Wikipedia talk:Inactive administrators (2005)/archive

Proposal numero uno - the Commons plan

The language from WikiCommons seems utterly workable to me - automatic desysoping for those with no edits in six months (really a Wikiternity, if you think about it) and fewer than 50 in the past year. My only qualifier is that the 50 have to have some substance - if an admin does nothing for that first six months but change the arrangement of the barnstars on his user page, that should count for naught. -- BD2412 ^talk 15:38, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

50 edits is probably a bit high, it is harder to get 50 edits at the commons than it is here, maybe we should change it to 15 non-minor edits? Martin 15:45, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't follow that logic. Surely then we should raise the number, perhaps to 100 edits? Or are you making an important distinction with "non-minor"? [[Sam Korn]] 15:53, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I confused myself, I meant raise the number of edits, although maybe just 50 non-minor would be ok. Martin 15:58, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

How about <15 non-minor edits, then de-sysop, but if <50 non-minor edits we talk to the admin on their talk page to ask what's up. If they are still here and respond we can work it out, otherwise de-sysop. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 15:48, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Depends how loosely we define non-minor edits - they should, I think, have to either be significant contributions to articles, or real admin-type stuff (closing vfd's, deleting articles per the vote or per speedy criteria, reverting vandalism, blocking vandals). If an admin is not doing anything that requires the holy trinity of admin powers, then why do they need them at all? -- BD2412 ^talk 15:54, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Have you met WP:CCW? [[Sam Korn]] 16:10, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

How can you really define non-minor edits, though? It seems far too subjective to me. For example, I could write a page of text in the user namespace or add to BJAODN and make no real significant contribution to WP, while a small stub might have something in it worth knowing. In that example, the stub is probably more worthy of being written (barring the necessity of having a userpage, just in terms of encyclopedic content), but requires almost no knowledge of WP policy. However, the userpage might have a Babel link, an image of the user, a category, and several sections and links, showing more knowledge of Wikimarkup then the stub writer. The BJAODN writer knows that BJAODN exists, which shows some knowledge of the non-article workings of WP, and has to have some knowledge of AfD and of merging articles to have got content to put on BJAODN to begin with and to have been able to do so. The point of this illustration is to show that there isn't (as far as I can tell) any quantifiable way to define an edit as worthy or significant: someone has to do all of the above tasks, and it takes certain skills to do each, and different people will rank individual tasks them higher or lower. I think that it's dangerous to have a policy which says something like, "You must block X users and revert Y amount of vandalism within Z timeframe or you will be de-sysopped." --Blackcap | talk 18:15, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

The real criteria we're looking at is zero edits of any kind for the past 6 months. Edits before then can be reviewed subjectively because presumably bureacrats will be doing that job, and we've made them bureacrats because we trust their judgment. -- BD2412 ^talk 18:59, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. --Blackcap | talk 19:07, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Uhm, no, there's no way I would support this with any hard limit of edits you have to make in any certain amount of time. And why do we need to desysop inactive admins? What does it hurt? Admins are just trusted users with a few security restrictions removed for their accounts. Do you loose your trust when you dissapear for a while? And what if you dissapear for an extended amount of time because of some sort of emergency? Why should you have to re-apply? --Phroziac ^(talk) 16:43, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, there are three main arguments that have been raised as to why we should desysop inactive admins:

1. Dormant accounts might be hacked, and if the legitimate user of the name is no longer around to point this out, then we could have a vandal with admin powers on our hands;
2. It inflates the real number of admins - suppose a user in need of help inadvertantly picks an inactive name off the admin list?
3. Long dormant admins have probably not kept up with changes in policies or procedures - if you had been gone for six months and just came back, you wouldn't know that we've enacted some new speedy deletion criteria, or even that VfD no longer exists!

Of course, each of those arguments has weaknesses, but what is the harm in desysopping accounts from which nothing has been done for half a year? -- BD2412 ^talk 17:01, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, its not a matter of trust, and a de-sysopsed admin would easily be re-sysoped if they did return. Martin 17:04, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Why de-sysop someone who has any edits in the target period? If the issue is hacking accounts, then any activity says that the person is still around, still using the account. If the issue is a lack of awareness of policy changes - again, everything but image deletions and history merges can be undone, so lack of currency is not exactly an issue. In addition, is there any evidence that this has happened? When Secretlondon came back, did she make a mess of things based on the changes in the last year? The vast majority of people would come back thoughtfully, not come back assuming that nothing has changed (the world in here changes so rapidly that you just have to stop paying attention to some area for a week and nothing everything will have changed. Guettarda 18:09, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

• Well, the first part of the criteria is no edits at all in the past six months... how long was Secretlondon gone? Just over ten months? Then the second part kicks in - in the two months before she left, she was very active, so this would not apply to her even after a ten-month break. -- BD2412 ^talk 19:20, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Post-script - of course, under this proposal, had Secretlondon been gone for 50 more days she'd have been desysopped... RickBlock's proposal is looking mighty good right about now. -- BD2412 ^talk 19:31, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Proposal numero duo – The Missing Wikipedians plan

I don't see the need for complicated formulae such as the commons or meta plans. Why not just remove the admin status of anyone listed as a "missing Wikipedian"? As long as we make re-sysopping automatic, I can't see the issue with this. If it's a matter of administrator pride, well, forget it! [[Sam Korn]] 15:53, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't think resysopping should be automatic. The proposal states that people will need to go through RfA again to be resysopped. Angela. 16:35, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Angela - key reasons for desysopping weigh against automatic resysopping, particularly a long-dormant admin's likely lack of familiarity with new policies, and the possibility that the security of the account has been compromised. -- BD2412 ^talk 16:49, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps not, but I do think there should be a strong cultural expectation in favor of restoring it if inactivity is the only issue. In that case, I don't know why we wouldn't still trust the person, and we can just add a reminder of the need to refamiliarize themselves with policy before using their capabilities. --Michael Snow 16:31, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

I generally agree with Michael. If a person has been desysopped for reasons that don't relate to bad behaviour the requirements should be quite low. Perhaps a reasonable number of recent edits (100?), and a statement that he wants to be a sysop again. A bureaucrat should be able to act alone in such cases. Familiarity with new policies should not be a major factor if he has already established a track record of working with the community. Naturally, those individuals who left with a serious black mark on their records would be another story. Eclecticology 18:58, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Proposal numero tres - Rick Block's proposal

I think some sort of escalating "where the heck are you" mechanism leading to repeat RFA to regain sysop status is warranted. Note that I already run a script that determines various activity thresholds and have been updating WP:LA to move admins between the "active", "semi-active", and "inactive" lists. Perhaps this could be expanded so that (additions in italics -- Rick Block (talk) 14:01, 19 September 2005 (UTC)):

1. After 3 months of no activity, an email is sent from anyone warning that sysop status will be removed after 6 months of no activity (this is the current threshold to be moved to the inactive list on WP:LA).
2. After a total of 6 months of no activity, the account is desysop'd and an email sent from a bureaucrat indicating that any edit and an email response within another 6 months is sufficient to regain sysop status. If the reply cannot be sent for any reason, forwarding the email to any bureaucrat is also sufficient.
3. After a total of 12 months of no activity, regaining sysop status requires going through rfa again.

Doing something so that dormant privileged accounts (no matter how weakly privileged they may be) lose their privileged status seems prudent - imagine the havoc Willy on Wheels could create with a compromised sysop account. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:28, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Actually, it was the WP:LA list that I was thinking about. That's what comes of making quick proposals in the middle of writing essays! Rick's plan seems the best proposed yet to me. It seems to enterpret best the reasons we'd de-sysop someone. I had always understood automatic re-sysopping to be an inherent part of the proposal, hence my confusion. I must have missed something somewhere! The mathematical methods seem unnecessarily complicated. [[Sam Korn]] 17:52, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and this also emphasises why we need to ensure that all admins give valid e-mail addresses. I know they aren't failproof, but they're far better than nothing. [[Sam Korn]] 17:56, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Rick Block's proposal (Put it under a new header?). It most accurately reflects the reasons for desysop... taking administrator rights away. It also takes away the ambiguity between non-minor and minor edits - an edit is an edit. No edits is (unsurprisingly) no edits. (I could make a highly political comment about the death penalty here but am restraining myself) --Celestianpower ^hab 18:33, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Agree wholeheartedly with Rick Block's proposal, and have put it under a new header. How attractive it looks after the scary minor-edits-how-do-you-define-'em-how-do-you-count-'em-how-did-we-stray-into-this-morass of Proposal One. Thank you Rick for cutting the Gordian knot. Bishonen | talk 19:23, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

"This-piece-of-paper's-got-47-words-37-sentences-58-words-we-wanna-know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-the-crime..." Much better than Proposal One. Full support. --Blackcap | talk 19:59, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Way to tie up those loose ends. I also strongly support this proposal. Acetic'^Acid 21:21, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

This is good. Keep it simple.—encephalonεγκέφαλον 22:27, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree, mostly. But I think that the automatic-regain-via-email bit is a little iffy. They should at least come back to Wikip. :) —Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ) 10:26, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

In fact, if they respond to the email but don't make any edits what would then happen is not very well defined. Should they then be considered to be at the start of the "between 3 and 6 months" period (meaning email renewal with no edits would last three months)? I guess we could avoid this by requiring at least one edit in addition to the email (which is slightly stronger in a security sense, since this demonstrates ability to log in). There's another slight issue with the email response which is that it presumably would come from a bureaucrat - what if the bureaucrat who sent it goes missing or the return email address expires for some reason? To fix this one, we could say either reply to the sender or forward the email to any bureaucrat. I've made both of these changes above. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:01, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

With these changes, I'm very much a happier soul in lending my support for this proposal. —Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ) 14:13, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Now that I think more about it, the e-mail bit is still a problem, due to this possible scenario: Admin is inactive for six months, is de-sysopped, e-mails bureaucrat, makes edit to [[article]], is re-sysopped, is inactive for six months, e-mails bureaucrat, makes edit to [[article]], is re-sysopped, rinse, repeat. I think it might be a good idea to have a limit on how many times e-mail re-sysopping can happen. Maybe, one can have two consecutive e-mail resysoppings (i.e. they're inactive for 12 months, and during that period makes ≈2 edits, enough to be de- and re-sysopped twice), and then the third time they're de-sysopped, they have to go through RfA again. I'd like to have something simpler, though, maybe just one, and RfA necessary after the second? --Blackcap | talk 18:00, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

In the scenario you've described, Blackcap, If I were a bureaucrat & I went thru that cycle a couple of times, & if I couldn't get a plausible explanation from the Admin for this behavior (maybe the poor person was encountering personal difficulties or having problems with Internet access) I'd probably petition the ArbCom to have the person banned from Wikipedia for disruptive activities. In any case, let's worry about that if & when it happens -- not before. I'd hate to see such an elegant solution be discarded for the possibility of a once-trusted user turned vandal. -- llywrch 20:33, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Sure. I was actually thinking less of admin-turned-vandal and more of a still-wants-to-contribute-can't-find-the-time bit. Just was thinking to cover the bases. --Blackcap | talk 21:30, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Knowing your intent then, Blackcap, as long as an Admin is in the situation of "still-wants-to-contribute-can't-find-the-time", my inclination is to allow the person to keep the Admin status; the intent here at Wikipedia is to be inclusive, & assume good faith. Although were an Admin to announce that he is leaving Wikipedia for good over some sleight, I would expect one of the beauracrats to immediately inquire if he neverless wanted to keep his options open, i.e. retain Admin status. -- llywrch 00:33, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

With virtually any simple rule, it is possible to think of scenarios that confound it (or its intent). One way to get around that is to make the rule more complex, ie. to specify what will be done in each possbile scenario to which the rule may apply. This, however, often results in the rule being difficult to understand. In some areas, such as those that are controversial, the payoff in simplicity for the sake of unambiguity may be worthwhile. In others, little is gained from layers of complexity. This is particularly the case where decisions and effects pertaining to the rule are the province of a small group of people. As far as I know, the only people who can action desysoping are Stewards and Developers (ie. Tim Starling, Brion, Angela, Anthere, Kate, Jamesday, and a few others— and of course the Almighty). These folks have enough good sense to know what's best in unusual situations, and are unlikely to require rules to guide their decisions; nor is abuse of authority in this area likely enough to mandate detailed policy. So, just have a simple guideline as to the outer limits, so that the community is aware of the general expectations. I think something along the following lines is fine:

Users are expected to remain reasonably active on the Wikimedia projects where they hold sysop status. Should a sysop be inactive for a period of three months, an email may be sent to ascertain the reason(s) for this and to remind the User that further inactivity may result to desysoping. After a total of 6 months of inactivity, sysop privileges may be removed. If the User begins editing within the following 6 months, or sends an email to a bureaucrat explaining his/her absence, sysop privileges may be returned at the discretion of the bureaucrat without the need for a renewed RfA. Any absence from the project for longer than 12 months will mandate an RfA before sysop privileges are re-instituted. Decisions regarding the sysop status of Users with very low activity not covered by the preceding criteria (for example, <10 edits/year) may be made at the discretion of stewards.

—encephalonεγκέφαλον 00:16, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

This sounds good, but I would change all instances of "may" to "will." I know that we're trying to have rules that assume good faith and give B-crats some leeway with their decisions, but I always prefer clear rules. With a rule with conditionals in it, I can't help but wonder what the conditions are and where I can find them, and for that reason think they're more difficult to follow than a clear-cut one. Also, WP:IAR covers the basis for conditionals, so they're not needed. --Blackcap | talk 16:55, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

After reading WP:IAR and related talk pages, and seeing the obvious problems with them, I realized I need to clarify what I'm saying. My point is that B-crats will use their common sense and break the rule when needed, and that conditionals such as may or might are unnecessary and confusing. --Blackcap | talk 18:48, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

I would support a proposal along the lines of the above. Paul August ☎ 16:53, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Title of page

Shouldn't this be at Wikipedia:Desysoping inactive admins? Or maybe "desysopping?" I can't figure out for the life of me why it's called desysopsing (emphasis added) unless it was just a mistake. --Blackcap | talk 17:18, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

It looks like a mistake, and it's an awkward term either way. Perhaps Wikipedia:Inactive administrator proposal would be better? If it is adopted, it could be moved to Wikipedia:Inactive administrator policy. Jonathunder 17:57, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Or Wikipedia:Inactive administrators (2005)? [[Sam Korn]] 18:05, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Inactive administrators (2005) sounds good. Shall we move it to that? --Blackcap | talk 18:23, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

I'll do just that. [[Sam Korn]] 18:26, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Sounds fine. Jonathunder 18:27, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Brilliant - just as I was editting. Highly unnerving. --Celestianpower ^hab 18:34, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

dbenbenn's vote

Moved from project page by [[Sam Korn]]:

• Support. Although this proposal isn't finalised, I support the idea under any conceivable variation. If adminship is no big deal, then removing adminship from inactive accounts should be no big deal either. dbenbenn | talk 19:42, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

50 edits?

Would you really de-admin someone if they only made 49 edits? Personally I think if they are active at all they should not be de-admined. We need all the admins we can get given wikipedia's rate of growth. Is it really a pressing problem to get rid of mostly inactive admins? Kaldari 22:45, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

The major point is that they didn't have any edits in the past six months, which means in the other six months there were only 50 edits. Sounds reasonable to me. — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 00:24, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

The 49 edit argument sounds like a gaming argument. If the first of those 49 edits was 364 days ago then tomorrow the list will shrink to 48. If a person has not edited recently there is no obligation to hover over the corpse like a vulture waiting to feast as soon as the conditions are met. Eclecticology 19:03, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

The final proposal

No one's edited this for a few days, so I'm assuming we have some kind of agreement on the proposal (Rick Block's). Can we finalize it and get down to the voting part?

If so, it looks like our final proposal is this:

1. After 3 months of no activity, an email is sent from anyone warning that sysop status will be removed after 6 months of no activity.
2. After a total of 6 months of no activity, the account is desysop'd and an email sent from a bureaucrat indicating that any edit and an email response within another 6 months is sufficient to regain sysop status. If the reply cannot be sent for any reason, forwarding the email to any bureaucrat is also sufficient.
3. After a total of 12 months of no activity, regaining sysop status requires going through a request for adminship again.

This looks good to me. Can the voting now commence? --Blackcap | talk 01:28, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

• Looks good except I think there is a fair amount of support for having something like 50 edits in 12 months also result in de-adminning. Can we set up the proposal in an approval type way that the base proposal above is there but there is also the option to strengthen the proposal by having less than 50 edits be de-adminned also? It's stronger considering potentially more admins would be removed if the edit threshold wasn't 0. Also a decision has to be made about those already having 6months with no edits. It seems to make most sense to count them as already meeting the 6mo criteria, de-admin them and let them get it back with the email and edit. So how about this:

1. Additional option 1

   Less than the following threshhold of edits will still result in de-adminship

   25 edits in 3mo, 50 edits in 6mo, and 100 edits in 12mo.

2. Additional option 2

   All admins currently meeting the no or low activity threshholds will be emailed and de-adminned upon conclusion of the proposal if there is no response to the email.

3. Additional option 3

   All admins currently meeting the low activity thresholds are considered to be at the end of the 3 month period and will be sent an email.

• Let me know what you think - Taxman ^Talk 14:10, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Counting edits doesn't measure the trustworthiness of the administrator, which is what we're after. Because adminship is "no big deal", I'd rather have a million good occasional admins than one active bad one. No need for instruction creep, either.
  • I don't think the retroactive clause is necessary, and it adds immediate work for Stewards. Eliminating admins immediately when the option to politely invite them back exists doesn't make sense to me. Unfocused 16:09, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
    • I disagree with Add. option 1 for the same reason as Unfocused, and mostly agree with the second. I think that inactive admins in WP:LA, should this proposal pass, be considered at the beginning of the 3rd month (i.e. an e-mail is sent warning of de-sysopping). That seems a bit politer than suddenly removing their priviledges, because they won't have any idea that this exists. I do think that they should eventualy be de-sysopped—it doesn't make sense for this only to apply to new admins. --Blackcap | talk 16:33, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
    • What I'm saying is there should be a little flexibility, not all or nothing. Proposals that are worded in ways that only leave one option often fail. Unfocused, we are after trustworthiness, but 0 edits is just as poor a way to judge that as 50. So what we have is an easy way they can get their adminship back--that solves the trustworthiness part. Blackcap, I had thought of considering them at the third month too, where they get an email sent instead of automatic, so I incorporated that and another option. I think there should be some options, so the best result is achieved. The point of doing this thing in the first place is removing admin status from accounts that have sat around, with avoiding security risks being a prime motivator. - Taxman ^Talk 17:07, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
      • Mmmmm... I see your point. I'm not strongly drawn to either more than the other, and I'm not sure how much of a difference it'll make either way. It seems a bit like splitting hairs. I tend to go for the least restrictive alterative (i.e. yours), but 0 edits is so much clearer, simpler, and is probably more likely to be the sort of thing we're dealing with. If they're editing a small amount, then they're probably going to be easier to contact, and we can probably get a reason for their lessened editing and deal with that directly and on WP (by talking to them on their talk page), rather than needing this measure to take care of the problem. --Blackcap | talk 17:29, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
      • Also, I'd change add. opt. 2 to have it so that at the conclusion of this proposal, assuming it passes, inactive admins are considered at the 3 month stage and are e-mailed, instead of having them de-adminned if they don't respond to the e-mail. Since this is a new measure, they should have the same warnings as everyone else, rather then having them sort of retroactively punished/acted upon. --Blackcap | talk 17:35, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
        • Wouldn't that make it the same as the 3rd option?
          • Yeah, you're right. What was I thinking? Never mind.--Blackcap | talk 22:02, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
      • I'd rather see a very strong consensus on what we can agree on as the final result rather than fracture the poll with various technical options and details that really don't do much to further the actual goal of the policy, which is to cull the apathetic, the disinterested, and the disgruntled. If a good admin gets a demanding job in their career, and reduces their involvement to a few checks a month looking for vandalism on his watchlist, we should leave the tools in their hands. Zero edits is fine, as long as we know that person still wants the account and admin tools. An email every 3 to 6 months should be enough confirmation. It's still the same person whose judgement we trusted to know policy before acting; we should have good faith that they will do so in the future, too. On the other hand, ther is no reason why someone who's publicly abandoned their account or renounced their participation in the project to keep the admin tools. We should add that announcing that you're leaving is equal to giving up the mop, too! The proposal is very good as originally written, and naturally anyone already inactive 3 months or more would get an email. Unfocused 20:22, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
        • We don't need to argue the merits of the issue here, that can be handled in the actual proposal, since other people feel differently from your opinions. I'm talking about how to structure it. The goal is to correctly capture Wikipedia consensus on how to handle the issue. If we have an inflexible proposal that can fail to happen as it did last time. It's not fracturing the proposal, it's saying mention which of these you approve and they are not mutually exclusive. We could also avoid failing to find consensus by making the goals clear that discussion to find consensus is more important. So we either need to plan the proposal more carefully at the outset, or be willing to be flexible as it goes. - Taxman ^Talk 20:43, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Umm, so where's the rationale

How Wikipedian that this page seems to consist almost entirely of discussing various riffs on complex proposals and voting procedures, and no debate on whether the impact of instituting any change will be positive or negative.

The negative side: Clearly any (variation of this) proposal will create bad-feeling when a long-time Wikipedian does come back and finds he is no longer trusted.

The positive: I don't buy the arguments about security. What are the chances of an inactive admin having their password guessed? Virtually none. There is an argument about "admins not keeping with the latest rules and regulations"... they sprout and such a rate I suppose that it is true... even active admins seem to make all sorts of mistakes... however I think it would be better to presume the returning admin innocent until proven guilty.

In short I find the reasons quite weak. In fact I have no doubt there is an element of current Wikipedians wishing to punish the departed ("how dare they quit my precious Wikipedia!"). Such natural, but rather base, emotions should be surpressed. Pcb21| Pete 20:54, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

I strongly agree with what Pcb21 says here. —Lowellian (reply) 00:06, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't want to discuss this openly (see WP:BEANS), but suffice to say that the chance of an inactive admin account being compromised is distinctly greater than "virtually none". I certainly can't speak for anyone other than myself, but my interest in this issue is distinctly not to punish long absent admins. -- Rick Block (talk) 22:18, 15 October 2005 (UTC)