User:A.Z./Administrators
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This is an essay; it contains the advice and/or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. It is not a policy or guideline, and editors are not obliged to follow it. |
[edit] Explanation
I believe -and I am not the only one- that it would greatly improve Wikipedia if the tools given to administrators were given out fairly liberally and taken away also fairly liberally.
There should be a process for people to become administrators, and a process for people to stop being administrators, and the decision should be up to the community, and the process ought to be unbureaucratic, just like the current requests for adminship.
[edit] Rationale
If it's easy to take the tools from users, people won't need to have such high standards on the RFAs, and thus a lot more people will be able to become administrators.
[edit] Which consensus to ask for
Consensus should either be required in order for someone to become an administrator or in order for someone to stop being an administrator, not both.
If consensus is required for someone to get the tools, then, should that person be nominated for de-adminship, consensus should be required for that person to continue having the tools, and, if no consensus is reached, they should lose the tools.
If, on a request for adminship, consensus is required for someone not to become an administrator, and the person becomes an administrator if there's no consensus, then, if that person gets nominated for de-adminship, consensus should be required for the nomination for de-adminship to succeed.
[edit] Illustration on consequences of requiring consensus in a different manner
[edit] First case: consensus required in order for someone to become an administrator and consensus required in order for someone to stop being an administrator
Suppose user John is nominated for adminship, and 85% of the community agrees that he becomes an administrator. After some time, someone nominates him for de-adminship. Now, 50% of people believe they should stop being an administrator, and 50% believe they should continue being an administrator. John wouldn't pass an RfA today. Even so, if consensus is required in order for him to stop being an admin, then he will continue being an admin.
Suppose that now, after John's de-adminship request failure, user Jack gets nominated for adminship. 50% of the community support the nomination, and 50% oppose. Jack has as much support as John, but his status will be that of an editor, without admin tools. The only reason why John's and Jack's status are different is that, some time in the past, John had a lot of support from the community —a community that may be completely different from the community that now gives him only 50% support, with different people and people that think differently.
[edit] Second case: consensus required in order for someone not to become an administrator and consensus required in order for someone to keep being an administrator
Suppose user Mary gets nominated for adminship. She has 40% of the community's support, so there's no consensus for her not to become an administrator, and, according to the rules, she becomes one. Then, after some time, she gets nominated for de-adminship. 40% of the community think she should continue being an administrator, but, since there's no consensus for it, she stops being an administrator. She immediately gets nominated for adminship, and, as she has 40% of the community's support, she becomes an administrator again. Immediately after her successful RfA, she is nominated for de-adminship. Only 40% of people think she should keep being an administrator, so, since there's no consensus for it, she stops being an administrator.
This system is, in my opinion, no more nonsensical than the above.
[edit] Objection
User:TenOfAllTrades has objected the creation of an easy, simple, unbureaucratic system to remove sysop tools on the basis that requests for de-administration would be "requests for lynching". Jimbo Wales had previously said that the problem with an easy system for taking the tools from people would be trolls: "The danger, of course, is that such a process could be used by trolls as a hammer against some of our more active admins." TenOfAllTrades used as an example of such a lynching Friday's recall petition. User:Friday, however, seems to support [1] [2] [3] an easy way to remove admin status. He argues that "frivilous complaints are easily identified", and says that "If my recall is as ugly as they get, well.. I think that's ugly we can deal with."
