Wikipedia talk:Community enforced administrator recall

Explicit need for B'Crat to monitor cliques

I think there must be an explicit assumption that the closing Bureaucrat must monitor the contributions by various factions. If an admin is simply being demonized by a group (s)he has crossed swords with, it could lead to ambivalence on the part of the admin to engage where appropriate. The admin should be allowed some leeway to complain if they feel they are being targeted in this manner. Ronnotel 16:22, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Of course yes, but that's why there is a high threshold of support required for a desysopping to be granted. If it really is a small faction, then this will have a low effect on the overall result and the 7 day discussion before the vote should calm people down or make people see sense and weed out any people that may be abusing the system. Ryan Postlethwaite 16:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

It seems common sense that any punitive process which can be manipulated by cliques is broken in the first place. -- Renesis (talk) 22:51, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't see it as necessarily punitive. A.Z. 02:58, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Strong oppose

As I said on the RfA talk page, I totally disagree that the community wants a way to remove admin status without the need for arbitration. The discussion at Wikipedia:Removal_of_adminship has not produced a consensus and this proposed guidelines appears to be a solution in search of a problem. ArbCom already handles these problems perfectly well. Please show me examples where problem admins were not removed through either the ArbCom process or immediate action by Bureaucrat (in the case of vandalism attacks). --Alabamaboy 16:31, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The proposal thresholds are too low and prone to mob attack. Rlevse 16:42, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Note: A number of other admins have voiced their opposition to this proposal at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship#Wikipedia:Community_enforced_administrator_recall.E2.80.8E. --Alabamaboy 17:13, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

• Gameable
• Divisive

There are currently over 5,000,000 registered accounts with only about 1300 admins. Lets desysop some admins and make more backlog. Honestly, what the ArbCom is doing is fine. Regards, Mercury 19:42, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I guess some admins really don't like the idea that a community police action could remove them. I think that is an indication such an action is urgently needed.--Fahrenheit451 05:11, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

So opposition to a gameable system that is susceptible to personal vendettas indicates said admin is inappropriately abusing the system, harming the project, and ought to be removed? That's pretty poor logic. -- Renesis (talk) 05:49, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Renesis, the logic you speak of you have invented. Read what you wrote. That is not coming from anyone else.--Fahrenheit451 16:04, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it has been invented already, it is called Sophism. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 16:07, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it is Sophism indeed!--Fahrenheit451 18:01, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

What in the world are you talking about? That's not my logic, that's Fahrenheit451's. Quote: "That is an indication such an action is urgently needed." In other words:

• Admins who need to be removed would not like this process.
• There are admins who do not like this process.
• Therefore, there are admins who need to be removed.
• Therefore, we need this process.

This is circular logic and there is no real relation between the two. Fahrenheit451, do you have evidence of any current administrators for which this process is needed? If so, please elaborate on that instead of projecting guilt by association. -- Renesis (talk) 01:20, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

It cannot be a vote

Making this a vote makes it too much of a troll magnet, as the opposers have frequently pointed out. The only feasible way I can see for such a thing to work is that we need to rely on crat discretion. If, in the crat's judgment there is not a good case for misuse of the tools, they tools do not get taken away. Otherwise everyone you've blocked simply lines up, and reasonable editors need to waste their time opposing the recall in order to make it not succeed. I realize the proposal as written already hints at this, but it needs to be more clear IMO. Friday (talk) 17:39, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

No, I agree that it can't be a vote alone. But I don't think it should be all 'crat discretion either. I think it needs to be a combination - some high threshold of community support for desysopping, as reflected by the !vote, with a putatively rational human monitoring the process for abuse. Ronnotel 17:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

This basically is a vote. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 01:18, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

That's exactly what's wrong with RFA and most of the proposed bit-removal processes. We have crats for a reason; why are people so reluctant to trust their judgment? Crats should view it as a mistake on their part when they promote someone who turns out to be a bad admin. They should take a personal interest in cleaning up the mess they made- so they need the ability to correct the occasional mistake. This seems entirely obvious; why is there such resistance? Friday (talk) 14:15, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Clarification to the above: I'm not saying a mistake makes one a bad crat. Mistakes are an inevitable part of any process we have here. That is why it is crucial to have some means of fixing mistakes without jumping through too many hoops. Friday (talk) 14:36, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Better

This is probably better than other desysopping proposals. However, I think there are a few issues:

1. Standards for challenging/endorsement are a bit low. It may be sensible to restrict this to administrators (possibly too much cabal if this was done, however)
2. A pure vote could lead to problems, especially troll magnet, sockpuppetry etc.
3. Reapplying via WP:RFA should probably have a minimum wait period.

Other than that, it looks fairly sound. GDonato (talk) 18:27, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Forced vs. Voluntary (CAT:AOTR)

See Category:Wikipedia administrators open to recall. That is a voluntary process for recall. It works, as has been proven by experience multiple times. It is not a troll magnet, because of provisions it has within the process, as has been proven by experience multiple times. I've been a member of the category, and a supporter of its existance, since the time it got started. So does that mean, since I support a voluntary recall process, that I think an enforced one is a good idea? No. Any reasonably fair and trollproof process that could be devised in which the community would reach consensus that an admin had to lose his or her bit involuntarily would, in my view, necessarily be less efficient and more divisive than just taking the admin to ArbCom. Why? If the community COULD assemble the evidence to support such a call in this new process, it could ALSO do so in an ArbCom case. If the community COULD reach consensus that the change was needful, so would arbcom. Or else we've selected the wrong bunch for ArbCom, which I highly doubt. A voluntary process, with ArbCom as a check on the admin reneging works. Several arbcom members are themselves members of CAT:AOTR. However the vast majority of admins are not members. That is, in my view, perfectly fine. A forced process in my view is a bad idea, and involuntary recall is a solution to a nonexistant problem. (Anyone already an admin who is advocating for a forced process ought to, in my view, be a member of the current voluntary process, but I digress) ++Lar: t/c 18:41, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

5 users

For one thing, I could Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V most of what Lar wrote above. For the other, if you at all consider this seriously, I'd reevaluate the threshold of five "established users". It should (again, if considered at all) be expanded twofold:

1. Increase the limit to, say 10 - it is not at all that hard to game the system by creating 5 socks every 3 months (and to accumulate 500 edits on each is trivial these days - could be done in a week) for the sole purpose of harassment of an unpopular admin.
2. The quota must include at least one other sysop (if not two) - after all, we're not even considering taking away the buttons for "petty crimes". If the sysop to be recalled has really shown considerable misconduct, it shouldn't be that hard to find another admin sharing this view, no?

4 users + 1 admin was my personal non-written criterion on which I would consider accepting a recall request a while ago (now I'm more leaning towards accepting the outcome of an RfC) - but that's the voluntary nature of CAT:AOR - since no one forces me, I can specifically say "No, I don't like you and you, so shoo away! I have changed my conditions." - if you wish to make it a sanctioned process, you are taking away the "shield of voluntarism", so you must provide a replacement.

However, as closing words let me state this. Should all administrators be open to recall? Yes. Should they be forced into it? No. Миша13 19:28, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Threshold

A threshold of 75% in favour of deopping is far too high. In cases where the community had so thoroughly been convinced that someone was unfit it is likely (as Lar points out) that the Arbcom would be too and thus this would be redundant. I'd say 50% is the highest number that could be considered. Check out how this process works on other Wikipedias. I support community based admin recall in principle. I think it's proven itself to work well and not be a troll magnet, both on the English Wikipedia and on other Wikipedias. It helps assure contributors that Wikipedia has a community-based system of organization rather than being ruled by a clique. Haukur 20:49, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

FWIW, I think it should be 90% if we are voting. Mercury 20:59, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

No number is the right number. Unless there is actual repeated misuse of the tools, the bit should not be taken away. I don't care how many children, whiners or trolls demand it. Friday (talk) 21:01, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Possibly bureaucratic discretion could be used to find out whether there is consensus to remove the mop? I know many of you here do not like it, but is there another option that would rule in the number of people commenting and the discussion/reasons at the same time? Captain panda 00:50, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

And this proposal ain't right either. Good work to the author, but it is not what we need. I also echo friday's sentiment here as well. Mercury 21:17, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I think a 2/3rds threshold clearly indicates that the admin has a problem and should be desysopped. --Fahrenheit451 04:12, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

We should not even consider setting a "vote" limit. How about reasonable evidence of abuse? How about sour grapes? This will turn being an admin into a popularity contest when it should be about doing the thankless work that will not get done otherwise. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 05:02, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

It already IS a popularity contest. I am doing a study of RfA's and the results so far indicate that admins vote in those they want as admins in percentages close to 50% when they are only 0.024% of all registered users. Looks like an old boy network in place there. --Fahrenheit451 05:08, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Anyone can "vote" in an RfA, not just admins, they don't pick who participates. Regardless, why would we want to extend this popularity contest to de-admining? ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 05:12, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Anyone can vote, but admins predominate in and seem to consistently swing RfA elections. If admins get elected by a popularity contest, there is nothing wrong with getting diselected by an unpopularity contest.--Fahrenheit451 05:27, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I have seen that people with compelling arguments based in reason sway RfAs, that they happen to be admins may be a sign of experience. Since we agree that this method of desysoping is basically a popularity contest, I think we can be okay disagreeing on if that is a good thing or not. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 05:28, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

While compelling arguments can sway an RfA, in my experience, that is the exception and not the rule, which is admin mob rule. --Fahrenheit451 05:39, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

You're actually claiming that administrators have a disproportionate say in who gets chosen as an admin? <hollow laugh> --Tony Sidaway 14:46, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Tony Sidaway, yes I am stating that.--Fahrenheit451 16:06, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I seems like a baseless claim to me. It would take some real evidence to convince me of that. Show me one RfA where "admin mob rule" override the consensus of the community. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 15:06, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure many administrators could join me in reciting a long list of good potential administrators who they know would not pass a popularity contest. We need to find a way to prise RFA gently but firmly from the hands of those who do not have Wikipedia's interests at heart, but that argument is for another page, not this one. --Tony Sidaway 15:21, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Really? I can't think of any such list. But this may be once again a religious issue- those who staunchly oppose any new method of removing the bit can't think of any list of bad admins who haven't already been dealt with. This is why I think it's generally more useful to discuss general principles than specific editors. Friday (talk) 15:27, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

This will not fly in its current format

The current format seems to be:

• One person asks for recall
• A mandatory seven-day discussion follows
• If five editors support, there is a mandatory seven-day binary vote "recall/do not recall"
• A binding 75% threshold mandates desysopping.
• There is apparently no bureaucrat discretion.

This simply won't do. Firstly it's a vote, secondly a mandatory process can be driven by a mere five disgruntled editors (I would be hard put to name a single admin upon whom such a recall vote could not be mandated).

Thirdly a numerical percentage threshold is defined, and there is no suggestion of a quorum, nor any suggestion of bureaucrat discretion.

A less wikipedian process would be impossible to construct.

That's quite aside from the question of what is wrong with our existing community process: dispute resolution. --Tony Sidaway 14:36, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes. The only obvious solution I can see to this problem is to let the crats do their job. Why do we insist that crats are not allowed to fix the occasional mistake on their part? Friday (talk) 14:40, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Tony. This will never see the light of day worded like this. Is there proof that we need to desysop a large number of admins so as to need this process? ^demon^{[omg plz]} 14:41, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Buraucrats could handle emergency desysoppings, but I don't see any need for this extra process. Dispute resolution can handle non-urgent desysoppings perfectly well. and leaving the final decision to arbitration has the advantage that we discourage Wikipedians from acting (as they all too quickly do) as a rabble. --Tony Sidaway 14:44, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Tony about this. And as for "letting the 'crats do their job", it has never been their job to handle desysopings, they do not even have the button. This division of power where 'crats can give admin bits but not take them away is intentional. Stewards who do handle de-sysoping generally try not to de-sysop on their home wiki. It is meant to be handled by an impartial person who uses objective evidence of a community decision. Right now the only such sanctioned decision is that arbcom should handle it.

I don't see the point in moving this power over to 'crats. Nor do I expect the stewards to judge consensus for us. And, as I have mentioned before, I have seen no evidence that arbcom has not been effective. As for uncivil admins who don't do enough to get arbcommed, warn them, discuss with them, file RFCs, if they truly ignore the communities insistence they be civil then yes arbcom will de-admin them for that, but only when you can demonstrate you have exhausted other recourses.

The proposed system allows for de-sysoping on a whim, instead of dispute resolution. It encourages finding a large group of people to support you instead of presenting cogent and compelling evidence that is considered in an objective manner. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 15:13, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

If we have crats who would sysop or desysop "on a whim", that is a serious problem. We choose crats for their good judgment, not for their whims. Friday (talk) 15:29, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

It is not their place to decide. If we as a community mandate this sort of system and tell them to follow it they will, for better or for worse. Frankly we don't know a thing about 'crats de-sysoping anyone, because it has never been in their realm. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 15:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, crats have not explicitly had this ability on the english wiki. Was this a conscious decision, or just an accident of history? Keep in mind that practices that were appropriate in the days of a dozen admins may not still be good today with 1000+. If there was a de-adminship discussion that a crat decided showed a consensus for removal of the bit, and he asked a steward to do it, I have a very hard time believing the steward would refuse. So, when you look at it that way, crats have always had the ability to desysop. They have never yet chosen to exercise that ability. Friday (talk) 16:31, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually unless there was a very large consensus to change how do de-admin people here I don't think a steward would do it short of arbcom or an emergency(admin account compromised or going beserk). ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 16:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Support

Sounds fair. Admins are servants of the community and should be responsible before it.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  18:10, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. A.Z. 03:23, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

25% for de-adminship and no ArbCom

I think 25% of users' support is better, because people become administrators with 75%. We can't allow that someone with 60% opposition continues being an administrator while someone with the same amount of opposition can not become an administrator. This would be giving undue importance to the status quo. Nevertheless, even if people don't accept the change to 25%, I support the proposed system anyway.

I also think there should be no such thing as appeals to the ArbCom. If the user wishes to become an administrator again, just go through an RfA. A.Z. 02:50, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Here, I disagee. First, consider that 'recall' votes may have higher number of people dissatisfied with the user then standard rfa. We should not allow a tiny minority to recall an admin they dislike. Perhaps 50% would be a better treshold, but if I had to chose between 75% and 25% I'd go for 75%. Second; what's wrong with appeals to ArbCom? ArbCom can take the adminship away; it should be able to restore it. It's good to have more than one way of doing something - it makes it much less likely Wikipedia will be dominated by some oligarchical cabal or undemocratic majority.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  21:34, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I think ArbCom makes it more likely that Wikipedia will be dominated by some oligarchical cabal... A tiny minority is already able to stop anyone from becoming an administrator, so I don't see how that would be a reason not to allow them to take adminship from someone as well. What do you think about 75% support to remove admin status, but we change the RfAs to require 25% support to make someone an administrator? This would be like requiring consensus for someone not to become an administrator. A.Z. 22:11, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Oligarchies are not elected. ArbCom is. --Thinboy00 @985, i.e. 22:38, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

This will increase dramatically the number of administrators, not the opposite. This is hardly about current administrators that need to be desysopped

Mercury said above:

There are currently over 5,000,000 registered accounts with only about 1300 admins. Lets desysop some admins and make more backlog. Honestly, what the ArbCom is doing is fine. Regards, Mercury 19:42, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The reason why it's so hard to become an administrator —and therefore the reason why there are so few administrators— is that it is so hard to stop being one. If the tools could easily be removed, no-one would mind if a candidate for adminship had fewer than 2000 edits because, if they were given the tools and then turned out to be a bad administrator, they would lose the tools just as easily as they got them.

People who give their opinions on RfAs would not need to require so much evidence that the person will be a good administrator. Just having a reasonable amount of experience will be enough. I believe, however, that, for this to work better, the tools should be removed if there's 25% support for them to be removed, otherwise it will be just too hard to take the tools from people and the problems will remain. A.Z. 03:03, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

That's one way of looking at it.

Another way, which I think is far better supported by all available evidence, is that English Wikipedia has so few administrators because somehow adminship is seen by quite a lot of editors (some of them administrators) as something requiring exceptional qualities.

The most obvious evidence of this is the large amount of vague handwaving in these discussions about bad administrators, which contrasts starkly with the very low recorded proportion of people whose performance as administrators has proven so poor that they have been desysopped, and the very low number of actual serving administrators about whom there are significant complaints about serious, damaging abuse of their power. --Tony Sidaway 23:42, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I think this is mostly a case of selective memories. People who remember bad admins who arbcom did nothing about, would like to see an additional, easier process for removing the bit. People who remember perfectly reasonable admins being desysopped by arbcom for no good reason, don't want to see it become easier to get the bit removed. Both camps would probably do well to admit that neither problem is any kind of epidemic. Arbcom is so slow that I'd rather see them have to deal with fewer cases. Once in a while, there are obviously misbehaving admins, and it'd be handy to have a way to fix this problem that doesn't take so long. Friday (talk) 14:19, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

perfectly reasonable admins being desysopped by arbcom for no good reason -- This has happened? I'm sure some people have been upset to see their friends desysopped, but I haven't seen Arbcom address any kind of behavior that hasn't been at least to some degree a Bad Idea. And Arbcom is very cautious even then.--Father Goose 17:20, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to imply that I think this has happened. Rather, I suspect that some people think that. I sense that some of the opposition to a new desysopping procedure comes from an emotional, gut feeling of "admins are good; we need to support them." So, I would guess that some of the opposers probably do disagree with some of the desysoppings that have happened. Friday (talk) 17:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

One bad apple spoils the barrel. It's not that I think "rouge admins" corrupt the others -- it's that there's too much leeway to abuse admin powers (and admin status, which is a very real phenomenon). This casts a terrible shadow on adminship in general. Even a minor abuse of admin powers is a Bad Thing -- a pattern of such abuse can be played out for years before Arbcom is spurred to act. It's generally only the major abuses that result in desysopping, and such events are rare.

It's true that most administrators are conscientious, responsive, and a great credit to Wikipedia. But whom among us should be comfortable appointing someone to a position with substantial power and very limited accountability? Most of the apples in the barrel shine but I'd rather that they all shone. In the current setup, when we now and again plunk a bad apple in there, it festers, and short of it rotting outright, there's very little we can do about it.--Father Goose 17:20, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Offhand I can't think of any "perfectly reasonable" admin who was desysopped by arbcom. The Committee's judgement has usually been pretty fair in my experience. I think Friday is barking up the wrong tree. The proposal here, as I read it, is nothing to do with the arbitration committee. I've outlined my objections to it above, and I think those objections have enough weight amongst the community to torpedo it in its current form. --Tony Sidaway 19:57, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

As I said elsewhere, the reason this is misplaced is because it doesn't address the problem. The reason we're terribly short of admins isn't because RFA isn't passing enough, it's because not enough are applying in the first place. The argument made here appears to be that RFA would pass more if they thought it would be less costly. Even accepting this argument, making RFA pass more applications wouldn't make more apply, and arguably having the knowledge that the kind of atmosphere that prevails on RFA might be repeated after a successful application, is likely to deter applicants more than the knowledge that it's a once-and-for-all event. --Tony Sidaway 20:15, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I still haven't seen an indication that there's generally a problem with the atmosphere at RFA. As far as I recall, the only evidence you've been able to present of this alleged problem were a couple of RFAs whose outcomes you disagreed with. Many people consider the question of who becomes an admin to be very important, and many people have strong opinions on this issue. So there should be no surprise that RFA occasionally turns controversial. I don't see that this is any kind of problem. Friday (talk) 20:34, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

That's an instructive remark: the only evidence you've been able to present of this alleged problem were a couple of RFAs whose outcomes you disagreed with.

In fact I've cited the Danny RFA, whose result I agreed with. The opinion that many of the comments at RFA in that case were unrelated to adminship came not from me but the bureaucrats themselves. On that occasion they chose to ignore those comments in reaching their decision.

But I have also stated that the fact that we have so few candidates for administratorship is strong evidence that RFA isn't getting it right. It seems to have fostered entirely the wrong idea about what adminship entails, leading to ever-increasing de facto thresholds for acceptance and largely baseless claims that the quality of the existing corps of administrators is the cause of that. I say "baseless" because such claims evaporate when one asks for supporting evidence.

We need many more administrators, and the only way to get them is to remove the deterrents that stop many good, experienced, trustworthy editors wanting to volunteer. --Tony Sidaway 21:27, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed.I know of quite a few more good potential admins who won't run because of the gauntlet entailed in RfA than I do bad admins who ought to have their bit removed but have managed to escape ArbCom's notice... I had one of the former contact me today, and I counseled him against running, he won't pass, his contribution mix is wrong and he wants the bit to address one specific thing. I see the calls renewed as a result of the Miltopia thing but I still don't agree that a mandatory process would be implementable, or that it would work, or address the concern of too few admins. ++Lar: t/c 11:34, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I would be more inclined to grant the tools to anyone who didn't seem completely screwed up as long as I knew I could revoke the tools if I felt they were being abused. There appear to be many, many others who feel the same way. But strangely, this assertion is being ignored.

My preference is a periodic (probably yearly) renewal scheme. Arbcom can handle the acute abuses, but rarely deals with chronic abuses, unless they flare into acute ones.--Father Goose 21:34, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

It's not so much that your assertion is being ignored, it's that it's nonsensical. Abusive admins can be, and are, desysopped. We don't hold a vote on that, we use our community process, governed by policy and consensus, known as dispute resolution. In emergencies, we desysop within minutes.

I think you and others proposing some kind of mandatory desysopping process, outside dispute resolution, would be in a better position if you could document these alleged "chronc" cases which you claim are not being addressed. And in case that isn't clear enough, yes, I am asking you now to document those cases. --Tony Sidaway 19:47, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Prognosis

I note that this proposal's talk page has only attracted comment from about a score of editors. Less than half a dozen people have made edits to the proposal itself. While actual opposition has been small, it has been significant, and moreover there is no substantial support.

Looking at the links to the proposal, I see that it has had only minuscule exposure. As it hasn't been listed in the usual places and hasn't attracted much attention yet, I'm reluctant to tag it as historical or rejected now. I suggest its proponents now consider listing it in Wikipedia:Village pump (policy), Wikipedia:Centralized discussion, and so on. After more substantial discussion we can gauge consensus. --Tony Sidaway 14:50, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I was not so reluctant, I see very little chance of the lack of consensus and objection to this policy changing. If others disagree I invite them to revert and seek more input, but right now it is stagnating. 1 != 2 18:00, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I think you're right. It seems to be dead. --Tony Sidaway 02:28, 12 November 2007 (UTC)