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Meta:Requests for comment/Allow de-sysop proposal of active adminships

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The following request for comments is closed. The discussion has been inactive for almost 2 months. There is no consensus for making the proposed changes. --Mykola 09:48, 25 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Rationale

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For some months, I am also wondering that if the de facto Meta:Administrators#Policy_for_de-adminship is fair for us or not. This section looks like only contains the inactivity cases to trigger de-sysop process, but some Wikimedia users made their concerns e.g. via Requests for comment/De-adminship for Jusjih in certain projects that some Meta-Wiki adminships, even though they are active, should really be de-sysoped due to their abusing of privileges. Some remote WMF wikis gave examples where such proposals are available (some links are simply copy-pasted from Wikidata items so didn't check if they are indeed processes or not):

And we do have three succeed proposals Meta:Requests for adminship/Nemo bis (removal), Meta:Requests for checkuser/Ausir (removal) and Meta:Requests for adminship/Innv (removal), although they are happened 10+ years ago. So I wonder if such process could also be (re)-introduced on Meta-Wiki or not?

Thus I suggest to add such a proposal process on, again, the Meta:Administrators#Policy_for_de-adminship. That should contain a fixed process, to define a criteria should be considered in case such proposals to be made, to define a standardize process for those proposals, and to get a bar for saying that there are consensus to de-sysop one adminship per se. Many of those points need several within-RFC discussions so I don't hope the modification of the policy section can be happened very soon, but at the initial of this RFC I just need to collect a consensus that if we should modify it or not, if the consensus is yes, then we can go to the next steps on discussing details.

Proposer: Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 06:48, 30 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed additions

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(remember that these are only drafts, they are only added to be the policy sections if we all have consensus of all texts below, feel free to modify when necessary)

Self-retirement

Any sysops may request desysop themselves based on their own problems, just if they think having sysop rights are no longer necessary. They can directly ask Stewards for removing at Steward_requests/Permissions#Removal_of_access.

Removal upon consensus of community members

If a sysop has evidences on abusing their admin tools, or other major violating the Meta-Wiki policies and/or global policies, then despite they are active, any trusted community members of Meta-Wiki may request discussion for de-sysop, then continue the discussion to get a consensus, a vote may be happened during discussions, and finally ask an uninvolved bureaucrat (if the only right to removal is administrator) or stewards (if there are other adminship rights to be removed) to confirm the consensus, and do actions on removing their adminships.

  • Global sysops have their own removal criteria and are not governed by this section.
  • Remember that any such discussions are finally methods, if there have only conflicts between normal users, Meta:Babel or Meta:AN are proper ways to resolve them, any requests solely based on normal users' conflicts can be speedy closed. Meanwhile, to avoid unnecessary misunderstanding, a vote on removal can only happen if there have enough discussions, and confirmed again and again that that is necessary.
  • Abusing of this process, such as started without considering Assume good faith, Etiquette or any current policies, may result the discussion process be speedy closed by any uninvolved administrators or bureaucrats, or even blocks of abusing requestors.

The detailed criterias and process, if such proposals are necessary, are:

  • Confirmed an affected adminship does have wrong behaviors that may result starting process, such as:
    • Major violating the general existing rules on using admin tools, like deletion policy;
    • Block users without providing fair reasons, threaten users by potential blocks, or unfairly changed the block periods;
    • Randomly deleted pages that are not meet speedy deletion criterias without upon any discussions;
    • Violated the existing consensus and etiquette again and again;
    • Using admin powers on the involved edit conflicts or other types of community members instead of trying to evade, without any later explanations;
    • All of the above behaviors must happen after the time their adminships are granted, within one year before the time the process started, and solely on Meta-Wiki. If such behaviors happened on other Wikimedia projects, please ask their community members to resolve instead of here.
  • Start an initial discussion at Meta:Babel or Meta:AN and keep it for at least 48 hours, during initial discussions, the involved community members should keep linking up, there must have detailed evidences on abusing of admin tools, based on their user contributions and logs, later removal discussions are not happened if the affected contents are not matching it, or the reasons are nonsense. To avoid double jeopardy, unless there are new evidences found, the same events of abusing are not valid for repeating removal discussions.
  • If the linking-up discussions are failed to resolve conflicts, then start an official de-sysop discussion **at Meta:Administrators/Removal**. After starting, the affected adminship must be notified by either their talk page or e-mail within 7 days, or otherwise the de-sysop process can be speedy failed.
  • After notification, the affected adminship may input their responses on any pointed problems of the de-sysop discussion rationale within 5 days. The requestor may put these responses in order to the rationale, and make sure these responses are not hidden by templates (e.g. {{hidden begin}}+{{hidden end}}).
  • After 5 days of responses period, a vote for de-sysop may be started.
    • The voting period has a time limit of 14 days. The support ratio of removing adminships, same as the requirement of requests for adminships, is at least 75% of the valid votes, all editors with an account on Meta, at least one active account on any Wikimedia project, and a link between the two, may participate the removal discussions and votes.
    • Note that any votes that are just-a-vote, duplicated votes, by sockpuppets and/or meatpuppets are not considered valid.
    • If the involved adminships are interfereing voters for multiple times, either supporters or opposers, by threatening them not to vote or strike their votes, then the involved adminships may be temporarily blocked (administrators can also be blocked by other administrators when necessary) to keep the safety of process.
  • After the end of voting period, any uninvolved bureaucrats may confirm if the ratio is met or not, they may also put concerns that if the supporters are canvassed or having other wrong behaviors may lead their votes invalid.
  • After confirmation, any uninvolved bureaucrats may report to stewards at Steward_requests/Permissions#Removal_of_access for final removal, or just remove by themselves if only administrator is to be removed. Unless specific to only remove one or some of their rights, all adminship rights (administrator, bureaucrat, checkuser, oversight, etc.) will be removed based on consensus.

Comments

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Arguments in favor (Support)

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Arguments against (Oppose)

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  • If no admins have lost their rights for cause in almost a decade, and only 3 instances in the entire history of Meta-Wiki, then there's no need to formalize procedures for it. And I would also oppose desysopping Jusijh locally, since they haven't misused their rights on this specific wiki (both alleged misuses presented in that RfC do not involve admin tools) * Pppery * it has begun 03:30, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't think we need a formalized process. Not every rule/procedure needs to be codified. – Ajraddatz (talk) 21:42, 8 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Even the self retirements? Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 23:53, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes - meta admins have been self-retiring for decades without issue. Unless there is evidence that the status quo is not working, I generally do not want to add additional processes. – Ajraddatz (talk) 00:00, 10 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Very complicated proposal which I don't fully understand in some parts. Some specific concerns:
    • Start an initial discussion at Meta:Babel or Meta:AN and keep it for at least 48 hours Discussions like these should probably be held in one and only one place. 48 hours is probably too few considering how slow things move on Meta.
    • If the linking-up discussions are failed to resolve conflicts, then start an official de-sysop discussion **at Meta:Administrators/Removal** What is a "linking-up discussion"? Who determines if discussions have failed? Who can start a de-adminship discussion?
    • ask an uninvolved bureaucrat (if the only right to removal is administrator) or stewards (if there are other adminship rights to be removed) to confirm the consensus, and do actions on removing their adminships. This is against Meta:Bureaucrats and WM:MSR. Bureaucrats are elected to assess consensus over local RfXs. Stewards are explicitly disallowed from closing such discussions if they're not local bureaucrats, and no convincing argument is made as to why this has to change.
    • The voting period has a time limit of 14 days No reason why the standard 7 days cannot apply here. Also, if this is really a vote, then [n]ote that any votes that are just-a-vote doesn't make sense.
    • all editors with an account on Meta, at least one active account on any Wikimedia project, and a link between the two, may participate the removal discussions and votes. Sorry but I don't think anyone which is really not somewhat active on Meta should be deciding who can be or not be an admin on this community, and suggest we address first who can vote on RfA pages as several wikis (e.g. dewiki, eswiki) do. In the alternative, explicitly allow bureaucrats to decide which comments can be discounted or taken with less emphasis. This is controversial.
    • or just remove by themselves if only administrator is to be removed Again, bureaucrats on this wiki cannot remove permissions as decided by the community.

      —MarcoAurelio (talk) 21:22, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Feel free to modify that draft, I said. (Or otherwise how to resolve this thing? Both are of course combined each other nowadays) Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 22:48, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Arguments neutral or other comments

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  • Comment Comment Per this, I think what Majorly said in 2009 summarize the process well and I think all of us can agree to it - "If there is an admin you have a problem with, bring it up on Babel or create an RFC.". I think that's it, no complicated process will suit meta well, as the community here is quite small (I mean the meta community as defined by those who are involved in maintaining meta, but well that's the debate for another day) and we can thresh out issues quite easily. I mean I get corrected on tools usage and I too also feedback tool usage to other admins, and I can't recall when there are difficulties in doing so. If you want to hard code it, I will think a discussion on Babel / with the admin on talkpage and then start a Meta RFC will be reasonable, with a crat implementing the consensus as per RFA standards. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 07:42, 30 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Camouflaged Mirage The problem is that there are already concerns made by other RFCs, so still dropping such discussions "on Meta:Babel first" would be too late, I think, it's the time we need to define so. Anyway, the only example within Meta-Wiki was given by you in the last year, I also included above, but as such it's too grandfathered to be useful, and its formattion is disorganized, chaotic, muddle... Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 07:44, 30 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Clarification: I mean with respect to a problematic admin, not the situation now. It mean that if someone is problematic, discuss with them / with community on Babel and then file a RFC/RFDA. I don't mean this RFC in the above comments. @Liuxinyu970226 Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 07:48, 30 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah that's a part of what we should consider to include when modifying that policy section, because for users who indeed want to start such process, it's still unclear what should be the correct place, just at Meta:Babel? Global RFC? Meta:RFC? Do samething like requesting adminship and include "removal" suffix (like that example)? Or elsewhere? If we don't provide a fixed instruction to define this, then every Meta pages are in their opinions "eligible for starting it", then what's the reason we need Meta-Wiki? Just a playground for wasting proposal texts? Shortly again, what I just want to see is a fixed instruction. Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 08:00, 30 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    My idea will be first to discuss with the admin, if not on Babel to make sure there is a real issue of tool misuse not misunderstanding and then well it's of course a meta RFC / request of removal of rights RFDA depending on situation. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 08:03, 30 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • There has been a successful deadminship here: Meta:Requests for adminship/Nemo bis (removal) --Rschen7754 16:57, 30 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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