There is no reason why these mechanisms ought to be mutually exclusive. At the very least there ought to be scope to declare preferences (e.g. Roux's model first choice, Tony1's if that does not pass, Uncle G's if neither pass). Unless someone objects, I'll alter this accordingly. Skomorokh, barbarian 19:27, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Currently there is just an open call to join this project listed there, it should probably be modified to point to this RFC as the more participants we have the better results we are likely to get. Beeblebrox ( talk) 19:38, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
... for completeness. Not sure I'd support it being made mandatory but maybe? If we MUST have a mandatory recall process, that's the one I like. Also, maybe move the Status Quo to option 0 so it's always first, or move it to be last? dunno. It's in the middle now. ++ Lar: t/ c 22:55, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
(undent) No, it's just not the point of this RFC. We're here to discuss which of these processes to put our efforts into, not who would specifically be the subject of the reports. If you don't think we need a process at all, then option 0, the status quo, is for you, put your support there. It's ironic that you would accuse others of being McCarthyist when you are the one demanding that names be named, exactly as Joe McCarthy did. Beeblebrox ( talk) 03:12, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
The general problem as I see it is is wrapped up in the well-known "No Big Deal" idea. This seems to me to promote a lack of awareness of "rank" issues. If you are the Founder of the Encyclopedia and an administrator arrives on your talk page accusing you of incivility or some such, you can ignore these remarks with insouciance. If the comments persist, you can take action to prevent them continuing. On the other hand, if you are a newbie this is hardly the case. "Administration" may be no big deal, and a great deal of it is simply irksome work, by the administrator's tools are a big deal. Intentionally, they can make the life of a vandal or blatant POV pusher uncomfortable and, almost inevitably, they will be misused in a few circumstances. Admins are not just janitors. We have the powers of arrest and detention that most non-Wikipedians would associate with a police force.
Furthermore, RfA is a big deal. It is an initiation rite that works pretty well in that it requires the applicant to expose themselves to the community in a way that, at best, is likely to take up a good chunk of their time and at worst will dredge up a lot of angst and hurt feelings.
Consequently, I believe that some formal recall procedure is a requirement and that it needs to be both above (reasonable) reproach, accountable and requisite to the effort required to become an admin in the first place. We must avoid the twin poles of a system which is too weak to work effectively and too easy to use. Specifically, I am very uncomfortable with a system in which admins themselves decide whether other admins have abused their tools sufficiently to be desysopped or one which is a kangaroo court and may end up with admins being tried for calling blatant vandals "childish" or similar indiscretions.
I'm also unconvinced that this is a process that should be entrusted to Bureaucrats. Unlike an RfA, where a Bureaucrat is unlikely to have much involvement with a candidate, we might be asking them to impose (or not impose) a pretty severe sanction on an editor with whom they are familiar. Perhaps this is over-cautious, and it would be interesting to hear from a Bureaucrat or two. The idea of a reverse RfA is simple enough, but for me, this should be about more than just !numbers expressing opinions.
If Arbcom want the responsibility, that's fine with me, but my guess is that they are already over-loaded.
Thus, I find myself supporting Tony's idea. For me it is the most comprehensive and has the advantage of combining a democratic approach that would also involve a (hopefully) skilled cadre of co-ordinators. It isn't perfect, but it would be my starting point. Ben Mac Dui 10:49, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
I'd like something where admins can be "blocked from admin tools" for short times. Getting the tools back would normally be automatic. This allows good admins to recover from mistakes, allows aggreived parties to see that something has been done (and thus disengage from attacks). It would be decided by community discussion at some venue, advertised on ANI and relevant notice boards. Discussions would eb open for 72 hours for most stuff, a week for more serious stuff. Sometimes the community would ask the admin to go to arbs to get tools ack, or perhaps to go through RfA again. Important parts of this are i) Auto-regain the tools after block served ii) quick and fluid. Which of current proposals best matches this mdoel? NotAnIP83:149:66:11 ( talk) 13:32, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
And I don't have time to read all this, but I'd support just about any sort of recall based on consensus. Do any of these have any chance of passing? Which ones? - Peregrine Fisher ( talk) ( contribs) 01:49, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
After going through the various proposals yesterday and seeing a couple more popping up today, I can't help but to wonder if this is really the right way to go about this? We currently have a dozen or so similar but different proposals, none of which seem to be getting a whole lot of support. Even if we use this process to weed out some of the less-supported proposals and narrow in on the few that seem to have the most support, I wonder if throwing a medley of options at us like this is really going to accomplish what we hope it does.
One thing I've noticed among the various support/oppose comments is that people tend to like certain attributes of certain proposals, while they dislike others. Perhaps, rather than using this as a method to identify a single workable proposal, we should instead be focusing on what the individual comments are saying. What are people looking for in a viable recall process, and what are they wanting to avoid? I suspect it would have been simpler if this whole thing were broken down differently but as it's already well under way it'd be silly to start over at this point, but rather than coming in to this with the idea of supporting one or more proposals over another, it might be used as a way of identifying the traits a good proposal ought to have, and use that information to come up with some kind of hybrid process that incorporates the "good" out of these various proposals and avoiding what people dislike .. Sher eth 16:36, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
I've been holding off on voting here at all for a while, cause something about this rubbed me the wrong way. I realize now what it is (aided by NotAnIP's posting a couple sections up). I think the whole focus of this RFC should be different. We should be brainstorming processes for discussing admin behavior, sure, but the understanding that these processes will only have two possible outcomes -- deop or don't deop -- is making people unnecessarily skittish about where to cast their votes. I think there is much wider consensus for a binding process that can impose restrictions on admins, including the possibility of deop, than there is for a process solely intended to deop. We need to change the name of this page. Does anyone agree or am I just talkin crazy again? I'd be fine with the undercarriage of this comment becoming a straw poll, by the way, just to determine who shares this feeling. Equazcion (talk) 02:02, 28 Oct 2009 (UTC)
I'm surprised that so many users are making an issue out of the various proposals use of the phrase "user in good standing." I thought this was generally understood to mean any user whose rights are autoconfirmed or better, who is not under any blocks or other restrictions. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Beeblebrox ( talk) 19:08, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
I think what is wrong with the alternate proposals here is that they necessarily have the possibility of desysopping at the conclusion of a single community mediated process. This leads to the perhaps-justified fear of witch-hunts (remember the "votes-for-banning" board anybody?). I would rather support these processes if they could only censure an administrator on the first go-round through the process. It would be something of a "wake-up call" to the administrator in question (we don't typically block without warning after all). Only an administrator who had been previously censured by one of the above proceedings could be desysopped through the same proceedings and only after a certain interval had elapsed with the problematic behavior remaining (a couple of months perhaps). The goal of this would be to let heads cool and allow for behavioral correction. Arbcom could still unilaterally remove the tools if the circumstances were severe enough to warrant it (and I think Arbcom has generally done a good job in this respect). IronGargoyle ( talk) 18:54, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
As I was trying to weigh each of the individual options, I made a little framework to help me compare and contrast the proposals. A few don't easily fit into the framework, but most do. I wrote it for myself, but it may be useful to others as we start mulling over the universe of possibilities. -- Alecmconroy ( talk) 17:26, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
Given peoples' bandwidths, and to avoid them putting their good efforts into dead ends, might it make sense to at some point as an interim measure narrow the proposals by deleting a few of them?
We could come up with some criteria (e.g., at least 10 support votes, and no proposal with twice as many oppose votes as support votes). That would allow us to put enegery into fine-tuning the best proposals, rather than discussing why we don't like proposals that won't be adopted in any event.
For those who are wondering, those criteria would today still have us considering proposals 3 and 4 (and a few other proposals are close to the criteria), but for example take off the table proposal 6 which has so far received 1 support vote and 22 oppose votes.-- Epeefleche ( talk) 06:38, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
Some thoughts on common threads of concerns and ideas:
Feel free to amend the above. Rd232 talk 09:35, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
Draft specification for a recall process:
Rd232 talk 18:08, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
Looks to me like #4 (my own choice, by the way) has picked up a bit more support than the others. Where are we going from here? Pick say, the top 3, and debate anew for another 30 days? I'd like to suggest that, with the holidays coming up, it might be an ideal moment - the period of Dec. 15 to Jan. 7 - to announce more widely for a wiki-wide !vote on the watchlist and/or introduction pages. Final decision/implementation to be made by the 'crats. Happy to hear any other suggestions, but lets pick something and move forward. One thing seems clear, from the many opposes on Option 0 (to do nothing)... people want to put some kind of a a process in place. Again, let's choose some from what we see, and figure out how to wrap this up by early January. Such is how it looks to me. Thoughts? Jusda fax 06:37, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
The fallback here, if the policy-discussions get too bogged down to function and we're left with an unpopular status quo, is to reform RFA gradually by more active engagement at RFA itself.
Meaning-- suppose people unsatisfied with the status quo find some policy we could mostly agree on-- The Wikiproject Admin Proposal. What if it's popular, but a little too much change too fast for some.
In that case, there is a way to gradually start to adopt it that's less scary-- at RFA on a case by case basis. Meaning, borderline candidates could agree to sign the "Wikiproject:Admin Contract", a binding agreement. With a de-RFA process in place (for that user), the community would be able to be more lenient with its trust, since there's an undo button.
Meanwhile, this would show the system works (or maybe that it needs tweaks), and it wouldn't be a "huge overnight" change that people fear. Instead, everyone involved should be happier than with the status quo. RFA candidates who sign the contract should be happy, because they might not have passed otherwise. The people who support the "Wikiproject:Admin Proposal" would be happy too, since it's on step closer towards a better RFA. People who oppose the proposal might be happy too, since it couldn't be used against admins who didn't sign the contract.
And, people who believe "Wikiproject:Admin Proposal" should apply to all admins are happy too, since if the change is an improvement, it might lead to wider adoption.
Maybe applying some new de-RFA to the entire population of sitting admins is just too much change for Wikipedia to bite off at once. Maybe that's why these proposals keep getting bogged down despite an overwhelming disapproval of the status quo. Maybe the solution is to start a "pilot program" that just affects those RFA candidates who choose to sign the contract as a condition of their RFA support.
Straight passage would be better, but if we get a few more months down the road and the situation hasn't changed, RFA contract could be what's needed to get things rolling in the right direction. -- Alecmconroy ( talk) 17:24, 10 November 2009 (UTC) --17:24, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
So, the people we need to understand better are the people who oppose the status quo, but haven't yet accepted the most popular option(s).
So, for example, how many people are there who don't support option 4 but would support option 4 if we required CDA be preceded by user-conduct RFC or other substantive discussion?
And so on. Piecewise amend with snowballing support until the thing can actually pass. -- Alecmconroy ( talk) 08:21, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Arbcom Elections are almost upon us-- what would people think about asking the candidates a question or two related to their views on the issues raised by this wikiproject.
Would it help? or would it just complicate the process? -- Alecmconroy ( talk) 04:16, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Since the !vote here closes soon, I took another careful look at the long version of Option 4 which appears to be the 'winner' in this debate. Suddenly I realized the words 'mirror image' in the short form of the proposal may be unclear to some. To make absolutely sure we are all on the same page: If an admin recall is to be much like an Rfa in reverse, that means that the process requires well over 50% to remove the admin rights, with about 70% being the minimum needed. (This is in fact what I am voting for.)
My concern: have some - who may not have fully read the long version - cast their !vote here thinking the opposite is true, that we would in effect be voting all over again on the fitness of the admin to hold the mop? If so, and you object to what Option 4 really requires, then you need to change your vote for Option 4 asap. The proposal, quite rightly in my view, sets the bar high at over 70% to pull the plug on an admin, with a minimum of 50 votes needed in favor of taking the buttons away. This discourages petty attacks with trumped-up reasons. All in all, I find Uncle G's Option 4 to be well-written and thoughtful, as well as a thankfully common-sense approach, and I commend him for his work.
A final thought: As I say in my statement supporting it, I would like to hear from some of the 'crats, on whom the final decision must rest... both in the adoption of this (or any) of the Options, as well as making the tough final decisions that would be called for when a consensus is not clear under Option 4. Jusda fax 20:22, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
Say, I notice that the table below is both incomplete and incorrect. Option 4's vote totals are pasted into Option 3. Also, if I remember correctly, the later Options were added later. They didn't all appear at once. UPDATE: Nevermind, I fixed it myself, and added the others that were missing. Jusda fax 01:03, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Final results at 7:00 GMT 16-Nov-2009
No | Name | Support | Oppose | Neutral | Majority | Percentage |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
0 | The status quo | 13 | 44 | (-31) | 23% | |
1 | Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship | 8 | 21 | 1 | (-13) | 28% |
2 | User:Tony1/AdminReview | 10 | 20 | (-10) | 33% | |
3 | Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Administrator/Admin RFC draft | 15 | 18 | 1 | (-3) | 45% |
4 | Wikipedia:Community de-adminship | 26 | 13 | 1 | 13 | 67% |
5 | Wikipedia:Declaration of no confidence | 5 | 16 | 2 | (-11) | 24% |
6 | Make CAT:AOTR mandatory | 1 | 27 | (-26) | 4% | |
7 | User:Sandstein/Reconfirmation RFA | 6 | 22 | (-16) | 21% | |
8 | Straightforward reconfirmation | 9 | 18 | 2 | (-9) | 33% |
9 | Admin reconfirmation | 5 | 7 | 2 | (-2) | 42% |
10 | User:Tim Smith/Administrator-initiated recall | 4 | 14 | (-10) | 22% | |
11 | AdminRFC+RFA | 5 | 6 | 2 | (-1) | 45% |
12 | Reconfirmation initiated by the Arbitration Committee | 5 | 10 | 3 | (-5) | 33% |
13 | Signatures prompt RFA + extra safeguards | 6 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 50% |
14 | Regular recall schedule | 1 | 2 | 4 | (-1) | 33% |
I'd appreciate it if the above were checked for accuracy. Ben Mac Dui 19:41, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
The above results may result in complex discussions but at the risk of being unduly glib the most obvious outcomes are that:
(Note: The analysis above in #Narrow to top proposals? is more thorough. I am purposely trying to focus things a bit.)
Looking over the !votes of the various different proposals, it seems to me that with any given proposal most opinions focus on the specific details rather than the general type of the proposal. There is nothing wrong with that, of course, but the actual comments create a problem I think. Specifically, for any given proposal there are both editors who think it is too easy to initiate and/or de-sysop and editors that think it is too hard. That makes reading consensus as to where we should go next rather difficult.
As such, I think the next step should be a pick which general type of system is the "favorite" and attempt to work out the details once we know the frame work. As I see it, the proposals generally fit into the following "systems" (please amend this if I've missed anything):
Of course I would be way off base here, but I think it is best to settle on a general structure before proceeding. The next step could then be deciding how its initiated, then who can participate, and so on. What do others think? -- ThaddeusB ( talk) 23:50, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
In reply to the above and to Tryptofish's remarks in the "Main conclusions" section above, I think it is clear that by far the simplest solution is to examine the results for Option 4 (which we must stop calling it - let's use the existing shortcut of WP:CDA) and attempt to identify:
with a view to creating a new poll seeking its implementation.
I stress "simplest" above as this may not be the best way forward, but in such a complex and unstructured environment, clarity often commands a premium. This could of course involve introducing elements from one or more of the other proposals, but (in my view) none gathered sufficient support for a "run-off" to be worthwhile. Ben Mac Dui 20:23, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Feel free to add more, if I missed any. Angryapathy ( talk) 20:49, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Such a page is a priority and I think the alternatives are:
I favour the latter but I'd like to get some input from Uncle G first. I will request a comment. Ben Mac Dui 19:35, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
It would seem that Uncle G has taken an untimely wiki-break. I think we press ahead with creating a Wikipedia:Community de-adminship/RFC type page. Before this happens, I'd like to be as clear as possible about its purpose. In my view:
If this is the case then perhaps what is needed is a project page e. g. Wikipedia:Community de-adminship/RFC, which has a rough draft of an RFC, but with "THIS DRAFT IS UNDER DISCUSSION - PLEASE CONTRIBUTE TO THE TALK PAGE BEFORE MAKING ANY AMENDMENTS" prominently at the top.
and the associated talk page which would have:
The second item may need a little thought. Imagining it will be possible to achieve consensus on each of the options is optimistic. I think it should something along the lines of: This process will continue until 8pm GMT on Monday 4th January 2010. At that point:
If the above makes sense, I think we should call the project page " Wikipedia:Community de-adminship/Draft RFC" in order to minimise confusion. Ben Mac Dui 20:19, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
I've dropped a note at the WP:CDA talk page announcing the impending discussion. The draft talk page is here and comments and assistance are welcome.
I'd genuinely like to believe that a two-stage process of going straight from here to RFC was possible, and tho' I fear some will get weary at being asked to comment three times, it seems to me that ironing out, or at least discussing in more depth, the perceived problems first is a necessity. Ben Mac Dui 19:55, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
I only just found this, and I'm not going to be able to look or comment on anything in detail for another 12 hours at least. This doesn't seem to have been as widely advertised as ArbCom elections for example. Perhaps it could be extended accordingly? Ncmvocalist ( talk) 01:25, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
I appreciate your point, and for any next step more attention will need to be paid to this subject, but I see you did manage to make some comments and it's my belief that creating an extension would result in confusion. Ben Mac Dui 19:50, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Ncmvocalist, it was on WP:CENT (and thus AN + ANI), the lists of RfCs, WT:RFA; I'm not sure where else you would expect it to be advertised. Skomorokh, barbarian 20:05, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Well, ArbCom elections and RfCs on ArbCom have been put on the watchlist announcements section before (I'm not sure what it is technically referred to as); was it advertised there? I don't recall seeing it there (and if it said x number of days to go towards the end, that would help too). I'm sure it would've generated more interest if it was. But yeah, I did end up making some comments anyway so it's OK from where I'm standing. Ncmvocalist ( talk) 04:24, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
If anyone knows them well, could we ask arbs to look at any proposals before before proceeding to any kind of "ratification poll".
The Arbs are our village elders and I don't think any proposal can work unless it makes sense to most of them. "The Arbitration Committee" may or may not need to approve the plan, but the individual arbs absolutely need to approve of it for it to fly.
I'm not particularly wiki-socially aware, but I'm pretty sure a few Arbs have called for some form of community desysop? If, I think we're getting close to the point where their opinions might be very helpful as we craft, polish, and propose. -- Alecmconroy ( talk) 09:04, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
I don't want to sound flippant, but I can't make heads or tails of where a centralized discussion is occurring on the admin recall proposal being linked from CENT. Everywhere I seem to go is either linking me to some other admin recall discussion/proposal or is otherwise byzantine. Where can someone who hasn't participated in any of the past RfCs (or had any experience with the various proposals) go to see a short summary of what you are proposing and offer comments on that proposal? Protonk ( talk) 07:16, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
The phase of discussion conducted here is now closed - refining the details of WP:CDA continues at WT:CDADR. Ben Mac Dui 09:17, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
I've only just stumbled across this debate, but that probably makes me in that respect representative of the majority of the wikipedia community, who are mostly unaware of it. I see that "Straightforward reconfirmation" was proposed and found unpopular, but I'm not sure what it is intended to mean. I notice that "Regular recall schedule" was proposed only very late on in the voting process above, and that only two people were actually opposed to it. This sort of suggestion is open to the worry as to how it might work out in practice, since some versions of it which have been proposed are not viable. I prepared a suggestion at User:SamuelTheGhost/Re-electing admins which I think could work. If it has any major flaw, I'd be grateful to be told what it is. SamuelTheGhost ( talk) 23:32, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
I've noticed some editors having questions about what, exactly, is the wording of what is being discussed. Please go to: Wikipedia talk:Community de-adminship/Draft RfC, which is where the primary discussion is, currently. There, the first section, called "Quick links", will link you directly to the draft language. I hope that helps. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 19:11, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
After tolling up the votes in the revision proposals, it emerged that 5.4 had the most support, but elements of that support remained unclear, and various comments throughout the polls needed consideration.
A finalisation poll (intended, if possible, to be one last poll before finalising the CDA proposal) has been run to;
Matt Lewis ( talk) 23:33, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Community de-adminship/RfC went live yesterday, and your comments are invited. The long-awaited run-up to the RfC (indeed, this is not the first attempt) was not without incident, but love it or hate it, it's up.
I also suggest a discussion regarding this RfC here, on this page, which now becomes a default spot for such. One topic I would like to see discussed is where we go from here, if anywhere, if the RfC fails. A major thumping or a strong bureaucrat thumbs down, or both, mean it's back to the drawing board, or in a worst case, disbanding this WikiProject.
And for reference: Wikipedia:'Community de-adminship' - The original Uncle G proposal, so that casual members of this WikiProject can judge for themselves where we were and are now. Thanks to all who have taken an interest, Jusdafax 09:20, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
(Better link, here is the original from the archives) NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 22:52, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
There is no reason why these mechanisms ought to be mutually exclusive. At the very least there ought to be scope to declare preferences (e.g. Roux's model first choice, Tony1's if that does not pass, Uncle G's if neither pass). Unless someone objects, I'll alter this accordingly. Skomorokh, barbarian 19:27, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Currently there is just an open call to join this project listed there, it should probably be modified to point to this RFC as the more participants we have the better results we are likely to get. Beeblebrox ( talk) 19:38, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
... for completeness. Not sure I'd support it being made mandatory but maybe? If we MUST have a mandatory recall process, that's the one I like. Also, maybe move the Status Quo to option 0 so it's always first, or move it to be last? dunno. It's in the middle now. ++ Lar: t/ c 22:55, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
(undent) No, it's just not the point of this RFC. We're here to discuss which of these processes to put our efforts into, not who would specifically be the subject of the reports. If you don't think we need a process at all, then option 0, the status quo, is for you, put your support there. It's ironic that you would accuse others of being McCarthyist when you are the one demanding that names be named, exactly as Joe McCarthy did. Beeblebrox ( talk) 03:12, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
The general problem as I see it is is wrapped up in the well-known "No Big Deal" idea. This seems to me to promote a lack of awareness of "rank" issues. If you are the Founder of the Encyclopedia and an administrator arrives on your talk page accusing you of incivility or some such, you can ignore these remarks with insouciance. If the comments persist, you can take action to prevent them continuing. On the other hand, if you are a newbie this is hardly the case. "Administration" may be no big deal, and a great deal of it is simply irksome work, by the administrator's tools are a big deal. Intentionally, they can make the life of a vandal or blatant POV pusher uncomfortable and, almost inevitably, they will be misused in a few circumstances. Admins are not just janitors. We have the powers of arrest and detention that most non-Wikipedians would associate with a police force.
Furthermore, RfA is a big deal. It is an initiation rite that works pretty well in that it requires the applicant to expose themselves to the community in a way that, at best, is likely to take up a good chunk of their time and at worst will dredge up a lot of angst and hurt feelings.
Consequently, I believe that some formal recall procedure is a requirement and that it needs to be both above (reasonable) reproach, accountable and requisite to the effort required to become an admin in the first place. We must avoid the twin poles of a system which is too weak to work effectively and too easy to use. Specifically, I am very uncomfortable with a system in which admins themselves decide whether other admins have abused their tools sufficiently to be desysopped or one which is a kangaroo court and may end up with admins being tried for calling blatant vandals "childish" or similar indiscretions.
I'm also unconvinced that this is a process that should be entrusted to Bureaucrats. Unlike an RfA, where a Bureaucrat is unlikely to have much involvement with a candidate, we might be asking them to impose (or not impose) a pretty severe sanction on an editor with whom they are familiar. Perhaps this is over-cautious, and it would be interesting to hear from a Bureaucrat or two. The idea of a reverse RfA is simple enough, but for me, this should be about more than just !numbers expressing opinions.
If Arbcom want the responsibility, that's fine with me, but my guess is that they are already over-loaded.
Thus, I find myself supporting Tony's idea. For me it is the most comprehensive and has the advantage of combining a democratic approach that would also involve a (hopefully) skilled cadre of co-ordinators. It isn't perfect, but it would be my starting point. Ben Mac Dui 10:49, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
I'd like something where admins can be "blocked from admin tools" for short times. Getting the tools back would normally be automatic. This allows good admins to recover from mistakes, allows aggreived parties to see that something has been done (and thus disengage from attacks). It would be decided by community discussion at some venue, advertised on ANI and relevant notice boards. Discussions would eb open for 72 hours for most stuff, a week for more serious stuff. Sometimes the community would ask the admin to go to arbs to get tools ack, or perhaps to go through RfA again. Important parts of this are i) Auto-regain the tools after block served ii) quick and fluid. Which of current proposals best matches this mdoel? NotAnIP83:149:66:11 ( talk) 13:32, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
And I don't have time to read all this, but I'd support just about any sort of recall based on consensus. Do any of these have any chance of passing? Which ones? - Peregrine Fisher ( talk) ( contribs) 01:49, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
After going through the various proposals yesterday and seeing a couple more popping up today, I can't help but to wonder if this is really the right way to go about this? We currently have a dozen or so similar but different proposals, none of which seem to be getting a whole lot of support. Even if we use this process to weed out some of the less-supported proposals and narrow in on the few that seem to have the most support, I wonder if throwing a medley of options at us like this is really going to accomplish what we hope it does.
One thing I've noticed among the various support/oppose comments is that people tend to like certain attributes of certain proposals, while they dislike others. Perhaps, rather than using this as a method to identify a single workable proposal, we should instead be focusing on what the individual comments are saying. What are people looking for in a viable recall process, and what are they wanting to avoid? I suspect it would have been simpler if this whole thing were broken down differently but as it's already well under way it'd be silly to start over at this point, but rather than coming in to this with the idea of supporting one or more proposals over another, it might be used as a way of identifying the traits a good proposal ought to have, and use that information to come up with some kind of hybrid process that incorporates the "good" out of these various proposals and avoiding what people dislike .. Sher eth 16:36, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
I've been holding off on voting here at all for a while, cause something about this rubbed me the wrong way. I realize now what it is (aided by NotAnIP's posting a couple sections up). I think the whole focus of this RFC should be different. We should be brainstorming processes for discussing admin behavior, sure, but the understanding that these processes will only have two possible outcomes -- deop or don't deop -- is making people unnecessarily skittish about where to cast their votes. I think there is much wider consensus for a binding process that can impose restrictions on admins, including the possibility of deop, than there is for a process solely intended to deop. We need to change the name of this page. Does anyone agree or am I just talkin crazy again? I'd be fine with the undercarriage of this comment becoming a straw poll, by the way, just to determine who shares this feeling. Equazcion (talk) 02:02, 28 Oct 2009 (UTC)
I'm surprised that so many users are making an issue out of the various proposals use of the phrase "user in good standing." I thought this was generally understood to mean any user whose rights are autoconfirmed or better, who is not under any blocks or other restrictions. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Beeblebrox ( talk) 19:08, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
I think what is wrong with the alternate proposals here is that they necessarily have the possibility of desysopping at the conclusion of a single community mediated process. This leads to the perhaps-justified fear of witch-hunts (remember the "votes-for-banning" board anybody?). I would rather support these processes if they could only censure an administrator on the first go-round through the process. It would be something of a "wake-up call" to the administrator in question (we don't typically block without warning after all). Only an administrator who had been previously censured by one of the above proceedings could be desysopped through the same proceedings and only after a certain interval had elapsed with the problematic behavior remaining (a couple of months perhaps). The goal of this would be to let heads cool and allow for behavioral correction. Arbcom could still unilaterally remove the tools if the circumstances were severe enough to warrant it (and I think Arbcom has generally done a good job in this respect). IronGargoyle ( talk) 18:54, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
As I was trying to weigh each of the individual options, I made a little framework to help me compare and contrast the proposals. A few don't easily fit into the framework, but most do. I wrote it for myself, but it may be useful to others as we start mulling over the universe of possibilities. -- Alecmconroy ( talk) 17:26, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
Given peoples' bandwidths, and to avoid them putting their good efforts into dead ends, might it make sense to at some point as an interim measure narrow the proposals by deleting a few of them?
We could come up with some criteria (e.g., at least 10 support votes, and no proposal with twice as many oppose votes as support votes). That would allow us to put enegery into fine-tuning the best proposals, rather than discussing why we don't like proposals that won't be adopted in any event.
For those who are wondering, those criteria would today still have us considering proposals 3 and 4 (and a few other proposals are close to the criteria), but for example take off the table proposal 6 which has so far received 1 support vote and 22 oppose votes.-- Epeefleche ( talk) 06:38, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
Some thoughts on common threads of concerns and ideas:
Feel free to amend the above. Rd232 talk 09:35, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
Draft specification for a recall process:
Rd232 talk 18:08, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
Looks to me like #4 (my own choice, by the way) has picked up a bit more support than the others. Where are we going from here? Pick say, the top 3, and debate anew for another 30 days? I'd like to suggest that, with the holidays coming up, it might be an ideal moment - the period of Dec. 15 to Jan. 7 - to announce more widely for a wiki-wide !vote on the watchlist and/or introduction pages. Final decision/implementation to be made by the 'crats. Happy to hear any other suggestions, but lets pick something and move forward. One thing seems clear, from the many opposes on Option 0 (to do nothing)... people want to put some kind of a a process in place. Again, let's choose some from what we see, and figure out how to wrap this up by early January. Such is how it looks to me. Thoughts? Jusda fax 06:37, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
The fallback here, if the policy-discussions get too bogged down to function and we're left with an unpopular status quo, is to reform RFA gradually by more active engagement at RFA itself.
Meaning-- suppose people unsatisfied with the status quo find some policy we could mostly agree on-- The Wikiproject Admin Proposal. What if it's popular, but a little too much change too fast for some.
In that case, there is a way to gradually start to adopt it that's less scary-- at RFA on a case by case basis. Meaning, borderline candidates could agree to sign the "Wikiproject:Admin Contract", a binding agreement. With a de-RFA process in place (for that user), the community would be able to be more lenient with its trust, since there's an undo button.
Meanwhile, this would show the system works (or maybe that it needs tweaks), and it wouldn't be a "huge overnight" change that people fear. Instead, everyone involved should be happier than with the status quo. RFA candidates who sign the contract should be happy, because they might not have passed otherwise. The people who support the "Wikiproject:Admin Proposal" would be happy too, since it's on step closer towards a better RFA. People who oppose the proposal might be happy too, since it couldn't be used against admins who didn't sign the contract.
And, people who believe "Wikiproject:Admin Proposal" should apply to all admins are happy too, since if the change is an improvement, it might lead to wider adoption.
Maybe applying some new de-RFA to the entire population of sitting admins is just too much change for Wikipedia to bite off at once. Maybe that's why these proposals keep getting bogged down despite an overwhelming disapproval of the status quo. Maybe the solution is to start a "pilot program" that just affects those RFA candidates who choose to sign the contract as a condition of their RFA support.
Straight passage would be better, but if we get a few more months down the road and the situation hasn't changed, RFA contract could be what's needed to get things rolling in the right direction. -- Alecmconroy ( talk) 17:24, 10 November 2009 (UTC) --17:24, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
So, the people we need to understand better are the people who oppose the status quo, but haven't yet accepted the most popular option(s).
So, for example, how many people are there who don't support option 4 but would support option 4 if we required CDA be preceded by user-conduct RFC or other substantive discussion?
And so on. Piecewise amend with snowballing support until the thing can actually pass. -- Alecmconroy ( talk) 08:21, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Arbcom Elections are almost upon us-- what would people think about asking the candidates a question or two related to their views on the issues raised by this wikiproject.
Would it help? or would it just complicate the process? -- Alecmconroy ( talk) 04:16, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Since the !vote here closes soon, I took another careful look at the long version of Option 4 which appears to be the 'winner' in this debate. Suddenly I realized the words 'mirror image' in the short form of the proposal may be unclear to some. To make absolutely sure we are all on the same page: If an admin recall is to be much like an Rfa in reverse, that means that the process requires well over 50% to remove the admin rights, with about 70% being the minimum needed. (This is in fact what I am voting for.)
My concern: have some - who may not have fully read the long version - cast their !vote here thinking the opposite is true, that we would in effect be voting all over again on the fitness of the admin to hold the mop? If so, and you object to what Option 4 really requires, then you need to change your vote for Option 4 asap. The proposal, quite rightly in my view, sets the bar high at over 70% to pull the plug on an admin, with a minimum of 50 votes needed in favor of taking the buttons away. This discourages petty attacks with trumped-up reasons. All in all, I find Uncle G's Option 4 to be well-written and thoughtful, as well as a thankfully common-sense approach, and I commend him for his work.
A final thought: As I say in my statement supporting it, I would like to hear from some of the 'crats, on whom the final decision must rest... both in the adoption of this (or any) of the Options, as well as making the tough final decisions that would be called for when a consensus is not clear under Option 4. Jusda fax 20:22, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
Say, I notice that the table below is both incomplete and incorrect. Option 4's vote totals are pasted into Option 3. Also, if I remember correctly, the later Options were added later. They didn't all appear at once. UPDATE: Nevermind, I fixed it myself, and added the others that were missing. Jusda fax 01:03, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Final results at 7:00 GMT 16-Nov-2009
No | Name | Support | Oppose | Neutral | Majority | Percentage |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
0 | The status quo | 13 | 44 | (-31) | 23% | |
1 | Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship | 8 | 21 | 1 | (-13) | 28% |
2 | User:Tony1/AdminReview | 10 | 20 | (-10) | 33% | |
3 | Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Administrator/Admin RFC draft | 15 | 18 | 1 | (-3) | 45% |
4 | Wikipedia:Community de-adminship | 26 | 13 | 1 | 13 | 67% |
5 | Wikipedia:Declaration of no confidence | 5 | 16 | 2 | (-11) | 24% |
6 | Make CAT:AOTR mandatory | 1 | 27 | (-26) | 4% | |
7 | User:Sandstein/Reconfirmation RFA | 6 | 22 | (-16) | 21% | |
8 | Straightforward reconfirmation | 9 | 18 | 2 | (-9) | 33% |
9 | Admin reconfirmation | 5 | 7 | 2 | (-2) | 42% |
10 | User:Tim Smith/Administrator-initiated recall | 4 | 14 | (-10) | 22% | |
11 | AdminRFC+RFA | 5 | 6 | 2 | (-1) | 45% |
12 | Reconfirmation initiated by the Arbitration Committee | 5 | 10 | 3 | (-5) | 33% |
13 | Signatures prompt RFA + extra safeguards | 6 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 50% |
14 | Regular recall schedule | 1 | 2 | 4 | (-1) | 33% |
I'd appreciate it if the above were checked for accuracy. Ben Mac Dui 19:41, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
The above results may result in complex discussions but at the risk of being unduly glib the most obvious outcomes are that:
(Note: The analysis above in #Narrow to top proposals? is more thorough. I am purposely trying to focus things a bit.)
Looking over the !votes of the various different proposals, it seems to me that with any given proposal most opinions focus on the specific details rather than the general type of the proposal. There is nothing wrong with that, of course, but the actual comments create a problem I think. Specifically, for any given proposal there are both editors who think it is too easy to initiate and/or de-sysop and editors that think it is too hard. That makes reading consensus as to where we should go next rather difficult.
As such, I think the next step should be a pick which general type of system is the "favorite" and attempt to work out the details once we know the frame work. As I see it, the proposals generally fit into the following "systems" (please amend this if I've missed anything):
Of course I would be way off base here, but I think it is best to settle on a general structure before proceeding. The next step could then be deciding how its initiated, then who can participate, and so on. What do others think? -- ThaddeusB ( talk) 23:50, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
In reply to the above and to Tryptofish's remarks in the "Main conclusions" section above, I think it is clear that by far the simplest solution is to examine the results for Option 4 (which we must stop calling it - let's use the existing shortcut of WP:CDA) and attempt to identify:
with a view to creating a new poll seeking its implementation.
I stress "simplest" above as this may not be the best way forward, but in such a complex and unstructured environment, clarity often commands a premium. This could of course involve introducing elements from one or more of the other proposals, but (in my view) none gathered sufficient support for a "run-off" to be worthwhile. Ben Mac Dui 20:23, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Feel free to add more, if I missed any. Angryapathy ( talk) 20:49, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Such a page is a priority and I think the alternatives are:
I favour the latter but I'd like to get some input from Uncle G first. I will request a comment. Ben Mac Dui 19:35, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
It would seem that Uncle G has taken an untimely wiki-break. I think we press ahead with creating a Wikipedia:Community de-adminship/RFC type page. Before this happens, I'd like to be as clear as possible about its purpose. In my view:
If this is the case then perhaps what is needed is a project page e. g. Wikipedia:Community de-adminship/RFC, which has a rough draft of an RFC, but with "THIS DRAFT IS UNDER DISCUSSION - PLEASE CONTRIBUTE TO THE TALK PAGE BEFORE MAKING ANY AMENDMENTS" prominently at the top.
and the associated talk page which would have:
The second item may need a little thought. Imagining it will be possible to achieve consensus on each of the options is optimistic. I think it should something along the lines of: This process will continue until 8pm GMT on Monday 4th January 2010. At that point:
If the above makes sense, I think we should call the project page " Wikipedia:Community de-adminship/Draft RFC" in order to minimise confusion. Ben Mac Dui 20:19, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
I've dropped a note at the WP:CDA talk page announcing the impending discussion. The draft talk page is here and comments and assistance are welcome.
I'd genuinely like to believe that a two-stage process of going straight from here to RFC was possible, and tho' I fear some will get weary at being asked to comment three times, it seems to me that ironing out, or at least discussing in more depth, the perceived problems first is a necessity. Ben Mac Dui 19:55, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
I only just found this, and I'm not going to be able to look or comment on anything in detail for another 12 hours at least. This doesn't seem to have been as widely advertised as ArbCom elections for example. Perhaps it could be extended accordingly? Ncmvocalist ( talk) 01:25, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
I appreciate your point, and for any next step more attention will need to be paid to this subject, but I see you did manage to make some comments and it's my belief that creating an extension would result in confusion. Ben Mac Dui 19:50, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Ncmvocalist, it was on WP:CENT (and thus AN + ANI), the lists of RfCs, WT:RFA; I'm not sure where else you would expect it to be advertised. Skomorokh, barbarian 20:05, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Well, ArbCom elections and RfCs on ArbCom have been put on the watchlist announcements section before (I'm not sure what it is technically referred to as); was it advertised there? I don't recall seeing it there (and if it said x number of days to go towards the end, that would help too). I'm sure it would've generated more interest if it was. But yeah, I did end up making some comments anyway so it's OK from where I'm standing. Ncmvocalist ( talk) 04:24, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
If anyone knows them well, could we ask arbs to look at any proposals before before proceeding to any kind of "ratification poll".
The Arbs are our village elders and I don't think any proposal can work unless it makes sense to most of them. "The Arbitration Committee" may or may not need to approve the plan, but the individual arbs absolutely need to approve of it for it to fly.
I'm not particularly wiki-socially aware, but I'm pretty sure a few Arbs have called for some form of community desysop? If, I think we're getting close to the point where their opinions might be very helpful as we craft, polish, and propose. -- Alecmconroy ( talk) 09:04, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
I don't want to sound flippant, but I can't make heads or tails of where a centralized discussion is occurring on the admin recall proposal being linked from CENT. Everywhere I seem to go is either linking me to some other admin recall discussion/proposal or is otherwise byzantine. Where can someone who hasn't participated in any of the past RfCs (or had any experience with the various proposals) go to see a short summary of what you are proposing and offer comments on that proposal? Protonk ( talk) 07:16, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
The phase of discussion conducted here is now closed - refining the details of WP:CDA continues at WT:CDADR. Ben Mac Dui 09:17, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
I've only just stumbled across this debate, but that probably makes me in that respect representative of the majority of the wikipedia community, who are mostly unaware of it. I see that "Straightforward reconfirmation" was proposed and found unpopular, but I'm not sure what it is intended to mean. I notice that "Regular recall schedule" was proposed only very late on in the voting process above, and that only two people were actually opposed to it. This sort of suggestion is open to the worry as to how it might work out in practice, since some versions of it which have been proposed are not viable. I prepared a suggestion at User:SamuelTheGhost/Re-electing admins which I think could work. If it has any major flaw, I'd be grateful to be told what it is. SamuelTheGhost ( talk) 23:32, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
I've noticed some editors having questions about what, exactly, is the wording of what is being discussed. Please go to: Wikipedia talk:Community de-adminship/Draft RfC, which is where the primary discussion is, currently. There, the first section, called "Quick links", will link you directly to the draft language. I hope that helps. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 19:11, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
After tolling up the votes in the revision proposals, it emerged that 5.4 had the most support, but elements of that support remained unclear, and various comments throughout the polls needed consideration.
A finalisation poll (intended, if possible, to be one last poll before finalising the CDA proposal) has been run to;
Matt Lewis ( talk) 23:33, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Community de-adminship/RfC went live yesterday, and your comments are invited. The long-awaited run-up to the RfC (indeed, this is not the first attempt) was not without incident, but love it or hate it, it's up.
I also suggest a discussion regarding this RfC here, on this page, which now becomes a default spot for such. One topic I would like to see discussed is where we go from here, if anywhere, if the RfC fails. A major thumping or a strong bureaucrat thumbs down, or both, mean it's back to the drawing board, or in a worst case, disbanding this WikiProject.
And for reference: Wikipedia:'Community de-adminship' - The original Uncle G proposal, so that casual members of this WikiProject can judge for themselves where we were and are now. Thanks to all who have taken an interest, Jusdafax 09:20, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
(Better link, here is the original from the archives) NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 22:52, 10 July 2017 (UTC)