User:Friday/bcrat
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(post this somewhere useful when it's more baked) What is the role of bcrats? Well, they're the only ones who make new admins and bcrats. (The other duties are not controversial as far as I know).
Why don't we just have admins close RFAs? Well, admins have software functions we like to protect. Therefore, we protect who becomes one. (Apparently admins wouldn't be trusted to judge consensus? I'm not so sure about that, they do it on Afd, which, granted, is less of a big deal) If there are so few bcrats and they guard important access, I think we should be able to reasonably depend on them being rather conservative with how they wield their abilities.
Also note that other bcrats cannot undo a promotion. They could ask the stewards, but wouldn't the stewards be in an odd position if some bcrats told them to promote and other bcrats told them to undo it? So, while almost always, what's done can be easily undone, perhaps this is less true in this case? Again, this sounds like all the more reason for bcrats to be conservative. (But if the crat who promoted asked the steward to undo the promotion, this should work.)
So, famously in the somewhat recent Carnildo case, the bcrats were way less conservative in the use of their power than they'd previously been. This was a surprise to many.
Should they be conservative or not? Should they rely on feedback from non-bcrats to decide this question, or should it be all amongst themselves. Those who may "vote" on future RFBs want to know, I would guess.
[edit] Would this help?
Would people feel better if the bcrats made decisions as a group, rather than one individual sticking their apparently single neck out?
[edit] newer stuff
Crats judge consensus for adminship. Consensus can change. Why have we ignored the obvious consequences of this till now? There's a cultural resistance to the idea of a de-adminship process, but from where I sit, it's clearly seen as necessary also. Why the insistence that only arbcom or Jimbo can do this? Is it because they're the only ones who ever have? Big fucking deal! Every established process had a first time- that's how it became an established process.
