![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
From the village pump 4th Feburary 2004
I stumbled over this at special:Specialpages... is there anyone with this access yet? Or is it a new thing? Just curious. Pakaran . 03:58, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)
From above:
Well, not unless they are Michael Swanwick fans... (sorry, obscure joke. Check out Stations of the Tide sometime.) -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen 22:53, Feb 6, 2004 (UTC)
I successfully utilized the system to make Tillwe and Francs2000 admins. However, when I tried to make Pakaran and Cprompt admins the system failed.
Any ideas? Kingturtle 08:23, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Since the institution of a bureaucracy is a relatively new one on Wikipedia, we have an opportunity to craft customs and common practices. In particular, I would like to address the question of the addition an extra layer of hierarchy to the power/technical privilege structure (my premise being, of course, that this is a bad thing).
One possible solution is that every sysop could have bureaucrat privileges. However, there appears to be considerable opposition to that idea, judging from the response to the suggestion on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship. My own feeling about this idea is that it isn't parsimonious: in terms of our practical requirements, it's overkill. Still, it would resolve the issue.
Another possible solution, suggested by Maximus Rex, is that two sysops would be required to enact a promotion. This would require developer time to implement, but it seems a fairly reasonable suggestion nonetheless.
My own feeling is that we can establish a custom that lessens the impact of this further level of hierarchy. Specifically, I propose that every so often (say, two or three or four months), bureaucrats, at their own individual discretion, shall nominate someone they trust to take over their bureaucrat status. This allows the role of bureaucrat to "flow" throughout the group of sysops. I also propose that if, after their tenure, any bureaucrat feels that more bureaucrats are needed, he or she shall simply nominate two people to take over the bureaucrat role. This will hopefully take care of any problems due an insufficiency of bureaucrats.
The best part is that there doesn't have to be a vote about it. ;-)-- Cyan 02:41, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I can see that various people have been made Bureaucrats as a result of voting. Where did the original set of these people come from? Morwen 09:23, Mar 5, 2004 (UTC)
Should this page be protected? There's no reason for anyone besides sysops to edit this page... of course, it doesn't really matter... ugen64 23:22, Mar 14, 2004 (UTC)
I have sectioned the page similar to Wikipedia:List of administrators, indicating which bureaucrats are active and which are not. I have also added 1 account that is marked as bureaucrat but was not listed. Doppelgänger 16:57, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Here are some stats about the current bureaucrats. "Not voted in" means they were bureaucrated unilaterally by Eloquence when the bureaucrat status was first introduced. I would support the debureaucratting of the final four groups and confirmation after a year for the first two groups. The numbers in parentheses are the number of times they have used their bureaucrat status.
See also the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship which implies bureaucrats ought to be receive a higher percentage of votes than admins and that inactive bureaucrats make bad decisions. Angela . 23:55, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)
How about this?
Since group 4 is only Angela and TUFF-KAT, I don't see the need to force them to immediate reconfirmation simply because they were appointed, as I don't know of any dissatisfaction with their work. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 01:05, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
In Group 3, I object to removing Bcorr's bureaucrat status based on "inactivity", given that he is by far the newest bureaucrat (fewer than two months) and therefore hasn't had much opportunity to be active in this capacity. After all, Danny, who was made a bureaucrat one month earlier, has used his bureaucrat status exactly once. There is absolutely no reason to treat Danny and Bcorr differently here. [Oh, and Pakaran has since exercised his ability to promote Slowking Man. -- Michael Snow 06:24, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)]
I do support Angela's suggestion of removing the other bureaucrats who are inactive or were not voted in, subject to reappointment through the current process. -- Michael Snow 01:19, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
You should all get the status flag by virtue of participating in this discussion, since it proves that you're a bunch of fucking bureaucrats!-- Eloquence *
Angela, Cecropia and Kingturtle apparently performed 73% of all adminship operations. Commendable enthusiasm, but...it's nice to spread the workload and give others a chance to exercise their capabilities. Perhaps a guideline that an bureaucrat should allow (number of bureaucrats / 3 rounded down = 5 at present) other bureaucrats to act before acting again may be of value? Waived if it's three days or more since a candidate clearly succeeded, not if there is clear disagreement by some non-minor portion of the community. Not a rigid rule, but a wait of a few days is unlikely to do lasting emotional harm to a candidate.:) Jamesday 06:57, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I haven't followed any of the discussions at RfA or elsewhere. So just looking at this discussion, I would say: Yes to reapplication for last four groups: those that are active will most likely be un-de-bureaucrated on a quick vote (perhaps have the vote before possible debureaucrating to avoid a discontinuity). If noting else, it puts everyone on the same footing.
Secondly general debureaucrating should be based on a lack of any editing or a dissatisfaction with/abuse of a bureaucrats powers. If someone thinks a bureaucrat isn't pulling their weight, that can be voted on on an individual basis. -- Solipsist 08:57, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I am working on new policy for the dutch wikipedia regarding becoming a admin and bureaucrat. Current policy is that any admin can become a bureaucrat if the ask for it. No one has ever used that option until now. Current there is only one bureaucrat on the dutch wikipedia.
There is here on the English Wikipedia a special vote for it and it looks like the bureaucrats have a higher status because the need more votes to become a bureaucrat then for a admin. What is exactly the status of a bureaucrat here? For me a the only difference is that the can make admins and bureaucrats. But the are like admins servants of the community. Walter 09:03, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I am the bureaucrat of the Hebrew Wikipedia, and I feel uneasy that I can't remove sysop rights from a user that I have nominated to be a sysop (I must ask Angela to do this for me, after the vote for removing the sysop has ended). This asymmetry makes me very careful, too careful, before nominating a new sysop. There was only one case that I badly needed to remove a sysop, but it still bothers me. Removal of sysop rights will be done according to the current procedure, but after the vote has ended the bureaucrat should be able to do the rest of the task. David Shay 18:53, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
crossposted to
m:Talk:Bureaucrat
Recent events (see
Special:Log/rights and
[1]) reveal that it's possible for at least one bureaucrat, on en:, to remove sysop access. Questions arise:
Does anyone know anything about this? — Charles P. (Mirv) 20:01, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Apparently Anthere does:
From [2]
So I have no further questions. — Charles P. (Mirv) 20:20, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Dear Bureaucrats, please allow me to offer a few comments on the Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship process, from one who recently was not accepted into those hallowed halls.
As this process is one that the Bureaucrats "do", and so it takes your time, I think that it deserves a little of your attention to neaten up the process, for your and everyone else's benefit.
(1) As I commented at my talk, I am in an organisation with ISO 9000 quality management procedures and I found this whole adminship process a bit "untidy". It screams out for clarity at all of the steps.
(2) While User:Cecropia announced my non-elevation, it was not clear to me under what authority this was being done. Therefore, I asked questions along those lines for several days. Hence, I suggest that something like this form of words be incoporated into the instructions: "As the Wikipedia:Bureaucrat in this case, I am informing you that..."
(3) The process is not clearly laid down for the users of the process, as far as I can see: It's at the Bureaucrat page (!) where the process is set down in numbered-list form, at ( Wikipedia:Bureaucrat#Instructions for sysoping someone). Hence, I suggest that this be clarified then copied, or moved, in some form to Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship so that everyone knows what's ahead going in, and can follow the process.
It might look something like this:
After the voting period has begun, a Wikipedia:Bureaucrat will:
Of course, I don't know everything. Hoping this helps, talk Peter Ellis 19:24, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
It should be noted that there is quite a bit of support for bureaucrats getting access view the IP addresses of logged in users at m:CheckUser. This means that the powers of a bureaucrat could soon become a lot less limited. This should be kept in mind when deciding whom to nominate or support for bureaucratship. Taco Deposit | Talk-o to Taco 19:13, May 1, 2005 (UTC)
Is there value in the extra layer of, ermmm, bureaucracy, in having bureaucrats and stewards separate? I thought we had a debate on this one time but couldn't find it. Pcb21| Pete 15:41, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
I don't know that it serves any useful purpose except curiosity to list how active Bureaucrats have been, but, anyway, the percentages aren't accurate. I believe I've made something more than 1/3 of sysopings, but well less than 1/2, rather than the 3/4 I'm shown as having done. I think whoever did the counting forgot to include the Old bureaucrat log which shows, for example, that Angela made a huge number of sysopings. Also, before the logs were instituted, I think Ed Poor made almost all the sysopings. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 7 July 2005 08:06 (UTC)
I wonder whether it is time for this group to be called something other than "bureaucrats."
The Uninvited Co., Inc. 18:32, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
Ninjas are better than pirates. R e dwolf24 ( talk) 13:33, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
I brought it up because one highly respected individual refuses to become a bureaucrat because of the name. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 15:13, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
May I suggest the title be changed to Admins on Wheels? No? OK. ;-) Func( t, c, @, ) 17:32, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
I agree that bureaucrat is a bit of a misnomer, but a rose by any other name, yada yada. Andre ( talk) 18:33, August 31, 2005 (UTC)
The reason for originally giving the position the name of "bureaucrat" is still relevant. Leave the name as is. Taco Deposit | Talk-o to Taco 18:47, August 31, 2005 (UTC)
Daimons sounds cool, but it's either Lambies or no change ;) —
Ilγαηερ
(Tαlκ)
11:40, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
"Superadministrator"? Sure, it connotes extra privilege (beyond the ability to promote admins), but so does "administrator". ~~ N ( t/ c) 16:47, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Bureaucrat consensus poll. Andre ( talk) 19:31, September 4, 2005 (UTC)
Apparently Anthere isn't on this list [3] - is this an error? Andre ( talk) 19:41, September 4, 2005 (UTC)
Tim Starling: (Bureaucrat, checkuser, developer, sysop) -- what is checkuser. Is that IP address checking or what? — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 19:47, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
Well, shouldn't everyone who had bureaucrat status and who won a bureaucrat election be on this list? Andre ( talk) 19:51, September 4, 2005 (UTC)
Danny is listed here but he's a Steward as well. Taco Deposit | Talk-o to Taco 23:41, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
Image:Hermes bcrat.jpg so obviously doesn't qualify as fair use, I'm surprised anyone would revert its removal. Per the wording in the copyright tag itself, "It is believed that the use of a limited number of web-resolution screenshots for identification and critical commentary on the film or television program and its contents on the English-language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the United States by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law. Any other uses of this image, on Wikipedia or elsewhere, may be copyright infringement." That seems pretty clear-cut to me. Before you restore the image, please discuss why you think that image, used on this page, qualifies as fair use. Taco Deposit | Talk-o to Taco 17:49, September 11, 2005 (UTC)
This page says Ed Poor as no longer a bureaucrat, but the Special:Listusers page says he is. [4] Is one of the two an error? -- Tabor 21:15, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
This page is definitely the wrong place to post this, but at meta: meta talk:Requests for deletion and meta:talk:Main Page which would have been more appropriate I got no answer. In fact, I doubt there is an appropriate forum in which to discuss the deletion of a language version of Wikipedia to start with. So I thought, wrongly perhaps, that this page is the more likely place where I could get some "authoritive" opinions.
The background of the issue and some comments on it are available at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Moldovan Wikipedia. More information can be found at mo:User:Ronline/Propunere. In short, mo.wikipedia.org is a version of Wikipedia written in Romanian with Cyrillic characters. This combination is used nowhere in the world except in Transnistria which is a breakaway region of Republic of Moldova without international recognition and with a rather dubious regime. It is a relic from Soviet times, when in Republic of Moldova people used Cyrillic.
There are two views on this matter. Some people think that nothing is wrong with having Wikipedia in all languages/character sets possible. The number of potential readers and editors of this particular version of Wikipedia is very small, but it still could be useful. And deleting a language version of Wikipedia would be against the Wiki spirit, would make Wikipedia politicized, etc.
The other view is mostly reflected by people in Republic of Moldova itself and neighbouring Romania (again, we are talking about the Romanian language here, the issue is the set of characters — in Romania proper they use the Latin alphabet). To us (I am from Republic of Moldova) writing our language in Cyrillic is a symbol of what was wrong with the Soviet Union, a totalitarian regime which did not give us even the choice of how to write our own language, and of all the tragedies which happened after Republic of Moldova was annexed to the Soviet Union in 1940 and then again in 1945.
The discussion of this issue has been going on since June; see again mo:User:Ronline/Propunere. Neither side of course has any power to do anything about it (an administrator is not enough to close it down, for example), and that is why I am writing here. My big question is, where to have a discussion of this issue, and more importantly, how to reach a binding decision on the matter. Thank you. Oleg Alexandrov ( talk) 05:23, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
This is the wrong venue. This issue has come up before on Wikipedia-l mailing list which is the appropriate venue. Secret london 06:44, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
This nomination is extremely close to the cut-off level of voting. With a high level of participation, and a few possible sock puppet votes, the nomination doesn't quite reach 80%. I'm inclined towards not promoting Ramallite, but suggesting a new nomination in a month or so, once things have calmed down, but would very much welcome any other views. Warofdreams talk 18:24, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Thank you to everyone for your comments. I have read these, and have also looked carefully at the support and oppose votes and discussion. I have concluded that it is reasonable to make Ramallite an administrator and have outlined a few points at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Ramallite. If you have any questions, please raise them there or on my talk page. Thanks, Warofdreams talk 17:27, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I was pleasantly surprised to be nominated for bureaucratship yesterday, and I'm quite honored. But I don't want to accept the nomination unless there's a void I'd be filling. Would another bureaucrat be useful, or would I just be superfluous? – Quadell ( talk) ( bounties) 16:33, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't think we need 50% of the bureaucrats we have.. However we can say the same for admins too. Secretlondon 16:35, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
I was recently nominated to be a bureaucrat, and the voting was very close: 85.3% support if you only count supports and opposes, 76.3% support if you include neutrals.
But there was a ton of interference with the vote: an anonymous AOL vandal, who I personally believe is the "coolie vandal", repeatedly blanked the page or altered others' comments. He frequently voted using sockpuppets, although his votes were promptly removed. He stated that I had withdrawn when I had not, fooling several users. He spammed potential voters asking them to vote against me, et cetera. Because of these problems, Cecropia stated:
There is reason to believe that this AOL vandal was effective. Of those supporting my nomination, many were admins and long-time users, while those voting oppose tended to be relatively new. Some support votes gave detailed and healtfelt comments as to why they felt I should be promoted, and many of the oppose votes were for odd reasons: my nom wasn't a self-nom, for instance, or that the position of bureaucrat was too "dangerous" no matter who was in the role. Many of the the neutral votes simply gave the reason that they weren't familiar with me, although I began editing on January 3, 2003, and have made 33,328 edits since then. It's worth looking over all the votes to get a feel for the mood. I believe that some of those not supporting my candidacy were influenced by the efforts of this AOL vandal.
Because of all this, I had optimistically expected that the bureaucrat would decide that 85.3% support (or 76.3%), considering the extenuating circumstances, would have been sufficient for promotion. The RfA page, after all, states that "the threshold for consensus here is roughly 75–80 percent support". The vote was officially closed by Cecropia with the edit summary "final (58,10,8), insufficient consensus for bureaucrat". Until I looked in the edit history, however, I didn't know what the bureaucrat had decided, since there was no information on the page or on my talk page. I am personally very disheartened by the result. The AOL vandal who worked so hard at undermining my campaign, however, was delighted: He posted to the talk pages of those who voted against me ( e.g) the following:
So my question is: was this a correct assessment of whether there was consensus or not? Is there any way to request a second look, or an appeal? I hope this decision can be revisited. Sincerely, – Quadell ( talk) ( bounties) 02:50, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
I have taken the liberty of moving Cimon and Secret to "inactive" - Secretlondon has not promoted a single user in nineteen months and 5000 edits, and Cimon has just two promotions in seventeen months. Additionally, I believe that Angela (yes, I know, I know, just don't kill the messenger here) should be moved to "inactive" as well as she has done just four admin promotions in the past year - though I shall leave that up to discussion here. Same with Ilyanep, who in the past 16 months or so has done one small batch of promotions in August 2005 - nothing again until August 2004. Naturally, putting them in the "inactive" slot does not do a thing to their status as bureaucrats, but simply illustrates the level of participation from the numerous bureaucrats. -- Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 02:50, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Still here! Just haven't gotten to the RFA page when a nomination was over. And I just don't get renames. Now with the controversy on the talk page for RFA it's just getting too instruction creepy. — Ilyan e p (Talk) 19:24, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I have updated the project page to indicate active/less active/inactive by objective measureable standards. -- Cecropia
Not only should highly inactive BCrats be demoted, but BCrats should have a new tool:
Block and admin completely.
This would stop rogue admins from protecting/deleting if a BCrat blocked them, so as to avoid needless re-blocking. A BCrat block could only be undone by an admin that is not the user in question. Any thoughts? Voice of All T| @| ESP 18:44, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
To all my fellow bureaucrats; if you haven't added WP:BN to your watchlist, I'd reccomend doing it. We could probably use this to discuss adminship nominees if needed (those that are in the grey area in particular), and if WP:RFR is instituted, it would gain a higher importance (and I think that's the best place to put it) — Ilyan e p (Talk) 03:57, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm rather lazy to retype much of what I've been saying on the mailing list and IRC, so here. I think 'crats constitute a "super-trustable" user base, and therefore they should be able to step in to stop wheel wars, etc. immediately instead of leaving it to Jimbo. I'm fed up of all the shit we've got flying around, and I know Jimbo can't keep faeces grounded forever, so I figured this is worth a shot. Somebody needs to be able to step in and say, "Everybody stop and discuss this now or we'll flip your sysop bits/block you lot, no questions asked." Johnleemk | Talk 13:06, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
There is also the potential of removing the prohibition on stewards acting on thier own projects (as far as desysopping is concerned, not promoting) as they already have the technical ability to desysop. I don't know if other projects are having this problem as well; if it's restricted basically to us, then allowing steawards to desysop here would be a good solution, as many of the existing stewards are editors here (and thus prevented from desysopping our admins). Essjay Talk • Contact 19:19, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
If anything, it'd be convenient to let us desysop for name changes. However, I'm not sure how the community feels about it (cause obviously the software can't distinguish between desysop wheel warring and name changes, but I don't think the bureaucrats are a group of people who would edit war). — Ilyan e p (Talk) 02:51, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
The issue of a functionary to handle wheel wars and other time critical issues is a good one. Linking the idea to bureaucrats is not correct IMO. We select crats for their judgement of community consensus. We pick arbitrators for their judgment in making long term rulings about user behavior. The Wheel War functionary should be chosen for their cool head and quick but reasoned judgment under pressure (plus for having the trust of Jimbo, since he will certainly be asked to review every case). While it would be no problem for a bureaucrat to be a Wheel War functionary (just as we currently have a bureaucrat/arbitrator), there is no need for us to assign Wheel War functionary duties to any existing class of functionary. They should be chosen individually for their suitability for this particular job. NoSeptember talk 06:02, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Hi, apologies if this is in the wrong place. I find User:Tiocfaidh Ár Lá's username to be offensive. Tiocfaidh Ár Lá is the slogan of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Am I right in thinking this is an inappropriate username? Stu 09:35, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Again, apologies if I'm not raising this in the right place. User:Ian.kyle.paisley's username is clearly inappropriate. As far as I know you aren't allowed to use a real person's name? Stu ’Bout ye! 10:27, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
4) Recreate the old account and then block it. This prevents someone else creating it in an attempt to impersonate the renamed user.
I propose removing this point from the Instructions for changing usernames section since it seems pointless in most cases, generally isn't done, and wouldn't be a good idea if a user is changing name for privacy reasons. Angela . 15:33, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
After making this edit to this page, Cecropia reverted the edit with the comment "When did Mr. Bell gain the competence to specify how promotions are performed?" and I found this message on my talk page:
You are not the first, nor will you be the last, person to feel that a Wikipedian was unjustly promoted or denied adminship. You have not the experience here to dictate how policy is carried out and you are presumptuous to place rules on a policy page. This is vandalism. I think you should calm down about the AzaToth nomination.
— Cecropia 10:00, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
Since I am a relatively new user here, and Cecropia is a bureaucrat with many times my experience and with considerably more power and influence, I would like to know if I have indeed crossed over the line and committed vandalism? I made this edit in good faith after a situation in which the newest bureaucrat, Francs2000, who has promoted only 12 admins since becoming a bureaucrat, erroneously calculated the support:oppose percentage on at least two occassions (stating 52 support:20 oppose was 61% and 54 support:20 oppose was 62%, when these percentages had been previously correctly stated by others to be 72% and 73%).
If making this edit to this page was indeed vandalism, can somebody please direct me to the policy pages that would allow me to gain the proper experience and perspective so that I won't make this mistake in the future? I'm feeling somewhat intimidated by having received the above comment on my talk page from a bureaucrat. Thanks, — Doug Bell talk• contrib 11:00, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
Ok, at this point this really isn't helping. If I may make a suggestion - some text to the effect of 'while bureaucrats have discretion in evaluating consensus, nominations generally have less chance of success the further they are below 80% and very little chance at below 75%' might help to reduce confusion in the future. Past cases of candidates being approved with less than 75% and the fact that a bureaucrat candidate was recently talking about the possibility of success at 70% caused some to think that the 62% vs 73% difference was potentially determinative of the outcome. That misunderstanding has led to alot of hostility on both sides... AzaToth supporters noting 73% and early closing as problems (because they thought it could pass), bureaucrats rejecting it out of hand (because they knew it would almost certainly have failed anyway), supporters finding this unneccessarily dismissive, bureaucrats finding their continued 'whining' annoying, supporters being offended and making disruptive comments, bureaucrats making threats, et cetera. Enough. Let's stop escalating this thing. -- CBDunkerson 15:49, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
First off, I don't think "Instructions for sysopping someone" is a good section title because, whether intended or not, the section is not just a help to bureaucrats but also a resource for interested editors who want to get clarification on how the process of sysopping someone works. To come up with this proposed language I've taken the text currently on the project page under "Instructions for sysoping someone" and (1) rephrased it to not read like a recipe from a cookbook but like an explanation of the process that can be read both as a help to the attending bureaucrat and as an explanation to inquiring editor minds, (2) clarified (and indicated where I think more clarity is still needed) the issue of "bogus" votes and sockpuppetry, and (3) clarified the percentage benchmarks and their implications. I believe, I have in no way changed the spirit of the process that is followed today, only clarified it.
As stated before the benefit of a clearer stated description is, among others, reduced stress and frustration for both bureaucrats closing the vote and interested editors. Fact is, clarity prevents the kind of heated argument we had this past weekend. It is important that the rules are transparent to the extent they can be. Otherwise people will not trust the system. It would show the willingness on the part of bureaucrats to be accountable for their actions. And accountability, even if it is just the perception of it, increases trust.
--
Mmounties (
Talk)
02:46, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Comment I think the wording of extenuating circumstances for admin nominations of less than 75% support is vague a bit. I believe that the Bcrats are in their positions due to them being regarded as the best available to make judgement calls when we vote them in to these positions. I respect that if they have promoted someone with less than a 75% margin, then they did so only after careful review. We must remember that some voters have opposition for reasons that have little to do with whether they will be good admins...be it politics or personal biases. Though the numbers of 75-80%, etc are good and help to set standards, I fear instruction creep. Admins can be desysopped, so I am not worried that a Bcrat may promote amarginal candidate that ends up doing a lousy job...in fact, I can think of this happening only once or twice in my 14 months of involvement with this project. But the "rule of thumb" I suppose means that there is leeway still in the decision making process.-- MONGO 03:32, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Comment I'm not arguing with the reasonableness of this proposal, but I must point out that the Bureaucrat instructions are supposed to reflect the current state of practice rather than our ideas of what the best practice might be. The rules for sysoping have been hashed out over many discussions in the last two years. The most controversial part of the proposal is that which would have bureaucrats, on their own initiative, routing out socks and "bogus" votes on every nomination. One person's valid vote is another's trash vote. Policy has been that any logged-in editors can vote any way they want for any reason at all, but that Bureaucrats are allowed to cancel votes for demonstrable fraud when the vote is close, or when the fraud has been pointed out and satisfactorily demonstrated by the 'crat or any other complaining party. I would point out here that, through all this, I have been arguing for bcrats, including myself, to have less power than some seem interested in granting us. -- Cecropia 03:42, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Comment I can see that this is a well intentioned proposal by Mmounties and, no doubt, born out of the aftermath of AzaToth's failed RfA. Unfortunately, I see no need to modify the "instructions" as they stand. This proposal adds nothing substantive to them, other than more words and the explicit addition of the mathematical formula to calculate the relevant percentage. The necessary procedures are already adequately documented. Mistakes are made by humans, but adding this information would probably not have averted the miscalculation made in AzaToth's RfA. Regardless of any miscalculation, it was still below 75%, but that is another debate that has been played out elsewhere. Please, let's not revive it here. -- Cactus.man ✍ 10:19, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
The minor clerical error at the heart of all this was caused by the clocks in the UK going forward by one hour and thus no longer being aligned with UTC. Nothing in the proposed instructions (which I don't think are necessary) would have avoided that, or will avoid it in future. - Splash talk 14:04, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Ok. IMHO this latest statement of Splash is incredibly arrogant. First off, there is nothing "instruction creepy" about any of the proposed language as it adds nothing to the process that is already followed. It just makes it clearer to the uninitiated. But it is quite apparent now that it is YOU who cannot see past the AzaToth candidacy, let's get that part straight. It is also becoming quite clear that you really don't respect the community (how else could you so non-chalantly insult new users?) and that you don't care whether others can take away from this page how the process works. What's more, after this last statement I must come to the conclusion that you don't consider it in your best interest that they do. Let it be stated that this is very unwiki-like. I've tried my best to help eliminate misunderstandings and conflict but I am slowly coming to the conclusion that perhaps those misunderstandings serve a hidden purpose of some of the involved here. But you really don't want to eliminate them, do you?! Heck, if nothing else, it gives you a chance to feel superior and tell others off from time to time because "they don't know what the process is, anyway?!" I suppose it's not surprising then that you would flat-out refuse to remove or even honestly consider to remove the obstacles to such a clearer understanding. --
Mmounties (
Talk)
16:12, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! -- Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 14:28, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" looks like talk page vandalism to me. We must block Jeffrey ;). NoSeptember talk 17:32, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
We now have had more than 100 name changes in the past 30 days. I just removed Warofdreams from the active name change list because his last action was February 22nd. Rdsmith4 will shortly be removed for having his last change on March 3rd. Perhaps doing it by the last 100 changes makes for too short a time period. We could do it by "last 3 months" or "last 2 months" or whatever. Thoughts? NoSeptember talk 17:17, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
I have merged these because I don't see any particular value in maintaining three different "degrees" of activitiy. I think that it is worthwhile to separate out those bureaucrats who have never participated in any bureaucrat-related duties in order to give the reader an idea of the number of 'crats who are actively partcipating. Further subdivisions seem unhelpful, particularly when the logs are readily available for those who are interested in exact details. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 16:53, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
I was just noticing, as I was discussing the new bot flagging responsibilities with someone, that quite a few of the individuals listed as "active" haven't done anything since the beginning of the year. Would anyone object to moving bureaucrats who have not done anything since the beginning of the year into the "inactive" category? It seems a bit deceptive to list someone who hasn't done anything since March, June, or September 2005 as "active." Essjay Talk • Contact 01:41, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Excellent! Essjay ( Talk • Connect) 16:42, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
Are bureaucrats able to revert confusing and unclear (due to high-frequency editing) history pages? If not, who is? -- dreadlady 19:23, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
The instructions for sysoping curently read Check the history for the transcluded page to be reasonably sure that the votes are genuine. but that makes no sense as transcluded pages aren't included in histories. Surely the bureaucrat should check the history of the transcluded page where the "votes" are made. I was bold and changed the wording, calling it a typo, but was reverted, so I'm asking here if the wording has another meaning that is simply opaque to me. Eluchil404 00:00, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
I believe the original sentence was worded as in something like "for that particular case, the steps taken were(...)". Since the history of each RfA is not included in the history of the main RfA page, we must check the history for the transcluded page (the history of that specific RfA), as opposed to checking the history of the main RfA page for the history of each RfA, which will not be there. Redux 13:19, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
During a recent event in RfA, a [known, but often left-aside] situation caused me to think about a detail in the structuring of this page. I'd do it myself right away, but I thought it would be interesting to get a little feedback here first.
I propose we move the account
Dannyisme to a sui generis line, removing it from the "inactive" list. That's because Dannyisme really is a sui generis account: it belongs to
Danny and it exists (and holds admin and Bureaucrat status) solely for the purposes of
WP:OFFICE. As such, it is not really supposed to be active in the common assertion of the term. I'm thinking it's somewhat misleading to have it listed as an "inactive Bureaucrat". Thoughts?
Redux
11:41, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Just a quick note:Does it seem logical to have "inactive bureaucrats" under "Curently Active bureaucrats"? New Babylon
While writing on the Bureaucracy of the English-language Wikipedia, specifically about the active Bureaucrats, I came to think that the list on this page is not really reflecting the actual state of affairs. So, based on recent activity (Bureaucrat logs) and inspired in the list of Administrators, I would like to propose the following rearrangement of the list:
Thoughts? Redux 19:43, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't think such a fine gradation of meaning is significant. I originally broke the list into "active" and "inactive" segements to make it clearer to the community that there were only a handful of people actually performing promotions at all. Many of the "first wave" bureaucrats have had no ongoing interest in RFA. There are more bureaucrats now, and although a distinction between active and inactive is still relevant, I don't believe we need a sorted list updated quarterly. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 19:57, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
On a related note, Danny's "sui generis" role is that of a steward; the fact that his Dannyisme account has the 'crat flag set may be an oversight. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 20:01, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
i got married in june and then moved from california to new york. but i am now ready to become active again as a bureaucrat. Kingturtle 00:09, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
From the village pump 4th Feburary 2004
I stumbled over this at special:Specialpages... is there anyone with this access yet? Or is it a new thing? Just curious. Pakaran . 03:58, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)
From above:
Well, not unless they are Michael Swanwick fans... (sorry, obscure joke. Check out Stations of the Tide sometime.) -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen 22:53, Feb 6, 2004 (UTC)
I successfully utilized the system to make Tillwe and Francs2000 admins. However, when I tried to make Pakaran and Cprompt admins the system failed.
Any ideas? Kingturtle 08:23, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Since the institution of a bureaucracy is a relatively new one on Wikipedia, we have an opportunity to craft customs and common practices. In particular, I would like to address the question of the addition an extra layer of hierarchy to the power/technical privilege structure (my premise being, of course, that this is a bad thing).
One possible solution is that every sysop could have bureaucrat privileges. However, there appears to be considerable opposition to that idea, judging from the response to the suggestion on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship. My own feeling about this idea is that it isn't parsimonious: in terms of our practical requirements, it's overkill. Still, it would resolve the issue.
Another possible solution, suggested by Maximus Rex, is that two sysops would be required to enact a promotion. This would require developer time to implement, but it seems a fairly reasonable suggestion nonetheless.
My own feeling is that we can establish a custom that lessens the impact of this further level of hierarchy. Specifically, I propose that every so often (say, two or three or four months), bureaucrats, at their own individual discretion, shall nominate someone they trust to take over their bureaucrat status. This allows the role of bureaucrat to "flow" throughout the group of sysops. I also propose that if, after their tenure, any bureaucrat feels that more bureaucrats are needed, he or she shall simply nominate two people to take over the bureaucrat role. This will hopefully take care of any problems due an insufficiency of bureaucrats.
The best part is that there doesn't have to be a vote about it. ;-)-- Cyan 02:41, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I can see that various people have been made Bureaucrats as a result of voting. Where did the original set of these people come from? Morwen 09:23, Mar 5, 2004 (UTC)
Should this page be protected? There's no reason for anyone besides sysops to edit this page... of course, it doesn't really matter... ugen64 23:22, Mar 14, 2004 (UTC)
I have sectioned the page similar to Wikipedia:List of administrators, indicating which bureaucrats are active and which are not. I have also added 1 account that is marked as bureaucrat but was not listed. Doppelgänger 16:57, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Here are some stats about the current bureaucrats. "Not voted in" means they were bureaucrated unilaterally by Eloquence when the bureaucrat status was first introduced. I would support the debureaucratting of the final four groups and confirmation after a year for the first two groups. The numbers in parentheses are the number of times they have used their bureaucrat status.
See also the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship which implies bureaucrats ought to be receive a higher percentage of votes than admins and that inactive bureaucrats make bad decisions. Angela . 23:55, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)
How about this?
Since group 4 is only Angela and TUFF-KAT, I don't see the need to force them to immediate reconfirmation simply because they were appointed, as I don't know of any dissatisfaction with their work. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 01:05, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
In Group 3, I object to removing Bcorr's bureaucrat status based on "inactivity", given that he is by far the newest bureaucrat (fewer than two months) and therefore hasn't had much opportunity to be active in this capacity. After all, Danny, who was made a bureaucrat one month earlier, has used his bureaucrat status exactly once. There is absolutely no reason to treat Danny and Bcorr differently here. [Oh, and Pakaran has since exercised his ability to promote Slowking Man. -- Michael Snow 06:24, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)]
I do support Angela's suggestion of removing the other bureaucrats who are inactive or were not voted in, subject to reappointment through the current process. -- Michael Snow 01:19, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
You should all get the status flag by virtue of participating in this discussion, since it proves that you're a bunch of fucking bureaucrats!-- Eloquence *
Angela, Cecropia and Kingturtle apparently performed 73% of all adminship operations. Commendable enthusiasm, but...it's nice to spread the workload and give others a chance to exercise their capabilities. Perhaps a guideline that an bureaucrat should allow (number of bureaucrats / 3 rounded down = 5 at present) other bureaucrats to act before acting again may be of value? Waived if it's three days or more since a candidate clearly succeeded, not if there is clear disagreement by some non-minor portion of the community. Not a rigid rule, but a wait of a few days is unlikely to do lasting emotional harm to a candidate.:) Jamesday 06:57, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I haven't followed any of the discussions at RfA or elsewhere. So just looking at this discussion, I would say: Yes to reapplication for last four groups: those that are active will most likely be un-de-bureaucrated on a quick vote (perhaps have the vote before possible debureaucrating to avoid a discontinuity). If noting else, it puts everyone on the same footing.
Secondly general debureaucrating should be based on a lack of any editing or a dissatisfaction with/abuse of a bureaucrats powers. If someone thinks a bureaucrat isn't pulling their weight, that can be voted on on an individual basis. -- Solipsist 08:57, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I am working on new policy for the dutch wikipedia regarding becoming a admin and bureaucrat. Current policy is that any admin can become a bureaucrat if the ask for it. No one has ever used that option until now. Current there is only one bureaucrat on the dutch wikipedia.
There is here on the English Wikipedia a special vote for it and it looks like the bureaucrats have a higher status because the need more votes to become a bureaucrat then for a admin. What is exactly the status of a bureaucrat here? For me a the only difference is that the can make admins and bureaucrats. But the are like admins servants of the community. Walter 09:03, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I am the bureaucrat of the Hebrew Wikipedia, and I feel uneasy that I can't remove sysop rights from a user that I have nominated to be a sysop (I must ask Angela to do this for me, after the vote for removing the sysop has ended). This asymmetry makes me very careful, too careful, before nominating a new sysop. There was only one case that I badly needed to remove a sysop, but it still bothers me. Removal of sysop rights will be done according to the current procedure, but after the vote has ended the bureaucrat should be able to do the rest of the task. David Shay 18:53, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
crossposted to
m:Talk:Bureaucrat
Recent events (see
Special:Log/rights and
[1]) reveal that it's possible for at least one bureaucrat, on en:, to remove sysop access. Questions arise:
Does anyone know anything about this? — Charles P. (Mirv) 20:01, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Apparently Anthere does:
From [2]
So I have no further questions. — Charles P. (Mirv) 20:20, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Dear Bureaucrats, please allow me to offer a few comments on the Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship process, from one who recently was not accepted into those hallowed halls.
As this process is one that the Bureaucrats "do", and so it takes your time, I think that it deserves a little of your attention to neaten up the process, for your and everyone else's benefit.
(1) As I commented at my talk, I am in an organisation with ISO 9000 quality management procedures and I found this whole adminship process a bit "untidy". It screams out for clarity at all of the steps.
(2) While User:Cecropia announced my non-elevation, it was not clear to me under what authority this was being done. Therefore, I asked questions along those lines for several days. Hence, I suggest that something like this form of words be incoporated into the instructions: "As the Wikipedia:Bureaucrat in this case, I am informing you that..."
(3) The process is not clearly laid down for the users of the process, as far as I can see: It's at the Bureaucrat page (!) where the process is set down in numbered-list form, at ( Wikipedia:Bureaucrat#Instructions for sysoping someone). Hence, I suggest that this be clarified then copied, or moved, in some form to Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship so that everyone knows what's ahead going in, and can follow the process.
It might look something like this:
After the voting period has begun, a Wikipedia:Bureaucrat will:
Of course, I don't know everything. Hoping this helps, talk Peter Ellis 19:24, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
It should be noted that there is quite a bit of support for bureaucrats getting access view the IP addresses of logged in users at m:CheckUser. This means that the powers of a bureaucrat could soon become a lot less limited. This should be kept in mind when deciding whom to nominate or support for bureaucratship. Taco Deposit | Talk-o to Taco 19:13, May 1, 2005 (UTC)
Is there value in the extra layer of, ermmm, bureaucracy, in having bureaucrats and stewards separate? I thought we had a debate on this one time but couldn't find it. Pcb21| Pete 15:41, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
I don't know that it serves any useful purpose except curiosity to list how active Bureaucrats have been, but, anyway, the percentages aren't accurate. I believe I've made something more than 1/3 of sysopings, but well less than 1/2, rather than the 3/4 I'm shown as having done. I think whoever did the counting forgot to include the Old bureaucrat log which shows, for example, that Angela made a huge number of sysopings. Also, before the logs were instituted, I think Ed Poor made almost all the sysopings. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 7 July 2005 08:06 (UTC)
I wonder whether it is time for this group to be called something other than "bureaucrats."
The Uninvited Co., Inc. 18:32, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
Ninjas are better than pirates. R e dwolf24 ( talk) 13:33, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
I brought it up because one highly respected individual refuses to become a bureaucrat because of the name. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 15:13, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
May I suggest the title be changed to Admins on Wheels? No? OK. ;-) Func( t, c, @, ) 17:32, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
I agree that bureaucrat is a bit of a misnomer, but a rose by any other name, yada yada. Andre ( talk) 18:33, August 31, 2005 (UTC)
The reason for originally giving the position the name of "bureaucrat" is still relevant. Leave the name as is. Taco Deposit | Talk-o to Taco 18:47, August 31, 2005 (UTC)
Daimons sounds cool, but it's either Lambies or no change ;) —
Ilγαηερ
(Tαlκ)
11:40, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
"Superadministrator"? Sure, it connotes extra privilege (beyond the ability to promote admins), but so does "administrator". ~~ N ( t/ c) 16:47, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Bureaucrat consensus poll. Andre ( talk) 19:31, September 4, 2005 (UTC)
Apparently Anthere isn't on this list [3] - is this an error? Andre ( talk) 19:41, September 4, 2005 (UTC)
Tim Starling: (Bureaucrat, checkuser, developer, sysop) -- what is checkuser. Is that IP address checking or what? — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 19:47, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
Well, shouldn't everyone who had bureaucrat status and who won a bureaucrat election be on this list? Andre ( talk) 19:51, September 4, 2005 (UTC)
Danny is listed here but he's a Steward as well. Taco Deposit | Talk-o to Taco 23:41, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
Image:Hermes bcrat.jpg so obviously doesn't qualify as fair use, I'm surprised anyone would revert its removal. Per the wording in the copyright tag itself, "It is believed that the use of a limited number of web-resolution screenshots for identification and critical commentary on the film or television program and its contents on the English-language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the United States by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law. Any other uses of this image, on Wikipedia or elsewhere, may be copyright infringement." That seems pretty clear-cut to me. Before you restore the image, please discuss why you think that image, used on this page, qualifies as fair use. Taco Deposit | Talk-o to Taco 17:49, September 11, 2005 (UTC)
This page says Ed Poor as no longer a bureaucrat, but the Special:Listusers page says he is. [4] Is one of the two an error? -- Tabor 21:15, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
This page is definitely the wrong place to post this, but at meta: meta talk:Requests for deletion and meta:talk:Main Page which would have been more appropriate I got no answer. In fact, I doubt there is an appropriate forum in which to discuss the deletion of a language version of Wikipedia to start with. So I thought, wrongly perhaps, that this page is the more likely place where I could get some "authoritive" opinions.
The background of the issue and some comments on it are available at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Moldovan Wikipedia. More information can be found at mo:User:Ronline/Propunere. In short, mo.wikipedia.org is a version of Wikipedia written in Romanian with Cyrillic characters. This combination is used nowhere in the world except in Transnistria which is a breakaway region of Republic of Moldova without international recognition and with a rather dubious regime. It is a relic from Soviet times, when in Republic of Moldova people used Cyrillic.
There are two views on this matter. Some people think that nothing is wrong with having Wikipedia in all languages/character sets possible. The number of potential readers and editors of this particular version of Wikipedia is very small, but it still could be useful. And deleting a language version of Wikipedia would be against the Wiki spirit, would make Wikipedia politicized, etc.
The other view is mostly reflected by people in Republic of Moldova itself and neighbouring Romania (again, we are talking about the Romanian language here, the issue is the set of characters — in Romania proper they use the Latin alphabet). To us (I am from Republic of Moldova) writing our language in Cyrillic is a symbol of what was wrong with the Soviet Union, a totalitarian regime which did not give us even the choice of how to write our own language, and of all the tragedies which happened after Republic of Moldova was annexed to the Soviet Union in 1940 and then again in 1945.
The discussion of this issue has been going on since June; see again mo:User:Ronline/Propunere. Neither side of course has any power to do anything about it (an administrator is not enough to close it down, for example), and that is why I am writing here. My big question is, where to have a discussion of this issue, and more importantly, how to reach a binding decision on the matter. Thank you. Oleg Alexandrov ( talk) 05:23, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
This is the wrong venue. This issue has come up before on Wikipedia-l mailing list which is the appropriate venue. Secret london 06:44, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
This nomination is extremely close to the cut-off level of voting. With a high level of participation, and a few possible sock puppet votes, the nomination doesn't quite reach 80%. I'm inclined towards not promoting Ramallite, but suggesting a new nomination in a month or so, once things have calmed down, but would very much welcome any other views. Warofdreams talk 18:24, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Thank you to everyone for your comments. I have read these, and have also looked carefully at the support and oppose votes and discussion. I have concluded that it is reasonable to make Ramallite an administrator and have outlined a few points at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Ramallite. If you have any questions, please raise them there or on my talk page. Thanks, Warofdreams talk 17:27, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I was pleasantly surprised to be nominated for bureaucratship yesterday, and I'm quite honored. But I don't want to accept the nomination unless there's a void I'd be filling. Would another bureaucrat be useful, or would I just be superfluous? – Quadell ( talk) ( bounties) 16:33, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't think we need 50% of the bureaucrats we have.. However we can say the same for admins too. Secretlondon 16:35, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
I was recently nominated to be a bureaucrat, and the voting was very close: 85.3% support if you only count supports and opposes, 76.3% support if you include neutrals.
But there was a ton of interference with the vote: an anonymous AOL vandal, who I personally believe is the "coolie vandal", repeatedly blanked the page or altered others' comments. He frequently voted using sockpuppets, although his votes were promptly removed. He stated that I had withdrawn when I had not, fooling several users. He spammed potential voters asking them to vote against me, et cetera. Because of these problems, Cecropia stated:
There is reason to believe that this AOL vandal was effective. Of those supporting my nomination, many were admins and long-time users, while those voting oppose tended to be relatively new. Some support votes gave detailed and healtfelt comments as to why they felt I should be promoted, and many of the oppose votes were for odd reasons: my nom wasn't a self-nom, for instance, or that the position of bureaucrat was too "dangerous" no matter who was in the role. Many of the the neutral votes simply gave the reason that they weren't familiar with me, although I began editing on January 3, 2003, and have made 33,328 edits since then. It's worth looking over all the votes to get a feel for the mood. I believe that some of those not supporting my candidacy were influenced by the efforts of this AOL vandal.
Because of all this, I had optimistically expected that the bureaucrat would decide that 85.3% support (or 76.3%), considering the extenuating circumstances, would have been sufficient for promotion. The RfA page, after all, states that "the threshold for consensus here is roughly 75–80 percent support". The vote was officially closed by Cecropia with the edit summary "final (58,10,8), insufficient consensus for bureaucrat". Until I looked in the edit history, however, I didn't know what the bureaucrat had decided, since there was no information on the page or on my talk page. I am personally very disheartened by the result. The AOL vandal who worked so hard at undermining my campaign, however, was delighted: He posted to the talk pages of those who voted against me ( e.g) the following:
So my question is: was this a correct assessment of whether there was consensus or not? Is there any way to request a second look, or an appeal? I hope this decision can be revisited. Sincerely, – Quadell ( talk) ( bounties) 02:50, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
I have taken the liberty of moving Cimon and Secret to "inactive" - Secretlondon has not promoted a single user in nineteen months and 5000 edits, and Cimon has just two promotions in seventeen months. Additionally, I believe that Angela (yes, I know, I know, just don't kill the messenger here) should be moved to "inactive" as well as she has done just four admin promotions in the past year - though I shall leave that up to discussion here. Same with Ilyanep, who in the past 16 months or so has done one small batch of promotions in August 2005 - nothing again until August 2004. Naturally, putting them in the "inactive" slot does not do a thing to their status as bureaucrats, but simply illustrates the level of participation from the numerous bureaucrats. -- Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 02:50, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Still here! Just haven't gotten to the RFA page when a nomination was over. And I just don't get renames. Now with the controversy on the talk page for RFA it's just getting too instruction creepy. — Ilyan e p (Talk) 19:24, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I have updated the project page to indicate active/less active/inactive by objective measureable standards. -- Cecropia
Not only should highly inactive BCrats be demoted, but BCrats should have a new tool:
Block and admin completely.
This would stop rogue admins from protecting/deleting if a BCrat blocked them, so as to avoid needless re-blocking. A BCrat block could only be undone by an admin that is not the user in question. Any thoughts? Voice of All T| @| ESP 18:44, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
To all my fellow bureaucrats; if you haven't added WP:BN to your watchlist, I'd reccomend doing it. We could probably use this to discuss adminship nominees if needed (those that are in the grey area in particular), and if WP:RFR is instituted, it would gain a higher importance (and I think that's the best place to put it) — Ilyan e p (Talk) 03:57, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm rather lazy to retype much of what I've been saying on the mailing list and IRC, so here. I think 'crats constitute a "super-trustable" user base, and therefore they should be able to step in to stop wheel wars, etc. immediately instead of leaving it to Jimbo. I'm fed up of all the shit we've got flying around, and I know Jimbo can't keep faeces grounded forever, so I figured this is worth a shot. Somebody needs to be able to step in and say, "Everybody stop and discuss this now or we'll flip your sysop bits/block you lot, no questions asked." Johnleemk | Talk 13:06, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
There is also the potential of removing the prohibition on stewards acting on thier own projects (as far as desysopping is concerned, not promoting) as they already have the technical ability to desysop. I don't know if other projects are having this problem as well; if it's restricted basically to us, then allowing steawards to desysop here would be a good solution, as many of the existing stewards are editors here (and thus prevented from desysopping our admins). Essjay Talk • Contact 19:19, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
If anything, it'd be convenient to let us desysop for name changes. However, I'm not sure how the community feels about it (cause obviously the software can't distinguish between desysop wheel warring and name changes, but I don't think the bureaucrats are a group of people who would edit war). — Ilyan e p (Talk) 02:51, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
The issue of a functionary to handle wheel wars and other time critical issues is a good one. Linking the idea to bureaucrats is not correct IMO. We select crats for their judgement of community consensus. We pick arbitrators for their judgment in making long term rulings about user behavior. The Wheel War functionary should be chosen for their cool head and quick but reasoned judgment under pressure (plus for having the trust of Jimbo, since he will certainly be asked to review every case). While it would be no problem for a bureaucrat to be a Wheel War functionary (just as we currently have a bureaucrat/arbitrator), there is no need for us to assign Wheel War functionary duties to any existing class of functionary. They should be chosen individually for their suitability for this particular job. NoSeptember talk 06:02, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Hi, apologies if this is in the wrong place. I find User:Tiocfaidh Ár Lá's username to be offensive. Tiocfaidh Ár Lá is the slogan of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Am I right in thinking this is an inappropriate username? Stu 09:35, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Again, apologies if I'm not raising this in the right place. User:Ian.kyle.paisley's username is clearly inappropriate. As far as I know you aren't allowed to use a real person's name? Stu ’Bout ye! 10:27, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
4) Recreate the old account and then block it. This prevents someone else creating it in an attempt to impersonate the renamed user.
I propose removing this point from the Instructions for changing usernames section since it seems pointless in most cases, generally isn't done, and wouldn't be a good idea if a user is changing name for privacy reasons. Angela . 15:33, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
After making this edit to this page, Cecropia reverted the edit with the comment "When did Mr. Bell gain the competence to specify how promotions are performed?" and I found this message on my talk page:
You are not the first, nor will you be the last, person to feel that a Wikipedian was unjustly promoted or denied adminship. You have not the experience here to dictate how policy is carried out and you are presumptuous to place rules on a policy page. This is vandalism. I think you should calm down about the AzaToth nomination.
— Cecropia 10:00, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
Since I am a relatively new user here, and Cecropia is a bureaucrat with many times my experience and with considerably more power and influence, I would like to know if I have indeed crossed over the line and committed vandalism? I made this edit in good faith after a situation in which the newest bureaucrat, Francs2000, who has promoted only 12 admins since becoming a bureaucrat, erroneously calculated the support:oppose percentage on at least two occassions (stating 52 support:20 oppose was 61% and 54 support:20 oppose was 62%, when these percentages had been previously correctly stated by others to be 72% and 73%).
If making this edit to this page was indeed vandalism, can somebody please direct me to the policy pages that would allow me to gain the proper experience and perspective so that I won't make this mistake in the future? I'm feeling somewhat intimidated by having received the above comment on my talk page from a bureaucrat. Thanks, — Doug Bell talk• contrib 11:00, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
Ok, at this point this really isn't helping. If I may make a suggestion - some text to the effect of 'while bureaucrats have discretion in evaluating consensus, nominations generally have less chance of success the further they are below 80% and very little chance at below 75%' might help to reduce confusion in the future. Past cases of candidates being approved with less than 75% and the fact that a bureaucrat candidate was recently talking about the possibility of success at 70% caused some to think that the 62% vs 73% difference was potentially determinative of the outcome. That misunderstanding has led to alot of hostility on both sides... AzaToth supporters noting 73% and early closing as problems (because they thought it could pass), bureaucrats rejecting it out of hand (because they knew it would almost certainly have failed anyway), supporters finding this unneccessarily dismissive, bureaucrats finding their continued 'whining' annoying, supporters being offended and making disruptive comments, bureaucrats making threats, et cetera. Enough. Let's stop escalating this thing. -- CBDunkerson 15:49, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
First off, I don't think "Instructions for sysopping someone" is a good section title because, whether intended or not, the section is not just a help to bureaucrats but also a resource for interested editors who want to get clarification on how the process of sysopping someone works. To come up with this proposed language I've taken the text currently on the project page under "Instructions for sysoping someone" and (1) rephrased it to not read like a recipe from a cookbook but like an explanation of the process that can be read both as a help to the attending bureaucrat and as an explanation to inquiring editor minds, (2) clarified (and indicated where I think more clarity is still needed) the issue of "bogus" votes and sockpuppetry, and (3) clarified the percentage benchmarks and their implications. I believe, I have in no way changed the spirit of the process that is followed today, only clarified it.
As stated before the benefit of a clearer stated description is, among others, reduced stress and frustration for both bureaucrats closing the vote and interested editors. Fact is, clarity prevents the kind of heated argument we had this past weekend. It is important that the rules are transparent to the extent they can be. Otherwise people will not trust the system. It would show the willingness on the part of bureaucrats to be accountable for their actions. And accountability, even if it is just the perception of it, increases trust.
--
Mmounties (
Talk)
02:46, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Comment I think the wording of extenuating circumstances for admin nominations of less than 75% support is vague a bit. I believe that the Bcrats are in their positions due to them being regarded as the best available to make judgement calls when we vote them in to these positions. I respect that if they have promoted someone with less than a 75% margin, then they did so only after careful review. We must remember that some voters have opposition for reasons that have little to do with whether they will be good admins...be it politics or personal biases. Though the numbers of 75-80%, etc are good and help to set standards, I fear instruction creep. Admins can be desysopped, so I am not worried that a Bcrat may promote amarginal candidate that ends up doing a lousy job...in fact, I can think of this happening only once or twice in my 14 months of involvement with this project. But the "rule of thumb" I suppose means that there is leeway still in the decision making process.-- MONGO 03:32, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Comment I'm not arguing with the reasonableness of this proposal, but I must point out that the Bureaucrat instructions are supposed to reflect the current state of practice rather than our ideas of what the best practice might be. The rules for sysoping have been hashed out over many discussions in the last two years. The most controversial part of the proposal is that which would have bureaucrats, on their own initiative, routing out socks and "bogus" votes on every nomination. One person's valid vote is another's trash vote. Policy has been that any logged-in editors can vote any way they want for any reason at all, but that Bureaucrats are allowed to cancel votes for demonstrable fraud when the vote is close, or when the fraud has been pointed out and satisfactorily demonstrated by the 'crat or any other complaining party. I would point out here that, through all this, I have been arguing for bcrats, including myself, to have less power than some seem interested in granting us. -- Cecropia 03:42, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Comment I can see that this is a well intentioned proposal by Mmounties and, no doubt, born out of the aftermath of AzaToth's failed RfA. Unfortunately, I see no need to modify the "instructions" as they stand. This proposal adds nothing substantive to them, other than more words and the explicit addition of the mathematical formula to calculate the relevant percentage. The necessary procedures are already adequately documented. Mistakes are made by humans, but adding this information would probably not have averted the miscalculation made in AzaToth's RfA. Regardless of any miscalculation, it was still below 75%, but that is another debate that has been played out elsewhere. Please, let's not revive it here. -- Cactus.man ✍ 10:19, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
The minor clerical error at the heart of all this was caused by the clocks in the UK going forward by one hour and thus no longer being aligned with UTC. Nothing in the proposed instructions (which I don't think are necessary) would have avoided that, or will avoid it in future. - Splash talk 14:04, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Ok. IMHO this latest statement of Splash is incredibly arrogant. First off, there is nothing "instruction creepy" about any of the proposed language as it adds nothing to the process that is already followed. It just makes it clearer to the uninitiated. But it is quite apparent now that it is YOU who cannot see past the AzaToth candidacy, let's get that part straight. It is also becoming quite clear that you really don't respect the community (how else could you so non-chalantly insult new users?) and that you don't care whether others can take away from this page how the process works. What's more, after this last statement I must come to the conclusion that you don't consider it in your best interest that they do. Let it be stated that this is very unwiki-like. I've tried my best to help eliminate misunderstandings and conflict but I am slowly coming to the conclusion that perhaps those misunderstandings serve a hidden purpose of some of the involved here. But you really don't want to eliminate them, do you?! Heck, if nothing else, it gives you a chance to feel superior and tell others off from time to time because "they don't know what the process is, anyway?!" I suppose it's not surprising then that you would flat-out refuse to remove or even honestly consider to remove the obstacles to such a clearer understanding. --
Mmounties (
Talk)
16:12, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! -- Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 14:28, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" looks like talk page vandalism to me. We must block Jeffrey ;). NoSeptember talk 17:32, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
We now have had more than 100 name changes in the past 30 days. I just removed Warofdreams from the active name change list because his last action was February 22nd. Rdsmith4 will shortly be removed for having his last change on March 3rd. Perhaps doing it by the last 100 changes makes for too short a time period. We could do it by "last 3 months" or "last 2 months" or whatever. Thoughts? NoSeptember talk 17:17, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
I have merged these because I don't see any particular value in maintaining three different "degrees" of activitiy. I think that it is worthwhile to separate out those bureaucrats who have never participated in any bureaucrat-related duties in order to give the reader an idea of the number of 'crats who are actively partcipating. Further subdivisions seem unhelpful, particularly when the logs are readily available for those who are interested in exact details. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 16:53, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
I was just noticing, as I was discussing the new bot flagging responsibilities with someone, that quite a few of the individuals listed as "active" haven't done anything since the beginning of the year. Would anyone object to moving bureaucrats who have not done anything since the beginning of the year into the "inactive" category? It seems a bit deceptive to list someone who hasn't done anything since March, June, or September 2005 as "active." Essjay Talk • Contact 01:41, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Excellent! Essjay ( Talk • Connect) 16:42, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
Are bureaucrats able to revert confusing and unclear (due to high-frequency editing) history pages? If not, who is? -- dreadlady 19:23, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
The instructions for sysoping curently read Check the history for the transcluded page to be reasonably sure that the votes are genuine. but that makes no sense as transcluded pages aren't included in histories. Surely the bureaucrat should check the history of the transcluded page where the "votes" are made. I was bold and changed the wording, calling it a typo, but was reverted, so I'm asking here if the wording has another meaning that is simply opaque to me. Eluchil404 00:00, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
I believe the original sentence was worded as in something like "for that particular case, the steps taken were(...)". Since the history of each RfA is not included in the history of the main RfA page, we must check the history for the transcluded page (the history of that specific RfA), as opposed to checking the history of the main RfA page for the history of each RfA, which will not be there. Redux 13:19, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
During a recent event in RfA, a [known, but often left-aside] situation caused me to think about a detail in the structuring of this page. I'd do it myself right away, but I thought it would be interesting to get a little feedback here first.
I propose we move the account
Dannyisme to a sui generis line, removing it from the "inactive" list. That's because Dannyisme really is a sui generis account: it belongs to
Danny and it exists (and holds admin and Bureaucrat status) solely for the purposes of
WP:OFFICE. As such, it is not really supposed to be active in the common assertion of the term. I'm thinking it's somewhat misleading to have it listed as an "inactive Bureaucrat". Thoughts?
Redux
11:41, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Just a quick note:Does it seem logical to have "inactive bureaucrats" under "Curently Active bureaucrats"? New Babylon
While writing on the Bureaucracy of the English-language Wikipedia, specifically about the active Bureaucrats, I came to think that the list on this page is not really reflecting the actual state of affairs. So, based on recent activity (Bureaucrat logs) and inspired in the list of Administrators, I would like to propose the following rearrangement of the list:
Thoughts? Redux 19:43, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't think such a fine gradation of meaning is significant. I originally broke the list into "active" and "inactive" segements to make it clearer to the community that there were only a handful of people actually performing promotions at all. Many of the "first wave" bureaucrats have had no ongoing interest in RFA. There are more bureaucrats now, and although a distinction between active and inactive is still relevant, I don't believe we need a sorted list updated quarterly. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 19:57, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
On a related note, Danny's "sui generis" role is that of a steward; the fact that his Dannyisme account has the 'crat flag set may be an oversight. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 20:01, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
i got married in june and then moved from california to new york. but i am now ready to become active again as a bureaucrat. Kingturtle 00:09, 7 August 2006 (UTC)