Wikipedia talk:Bureaucrats
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Within Wikipedia a bureaucrat is a user who has the technical ability to give other users adminship, rename a user, and flag bots. See m:Bureaucrat for more information.
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[edit] Consensus on RfB
Just having withdrawn my second RfB, and noticing that this RfA is yet to be closed almost ten hours after its scheduled ending time, I again wonder why on RfBs should we allow Jeffrey O. Gustafson's "very long standing rationale"™ that we don't need more bureaucrats have as much weight on the closing bureaucrat's final decision as 10 supporting users. It is my firm belief that the current stakes for promoting a bureaucrat are totally incompatible with WP:Consensus. It is understandable that a candidate for bureaucratship should have more experience and greater trust from the community than a candidate for adminship, but I do not understand that this can be done by dramatically increasing the approval rate necessary for a promotion. Users participating in an RfB are well aware that they are evaluating a candidate for bureaucratship, not adminship, and that thus the standards are different. On my RfB, a user (Picaroon) opposed me by acknowledging that although he believed that I was a fine admin, he didn't think that I would make a good bureaucrat. This position reveals that users are perfectly capable of separating the two positions, having their own higher stakes for the latter, and making a decision on a candidate accordingly. But having an approval rate of around 90% results in:
- patronizing the users who took their time to participate by disregarding their ability to make a proper evaluation, instead relying on an almost unanimous super majority for a promotion.
- allowing a very small minority of users to decide for the community, which not only is blatantly unfair, as is also against policy (WP:Consensus).
- empowering opposers with the ability to exercise petty revenge on a candidate for personal disagreements on issues that are completely unrelated to bureaucratship.
- empowering opposers with the ability to protest against the role of bureaucrats by preventing a candidate from being promoted independently of his or her suitability for the position, thus effectively disrupting a process in an attempt to promote their points of view.
- empowering opposers with the ability to use bad faith in a way that can hardly be verified but will nonetheless meet its goal.
- permitting only extremely popular, well-known users to become bureaucrats, because only an extremely high quantity of supports will eventually overcome the perpetual, resident opposition.
- wasting the time and sanity of a candidate in a painstaking process.
- damaging trust in the process.
- damaging Wikipedia.
I would appreciate comments on the RfB process and its seemingly clear violation of WP:Consensus. And for the reasons I stated above I propose that the promotion rate for a bureaucrat be lowered to the approval rate of any other process on Wikipedia, such as WP:RFA, which is commonly accepted to respect the consensus of the community. Thank you. Húsönd 19:03, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
- On Meta-Wiki, we are much more relaxed about this kind of thing. For a start, bureaucrats are promoted at 75%, or would be. Normally all RFBs are clear "yes" or "no", mostly yes though. However, it is not easy to compare, as they are very different wikis, but I believe the principle is the same. Seriously though, it just sucks here, and I want nothing to do with it :) Majorly (talk) 23:15, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
This discussion would really need to be moved to WT:RfA. But since it was brought to the Bcrats here, I will note this: with the exception of the core proposal to lower approval rate, there is nothing in this that is particular to RfBs. This is the well-known dichotomy of "don't just count votes" vs. "don't disregard our votes". The assessment of a RfB is not supposed to be different from that of a RfA in terms of taking into account well-reasoned rationales for any participant and logically treating differently ill-reasoned rationales, or those ivotes lacking rationales. That's the ideal side of the story. The other side becomes apparent if a candidate were to get promoted [to Bcrat] with an apparent (key word, really) support rate of, say, 72% because the closing Bcrat judged that the valid, or well-reasoned rate was sufficient for promotion. But if that were to be the case in any given RfB, we would still be supposed to promote.
The closing Bureaucrat is not a slave to the raw numbers, and is not supposed to care only about the formula "90% = 1 opposer offsets 10 supporters". If a candidate for Bcratship is getting opposition based on less-than-appropriate reasonings (or more commonly, one such reasoning, followed by several "per user" rationales), he or she should wait for the closing and expect the closing Bcrat to take this into account. But if, as you said it yourself, the vast majority of the community is making informed decisions regarding promotions, then yes, a substantive opposion, and one that doesn't need to be as sizeable as that necessary to fail a RfA, would result in a failed RfB.
In that case, you can, of course, propose that the opposition needed to fail a candidate be changed to match RfA standards, as it appears to be your intention. But not because we are allowing this or that type of reasoning, made by a handful of users, dictate who gets promoted. We are not supposed to allow this to happen. And that is when the problem I mentioned surfaces: if we don't allow it to happen, people will protest, because they feel that valid opposition is being ignored for some reason; and if it appears that we are allowing simple vote counting to happen, then people protest as well. But that's not a problem with RfB-specific process, rather it is an issue that involves RfA in general. Redux (talk) 04:10, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
- I would not oppose moving this thread/RfC to WT:RFA, although I fear that its subject would there shift to the, and I quote your words, "well-known dichotomy of "don't just count votes" vs. "don't disregard our votes"". Not something I am looking forward to... My intention is precisely to receive feedback on an eventual proposal to lower the opposition needed for deeming an RfB unsuccessful to match that of an RfA. Bureaucrats closing RfAs, just like admins closing all sorts of discussions, are indeed aware that they'll receive protests if valid opposition is ignored. But what should be your stance when valid support is ignored or at least given so little importance, as it effectively happens in RfBs currently? Could there be any consensus when opposition is empowered tenfold when compared to support? In my view, the current situation is clearly unfair and against the policy of consensus we've been promoting on Wikipedia for so long. Húsönd 05:22, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
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- It is indeed true that what should happen ideally often differs considerably from what actually takes place. And, although I'm not sure whether or not this would help this discussion, but there is an interesting piece of history regarding RfB that, unless one was there to witness as it happened, it would be difficult to dig up now: the 90% threshold was not instituted by community consensus, at least not directly. The position of Bureaucrat was created in 2004, which is when RfBs came into being. Originally, all RfBs were processed by the original Bcrat, Angela. When more Bureaucrats were elected, the instructions were created to help guide the procedure for promoting users. The instructions were written somewhat to the effect of "assess consensus and decide whether or not it is sufficient for the user to gain Bureaucrat access; but bear in mind that the standards for promotion to Bureaucratship should be quite higher than those for Adminship and that, historically, no Bureaucrat has ever been promoted with more than 3 users opposing and less than 90% support." So you see, 90% came up as a result of the practical state of affairs: the first Bureaucrats were elected in landslides, and that became emblematic of the kind of support a user would be expected to command in order to be promoted. In time, 90% became the expected number, and the guideline of "no significant opposition" still exists for us to consider when deciding on the outcome of a RfB. Now the community has come to accept this number somewhat as a "given", but it didn't actually reach consensus to adopt it as the threshold for promotion to Bureaucratship. And the same happened in RfA. There are certain aspects of it that were put forward by the first Bureaucrats upon observing how RfA worked back then. Despite the deep changes that have taken place in Wikipedia since then, most of those systems continue to guide RfA, not because there was consensus to adopt them, but because it's the way it's always been done, at least as far as most of the currently active users are concerned. Redux (talk) 14:18, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
- IMHO there should be no limit to the number of bureaucrats in en.Wikipedia. As a Bureaucrat here, I often find that when I go to check in on Bureaucrat-Tasks, they are already done. That's a good thing. It is better to have things happen more promptly than to let them sitting too long. I imagine the apprehension people have in giving out bureaucrat status centers on the bureaucrat's power to create admnistrators. What if some nefarious bureaucrat in a mad frenzy started dishing out admin privileges to trolls and ne'er-do-wells? Could such a mess take weeks to repair? Certainly, an admin's interpersonal history should be considered for bureaucrat nominees; what should not be considered is that there might be plenty of bureaucrats already. Kingturtle (talk) 14:52, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
- That's not quite right. There were actually a handful of bureaucrats chosen at the beginning (I am one). RfB came later. Secretlondon (talk) 15:21, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
- What's not quite right? Kingturtle (talk) 15:31, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
- User:Redux's history. He says "The position of Bureaucrat was created in 2004, which is when RfBs came into being. Originally, all RfBs were processed by the original Bcrat, Angela. When more Bureaucrats were elected, the instructions were created to help guide the procedure for promoting users.". There were actually a handful of bureaucrats chosen at the beginning. User:NoSeptember/crat_stats has a little bit on the history but doesn't list the original 5 (I think). Secretlondon (talk) 15:40, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
- There were 6 original bcrats, Angela, Eloquence, Secretlondon, Stan Shebs, Tim Starling and TUF-KAT. None were elected in, and this was around Feb 2004. The first RFB was Ed Poor's, which came about a week or so later. A very interesting RFB is Cimon Avaro's. That comes to less than 80% if I'm not mistaken. So things have changed. Majorly (talk) 16:21, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
- That's indeed a very interesting addition to this thread, Majorly. I truly hate to nag about, but now there's also inconsistency of the process to justify a modification of the traditional decision making of RfB closures. Bureaucrats' feedback with pros and cons on matching RfB to RfA would be extremely appreciated. Húsönd 18:59, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
- There were 6 original bcrats, Angela, Eloquence, Secretlondon, Stan Shebs, Tim Starling and TUF-KAT. None were elected in, and this was around Feb 2004. The first RFB was Ed Poor's, which came about a week or so later. A very interesting RFB is Cimon Avaro's. That comes to less than 80% if I'm not mistaken. So things have changed. Majorly (talk) 16:21, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
- User:Redux's history. He says "The position of Bureaucrat was created in 2004, which is when RfBs came into being. Originally, all RfBs were processed by the original Bcrat, Angela. When more Bureaucrats were elected, the instructions were created to help guide the procedure for promoting users.". There were actually a handful of bureaucrats chosen at the beginning. User:NoSeptember/crat_stats has a little bit on the history but doesn't list the original 5 (I think). Secretlondon (talk) 15:40, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
- What's not quite right? Kingturtle (talk) 15:31, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
- It is indeed true that what should happen ideally often differs considerably from what actually takes place. And, although I'm not sure whether or not this would help this discussion, but there is an interesting piece of history regarding RfB that, unless one was there to witness as it happened, it would be difficult to dig up now: the 90% threshold was not instituted by community consensus, at least not directly. The position of Bureaucrat was created in 2004, which is when RfBs came into being. Originally, all RfBs were processed by the original Bcrat, Angela. When more Bureaucrats were elected, the instructions were created to help guide the procedure for promoting users. The instructions were written somewhat to the effect of "assess consensus and decide whether or not it is sufficient for the user to gain Bureaucrat access; but bear in mind that the standards for promotion to Bureaucratship should be quite higher than those for Adminship and that, historically, no Bureaucrat has ever been promoted with more than 3 users opposing and less than 90% support." So you see, 90% came up as a result of the practical state of affairs: the first Bureaucrats were elected in landslides, and that became emblematic of the kind of support a user would be expected to command in order to be promoted. In time, 90% became the expected number, and the guideline of "no significant opposition" still exists for us to consider when deciding on the outcome of a RfB. Now the community has come to accept this number somewhat as a "given", but it didn't actually reach consensus to adopt it as the threshold for promotion to Bureaucratship. And the same happened in RfA. There are certain aspects of it that were put forward by the first Bureaucrats upon observing how RfA worked back then. Despite the deep changes that have taken place in Wikipedia since then, most of those systems continue to guide RfA, not because there was consensus to adopt them, but because it's the way it's always been done, at least as far as most of the currently active users are concerned. Redux (talk) 14:18, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
No, not really. I just hadn't gone into so much detail on the origin of the position, as Secretlondon and Majorly just did. But since it is on the table now, observe: Angela was the first user to be made Bureaucrat. In a matter of days, 5 other users were also made Bureaucrats (all of that was handled by e-mail or other private means of communication). Then, shortly after, RfBs started to happen. But, if I recall correctly, Angela was handling 95% (if not all) of them (they weren't that many anyway). In the early RfBs, results were usually clear-cut landslides, which in time evolved to the expected 90% margin of support for promotion. That is not to say that every single one of them was either 90% or 91%. Remember: this was done by the early Bureaucrats themselves, upon observation of the developments. I just didn't think it was necessary to be that detailed on the origin and evolution of Bureaucratship in order to make the core point that the 90% margin was not put forward by community consensus in the first place.
And something else of practical importance should be noted: up until... let's see... around mid 2005, things weren't as charged as they are now on RfA/B. We were asked to keep in mind the 90% and the "no significant oppostion" guideline, but ultimately there was more leeway for the decision to be made. Now there's a lot more scrutiny and even nitpicking about numbers, vote counting and overall Bureaucrat activity. Paradoxically, the time when Bureaucrats had the most latitude to act was exactly the time when this wasn't necessary, because RfA/B was [comparatively] a walk in the park and most results were clear-cut. Go figure... Redux (talk) 19:47, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
- Regardless of the historical origins, the 90% threshold has become cemented, though. In a way, I'm rather concerned about that, as the sheer scale of Wikipedia's editor base makes the quasi-unanimity easily acquired in 2004 an impossibility nowadays. This is not necessarily due to the candidates being less suitable, but rather more due to my first law.</shameless plug> At the same time, we do have the force of volunteer attrition acting on the editor base, and it will cause some bureaucrats to leave the project eventually. As the Wikipedia community scales even larger, I'm worried that the current RfB standards will cause a shortage of bureaucrats in the mid-term future, so I would consider a proposal lowering of that threshold seriously. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 20:10, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
- I predict that the community will correct for a shortage of bureaucrats if one ever arises. It's happened before. — Dan | talk 02:45, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
- Well, I've started this thread after realizing that an RfA took ten hours to be closed, which is quite a clear sign that we need more bureaucrats, as we need more admins. Bureaucrats should discuss lowering the RfB threshhold and see if they can reach a consensus about such a proposal. Or, maybe the proposal should be taken to somewhere where it could be submitted to greater attention by the entire community. Húsönd 15:52, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
- In response to this thread, I've since changed my long standing opinion about RfAs. It appears, from the above comments that they are a vote, and RfBs are totally flawed in the way they are 90%. Majorly (talk) 16:55, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
- Well, I've started this thread after realizing that an RfA took ten hours to be closed, which is quite a clear sign that we need more bureaucrats, as we need more admins. Bureaucrats should discuss lowering the RfB threshhold and see if they can reach a consensus about such a proposal. Or, maybe the proposal should be taken to somewhere where it could be submitted to greater attention by the entire community. Húsönd 15:52, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Revoking admin status
How does revoking admin status work? I understand you are able to revoke it and then ask for it back, but are you allowed to do so using a different account? Hiding T 17:21, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
- Per this ArbCom precedent, a user who resigns their sysop (and according to that, any other) flag under non-controversial circumstances, they may get them back upon request. Although stewards are usually (indeed, they are the only ones technically able to) the ones who revoke a flag, it is usually bureaucrats who give the +sysop back. As for getting them under a different account, this sysopping (and another one as well) indicate that if the new account is verified as belonging to a previous admin, and they resigned their bit under non-controversial circumstances, then they are restored. However, this is just evidence as I have seen; only a bureaucrat can give a definitive answer. I (talk) 03:00, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
- Only a steward can remove admin status. Whether we'd resysop a different account would depend on the circumstances (and the bureaucrat). Secretlondon (talk) 15:09, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Bureaucrats
Is there a possiblity if i could become a Bureaucrat, i have knowledge about wikipedia but if i become a Bureaucrat i could start with the Change username Right and another Bureaucrat could coach me, and tell me what to do so in the future i'll know how things work. →Dust Rider→ 17:38, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
- Your enthusiasm is welcome but I'm afraid there is no possibility for you to become a bureaucrat at this time. You must be an administrator before you may become a bureaucrat, and you're likely months away from becoming an administrator. Both duties require experience and community trust, and only time and dedication to the project may give you those. Please read Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship. It'll be a good start. Húsönd 18:08, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Rollback rights...
When granting Admin rights to a user who already has Rollback rights, should we remove the Rollback rights? Should the system see the redundancy and remove the Rollback rights? Should we just leave the Rollback rights? Kingturtle (talk) 21:23, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
- I am supposing that we just leave it - just as we leave Admin rights when one becomes a Bureaucrat. If a user loses her/his Bureaucrat rights, she/he could still possibly have her/his Admin rights. If a user loses her/his Admin rights, she/he could still possibly have her/his Rollback rights. Kingturtle (talk) 21:27, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
- I've been leaving the rollback rights, and it's not caused any obvious problems, but I don't know whether it could possibly be a drain on system resources - seems unlikely. Warofdreams talk 21:29, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
- It shouldn't, as user groups are additive, and they are all loaded at once. Both the rollbacker group and the admin group have been set in LocalSettings.php to have the authority to use rollback, so having the same right enabled twice doesn't disable it. Now, rollbacker should be removed if for some reason admin rights are removed... Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 21:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
- Well, since the rollback rights and the admin rights are attained through different means and are different entities, it is possible for an admin to lose admin rights but retain rollback rights. Let's say the admin loses admin rights because of continually blocking articles that shouldn't be blocked. It might be decided that since the Rollover tool was never abused, the Rollover rights could remain. Kingturtle (talk) 21:49, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
- That's true. I was thinking more about the emergency desysop case. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 21:50, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
- It seems redundant to me seeing rollback and administrator on someone's user rights, to me it makes more sense to take rollback off and make them administrators, as administrators have rollback, what really is the point of having it twice. Unless they are desysoped, which they could just request rollback again, if they did not misuse it. Earthbendingmaster 00:16, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
- That's true. I was thinking more about the emergency desysop case. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 21:50, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
- Well, since the rollback rights and the admin rights are attained through different means and are different entities, it is possible for an admin to lose admin rights but retain rollback rights. Let's say the admin loses admin rights because of continually blocking articles that shouldn't be blocked. It might be decided that since the Rollover tool was never abused, the Rollover rights could remain. Kingturtle (talk) 21:49, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
- It shouldn't, as user groups are additive, and they are all loaded at once. Both the rollbacker group and the admin group have been set in LocalSettings.php to have the authority to use rollback, so having the same right enabled twice doesn't disable it. Now, rollbacker should be removed if for some reason admin rights are removed... Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 21:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
- I've been leaving the rollback rights, and it's not caused any obvious problems, but I don't know whether it could possibly be a drain on system resources - seems unlikely. Warofdreams talk 21:29, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
My practice has been to remove rollback rights when assigning sysop rights. My logic is that the fomer is redundant to to latter, and that the ability to use Special:Listusers to keep track of the number of users assigned rollback rights is increased if we don't have people doubling up. Its not a big issue, but I'd rather see users having either rollback or sysop rights. WjBscribe 01:20, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
- So, what should the protocol be? Because I have not been removing rollback rights. Kingturtle (talk) 14:29, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
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- I've noticed but haven't thought it a big deal that our approaches differed. Admins can remove (or readd rollback) to their accounts after all. If we think our approach needs to be consistent, I suggest raising this matter on a more watched page - the crat noticeboard or the talkpage of requests for rollback... WjBscribe 15:12, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
- Another issue that hasn't been brought up is {{NUMBEROFROLLBACKERS}}: this is a manual template (although one would be forgiven for thinking it is an in-build magic word, due to the upper case title), which is updated by a robot that, I believe, counts the number of entries in Special:Listusers/rollback and updates accordingly. Leaving +rollback on a sysop. account could, depending on the particulars of the bot's operations, throw that counter off-kilter, which is obviously not ideal.
- I've noticed but haven't thought it a big deal that our approaches differed. Admins can remove (or readd rollback) to their accounts after all. If we think our approach needs to be consistent, I suggest raising this matter on a more watched page - the crat noticeboard or the talkpage of requests for rollback... WjBscribe 15:12, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
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- Tangentially, to respond to Kingturtle's point, above: "just as we leave Admin rights when one becomes a Bureaucrat". Actually, the scenario of leaving rollback on an admin. account and leaving the sysop. flag on a 'crat account are not comparable: the particulars of each are such that, whilst admin. superceeds rollback—in that it "builds" on its features, e.g. by adding block and protect to the rollback function—'crat is a almost completely unrelated to sysop. Hence, perhaps that argument is not applicable here? AGK (contact) 00:07, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
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Interesting point. Kingturtle (talk) 11:33, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
- Indeed it does. I've got Toolserver access now, however, if you'd like, I can do it via SQL queries instead, and, discount users with +sysop. SQLQuery me! 02:41, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Inactive bureaucrats
Actually, Rambling Man falls under the heading of Inactive bureaucrats - which brings me to a question - Why do we care which ones are active and inactive? Why do we care which ones were active in the past two months? Kingturtle (talk) 17:43, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
- My thoughts on the matter (slightly rambling ones I'm afraid - no pun intended...) I think the idea is to direct people towards those bureaucrats likely to be able to help them. If someone is looking for a bureaucrat, knowing that Linuxbeak is a crat isn't of much help. Similary as TheRamblingMan is away til Monday, there's not much point people going to him. If we all remembered to indicate whether we are available to perform tasks it might produce a better system (Secretlondon is "active" but has been away for some time, ditto Cecropia - so they are unlkely to respond to requests quickly) but it seems a little ridiculous to keep updating our status. We could just list all crats without distinguishing but I don't think that's very meaningful information either. Also people rarely approach individual crats - most requests for our help are at centralised locations but I kinda feel we should be available if someone needs a crat. Of course, no doubt one of the reasons we do this is "because it always has been done in some form or another"... WjBscribe 17:51, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
- The list bases bureaucrats on their use of bureaucrat tools. It should only be based on their contributions as editors. Just because TUF-KAT hasn't used his tools for a while doesn't mean he's inactive. I am sure if a user asked him to perform a bureaucratic function, he would. Kingturtle (talk) 18:08, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
- Actually I asked TUF-KAT to close an RfA a few weeks before I became bureaucrat and he did refuse - said he was no longer really sure what the procedure was. I've also asked Cimon on occasions and he has also said no. I presume the idea of having crats who are active but not using their tools listed separately is that they might be worth approaching if others are not available but may not be a great first port of call. I agree the ordering has problems, but I'm not sure what a better one would be, short of just abandoning having a list alltogether. That said, for a while the list did I think operate based only on edits - those active, semi-active or inactive - I think working out what consistitutes "semi-activity" was the problem there. WjBscribe 18:13, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
- The position is not one of grandeur. They don't have to be taken away. We don't take admin tools away for lack of use. Kingturtle (talk) 18:26, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
- You cannot compare it to being an admin. All admin actions are easily reversed. What if TUF-KAT came out of retirement, and decided to promote a user at, say 65% support? He's admitted he doesn't know what he is doing - if an admin said they did not know what they were doing, we'd be pretty concerned, right? Majorly (talk) 22:55, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, I strongly agree with Majorly here, for the exact reason he cited. As for the listing, I think it's good to differentiate between inactive and active bureaucrats, but I think shortening the time frame would be better, as two months doesn't really indicate a bureaucrat is active. seresin | wasn't he just...? 23:40, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
- Inactivity does not necessarily mean out-of-touch, incapable or unable. There is a difference between *won't* use the tools and *hasn't lately" used the tools. Kingturtle (talk) 12:43, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
- I am in two minds about the removal of access from bureaucrats. Cecropia has strongly argued for removal in the past - he feels that those not active in closing RfAs lose touch with community expectations, and some of (in his opinion) the most problematic closes have been done by bureaucrats who had not closed discussions for many months previously. That argument has some validity. I also don't think bureaucatship should be a badge - if people don't plan to use the access, they should let it go. On the other hand, we have had two bureaucrats return from long periods of inactivity and play important roles in the process. Secretlondon who currently has performed the most renames of any crat did not use her tools for over a year prior to returning to activity, and similarly Kingturtle is now one of the most active bureaucrats in closing RfAs after not using his tools for more than 3 years. But ultimately, I don't think its for bureaucrats to say "of course we should keep the tools if we are inactive" - if the community feels that bureaucrats should perform a certain number of actions to continue being bureaucrats, it is their right to require that. Other projects - e.g. commons - do remove access rights from inactive admins and bureaucrats. WjBscribe 12:53, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
- There should be a column for bureaucrats who have not used the tools in a while, but express an interest in using them. A bureaucrat might want to do promotions but never get the chance. Kingturtle (talk) 13:38, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
- You cannot compare it to being an admin. All admin actions are easily reversed. What if TUF-KAT came out of retirement, and decided to promote a user at, say 65% support? He's admitted he doesn't know what he is doing - if an admin said they did not know what they were doing, we'd be pretty concerned, right? Majorly (talk) 22:55, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
- The list bases bureaucrats on their use of bureaucrat tools. It should only be based on their contributions as editors. Just because TUF-KAT hasn't used his tools for a while doesn't mean he's inactive. I am sure if a user asked him to perform a bureaucratic function, he would. Kingturtle (talk) 18:08, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
If a bureaucrat is removed do to inactivity, which I think only one bureaucrat has, if they ever decide to return, could they request bureaucrat status back? Maximillion Pegasus (talk) 17:38, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
- One user, Optim was removed for inactivity in February 2006. I don't know who asked for it, where it was asked, and it doesn't appear to have had any discussion. Bear in mind, Optim had quit Wikipedia 2 years previously and had never used his tools. I think that they should have to go through the normal process again, especially as some of the early bcrats (TUF-KAT being a great example) weren't even voted into the position. Majorly (talk) 23:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
- Optim had also expressly given his consent to the removal of his bureaucrat access when he left [1]. WjBscribe 15:32, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
- So he couldn't, for example, ask a bureaucrat for his bureaucrat access back? Correct? Maximillion Pegasus (talk) 18:17, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
- Actually that's an interesting question. I don't think there's any precedent for it - closest I can think of is Majorly resigned his crat access on meta and got it back without a new request, but there was only about a week gap. Cecropia resigned and came back a year later but he specifically had a new RfB. I would probably want to see a community consensus that crat rights should be restored to those who just ask them back (provided they didn't resign in controversial circumstances) before I returned those tools, but I don't know what approach other bureaucrats might take. WjBscribe 18:31, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
- Admins can get them back, but not bcrats. They require a higher level of trust in the community. I expect hardly anyone today has even heard of Optim - why should he be making possibly controversial decisions when he's going to be so out of touch with the community? Maybe if it was just a week though, in my case. Majorly (talk) 18:46, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
- Not true. In the ruling allowing automatic resysopping, ArbCom explicitly said "(or other powers)". That clearly included bureaucrats. Whether or not it this is a good idea, however, is another story. seresin | wasn't he just...? 23:11, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
- I don't care what arbcom did whenever in whatever case. The above statement is my opinion on what should happen. Majorly (talk) 23:39, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
- I go along with Majorly. No doubt that in my mind, 'crats aren't the same as admins. We must absolutely avoid any appearance of impropriety, whether reasonable or not. That's why we have a so high % for 'crats. Same here. Snowolf How can I help? 12:49, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
- I don't care what arbcom did whenever in whatever case. The above statement is my opinion on what should happen. Majorly (talk) 23:39, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
- Not true. In the ruling allowing automatic resysopping, ArbCom explicitly said "(or other powers)". That clearly included bureaucrats. Whether or not it this is a good idea, however, is another story. seresin | wasn't he just...? 23:11, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
- Admins can get them back, but not bcrats. They require a higher level of trust in the community. I expect hardly anyone today has even heard of Optim - why should he be making possibly controversial decisions when he's going to be so out of touch with the community? Maybe if it was just a week though, in my case. Majorly (talk) 18:46, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
- Actually that's an interesting question. I don't think there's any precedent for it - closest I can think of is Majorly resigned his crat access on meta and got it back without a new request, but there was only about a week gap. Cecropia resigned and came back a year later but he specifically had a new RfB. I would probably want to see a community consensus that crat rights should be restored to those who just ask them back (provided they didn't resign in controversial circumstances) before I returned those tools, but I don't know what approach other bureaucrats might take. WjBscribe 18:31, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
- So he couldn't, for example, ask a bureaucrat for his bureaucrat access back? Correct? Maximillion Pegasus (talk) 18:17, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
- Optim had also expressly given his consent to the removal of his bureaucrat access when he left [1]. WjBscribe 15:32, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Questions
All bureaucrats are administrators, but not all administrators are bureaucrats? How can we have bureaucrats if we don't have a bureaucracy? Vivio TestarossaTalk Who 00:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Haven't you read this[2]? You even made a link to it! Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. Alexius08 (talk) 12:46, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Actually technically a bureaucrat don't need to be an administrator as their rights are separate. Snowolf How can I help? 16:42, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
- More to the point, the name "bureaucrat" really has nothing to do with bureaucracy. Being a Bureaucrat does not mean that those users deal with bureaucratic work. When this position was created, back in 2004, we tried to come up with a name that would be true to what the work entailed — and remembering that when Bureaucratship was created, its sole task was to implement promotions (that is, successful RfAs) locally, thus eliminating the need to ask Stewards on the Meta-Wiki. The term "bureaucrat" was chosen because it was thought that a "bureaucrat" would be someone that implements directives, or orders, without adding his or her own original thought to it. In RfA, bureaucrats use judgement, but only to make sure that the collective will of the community is respected; ultimately, bureaucrats only implement community decisions (whether or not to promote a user to administrator).
So there you go, Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, but it does have "bureaucrats", in the specific meaning that the term has on Wikipedia. Redux (talk) 04:58, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Crat feedback
This was a very interesting discussion about the high threshold for bureaucrat promotion. According to the discussion, there seems to exist clear consensus that the 90% barrier should be lowered. Yet, I still haven't seen any crat's stance on this matter following the outcome of the discussion. Has the threshold been lowered? Húsönd 17:01, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
- Earlier this month there was a community discussion, and once that closed there was a bureaucrat discussion about the community discussion. A suggestion in that second discussion that the policy should be "Whilst RfB is not a vote, it is generally expected that RfBs with more than 90% will be successful, whereas those with less than 80% will not be. Bureaucrats should assess the level of consensus bearing in mind the high levels of community trust expected for appointment." Kingturtle (talk) 17:29, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
