Wikibooks talk:Administrators

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[edit] Inactivity

I have moved over the inactivity requirements from the Help page. These edit counts and time periods came from a previous consensus discussion at the Staff Lounge. -withinfocus 18:58, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

A requirement of 5 edits within the past month is a bit much, even active admins will occasionally take a break/get busy else where. If this was to be enforced we would lose a number of good admins. (At least 25 according to Wikibooks:Administrators, over half of Wikibook's admins).--Cspurrier 21:23, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough, I pulled that number out of thin air. I don't mind admins taking a break here and there, but i do care about admins disappearing for long periods of time. If an admin is gone long enough, it's a safe assuption that they will not be up-to-date on current matters of community and policy. I'll extend this limit (or even make it arbitrary) for now, But 1 year of inactivity is a hard limit for de-sysoping without a vote, so we should be able to call a vote on an admin for less time then that. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 23:34, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
I think getting the admins cleaned out here is a very important thing to do (and yes, almost all of those 25+ sysops aren't here at the project anymore and have no use for the tools). I was planning on getting all the de-adminships posted quite soon since the community already had consensus on those edit amounts (this sat at the Staff Lounge for several months) but now I will wait until this policy becomes enforced. Wikibooks has a lot of "legacy" ideas including the original set of admins that don't apply at all anymore. Several admins who hadn't edited in about two years came back to say they wanted to keep adminship yet provided no reason why and had never even used any of the tools (no logs). Adminship is like a trophy to many of those users and many have simply received it because they were here way back when Wikibooks was brand new and there was no one else around really. This is a very important cleanup task. -withinfocus 00:43, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I made a number of changes on this topic myself. This draft is a clean slate, i think, and we can play around with it until we find things that we like. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 23:45, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Might be a good addition/loophole to allow admins to take a sebatical when announced (I mean, who's to say an admin would never go on safari for a few months?). It's one thing if an admin "just disappears" (which I understand has happened in the past), but if an admin needs a break for some reason or another, I don't see why they couldn't have it. (Another example that comes to mind is a new mom... she might pop by and edit once in a while, but probably wouldn't be very active until the baby is weaned). --SB_Johnny | talk 00:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Like the policy allows, an admin can again request sysop powers at a later date. If an admin leaves the project for a significant period of time, policy could change quite a bit and the whole environment of Wikibooks may be different. If the user was still an active member upon return, then there would be no problem in being reinstated. -withinfocus 00:46, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

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I think the idea that admins absolutely must be active all of the time is an absurd idea. We are all volunteers, and somebody who only occasionally is able to particiapte as an admin is still as useful as people who are for all pratical purposes a full-time administrator. And just as with content development, you can participate with admin duties as much or as little as you have time to do them.

As far as trying to remove "trophy" admins, I would have to agree here more. Even then, adminship was given to trusted users who for the most part havn't violated that trust either. They just havn't done anything at all.

The larger worry is for somebody who becomes an administrator and then starts to be very active and aggresive, removing content even when other users don't think it should be removed. In one situation here on Wikibooks, an admin even went out and changed a policy document, and then acted on this "new" policy as if it were there all along and removed content on Wikibooks based on that policy. Now I'll admit that I even have a few "arrows" in my back from some people who are not pleased with some of my actions as an admin. Still, you need to be careful when you delete content or do admin-only actions like page protection and user blocking, and be responsive to other users, especially brand new users who are not quite sure of what all of the policies are here on Wikibooks.

Getting back to the issue of admin activity levels: Admins should not, and do not have to be able to do anything, if that is what they choose to do. Admins are volunteers, just as being a contributor on Wikibooks is voluntary in all aspects. There are no quotas on activity, and there never should be.

The one, and only, reason I have that strongly stands out for de-admining a very inactive user (> 2 years of inactivity from editing even, for example) is the potential that their account can be compromised by someone other than the actual user and potentially be used to damage the project. Given enough time, all accounts can be compromised through even a brute force technique of trying to log into the account with every possible password. Such a hack can even be done that wouldn't be detected as repeated attempts to log in.

Still, this whole policy page seems to be missing the most important and crucial element of what an admin is supposed to be: a mere user who is simply trusted by the community to do harder to reverse changes. Becoming an administrator is not supposed to be that big of a deal, and certainly you shouldn't feel elite or privileged because you have administrator options available to you. Any very active user who has demonstrated they want to help out signficantly with the project should be allowed to become an admin. Even if afterward they only very rarely or occasionally use the admin options, they still help out the project simply by having somebody who can defend against radical vandals or even rogue admins who seek to damage stuff. --Rob Horning 14:38, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I dont think there is any expectation that admins need to be active all the time (maybe the wording of this proposal needs to be altered to better reflect that) but I can't see a reason why a user who has been absent from all wikibooks editing for a year or more should need to have increased privledges. Adminship is defined by a user having a greater set of tools then the average user. The only reason you need these tools is if you intend to use them to benefit the project. Because adminship isn't some kind of special distinction or award, people who don't use the tools shouldn't have them. Admins are regular users who have a need for additional tools. I don't see any reason to give tools to people who aren't going to use them, and i certainly don't see a reason for a person with these tools to keep them if they aren't being utilized.
Beyond that, If an admin is gone for a year or more, can you really expect that they are going to still be up to date with their knowledge of deletion policy, page protection policy, vandal-blocking policy? Not only does it not benefit us for people to have these tools when they aren't being used, it poses a potential danger to us that old inactive admins are going to come back from hiatus and make difficult-to-repair mistakes. Adminship tools should be granted to trustworthy users when they are needed, and they should be removed when they are not needed. Since it isn't a distinction that sets accomplished users above the pack, then it shouldn't be treated like a life-time membership to a special club.
If an admin is just a regular user (and everybody agrees on this point), then there should be no problem in saying "you have been inactive as an admin, so you are now just a regular user". If we do have a terrible vandalism attack, what do you think are the odds that a defunct admin who has been absent for months on end is going to come in here to help us with the cleanup effort? I say that there is zero chance of such a happening. Keeping around admins who aren't active makes it appear that we have more admins then we actually do: an inactive admin is just as good as no admin at all. Look at our current list of administrators. More then half of them are, by some measure, inactive. If we have a major problem, are 20 admins and 5 bcrats going to help with the cleanup? no. Keeping around old inactive admins makes our need for new, fresh admins less apparent. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 16:23, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Exactly. I don't always think that specific numbers need to be assigned for "inactivity" but we have to draw the line somewhere because once de-adminships begin there will be trophy users coming here to say that there's no official removal process. I think Wikibooks' presence is tarnished when users have sysop rights and have never used them. People may actually think these are helpful sysops and their existence on the admin page is misleading to me. Several months ago a couple admins subject for de-adminship came back just to say they wanted to keep the tools. When asked why, they never provided any reasons. However, discussion stagnated since there was no official rule. An admin can lose track of Wikibooks and how it works in 1+ years' time. Sysop access isn't a gift someone keeps forever. If I leave the project, I don't want to be an admin anymore. It's a bad representation. -withinfocus 21:46, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Good point about the changing culture thing. See this, for example. Sooner or later that's going to mean a lot more books being written, and vandals and spammers on their heels. SB_Johnny | talk 22:02, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

---

Although this doesn't directly relate to the current condition on Wikibooks, one of the justifications used in the past for denying people adminship was that there were plenty of admins on Wikibooks. It was into this environment that I set up the "active" and "inactive" admin status, primarily to note those individuals who are somebody you can contact in an emergency and get a response. Some admin talk pages had been filling up with requests, but no action, and every single Wikibooks bureaucrat had gone inactive. I've been very careful at trying to make sure that Wikibooks is keeping at least somebody who is active as a bureaucrat, as going through the process of getting stewards to make admins is a nearly impossible task.

I consider this to be a weak reason to de-admin somebody, but it at least is something to consider and why I brought up the whole issue to begin with more than a year ago. What I find so interesting is that previsouly the prevailing attitude was to allow lifetime appointments as admins, while now there are many vocal opponents to the idea. Of course the Wikibooks commmunity has changed quite a bit in the past year or so. This is a good and healthy thing, too. --Rob Horning 16:22, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ratification?

Discussion here seems to have stagnated, so are we all ready to vote this thing in? -withinfocus 19:51, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I've sort-of put this one on the back burner for now. I dont think we even can ratify this this until we get some sort of yea or nea on the voting policy.--Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 20:00, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Voting is now guidelined, so I'd like to get this in as a policy now. Yes? -withinfocus 19:41, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Bumping this so people will hopefully notice this on their watchlists ... -withinfocus 20:16, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Still nothing from anyone? -withinfocus 04:18, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Whiteknight has been organising the PaG voting. As discussed at Wikibooks:Staff lounge#Guidelines, templates, etc these are being done one a week. Perhaps you can coordinate with him to make this the next one up. We're doing Wikibooks:Title pages this week. --Swift 05:57, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
I think we should just be bold and ratify it. Nothing in this policy is anything other than common sense. --SB_Johnny | talk 10:12, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. If no one responds within the next couple days to object, I suggest moving this to the main page and deleting the sub-entry here. -withinfocus 02:07, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Enforced now. -withinfocus 07:47, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some Adjustments

I added a line here or there in an effort to clarify that inactivity hurts the progress of the community. After an incident where a previous admin acted sorely after losing his rights, I felt that the page could use an extra word or two to try to convey that de-adminship is not a punishment. Such inactivity hurts progress here, a much less active project compared to Wikipedia, and I belive there is a much tighter community of users here that some do not understand. The facade of being an administrator when nothing is gained from it should be something changed, and it was. If anyone wants to modify these changes, then let's chat about it. -withinfocus 09:24, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you whole-heartedly. I've been having an email discussion with User:Herbythyme, and we both think that a user is only as valuable to the community as the contributions that they make. Inactive admins can be broken up into two categories:
  1. Admins who are inactive for a long time, but intend to return to the project at a later date.
  2. Admins who are inactive for a long time, and have no intention to return (or expressed intention to never return)
I would say that the first group of admins are a valuable group, but that an admin who returns after a long hiatus, even if they are acting in good faith, cannot be expected to know and understand all the recent policy changes that have been happening here. At the very least, they should have to reapply to be an admin, to ensure that the present community (which may be significantly different from the community when those admins first became inactive) still knows and trusts that admin.
The second group of admins are, in my eyes, a dangerous group. These are people who have tools to do some exceptional harm (block users, delete pages, rollback edits), and who don't care about the project, or may even harbor some anger towards it. If a person says "I hate wikibooks, i'm leaving forever", they shouldnt have the ability to do substantial harm to our project in the future. Also, if an admin says "I intend never to return to this project", it must be wondered why those users should have any sort of special rank or tools here in the first place?
The important thing to remember here is that de-sysopping is not a punishment, it is a way to ensure that (a) people who are upset with this project don't have tools available to cause harm in the future, (b) people who absolutely have demonstrated no need to have the tools should not keep them as some "badge of honor", and (c) people who may not be able to use them correctly, or who are out of touch with the community should learn to use them correctly before applying them. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 14:45, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Well seeing as you mentioned me anyway <g>. My own view is that the first group are probably aware that they will be contributing little and should state that (leave of absence? - agree approx period?). I noticed on meta (the de sysop request area) that someone was asking to be taken off for a specific period for a reason - seemed sensible. The second group I agree with Whiteknight on. (Wonder how many pages I'm going to need to watch now!) --Herby talk thyme 15:01, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Renaming users

In addition to creating admins, Bureaucrats also have the additional ability to rename a username. This is a pretty important responsibility (although one that isn't employed often here), but one that we should definately write about in this policy. For instance, a legitimate user should never be renamed without express request from that user. Also, renaming is useful when "vanishing" a user account:

Vanishing
A user account can be vanished by renaming that user to a new user name, and deleting all pages in that person's old user and user talk namespaces.

Renaming a user changes all references to that person in the database to the new name (including page histories). Renamed user accounts shouldn't be profane or obscene (as per policy). What do people think about adding this kind of material into the policy? --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 16:49, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Uh, now that you mention it, I probably need to be renamed to SB_Johnny (my username on all other projects), rather than SBJohnny, which I am here. Might be an issue when SUL eventually comes about.
Speaking of which... I wonder whether this will still be a bureaucrat responsibility after SUL, or if maybe it's going to become a problem for the stewards to deal with. --SB_Johnny | talk 21:45, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
That's a good point, with SUL, it's a much larger problem then I think they will want bcrats to deal with. If you want to be renamed, I can do that for you whenever --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 22:10, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Semi-Protecting Admin Userpages

It's my opinion that the user and user talk pages of administrators (and other high-profile editors) should be able to have their user and user talk pages semi-protected against page moves. I say this for three reasons:

  1. The user and usertalk pages of active admins are favorite targets of page-move vandals.
  2. Regular users should be able to contact an admin on their usertalk pages, without having those pages be moved to an obscene location.
  3. The only time these pages should be moved is if the admin who owns them decides to move them.

I have protected my own user pages like this, and I have also recently protected User:Herbythyme's userpage as well, because his is a frequent target of such vandalism. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 19:14, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I've done likewise now. Good idea. -withinfocus 01:52, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Seems sensible. I'll do mine as well. --SB_Johnny | talk 12:47, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Strange that this was brought up. I did a full page protection (sysop only edit/move) on my own user page about a year ago. I figured that since I had admin privileges, I could make whatever changes I felt were necessary. I did this in response to a page move vandal, and (obviously) I haven't had problems since. I look at this as a sort of perk of being an administrator, and it hasn't been a problem on those Wikimedia projects where I'm not an admin. In fact, I havn't even thought about it being a problem until I read this little discussion. My talk page is also move protected (sysop only), but I have it wide open for anybody to edit. --Rob Horning 09:30, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bureaucrats and eligibility requirements

Bureaucrats can be selected from the pool of current admins only. Users who are not currently an admin are not eligible to be a bureaucrat. There are no other specific requirements on creating new bureaucrats, although candidates are generally expected to be active wikibookians, and well-respected admins.

When did this become "official" policy? This is clearly something that flew under the radar for me, as I would have strongly and voracously objected to this idea on several levels, including the fact that we had one of our previous (now de-admined) bureaucrats go from being a regular user to bureaucrat without having been an admin first. I will admit, however, that the rationale was that there was no other active admins on Wikibooks (not currently a huge problem), and we needed a bureaucrat to help make admins, but that is besides the point.

That somebody who becomes a bureaucrat can and ought to be a very well trusted memmber of the community, and that as a matter of practicality you perhaps ought to try and become an admin first should be suggested, but as a formal policy requirement? --Rob Horning 19:35, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

That was added some time ago and no one had any problem with it. I find it a very sensible rule to have in place. Users were brought up to bureaucrat status directly when the project was in a special time of development, namely at the beginning of Wikibooks' life. You cannot be a bureaucrat without being an admin since that is how the system works, so we saw it as useful to say you must have some practice as an admin before you continue to gain in tool access. I see no problem whatsoever with this and see no reason to remove these statements from the policy. -withinfocus 00:07, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm with Matt on this. A B'crat should be a trusted and experienced administrator on wikibooks, since they're not only expected to enforce policy, but put others in a position where they'll be expected to do so. --SB_Johnny | talk 00:35, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Think it may be a minority of one here. I can (just) imagine a situation where there is no one around and someone has to be a B'crat but then I can also imagine a situation where my gas and my electric have gone off, the car won't start and it is snowing (unlikely here, find your own analogy if it is different for you) but in that case the "rules" would be pretty irrelevant anyway as - being the only one left - you would rewrite them and be the only one voting. However I'm not a big fan of "rules" so I probably wouldn't worry about it anyway :-) --Herby talk thyme 13:30, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Trolling

In response to some discussions i've had recently with wikibookians, I would like to propose an addition to this policy concerned with trolling. There is a precedent here, if only an inadvertent one, against blocking non-vandals. historically we never really have blocked non-vandals, although I dont know whether there was a concerted effort not to, or whether the issue simply never came up.

I would like to add text to the blocking section of this policy about trolling. In extreme cases, trolling can lead to decreased motivation and decreased productivity throughout the entire community. We do need to remember that wikibooks exists for the production of textbook content, not as a general-purpose web forum or discussion board. We certainly should advocate tolerance because diversity among our contributors will lead directly to higher quality content in our books. However, there is a limit to all tolerance, and people who make a concerted effort to stand in the way of progress here should be removed from the project. Wikibooks has a mission, and it should be unacceptable for the entire community to be sidetracked from that mission in order to deal with a single disruptive individual.

Any policy that we create on this issue should not be applied retroactively to previous instances of trolling. No change that we make should be used as revenge to previous infringements, only as a warning to future trolls. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 01:51, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Please define what you are talking about here. This looks like a very easy way to shut down legitimate disagreements if you don't agree with the POV of that person. I know there are certainly very active individuals who are perhaps gadflies (see definition 4), although blocking them does seem to be a bit harsh.
While I know you are not trying to write this on behalf of one particular individual here (*cough*), the range of what can be said is somebody who is trollish can be quite broad. By even trying to codify this, it seems like a quick and easy way to try and deal with what is actually a difficult problem. I'm not here trying to defend "trollish" behavior, but arriving at a definition does seem to have some problems. --Rob Horning 02:11, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
I do understand your concern, and trust me when I say I gave it serious consideration before i made this post. I can't really give a good definition, because as you pointed out above, what precisely constitutes "trolling" is very ill-defined. It's another issue, perhaps, of "i know it when i see it", although you are right to point out that something like that without the appropriate safeguards could be open to abuse.
The problem is that wikibooks does have a particular purpose, and that is to write textbooks. Our purpose is not to teach people to tolerate our gadflies, or even to provide a place for the gadflies to hang out. Tolerance is certainly a virtue and one that we should not easily lay down. However, there comes a point when we spend more time tolerating the gadflies, and less time working on books like we should be. A troll is a person who disrupts, side-tracks, or even brings to a screeching halt the progress that we should be making here, and we all should find that to be unacceptable behavior. I didn't propose any particular text for this specifically because the community should take time and write something that will enable us to block trolls, while at the same time promoting tolerance of others.
We do need to think long and hard about this issue, and we should not jump to either enforce a policy on it or to reject the idea off-hand. --Whiteknight (talk) ([http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Wikibooks_talk:Administrators&action=edit&section=7

Editing Wikibooks talk:Administrators (section) - Wikibooks, collection of open-content textbooks[User:Whiteknight/Proposed Books|projects]]) 02:19, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Bam. That's where it should go, and I don't think people will have a problem with getting the blocking policy ratified. Let's take care of business there. -withinfocus 02:51, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm not entirely sure that the blocking policy as written is necessarily the best way to deal with this either. Since this is technically "enforced policy" already, and this policy already covers user blocks, discussion here certainly is reasonable and shutting down this thread is not necessarily the best way to deal with this issue. And I do have a few issues with the proposed blocking policy, as they do seem to be oriented toward legislating the behavior of one particular user on this project. I say seem, even though I know efforts to write policies have been a continual process here on Wikibooks among some users.
As for tolerating gadflies, trolls, and malicious vandals, yeah, I would say that this is a spectrum range of people rather than something you can point a finger and say "this person needs to go". Certainly the extreme end needs to be block, and they are. What I see happening here is trying to define more clearly where that fuzzy line is that might make one user's actions acceptable over somebody else. And this is also something that clearly not everybody is going to agree upon, especially for those borderline cases.
There was one particular user about a year ago (well before Panic became an issue) that exhibited some rather interesting behavior... and it seems as though Wikibooks tends to attract these sorts of individuals as well. There are some psychological disorders that could explain some of these individuals (and some of them have even written Wikibooks about those same disorders when they've self-identified that they had the condition). They tend to be very active in writing a whole lot of content over a relatively short period of time, and get very argumentative. More often then not, these same individuals over time gradually fade away from Wikibooks and only occasionally come back and edit what they started.
I know most of what I mentioned above can also apply to other typical Wikibookian behavior, but there seems to be an intangible something that seems to seperate out certain individuals meriting special concern. More often than not they are left to their own devices (seperate Wikibook projects) where they do their thing and then eventually the content they participated in developing is also frequently deleted on the VfD page as well. This is a pattern I've seen repeated several times, and so much so that I've wondered if there might actually be something that could be clinically diagnosed from a medical standpoint. I'm serious here too. The main problem is when these same individuals get involved with active projects others are participating in, which I will admit tends to be rather disruptive.
In this case I say disruptive because they are not following the typical pattern of being a little shy and starting off with just making a few minor changes to gradually gain acceptance in the "community" of content developers. A more typical Wikibookian will not "rock the boat" from more established users until they have more completely integrated into the community. Instead, this other type of user I'm mentioning here is so active that from their perspective they are full members of the community in just a few days or weeks, and make big bold changes as if they were around from the very beginning of the project. They also get very resentful if you try to classify them as 2nd class citizens (even if that was not your intention). Mind you, a 3rd type of personality is somebody who is a "veteran" wiki user (especially somebody experienced with Wikipedia) and comes in here thinking they know all of the project policies when they really aren't a member of this community. That is still something different yet, and can be just as disruptive but in their own unique way.
OK, I'm rambling with my thoughts and observations, but the point I'm bring up here is that there are very many personality types that make up Wikibookians, and to condemn them to being "troll" or "not troll" can be difficult to do. That this is an issue to watch for, I would have to agree. And that we as admins need to have the tools to help cool off behavior that is disruptive certainly is something that should happen as well. For myself, I think that protecting a page where edit wars are happening can do more good than performing a user block, as a warning that the issue has gone too far. It is also less disruptive to the project, but I also know that something of that nature is not always possible to keep everybody from making a big mess. User blocks are a good tool to help with the moderating process as well... if used in a responsible manner. --Rob Horning 09:11, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
I wish we could just make some progress and get things done. No personal offense to you Robert since your comment is definitely interesting, but we all need to spend less time discussing and more time doing. Policy talk pages are going in endless circles while the policy page itself is seldom if ever edited. I don't know if people are afraid to edit main policy pages or what, but at the least unstable pages need work and nothing's happening. If you dislike the Wikibooks:Blocking policy in some way, just go and edit it. Let's make progress. I try to get the ball rolling and then see comments like this, and while (at least in this case) they are applicable to certain issues, they don't really make progress. I see debates forming and purposely avoid policy discussions because it becomes a waste of time (and if you notice I have made little to no comments on the new WB:WIW or WB:DM because those pages are like black holes for progress nowadays). I ratified Wikibooks:Annotated texts myself and then told people I did it, something that seemed fine (as well as it being a simple policy, even though we might add a little bit to it about study guides that aren't annotated shortly) but that's been it for policy progress in a long time. I guess this goes back to trolling but we can't stop policy progress any longer; let's just get to work and edit something. I want the blocking policy in, something common on Wikimedia wikis, something we shouldn't have real trouble in getting done. I'm tired of writing long talk page responses as well, something I don't have to do but I just want something that I feel is positive to happen. -withinfocus 12:33, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Inactive administrators

I'm starting up this discussion area to review the practice of de-admining inactive administrators. Some concerns have been raised about that issue, and almost all of them have been inappropriately made at WB:RFA. If people want to discuss a change of policy, they can now discuss it right here. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 14:34, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, all users taking part in the discussion are expected to have read all previous discussion on this matter. There is no purpose in repeating the same statements every six months. Many previous discussions exist at the old Staff Lounge as well as here. -withinfocus 14:45, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
Simple - my views - I would de-admin after 6 months inactivity at the latest unless a "leave of absence" had been advised (someone traveling, circumstances etc etc) which would allow extended leave (when I would expect no editing). Personally I will resign any rights I have on any wiki if I am inactive for three months as stated on my RFA etc). The tools are for people who use them, while they use them. I have no intention of returning to this discussion --Herby talk thyme 15:37, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
I find that to generally be a good rule of thumb. Six months might be a bit short to some so I like the current plan of one year a little bit more. One year should be enough time for someone to finish up their leave of absence in my opinion, and in one year policies could change significantly enough as well that the user will really need a refresh. I agree that if a user ever permanently leaves, they should renounce their status as a common courtesy to the project. If you don't know how to use the tools, you shouldn't keep them. They are not a trophy but are meant to be used. Here I go, saying the same things I've said many times in the past ... -withinfocus 19:54, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't see how talk on the RFA page is inappropriate. It's always good to keep the talk close to the actual issue and people are free to express their opinions on Wikibooks. Wikibooks is not a job nor a career and we can't expect such kinds of loyalty although a 6 month absense is a long period of no activity. I would prefer admin powers to only be taken away if we suspect the account may be compromised or if there is evidence of some possible wrong-doing. That's my two euro-cents worth! Xania talk 23:16, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
If people want to change policy, they can discuss it on pages that are for discussing policy. WB:RFA is not a place to complain or preach about our personal disagreements with policy, it is a place to put that policy to use. If you want to change a policy, you should work to change that policy in the correct way. If you discuss the issue in the wrong place, it's akin to using that page as a soapbox. Wikibooks is not a job or a career, but it's also not a complete free-for-all. We have dedicated discussion areas for a reason. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 22:53, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
People will discuss changes where they think it is most appropriate and I don't agree with this increasing formality which seems to be creeping in (as on Wikipedia). If people wish to discuss on the RFA page then let them - comments are more visible there and if we wish they can later be archived. Trying to silent such public dissent is not encouraging for the project. Xania talk 12:08, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Maybe it is a little too formal, I can agree with that. But what I dont want to see are any objections being ignored because they are put in the wrong place. I'm of the opinion that complaining about a problem is much easier then finding a solution to that problem. Along with that, people who complain about things are less likely to be heard and appreciated then people who actually work to find a solution to it. The best thing that a person can do is create a new unstable version of the policy that reflects their concerns. Talking about how much you dislike a policy in the wrong place looks very much like simple complaining and just doesnt strike me as being particularly constructive. That's just my two cents, but If you really want to change a policy this is the absolute best place to go about doing it. Everybody deserves to have their opinions given full appreciation and consideration. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 15:05, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Checkuser Legal Issues

There was a note posted to Checkuser-l the other day, and I know that not all of our checkusers are members of that list. The WMF has an "Ombudsman" who is in charge of handling and investigating violations of the privacy policy, especially in respects to people with checkuser access. All checkusers should be careful therefore to read and understand the privacy policy so nobody accidentally lands in hot water over it. The link is here:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman_commission

Apparently most of the checkusers on the checkuser-l list dont know about this either, so alot of people are reading over those policies very frantically right now. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 14:09, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I think you meant to leave this link: (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CheckUser_policy)? That's just the ombudsman page:). --SB_Johnny | talk 15:02, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
that link too, alot of people (myself included) didnt even know there was an ombudsman, but everybody knew that meta has a checkuser policy (otherwise we wouldnt need 25 damn votes for every election). --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 18:00, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] stewards

Hi guys,

Why is there a (small) list of stewards on this page? Stewards are Wikimedia-wide, and I think it is confusing for new users this way. First there is an intro about administrators who can help, and then first a list of stewards? If you really want to mention some, please to that all down, and explain in short what a steward could be needed for (a desysop decided by the community for instance). Better is to direct to the Requests for Permissions page on meta. Effeietsanders 19:13, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I shifted the content and made a more clear mention of the roles of these accounts. We like to differentiate Stewards since none of them really have any activity here yet show up in the sysop list and we want to avoid confusion over who to ask for help. -withinfocus 03:13, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Did some more work, should be perceived as simpler now. -withinfocus 17:15, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for clearifying this. Effeietsanders 19:27, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] De-adminship due to inactivity

Please discuss changes to policy on the relevant talk page. Xania's comment is below. – Mike.lifeguard | talk 02:14, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

  • Oppose As usual I am registering my opposition to these deadminship requests. I disagree with the policy of removing admin rights for inactivity. Xania talk 22:13, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Support x 10. Please read all of the above sections before casting a vote, as this issue has been heavily discussed already and I really hope only new topics will be addressed. Since I don't believe there's anything else to say about this, I feel things should stay just as they are. -withinfocus 02:25, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Support I'm very happy to see the issue brought to the relevant discussion page so that we can make a concerted effort to address this issue. It has been some time since this was made a policy, and it is high-time it was brought up for reconsideration, to evaluate whether the policy has been useful. That much said, if you consider the admin nomination process, we don't give admin tools to inactive or minimally active users. A user must display a certain level of activity, and activity of a certain type (helpful, maintenance contributions, etc). If activity is a requirement in receiving the tools, I suppose I don't see a reason to differentiate between receiving and keeping the tools: If an admin is inactive, they likely shouldnt have the tools any more then a regular inactive user should have them. Some users, such as User:Iamunknown and myself (for my bot account) have willfully given up tools because of inactivity. Many users who have been nominated for deadminship and have been contacted, replied that they were happy to return the tools because they were not being used. One user did contest the deadminship, but after the nomination was over, that user returned to inactivity. I am making the assumption that the user in question would not have returned to activity had his tools not been removed. During the Karl Wick nomination, the point was brought up and readily reaffirmed that adminship is not a badge of honor and shouldnt be given to people as an award. However, I see an immediate analogy between giving people the tool as an award, and allowing people to keep them if they arent being used. That is, we can't say that people dont receive them if they havent earned them, and that people can keep them if they aren't continually deserving of them. Either way, it becomes less like tools, and more like a badge of honor, which I think we all have agreed that we want to avoid. I say that I do support the policy of removing unused tools, but I wonder if there could be a "nicer" or "softer" way of doing it then has been done so far (because I feel that the cold manner of the proceedings is what triggers a lot of anger among opponents). Maybe we could petition to give bureaucrats the "de-op" flag, that would enable desysoping to be performed locally, and reduce the need for steward intervention. Doing that would enable more discussion to occur in a desysop nomination, because we would need to worry about confusing the issue for the stewards. Those are my thoughts on the issue. I'm highly interested to see what others have to say about it. If significant support to overturn the policy emerges, I wont stand in the way of it. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 03:15, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - I though local bureaucrats could de-sysop people. If they can give the tools, shouldn't they be able to remove them? That seems like something we should definitely change. – Mike.lifeguard | talk 03:28, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
  • I believe the developers think there's danger in allowing removal of the tools because it could allow a "mutiny" to happen more easily. I make my requests at Meta for the Stewards to handle. This would be nice to have, but I seriously doubt we will be allowed. -withinfocus 03:31, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I think it's an unlikely thing to change. The reason why we would want to have this is so that we wouldnt need the stewards, and we wouldnt need to worry about confusing the stewards on the discussion page. In turn, this would allow us to have more discussions about this subject on the RFA page. If people are willing to keep the conversations here, or in the Reading room, it would be a non-issue. Somehow, I doubt that. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 13:29, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, if I understand what you're saying, we will vote for both sysopping and de-sysopping on RFA just like now, but in the future we'll complete the de-sysopping ourselves. That would be fine with me if we actually were given de-sysopping rights of course. I would still want the inactivity clause to be a non-voting issue however, so I don't think any of this is different from current policy besides that we'll de-sysop ourselves. We could always try to get one of use made a Steward, wouldn't bother me to have it. -withinfocus 14:43, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Playing devil's advocate for a minute, what if it was a voting issue, but votes were counted based on their merit as it pertains to the particular candidate, and not based on the disagreement of the entire policy? That is, what if we don't count votes of people who say "I just dont agree with this policy", and only count votes of people who say "this specific user should keep his tools because...". Not allowing any discussion has caused some obvious anger at the whole procedure, but allowing discussion quickly degenerates into arguments over this policy and not discussions of the individual candidates (which is where the focus really should be). --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 15:07, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
reset

If we're not going to get the ability to de-sysop (which I don't really understand) then I'd support merit-based discussion over either voting or applying an arbitrary time limit (though 1 year is a good guideline). Sysop tools are for users who need them. If you're not using them, you don't need them. I'd also support automatically removing the tools (more-or-less-)immediately if an sysop declares that they're leaving WMF projects and then actually leaves. – Mike.lifeguard | talk 16:14, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I would support Whiteknight's general idea. The way I see it is after a year of inactivity, the user will be nominated for de-adminship. The primary reason, inactivity, will be mentioned as the trigger for de-adminship. Anyone who opposes the de-adminship will have full rights to mention why the user shouldn't lose the tools. What I've described isn't really much different from the current policy. Users can now propose "good reasons" why an admin shouldn't lose the tools. However, I don't see how this will ever be sufficient to stop the de-sysopping. We already have a solid time period proposed that almost everyone agrees with. If a sysop doesn't want the tools, all they have to do is request their removal at Meta.
On a related note, I don't believe we'll have that many de-sysoppings in the future. Wikibooks was basically abandoned by all the supposed admins (almost all of them never even used any tool yet had problems losing their status) that were here when the project began. They moved onto other things or whatever else, but it left a majority portion of the sysop list useless. Now that almost all of these users have been de-sysopped, the list is full of admins who are almost all quite active and we're in a much better state. -withinfocus 17:33, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - I've always been a bit ambivalent about this, but it seems to me that performing the desysoppings are pretty much harmless (if someone's not using the tools (or even editing!), they clearly don't need them) and the possibility of lost/sold computers being around or just someone coming around after a long absence and not being aware of policy changes can cause issues (even in my own case, I've been so busy at Wikiversity the past 6 months that I'm feeling a bit behind on what's going on here). The main reason I don't like the desysopping is that it always ends up causing silly drama, and might not be worth the trouble. Nevertheless, I Support turning off the buttons for people who are apparently long gone. --SB_Johnny | PA! 11:48, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment I'm sick and tired of all this. I have no problem removing sysop abilities for those who don't want them or have long gone but such requests should still be up for comment and discussion. Why do we need policies about all this crap? Just have a vote for each one. Creating endless policies (which is what Wiki projects seem to be all about) just alienates new users and allows more established users to have a greater say (as they know where to find such policy discussions). Having a policy on this matter means that newer Wikibooks users have no say because the matter was decided long ago and often by people who have since left the project. This isn't a Wikibooks thing but rather a Wiki thing as Wikipedia also seems to becoming taken over by a small group of very active administrators and the democractic element seems to be disappearing. I can't be bothered to vote for this policy but will continue to vote for each request for deadminship that comes up in future. Stop trying to silence me. Xania talk 10:48, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
    • I'm baffled by this comment. Here is the perfect forum for you to discuss your rationale on the matter, and you don't take it. You want to change the policy? Do it like everybody else tries to. Create a discussion here, post messages on the Reading Room and the bulletin board, and get people involved in the discussion. You talk about how new users aren't being involved in the process, but I feel that your approach to the problem does more to exacerbate that problem then to fix it. How are people supposed to know that an important discussion is taking place if we all just leave short passive-aggressive complaints on various pages? You have the opportunity to discuss the issue and to convince others of the need for change, and you don't take it. I also don't understand how you have the time to post comments about how you disagree with the policy, and how you have time to argue endlessly and angrily when people try to move your comments to a more appropriate location, but you dont have time to vote when the matter actually comes up for discussion. It's akin to saying you don't like how things are, but that you can't be bothered to change them. It's a hypocritical attitude that is the absolute antithesis of the wiki- way of making changes. We arent going to change the policy because we feel sorry that Xania doesnt like it and can't be bothered to change it himself. We will change the policy when Xania takes the floor, convinces us of the merit of his viewpoint, engages the community, and leads the community to change. Hoping for any other outcome is a waste of everybody's time. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:17, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - no offense to either of you, but I think it might be a good thing if both User:Withinfocus and User:Xania recused themselves from inactivity-based desysoppings (on the WB:RFA page) from here on out. The two of you are starting to sound like The Honeymooners. --SB_Johnny | PA! 18:21, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
  • No thanks. I've got a pretty good workflow going with this and it makes no difference who does it anyway. If someone's got a personal problem with me they can deal with it elsewhere, and the one you suggested above I consider either closed or like how a page vandal would be treated. To the moon Alice, to the moon. -withinfocus 23:05, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
All johnny is saying is that we all need to calm down. This is obviously a charged topic, and if everybody just keeps doing what they are doing the tempers will get hotter. If it makes no difference who does it, let me take care of the next round of them. I'm only trying to resolve problems here, you and Xania have had a certain amount of non-productive discourse and I would like that to be minimized. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:25, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wheel-warring

I want to add a section to this policy to specifically condemn wheel-warring among admins. Admin actions, such as blocking and unblocking, protecting and unprotecting, deleting and undeleting, etc should not be used as part of a wheel war without discussion. One admin should not undo another admin action without some measure of discussion. If we consider things like the administrator's noticeboard or VFD, most admin actions are made after such discussion anyway, or else they are made in response to a clear need. Either way, they shouldn't be undone without at least some discussion. We tend not to have many of these conflicts around here anyway, so hopefully it's not something we are going to miss, nor a rule that we are going to run afoul of. Here is an idea of what I would like to include:

Administrators should never undo actions done by other admins without some amount of discussion first. Undoing another admin's actions without discussion or, preferrably, reaching consensus first is an abuse of administrator tools and is cause to have those tools immediately removed. Administrative actions can always been reconsidered and reexamined over time, but administrative actions should not be reverted in the heat of the moment without proper discussion first.

I think that an admin who can't be trusted to use the tools cautiously and responsibly really can't be trusted enough to keep the tools, so I advocate rdesysopping admins who abuse them like this. Notice that I have added a moratorium clause, that decisions can be reexamined at a later date, but that reverts should not be made in the heat of the moment. We could likely make this point more explicit, if that would put some fears at ease. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 00:15, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but... - There are some times when an undiscussed change to an admin action is legit. The first one that pops to mind is changing a short-term block to a long-term block because another admin discovered that the IP is an open proxy. I suppose it could be argued that the 2nd admin should just let the 1st know and they can redo their own block.
Take my block of Flickts ([1]). How are we to interpret the above if some other admin had come across the unblock request and wanted to grant it? That's undoing one of my admin actions. Should that be discussed first? I guess, but I'd say that the unblock would be relatively uncontroversial and needn't be discussed prior. I'd say that the wording above is overly restrictive in such cases. I'd suggest changing it to "wheel-warring in controversial cases..." but then we run into the problem of "what is a controversial case?" I'll sleep on it and maybe come up with some different wording later. – Mike.lifeguard | talk 00:35, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Like I said, there is a little bit of tweaking to be done here. I'm arguing the point with Darklama right now on IRC, and he has a million infuriating little examples of instances when what I said above would be bad. The gist of this is that admins shouldn't be engaging in fights using admin tools. Changes or modifications to an admin action that are not aggressive, and that are properly considered shouldn't fall under this category. If an admin is warring using admin tools, that's a problem and we need to be vigilant against that. Admins making changes to other people's actions to help them, or to make things better in general should obviously be out of the scope of this. The question becomes: how to we reword this in order to make that distinction clear? --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 00:42, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Mike, you might end up horrified over the next few weeks, because real wheel wars have happened on wb before, and might happen again soon. Things get nasty in winter for some reason or another, and we're moving towards that head now. --SB_Johnny | PA! 01:03, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
To be fair, I doubt (hope) that things won't get so bad again. My point with this is that I want to make it clear that wheel-warring (which is different from undoing an admin action, or modifying an admin action with justification and support) is really unacceptable. We shouldn't just request that admins act civily, we should require it. If an admin can't use the tools properly and respectfully, they shouldnt be admins. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 01:09, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Yeah. I can feel something looming. The spirit of this is fine, but I think the wording could be tweaked. If I can get Chatzilla working I may join you in IRC shortly. – Mike.lifeguard | talk 01:11, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't think we need an explicit policy for this. Changes can be quickly reverted and if they continue to be reverted then the best method is to raise the issue with those concerned or if absolutely necessary vote for a desysopping. Where are any examples of this problem happening (except for the situation with Panic which was almost a year ago). We shouldn't create policies for all possibilities as this creates too much beaurocracy of which there seems to be too much already. Also there are many situations where changes need to be made for example if an admin blocks a user but another thinks the offence was minor (sometimes what appears to be vandalism actually isn't when you read the whole page), extending blocks or undeleting images. Xania talk 01:10, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't really think it creates any additional bureaucracy, it just makes more explicit a point about civility that people take for granted. In the event of a wheel war, if we don't have this kind of policy, there will just be de-sysop nominations instead, which are slower and will just create more anger. The old panic stuff is water under the bridge at this point, but a lot of ugly things came out then that we should take some precautions to prevent in the future. There is no reason to assume that kind of uglyness can't come back out again. If people don't respect process and go "rogue" or "vigilante" or whatever, they are going to be de-sysopped one way or another. If it happens in the future, i just don't want anybody acting surprised. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 01:23, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm with Xania here, actually. We don't need a policy. We do need to be bold about using WB:RFA to strip priveledges as easily as we use them to give them. We recently had to go through this on commons, and while painful, it did the job. We can get that done here too if necessary. --SB_Johnny | PA! 02:02, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
That's fair, and I won't push this issue any further here if people arent into it. I view de-sysop votes as being just another opportunity for mudslinging, especially if you couple that with an already polarized situation where admins feel like they need to be reverting each other. These things together set the stage for the perfect storm, and I wonder how many people are going to weather it when it comes. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 02:05, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, we learned last time where the hatches are, so we'll know what to hit with the batons. If what you're afraid of happens, it's going to be at worst a tempest in a teacup, and honestly most will be more interested in the scones than the one stormy cup. We will deal quickly, efficiently, and above all quietly and professionally. --SB_Johnny | PA! 02:23, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
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