Wikipedia talk:Administrator Activity Proposal

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("Who shall guard the guardians?") Who will be responsible for keeping tabs on the admins? The other admins, any user, the bureaucrats? This should probably be enumerated on this page (once a decision is made, of course). And when a sysop is found to be inactive, will his or her sysop rights be taken immediately away, or will a "good-faith" effort be made to contact the administrator, at least as a warning? --Whosyourjudas (talk) 23:41, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'm quite hesitant about these types of solutions in search of a problem. Do we really need this, or is this just another place for Wikipedians to waste time that they could spend creating articles? anthony (see warning) 23:43, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Anthony, admins can virtually do no harm even if their account is compromised, and this just adds needless overhead and turns the whole sysop thing into more of a status game than it already is. In any case, "shall permanently have their sysop access removed" is unacceptably draconic. If you want to pursue this, at least include notification on the talk page and by e-mail, and a secondary period in which former sysops have privileged access to restore their status.

In any case, can you name a single instance where keeping an inactive sysop around has done any harm?--Eloquence*

Like Anthony and Eloquence, I think this looks rather like a solution in search of a problem, and would suggest that those advocating the policy are going to have to produce some persuasive evidence as to why this is necessary. —Stormie 00:07, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

I agree with most of what's above. At least definitely "include notification on the talk page and by e-mail, and a secondary period in which former sysops have privileged access to restore their status". Robin Patterson 00:13, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have altered the proposal in two ways. First, a sysop shall be contacted and given one to two weeks to respond to belief of their inactivity once they are found to be inactive. Second, if a sysop is desysopped for inactivty, they have one month to return and reclaim their access before they must reapply through RFA. -- Grunt   ҈  00:19, 2004 Oct 5 (UTC)

Hello Grunt et al. Even with the alteration, I don't understand the problem that this policy is attempting to address. This seems like a lot of additional work and checking for people, and it doesn't seems to address any of the numerous complaints and concerns I've seen raised about sysops. I think it would be helpful if you (Grunt) could explain in more details the problem that we currently face and why it's important to address this with a system of automatic desysopping. BCorr|Брайен 00:36, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

IMO, this is an unneeded solution in search of a problem. I will be voting NO to this unless a bit more justification is produced as to why this is needed in practice (not theory). There's pretty much nothing an admin can do that can't be undone. Developer access, yes, but not admins. —Morven 00:37, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

I strongly support this policy. Some of the problems it addresses are:

  • If a user wants to contact an admin, Special:Listadmins becomes useless if it's full of admins who are inactive. This is a real problem, not a hypothetical one. I frequently need to find admins on other projects and keep coming up against this problem.
  • It gives misleading statistics when people report that we have 300 admins.
  • People who have been away for a long period of time are not going to be aware of the policies. There is nothing wrong with saying they should be around for a month or more before reapplying for adminship. This period of reacquainting themselves with the new rules will prevent issues occurring from them breaking those rules.
  • Some feel we currently have too many admins, and are probably overly opposing in their RfA votes because of this. Removing the inactive people would give a better idea of how many admins we really have.
  • Admins are supposed to be trusted by the community. People no longer involved with the project are not even known by the community, much less trusted by them.
  • Keeping every admin even after they are inactive gives the impression that adminship is something so special it can never be removed.

This policy is only the start of a solution. Ideally, every admin should have their status reviewed periodically, not only the inactive ones. I feel the fact that sysop status is seen as something so permanent is a real problem, and makes the idea that "adminship should be no big deal" something far harder to believe. It wouldn't be a big deal if admins that are no longer trusted by the community could be removed, but currently they can't be. Angela. 01:19, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

These are all good points, as is Angela's reminder about the "confirmation proposal" that was being discussed a few months ago. Perhaps Grunt would allow Angela to add a section on the rationale to the proposal. Thanks, BCorr|Брайен 01:26, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I was wondering "Do we need this?" until Angela explained it. Perhaps put this in a "Rationale" section before this proposal, so people know why it's being proposed. Fuzheado | Talk 02:36, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I have done this, using Angela's reasoning as a starting point. Please feel free to add any other reasons to that section if you can think of any. -- Grunt   ҈  02:51, 2004 Oct 5 (UTC)
Well put, Angela. One more point: it will help keep "worthy" admins active and participating so we will always have a good group. Whosyourjudas (talk) 02:48, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Angela, my personal opinion is that this policy proposal is another example of unnnecessary bureaucratic overhead, but your points are perfectly valid. However, the timeframes are far too restrictive. If I want to take a time out of say a few months, I want to be able to just do it without worrying about bureaucratic procedures. Kosebamse 04:53, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
As I recall, the original policy was that admin status consisted of functionality that in an ideal world every user should have, but that unfortunately were a little too dangerous to give to everyone. Admin status was "no big deal" and intended to be given to any user who'd been around long enough to have shown a history of good intentions and reasonable judgment.
This proposal would officially change that. It makes the admin flag much more "special"; it puts into policy something I feel has been slipping in for a while. Do we want to do this or not? Do we wish to make admin status what the outsiders think it is, a position of heavy-duty trust and power? —Morven 08:05, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

This proposal is a bad solution to a real problem. Since the admin status was introduced as a temporary solution until the software was changed to allow all users the ability to carry what are currently "admin-only" functions without opening the system to damage by vandals, we should not be addressing problems with the system by making the admin status even rarer than it currently is. A better solution would be to do what was intended and redesign the system to make more of the admin-only functions available to all users. Then there wouldn't be difficulty in finding an admin -- any logged on user would be able to do what was necessary. -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:40, 2004 Oct 5 (UTC)

I do not see the necessity of this proposal, despite Angela's points. (Must I not sign now? :-) The problem of locating active sysops could be solved by including the time of the last edit of any admin listed on Special:Listadmins. And anyway, the time frame for "inactivity" would need to be longer (three months isn't long), and I do not like the idea of people taking a Wikivacation being desysopped. Looks like red tape to me. Lupo 08:04, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Jamesday has just extracted some statistics (thanks a lot for doing this!), and it seems that even applying the proposed short three months inactivity period, more than 90% of the listed admins are active. I don't think we needed a policy on the remaining few. Lupo 08:18, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This proposal is, like one of the other objectors said, a solution in search of a problem. Once someone has been accepted by the community as an administrator, they should not be removed without good reason. Inactivity is not a good reason. Sometimes people get dragged away by real life - that's life. They shouldn't then have to be penalised for it.

Angela does, however, highlight some real issues. Special:Listadmins becoming useless is a bad thing. However, perhaps the solution is for the server to take last edits into account, and splitting off the inactive ones into a seperate list. The same thing - or a manually-maintained list, would avoid the misleading statistics issue.

On the other hand, some of the reasons put up for this are complete bunk. I'd like to see at least one example of an admin who has been away, not been aware of any policies on returning, and then caused trouble, before we go running around making new policies about it. As for trust - I don't know about you, but if some user comes back from a break and is clearly respected (Zoe, who left before I joined, comes to mind), then I for one have no issues trusting them on their return.

The "some feel we currently have too many admins, and are probably overly opposing in their RfA votes because of this", simply doesn't stand up. We've gone one user who's doing this. I think the practice is manifestly stupid, but I can always vote to even up the balance. Finally, adminship is not something special that it can never be removed. But if it is removed, it should be for a damned good reason - and inactivity certainly ain't it. Ambi 08:10, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Angela's comments made me reconsider, but later comments have made me return to my original thoughts on the matter. Special:Listadmins (and statistics) can be fixed in an automated manner, and 90% of admins are active anyway. Someone being away, coming back, not catching up on the new policies, wreaking havoc, and not stopping when made aware of the new policies, is far too hypothetical to have this "policy bloat". If that ever happens, forcible deadminship is possible. As for those who feel we have too many admins, well, we don't, we have far too few admins. And 90% of admins are "active" anyway, so this won't do much to resolve that. The case of an admin who is trusted in the community, leaves for a while, and then returns a wholly different person likewise seems far too hypothetical for this policy to be worth the administrative overhead. If someone goes away, gets brainwashed by some cult, comes back as a psycho, and starts destroying Wikipedia, they can be forcibly deadminned.

Yes, deadminship is hard. Whether or not this should be the case depends on a lot of factors, including how hard adminship is. In theory, adminship should be easy and deadminship should be easy too. Anyone who isn't out to destroy Wikipedia should be adminned, and anyone who makes an action which does not have consensus support should be deadminned. I believe this was the original idea, but adminship has changed a lot since then. I like the idea of making adminship more and more irrelevant. The political caste system we've created is a real problem. But that's not really the focus of this proposal, and to the extent this proposal addresses it, it only makes things worse. anthony (see warning) 16:31, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Transparency , active system ops, instant messaging, trust metric voting

  • There is no reason why a cache of contactable, accountable on line system ops can not be created/maintained
  • Suggest they have a pic, a full bio and a voting system for the help received
  • The updating technology of wikipedia may give quick feed back - within 5 mins? or do we use jabber?

Who posted this? Anyway, I'm strongly opposed against requiring a picture/biography, and even more strongly opposed to any "trust metric". Adminship is no popularity contest, and whatever any Wikipedian (not just janitors) deems to reveal about her- or himself is what is on her or his user page. Lupo 07:54, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Quite true. If I had to have a picture/bio, I wouldn't have accepted nomination for sysop. I like my pseudonymity. -- Cyrius|✎ 14:18, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I agree, but I think we should be encouraging administrators to declare possible possible bias on the user page. This would act as a self-reminder to keep a NPOV and allows others to put administrator actions and comments in perspective. -- Solitude 14:32, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Do not edit this page directly

I have ignored this order because of its inappropriateness on the wiki. This is a collaborative project, not a military organisation. The article needed (and still needs) editing to put forward the pros and cons of the proposal. At the moment it makes little mention of the cons so editing is essential. -- Derek Ross | Talk 06:04, 2004 Oct 5 (UTC)

What I mean is, effectively, "don't make major changes to this without first consulting everyone else involved." This mostly applies to the Articles section, so the wording has been revised as such. What you've done is perfectly acceptable. -- Grunt   ҈  17:08, 2004 Oct 5 (UTC)
I hoped that that was what you meant. Cheers -- Derek Ross | Talk 18:18, 2004 Oct 5 (UTC)

I agree. Until voting begins, people should feel free to make changes. In the last few days it would be rude to make any major changes without consensus, though. anthony (see warning) 16:05, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Administrators online

Note that, in the absence of the type of automated method of keeping track of which administrators are currently online that people have discussed above, I have added an extra section to Wikipedia:List of administrators in which people can manually record whether they are on or offline at any given moment. --Derek Ross | Talk 15:05, 2004 Oct 5 (UTC)

GRUNT! Great idea. Hopefully I'll be active again in time to vote for it. Damn that Hurricane Ivan. blankfaze | (беседа!) 18:14, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] UC's comments

  • I have removed the unwiki-like "do not edit this page" disclaimer. While there may be situations where such an approach is an appropriate way to handle policy discussions, this has only been done after considerable discussion. There has not been much discussion of this idea yet.
  • I also made the "vote" a proposed one, in line with our way of doing things. We may find that a vote is unnecessary.
  • I removed some legal-sounding titles and verbiage from the policy, which I believe are out of place at Wikipedia.
  • I also added some information on existing policy. Perhaps Eloquence or some other developer can better remember how much this was actually done. The last I remember there was some attempt to try to remove dormant admin logins about a year ago.
  • As for the policy itself, I'm concerned that it does not solve any problem that we actually have. I am willing to be convinced, though. I don't believe anyone uses "listadmins" to try to find someone to contact, since we have "vandalism in progress," the "village pump," and "requests for page protection" for those things. In fact, the idea of contacting a specific admin for help in a particular situation is sort of passe now that the project is much larger.
  • As for activity, if we are really concerned about this sort of thing, we would do better to count only admin-specific activities when calculating the "inactivity period." Many admins rarely if ever delete or protect pages.
  • I agree with Angela that we do need some sort of periodic review of administrators.

uc 19:03, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] This doesn't seem to get at the heart of it - alternative proposal

I think all admins should serve fixed terms (perhaps a year) they could reapply at the end of that period if they wanted to. This would solve the problem of absent admins in the medium term. For beurocrats, the 'make this person an admin' page would look much like the block list, with a period of time that automatically expires. Mark Richards 20:21, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I would support that. It's the idea that adminship must be forever that I object to. Angela. 21:04, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)
I think that's a bad idea. Adminship need not be forever, but there should be a good reason for it to be taken away. Having admins serve fixed terms would make adminship too political, and I don't think admins should have political positions. You wouldn't give a janitor a fixed year long term, would you? anthony (see warning) 21:09, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Sure you could, they're called contract employees. Fixed adminship terms wouldn't make adminship any more or less political than it is now. It's a yes-or-no, does the community still trust this person, people aren't competing and running against each other for a limited amount of adminship spots. --Michael Snow 21:32, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
You could, but why would you? If someone isn't trusted any more, they should lose their adminship immediately. It makes no sense to wait until the end of their year. This would make adminship more political because it would reduce the number of admins. We need more admins, not fewer (or, alternatively, no admins). In fact, the more admins we have, the less necessary deadminship becomes. anthony (see warning) 22:27, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
If we need more admins, then by all means go out and find some more candidates and nominate them. I try to do that, but I hardly know everyone who's around. The purpose of a renewal process is not to try and reduce numbers overall, it's to review the question of trust. Trust may be lost gradually just as it is gained gradually, so there's not necessarily a single point where we can say "If someone isn't trusted any more, they should lose their adminship immediately." --Michael Snow 22:45, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Nominating someone doesn't make them an admin. They have to pass a vote. With this proposal, they have to pass a vote every year. I don't see how you could possibly argue that the number of admins would thus go up. At the most it would stay the same, in which case we've wasted a whole lot of our time. Yes, trust may be lost gradually, but there's always a single point where that trust level reaches a threshold. When most people don't trust an admin, I can understand having a request for deadminship. But automatically deadminning someone every year. Besides the fact that it's a bad idea, it's way too much work. There are already way too many things to vote on here at Wikipedia. You could literally spend your entire time here voting (trust me, I've done it for some parts of my Wikipedia career). This has got to stop, and this is one place we can stop it. anthony (see warning) 13:24, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Yes, it is pretty normal in a lot of parts of the world to have fixed term contracts that are regularly renewed if all parties agree. Mark Richards 21:34, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Anthony is right. Remember that admins are (or at least should be) just ordinary users who have passed enough of a probationary period that they can be trusted not to damage Wikipedia by being stupid. They should only have the admin powers removed if they abuse those powers and thus show that they cannot be trusted. One should only expect them to have the same grasp of policy as any other long-term user and one should only expect them to be as uncontroversial/argumentative/opinionated as any other long-term user. No less no more. At the moment it has become far too difficult to become an administrator. From what I see, RfA seems to have devolved into a popularity contest based on whether a user "fits in" rather than an appraisal of the likelihood that they will act responsibly. "Fitting in" is not particularly what the Wikipedia is about. Although the social aspect is nice, the basic objective is the production of good new articles and the maintenance of existing ones and if a user is doing that, they should be an administrator so that they have all the tools that they need to do it. We already have such tools as mediation and arbitration which can be used to remove admin powers from a user who starts acting irresponsibly. -- Derek Ross | Talk 22:03, 2004 Oct 5 (UTC)
I don't like casting adminship in terms of fixed term contracts. To be honest, I didn't really seek to become an admin and I do not exercise many of the powers all that often--mostly the convenience of the rollback function for vandalism and deleting Rambot-generated redirects and disambigs in order to move place articles to more appropriate names. I'm not sure I would actively seek adminship if my "contract" expired. If there was some sort of automatic renomination, that would be OK by me, a sort of periodic vote of confidence. But I don't like the idea of making adminship some sort of office for which one needs to campaign. older≠wiser 22:03, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

The contracts discussion is just because Anthony brought up janitors, who in the real world are usually employees. I agree that if we make adminship be for fixed terms, then renewal should be the default position. Maybe have an adminship renewal page where people are listed at their one-year mark, and if over the course of a week nobody objects, they continue until the next year. If a legitimate objection is raised, then the admin can either withdraw or go through requests for adminship again. Maybe require more than one person to endorse the objection, sort of like the certification requirement on Wikipedia:Requests for comment, to discourage frivolous objections. --Michael Snow 22:28, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If we did that admins would not feel safe in dealing with trouble makers and trolls. In my case for example I have clashed with irismiester, mr natural health, lir, (and his sidekick plato) Robert Brookes AKA friends of robert AKA Robert the Bruce, and wik in the last year alone. If these people were to band together (and the first 4 probably would) I'd have to go through VFA again. Now personally I would be happy to do that, but i suspect some other admins would simply give up and let trolls and trouble makers do whatever they want at wikipedia, rather than risk it. Others might leave altogether. The difficulty is how to determine what a "legitimate" objection is. To be honest I don't see what the problem is. We do have methods of dealing with rogue admins, people just don't use them oftn enough, Why aren't people taking admins to the AC if they are behaving badly? Theresa Knott (The torn steak) 10:00, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
If you're going to make adminship the default, then why not have a requests for deadminship page, and not allow someone to be nominated more than once in a year. Furthermore, require a large quorum for something like this, say at least 20 users, because if one or two people object and no one else notices the page, there's no sense in deadminship. I'm not sure I'd support this proposal, because I haven't decided whether deadminship should require consensus, majority, or a significant minority (under your original proposal it would only require a significant minority), but I'd certainly object a lot less strongly. The best solution (in non-emergency cases, which is all this proposal handles anyway) would be to have the arb committee handle deadminship, though, and let the arb committee take community consensus into consideration. Because the arb committee is in the best position to "determine what a 'legitimate' objection is." Arb committee members are chosen for their ability to remain neutral and deliberative. I trust them a lot more than a random mob of Wikipedians, in this sense. anthony (see warning) 13:28, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
By the way, I still think the janitor analogy is appropriate, but that might just be my American point of view. Here in the US we even let our supreme court justices serve for life during good behavior. The idea is that judges should remain apolitical, and that they couldn't possibly do so if they were up for reelection. Of course, whether or not this works is a subject of dispute, and wiki admins are more like janitors than judges anyway. They have a few extra keys on their keyring, but their job is to clean up. anthony (see warning) 13:54, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Would you appoint your janitor for life? Mark Richards 23:54, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Nope, I'd appoint her indefinitely. anthony 警告 18:05, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Organising list of sysops

Surely we can do better than organise the list alphabetically? What are people coming to this page looking for help on? Categorise admins using those headings, i.e. I suggest that sysops are instead listed by what type of request they are most happy to help with. At the minute, with an initial Z in my username, I am somewhat less likely to be called upon for help. Yet I am quite happy to help. I do think that some kind of "will respond to requests within X hours/days" label would also be useful, admins can change this as they are online/offline/busy as required. Of course, there isn't much way to validate this guarantee, apart from disgruntled users complaining that sysop X has not responded within the timescale they labelled themselves as. Just some thoughts. zoney ♣ talk 22:32, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

With al due respect to Angela, I will add my voice to the "solution in search of a problem" camp. Adminship is just a set of useful functions that are potentially destructive. Those functions are useful, and an administrator who only uses those functions rarely, or uses them after a long absence, is more useful than no administrator. I need more evidence of a real and significant problem before support more bureaucratic overhead.

[edit] Change in proposal

Per a discussion on IRC, the definition of inactivity has been changed to five months from three months. Also, there are now three reminders sent out from the determination of being inactive and the "grace period" after the temporary desysopping has been doubled to two months. -- Grunt   ҈  02:21, 2004 Oct 6 (UTC)

Looks like a good idea on paper but has little to no connection with reality. silsor 04:35, Oct 6, 2004 (UTC)

It's true that there is little benefit in having an admin who isn't around to do their job. I have admin status (I don't THINK anyone took it away from me... if they did I haven't noticed yet!) but I've been around very little in the last 18 months. I don't really know what all the rules are any more, so I'm very wary about using said status for anything until I've checked and double-checked that it's still okay. Anyway, if you want to set a blanket period of nonattendence to earn automatic de-adminning that's fair enough, but it has to be a LONG time or it'll just be a hassle for everyone when the admin in question comes back again a week later, and has to ask to get reinstated. I'd say that six months of inactivity would be a suitable period. Being an admin isn't a popularity contest - it's something you do for a reason. KJ 07:52, Oct 6, 2004 (UTC)

Couldn't the list of sysops be edited in a way that either the date/time of last edit could be shown, or have the list ordered by sysop with most recent edit? [[User:Rhymeless|Rhymeless | (Methyl Remiss)]] 09:08, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] And now for something completely different...

I think this proposal is well-meaning, but what is the problem it is addressing? I believe the problem is, that if an editor (esp. a new editor) is looking for admin help, s/he really doesn't know where to turn. The List of Administrators really doesn't do it. On my own entry, I tell people that I welcome queries. AFAIK, I haven't gotten a single query or request for help from it. The editors who contact seem to be ones who know me or have inteacted with me. What is a new user to do, faced with a list of 300 admins?

Now, I don't see that non-performing admins (including those who edit but simply haven't the time to pursue admin chores) are a problem per se except that their presence on a list makes us think we have more admins than we effectively do. The addition of "Currently Online" to Wikipedia:List_of_administrators is a noble effort, but I wouldn't list my name there because I am on and off in the course of my work and leisure. It's just too cumbersome.

So about this? Let's ask all our admins to volunteer to be on a "A List" which indicates a special willingness to engage users looking for assistance. No shame if you're not on the list--you just aren't in a position to give requests attention in a reasonable time frame. Anyone could add or remove their names at any time depending on their current circumstance. If you volunteer for the list, and if there are a sufficient number of admins on the list, we could carve out a different 10 (say) admins each day or each week as "duty admins" on a rotating basis. Post these admins at the top of the list with the admonition "contact these admins first." What do you think? == Cecropia | Talk 15:22, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Seems a very good idea. I agree that this seems to be the main problem people are attempting to solve (how to contact an admin). I think I too agree that "administrator activity" is not necessarily the problem. Having just an alphabetical list of sysops is a problem. zoney ♣ talk 15:41, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
What about a "Contact a Sysop" page? Submissions would go to a certain page, like perhaps "Wikipedia:Requests for Assistance" or something. The admins that are signed up to help out would all recveive a notice (like the "new messages" notice for usertalk page edits) that help was requested on that page. Then whoever of those admins was online could go help out. --Whosyourjudas (talk) 16:05, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
This is a very good suggestion, provided that sysops can jump in and out of the A-pool at any time. ✏ Sverdrup 16:15, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] This gets stupider by the week

Well, I am completely unsure what half-baked idiot (or collection of said) cooked this one up. As an admin I spend more than enough time fighting vandals as it is. If this continuous trend towards spurious and nonsensical policy-making for the purpose of policy-making itself continues, the number of active admins will certainly be reduced by one. Never a week goes by without someone coming up with some new time-waste or other. Sjc 04:55, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Your case wouldn't be damaged by some arguments. I'm sure you have them; let them out! ✏ Sverdrup 18:40, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Too true. Perhaps there should be a policy in place saying that a new policy can only be added if two old ones are removed. -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:57, 2004 Oct 7 (UTC)

I completely agree. I read through this entire proposal, and I just do not see any valid justification for desysopping admins who have been away for a while. It's easy to adjust the list of admins page so that newbies will be able to contact recently-active admins, and if a user was once trusted enough by the community to become an admin, I see no reason why a period of inactivity should render the user untrustworthy. Furthermore, what about people who take an annual vacation of a few months, say, every winter? Must they repeatedly request readminship every year? --—Lowellian | Talk 06:13, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Lowellian (and others). The fact that the list of sysops or admins is full of inactive people is a problem, but since no inactive account has ever caused problems to my knowledge, removing existing admins is no solution in my opinion. I'd prefer the active, inactive, away labeling system. And we should be trying to get more active admins added to the list. That should adress the problems we have. -- [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|(talk)]] 18:29, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] November 3 new proposal

If I wish to contact an admin I will without exception go to their talk page. If this one small change is added, then I would know at a glance if they are an active admin or not, and even be likely to find an admin that is online right now

I propose that at the top of every User:Talk page, there be added a feature that tells the time and date of the user's most recent edit.

It's a simple change to make, and I believe it would be relatively inoffensive to the POVs expressed in the previous talk. This would work regardless of the duration of an admin's term, regardless of whether they are 'away' or not. It has the added benefit of allowing all editors, regardless of 'rank' to tell at a glance who is working on the 'pedia at any given time, by consulting their user page.comments? please comment in the section below, reserve this section for revised versions of this proposalPedant 18:47, 2004 Nov 3 (UTC)

This doesn't address all the issues I have concerning inactive admins, but it's a good idea regardless of that. Perhaps it should be submitted as a feature request at Mediazilla:. Angela. 02:27, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] comments on Nov. 3 proposals

I believe that the statements about the difficulty of contacting an admin are a red herring and should be removed. People can contact an admin promptly by tagging stuff for speedy deletion, adding things to VfD or VfU, adding things to Wikipedia:Requests for page protection, or adding things to WP:VIP. This is well documented. These are the only admin-only activities, and each has its own means of contacting an admin. We have IRC, we have the mailing list. I would go so far as to say that the admins of Wikipedia will respond faster when contacted thusly than will the local police or fire department does when you dial 911 (or 999 for some of you). Contacting an admin simply isn't a real problem.

There are two real problems:

  1. If someone leaves the project for, say, three years, and then comes back, they will be out of touch with people and policy, and may have become a POV warrior of some kind due to a Near death experience or being Born again.
  2. There is a security problem in that dormant accounts are susceptible to password guessing, and if someone shows up after a year of inactivity we will have no sure way of knowing whether it is the original contributor or not. This is not a problem with active accounts, because the original contributor will realize what is happening.

I observe that the time periods in this proposal are really too short. Interested Wikipedians occasionally have life changes due to school, work, or travel schedules and leave the project for a period of months. Give people a year. If they've been gone for that long, they are unlikely to return.

Whether anyone admits it or not, short time periods scare people into voting "no" because they become afraid that they themselves may be de-admined for one reason or another. Keep the time periods long, and it becomes more a matter of each of us accepting that sooner or later we are going to move on from the project for various reasons, and that that's ok.

I don't think the "away" status is helpful. It just adds extra work and an incentive to "game" the system. Keep it simple, and revoke admin status after a year of inactivity.

There should be some room for judgement because a few contributors make an edit or two every few months, perhaps when they happen to read an article that they've found through google, but have in fact left the project. In these cases people should still lose their sysop status. Leave it vague so there is no incentive to game the system.

On a final note, I am not aware of any administrator who has returned to the project to make sizable contributions after being gone for more than a year. It is not uncommon, though, to see people who leave but duck their heads in once in a while, e.g. User:Zoe, User:JHK, User:Mbecker.

uc 20:52, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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