold.
What we need, while accepting that a time may come when even highly active users with genuine commitment, but who like me are well into their real life third-age, may one day switch off their watch lists in the realisation that the battle for quality content, well behaved editors and admins, decent management of them, and objective debate has been lost. And if this matter of admin inactivity can be clearly and unambiguously proposed at RfC I still don’t know now which way I’ll actually vote! Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:40, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Kudpung, I've read this through twice and I can't get the gist of what you're saying. How about you just say your own opinion without the quotes and allusions to others' opinions? I am interested in what you have to say but I can't tell what it is. Risker (talk) 15:45, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
If you have read the last line Risker you'll know what my opinion is. My post is long because the comments of many in all Wukipedia discussions are often off topic, or people even end up contradicting themselves, or, for disingenuous effect, take other's comments out of context. My aim is an attempt, however inept, to clarify that. Finally, as you not too delicately remarked to me personally a few years ago, my voice carries (one way or the other, for better or for worse). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:58, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
As an aside, this was not started as an RfC, nor did I intend it to become one. I'm still reading through the comments, but I was hoping to workshop some ideas, not rush into a formal yes/no discussion. ~ Rob13Talk 12:08, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
That, Rob, is something that I, at least, fully understood - and, which may also surprise you: fully appreciate. Hence my ramblings (meticulously supported with links, verbatim quotes, and nothing taken out of context) which Risker, looking for an opinion rather than the reason behind it, found rather challenging. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:58, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Elaborating on my "Gold Star" comment, as Doc James notes above, a very few well may be using the "status" as not just a useless Gold Star, to them and to us, but as a representation for some kind of advantage, possibly in the Wiki movement or beyond - it would be quite like pretending, when the truth is no one has even thought about trusting them with anything in years (let alone, the community of active editors) - and as a community, we are responsible for letting them do that kind of misrepresentation. The actuality is almost all have certainly moved on, and don't really edit the project, for whatever reason, so removing it is the reality thing to do there, too, but letting a few use the (false) status for advantage is still on me and on us. And really, if they want to come back - after years, come back, and ask for them again, and let the active community say, yes (sure, you may not like all that is the community - but who does really - you still have to deal with it, especially if you will admin). -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:22, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
Thank you Alan, at least you know what I have been rabbiting on about. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:58, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Until someone can demonstrate some actual harm as opposed to the current theoretical fears of Armageddon from allowing mostly inactive admins to reclaim the bit this does rather feel like retrofitting a complicated and difficult solution into a non-problem. Spartaz Humbug! 08:07, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
    ...current theoretical fears of Armageddon... is a strawman (or diff, please). Moreover (I seem to be in the minority on that point but it still is worth repeating) the problem is not only to have reasonably competent admins, but to have reasonably competent and community-trusted admins. TigraanClick here to contact me 12:16, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
    No its not. The objective here is not to try and sneak in community deadminship through the back door. If that's your plan i most definately object. Spartaz Humbug! 19:41, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
  • As a very long time admin who very rarely uses my admin tools, got them when the criteria for becoming an admin was still basically "Okay, you've been around for a while without fucking things up too much," and who is much less active on Wikipedia than I used to be, I'm kind of puzzled as to what the point of this policy change is supposed to be. What problems are largely inactive admins (but still somewhat active editors) like me creating that need to be addressed by a policy change? I've not had a chance to read through this entire discussion, but from what I have read, there's a lot of hypotheticals and not much in the way of actual real problems. Why would it be a problem that I have admin privileges? For the last several years, I've mostly used them for moving pages. My ability to look at deleted pages also allowed me to help catch a banned sockpuppet account in the last few months (new content was almost identical to deleted content that had gotten the user banned in the first place). Again, why would this be a problem? john k (talk) 14:51, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Don't fix what ain't broken. I'm trying to get caught up on this discussion and really struggling to see why the current state is a problem. Ignore the hypothetical risks. What tangible evidence do we have that inactive administrators are a real problem that needs fixing? What specific harm has been documented? Rossami (talk) 15:31, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
    • I second "don't fix what aint broke". I'm another largely inactive admin. I do contribute lots of useful stuff, it just comes now and then. Recently I've been on some other Wikimedia projects more than just plain English Wikipedia. Over here, occasionally I move a wrongly named page or something. Now and then, I've done some more important work like front page rewords or undeleting Bitcoin. If these powers were removed I can tell you that it would just (further) demotivate me from contributing. I don't see what the point is of removing people's options for contribution if they have been entrusted with those options for an extended time and have created no problems. In fact, I would say that they should receive preference in keeping those powers, since for example they are obviously not partisan fly-by-nights which cannot be guaranteed for newcomers. prat (talk) 23:56, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
    • So after some further reading, I'm finding one anecdote of bad behavior against statistical estimates that this proposal would affect many hundreds of volunteers. That seems to be a disproportionate response. There will always be a few admins who get the mop when they shouldn't. Or who once deserved it but later go off the rails. Existing protocols seem quite adequate to deal with those inevitable outliers. I do not see a clear argument yet that would justify the risk of adverse effects to the volunteer culture that the project depends on.
      You and I (and everyone else) all come here for different reasons. Maybe that "gold star" is a motivation for some. It helped them become better editors and the project benefited as a result. (We did, after all, make them an admin in the first place.) What do we gain by taking that star away? And what do we lose with all the other folks who are motivated by something different but who, for family or work (or other) reasons, go inactive for a period? Rossami (talk) 15:53, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Here's what I have to say as a mostly-inactive admin: Maybe you should be working on a proposal for how to make Wikipedia's processes tolerable enough to convince burned-out admins to return, instead of debating edit-count thresholds for getting rid of them. I put a lot of work into Wikipedia back in the day, and some of you are talking about me (and people like me) like some sort of looming insider threat. If Wikipedia ever has a serious discussion about how to get back to the vibrancy and growth of the old days, it would help to be more inviting to people who remember the old days, rather than to purge them. And if it's editcountitis that eventually takes away my admin bits, I wonder if anyone else will recognize the incredible irony. rspεεr (talk) 20:03, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
  • The discussion has become inactive at this point. No further input; I'm just leaving my name here to follow on a point of the comment directly above: in the future if there is a serious discussion about what Wikipedia could to do to regain its power to draw in contributors (like it did during the peak old days), I would appreciate if someone would give me a shout, because that is a discussion I feel my input could be useful. --PeaceNT (talk) 18:18, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

  • I agree with the above comments expressing concern about modifying this process and strongly oppose any modification. As an admin who has taken a few long (nearly a year or over a year breaks), the thing that generally drags me back in is seeing something administrative that I know I can take care of and that a nonadmin would not be able to handle. From there I generally find something else to take care of and well, then I wind up back for a while. Honestly, their are parts the back-end administrative things I enjoy more than normal editing. Thinking critically, if I were desysopped under a new policy and had to go back through RFA I would likely never be active enough again to be able to pass muster at a full blown RFA (and honestly with the headache RfA is in general, I'm not sure I'd even want to bother). Might I continue to come back for a few edits here and there without the sysop bit, sure, but if my activity for a voluntary position is so tightly regulated to remove the rewarding and enjoyable aspects of it I would have little incentive to come back after a long break (or burnout). Also, an observation that their has been some concern about a lack of new sysops coming in and while I make no assertion that I am the most active admin, having individuals like me be able to come back to handle issues I believe is a net positive especially if the admin pool isn't being expanded or even "restocked" as it once was. Fundamentally, if the perception should be that admins are "janitors" does it really matter how often they "clean" (within reason)? Someone is going to have to "clean" it eventually, if we spread an ever larger pool of work over an ever smaller group it only ends poorly. Best, Mifter (talk) 04:58, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
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