User:Werdna/Sysop Accountability Proposal

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Questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome on the Talk page. Please feel free to add your own proposal below.

Further to my information at /Improvements; I'm making a proposal to vastly improve sysop accountability.

The essence of the proposal is that a new small tribunal is established to hear petty complaints about the behaviour of sysops after such complaints have been heard by the sysops themselves and rejected.

Contents

[edit] Rationale

From User:Werdna/Improvements:
(A problem with Wikipedia is)
A lack of accountability for individual small admin actions. Sysops will often block willy-nilly, or for very silly reasons, or simply as a power-trip. Obviously a single block can't go to arbcom, and a pattern of bad blocks is time-consuming to establish. Therefore, there should be some sort of mechanism for disciplining sysops for minor sysop mistakes. A "three strikes" system, temporary desysopping, or a combination of the two would be most appropriate here.

[edit] Details to be decided

  1. The remedies that are to be imposed by the tribunal (i.e. How many successful cases does it take to cause a desysopping? Are the desysoppings temporary? permanent?)
  2. Whether desysoppings are to be done by Stewards, or whether the Desysop extension is to be installed and used by Bureaucrats.
  3. The method for determining if an action was wrong.
  4. The existence, frequency, number and duration of cool-off periods, which are periods where no action takes place, in order to calm tempers.
  5. The existence of "shortcuts" to terminate obviously groundless or troll cases.

[edit] Current proposals

[edit] Werdna's Proposal

The process goes as follows:

  1. User submits complaint to the tribunal, including a full series of events, log excerpts, diffs and other relevant evidence of the actions in question, the actions that led to them, and evidence of attempting to resolve the dispute one-on-one with the sysop.
  2. Sysop is informed of the case and is given 48 hours after their next edit to post a response, including evidence of behaviour that the sysop believes necessitated the disputed use of sysop powers. The sysop may post a response after this, but the case will continue regardless of whether one is posted or not.
  3. A three-day cool-off period. During this period, any sysop may post a "motion to dismiss" for one of the following reasons:
    • The disputed actions were in response to vandalism and dealt with the vandalism in a reasonable manner.
    • The disputed actions were in response to a malfunctioning bot or were reasonably necessary to prevent serious damage to Wikipedia.
    • The disputed actions were precisely in line with a concrete policy, such as the three-revert rule.
    • The request is malformed. For example, the disputed actions did not occur.
  4. If the motion to dismiss gains four unanimous supporters, the case is considered dismissed.
  5. Both the sysop and the complainant may find up to three advocates, who will post comments regarding the actions, and engage in threaded discussion on a talk page. Neither party to the dispute will participate in threaded discussion, to keep the temperature of the discussion down. This discussion will occur for three days.
  6. A three-day cool-off period in which no action occurs.
  7. Members of the general community may post singular (non-threaded) comments with regards to the actions. This will occur for three days.
  8. A three-day cool-off period in which the sysop's advocates may post final comments.
  9. A seven-day vote on whether the action was justified in the circumstances, in which sysops and users are counted separately. If less than 50% of sysops or less than 50% of users believe that the action was justified, the action is overturned. Concurrently, another vote will take place, with the same arrangements, as to whether or not the sysop will receive a sysop strike if the action is considered inappropriate — a 70% majority is required here.
  10. If a sysop strike is awarded, the sysop will be desysopped for one week in the first occurrence, one month in the second occurrence, and indefinitely for the third occurrence.
  11. If no sysop strike is awarded, but the action is considered inappropriate, the sysop is counselled to act differently in the future.


Questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome on the Talk page. Please feel free to add your own proposal above.

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