Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 19:21, 22 February 2010

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This is a Request for comment (RfC) on a proposal to implement Community de-adminship (CDA) on the English Misplaced Pages. Community de-adminship (a form of Administrator Recall), would be a method for the Misplaced Pages community to remove the administrator tools from existing Administrators who have lost the confidence of the community.

• You can read the CDA proposal here.

• You can read an FAQ about the proposal, prepared by editors who worked on it and support it, here.

This page opened for comments 18:50, 22 February 2010 (UTC), and will close 23:59, 22 March 2010 (UTC).

The proposal

The community is being asked whether a proposal for community-based removal of administrator privileges, called Community de-Adminship (CDA) should be implemented as policy on the English Misplaced Pages.

If WP:CDA is adopted this will require two other amendments:

• The Misplaced Pages:Guide to Community de-adminship will be described as a "guide to current practice" in the same way that Misplaced Pages:Guide to requests for adminship is at present.
• It will also be necessary to amend the policy Misplaced Pages:Administrators to include reference to the WP:CDA process. This step will be undertaken as a technical matter at that page as and when needed.

Closure

When the debate here is concluded, it will be closed in the usual way. If sufficient consensus has not been reached after thirty days, and further discussion would be useful, it will be extended.

If the RfC ends in consensus to implement, such implementation will then be subject to review by the Bureaucrats and Jimmy Wales.

Discussion

Comments by some of the editors who prepared the proposal

This discussion follows on from those at:

• Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Administrator/Admin Recall
• the associated talk page.

There, a poll was conducted that attempted to evaluate the levels of community support for various proposals seeking to create a method by which the community at large (as opposed to Arbitration Committee) could pass comment on the actions of and if necessary remove the tools from, existing Administrators.

The main conclusions of this poll were as follows:

1. The status quo, (i.e. no such process being available) whilst garnering some support, was very unpopular. 77% of respondents did not support its continuation.
2. Only one proposal achieved a greater degree of support than opposition – "Misplaced Pages:Community de-adminship" (CDA) – which received a majority of 13, and the support of 65% of those who considered it. This proposed process was designed as a "mirror image" of the existing Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship (RfA), and part of its appeal was evidently its familiarity.

The reasons for dissatisfaction with the status quo are complex and varied, but a view was regularly expressed that if the community at large has the authority to appoint administrators through the RfA process, then the community should also be able to remove their powers.

This led to lengthy discussions at:

• Misplaced Pages talk:Community de-adminship/Draft RfC

which attempted to iron out various issues in the then existing Guide to Community de-adminship. This resulted in:

1. Some wording changes and clarifications as identified above (Section: Update from WT:CDADR). Few of these were controversial.
2. An increase in the nomination period from 3 days to 7 days.
3. More emphasis on pre-nomination attempts to resolve any disputes.
4. Most complex of all, a more specific statement about how the outcome shall be judged. Various options were considered and two specifics are identified as part of this RfC (see below).

In many cases the above discussions were a conflict between:

• The desire to make the process simpler or easier to implement in order to avoid allowing those perceived as having abused their Administrative tools to continue without fear of sanction, and
• The desire to avoid a system in which Administrators, who almost inevitably find themselves taking on potentially controversial tasks on the community's behalf, are discouraged from taking action for fear of reprisals via a Recall method that is too easy for aggrieved editors to make use of when they don't get their way.

The resulting changes to the Guide to Community de-adminship were a compromise between these two poles.

Poll

Support

1. Support. It makes very good sense that the same community that confers administrator status at RfA should have the ability to retract that status when confidence has been lost. This proposal have been very carefully thought through, incorporating lessons learned from previous proposals. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:05, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

1. ArbCom have been more willing to desysop administrators who have shown to use the tools poorly. Generally speaking, if an RfC comes to the consensus that an administrator no longer holds the trust of the community, ArbCom will desysop them. I don't personally believe there is a problem to fix. I fear that if this proposal was to move forward, a lynch mob mentality would result and administrators who deal with controversial issues would regularly be brought through the community deadminship process. I also fear that administrators who make one mistake would also be sent through the deadminship process. All in all, I believe it will lower morale in the admin corps. Whilst the RfC, then to ArbCom route might not be ideal, I believe it serves as a good check and balance. Ryan Postlethwaite 19:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
2. This proposal is likely to be harmful on a number of levels, discouraging adminstrators from boldly responding to sensitive and complex issues, while encouraging those who would use wiki-process to pursue personal grudges and vendettas. The current system, meanwhile, is humming along very nicely. I know of no administrator in the past 2-3 years whom ArbCom did not desysop, when presented with evidence of flagrant abuse of the tools, or place on probation which would lead to desysopping "next time," when presented with evidence of severe error or other inappropriate use. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Neutral

• Misplaced Pages requests for comment
• Misplaced Pages adminship