Requests for Comment/Amending the Meta administrator revocation criteria

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Community consensus seems to suggest the main proposal of this RfC has the support of the general community, therefore is successful. Proposal 2 does not have enough discussion to determine a consensus, therefore is closed as no consensus. John (talk) 18:59, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

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This aim of this proposal is rather short and sweet, but the rationale is two-fold. For one thing, in the context of Meta administrators, a very Meta Wiki-centric role if there ever was one, does community mean global activity, as it does for other global permissions, or does it mean activity on Meta Wiki? As well, six months is far too short.

It is, therefore, proposed that:

Section Revocation is amended as follows:

• Replacing "[t]he user is inactive from the community for a period of 6 months" with "[t]he user has not made any log actions or edits, requiring the sysop toolkit, on Meta Wiki in three (3) months"

n.b. I am currently drafting a similar proposal related to certain global permissions, notably wiki creator

Support

1.  Strong support as proposer. Dmehus (talk) 06:36, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
2.  Strong support We don't need to pile up administrators who are barely hanging by a thread in terms of activity, we need administrators who use their hats. Agent Isai ^{Talk to me!} 06:42, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
3. Clear need with no ambiguity. I would also encourage a similar inactivity clause for all other assigned user rights. dross (t • c • g) 06:46, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
4.  Strong support Weak support why not?  Anpang📨  09:54, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
5.  Weak support I'm not entirely convinced of the need for spring cleaning introduced here per se, but I agree the first point is very logical to pertain to meta wiki and given the prominence of Meta wiki, three months is not unreasonable either. I'm not compelled by the opposition. The admins who are carrying the weight have no trouble fitting the mandate and the ones who aren't should see no shame in resignation or falling out in accordance with the new policy. If someone intends to be absent for some time they should notify, and if they're gone for months at a time then at the very least they should notify, gracefully resign per CoC until they can participate, or take the hit from this clause and if there is no trouble, it's not a great inconvenience to request again. --Raidarr (talk) 10:09, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

   @Raidarr: Since you have proposed Proposal 2 will you not withdraw your support here in favour of that one? Since this proposal is contradictory with 2. --DeeM28 (talk) 17:55, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

   I have amended to a weak support, which I was on the fence for specifying in the first place; but there are two things behind my vote as it stands. 1, I'm not strictly opposed to this path and would accept either one, though I think this falls into a trap of trying to be specific to remove specific, non-essential cases. Again, not quite enough to lead me to oppose. For 2. I was suggesting the second proposal to illustrate options available in the event there was a strong undercurrent that preferred it. It is clear that such isn't the case after its dismal traction paired with this one, and even initially I hadn't signed off my support for Proposal 2. So at this late stage I don't see the need to muddy things by swapping to oppose. I expect P2 will just be closed as unsuccessful. --Raidarr (talk) 18:06, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

6.  Strong support A large number of admins only affect users who really care. I've seen some admit that he's retired, but he prefers to keep his rights. Per comments from other users above also. --YellowFrogger (talk) (✔) 10:17, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
7.  Strong support --Cocopuff2018 (talk) 15:21, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
8.  Weak support While I fully support the first part of the proposal seeking to reduce the activity time period from 6 to 3 months I am not very convinced by the 'requiring admin toolkit' aspect of the proposal. This is because Meta is not a place where a lot of situations occur that would need an administrator and it would in my view be difficult for all administrators to use their toolkit regularly if we have 8 current administrators. I would have preferred an option where bureaucrats have discretion to decide even if an administrator has not used their toolkit in 3 months but has actively participated in other affairs on Meta. If such discretion is permitted or implied in this proposal then I have no issue with it. --DeeM28 (talk) 05:17, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

   I do agree, a clause that considers discretion and can accommodate slower periods where it's unreasonable to expect a great deal of, if much at all raw administrator activity would make sense. The cases that this RfC is specifically attempting to isolate also carry a minimum of activity in general, and if they did have more then they mark themselves as backup option which Miraheze should not dismiss lightly. --Raidarr (talk) 09:10, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

   DeeM28 and Raidarr, absolutely, discretion would be afforded to bureaucrats in determining what is considered activity as a Meta administrator. The 'sysop toolkit' does not mean just these sysop user rights, but rather functions related to Meta administrators. For example, hypothetically speaking, if a Meta administrator was also a Meta wiki creator and they were solely active actioning wiki requests, albeit not being very active there either, then a Meta bureaucrat might determine that activity is not related to their role as a Meta administrator. If, on the other hand, a Meta administrator had not used any formal sysop tools, but had active in some way that is considered related to a Meta administrator (perhaps active on Stewards' noticeboard in a Steward or Global Sysop capacity, where Meta administrator tools are useful), or they had provided warnings or guidance to CIR users via their user talk pages, then the Meta bureaucrat might determine that level of activity is sufficient. Likewise, if a Meta administrator's sole action in a given period is to perform a function afforded to Meta patrollers, then the Meta bureaucrat might determine that they no longer meet the activity requirements as a Meta administrator and replace their permission with the patroller permission. Dmehus (talk) 02:29, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

   In addition to the above, we also have a little movement of administrators in Meta:AN. --YellowFrogger (talk) (✔) 15:33, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

9.  Weak support Only weak as by the 'requiring admin toolkit' aspect of the proposal. Otherwise I support it. I admit I'm not around long enough to tell if there never have been 3 months when they didn't have to use the toolkit, yet I agree with DeeM28 above. --Soukupmi (talk) 10:25, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
10.  Support I generally agree with this amendment because we need users that will use these rights actively and productively. Hypercane (talk) 23:20, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
11.  Strong support --Cocopuff2018 (talk) 19:08, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Reducing the inactivity length is a bad idea, and I might even support lengthening it. Since according to the proposer it's not possible to support defining activity without also making the timeframe much more strict, I oppose this proposal (I'm also not 100% convinced the new activity definition makes sense either). The inactivity policy is meant to prevent compromised accounts and removal of permissions from people who will not be returning. Not to extort some specific activity level. I've taken editing breaks of longer than 3 months, and that's fine. enwiki has an activity level of 1 year and they still drop like flies. The only possible benefit this could have is for people who game the inactivity level, but that wouldn't stop them, they can just have one log action every 3 months. Naleksuh (talk) 07:31, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

   It won't stop that, no, but it does it more difficult, as the action performed has to in some way be construed as relating to their Meta administrator duties. As well, Meta bureaucrats can use their discretion in terms of whether to apply the clause by taking into account Meta administrators who hold other permissions. Dmehus (talk) 07:36, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

2.  Oppose like Naleksuh, my understanding was that the activity requirement existed for the security purpose of dealing with admins who had appeared to drop of the face of the earth and the possibility their accounts could be compromised. The new activity requirement does not serve that purpose and seems to push people into making unnecessary admin actions. Additionally, Miraheze has traditionally struggled to get new volunteers into high ranking roles and Meta Admins is a way to do that, so trying to reduce the number of Meta admins, especially in a way that seems so unnecessary seems to me to be a bad idea. ~ El Komodos Drago (talk to me) 11:25, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
3.  Weak oppose After some additional reflection and having the benefit of reading other comments I have decided to modify my vote to oppose. I will reiterate that I fully support the 3 month requirement and believe that anyone who is not active on Meta for 3 months has no need at all to be administrator and should leave. Even if this is the case I believe that the requirement to use admin tools is not welcome because there is not enough activity on Meta to justify it. It is also a potential for a 'loophole' where an administrator could simply create a page, then delete it and by doing so would escape. If it is argued that the loophole does not exist because it would clearly not be in the 'spirit' of the revocation clause then that just makes it harder for bureaucrats to know what counts as 'use of admin tools'. Therefore because of this requirement I can not support this request. --DeeM28 (talk) 17:55, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Neutral

1.  Neutral While I don't have any particular problem with raising the activity requirement from 6 to 3 months, I don't really see a need for it. It would seem to make it harder for inactive admins to game the system, but that isn't really a problem here (feel free to demonstrate otherwise). — Arcversin (talk) 04:34, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

   Meta has only number of admins, that's why getting new admins is difficult (and to avoid users who edit by period). Perhaps this is the need. --YellowFrogger (talk) (✔) 10:45, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

   The presence of 8 admins does not make new nominations difficult. The regularity of 4-5 of them who are unaffected by these changes does, or at least that's the balance that should be considered. --Raidarr (talk) 13:23, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

2.  Neutral no strong opinion, but happy to see discussion (especially after seing how rigid are some Wikipedias) by more informed. --ZBlace (talk) 11:20, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
3.  Neutral I wouldn't mind this at all. But then again, I don't really have any objections against this proposal. --DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 13:38, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Comments

I don't like that this proposal seeks to change two things and to support you have to support both. Dmehus, please add multiple proposals both for changing what it means to be inactive and how long you have to be inactive for so I can !vote on each. Also, why was there no comments section until I added it in this edit? Naleksuh (talk) 07:07, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

It doesn't seek to do two things. It's intentionally defining what is construed as relevant activity narrowly, and shortening the timeframe from a long-ish six (6) months. As to the comments section, I just missed adding add, so thanks for adding that. Dmehus (talk) 07:10, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

It doesn't seek to do two things proceeds to explain how it seeks to do two things? I support the new definition of inactivity, but oppose the shortening of the timeframe. Naleksuh (talk) 07:11, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Why oppose the shortened timeframe, though? Three months ought to be plenty of time for a Meta administrator to perform an administrator-related log action or edit. Dmehus (talk) 07:13, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

So because you don't agree that people should oppose it, you won't even give them the option to? Please make them separate. Naleksuh (talk) 07:14, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

The users I've talked to on IRC all strongly support reducing the inactivity timeframe to three (3) months, at least for Meta administrators. If the proposal passes, a separate proposal can be initiated following this RfC to lengthen the inactivity timeframe. Dmehus (talk) 07:26, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, following the RfC closed just a few hours ago, if considered necessary a new proposal can always be added. I would disagree with the proposed action above to create a 'separate proposal' and if you wish to pursue this path would rather you create it now. Reception123 (talk) (C) 15:04, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

You're well within your rights to issue a counter proposal here with only the part you like, easier still by how small and relatively early the proposal is. I don't think Dmehus should necessarily be obliged to do it from the start. --Raidarr (talk) 10:10, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 2 (tweaks, by Raidarr)

Due to various discussion and underlying concerns in the supports above, I shall take the liberty to add an alternative that may be more agreeable to some, maybe more. I'm not entirely sure if I prefer the wording, but I am leaning towards yes. We'll see if there's any ground support, particularly cc weaker supports and outright concerns per Anpang, DeeM28 and Naleksuh as well as anyone else who possibly find the explicit mention of tool use merged in to be more contentious, but the timing to be reasonable. Naturally this doesn't preclude an option the other way around with six months but specifying tool use.

Adjustment to the 'Revocation' section, as follows:

• Replacing "[t]he user is inactive from the community for a period of 6 months" with "[t]he user is inactive on Miraheze Meta for a period of three months"

Since I consider this an ancillary to the main idea it may be cleaner if opposition to the changes altogether was expressed in the original and only opinions on this tangent in particular, if support or different are made here.

Support

1.  Support This is better.  Anpang📨  12:17, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
2.  Support Per my opposal to Proposal 1. I fully agree with lowering the requirements from 6 months to 3 months but the use of the admin toolkit can be too hard to satisfy. I would prefer generally an approach where users vote for revocation when it is clear that a user still might edit Meta occasionally but is no longer 'fit for office' and no longer is active enough to be able to perform administrative duties/countervandalism if they were to arise. --DeeM28 (talk) 17:55, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Comments

• I saw no difference with the above. Could you elaborate more? --YellowFrogger (talk) (✔) 11:07, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

  This proposal merely specifies activity on Meta and does not explicitly require use of tools to retain office. --Raidarr (talk) 11:44, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

  Understood. Perhaps the activity is enough. --YellowFrogger (talk) (✔) 12:21, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section