Wikipedia talk:Bureaucrats/Archive 4

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Archive 6

Privileges

Do Bureaucrats have all the same privileges as Admins? --The High Fin Sperm Whale (talk) 02:22, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

More. We can grant user the admin right, flag bots, and rename user accounts. We are also responsible for closing RFAs and RFBs. — Rlevse • Talk • 02:36, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

But what I really meant was, are there any privileges Admins have that Bureaucrats do not? --The High Fin Sperm Whale (talk) 00:39, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

No. There is no right admins have that crats don't. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:22, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually, you can be a crat without being an admin but I don't think that has ever happened and I can't imagine that ever happening. Right-wise the bits are totally separate. But realistically all crats are admins before they become a crat. — Rlevse • Talk • 02:03, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

← In fact, very few sysops are granted bureaucrat rights before one year of adminship. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 02:45, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Also, I know that admins, rollbackers, and autoreviewers all have their own special icon (Admin mop.PNG, Wikipedia Rollback.svg, and Wikipedia Autoreviewer.svg, respectively). Do crats, oversight, and CheckUsers all have special icons too? --The High Fin Sperm Whale (Talk • Contribs) 02:51, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

File:Wikipedia bureaucrat.png, File:Oversight logo.png, and File:Wikipedia Checkuser.svg –Juliancolton | ^Talk 03:03, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Yes, see {{topicon}} (or my user page . -- Avi (talk) 03:04, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

How about bots, account creators, stewards, abuse filter, and the founder? --The High Fin Sperm Whale (Talk • Contribs) 19:27, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes (), Yes (), No, No and Yes () ;-) Regards SoWhy 19:50, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Can a crat?

Does a crat have the ability/permission/right/whatever to A) Re-open an rfa/b that got closed for whatever reason; and B) Extend an rfa/b, allowing it to run after the prescribed closing time? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.52.130.218 (talk) 21:08, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes (unless another bureaucrat closed it, in which case it would probably go to a larger discussion among the bureaucrats), and yes. NW (Talk) 21:31, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I believe that both situations have occurred; RfAs have occasionally been re-opened if closed under WP:SNOW by a non-bureaucrat too early, or against the clear wishes of the nominee. RfXs used to be extended occasionally when there had been little participation and a contentious issue had emerged; this could still be a good idea if the issue emerged only shortly before the closing time. Warofdreams talk 23:52, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Option A can also be done by a non-crat (unless the RfA was closed by a 'crat.) Occassionally, a non-crat will close an RfA as SNOW/NOTNOW, and the candidate will ask that it be re-opened or (extremely rarely) another user will think the first person closed it premature.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 09:37, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Just saw this discussion and it made me think of this. Even a non-admin and non-crat can re-open an RfA closed by crat. It's just the rest of the community generally don't appreciate it :) Jenks24 (talk) 18:55, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Why are crats called crats

when we keep stressing that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy? Kayau Odyssey HUCK FINN to the lighthouse 03:35, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

The name is intended to convey the repetitive, uninspired tedium that the tasks and mandate encompass. Andrevan@ 06:01, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Just being curious :) I was just thinking that it might be a bit misleading to newbies. Kayau Don't be too CNN I'LL DO MY JOB uprising! uprising! 03:15, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia might seem a little self contradicting, but atleast it is honest about it unlike other self contradicters.66.183.59.211 (talk) 23:03, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Complaints

What is the formal procedure for making an official complaint about serious malpractice, involving the usage of rotating IP addresses which center on a certain location, by a so-called bureaucrat? --86.143.139.170 (talk) 21:47, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

WP:ANI, WP:SPI, or the functionaries e-mail list come to mind. -- Avi (talk) 21:48, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Okay. Can I, as a non-member, gain access to these processes or do I need a "sponsor"? --86.143.139.170 (talk) 21:52, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

You don't need a sponsor. But using rotating IPs, if that's all there is to this, is not prohibited. — Rlevse • Talk • 21:55, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, but note the word "malpractice". --86.143.139.170 (talk) 21:57, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Change Username

Hello I want to change my username User:Brian67 to User:Badener. In de.wp and als.wp the change was made my a bureaucrat and so I hope you can do it here for me as well. Thank you very much. (Ex-)Brian67 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brian67 (talk • contribs) 09:01, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

It's okay. I've found the place to ask for this. --Brian (talk) 11:35, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Logo

I have designed a logo very similar to the old one that uses the updated WP logo. Let me know if there is an interest in it so I can upload it. Tyrol5 [Talk] 17:33, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Not to be unappreciative, but I'll be the first to admit that I think the new logo is a poor replacement (see also Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 76#New logo is awful). –xeno^talk 17:42, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

No offense taken. It took me about two minutes (maybe less) to design it anyway (I was bored). Tyrol5 [Talk] 17:45, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Crat opinions on the "admin drought" issue at The Signpost

Dear bureaucrats, "Features and admins" at The Signpost coming up will include a story on what appear to be the continuing downward trends in RFAs and active admins. User:WereSpielChequers wrote a story for us last August and has provided his opinions on a graph we produced of more recent RfA numbers. Since bureaucrats have official responsibilities at RfAs, I've asked three of you via email to comment on the story, with a view to inclusion the story. At short notice, I'm sorry, we invite any brief comments any of you may wish to make, with the proviso that the story can't be too much longer. Perhaps you could write them here, or email them to me. I usually aim to wind quotes into the run of the journalistic narrative, although we already have two discrete blocks there. We try to publish early Mondays UTC, but it is usually late on Monday UTC. Thank you. Tony (talk) 12:18, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Happy to comment. Up to you if you want to quote any or all. As far as I'm concerned the role of RfA is to create new admins and it is currently failing in that role. Either attitudes at RfA need to change or we as a project need to consider other ways of appointing new administrators. The cost to the community in terms of too few active admins doing too many tasks is hard to see but I believe it is there. In particular, I worry that there is now too little capacity for admins to double check the work of others and ensure that "routine" blocks/deletion/protections are being done correctly. WJBscribe (talk) 23:56, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, WJB. Added, tweaked. Tony (talk) 06:40, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Right to vanish

I wish for this Wiki account to be closed, deleted or right to vanish. Tried looking on the help pages but it gave an article and no code or further info on how to do it. Can you please advise. Thanks in advance. Shaheedi Singh (talk) 14:44, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

You can either email the bureaucrats to request this or post a rename request and ask for a random username. NW (Talk) 14:56, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

RFC on adding viewdeleted and movepage-related privileges to the Bureaucrat bundle

Please see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Make userrights self-sufficient. –xeno^talk 15:23, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Updated Arbitration policy (final draft)

The final draft of a proposed update to the existing Arbitration policy is available. It has received extensive community review already but all editors are cordially invited to review the final draft and comment. The draft is here.  Roger Davies ^talk 10:56, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Discuss this

Arbitration policy update and ratification

The current written arbitration policy dates from 2004 and much has evolved since then. It has been extensively reviewed over the last two years, with a series of wide-ranging community consultations. A proposed update has now been posted and is awaiting community ratification. All editors are cordially invited to participate in the ratification process, which is now open.  Roger Davies ^talk 23:37, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Discuss this

Final reminder: Arbitration policy update and ratification

The current written arbitration policy dates from 2004 and much has evolved since then. The policy has been extensively reviewed over the last two years, with a series of wide-ranging community consultations, to bring the written document up to date. The proposed update is posted and is undergoing community ratification, which is due to close on 13 June 2011. All editors are cordially invited to participate in the ratification process.  Roger Davies ^talk 06:02, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Discuss this

Please rename me to YahooAgent

Dear Bureaucrats,

please rename me to YahooAgent.

Thanks in advance

(YahooBot (talk) 13:42, 9 June 2011 (UTC)).

I have left a note on the user's talk page informing them to leave a request at WP:CHU/S. Jenks24 (talk) 13:57, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Two RfCs for allowing bureaucrats to remove the admin bit

Two related Requests for Comment are now open to discuss giving bureaucrats the ability to remove administrator user permissions under specific circumstances. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Granting bureaucrats the technical ability to remove the admin flag proposes enabling the technical ability for bureaucrats to do this. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Bureaucrat removal of adminship policy proposes the specific policy conditions under which they would be allowed to use that ability. Please visit both RfCs to give your input. Thanks. --RL0919 (talk) 20:21, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

With the passing of the technical ability RFC, and the fulfillment of bugzilla:18390, bureaucrats now have the technical ability to remove administrative permissions (cf. Special:ListGroupRights).

With the passing of three of the four policy proposals, they also have specific authorization to do so in the situations outlined at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats#Removal of adminship. Discussion of whether bureaucrats should be explicitly authorized to remove administrator rights in emergency situations continues below at #Emergency desysopping (v3).

The implementation of these procedures is not intended to constrain the authority of the Wikimedia Stewards to undertake emergency removal of permissions on their own discretion, or removal following a request from the Arbitration Committee, pursuant to the relevant policies governing Steward actions. –xeno^talk 15:38, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

RFC: Remove bureaucrat bit from inactive accounts

Since this affects this policy, please take note of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Remove bureaucrat bit from inactive accounts. Regards SoWhy 18:05, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

As I wander around the wiki I have noticed that some users have a talk page message stating that due to inactivity their admin privileges were revoked. Some however do not such as User talk:Bluemoose who appears to still have the right (based on the tiny icon) and hasn't edited in years. Also, if you look at some info pages like Wikipedia:Missing Wikipedians not only do a lot of them have the little admin logo but a lot of them say they are administrators and several appear to still have it if you look at the user pages. I don't know if any action is required but I thought I would drop a note anyway. 138.162.8.58 (talk) 20:07, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Bluemoose had their admin status removed last year at meta per the above RFC. The little icon you mention is not a reliable indicator of admin status as it is simply added via {{Administrator topicon}}. The best way to see what permissions a user has is by looking them up at Special:ListUsers, e.g. Special:Listusers/Bluemoose. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 20:21, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Ok thanks thats a useful page. 138.162.8.58 (talk) 21:01, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Emergency desysopping (v3)

Previous discussion: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Bureaucrat removal of adminship policy#Emergencies (v2)

The previous discussion on this subject sought to authorize bureaucrats to carry out the temporary removal of the administrator user right "in an emergency when an administrator account appears to be compromised", but some indicated concern that this was too vague. For greater clarity, I would suggest the following:

• In an emergency, when an administrator account appears to be compromised and is rapidly abusing the administrative tools in such an egregious fashion as to seriously compromise the integrity of Wikipedia (in such situations, the removing bureaucrat must immediately contact the Arbitration Committee and post to the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard and Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard noting the desysop was carried out)

Picking up from an astute comment by Wehwalt in the prior discussion (#10), I've tried to capture the situation in which bureaucrats would consider the speed of the existing emergency Level I arbitration procedure to be insufficient and be willing to ignore all rules to immediately desysop a administrator account that appeared to have gone rogue. –xeno^talk 00:58, 8 August 2011 (UTC) Modified at 01:28, 01:38, 2:57; thanks for comments

1. Support - even I should have thought that the evidence that an account was compromised was the repeated and rapid abuse of admin flags (as opposed to "admin burnout", where abuse is preceded by warning signs) I suppose clarification of the example of possible compromised account actions is helpful, as is the (fairly obvious) steps to advise the community of the actions taken. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:03, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• Point of fact: The Arbitration Committee proceure is explicitly not an emergency desysop, and it is very important not to conflate the two processes; Xeno, I'd appreciate it if you'd remove that term. Stewards do emergency desysops. Now...how many emergency desysops have been done in the past five years? Risker (talk) 13:50, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
  •  Done - "emergency" replaced with "Level I". See Wikipedia:Former administrators, which lists emergency desysops. –xeno^talk 14:36, 8 August 2011 (UTC) The linked page currently lists some Level I desysops as Emergencies, and should be amended accordingly
    • You're quite correct, almost all of the "emergency" desysops attributed to Arbcom listed there were either Level I or done by motion. I'll look more closely later tonight and try to amend things; getting the correct links will take some digging. Risker (talk) 15:34, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Notification at AN?

What about this modification:

• In an emergency, when an administrator account appears to be compromised and is rapidly abusing the administrative tools in such an egregious fashion as to seriously compromise the integrity of Wikipedia. The bureaucrat must open up a thread announcing the desysop at WP:AN immediately afterwards, where the community will then have the ability to confirm or overturn the desysop.

Additionally, the terms that "Failure to start a thread announcing the desysop, or repeated having desysops overturned by the community, are grounds for the removal of Bureaucrat rights (if an RfC/U shows consensus for that)." could be considered. Sven Manguard Wha? 01:14, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

My thought was that the bureaucrat should submit it to the Arbitration Committee for L1 review. (The 'Additionally' is unnecessary.) –xeno^talk 01:28, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I've just added this. Thanks. –xeno^talk 01:38, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I think AN makes more sense in the first instance. If crats are using the power appropriately, you would expect it to be rubber-stamped, and therefore unworthy of taking up Arbcom time. It only makes sense to be taken to Arbcom for review if there is a reasonable suggestion that the desysopping was inappropriate. —WFC— TFL notices 01:40, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

If it's an emergency, it needs to be swiftly confirmed via the existing Level 1 procedures at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures#Removal of permissions. This only requires three arbitrators. If the committee is not willing to confirm the desysop via Level I procedures, the rights should be _immediately_ restored - not after a lengthy noticeboard discussion. Either way, the committee will be required to make a statement at ACN. I've added a note that they should post to WP:AN and WP:BN under this procedure. –xeno^talk 01:44, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Arbitration Committee role?

That's all well and good, except that a damn whole lot of people don't trust ArbCom. The moment it goes to ArbCom, two things happen. First, the community's opinion becomes largely irrelevant, and I dare say largely disregarded. Second, the desysop becomes associated with ArbCom, even when it wasn't to begin with. This adds needless layers of complication to an already contentious situation. Does the action suddenly carry ArbCom's nigh irreversible stamp of approval? Is the associated block an ArbCom block? Would any appeals have to be made through ArbCom? Face it: You can try to be the community, but in reality you're a tiny and increasingly isolated fragment of the community that has, through a series of blunders, and motions/proposals that are for all intents and purposes power grabs, alienated yourself from the community. This process is a community process. It isn't yours, it's ours. Please, hands off. Sven Manguard Wha? 02:09, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. Please remember that I am also a member of the community; I am here in my editorial capacity attempting to craft policy that will find wide approval within the community. I've simplified the wording somewhat; does this address your concerns? –xeno^talk 02:57, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

It's a step in the right direction, but the community, not ArbCom, needs to have the first crack at confirming or overturning the desysop. I, personally, want these kinds of things in writing. That being said, thank you for working with me here. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:08, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

If consensus develops that the desysop was just horrible bad, or some crazy good-faith mistake (i.e. someone accidentally hit d-batch when they were looking at the WP:FA page), or suchlike, the bureaucrat, or another bureaucrat, would still have the ability to exercise their best judgment under the WP:RESYSOP procedure. And - from the other side of the equation - if the Arbitration Committee were to make a motion that administrative rights should be restored to an individual who had been desysopped in an emergency, it still requires the bureaucrats to enact that motion. So even if the committee were to just go bat shit crazy, the bureaucrats could respectfully decline to enact the motion in the face of contravening consensus, and require further community discussion, crat chat, new RFA, or what-have-you, prior to restoring user rights. –xeno^talk 03:25, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose Xeno's (previous) version per my above comment. I don't want ArbCom to usurp control over any more community decisions than they already have. Sven Manguard Wha? 02:09, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

  Presently, the community can only desysop an administrator in an emergency via Stewards (who then refer the situation to the Arbitration Committee for further review), the Arbitration Committee via Level I review, and a few other places (like asking a dev to put the database in lockdown mode because the apocalypse came). This expands the options for a community member to seek the rapid review of an emergency situation. –xeno^talk 02:20, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

  • Xeno, I have no problem with you personally. I can say that about most of the Arbs. However there's a documented problem of one way communication when it comes to ArbCom. Much more information goes in (to ArbCom) than comes out (from ArbCom). And I'm not just talking about things that should remain hushed, like pedophiles running about. I'm talking about the bulk of your deliberations, the reasoning behind your actions, etc. on cases where nothing is secret/hidden to start with. I've already mentioned that ArbCom seems to keep getting more and more responsibilities, I've already mentioned that it has a tendency to govern by motion. The issue here is that if this goes to ArbCom, everyone else will a) have limited forums for input (because you have an inch thick rulebook just on how to talk to people in ArbSpace), b) have no idea if their input was even read (because your deliberations are kept secret), c) lose the ability to make decisions on what is a community matter (say what you want, but it's really hard to get anythign ArbCom does overtuned, except through ArbCom). Sven Manguard Wha? 03:04, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

    Thank you for your comments. I've modified the proposal so that the bureaucrat removing the administrative privileges in an emergency simply needs to notify the Committee, and the Community, that they've done so. Hopefully this addresses your concern. –xeno^talk 03:17, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand the objection to informing ArbCom. The wording doesn't indicate that ArbCom has any role except that they be notified. ArbCom will learn about it very quickly anyway, and it is better that we hear about it from the person who made the decision. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 03:53, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I have no objection with informing ArbCom. My objection was that in the initial rewording by Xeno (now undone) it became ArbCom's, rather than the community's, role to assess whether or not the desysop was valid. It should be a community decision, out in the open, instead of an ArbCom decision made behind closed doors. Sven Manguard Wha? 04:13, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

In an emergency, when an administrator account appears to be compromised and is rapidly abusing the administrative tools in such an egregious fashion as to seriously compromise the integrity of Wikipedia → Just to be clear, the first thing that needs to happen right away in such a situation is that said admin bit be removed immediately, even before any confirmation or discussions begin. The encyclopedia comes first in this instance, and we cannot afford to get bogged down in community discussion while said rogue admin account keeps disrupting. The other question here (which is what Sven brings up) is that should ArbCom continue current procedure and endorse these desysops when/if they come up, or should that be delegated to the community? –MuZemike 02:26, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree. The order I was thinking of, and thought everyone else was thinking of, was

1) Desysop and block

2) Tell (community / ArbCom )

3) (Community / ArbCom ) decides whether or not the desysop and block were valid

4) In the unlikely event that a 'crat starts abusing the desysop ability, we ask for his head on a platter. If not, we all move on.

At issue are the still unresolved "should 'crats be allowed to desysop during emergencies", the definition of said "emergencies", and who should affirm or overturn the desysop. Sven Manguard Wha? 02:55, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

To me, I wouldn't care who should be allowed to desysop, as along as it is done promptly. Chances are, a Steward would react much faster than a bureaucrat would, but with the bureaucrats' ability to desysop, we are afforded a greater sense of autonomy, not to mention, a better possibility at a prompt action. –MuZemike 03:07, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Emergency desysopping (v3) - break

• IIRC, that entire "emergency" idea was shot down during the entire RfC for giving 'crats' the "right"(?) to do this in the initial stages of said RfC. Now, just a day after the RfC closes to propose the addition(?) of this? ... And ya'all wonder why I had such grave reservations to the entire thing to begin with? — Ched :  ?  02:19, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
  • The idea was had wide support among those who commented on the second version of the proposal, and some of those in opposition seemed to be there only for lack of clarity in the proposed wording. This proposal seeks to address the deficiencies pointed out. –xeno^talk 02:24, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) Not withstanding the extreme closeness of that closure (most controversial AFDs [or the Flagged Revisions discussion] are closed one way or the other even with much less support), HJ Mitchell did say in his closure: "I would suggest further discussion on this at an appropriate venue. A threaded discussion might produce a more refined proposal or a set of criteria, which can then be put to a straw poll." NW (Talk) 02:24, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
  • This is exactly what should happen, those of the community with a interest, and especially those who opposed the Emergency desysopping at the RfC should work here to find a better model, before submitting it back to the wider community in another RfC. As for the wording, I agree that there needs to be a policy for Emergency action, it is needed, the actual procedure needs to be worked on. I am not sure that a WP:AN discussion looking for community consensus is the right course of action, it smacks of a backdoor community desysopping. I am thinking that the removal should be temporarily, say for 12 hours, during which time Arbcom should be contacted and asked if they wish to follow their procedures as detailed at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures#Removal of permissions, if Arbcom agrees the removal stays, then it is over to them. If however after that chosen time frame Arbcom has declined to act the bit should be returned. Mtking ^(edits) 03:02, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
    • But then, by your logic, instead of becoming a "backdoor community desysopping", it would become a "backdoor ArbCom desysopping". Just to be clear, this isn't for the everyday run of the mill admins pushing boundries, it's for dealing with accounts that go off and delete featured articles, block fifteen users, or insert pornography into protected templates, etc. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:11, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
      • No its not a backdoor anything, it is extending the current ArbCom desysopping, by saying that a crat can, using their judgment remove the bit in a pre-emptive action prior to Arbcom ruling. As it stands now, from reading the Arbcom procedures page, they can request desysopping when three or more arbitrators agree it is warranted. This would just speed up the process by giving Arbcom a 12 hour window to consider the facts without risk of harm to the project. Mtking ^(edits) 03:26, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
        • I agree. If the crats are making good calls on desysopping, the arbitrators could remove emergency desysops from our procedures. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 04:07, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
          • John, emergency desysoppings have explicitly not been part of Arbcom's procedures since April 2009. Risker (talk) 04:28, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• If I go and grab a steward, and a steward desysops a rogue admin, what happens? Why can't bureaucrats do the same exact thing without having to modify the existing procedure? Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 03:31, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• Well, I'll admit that when it became obvious that the RfC for the inclusion of this extra right had tremendous support, I did quit expressing my views. I was amazed at how almost every single "oppose" was faced with some type of rebuttal. (which I found to be very unseemly). The bottom-line is the community wants the crats to have this ability, and I'll not try to be gadfly about it. I'm just seeing motions here, and "new bits" there, and it all seems like some sort of huge power struggle to me. I have to wonder if maybe we should send the crats and arbs out behind the woodshed ... let them duke it out ... and whoever emerges gets Super Duper rights. Oh well, just IMHO that we're opening a can of worms best left unopened ... so I'll be a good little boy and shut-up now before I become the first example of this "emergency situation". (ummm .. but you folks DO realize that this is just a website don't ya? IJS) — Ched :  ?  03:33, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• @Titoxd (K, I'll shut up after this one). If you would indulge me a second here. My line of thinking is this. At the "local" level, the "crats" are going to normally be familiar with many of the participants here on en-WP, and by that fact alone, they will have their own preconceived notions of various editors. I think it possible (notice I didn't say likely) that those thoughts will taint the decision process of the editor/admin. in question. Just a thought ... OK .. NOW I shut up. (hey .. he asked :/) — Ched :  ?  03:37, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• Subtle digs aside, what's preventing bureaucrats from just using the existing steward policy? Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 04:50, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• As the situation currently stands, whether or not a bureaucrat has the authority to desysop in "emergency" situations, the longstanding position of the Arbitration Committee is that there is no constraint on stewards to act according to the applicable principles in responding to an emergency. It would be my strong suggestion that the bureaucrats look closely at the steward policy before creating something different; that policy has served the community very well for almost 10 years. I do agree with several of the other commenters here that this was explicitly failing extremely badly at the time that I reviewed the RFC, and so the change is rather startling. I am afraid, however, that I will step in and say that yes, I do think that any such desysopping requires review by the Arbitration Committee, should the desysopped administrator so request. Risker (talk) 04:26, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

  I had planned to add this after the technical ability was granted, but may as well do so now: [1]. –xeno^talk 04:34, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• I'd like to take a moment to offer an apology here. It's come to my attention that a post or two of mine here could be construed as something of a backhanded insult or dismissive remark towards our crats. That was FAR from my intention as I honestly do have the utmost respect for every single Bureaucrat I know here. What I'm trying to say is that I find the idea of an "emergency" to be almost unimaginable. Short of some legal issue that could threaten our funding, or a power outage that shuts down the servers, I simply have trouble with the entire concept of "emergency" on a website. Secondly, should an admin. have misused his tools in a manner that may require the removal of those tools, I feel the solutions in place have always been quite capable of resolving the situation. In short, the few "local" crats who are active enough to be doing these "deadmin" duties quite likely are going to be familiar with any admin. in need of sanction. Those who aren't active, shouldn't even consider doing such at all. I consider it very possible that regardless of the integrity of editor, subconsciously their view(s) of another admin. could likely influence a decision as to removing this bit. I'm honestly not trying to be a gadfly here, but I do have some real reservations as to the potential drama and hard feelings that could come about over this whole situation. I simply wanted to express my concerns for the record, and never meant to impugn the integrity of anyone here. Thank you for your time. — Ched :  ?  07:29, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Thank you for your comments. I understand your trouble with the concept of an "emergency" on a website. I don't even feel comfortable describing most of the situations in which I would feel comfortable exercising this ability (most situations can be adequately handled by WP:LEVELI procedures); but an admin going down the WP:LOAA list and blocking every one of them without rhyme nor reason, deleting every article at WP:FA with the log action summary "for the lulz", or inserting a shock image onto dozens of fully-protected Wikipedia:High-risk templates are a few of the obvious cases. –xeno^talk 13:54, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Arbcom based review of Emergency desysopping

Following on from my thoughts above, I have put them into a form of a procedure :

In an situation, where an administrator account appears to be compromised and/or is rapidly abusing the administrative tools in such a fashion as to seriously compromise the integrity of Wikipedia a Bureaucrat can temporarily remove the Administration bit from an administrator.
When doing so they must :

• Clearly indicating in the log that this is temporary and for a period of 12 hours while Arbcom is consulted.
  
• Immediately notify the editor via their talk page and where possible by e-mail.
  
• Immediately notify Arbcom by sending a message to arbcom-l following the Level I procedures as detailed at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures#Removal of permissions.
  
  

If at any time prior to the end of the 12 hour temporary removal, Arbcom, in accordance with its Level I procedures agrees with the removal, the log and editors talk page should be updated to that effect.

If Arbcom, does not agree with the removal or fails to signal it's agreement in accordance with its own procedures within the 12 hours, the Administration bit should be reinstated forthwith.

By keeping the time frame small and the reviewing body narrow (arbcom vs AN) I would hope that this would keep any resulting drama down to a minimum. Mtking ^(edits) 04:31, 8 August 2011 (UTC) Mtking ^(edits) 04:31, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose per my other comments regarding ArbCom involvement, and because the "Anything + ArbCom = Drama" fromula undermines your argument that it would reduce drama. Sven Manguard Wha? 04:49, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Sven, your equation is incorrect. "Any involuntary desysop" = Drama. Risker (talk) 04:54, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
    • They can both be correct. Sven Manguard Wha? 04:56, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
      • That's why I said "keep any resulting drama down to a minimum", take it to AN with vastly more input is likely to result in much more drama. Mtking ^(edits) 05:02, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose 12 hour "Time Out" is a moment of time when compared to the potential damage that a rogue administrator can cause. Treat this like any other issue of grave concernm Minimum 24 hrs discussion by the community(AN/ANI). There's already procedures in place for ArbCom to bring the speedy desysop if it gets brought to their attention. Hasteur (talk) 14:10, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

24 Hours works just the same, however, I would think it would not be hard to find the three Arbcom members needed to meet their Level I procedures in 12 hours. Mtking ^(edits) 06:53, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Question for bureaucrats, before this goes any further

Does the proposal that bureaucrats have authority to carry out "emergency" desysops enjoy broad and deep support amongst bureaucrats themselves? We must keep in mind that there is no positive requirement for any user to act, particularly when it comes to using permissions over that of the basic user: admins can't be forced to block, checkusers can't be forced to check, and oversighters can't be forced to suppress. It is important, before we as a community approve this change that there is a reasonable assumption that all active bureaucrats would be willing to exercise this authority. (I'll be honest, it's a lot easier to find a steward 24/7 than it is a bureaucrat.) I would like to see a show of hands from the bureaucrats themselves to gauge the level of support amongst that usergroup. Risker (talk) 05:05, 8 August 2011 (UTC) [Statistical aside - 42% of bureaucrats have made no bureaucrat-specific actions since the beginning of 2011; many of them have not used this permission in years. I'm quite concerned about granting this level of authority to a usergroup that has such a remarkably high level of inactivity, when there's no indication that I can find that the majority of 'crats are either willing or interested in using this additional permission. Risker (talk) 05:49, 8 August 2011 (UTC)]

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that bureaucrats should replace the steward role in emergencies, nor should they even be the first port of call. All advice (including at WP:BUR) should still point users to stewards in the first instance.

The situations I envision for bureaucrat emergency desysop are of IAR proportions. If the reaction to their action is anything less than "Stellar job", the bureaucrat has made a mistake. –xeno^talk 06:05, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

After reading Risker's point, I decided to look at our 'crat staff:

If my count is correct, there are 36 people with the 'crat flag. Of them

XX are inactive or barely active; Cimon Avaro (12 edits this year, although last one was in August), Cprompt (last edit in January), Ilyanep (8 edits this year), Jwrosenzweig (10 edits in April, then last edits before than in January), Linuxbeak (two edits this year, then nothing from after 2009), Pakaran (three edits this year, back in May), Rdsmith4 (almost a year since last edit), Redux (over two years since last edit), Secretlondon (no edits this year), TUF-KAT (last edit was almost two years ago), Taxman (one edit this year, in January), UninvitedCompany (one edit this year, in January). That's a third of our 'crat staff.

In addition, about a third of our 'crat staff go days or weeks without editing, and a few haven't edited at all this month.

That leaves only a dozen people that appear at least a few times a week. That's fine for procedural stuff that can wait 24 hours or so to get done. That's not fine for an emergency response, because it means that we're rolling dice to see if any 'crats are around. This isn't going to be a popular suggestion, but we need more 'crats. Mind you I don't expect emergencies to be common, but if we have one, we need to be comfortable that there will be someone around to handle it. Sven Manguard Wha? 06:43, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Or we could just use stewards as the focal point of contact for emergencies, as we've done for as long I've been here... Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 07:09, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Sven you are correct. Also inactive in the bureaucrat sphere are BCorr, Cecropia, Infrogmation, Raul654, Stan Shebs, although all of them edit more frequently. This raises the question of removing unused or insufficiently used tools: after all, stewards must make XX number of actions with their steward tools each year in order to be eligible for re-appointment. We already, as a project, have serious concerns about administrators using their tools after long periods of absence or inactivity; the opportunity for making a poor decision is much higher with more powerful tools. If stewards are to be the primary contact point, as Titoxd suggests, then I'm not sure what the point is. And to be clear: so far, one bureaucrat has indicated support for this concept. Incidentally, I'd like to see some discussion about whether or not a bureaucrat who is also an arbitrator should use this particular tool: I rather doubt the community is going to pay attention to the fact of what hat he was wearing, but the community also knows arbitrators cannot act unilaterally to desysop. Risker (talk) 11:51, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Stewards should remain the primary point of contact for emergencies. The point of this line item is to allow a bureaucrat - upon seeing an admin going quite obviously rogue - to provisionally remove the administrative bits and then flag the action for further review. In a true "emergency" (the kind where an admin is blocking every admin, deleting every FA, inserting a shock image onto dozens of high-risk templates, or doing something equally egregious), I do not think a bureaucrat - who are generally placed in the bureaucrat role for their ability to exercise discretion with the utmost diligence - should have to wait (or invoke IAR) to prevent serious harm to the project. –xeno^talk 13:17, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

How many of those 'emergency' situations have we had in the past five years? How many took more than 10 minutes to resolve? Risker (talk) 13:53, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Not many have happened in the past five years, and I'm not sure if any took longer than 10 minutes to resolve via Steward action. (See Wikipedia:Former administrators#Desysopped by ArbCom, Jimbo Wales or otherwise. That page should probably be reviewed to ensure that the word "emergency" was not used where "Level I procedure" should have been instead.) –xeno^talk 14:13, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Can you give an actual number? I can only think of one. Risker (talk) 14:37, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

You'll have a longer institutional memory on this than me, so whatever number you come up with is probably accurate. –xeno^talk 14:41, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I've taken a look at the Former Administrators page, and have made some notes on my own talk page which I'll use later to "correct" information about the desysops. As far as I can tell, exactly two of all of those desysops would currently fall into the "emergency" category (Eye of the Mind, for deleting the main page in Dec 07 and Robdurbar in April 07); the three admin accounts that were desysopped for apparent compromise (RickK, Zoe and Vancouverguy) were all long dormant accounts that would have been auto-desysopped under current processes. I've discounted "Jimbo desysops" as they're not in Arbcom scope. There were several that should actually be listed as either Level 1 or full committee motions, at least one of which is mischaracterized; a few others would have been done that way under current policies. Risker (talk) 16:57, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for running the numbers. The Zoe/RickK situation would not qualify under the wording I've drafted (no rapid abuse of administrative tools); nor would have the Vancouverguy situation (as all they did was move one process page). –xeno^talk 17:17, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I would prefer that stewards remain the go-to people for this sort of situation. Bureaucrats are elected due to their ability to judge consensus, for the most part - not on their ability to make snap decisions. In fact, the only "snap" decisions crats are able to make (as crats) is renaming users, and even some of those have to sit around for a week or so before they can be processed. As Risker points out, it's far easier to find a steward quickly (all else fails, go on IRC, join #wikimedia-stewards, and ping !steward until you get someone's attention or get kicked out of the channel) than it is a crat (there's maybe five of us who are on IRC regularly, and all the ones I know of are in the same time zone). This isn't what crats were originally elected to do - I'm ok with having the ability to remove it in non-controversial circumstances (inactivity, voluntary release, non-emergency ArbCom orders such as through a case), but not this. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 17:01, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree that stewards should remain the go-to people for this sort of situation.

As a point of order, once bugzilla:18390 is fulfilled, it will not be possible to remove the technical ability for a bureaucrat to remove the administrator permission from any account short of removing their bureaucrat permissions.

Q: If you (as a bureaucrat appointed in part for their ability to exercise discretion with the utmost due diligence), were the first user to notice an admin who had started blocking every other admin, deleting every FA, or inserting shock images onto dozens of fully-protected highly transcluded templates, would you report the situation to a Steward rather than immediately removing the administrative rights? –xeno^talk 17:12, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

No, I'd deflag him. But I still think it is a bad idea for me or any of the crats to have this new power because I'll almost never be around to use it and it adds a politicized dimension to our work (inserting a shock image is clear, but what about inserting a dash through full protection 20 times in a row?). The community though wants us to do it, so I'll fulfill requests when I see them and don't feel like it's a controversial situation, but I highly doubt I'll be doing more then deflagging self-requests on BN and the periodic inactive listing. MBisanz ^talk 18:58, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I would not consider your hypothetical as "abusing the administrative tools in such an egregious fashion as to seriously compromise the integrity of Wikipedia". If the situation is not blatantly clear, existing procedures should be engaged instead. –xeno^talk 19:07, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• And thus we start down the slippery slope. There is no consensus even amongst the three bureaucrats who have commented here on what would constitute grounds for a 'crat to desysop. I consider this situation to be very closely parallel to the issues that have arisen with administrators being given sudden, unfettered access to revision deletion: the definition of a deletable edit has expanded dramatically to the point that I'd estimate fully 60% of revisions deleted now do not meet the standard for deletion that was in place immediately before revision deletion was handed over; in fact, most of them *still* don't meet our current definitions, but since the misuse is so widespread, there's little foothold to rectify the situation. No doubt the definition of what is an "emergency" will also expand: one 'crat is already suggesting repeated minor edits through protection as an emergency. Folks, how about withdrawing this at present until you have worked out amongst yourself what you would and would not use this power for? A publicly viewable 'crat chat, with at minimum 20 'crats participating (including at least some who are not normally active) should be the minimum before we proceed further. And please do something about inactive 'crats before you proceed, as well. Tools aren't privileges or honorifics, and if people are unwilling or uninterested in using them over years, they no longer need them. Risker (talk) 20:09, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

As for inactive crats, we just passed a proposal to remove the tools from inactive accounts, so let's see how that works. Maybe we should leave those crats who are not using the tools, but who are not inactive per the new policy, a message, asking them to give the tools back voluntarily? Regards SoWhy 20:31, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

With respect to removing the tools from active editors who are not active as bureaucrats, the most recent proposal on this was at Wikipedia:Bureaucrat removal. –xeno^talk 20:38, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Here's what will happen if there is no policy or guideline on emergency desysopping: it will eventually happen anyway. It will not happen for silly reasons like minor edits, and it wouldn't with a policy in place either, because that is an example raised by someone who opposes the policy, not a claim by anyone about what they would actually do. But it will happen if the sort of situation described by Xeno arises, with WP:IAR as the justification. If it was a good call for an obvious emergency, it will be praised. If it is a bad call, the offending crat will be pilloried by enraged admins from across the globe. In neither case will it happen in silence. In contrast, revision deletion is available to the many hundreds of admins, it can be used on all sorts of obscure pages, and the "victims" are often editors who are either unfamiliar with their options for complaint, cannot pursue them because they are blocked, or will be disregarded because of their lack of reputation in the community. As a result, revision deletion has relatively little oversight (no pun intended). If an active admin is involuntarily desysopped, it will be public event that draws the attention of very experienced and influential members of the community, who will ardently push the use of the privilege back up the slope if it starts to slip. So speaking as a non-crat who expects that the usage will happen anyway, I would rather see some structure around it. (That said, I agree about the need to do something about advanced users who sit on their tools. The new inactivity policies are a start. A more robust inactivity policy would be better. Periodic reconfirmation would be best.) --RL0919 (talk) 20:48, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

While you may partially be correct, the reality is that there has been precisely *one* true emergency desysop in the entire history of this project, according to the current definition of "emergency" - User:Robdurbar. All of the others, there was some time to consider options or to notify a steward; since April 2009, there's been a formal procedure for dealing with these issues so that there are at least three arbitrators weighing in before going to a steward, or at least one community member going to a steward, before any emergency or expedited desysop takes place. (In fact, in almost all cases before that, the same principles applied.) It is overkill to grant authorization for carrying out emergency desysop to a group that is so significantly inactive with their current advanced permissions, is already known to be less available than those who are currently authorized to carry out this task, and which has occurred precisely once in the entire history of the project. Risker (talk) 21:02, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

But isn't the point of emergency power that one never hopes to have to use it? Sure, it was not really needed so far but in case it is really needed, shouldn't crats be allowed to wield it? If an emergency that requires such swift action really happens, shouldn't all available users who can do it, be allowed to do it? Regards SoWhy 21:09, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, it would make sense if the 36 people it's proposed will have this authorization were actually active, willing and available. We have absolutely no indication that this is the case; in fact, quite the opposite. 15 of the 'crats are inactive as 'crats, to start with. Another dozen are inconsistently active, often going long stretches without any activity. Only a few of the remainder are easily accessible. So by granting this authorization, we actually muddy the situation for users who may identify an emergency situation and will then be torn between looking for a 'crat and looking for a steward. Right now, the solution is straightforward and obvious: everyone goes to the steward. By throwing in another usergroup, particularly one that is largely unavailable, we create an undesirable situation where more decisions have to be made under time constraints. This is emergency management 101, really; one single place to go to ask for assistance is infinitely better than multiple places. Risker (talk) 21:30, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you there, although the problem is largely self-made since the community has been unwilling to promote more crats in the past years, although that might have changed considering the last two successful RfBs. That said, there is no reason to change the place. The instructions can still be for people to ask a steward for intervention but that does not mean a crat who notices such behavior themselves or is told by someone else has to sit by and wait for a steward to intervene? Where people should go in such situations is imho not relevant to the fact that having more people who could potentially act is a good thing. If I see a house on fire, I will call the fire department but that doesn't mean that the neighbor, who happens to have firefighting gear in his home, should be barred from helping, does it? Regards SoWhy 21:37, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

"Authorizing" them to perform emergency desysops it is beside the point. They can do it as soon as the privilege is enabled. The question is what guidance they will have around when and how to use that privilege. At the moment, there is no "official" guidance particular to emergency desysopping. There is no explicit policy forbidding emergency desysops, and no policy about how things should proceed if one is contemplated or performed. The former seems unlikely to be enacted given that 80% of those participating supported the proposed policy about emergency desysopping in the recent RFC. So do we come up with a better proposal for the latter to win over the remaining 20% (or whatever portion of them is needed to be taken as consensus), or do we settle for policy silence? --RL0919 (talk) 21:39, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• To answer Risker's initial question, I find myself in complete agreement with Xeno's comments: I see the hypothetical situation of bureaucrat intervention in an emergency as an extension of IAR, rather than instituting a "users should approach the bureaucrats in an emergency first, then go to the stewards" type of system. My support of emergency desysopping by the bureaucrats begins and ends at "it allows another pair of eyes, one that is far more familiar with the project, to act in an emergency". We've been vetted for our judgement; I like to think none of us are stupid enough to desysop someone for trivial reasons. (perhaps stretching AGF to the breaking point with that one...) EVula // talk // ☯ // 01:24, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
• I agree with both Evula and xeno. Also, those of us who are active in 'crat roles respond pretty quickly in most cases as most of those who are active are on the site multiple times daily. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 06:24, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Wording of "Administrator account appears to be compromised"

While it may be wise to leave some discretion for case by case determinations, "when an administrator account appears to be compromised" is extremely vague. Two proposed versions here require the appearance of compromise, and rapid, serious abuse of tools, while one presents it as an and/or. Will the rapid abuse criteria be used to satisfy the appearance of compromise criteria, or is something more required? If something more is required, then we should develop more specific guidelines. If not, and just sudden abuse can justify it, why even have the appearance language? My concern is that a vague "appears to be compromised" standard is open to wide interpretation, and the removal of the bit in the emergency circumstance could be extremely subjective. This is a big change from the other approved removal reasons, which really require little subjective assessment on the part of the crat. What is needed is specificity, instead of broad discretion, with just enough discretion left over to avoid someone gaming the policy. Monty₈₄₅ 06:09, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• • I put the header in quotes and added "Wording of" so that people that watchlist this won't panic. Cheers, Sven Manguard Wha? 06:45, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
• Listing off nitty-gritty details of exactly what "appears to be compromised" means would invite WP:BEANS into the picture. There's no way to list all possible ways an account could "appear to be compromised", and we wouldn't want to do so in order to avoid giving people ideas on how to avoid giving that appearance. This is a case where leaving it just a little vague is a good thing. It also makes it so that a 'crat will make very sure that it's blatantly obvious the account "appeared to be compromised" in order to avoid any question of abusing the ability to remove the bit in the first place. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 07:41, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

  I don't think it is a good application of WP:BEANS to refuse to list and discuss what the basis for determining an account appears to be compromised would be, it would be like removing all the criteria from WP:BLOCK. Involuntary desysop is a serious action, and there should be enough direction in the policy/guideline that it is possible to come to agreement after the fact on whether a desysop met the policy. I'm certainly not asking that we list every factor that may lead to a suspicion of account compromise, but for the criteria to carry weight, we should at least have some examples of what may meet it. Without specificity, I fear that this part of the policy is going to end up as a faux criteria, that does not actually restrict use. Monty₈₄₅ 15:38, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

  WP:BLOCK, while listing things which can cause an account to be blocked, is not extremely specific in most cases. How about you create a somewhat-specific list here to get things going since you seem to want something more specific than what has been listed above? We can then work on it to make something which isn't too specific but still gives a little more structure to this proposal. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 06:27, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

  My concern is largely that I don't really know what would qualify. The only two circumstances that really come to mind, are if an admin who had been inactive all of a sudden returns and starts using the admin tools in a very disruptive fashion, or when an admin that is widely considered level headed all of a sudden starts abusing the tools, such that it seems clearly out of character. In the first case, with the inactivity desysop being implemented, I'm not sure how long a window exists, where the admin has been inactive long enough that returning is suspicious, but not so long that they have already had the bit removed for inactivity. In the second case, do the crats know most admins enough to judge whether particular behavior is so far out of character as to look like account compromise? That may work in the case of some of the most prominent and respected admins, but for the less active and less well known ones, will crats really know them well enough to judge account compromise from having a bad day, or acting rashly? For crats that also have checkuser, there are certainly many more things they can look at, so my concern doesn't really extend to them if they are basing a determination at least in part on technical evidence. I would likewise have no objection if the action was based on technical evidence from a non-crat checkuser, my concern is only when the determination of account compromise is based solely on behavioral evidence. Monty₈₄₅ 16:09, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

What is the purpose of this

Some people won't accept this, just like some refused to accept even the most basic adminbot run by one of our most trusted community members (Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/RedirectCleanupBot). But in an "emergency" situation, any bureaucrat with sense who sees the situation first should be 100% willing to invoke WP:IAR and desysop the account in question. If more than a tiny few complain, I'll be quite shocked. I don't think we need to spend ages and ages discussing this; there are far more important matters at hand. NW (Talk) 14:03, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

The editor who closed Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Bureaucrat removal of adminship policy#Emergencies (v2) felt that "threaded discussion might produce a more refined proposal or a set of criteria" that would find even stronger support than the 80% registered there. (I understand the position that forcing bureaucrats to evaluate the situation from an IAR perspective would provide a useful check/balance. This is a valid objection, but I do not think that we should force users to IAR when we are close to writing a rule with strong consensus.) –xeno^talk 14:27, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Sure, I definitely agree with you on your end goal. I'm just not sure it's worth spending the time on it. Might be easier to allow it to become the de facto standard over the next 5-10 years first. NW (Talk) 15:23, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

That may be the best approach, there appears to be (at least) three camps here, one who think that Bureaucrats should not act in an Emergency, another that thinks they should act and that action should be reviewed by the community as a whole at either AN or ANI and a final group who feel any action should be reviewed by Arbcom. Since two or these three groups will be put out what ever is proposed, it is unlikely that we can find a policy that is going to reach consensus.Mtking ^(edits) 07:02, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Status of Wikipedia:Bureaucrats

Moved from User talk:Xeno

Hi there. I noticed you tagged Wikipedia:Bureaucrats with {{information page}}. I don't think that's the correct tag for the page though, since it does not "clarify" or "supplement" other policies/guidelines but itself contains "rules" as to when and how crats should act. As such, it probably is both a policy (for those parts, like the new desysop rules) and a information page (for the parts that describe how to do things). Do you think we could split those parts, so that we have Wikipedia:Bureaucrats as the policy for crats (like WIkipedia:Administrators for admins) and Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' how-to guide for the info on how to do something (similarly to Wikipedia:Administrators' how-to guide)? Regards SoWhy 07:30, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

The page has been an information page for over 7 years, so I do not like the idea of gutting it to be a policy page - too much would need to be removed - perhaps the very few bits that aren't covered by policies or guidelines on other pages can be adapted onto a new page that would be transcluded by Wikipedia:Bureaucrats. See [2] for a suggested start (in my opinion, the actual policy implications of removal of admins bits should be inscribed at Wikipedia:Administrators). It's interesting how long bureaucrats have managed without a {{policy}} to govern them. =) –xeno^talk 12:49, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

On the other hand, maybe Wikipedia:Bureaucrats was part policy all along and it just lacked the {{policy}} tag? ;-) I disagree that those parts should go into WP:ADMIN though, since it does not describe anything admins should do but rather what crats can do to admins. Putting the parts into a separate policy page would work too of course but the standard is usually for policy pages to be at the title of the subject in question and how-to-pages designated as such (per WP:POLICY#Naming). Regards SoWhy 15:47, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

It describes how the administrator user right may be manipulated by bureaucrats. Wikipedia:Bureaucrats is currently a hybrid information page containing policy-like elements (what bureaucrats may do with their technical abilities), how-to elements (how they can do it), and strict informational elements (who are the bureaucrats, when are they available, who were the former bureaucrats, etc.). If there is some kind of tag that can be used to more accurately describe its hybrid nature, that would also be an option. But I think it should remain where it is, and mostly in its current form (as there is simply not enough there to require users to look at three different pages). –xeno^talk 15:53, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

How about {{Purpose}}?

Seriously though, maybe we simply need to slap a hybrid tag on it? Something like this:

How's that? =) Regards SoWhy 18:07, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Good start - see {{Wikipedia:Bureaucrats/Header}} (shown below). Tweak as necessary. –xeno^talk 18:28, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Moved discussion to WT:BUR. –xeno^talk 18:34, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd be fine with the most recent version above. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 05:19, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Lead

Can bureaucrats not add the IP-Blockexempt flag?--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 15:52, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to involve crats in a de-adminship process

I've proposed a new process involving an extension of the RFA partnership between crats and community, at the other end of the adminship pipeline. If crats think there might be staffing or other problems in its operation, I'd much appreciate comments—here or at Wikipedia:Requests_for_Comment/Community_de-adminship_proof_of_concept/Proposals#RTDe_Discussion. Thank you all. Tony (talk) 04:07, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Username change

Resolved

Is this the right place to request a username change? If so I'd like to change mine from the current to just Gaba. If I'm in the wrong place, could you direct me to the right one please? Thanks. Gaba p (talk) 02:35, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi Gaba p. Since User:Gaba is already registered, please follow the instructions at WP:USURP and a bureaucrat will be able to help you. 28bytes (talk) 02:37, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi, sorry for the late (really late) answer. Just a quick question, if I check the page User:Gaba it does not exist. Is it still not possible to rename my account to that one? Regards.

(PS: I removed the resolved tag to ask this follow-up question.) Gaba p (talk) 01:43, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

(Resolved here Gaba p (talk) 15:52, 5 October 2012 (UTC))

Hi, could I please change my username from Nnswf to Dslatts? Nnswf (talk) 04:54, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

 Done. The user "Nnswf" has been renamed to "Dslatts". 28bytes (talk) 05:10, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

And I've now added an editnotice which answers the first question asked. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 07:44, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I want to change my username from Sathiyakumarseo to Sathiya Kumar. Can you please help me?--Sathiyakumarseo (talk) 06:51, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

re-adminship proposals

In case you are not aware, there are presently several proposals regarding changes to policy/procedure regarding resysopping former administrators. See Wikipedia talk:Administrators#Restoration of the tools (proposal), Wikipedia talk:Administrators#Alternate proposal and Wikipedia talk:Administrators#Other re-granting proposals. Thryduulf (talk) 01:01, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Appealing decisions to (not) resysop

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Reading Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Resysoping of FCYTravis/Polarscribe it seems that there is no de jure process by which Bureaucrats' decisions to resysop or not-resysop a former administrator may be appealed. I think that it would be worth ending this situation. Below are my initial thoughts, which I would like feedback on. I am explicitly not formally proposing them at this time, although others may of course do so if they wish.

• In all cases someone who disagrees with a decision to (not) restore adminship to a user is encouraged to discus the matter with the relevant bureaucrat(s) in the first instance.
• Any user not resysopped may apply for adminship via the WP:RFA procedure in the normal way, although they should (must?) note their application to the 'crats was declined.
• A decision to resysop may be appealed to the Arbitration Committee. Such an appeal must be endorsed by at least 3 (4? 5?) independent users, including at least one (two?) administrator(s) not involved in any community discussion about the request. The Committee may endorse the bureaucrat action, immediately desysop the user concerned or require them to undergo a reconfirmation RfA before undertaking any admin actions (The aim is to avoid frivolous requests by ensuring that at least this number of users agree that there is a case to investigate). Thryduulf (talk) 01:19, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Agreee to some extent, I do however feel that if a crat declines to resysop that should be appealable to Arbcom in the first instance, maybe even automatically (i.e crat says "No I don't think so and I have asked arbcom to review this). Mtking ^(edits) 02:51, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

This seems premature, and may represent an unnecessary expansion of bureaucrats' responsibilities and powers to overlap uncomfortably with those of ArbCom. It is apparent from the ongoing discussion at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case‎ that the Arbs generally agree that they would have jurisdiction to desysop any admin – including one who was recently resysopped by a bureaucrat – if the circumstances so warranted it. If presented with a clear and unambiguous case, I would expect the ArbCom to handle such a case by motion and with relative alacrity.

The test that should be applied in determining whether or not a 'crat should pull the trigger on the 'controversial circumstances' clause is whether or not the administrator's conduct immediately preceding their departure (or resignation) could reasonably have led to desysopping. In the extant case involving Polarscribe, it appears that he demonstrated poor judgement with one article over the span of a few hours—making an out-of-process deletion which he then reversed an hour later, and making one ill-considered protection of the same article at the same time as he left Wikipedia. Had he continued to participate on Wikipedia at the time, it strikes me as very unlikely that his conduct in an isolated incident would have been sufficient to trigger the opening of an ArbCom case, let alone desysopping. (I can see him getting a finger-wagging 'admonishment' remedy.) If desysopping would not have been a plausible outcome of a given 'controversy', then it is not within the remit of Wikipedia's 'crats to impose such a harsh penalty on their own.

Generally speaking, if the 'crats are unsure about whether or not a former admin's conduct would have warranted such a severe sanction, they should refer the request to ArbCom: the Wikipedia body that is elected and explicitly empowered to compel desysoppings. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:22, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• If the 'crats are unsure, then the user should be referred to RFA. ArbCom shouldn't get involved unless 'crat behaviour, conflict of interest, or similar is in question. ArbCom may then take action against the 'crat, but questions of granting account privileges should be referred back to the 'crats. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:34, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
  • As has been noted, such an editor might have a difficult time at RFA - but the point of sending it to RFA is that it becomes a community decision, not a simple one of a crat deciding how much drama constitutes a cloud. If the former admin is sufficiently convincing and shows sufficient clue, they should have no problem getting re-sysopped. If they've been topic-banned from RFA for some reason, then do you really expect arbcom to grant the tools? UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 15:31, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
    • I believe the complete set of successful re-RFAs is: Geni, Crzrussian, Keilana, Carnildo, MZMcBride, PeterSymonds, Everyking, with the possible inclusion of SarakOfVulcan and HJ Mitchell. That composition of that group, or I should say the lack of any pattern in that group, would tend to indicate to me that re-RFAs are even more arbitrary than initial RFAs. MBisanz ^talk 15:49, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
• I think we should wait for what ArbCom has to say. But to your points: point #1, contacting the bureaucrat, is not useful since bureaucrats cannot reverse their decision, which is the true reason there is no appeal; crats cannot take an appeal because they can't, even if they agree with it, do a thing. So, yes, even if a crat clicks on the wrong button and makes somebody an admin and goes to sleep not noticing the mistake, by a strict interpretation of policy we will be stuck with the new admin. On point #2, current policy already allows this (except for the requirement that the crat's decision be revealed). I am not sure the added restriction means anything, since these requests are made at a noticeboard anyway. As to #3, this reads more a way to block appeals than facilitate them; editors who are following the process and have concerns are likely to have made their views clear, and requiring that they not be part of an appeal is an extraordinary restriction. Churn and change (talk) 03:49, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
  • A quick clarification as I think you have misunderstood slightly point 3. This is not intended to prohibit anyone from being part of an appeal, it just requires that at least one admin not previously involved is also part of it. Thryduulf (talk) 04:00, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I think this is overly hasty.--Wehwalt (talk) 07:34, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• I would prefer to see desysoping due to inactivity being permanent, which would solve all of this. Anyone gone for a year but in good standing is very likely to get voted back at RfA. However, the community doesn't agree with me on this point. As to the idea on the table, I don't want to start a pattern of appealing Crats decisions, personally, even though I was forced to file this one single case at Arb. Honestly, it seems the biggest problems are two-fold: Haste, and not enough flexibility for the Crats to refuse to resysop. If we are going to allow resysoping after inactivity and the Crat has any question, they should be able to require that an editor go through RfA. And we should never, ever resysop in less than 48 hours from time of request. There is no emergency that requires a long lost admin get his bit back today. Let the community dig up info and help the Crats, whose job is to make the call. In the rare cases where an individual left under questionable circumstances, the Crats should happily review any diffs the community offers up. Most of the time, there will be zero response from the community, this just protects us from problems like we have today. If we add more patience and flexibility into the existing system, it is doubtful you will need to ask for review very often, making the proposal moot. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 12:30, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• I would disagree on the flexibility side. I recently handled an AE request that already had a considerable amount of material written on it. After reviewing it, I decided to sanction an editor. He protested that he needed more time and explanation of why I had decided to sanction him. No matter what I said, he wanted more explanation and more time to submit additional edits. Putting more flexibility in the system means people will continue to yell that the crats haven't considered their evidence enough, that the crats could benefit from more evidence, and that the crats are wrongly interpreting their evidence. Absolute rules are easy to enforce and lead to inequitable results, but flexible rules are utterly unmanageable in an applied setting (at least that's what my advanced contracts professor says). MBisanz ^talk 19:47, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• That makes perfect sense. Perhaps a hard time for waiting, 48 hours, then it is up to the Crats to decide as soon or as slow as he chooses. I do think you guys need the flexibility to say "no" when your better judgement dictates. And the community needs to at least be able to have a little time to point out potential problems, the 48 hours (the crat can ignore or choose to delay if valid information is forthcoming). I don't want the community making the decision, voting or debating every decision, but sometimes the community can HELP you buy simply putting many eyes on the issue. Cases like this, where it is 4 years old, are perfect examples. Had this waited a couple of days, and Nihonjoe has said "I saw the ANI, it was a problem, but after reviewing I've decided to restore the bit" and I knew he has the option of NOT restoring it and it was just his judgement, then I would have walked away, even if I disagreed. We all disagree from time to time. We don't want to bog down Crats with process, I completely agree, but we do need to find a way to take the time so the community knows it wasn't a forced action, or a knee jerk reaction. The biggest problem, and I think you will agree, is that there is no clear cut criteria for how to deal with resysoping under less than textbook situations. Again, I keep apologizing but I sincerely hated dragging this to Arbcom but felt it needed clarification and review. I can't believe the policy was supposed to be seen as so rigid and unworkable. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 20:11, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I think it'd be easier to discuss this after the current ArbCom case concludes. If / when it does get discussed here, a crosspost to BN would be worthwhile. --Dweller (talk) 13:08, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• I agree this is premature. We've got ArbCom looking at the current situation and several policy proposals at WP:VPP intended to close some loopholes, I don't think an entirely new process is needed for something that is pretty rare. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:35, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
  • There are policy proposals at wikipedia talk:Administrators but I can't see any at WP:VPP? Thryduulf (talk) 10:38, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't think this is premature at all, as it isn't about a specific case, rather its overdue. I say this because as it stands, a 'crats flipping the admin bit is (afaik) the only action on Wikipedia that cannot be appealed. Even WP:OFFICE actions can be appealed, even though the circumstances in which an appeal will be appropriate are rare and where one would be successful are rarer still, the possibility exists. It is far better to have a procedure in place that is almost never used than to have a dramafest through lack of preparedness for a foreseeable circumstance. Thryduulf (talk) 10:38, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

2012 bureaucrats RFC

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Should bureaucrats be able to remove the bureaucrat flag?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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A bureaucrat may remove the bureaucrat flag of another bureaucrat in the following circumstances:

1. Upon request from the Arbitration Committee following a decision or motion.
2. Self-request. In this case, a bureaucrat may remove their own bureaucrat flag, but should notify WP:BN as a courtesy.
3. Upon death, per Wikipedia:Deceased Wikipedians/Guidelines.
4. Inactivity (If a bureaucrat goes inactive with no edits or logged actions for an entire year).

This does not preclude the stewards acting in emergency situations according to their policies.

Should this proposal pass, a request should be filed at Bugzilla to allow the developers to make the change. This is technically possible, since some other WMF sites do allow the option for bureaucrats to remove the bureaucrat flag. --Rschen7754 01:42, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

• Support the situation when User:X! resigned just admin and where a steward came in and removed crat was a bit confusing. --Rschen7754 01:57, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
  • You know, I've thought about CBM's point, and it's just too compelling. I feel weird about withdrawing this, just in case the consensus does go for turning the switch on, but it doesn't make sense to me anymore. --Rschen7754 07:35, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

• Historically, the reason that bureaucrats cannot remove the bureaucrat bit is to somewhat limit the damage that could be caused by a compromised bureaucrat account. It may be that the attack is less concerning now, but I would like to see some comment by the devs or stewards about that. Personally, I don't see why we cannot simply ask the stewards to handle it in the very rare cases when a bureaucrat bit needs to be removed. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:56, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Granting the ability. Carl's concerns above say to me that we should have as few people as practical with the ability to remove the crat flag. If the proposals below pass, the burden on stewards to remove the crat flag would be very small in light of the small crat population. No comment on the other parts of the proposal. Monty₈₄₅ 02:00, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Considering that now bureaucrats can remove admin powers, I'm not sure how much more damage a hypothetical scenario could cause. --Rschen7754 02:03, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
    • That is a separate issue, and is an even more significant attack vector. It means that we can expect any compromised bureaucrat account would immediately remove the sysop bit from every admin on the wiki (which would take very little time, as it can be automated). If this passes, they would also remove the bureaucrat bit from every crat, leaving us hoping there is a server admin who can put things in read-only mode and clean up for us. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:22, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
      • Yes, a crat could remove all admins, but then the other crats could restore. If a crate removed all crats, then they would be in a much more damaging position until stewards could be brought in. Monty₈₄₅ 02:55, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
        • Hmm, that's a fair argument. I suppose that we should wait until the stewards make a comment. --Rschen7754 02:59, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose as written. I don't like the idea of bureaucrats removing their own, even voluntarily. it should require another bureaucrat to do it. And the reciprocal should be true, restoration should require another bureaucrat to do it. And the inactivity part should be clarified to be reflect the policies concerning adminship removal due to inactivity. - jc37 02:02, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

  Well, restoration would have to be done by another bureaucrat on technical grounds. Stewards can remove other stewards, and bureaucrats make other bureaucrats... --Rschen7754 02:06, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

  As these specifics (and the others I noted) are missing in the proposal above, I still Oppose as written. - jc37 02:10, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

  This isn't part of the proposal; you have to be a bureaucrat to regrant bureaucrat powers. If someone is in need of being regranted the crat flag, then they can't do it themselves because they don't have the crat flag yet... --Rschen7754 02:11, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

  I think you misunderstand. I particularly oppose points #2 and #4 as written. #2 specifies a bureaucrat can remove their own bureacratship. I oppose this. At least one other person should be involved in this step, for security and procedural reasons. And I oppose #4 due to lack of clarity. Also, your example doesn't cover cases where a bureaucrat may also be a steward... All I'm suggesting is that this proposal should be reworked and some of the possibilities more fully considered. - jc37 02:18, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

  What's to stop a crat from de-adminning themselves under current policy? Also, a steward regranting themselves admin or crat would be a violation of the steward policies. --Rschen7754 02:21, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

  First, that's something that that I might support preventing, in an RfC. That aside, that's not a true comparison, as admins cannot remove adminship from themselves. They require bureaucrats to do so. As for steward rules, those are on meta. We're discussing proposed policy on en.wp. Not to mention that WP:CCC, of course. So I'm for placing a roadblock on this now. - jc37 02:26, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

  All steward actions are done through meta. --Rschen7754 02:59, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

  Please see m:Stewards, not that it matters. Apteva (talk) 07:34, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

• Support Not convinced by the oppose rationale. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 02:05, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

• What's broken that will be fixed by this change? I suspect that since the founding of the English Wikipedia, there have been sufficiently few de-crattings that I could count them without taking off my socks. Aside from letting our 'crats gleefully steeple their fingers over a shiny new button they will likely never use, what's the point? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:12, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

• There have been 23 de-crattings in the history of en.wiki. MBisanz ^talk 13:22, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. Stewards are readily available, and there is no reason for not asking them to do the action. Apteva (talk) 02:20, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support, as per the wording by Rschen7754 (talk · contribs), above. — Cirt (talk) 03:30, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. De-bureaucratting has to be rare enough that we're not talking a major time sink for the stewards. I additionally am quite uncomfortable from the security point of view. We have to have some sort of position that has the technical right to appoint itself or to remove itself (otherwise we'd have no way to get additional people into that position or to remove problematic people), but since we already have such a position in the form of the stewards, let's leave them as the only userright with the ability to remove (or add, but that's not in this discussion) their own rights. Nyttend (talk) 05:56, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - Considering how few Bureaucrats there are and how rarely someone is de-'crated, I don't think it's worth the security risk to allow 'crats to de-'crat. I'd like to see some evidence here as to how exactly giving 'crats this ability will benefit the encyclopedia; if it seems reasonable, I might change my opinion. —JmaJeremy✆✎ 07:31, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - no need that outways the drawback. Agathoclea (talk) 07:47, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose for now per Carl. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:24, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

24 hour wait

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In the event that a bureaucrat has their bureaucrat flag removed, and they wish to regain bureaucrat access, there should be a 24 hour wait to ascertain whether the former bureaucrat still remains in good standing. If there is a currently open discussion regarding the request, regranting should wait until the discussion closes. --Rschen7754 01:42, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Discussion (24 hour wait)

• Support - jc37 01:51, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support - I sould assume that an editor trusted with those tools would be trustable with this as well. --Nouniquenames 01:55, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support --Rschen7754 02:01, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support Obviously sensible if the above proposal passes. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 02:05, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support, reasonable and prudent. — Cirt (talk) 03:29, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support. I roundly disagree with consensus on requiring a wait for admins, but it would be downright stupid to require a waiting period for admins but not for bureaucrats. Nyttend (talk) 05:53, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support - makes sense. Agathoclea (talk) 09:16, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support, but what does "good standing" mean. What does "still remains" mean. To me, "good standing" means not blocked or banned or similarly (heavily restrictively) sanctioned, but I have seen others think it means a higher threshold. I guess "still remains" means that the user has not, since resigning, engaged in conduct suggesting a loss of trust, respect or ability. It suggests a possibility of being able to loose the right to return due to something not well-defined. Do these things need elaboration in the Wikipedia:Under a cloud essay? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:32, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support I agree that the erm "in good standing" still has a vague definition, but this specific change is a good thing. MBisanz ^talk 15:03, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support - We have just approved this for admins, we should definitely implement it for 'crats. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 11:46, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support - Makes sense to mirror the situation with the admin flag. CT Cooper · talk 17:24, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support. No reason to treat bureaucrats differently than admins in this regard. Jafeluv (talk) 10:53, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support - consistency is a good thing here. Legoktm (talk) 11:48, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
• Comment there is a comment that this would make sense if the above proposal passes - it still makes sense even if a steward has to flip the switch - please note my new alternative proposal below which brings the two propsals here in harmony with admin policy. Agathoclea (talk) 12:52, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support - this make sense regardless of the decision of the above proposal. Tiggerjay (talk) 21:22, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
• I don't see why not. I hear this very same requirement applies to administrators now? If so, then it follows that bureaucrats should most certainly be subject to this as well. Kurtis (talk) 00:18, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support Yes, makes sense. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 19:47, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support for consistency with the recently approved waiting period for readminship. Thryduulf (talk) 00:50, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support For consistency. -- Avi (talk) 16:52, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

3 year inactivity

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If a former bureaucrat is inactive (with no edits or logged actions) for three years, they will need to have a successful RFB to regain bureaucratship. --Rschen7754 01:42, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Discussion (3 year inactivity)

• Support - presuming this includes that 1+2=3 as well. - jc37 01:51, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

  • Oppose - Actually, thinking about this, it seems to me that, compared to adminship, bureaucratship is much more fairly straight-forward in policy interpretation for the most part. I don't think that this is necessary in this case. - jc37 01:58, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

• Support - If there is that much inactivity, it seems a good idea to me from a precautionary standpoint. --Nouniquenames 01:55, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support If the crat is trustworthy, they should pass at RfB again. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 02:05, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
• I could see an argument for making it contingent on the RFA passing, but this is something the community should discuss so we don't have a crat that is not an admin. --Rschen7754 02:07, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support Nyttend's argument is convincing. --Rschen7754 07:44, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment. There is no requirement that a crat be an admin. They perform very different roles. Apteva (talk) 02:23, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
    • Then maybe we should consider making adminship a requirement to being a crat, because it would be a huge hindrance (or flatly impossible) to be a effective crat without the admin tool kit, as you can't view deleted contribs of an editor, or of deleted articles, or a number of other things. That would resolve most of these issues. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 02:48, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
      • Crat's have the toolkit of an admin, but that is not their function. The function of crat is completely different from the function of an admin. I submitted an RfB because I wanted to be a crat, but I had less interest in being an admin, or functioning as one. Similarly, there is no requirement of being an admin to be a steward - stewards can only act as admins on a wiki with no active admin, but they have the tools of an admin even though they do not normally need to use them on the English wiki, as there are hundreds of admins here. So for example, if I was or was not a bureaucrat, I could close an RfC, but I could not call it an admin close if I was not an admin, even if I was a crat. Do crat's close RfC's, AfD's etc., as crats? No, they close them as admins. The fact they are a crat is irrelevent, but if they were a crat but not an admin, they could close an RfA or RfB, as a crat closure, but could not close an RfC as an admin closure. Apteva (talk) 07:31, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
        • I don't understand Apteva's comment — my point was that additional userrights shouldn't have reduced levels of security policies. Since we say that bureaucrats must wait a day before re-adminning someone, and since bureaucrats are at a higher level of responsibility (and potential destructiveness if they go rogue), they shouldn't have reduced standards for comparable situations. I would say the same thing if we had lots of non-admin bureaucrats. Nyttend (talk) 23:10, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support, prudent and reasonable. — Cirt (talk) 03:29, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support. Just another good form of site security to remove the rights (although perhaps we already did that? I'm not sure), and by requiring a new RFB, we're ensuring that the user is familiar with current standards rather than just coming back and getting going on a completely different project from what he left. Nyttend (talk) 05:59, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

  Don't forget "or she". Useight's Public Sock (talk) 15:55, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

• Support - should match admin procedure. Agathoclea (talk) 09:17, 3 December 2012 (UTC) P.S. see comment/proposal below which might force us to tweak this proposal. Agathoclea (talk) 21:39, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support and maintain that bureacrats must be a subset of the administrators. Non-performance of the perceived normal admin role does preclude maintaing admin status. The responsibilities, the standard of conduct, of a bureacrat includes all of the responsibilities and standard of conduct of an admin. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:36, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support This does fix a gap in policy that I noted a few years ago. MBisanz ^talk 15:04, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support It is important that a bureaucrat is active. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:15, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support - I would say the inactivity should equal that of the admin rules, or even a year, but this is a good start. Kumioko (talk) 17:29, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support. Seems reasonable enough, though three years might be a bit excessive, given the responsibilities and additional capabilties of those holding bureaucrat tools. dci | TALK 02:54, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support - To mirror the position with admins. CT Cooper · talk 17:25, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
• Comment: The admin policy talks about 3 years with no edits, with no reference to logged actions. I would strongly recommend using the same criteria for both admins and bureaucrats. With the proposed wording, someone with zero edits and one logged action in 3 years would get the bureaucrat tools back on request, but would require an RFA to regain adminship. I don't think it would make much sense that way. Jafeluv (talk) 11:05, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

  I consider a logged action to be a type of edit. Is there disagreement to this in terms of this proposal? - jc37 12:38, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

  The admin policy actually refers to the three years starting with the time of the de-admin so there will be no logged actions. A lot of people supporting here are supporting a matching rule, so I am sure a reworded proposal will go through fine. Agathoclea (talk) 21:39, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

  I agree that this isn't clear concerning the 1+2 situation. Perhaps an additional RfC should be started to address this so as to be abundantly clear. Honestly, I wish this all had just been phrased "just like the adminship inactivity policy", which is, I think, what most presume when commenting here. - jc37 21:44, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

• Support - it seems prudent that a crat who is inactive for so long should be reinstated. As one who tends to take long wikibreaks myself, getting back into the swing of things shouldn't be something done lightly. Although a good ex-crat shouldn't have much difficult going through the process again. Tiggerjay (talk) 21:25, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

  Yes, of course, Easy as pie! Could you provide me a list with all the successful RFBs in say... the last couple of years? --Kim Bruning (talk) 14:48, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

• WTF? "With current dropping admin numbers and no outlook on how to fix the problem, what shall we do? I know, let's figure out a way to have even less admins and bureaucrats!" Err... WHAT? --Kim Bruning (talk) 14:46, 9 December 2012 (UTC) see: Wikipedia_talk:RFA#New_chart, for statistics
• Support Seems like a good idea, and Nyttend's rationale explains why. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 19:48, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support for consistency with the recent implementation of such a rule for admins. Thryduulf (talk) 00:52, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

alternative proposal

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For reinstatement of de-crated buerocrats admin policy will be applied. Agathoclea (talk) 12:47, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

comment That will save having to worry about details and future changes and this will replace the above two proposals. Agathoclea (talk) 12:47, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Note: As the closer of the previous RfC, if this proposal comes to pass, it will override the top two proposals and every single policy change made to administrators will apply to the bureaucrats as well.—cyberpower _Online^{Merry Christmas} 12:55, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Note: All policy change proposals applied to the bureaucrats will not be applied to administrators.

Discussion (alternative proposal)

Support as proposer Agathoclea (talk) 12:48, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

• Absolutely. Any requirement passed for admins shows what the community feels necessary in order to trust former admins who come back; 'crats, if anything, we need more trust for - and not less. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 13:10, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support - the alternate proposal retains the value and benefit of the earlier proposals, while providing for a more simple and consistent standard for removing and regaining access. Tiggerjay (talk) 21:27, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Removal and restoration of Bureaucratship

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This proposal suggests that the policies and guidelines concerning the removal (and/or restoration) of the tools and responsibilities of adminship, should also apply similarly to the removal (and/or restoration) of the tools and responsibilities of Bureaucratship. This includes but is not limited to: removal of the bureaucrat tools after 1 year of inactivity (of zero edits); and 3 total uninterrupted years of inactivity (which is intended to include "1+2=3") following removal of bureaucratship for any reason, subsequently requiring an RfB to re-request the tools. - jc37 21:51, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

To be clear, 1+2=3 refers to removal due to 1 year of activity, which thus means that only two more years of inactivity are required to meet the 3 year criteria. This is just as is noted for adminship. - jc37 21:51, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Discussion (Removal and restoration of Bureaucratship)

• Support - Let's just be clear about all of this, so to prevent confusion and/or rules wikilawyering. jc37 21:51, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support - hopefully unnecessary, as we should all be mature enough without this, but supporting anyway --Nouniquenames 00:51, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support as first choice. I don't think it serves anything to have the (almost) same things worded slightly differently in the two policies. It's simpler to define the rules in one place and reference that where necessary. Noting one difference, though – because the proposal above was rejected, bureaucrat right removals will still need to go through Meta while removal of adminship can be handled locally. Jafeluv (talk) 07:53, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

  Actually, that's not a difference. Admins cannot remove the admin flag from themselves or another admin; and bureaucrats cannot remove the bureaucrat flag from themselves or another bureaucrat. So it's still a similarity. - jc37 07:24, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

  Yeah, it's symmetrical in that sense. However, as a result the removal procedures are different: If a non-crat admin wants to be desysopped, they can make a post at WP:BN and a crat will take care of it. If a bureaucrat wants to be decratted (is that a word?), they need to log into Meta and make the request there. Not sure if it matters for this proposal, though – one could think of it as a technical limitation (which happens to be backed with consensus) instead of a policy issue. Jafeluv (talk) 12:29, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

• WTF, Given our current issues with editor and admin retention, of COURSE we need an admin policy to help people who drop the flag to stay away even more. And let's apply it to bureaucrats too! This is perfectly logical. :-P --Kim Bruning (talk) 14:53, 9 December 2012 (UTC) this is perfectly sarcastic

If someone has been gone 1-3 years, retention is no longer the issue as that train had already left the station. Security and stability is, which itself affects retention of active editors. You can't "lose" an admin who isn't here to begin with. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 17:18, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

To an extent that's true. OTOH, leaving the door open does mean they can come back. I just feel that discussing throwing people's flags out the window is -at this point in time- possibly not the most useful&productive avenue to be pursuing. --Kim Bruning (talk) 17:54, 9 December 2012 (UTC) there's more I can say about the reasoning many people are using here, but that's a good start ;-)

And if they come back bitless, then we will welcome them back with open arms. We love to see this at WP:WER, trust me. Odds are, if they have been gone that long, they need to edit a bit to get up to speed anyway. Likely, if they ran for RfA again after getting up to speed, they would have a very good chance. Having the admin tools granted instantly after being gone 4 or more years can be problematic. The other side of editor retention is that the average editor has faith in both the individuals with the bits and the system responsible for granting the tools that can block and delete. The 3 year standard is pretty lax, after all, and acts solely as a fail-safe. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 20:12, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

• Support for the same reasons it makes sense for admin. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 20:12, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
• Support for consistency. Thryduulf (talk) 00:55, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RFC notice

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Resysopping practices impacts this policy, so please contribute to the discussion if you are interested. Thanks. MBisanz ^talk 18:54, 29 December 2012 (UTC)