Wikipedia talk:History of de-adminship proposals

Comment

/Old proposal contains discussion surrounding a de-adminning process suggested in March 2005, which failed to gain support and now resides at Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship/Old proposal. As of March 2005, the Wikipedia:Requests for comment process remains the first step for dealing with abuse of admin powers; see Wikipedia talk:Requests for review of administrative actions for the discussion that led to this process. —Charles P. ^(Mirv) 05:28, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC) [edited]

Isis

Why is Isis' de-sysopping listed in a separate section from the other "involuntary revocations of sysop status"? --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 18:14, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

I listed her in a different section because she was banned, not de-sysoped. Since there are many other users who have been banned for one reason or another, it isn't entirely clear that she belongs here at all. However, since one could argue that banning a sysop implies de-sysoping them as well, I included her -- mainly in the interest of thoroughness, since my purpose in having a list here is to demonstrate how rare "de-sysopping" actually is. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 20:48, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Jimbo's statement

Can someone please cite a source that justifies this line - "Jimbo Wales has stated that the presence of any process to remove adminship would result in a reduced motivation for all parties to work together to seek consensus.". -- Netoholic @ 21:12, 2005 May 17 (UTC)

I've replaced that line, which was still uncited after over a year, with a sourced quote from a recent mailing-list post by Jimbo. Tim Smith 22:19, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Trial run with consensus

This is an interesting idea at face value, but I think there would need to be a massive consensus to get rid of a user...and only admins can vote. If that is the case, then 99% of the voters are respected members of the community who can be trusted to read into the issue at hand. I reccomend something like a 85-90% consensus and a trial run. I don't really believe blackmail will be an issue, because users who use that as blackmail will lose all credibility, and the user getting blackmailed will easily overturn the nomination for de-adminship, earning himself some pseudo-martyr points with the community. I think we should try this proposal out with a high consensus percentage. Let's all remember that Jimbo Wales' opinion on the matter is just that...it's not divine word. He's a computer programmer, not a social psychologist...unless he is one of those, then I'm just an idiot. JHMM13 (T | C) 14:31, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Move this page?

I think the title of this page might be confusing for new readers. They come across the title and expect an actual de-adminship process page. Therefore, I propose moving it to "Wikipedia:De-adminship" or something to that effect. Any thoughts? szyslak (t, c, e) 07:32, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. Requests for de-adminship is really along the lines of Wikipedia:Admin recall Anomo 08:28, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Which is now superceded by the revised process proposals at Wikipedia:Administrator recall. For what it's worth, I think this page is fine where it's at, there's a LOT of namespace taken up by these ideas, and any one that does finally get approval will become clear. -- nae'blis 21:13, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

The title should change. I was expecting it to be an attempt at an actual process like the requests for adminship. A.Z. 00:02, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Nathanrdotcom

Will he be going up here? He is forever banned but retains his adminship. Anomo 08:29, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, Nathanrdotcom (talk · contribs · block log) is not an administrator. He doesn't show up as a sysop in the user list, and the user rights log shows no record of him being sysopped [1]. Perhaps he's an administrator on another project, such as Wikibooks or Wikiquote. szyslak (t, c, e) 11:31, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I thought he was sysop. Hmmm. I know that user rights log isn't kept for very long though, but this is odd. I guess my memory is bad. Anomo 20:07, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Survey says...not likely. He was a vigorous entity on talkpages, though. -- nae'blis 21:20, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Well it doesn't have all sysops. For example why is this blank? Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/ContiE Anomo 21:27, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

RFA didn't always use individual subpgages for discussions. e.g. Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Stormie doesn't exist either, but you can find my admin nomination here - and as coincidence would have it, User:ContiE is on the same page. —Stormie 21:36, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Nathanrdotcom's logs show only uploads and moves. So if he was a sysop, he never used his buttons. szyslak (t, c, e) 00:03, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Too many inactive admins

Wikipedia:List_of_administrators#Inactive has too many inactive admins. Do we have any policies to end their adminships?--Jusjih 17:06, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Why bother? john k 17:24, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

eBay. Anomo 18:25, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

?? Does this mean something? It seems to be a complete non sequitur. john k 22:01, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I guess the question is whether someone who is an admin would be willing to sell, and someone else would be willing to buy, the ability to access an account with the admin bit set. Presumably this business opportunity (such as it is) is open to active admins too... -- ALoan (Talk) 23:13, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

While administering many other Wiki sites, some sites desysop admins for long (such as one year) inactivity. Security concerns have been raised should abandoned admin accounts get broken in by unauthorized users to misuse and abuse admins' privileges. Why not bother with those who are inactive for more than one year of inactivity?--Jusjih 14:55, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I think if any kind of unathorized activities started to take place, it would be pretty easily recognized and could be dealt with. If a long inactive user suddenly reappears and begins doing odd things, we can de-sysop in such circumstances quite easily, I'd imagine. There's no particular need for a preventative policy - no sysop action is so potentially damaging as to require protecting against it in advance - another admin can always protect/unprotect, block/unblock, or delete/undelete as the situation requires. john k 15:18, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree that inactive admin accounts pose a problem and have suggested systematically removing them in the past. There has been widespread opposition. Inactive accounts pose a unique security problem because if compromosed, their rightful owner is unlikely to notice. On the other hand, if for example User:Bryan Derksen's account were compromised and actually used for anything, Bryan would notice. Anonymous accounts where the user has never made their real identity public, and where the user is no longer familiar to Wikipedians, pose the greatest risk because even if suspicions were aroused there would be no way to determine whether the account was in control of its original owner or not. Finally, I note that Wikipedia itself, its adminship standards, and its public profile have changed dramatically in the last couple of years, and some of the people who have had extended absences may no longer make suitable admins for these reasons. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 15:28, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

See this if you are interested.Voice-of-All 15:39, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

If someone has hacked into an inactive admin account and starts using it to do dubious things, the problem will become apparent very quickly. If they return and are not doing dubious things, we should assume good faith. I don't see what the big deal is. john k 15:59, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Different Wiki sites have different rules. For example, inactive admins desysoped from Wikimedia Commons require regular voting to be readmitted, but inactive admins desysoped from English Wiktionary just require the request with evidence of recent activity.--Jusjih 16:20, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I guess I just don't see what the point of bothering with this is. If you all want to come up with some policy, far be it from me to interfere, but it seems entirely unnecessary to me. john k 19:05, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, what should be done is maybe make a ridiculous time limit of inactivity (2 years would be what I'd do, maybe 3), and if they have made 0 edits in that time, we remove the adminship, but leave a notice that if they want to be reinstated they can be without having to go through the process again. --Wizardman 16:04, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Wording needs dating

The initial wording, and other instances in the document, need dating: "Throughout the history of the project" means different things when read in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2020, etc. Readers shouldn't be expected to go to the page history to find out when something was written. Carcharoth 14:08, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Stewards

I removed this from the section on "how to request someone's de-adminship:"

• Nominally, it is possible for the Wikipedia community to decide The community may request the stewards to revoke another user's adminship. The community should make the request at m:Requests for permissions, and must provide a link to the page where the decision was taken by the community.

I am very sensitive to policy creep in this area. While the stewards have acted upon requests from other projects, the English Wikipedia has never in the history of the project permitted this by policy let alone actually conducted such a process successfully. In all the cases of which I am aware, the stewards have de-sysopped people in response to a community request only from projects where there either is (a) no arbcomm or (b) a policy that adminship must be renewed on a periodic basis.

I think that it is important to be clear that the dispute resolution system ending with the arbcom is the mechanism for such requests. The arbcom has demonstrated that it is willing to act on such requests, and has a history of doing so effectively. Accordingly, there is no need to create a parallel process. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 17:24, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, UC, you're just objecting to the entire effort being made on this page. We're here because we don't think ArbCom is enough. The text you removed isn't "policy creep"; it's a statement of fact. You're factually inaccurate in your statement; ArbCom is only able to de-op through a steward.

Copied from User talk:John Reid
I tightened up the language in your edit after it was reverted, see here. Since that explains the procedure, and sits in a section headed "How to request someone's de-adminship" I hope it's tight enough, but see what you think. Hiding Talk 13:37, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't matter how you word it; somebody's not going to like it. See [2]'s edit sum: ...Stewards and Jimbo are not starting points for such requests. From a political point of view, this is a perfectly sensible statement. Yelling at Stewards when you want somebody deadminned is just plain stupid; they're not going to listen. Nor do we really want to provoke people into thinking this is a route, so I had reservations about making the edit in the first place.

The thing is, this is the truth. ArbCom can't deadmin anybody; neither can any b'crat. Only stewards have this technical capacity. (BTW, Jimbo is a steward.) Stewards hold sway over all Wikimedia projects, of which en: is only the biggest. Most smaller projects lack our elaborate bureaucracy; some don't even have b'crats to promote admins and go to stewards for this. Note that m:Requests for permissions has a number of project-specific subpages; most redirect to some sort of RfA. I imagine that for smaller projects lacking ArbComs, stewards actually listen to demands for deadminship made by whoever they think is responsible enough to bring up the matter. I simply don't know; you'd have to be a polyglot to really understand what's going on all over the entire WM farm.

These are kinda abstruse points. I think some understand the various levels of subtlety involved; some confuse a few things. When I put in the line about stewards, I simply wanted the section to reflect the actual truth of the technical power structure around here. This information is probably of no use to somebody who wants to instance RfDA; it is extremely pertinent to the question of whether the class of RfDA's is possible.

From our local, political point of view, the most interesting section here is #en:wikipedia, a sub-section of #Removal of access. Note well the instruction:

Copied from m:Requests_for_permissions

To request the another user's de-adminship, please gain consensus on your own wiki first. All discussion must be kept on your local wiki. When it is finished and there exists community consensus that the user should be de-adminned, a trusted person from that wiki should just provide a link here to the discussion and a very brief explanation of the reason for de-adminship and results of discussion. Do not begin or continue de-adminship discussions here.

At first blush, it would seem stewards might respect a RfDA, just so long as it looked reasonable. I really have no idea; we'll have to try it and see.

I limited myself to this little technical note because I don't see how to make RfDA a civil process. I don't mind rotten tomatoes thrown at admins, even in bad faith; our trusted servants must be above such; they must fail to react in bad ways to bad comments. I do mind the inevitable cross-bickering and personal attacks that go back and forth from supporters and opponents on RfA and I don't see that it will be any better on RfDA. I won't feel comfortable supporting any RfDA process until this concern is met. John Reid 17:47, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

• I object to this removal, since this is how stewards act as per m:Requests_for_permissions. It's merely your POV that only arb-com can do it. It's quite clear that there is no consensus for a de-admin procedure, but it's not correct to say that the community can't de-admin someone. If an admin went rogue and protected every single page and deleted all images and made the main page a gallery of porn, I'd think we'd pretty quickly bypass arb-com and head straight for the nearest steward.

• The English Wikipedia doesn't permit, preclude or prohibit anything by policy, see WP:IAR. That you do not like this may be true, but that it cannot happen is not. That it may never happen may also be true, but that does not preclude the possibility that it could. This is not policy creep, I would argue instead that it is policy creep to remove it, since there is no policy which dictates we cannot do this if there is a consensus to do it. It's not clear that "the dispute resolution system ending with the arbcom is the mechanism for such requests", since we have a category of admins open to recall, and we also have Jimbo desysopping and we also have RFC's on admins.

• It may be true that there is a dispute resolution system ending with the arbcom, who have the power to desysop, but it has also been made clear that the community has the power too but chooses not to exercise it. At no point have I seen the community dictate it will never desysop through the above removed mechanism, and even if it did, consensus can change. The mechanism I described in my addition to the page is a mechanism which can be used, and I would like to see it added back. It's in the right section and it describes the process. I don't tend to edit war, but this is going to need more than the fact that you don't like it to convince me it's wrong.

• I've done my part, I've sourced my info and I've read the rules and I've engaged in discussion on this issue all over Wikipedia and on the mailing list. It has been made clear to me that it has always been the case that this method is open to the community if they want to use it. That we don't is our choice, not something dictated to us. The stewards, by the rules under which they operate, can not refuse a request provided a consensus exists and it is linked to alongside the request. Hiding Talk 19:38, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

• And I want to make it clear I too can't square the circle of how to make de-admin requests civil, but I'd point out that not making the effort because of that fact implies a lack of good faith. I include myself amongst those who start from a position of no faith. But just because we can't see it happening, doesn't mean it is impossible. I doubt anyone will ever get desysopped through a community process, but that doesn't mean they can't. Hiding Talk 19:43, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

UC, you've made your POINT -- at least three times now. We do understand what you're trying to say; you don't want any individual, acting alone, to ask a steward to deadmin anybody. And I agree with you.

The thing is, this is eventually the only way it ever gets done. Some individual editor makes a request of a steward and the admin loses his hat. That's reality. In some cases, an arbitrator may also be a steward and he just tells himself to do it. Anyway you look at it, stewards really are the ones with the big red buttons in their hands. Period. That's a fact, not some biased opinion or political movement.

Now, Hiding and I have tried a number of different ways to include this fact on the page, for the benefit of editors who don't know as much as you and I do. You have rejected all of these statements. I don't believe we are going to think up anything you like better.

So, I ask you politely to include, on the front of this page, a link to m:Stewards, together with whatever explanation of this user class's power and scope you think is accurate. Be nice, suit yourself, and please don't blow this up into a shoving match. Thank you. John Reid 03:20, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Swedish term limits

I do feel we really need some sort of easier road out of adminship than ArbCom. I like the sv: (Swedish) approach: term limits. See sv:Wikipedia:Administratörer. I don't read Swedish so I took a look with the help of the good folks at Systran:

• sv:Wikipedia:Administratörer in machine translation to English

The Swedes do seem to have their own ArbCom but they have term limits for admins; each admin serves for about a year. The "about" part comes because they create new admins continuously but only remove them from office quarterly -- so as to put a neat package before the stewards. I think this is really smart. The driving philosophy is plain enough:

• (from the last citation) If an administrator carries out a willfully coarse act, they probably will lose their admin's-cap through sanction of the arbitration committee, when it meets. Before that point, distrusting community members can petition for an admin's removal. In both cases, the process risks to create prolonged conflicts and (spä) on top of what already exists. That already ordained administrators must be appointed again gives instead the community the chance of a more natural way to sort out administrators who don't correctly have confidence in wikicommunity, and that thereby cause excitements. (my loose, assisted translation)

This seems like a sane and rational approach. The Swedes have ArbCom and it works but not always; they may have some sort of RfDA and it causes additional contention; they have term limits and seem pretty happy about it. John Reid 17:47, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Perennial_proposals#Reconfirm_administrators Raul654 17:58, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

• • Did we ever think of having longer terms. That would cut out the time consuming aspect, surely? What, if we made a term, um, let's check stats...we could certainly have a five year term no problems, and a four year term would hold no problems either. A three year term would be manageable, we'd have a hurried start, but it's doable. We could deadmin the first day of the month following the month an admin was created. It looks workable, and it might be needed to make RFA workable again. We have to return to the fact that adminship is no big deal. It should be within any editor's grasp but the very worst, those that an argument against is mounted on behavioural issues rather than any given random criteria. Hiding Talk 20:05, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

• • • • You have made a leap of logic here which caused me to go "Huh?" at first. If I understand your argument correctly, the reason that fixed terms would "make RFA workable again" is that RFA voters could be less stringent knowing that, in the worst case, the admin in question would be up for re-election in a year. The very worst admins would get hauled up in front of ArbCom and the bad but not quite ArbCom-quality admins would get booted at the end of the year. Did I get this right?
      • If I got your line of reasoning right, my counter-argument is that a recall mechanism would keep us from having to put up with a bad decision for a whole year. --Richard 03:36, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

• • • At the very least, you'd see admins with agendas behaving more properly and circumspectly in the period leading up to the expiration of their term of adminship. At the worst, it would degenerate into people campaigning against those who were coming up for renewal. Carcharoth 22:38, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I object to the no-comment link to "perennial proposals"; a quick way to dispose of something without thinking about it. Making Pi exactly equal to 3 is a perennial proposal; it's never going to fly. Term limits have been discussed before and the en: community has found fault with the idea. Other WM communities have adopted it and find it works well. There is considerable pressure on the entire adminship process right now; that's why we're here. Maybe our community is ready to take a fresh look at term limits.

One way to speed up RfA is to go over to a straight vote, no comment allowed on the voting page. You want to discuss somebody's adminworthiness, you do so on his talk page, the same way you would discuss the subject of any page. Yeh, this is another idea that's been floated before. Maybe it's time now. John Reid 03:34, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

The question is whether the problem is that RFA's are too slow (which John Reid's proposal addresses) or whether RFA's are too stringent (which fixed terms attempts to address) --Richard 03:36, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

• Been there, done that, didn't work. - Mailer Diablo 22:06, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Summaries of desysop cases

I just came across the summary on this page of my desysopping incident, which was seriously slanted and partially false. This is a pretty high-visibility page, so who knows how many people were influenced in their perceptions of me by that summary? I propose that in the future desysopped users should be notified of and consulted about their summaries to ensure that the wording is agreed upon by all parties. Everyking 04:47, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Nothing stopping desysopped users who aren't banned from editing the entry. 193.95.165.190 09:23, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Historical?

I have removed the {{historical}} tag from this page. Although the concept of a "requests for de-adminship" page is historical, the sections on desysopping cases are still being updated. The last one was in July, but I can't think of any cases since then. In that sense, it's still being watched and edited, and is thus not historical. More than a year ago I brought up the idea of moving this page to "Wikipedia:De-adminship", but nothing came of it. Maybe we should give that a try, to mitigate any confusion about its "historical" status. szyslak 17:39, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Checklist for de-adminship proposals

A new de-adminship scheme seems to come along about once every three months. These proposals are regularly rejected. As an aid to anyone who would like to draft the next proposal, I've prepared a list of questions that all new proposals ought to be ready to answer: Wikipedia:De-adminship proposal checklist. Suggested additions are welcomed on the talk page. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:16, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

WP:PEREN

I have added this to WP:Perennial proposals. See Wikipedia:Perennial_proposals#It_should_be_easier_to_remove_adminship. Editors of this page are requested to re-word it so it sounds better.--Aervanath (talk) 02:10, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

New proposal on this page

Per User talk:Roux/RFA-reform#Moving to projectspace, I have transcluded this proposal here (transclusion so that edits only need to be made once, and to avoid cross-namespace redir.)

I invite commentary from the community as to whether we should adopt this proposal. Obviously I think we should. The general feeling from those who have commented on the talkpage in my userspace is support, with a couple of exceptions. The proposal as it stands is, I think, eminently workable, difficult to game, and is most importantly community-driven in a way that the current desysop options are not. → ROUX ₪ 21:09, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

(Full disclosure -- I'm an admin). I don't see a cause for concern that an editor who is ticked that I deleted his page extolling the virtues of pooooooop will get 10 meat puppets and start a de-admin request just to harass me. (Well, they can try, but I'd be surprised if they got far.) The process looks like it could deal with the worst cases. And it looks like it could get some community support. (The best proposal in the world isn't worth much if it never gets implemented. *grin*) It seems like a good first step, and hopefully we'll be prepared to go further if needed.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:59, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

And I just noticed the WP:FIRED shortcut that comes here. Now I've snorted tea all over my keyboard. Thanks a lot. ;-)--Fabrictramp | talk to me 16:26, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Looks fine to me too (admin disclaimer per Fabrictramp). I'm not personally convinced its necessary, but the proposal's perennial nature suggests plenty of other people think it is. And as formal desysop processes go this seems a reasonable one. Euryalus (talk) 05:22, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

• Looks like a very good system to me. I hope it can get some kind of community approval. Ironholds (talk) 08:00, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

  Looks good to me. It contains some strong safeguards against harassment via abusive RfDAs, and the high percentage required to desysop will make it an efficient system for removing genuinely abusive admins that have lost all community trust - while leaving an ArbCom case still the correct venue for a more nuanced issue. ~ mazca ^talk 15:09, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

• By starting with MBisanz's recall process you've probably taken the second most bulletproof process in CAT:AOTR (excepting only my process :) which, while more bulletproof, is less suitable as a general process) as a start point, so that's goodness. I remain unkeen on mandatory recall processes in general, but this is better than most processes that come down the pike, it's probably even one that, while not supporting, I would at least not be massively unhappy to see implemented. (for those keeping score at home, that's about the highest praise it's possible to get from me on this topic) ++Lar: t/c 21:10, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

  Shouldn't this starting point be indicated in the page history? –xeno^talk 21:17, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

  Paragraph 4 of User:Roux/RFA-reform (trancluded to Wikipedia:Requests_for_de-adminship, I think?) credits User:MBisanz/Recall. Whether it should be in the page history (via merge or whatever) of the final page, should this be approved? Shrug... I leave that to others. ++Lar: t/c 21:37, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

• The proposal looks good. I had a couple of questions: 1) Scope. Should !voters be considering all of the admin's conduct, or only conduct related to the incident(s) described in the nomination? 2) The list of admin powers at "Grounds for initiating an RFDA" includes minor things like "Special:Unwatchedpages" but doesn't include all admin abilities (see Special:ListGroupRights). Is this intentional? Overall though, very good. Shubinator (talk) 21:59, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
• Looks good I think this is very conservative but I think that's a good thing here. Hobit (talk) 03:16, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

• single actions It would be a very unusual single admin action that would lead to deadmin, and actions of such wrongness are well handled by arb com. I think it impossible for an active admin to make no mistakes. I've done over eight thousand speedy deletions, and I think I'm exceedingly cautious, but I know of about two dozen mistakes. Assuming an equal number I don't know about, that's ½ of 1%. I;'ve only done about 100 blocks, but I know 2 or 3 of them were incorrect. Some admins may be better, but none of them are perfect. We need some specific statement about pattern of behavior.

• • Wouldn't the requirement that two admins certify the request (after other methods of dispute resolution fail) take care of the occasional goof? --Fabrictramp | talk to me 14:32, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
    • Bingo. One action that someone whines about? Not likely to result in a successful request. That action, repeated? Likely to. → ROUX ₪ 16:29, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
      • Just a question out of principle, should there be a wording regarding the timeframe? An admin who makes the same controversial actions in a short timespan is probably a pattern. One who does it four time over 5 years, not so much. Not angling for a formal codification on this but a "use common sense" reminder on this. MLauba (talk) 15:43, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
• The proposal mentions the lack of a "robust desysopping process". The implication seems to be that there are admins out there who should not have the bit, but are not being desysopped under the current arbitration process. [If arbitration is indeed desysopping everyone who it ought to, that would seem quite robust to me.] Do the proposers have anyone in mind that they would submit to this process? Feel free to email me if you don't want to discuss this openly, but I'd be interested to see the what the developers of this proposal have in mind when it comes to brass tacks. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:46, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I would far prefer if desysoping was handled through consideration of evidence as applied to policy(like we already do) rather than a big vote. Admins need to make unpopular decisions sometimes and unless evidence shows they have violated policy or community norms then I don't think they should be voted out like this. Chillum 14:24, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

• Support. It's conservative enough that abusive requests for de-adminship seem very unlikely to succeed. The biggest worry is in cases like the recent (alleged) mailing list used to coordinate Eastern European editors. But then, the risk is no greater than having such coordinated groups vote in their own "pocket" admins... Pcap ping 04:58, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

• I think that Chillum makes a good point about sticking to policy. I'd also like to see the provision somewhere that a person being put up for de-admin. could have the right to reject who closes - kind of like they have alternates for jury duty. (I'm hesitant to phrase it quite that way .. I think there is already too much "legal role-playing" going on at WP, but for lack of a better term I added it.) While I agree that RFA is often a popularity contest - it shouldn't be. As such, this should not evolve into an un-popularity contest either. — Ched :  ?  23:59, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
• I'd support the version as currently worded. Seems like it covers most serious concerns. JoshuaZ (talk) 21:36, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
• Please note that there is a parallel discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Administrator. In particular, I have noted what I see as some problems with the list, in this proposal, of "bright line" reasons for desysopping, here. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:50, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

• Support in principle. Details can be worked out. Amerique^dialectics 22:16, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Draft RfC

Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Administrator/Admin Recall and Talk:WikiProject Administrator. I hope this is self-explanatory. Please feel free to amend or comment. No idea if it has legs, but I think its worth a try. Ben MacDui 19:21, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Comments

Just read this over, and I think generally the goal is a good idea. The article itself needs some tidying, and I think the first paragraph is a little odd in that it tells me that I likely agree that RFA is broken.

As for my thoughts on the current structure of the procedure, first I believe that the wording needs to be clearer that the user(s) making the complaint should have first attempted legitimate discussion or other recognised WP:DR methods with the admin. Also there should be a time frame for when to raise a grievance (possibly one month from the alleged abuse, unless of course during that month they've been actively in some type of dispute resolution with the admin that ultimately failed).

I'm unclear of what happens once the case is certified and opened. Do we do it RFC or RFA style? I'd hope the latter, as I think once a case is filed and certified we either support removal, oppose removal, or are neutral. Obviously diffs and a brief description by the people bringing the claim, along with a statement by the admin in defence should be allowed, but that should all be done during the certification stage.

Also, would it be prudent to direct the admin against use of admin tools whilst they have a claim open (ie once it's past the point of certification) -- or atleast the tools in relation to where the alleged abuse took place, e.g. deletion, etc? Again, these are just my thoughts on the wording as is. Cheers, NJA (t/c) 17:11, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi, please see the current talk at Wikipedia talk:Community de-adminship/Draft RfC, and the current draft proposal at Wikipedia:Guide to Community de-adminship. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:24, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Note that I know realise that this is the current process that enjoys majority support. NJA (t/c) 17:26, 20 January 2010 (UTC) Interests conflicts between wiki Admionistratoren, Conditions Wikipedia.org and the various administrations, state services as elite power. This find Wiki Admin's and Wikipedia administration as insufficient. Neither political nor religious angagiert for one or other State / authority or a polio sufferers. Additional administration (eventuel censorship) as a serious problem for Wiki User's. What to do with the administration Wikipedia.org (eg) illegal migrants from Africa and mogametanischen Narco Band's? They have set up its own Internet Survilance (incl. Survilance Wikipedia.org). That's not the problem in the States without a political crisis or held in the framework of Islam.1FWZ071 (talk) 15:27, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Community de-Adminship - finalization poll for the CDA proposal

After tolling up the votes in the revision proposals, it emerged that 5.4 had the most support, but elements of that support remained unclear, and various comments throughout the polls needed consideration.

A finalisation poll (intended, if possible, to be one last poll before finalising the CDA proposal) has been run to;

• gather opinion on the 'consensus margin' (what percentages, if any, have the most support) and

• ascertain whether there is support for a 'two-phase' poll at the eventual RfC (not far off now), where CDA will finally be put to the community.

Matt Lewis (talk) 01:00, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Time to update list?

It seems a little hard to believe that in the past 12 months, only 1 Admin has lost their Admin rights. Is this list up-to-date? Because I've certainly come across several disputes in process about misuse of Admin tools. 69.125.134.86 (talk) 18:31, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Please remove adminship of User:Sandstein and User:Nblund.

They abused adminship on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jessica Yaniv genital waxing case and Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2019 August 10. --Sharouser (talk) 13:14, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

No, it doesn't work like that; you can't just declare that you want someone to give up the admin bit. I've removed your {{rfc}} template to prevent anyone else wasting their time reading this. If you have a policy based reason for suggesting misconduct—and "they did something I didn't like" does not count—then your options are listed at Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship#Current methods of requesting de-adminship. Incidentally, Nblund isn't an admin in the first place so there's no admin bit to remove. ‑ Iridescent 13:51, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Well, sure, if you want to split hairs... Nblund ^talk 15:11, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps we should update that section. It currently says requests to revoke another user's adminship may also be made using the dispute resolution process, which is a bit vague; to my understanding, at the moment involuntary removal of an admin bit on enwiki can only happen via WP:RFAR or WP:OFFICE action (and there's no procedure to request the latter.) Suggesting broad dispute-resolution is misleading because it gives readers the impression that they could get it done via earlier steps in the process, eg. WP:RFCs or consensus-building. --Aquillion (talk) 15:49, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

• Concur with Iridescent. This isn't a page to request someone be de-adminned. As Iridescent noted, there's methods for doing that, most notably Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. To the issue itself; I've reviewed what Nblund and Sandstein did and find nothing sanctionable in their actions. Nevertheless, if you feel motivated enough to do something about this, and your motivation isn't just because you dislike their conclusions, then please do follow Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:13, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Adminship term length

That vote was ridiculous. It's like asking chickens whether they're OK with a KFC. Synotia (moan) 17:56, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

The vote wasn't limited to admins, not that there are as many admins around these days. If you want to restart the debate and try to get a different result you could open a new RFC on it. But I'd suggest reading the arguments and trying to modify the proposal to accommodate some of the reasons why the last proposal failed. Even if you are minded to ignore arguments by admins, there were plenty of non admins who pointed out flaws in the proposal. Simply dismissing the consensus view as ridiculous might leave some people thinking that you aren't engaging with those arguments, let alone rebutting them. ϢereSpielChequers 21:54, 17 March 2023 (UTC)