Misplaced Pages

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Bureaucrats' noticeboard archives

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• WP:BN
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The Bureaucrats' noticeboard is a place where items related to the Bureaucrats can be discussed and coordinated. Any user is welcome to leave a message or join the discussion here. Please start a new section for each topic.

This is not a forum for grievances. It is a specific noticeboard addressing Bureaucrat-related issues. If you want to know more about an action by a particular bureaucrat, you should first raise the matter with them on their talk page. Please stay on topic, remain civil, and remember to assume good faith. Take extraneous comments or threads to relevant talk pages.

If you are here to report that an RFA or an RFB is "overdue" or "expired", please wait at least 12 hours from the scheduled end time before making a post here about it. There are a fair number of active bureaucrats; and an eye is being kept on the time remaining on these discussions. Thank you for your patience.

To request that your administrator status be removed, initiate a new section below.

It is 00:50:53 on December 25, 2024, according to the server's time and date.

RFA on Misplaced Pages in other languages

I don't think the occasional bad admin has really much to do with problems at the RFA stage. There are people who have turned out to be (in my opinion) unsuitable admins who got a unanimous pass at RFA. Furthermore RFA was right in giving them a unanimous pass because up to then they hadn't shown any indication that they would be problematic. No process on earth can detect problems before they actually occur.

I do think we could do with some RFA simplification. For example I like the way we do things over at no: There are certain minimum requirements before someone can be nominated and there are certain (very generous) suffrage requirements. After that it's a simple straightforward up-or-down vote on the candidate - if she gets >75% of valid votes (and no-one is shy in calling them votes) a bureaucrat gives her the bit. It's simple, fair and cordial. Haukur 12:36, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

But does this idea scale up to a larger community such as en:? — Werdna talk criticism 12:48, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

A good question - I think the answer is 'yes'. Straightforward voting scales much better than attempts at attaining consensus by discussion. You'll note that we're currently voting on board members, not trying to attain a consensus on which one is best. Haukur 12:58, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I think the issue with the board election is that a discussion can't go on in a multilingual setting. Every single comment would need to be translated into dozens of languages. — Werdna talk criticism 12:55, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

A good point, regarding the Board, but ArbCom? -- ALoan (Talk) 13:12, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps something we need to reconsider. — Werdna talk criticism 13:23, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

RFArbCom? Boggle. -- ALoan (Talk) 13:59, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I think a straight voting model scales better to large communities than a "discuss to determine consensus" model. I am not convinced either way whether pure voting would produce better or worse results than our current RfA system. Kusma (討論) 13:01, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

A refreshingly interesting idea. Adminship is, after all, meant to be "not a big deal" (I think the "big deal" in the recent cases arise mostly from people's surprise that their clear understanding of a mature process was apparently quite mistaken).

How does no: deal with de-adminning? A straight up-or-down 75% to de-admin? Is there an ArbCom?

I wonder if there are lessons to learn from other Wikipedias. What do, for example, fr, de:, it:, nl: and ja: do? -- ALoan (Talk) 13:36, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

There was a "vote for deadmin" structure on :no: which was used a couple of times but it has fallen into disuse and was removed from the process pages on the understanding that rogue admins were so rare that they were better handled on a case-by-case basis than through a standardized process. On the other hand inactive admins are deadminned after a while (something I personally don't see much point in).

I'd love to see an overview of how the different languages have tackled the problem of handing out and retracting the admin buttons. Maybe we should create a little page to document this? Haukur 13:43, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

As a sidenote, compare the number of admins in :no: and :en: I don't think that deadminship is really an important issue when you have a handful of admins. When you have 1000 admins, the issue is pressing. --Ghirla 13:47, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds about right. Nevertheless several of the smaller Wikipedias seem to have experimented with a deadminship procedure. I notice the Swedish one has had several votes on removing buttons from admins, including a rather amusing proposal to deadmin every last one of them. Haukur 14:07, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I too would like to see a page describing the adminship processes of other Wikipedias, and perhaps of sister projects too. Good idea! Tim Smith 21:41, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

• Certainly... on the Dutch wiki, it works like this: Suffrage for candidate = 3 months, 300 edits. Suffrage for voters = 1 month, 100 edits. Strict vote, 75% support required to pass. Adminship is subject to yearly reconfirmation via the same procedure but only if there are significant objections to the admin.
• German wiki: suffrage for nominator = 2 months, 200 edits; it is implied that suffrage for voting is likewise, whereas suffrage for candidate is "significantly more than that". Strict vote, 67% suport required to pass. Lengthy comments and rebuttals are strictly discouraged. Wheel warring or breach of protection policy is grounds for immediate deopping, which is temporary while the community decides how to deal with the person. Aside from that, in case of substantial complaints against an admin (for abuse or incivility), a motion can be made to deop the admin for up to three months. In a strict vote, the admin needs 67% support to not lose his privileges.
• >Radiant< 17:34, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. So, how did we end up here, when they are all over there? -- ALoan (Talk) 17:52, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages:German de-adminship solution - Mailer Diablo 05:06, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

• A bit late to the discussion, but the Spanish Misplaced Pages has something similar: suffrage requirements make 100 edits AND 30 days since account creation; 75% approval on a straight support/oppose/neutral vote; limited discussion on the RfA itself, but a prominent link to the talk page, where issues are discussed; plus, any RfA needs to be advertised on the Village Pump and in the WikiES-l list. However, adminship is more permanent, as no desysopping method was agreed on in a recent poll. Titoxd 05:38, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

My take on the issue

To me, I think the above proposals and call by John Reid is akin to somebody holding a gun to my head, and asking me to don my national colours to prove my patriotism. I refuse to get drawn into petty politics, which is what the RFA has now turn into. Nevertheless I shall come up with a detailed report of what's going wrong with RFA and how we can remedy it. If you would like to know my statement on promotion, please read my RFB, I refuse deviate from my original action plan. As for commitment to the project, please check my contribs and userpage. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:04, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree, and will explicitly not support this measure. If we need martyrs, it isn't bureaucrats, it's the RfA. And the RfA can be reformed after well reasoned discussion. Demanding bureaucrats to do this is counter-productive. We're not stupid. There is only one implied correct answer to the question and if the bureaucrats don't want to answer the black & white question in exactly the right way, then they might as well resign. Afterall, there is no room here for nuanced answers. In fact, bureaucrats should just skip answering the question and just resign immediately if they refuse to answer it correctly. Would detractors accept the following: "I agree that bureaucrats serve to community consensus except when such consensus violates the core policy of Misplaced Pages"? I couldn't endorse that statement myself, because there are times when community consensus is wrong. Period. Jimbo has on a few occasions overriden such discussion in order to maintain the spirit, purpose, and core policy of Misplaced Pages. -- RM 18:22, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

• If answering in opposition to the community is akin to serving your own head on a platter, then it would seem the community has a very, very strong expectation that the bureaucrats follow what they say in conferring adminship on people. If that is the case, then the bureaucrats need to do a much better job of explaining why this expectation is a false one, and show how RfA really is supposed to work and start doing it, unflinchingly. --Durin 22:07, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not a bit shy to say that any b'crat who fails to endorse above should be recalled by our community. John Reid 03:20, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

John, before you ask us to swear allegiance to what not, I'd like you to dig up statistics on the number of sucessful/unsucessful nominations that you felt were running contrary to the community spirit. Secondly, I'd like to give you a case study (this was also discussed on WT:FAC) Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/Ambuj.Saxena as to what you can deduce from the oppose votes. I'd like your views on the failed RFA. =Nichalp «Talk»= 11:16, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

You have fun with that. I'll start by dissenting. If Willy on Wheels gets community consensus to be an admin, I will fail it. Just an obvious example why your false dichotomy is ludicrous. It's just too black and white. And I'm not surprised you're not getting many people to line up for your firing range. It's just not helpful for the community. - Taxman 13:47, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

John, please stop trolling our bureaucrats :-P --Kim Bruning 13:50, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

• You may not appreciate John's style, but John is directly addressing the schism that has generated. So far, the response has been generally to ignore the schism. Taxman notes that consensus could get it wrong if consensus decided to promote Willy. Strawman. Nobody in their right minds at RfA would vote in favor of Willy. Regardless, what Taxman highlights is simply the schism; the notion that "getting it right" is not always the same as "consensus". That's the root of the schism. Carnildo was promoted on "getting it right" not on "consensus", in one of the few cases where "getting it right" and "consensus" did not concur. John is most emphatically not trolling. He is rather symbolic of the frustration that a set of users feel at what has happened. You might not like that these people are upset. You can attempt to marginalize them as supposedly not in keeping with the goals of the project. You can attempt to marginalize them by calling them trolls. At the end of the day, the reality is that a schism has generated. To date, the bureaucrats have been unwilling to address it. --Durin 14:03, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

While I generally feel that having a community is important, I do have to remember that having a community is the means, not the end. The duty of all participants in this project (including bureaucrats) is to make an encyclopedia. I'll go and take another look at the Carnildo RFA. Kim Bruning 14:07, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

This is it, basically. We have bureaucrats using consensus to determine the best administrator candidates. If consensus should get it wrong, the process would have failed and the bureaucrats must ignore all rules. If the rules say that bureaucrats must not use their brains, the rules are wrong and must be ignored. --Tony Sidaway 02:29, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

A more neutral question

Instead of the above, I would ask the 'Crats a more neutral question. The frequent dissent on RFA's talk page seems to stem from the problem that nobody really knows what an 'admin' is supposed to be. Is adminship "no big deal"? Are admins "held to very high standards"? Does adminship require the "trust" of anyone? If so, of whom? And what would happen if the trust is lost? Answers on such questions vary on whom you ask.

So I'm asking you. Would some (or preferably, most) of the Bureaucrats please briefly state what they think being an admin entails? I'll immediately add that this is not any kind of official proposal, not set in stone, and not an oath you are being sworn to. I would simply like to hear your opinions. Non-crats please refrain from commenting here for the time being, to avoid convoluting. --Radiant! 19:36, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I've always liked to put forth my views on this subject and I'll restate it once again:

• Adminship means that the candidate should have good judgement to carry out his duties above all else.
• An admin should be the face of the encyclopedia: be fluent in understanding core wikipedia policies and processes such as keeping a cool head in disputes, copyright understanding, NPOV, NPA, and notability criteria. Please note: Edits to the wikipedia namespace are *not* an accurate metric for this criteria.
• Experience. Some amount of staying experience needed to gain adminship. (3 months to 1,000 non-minor edits should be a defining criteria). Also some experience in participating in ongoing discussions are needed, as an admin may be required to play a role of a mediator from time to time.
• Some experience in editing articles. Knowing about how articles are supposed to be written as this is our primary purpose of existance. From my experience, those who absolutely clueless with how articles are supposed to be written tend to make B-grade admins and this reflects when they participate in discussions on talk pages and AFDs.
• A history of civility, more so in the last 2-3 months. Unless very serious, a one-off incident shouldn't be used to oppose a candidate.
• A candidate should be willing to share his/her knowledge to newcomers and also be willing to mentor inexperienced wikipedians if asked.
• I do not consider a history of RC patrol to be mandatory. To me, fighting vandalism should be the duty of each and every wikipedian. RC patrol, or reverting through watchlists are equally important.

=Nichalp «Talk»= 10:45, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your response, but that didn't really answer my question. You've given a list of criteria similar to what people might use to "vote" support or oppose on an RFA, whereas what I'm really looking for is a more fundamental definition of what an admin is. >Radiant< 14:30, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

A core defination: "A experienced and trusted user who can exercise good judgement when needed to represent what wikipedia is, and/or to take care of wikipedia's internal workings" =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:19, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

• Thank you, Nichalp. That sounds like a sensible definition and I agree with it. Just for the record, could one or two other 'crats please chime in and say if this is a reasonable def or if we're missing something? I'm kind of trying to avert future nastiness at WT:RFA and having an agreed-upon definition sounds like a nice place to start. >Radiant< 22:39, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Comments on Radiant's "A more neutral question"

• I think Radiant's neutral question is helpful, but misses the point. All of us who are regulars at RfA have standards of one sort or another on what makes a good admin. The core issue here is not what our standards are. The core issue is the schism that has recently generated between the RfA regulars and the bureaucrat corps. John Reid's question, though apparently regarded as insulting, is more directly aimed at addressing the schism. The bureaucrats have largely been silent of late in this debate. Now is not the time to be silent, to hope this problem will go away if enough silence is given. I'd strongly welcome a concerted effort on the part of the bureaucrats to address the schism that has generated. --Durin 12:54, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

• I've always been a staunch supporter of the bureaucrats, but I agree in this one that silence at this point is *not* constructive. As I recently discovered, being a bureaucrat is different from being an admin. While an admin may be "no big deal" to many people, a bureaucrat position is considered a "burden", one with a lot of work associated with it. My point here being that the issues raised recently should be addressed by bureaucrats, as interaction with the community is an important part of being one. Radiant's question was very helpful, I believe. -- RM 13:57, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I've been following all of the discussions here. So far, it seems to me like an enormous generalization. All of this has been generated by a decision made in Carnildo's RfA, not by any kind of decision making pattern on the part of the Bureaucracy in general. Taxman has been addressing the criticism that the decision (and its process) sparked. He has even admitted that the way in which the decision was made was perhaps not ideal. I have no reason to believe, given all that, that this situation would be repeated in the forseeable future.
To derive from this situation a conclusion that Bureaucrats could be looking to "ignore community consensus " is completely unjustified. Everyone who is a regular in RfA knows how the old saying goes: "we elect Bureaucrats to make the tough decisions, determine consensus in difficult scenarios", etc. Well, sometimes, in order to do our job, we need to think outside the box, try new solutions -- as former Bureaucrat Cecropia did in putting forward the 75-80% margin of discretion for promotion in troubled RfAs. Most of the time, it works. Sometimes, it doesn't. People have spoken in the sense that the solution that Taxman tried did not suit them. We hear you. It is, after all, a human process.
Without going into any specifics of Carnildo's RfA, since I wasn't involved in the process of closing that RfA, let's also not forget that those difficult RfAs can yield complicated scenarios: in extreme cases, an apparent consensus in the neighborhood of circa 60% could, in theory, result in promotion, assuming a scenario where a RfA has been spammed by sockpuppets and bad-faith or bandwagonning !votes. After going through all the participants, a Bureaucrat could arrive at a real consensus, amidst the good-faith, well-reasoned participants, that would be sufficent for promotion -- and as a matter of fact, whenever people feel that we have not done that, they protest as well, asking if all we ever do is just count votes. At the same time, if a user is promoted whose RfA had an apparent consensus of 61%, people also protest, saying that we are overlooking consensus and doing as we please. It's almost a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of situation. But that's fine: addressing people's concerns and answering questions as to how decisions are made (or how they were made) is part of the job -- and Taxman, as the principal Bureaucrat involved in closing Carnildo's RfA, has been doing it: he has not refused to answer questions as to how or why the decision was made as it was. It comes with the territory.
However, I'm sure you will agree that it is not possible for us to do our job as you yourselves would want us to do it if, whenever a controversial decision is made, people start asking us to line up and renew our "vows" to the project officially. The bottom line is: we are here to make those decisions. The community is not only free, but in fact expected to protest if it feels that any of our decisions were not in keeping with its expectations. But to go from there to suggest that Bureaucrats could be looking to ignore consensus altogether and take over RfA entirely is a giant leap, and one that is completely unjustified by the big picture.
Let's not confuse things: the Carnildo decision was not appreciated. That's one thing. Questioning the Bureaucrats' commitment to the project, that's quite different. Redux 14:28, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I think Redux's post above is the best that I've read in the torrent of words that has been written since the closing of the Carnildo RFA. I have posted in several messages on WP:RFA a call for the bureaucrats to "address people's concerns and answering questions as to how decisions are made" because, IMO, Taxman's failure to do this adequately is part of the reason that the discontent has been so high. I think the more extreme reactions have been "over the top" but I also think that it is inappropriate for bureaucrats to say "get over it, it's done, let's move on". If there is a significant discontent, it is incumbent on the bureaucrats to make an earnest effort to address the reasonable basis of that discontent. Redux's post is a first step in that direction.

Unfortunately, not everybody who watches WP:RFA watches WP:BN and so Redux's fine post is not likely to be read by all who should read it. For this reason, I'm going to crosspost it to Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for adminship.

--Richard 15:34, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

John, you seem to have missed my point completely. Understand that the Bureaucrats will not line up and take new "oaths" because you're telling us to. As I said, all of this started as a questioning of the method used to close and decide the outcome of a specific RfA. Questioning the entire Bureaucracy, and especially whether or not we are willing to abide by consensus, is a long, long way from that: also as I said, it's a giant leap that is completely unjustified by the big picture. Understand this: no Bureaucrat believes that s/he is above consensus, but our job consists precisely of determining consensus within the context of RfAs, as well as acting on it in the best interest of the community. That is what we were appointed to do; that is what we do. Redux 20:25, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Further comment in this section has been archived to Misplaced Pages:Bureaucrats'_noticeboard/John_Reid. --Tony Sidaway 00:33, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

On a break!

I'm sorry to butt out of the debates, but I shall be off wikipedia till late Octobermid-Nov starting tomorrow as I will be out of town on non-wiki related stuff. Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:24, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Let the record show that that b'crat was kind enough to answer my question before going on holiday. And I hope that the record shall show in late October that he had a fine vacation and good weather. >Radiant< 19:27, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Further comment in this section has been archived to Misplaced Pages:Bureaucrats'_noticeboard/John_Reid. --Tony Sidaway 00:29, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Another quick bot flag request

Would a bureaucrat please grant the bot flag to Elissonbot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights). When this is completed, please make a note here. Thanks in advance. -- RM 00:50, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Done. And from this point forward I'd think enough of us have Misplaced Pages:Bots/Requests_for_approval watchlisted that you don't have to post here to the noticeboard unless it's been way too long. I'll check it at least daily. - Taxman 02:23, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually it was posted on that page, but no one picked it up until I posted it here. Then it happened almost immediately. Perhaps others don't care about speed, but the difference of minutes or an hour or especially a day make a huge difference to the process. Flagging bots is just one more bit of bureaucratic overhead. Perhaps the bot owner isn't ready to use the bot, but perhaps they are. A lot of bot owners have been frustrated with the speed of the process; how long it takes. There are a lot of bureaucrats who perhaps have *not* watchlisted the page. The fact is, we don't know unless they explicitly tell us. But everyone has this page watchlisted, which is why it works so quickly. The bot was flagged 105 minutes after it was approved. However it was flagged 2 minutes after I posted to this page. You'll have to forgive my frustration with this process, but the evidence speaks for itself. -- RM 12:28, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I meant to say but forgot, that I saw it on that page and flagged it, then I saw your post here and responded. It just happened to be when I pulled up my watchlist. In the past it seems the approvals group wasn't as active or at least was very sporadic and requests sat out for a long time. Also it seems asking a bcrat on IRC was the preferred method to grab someone fast. Now that the approvals group is more active, I plan to be too. I really do check my watchlist several times a day most days except weekends so there wouldn't usually be a significant delay even if I was the only one looking. - Taxman 12:45, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

This problem has been around for a while, even before the approval group added new members. During my RfB, there were those who treated the bot flagging as of "lesser importance" to the other bureaucrat tasks. Is that the case? I don't think it is less important, as it often has a direct influence on real wikipedia articles. I'm not pointing fingers at you, but there are a lot of inactive and semi-inactive bureaucrats who are not following this discussion and perhaps other active crats who don't have the page watchlisted. I know you do, and probably so does Redux. But I'm not convinced that the others do. And again, my point is that I think that bot flagging should be treated like closing an RfA in importance. My annoying posts here are intended to speed up the process and I think you can appreciate my intentions at least. Anyway, from now on I'll see what happens posting it just to that page. But if an approval request stays idle for longer than a couple hours or the bot owner gets restless, then I'll post a message here. Now granted I'm bickering over a couple hours, but I would be inconsistent (re: RfB comments) if I didn't think that was important anyway. -- RM 12:54, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

From my own experience, I can say that I take all 3 Bureaucrat tasks (RfA closing/promoting, renames and bot flagging) seriously. I don't view any of them as minor or undeserving of attention. Until we get the WP:CHU-like forum running, I would have to say that a quick post to our Noticeboard is still the most effective way of getting a bot flagged.
You might have noticed that Nichalp has just announced that he will be on Wikibreak until sometime in late October. Essjay has been away since mid-August. This means that, at least until late October, Taxman and I are the only Bureaucrats who are consistently active (unless Essjay returns before that). Recently, we have had Angela and Dan (Rdsmith4) do some work sporadically, but they are still not active on a regular basis -- although Dan has been taking care of renames for the last couple of weeks, so we can consider him active on that specific front. This situation may lead to a slightly prolongued delay in our tasks, so whenever necessary, it is useful to call our attention specifically to anything that might be overdue. Redux 13:33, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I suppose that there is no way around this. You and Taxman are basically right. The bottleneck right now is the number of Bureaucrats, not where the request is posted. And for the record, I made it sound like bureaucrats don't care about bot flagging. I doubt that matches with reality, and I certainly don't have a problem with bureaucrats who specialize in one area over another. Moving on... -- RM 15:05, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Please add interwiki links to recent changes

(Moved to WP:VPT) — xaosflux 03:40, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Other languages

There seem to be some people discontented about RFA. I haven't looked into the particulars (yet?) but I figured it might be interesting to see how the other Wikipedias handle the issue. As such, I have attempted to compile and translate a bunch of admin facts, and listed them at Misplaced Pages:Adminship in other languages. I'm not sure if this is useful or just trivial data, but there are some interesting differences that people may want to read about. Comments welcome. >Radiant< 14:43, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

This is just what was wanted. Great work, Radiant! Tim Smith 01:07, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Username conflict issue

Barring any strong objection, I propose to grant the username "Encyclopedist" (previously used by a reformed and then relapsed vandal/troll who is now banned) to a respected contributor to the Chinese Misplaced Pages who goes by the same name. He has some four thousand edits to his local wiki, while our banned Encyclopedist has eight thousand to this wiki, which means that zh's Encyclopedist is set to lose his username when m:SUL is implemented.

I intend to rectify this unfortunate situation by renaming en's Encyclopedist to "Encyclopedist (banned)" or some such, and renaming zh's Encyclopedist (who has an en account, "Millionaire") to his own name. As this appears to be without precedent, I welcome comments. — Dan | talk 03:05, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, I don't think anyone should be using the username "Encyclopedist", just like no one should be using the username "System Administrator" or "Project Leader". It conveys a false sense of authority on a username basis alone, as if Misplaced Pages somehow has some official encyclopedist. --Cyde Weys 05:26, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, another problem is all on-wiki comments referring to the banned Encyclopedist (such as signing on talk pages, mentions in RfAr cases, etc) will now point to the new one. Unless you're willing to use something like AWB, write or get someone to write a bot to fix all those links and get a consensus on how they should read, then usurping an account with so many edits isn't a good idea methinks. - Taxman 12:15, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Has the Chinese editor using Encyclopedist requested something of this nature, or are you proposing to take it on your own initiative? --Michael Snow 21:52, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I must point out, also, that we have denied all requests to usurp usernames in recent history. The most common cases where people who wanted a taken username that, although registered, had never been used by whoever "took" it. And there were also rarer cases of people who wanted usernames that had been banned or blocked because they had been used to vandalize. The point is, we didn't cut anyone any slack, because we don't have a specific policy for allowing a username to be usurped. If we were to finally draft said policy, it would be one thing, but making private exceptions does not sound like a good idea to me. Furthermore, I would also have to wonder if the Chinese contributor is willing (or if he already does, of course) to start contributing regularly here or if he just wants to establish a "Wikimedia-wide" identity, since, in light of what Taxman said, and what I've just said, it just sounds like a lot of trouble just to link his Encyclopedist-named user page to his userpage on zh.wp and do minor work every now and then.
Here's a possible alternative solution: although we normally reject renames where the selected new name is too close to existing accounts, in this particular case he could be renamed to something like "Encyclopedist zh" (not the most creative, I know, but you get the picture), which is close enough -- and plus he's going to be highlighting his main identity as a respected contributor with the zh.wp anyways. Technically, this wouldn't be usurping the existing username, and it would save a lot of trouble (mainly that of going through what Taxman described). Redux 22:15, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I believe the problem is that when universal login comes along, because Encyclopedist on zh has less edits than Encyclopedist on en, he will lose his username across all projects, including his home of zh. Unfortunate, but I don't think we need to worry about it just yet. Universal login has been delayed and the plans changed for a long time (the notice saying a final push was underway was added in July), and it would probably be best to wait until we know it is going to happen. The current plan provides plenty of time for resolution of conflicts. By that time we may have a more developed usurping policy anyway. the wub "?!" 14:47, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

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