The purpose of this page is not (yet) to propose a process, but rather, to persuade you that your paradigm should switch from "Admin for life" to "Admin for X years". I do this in the form of a pseudo-proposal, and I hope that the community will help me turn this into a real proposal sometime in the |
Much of the opposition to WP:Community de-adminship is that "ArbCom already does a good job of this". In parallel to that proposal, I would like to explore the possibilities of a limited term on Administrator status. I feel that what I have explained below is a fair and reasonable proposal, with room for improvement.
This fixed terms proposal is not intended to take the place of the CDA proposal, but rather, to help solve some of the same problems in a very different way.
The idea is simple enough. For the argument's sake, let's put the term at 2 years, though the precise term could change. An administrator, from the moment the sysop bit is set, will retain that status for 2 years unless it is removed by some process (be it ArbCom, CDA, or otherwise; that is not the concern of this proposal).
We may consider requiring a waiting period of anywhere between 2 weeks to 1 year after being auto-de-sysopped before an administrator can re-apply for Adminship. Reasons for this may vary; my reasoning for this would be to see if the admin's ego can withstand a few weeks without the mop.
To quote Jorge Stolfi, who suggests a 1-year wait period and 2-year term, "Knowing that one will be a plain user at least 1/3 of the time would hopefully prevent an otherwise very human tendency of all bureuacrats, namely making rules that increase the power of bureaucrats."
On the flipside of the wait period idea is the notion that, if no objections are raised, that an admin should be auto-confirmed for another term of service. Each auto-confirmed admin would be one less RfA to process, lightening the load on (what I see as) this proposal's weakest point.
I personally would prefer a wait period, though by being creative, we could implement both.
There should be none. A user may return to adminship an indefinite number of times, subject only to the wait period.
The idea of reconfirming admins is not new. At WP:PEREN#Reconfirm_administrators, a few objections are raised.
It is probable that these objections have come up in the past, but I am only aware of these objections as they have been raised in direct response to this proposal. [All emphasis in quotes is mine unless otherwise stated]
The current CDA proposal requires a high amount of distrust from the community before an admin is considered for de-sysopping. Re-elections, however, would make it much easier for an admin to be de-sysopped: for better or for worse.
Tightly linked to the previous concern is the concern that the extra politics and drama will be too much for some admins, especially the ones that crack down on spammers, vandals, POV pushers, and so forth.
This concern ties in directly to the "difficulty to get re-elected" concern. Since administrators often perform tasks that impose regulations on users, it has been argued that admins are like cops. How likely would you be to "re-elect" the cop that gave you a parking ticket?
By requiring a renewal at 2 years, we allow newer admins to stand on equal footing with old ones, so that the adminship does not become merely a club for the elite older members of the Wikipedia community. Fresh minds will be empowered to make meaningful change as the English Wikipedia continues to influence the whole internet.
Under my proposal, inactive admins (along with all other admins) will be auto-de-sysopped after 2 years. If they choose to come back 5 years later, they will be required to meet the expectations of the 5-years-evolved Wikipedia community.
2 years is a long time. An admin that does not perform up to expectation during his 2-year term of service can be rejected at his next RfA, if he chooses to apply.
If the sysop bit isn't a big deal, then it shouldn't be a big deal to remove it after 2 years. Clinging to the sysop bit is a manifestation that one feels it is a bigger deal than it is.
We have a process that works. It may be flawed, but nobody's been able to replace RfA with something better. My proposal doesn't introduce anything new in the way of selecting which admins are to be re-elected. Just send them through another RfA.
To quote Father Goose, "The core problem with RfA is that it does not allow us to be bold in electing admins because we cannot revert our decision later should it prove to be a mistake."
If some form of my proposal were accepted, then we would need to schedule a LOT of admins for de-sysopping. One way of handling this would be to schedule those in Category:Wikipedia administrators open to recall within the first year, and the rest within the second year of beginning the process, spreading out the de-sysopping over the year so that we don't lose all of our administrators at once.
This may best be implemented first as a voluntary thing. I propose a bot or something built into the English Wikipedia source code that can carry out the task of de-sysopping automatically at the appointed time, if an admin chooses to opt-in.
To quote Sxeptomaniac, "If some admins were to reject voluntary recall in favor of stepping down or resubmitting an RfA after a specified period of time, it might open editors up to the idea of admin terms in general."
Many objections have the underlying insinuation that, should this proposal be enacted, there wouldn't be enough admins to go around. Since this proposal allows us to take a risk on RfA candidates who fall below the standard 70% support mark, we could consider lowering the RfA support standard to ~60% for new admins, and ~50% for returning admins (re-elections).
Most of these ideas and all quotes come from Wikipedia:Community_de-adminship/RfC, unless otherwise stated.
The purpose of this page is not (yet) to propose a process, but rather, to persuade you that your paradigm should switch from "Admin for life" to "Admin for X years". I do this in the form of a pseudo-proposal, and I hope that the community will help me turn this into a real proposal sometime in the |
Much of the opposition to WP:Community de-adminship is that "ArbCom already does a good job of this". In parallel to that proposal, I would like to explore the possibilities of a limited term on Administrator status. I feel that what I have explained below is a fair and reasonable proposal, with room for improvement.
This fixed terms proposal is not intended to take the place of the CDA proposal, but rather, to help solve some of the same problems in a very different way.
The idea is simple enough. For the argument's sake, let's put the term at 2 years, though the precise term could change. An administrator, from the moment the sysop bit is set, will retain that status for 2 years unless it is removed by some process (be it ArbCom, CDA, or otherwise; that is not the concern of this proposal).
We may consider requiring a waiting period of anywhere between 2 weeks to 1 year after being auto-de-sysopped before an administrator can re-apply for Adminship. Reasons for this may vary; my reasoning for this would be to see if the admin's ego can withstand a few weeks without the mop.
To quote Jorge Stolfi, who suggests a 1-year wait period and 2-year term, "Knowing that one will be a plain user at least 1/3 of the time would hopefully prevent an otherwise very human tendency of all bureuacrats, namely making rules that increase the power of bureaucrats."
On the flipside of the wait period idea is the notion that, if no objections are raised, that an admin should be auto-confirmed for another term of service. Each auto-confirmed admin would be one less RfA to process, lightening the load on (what I see as) this proposal's weakest point.
I personally would prefer a wait period, though by being creative, we could implement both.
There should be none. A user may return to adminship an indefinite number of times, subject only to the wait period.
The idea of reconfirming admins is not new. At WP:PEREN#Reconfirm_administrators, a few objections are raised.
It is probable that these objections have come up in the past, but I am only aware of these objections as they have been raised in direct response to this proposal. [All emphasis in quotes is mine unless otherwise stated]
The current CDA proposal requires a high amount of distrust from the community before an admin is considered for de-sysopping. Re-elections, however, would make it much easier for an admin to be de-sysopped: for better or for worse.
Tightly linked to the previous concern is the concern that the extra politics and drama will be too much for some admins, especially the ones that crack down on spammers, vandals, POV pushers, and so forth.
This concern ties in directly to the "difficulty to get re-elected" concern. Since administrators often perform tasks that impose regulations on users, it has been argued that admins are like cops. How likely would you be to "re-elect" the cop that gave you a parking ticket?
By requiring a renewal at 2 years, we allow newer admins to stand on equal footing with old ones, so that the adminship does not become merely a club for the elite older members of the Wikipedia community. Fresh minds will be empowered to make meaningful change as the English Wikipedia continues to influence the whole internet.
Under my proposal, inactive admins (along with all other admins) will be auto-de-sysopped after 2 years. If they choose to come back 5 years later, they will be required to meet the expectations of the 5-years-evolved Wikipedia community.
2 years is a long time. An admin that does not perform up to expectation during his 2-year term of service can be rejected at his next RfA, if he chooses to apply.
If the sysop bit isn't a big deal, then it shouldn't be a big deal to remove it after 2 years. Clinging to the sysop bit is a manifestation that one feels it is a bigger deal than it is.
We have a process that works. It may be flawed, but nobody's been able to replace RfA with something better. My proposal doesn't introduce anything new in the way of selecting which admins are to be re-elected. Just send them through another RfA.
To quote Father Goose, "The core problem with RfA is that it does not allow us to be bold in electing admins because we cannot revert our decision later should it prove to be a mistake."
If some form of my proposal were accepted, then we would need to schedule a LOT of admins for de-sysopping. One way of handling this would be to schedule those in Category:Wikipedia administrators open to recall within the first year, and the rest within the second year of beginning the process, spreading out the de-sysopping over the year so that we don't lose all of our administrators at once.
This may best be implemented first as a voluntary thing. I propose a bot or something built into the English Wikipedia source code that can carry out the task of de-sysopping automatically at the appointed time, if an admin chooses to opt-in.
To quote Sxeptomaniac, "If some admins were to reject voluntary recall in favor of stepping down or resubmitting an RfA after a specified period of time, it might open editors up to the idea of admin terms in general."
Many objections have the underlying insinuation that, should this proposal be enacted, there wouldn't be enough admins to go around. Since this proposal allows us to take a risk on RfA candidates who fall below the standard 70% support mark, we could consider lowering the RfA support standard to ~60% for new admins, and ~50% for returning admins (re-elections).
Most of these ideas and all quotes come from Wikipedia:Community_de-adminship/RfC, unless otherwise stated.