Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase II/Administrator recall
Status as of 05:03 (UTC), Thursday, 15 August 2024 (
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- Phase II is open for discussion! Participants are invited to contribute towards improving and refining the proposals for a discussion-only period, administrator recall, designated RfA monitors, and an RfA mentoring process.
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- Discussion about refining the implementation details of proposals from Phase I of WP:RFA2024 for community-based recall of administrators. --19:31, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
Welcome! Following the passage of proposals 16 and 16c, we have consensus for a community-based recall of administrators. This subpage is for Phase II, so we can refine the implementation details.
The discussion close by Joe Roe is reprinted here:
Considering Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase I § Proposal 16: Allow the community to initiate recall RfAs, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase I § Proposal 16c: Community recall process based on dewiki, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase I § Proposal 16d: Community recall process initiated by consensus (withdrawn), in parallel, there is a rough consensus that the community should be able to compel an administrator to make a re-request for adminship (RRFA) in order to retain their administrator rights. However, there is also a consensus that the process(es) for initiating an RRFA needs to be worked out in more detail before this is implemented. Phase II of this review should therefore consider specific proposals for RRFA initiation procedures and further consensus should be sought on which, if any, is to be adopted. The dewiki-inspired process suggested in Proposal 16c was well-supported and should be a starting point for these discussions.
Proposal 16 suggested that a RRFA could be initiated by consensus following a discussion at the Wikipedia:Administrators' Noticeboard (AN). I don't see a consensus for this specific procedure, since a significant proportion of both those against and those in support the proposal were against it. The original suggestion that ANI and/or XRV could also be used to initiate an RRFA was rejected outright.
Proposal 16d offered a more fleshed-out version of an RRFA initiated at AN, but it did not find consensus and was withdrawn.
Proposal 16c suggested adopting the German Wikipedia's admin reelection process, which obliges an admin to make an RRFA
if 25 editors with Extended Confirmed rights vote for it within the last 1 month [or] if 50 editors with Extended Confirmed rights vote for it within the last 1 year. There was a solid numerical majority in favour of this procedure, with supporters pointing to the advantages of using a process that has already been shown to work on another project. However, considering the relatively low participation in this sub-discussion compared to the level of opposition to RRFAs in general expressed elsewhere, this is not necessarily a sign of broad consensus.Amongst those who opposed this proposal entirely (i.e. not just specific implementation details), their main reasons were that desysopping is already satisfactorily handled by the Arbitration Committee, that it would discourage administrators from making unpopular but correct decisions, or that it could be open to abuse. The primary counter-arguments given to these were that other projects have community desysop procedures (dewiki, commons) without issue and that on enwiki the community can already impose harsher sanctions (i.e. site bans) by consensus alone. I cannot see any policy-based reason to weigh one set of arguments more than the other, so the substantial numerical majority in support (43–22 for 16; 25–9 for 16c) will have to speak for itself.
As written, the original 16C proposal was:
- WP:Admin Reconfirmation will be created, where any subpages can be created for individual admins. Editors may sign on those subpages to vote for a reconfirmation.
- The reconfirmation is initiated if 25 editors with Extended Confirmed rights vote for it within the last 1 month. Or if 50 editors with Extended Confirmed rights vote for it within the last 1 year.
- Once a reconfirmation is started, the admin in question must run for a "Reconfirmation RFA" (RRFA) within the next 30 days. Otherwise a bureaucrat can remove their admin rights.
- A RRFA will be identical to any RFA, but with lower thresholds. Instead of 75% "generally passing", it'll be 66%. And the discretionary range for Bureaucrats will be 55% to 66% instead of 65% to 75%. Any admins who fail a RRFA will have their admin rights revoked.
- Any admins may voluntarily stand for RRFAs at any time if they like. This will be otherwise considered identical to a community initiated Reconfirmation.
- Admins who have successfully run for an RFA, RFB, RRFA, or Arbcom elections in the last 1 year are not eligible for a community initiated Reconfirmation. Any votes for reconfirmation in the 1 year after an admin succeeds any of these will be struck.
Initiation procedure
Which of these conditions should be sufficient to compel an administrator to run an RRfA? Support more than one option if needed.
- Option A: 25 EC editors sign a recall petition within the last 1 month OR 50 EC editors within the last year (same as proposal 16C)
- Option B: 25 EC editors sign a recall petition within the last 1 month
- Option C: 50 EC editors sign a recall petition within the last 1 month
- Option D: 40 EC editors sign a recall petition within 10 days. Petitions can be opened but are not rolling
- Option E: (In addition to another option) 75 EC editors sign a recall petition within the last 3 months
- Option F: (In addition to another option) 75 EC editors sign a recall petition within the last 6 months
- Option G: Petitions should not be used as part of the recall process.
- Something else (specify...)
Note - The word "request" was replaced with petition for consistency with rest of the page.
Survey (Initiation procedure)
- C basically per all the reasons mentioned in the beginning of part 2. A year-long rolling cycle would be a great way to harm the morale of admins and hasten the day. Sincerely, Dilettante 14:56, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- To clarify, this is also an Oppose A !vote. Unlike many in this thread, I'd prefer no RRfA to one as broken as A. Sincerely, Dilettante 15:43, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- B and E currently,
I would go with something like A if we raise the threshold (75 maybe?) for a year.Fanfanboy (talk) 15:32, 8 May 2024 (UTC)- @Fanfanboy How could you trigger E without already having triggered B? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:15, 9 May 2024 (UTC)- @Ahecht Good point, you can't. The only way would be to raise the threshold for B or lower it for E Fanfanboy (talk) 15:31, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Fanfanboy How could you trigger E without already having triggered B? --Ahecht (TALK
- B or C, oppose A. Keeping a recall petition open for a year seems unnecessarily cruel; having a ticker counting up to a desysop would be insanely stressful, and even if option A has its use cases I can't see it being a net positive on the whole. Giraffer (talk) 16:04, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- A or B. 25 EC editors independently complaining in a single month suggests extraordinarily problematic sysop conduct, and amounts to excellent grounds for the community to open an investigation. For comparison, Arbcom would open a case with far fewer signatures. If, during that investigation, those EC editors turn out to be gaming the system then the community can deal with that.—S Marshall T/C 16:32, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Find a consensus - All of the proposed numbers here are workable. This !vote is explicitly in favor of any consensus the closer thinks they can find in this discussion, and explicitly against a no consensus or trainwreck outcome. Split babies, find thin consensuses, flip a coin if you have to. Tazerdadog (talk) 16:46, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- This is an incredibly cool vote and I'm almost tempted to do the same thing in this thread. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 17:17, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Prefer B I support any option over none at all, but B is best, C is second. I agree that A could have really negative consequences. Toadspike (talk) 16:49, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- D is also okay, after coming back to this. Oppose E, F, G. Toadspike (talk) 11:40, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- B, C, or D. A year is far too long. Literally many active admins could have something open all the time. Admins who work in certain areas probably would always have one open. Valereee (talk) 16:55, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- D or a variant with a higher than 40 threshold. Oppose A, B, E, F. In the discussion, Mach61 capably noted "a reasonable measure of how much attention an admin contreversey can get is the number of preliminary statements before an arbitration case. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Portals got 43 uninvolved editors' comments in the span of roughly a week". Based on that, 40 editors who have to do no more than sign their name -- no comment required -- in a week seems like a very reasonable threshold and provides recall opportunity while maintaining a (very) minimum guardrail against excess. Chetsford (talk) 16:59, 8 May 2024 (UTC); edited 23:45, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- C or D both filter the wheat (complaints very likely to lead to desysop) from the chaff (a loud minority). Neutral on B, Oppose A Mach61 17:04, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- B > C > D > A, in that order. 25 in one month should be sufficient; but I'd support 50 if the community wanted a higher threshold. I don't really like D because 10 days is too short, I fear the deadline pressure will increase conflict. I don't like A because a year is too long for an admin to have this hanging over their head. BTW, not addressed: I don't like the idea of a "rolling" 30 days, I think if there aren't sufficient signatures within 30 days after the first signature, the petition should be "closed" somehow, and there should be some cooling-off period (maybe 30 days) before another petition can be started; this is to prevent the rolling-30-days from being just the same as the one-year thing. Levivich (talk) 17:16, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- ...followed by E > F > G (although really not G until someone proposes an alternative to a petition; but I'm open the idea of alternative). I'll join the find a consensus chorus -- I'd support any of the options over a "no consensus" outcome. FWIW, I think ranking all the choices (ranked voting) helps find a consensus. Levivich (talk) 03:10, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- D preferred, but Oppose A, E, and F - per what I wrote in the first phase. Leaving things open for a long time would be miserable for the admins they concern. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:37, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Pro-any-consensus per Tazerdadog. I'd personally prefer an activity requirement based on (perhaps 50) mainspace contributions during the 12 months before the petition in addition to extended confirmation, similar to dewiki's Stimmberechtigung. But that was ignored in the translation of the process and is probably not that important. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:14, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- (E or F) + Any of (B,C,D) > A > Find a consensus I personally prefer a way to recall that isn't just reactive to a single incident, which is what the 1 month options effectively are. So adding options E and F, so editors who have non-isolated concerns with admins can still register them. I would prefer having a consensus over every other outcome. Having recall is more important to me than most other things. If necessary, we can change the threshold again by consensus after seeing it in action. Soni (talk) 18:20, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- 50 EC editors sign a recall petition within 45 days - This is something that has a high chance to be weaponised (especially in ethnopolitical CTOPs), and I'm not comfortable with a 1 month or 3 month petition time - 1 month because that might foreclose the admin from correcting the behaviour from a legit complaint, 3 months because at that point people will likely have forgotten. To that end, I propose 45 days (~a month and a half) for a recall petition, with 50 being the threshold for recall. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v AE thread summaries 18:53, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Support C or D, with the understanding that the petition is closed if the required number of signatures is not gained within the specified time period of it opening (see ActivelyDisinterested's comment below for an alternative understanding of the wording of C). Oppose A or F because the time to complete the process is too long. Oppose B because the number of editors needed is too low. Neutral on E.-Gadfium (talk) 23:25, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose A or F. Both drag it out too far. Support B or C. We should toe the line between a frivolous recall and keeping an unpopular admin, but I'm undecided on which does this better. Neutral D, which I fear may cause many knee-jerk people to tear off the admin's head over a (relatively) minor thing. Support E, which looks fine to me. But, dear <favorite deity here>, FIND A CONSENSUS. Queen of Hearts (talk) 01:32, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- Support B
and E.If 25 people are that concerned about someone's conduct, a re-confirmation RfA seems reasonable. Agree with Giraffer that keeping things open for a year is unnecessarily cruel. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 05:11, 9 May 2024 (UTC)- E will never be triggered if B is also selected - if 75 users sign in 3 months, by the pigeonhole principle, at least 25 must have signed during one of the months. Tazerdadog (talk) 06:02, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- I was not thinking of that math involved at the time, so I've striken E since it'd be duplicative. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 07:52, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- E will never be triggered if B is also selected - if 75 users sign in 3 months, by the pigeonhole principle, at least 25 must have signed during one of the months. Tazerdadog (talk) 06:02, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- Support C > B; oppose A, D, E, F – per Rhondo, Clover, and Giraffer, 10 days is too short as to potentially inspire rash maneuvers; anything more than a month is too long as to constitute tedium or torture. I'm not going to muddy the waters further by pondering whether 25 editors should have to do a bit more than sign their name, but 25 is certainly the lowest I would go and feel comfortable supporting. Remsense诉 15:06, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- B+F, which is the closest match to the German Wikipedia's "25 voting users within one month or 50 voting users within six months". --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:13, 9 May 2024 (UTC) - First preference D, second preference C, third preference anything else that can get consensus. I'm not fond of the de-wiki permanent petition approach, which creates more of a Damoclean situation than I'm comfortable with (although I prefer it to nothing). Ten days should be more than enough to see if there's widespread community dissatisfaction. I'm not confident that forty or fifty signatures will be a high enough threshold, but it's a good enough starting point for now. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 19:38, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- G. I can't see a number of EC editors that (a) wouldn't drag the process out too long to be useful, and (b) would be superior to what we have now at WP:RfAr. So I'm inclided to oppose any process that's initiated other than as a request for Arbitration. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:28, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- Adding: I'm seeing the "find a consensus" viewpoint being expressed here and in several other sections on this page. A big part of my thinking about G is that it would be a mistake to find consensus by taking an arithmetic mean of all the options. That may be a way to "split the difference", but it isn't how WP:CONSENSUS works. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:15, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- Also, it seems to me that G can include the community initiating the process via a filing (rather than a petition) at WP:RFAR, and then ArbCom determining that a reconfirmation RfA should take place. I think that's consistent with the Phase 1 close, and a far better option than the other options offered here. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:30, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- Second choice D, and strongly oppose all others. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:33, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- D only (I mean it, everything else would be significantly worse than the status quo) – the whole advantage of admin recall is supposed to be that it avoids a long drawn-out process and enables adminship to genuinely be "no big deal" in that it is easy to remove in cases of misconduct. A petitioning period longer than a week or so completely neuters this advantage, to say nothing of indefinite "rolling" cycles. I also explicitly oppose a mindset where the closer ought to find consensus at any cost – if a no consensus closure is warranted, do not feel pressure to do so, because many of the options here would cause serious long-term damage. – Teratix ₵ 02:21, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- Also, for the editors arguing ten days for petitioning is too short – RfA itself is only seven days and I don't see many arguments this is too short. – Teratix ₵ 02:24, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- The difference in my mind is that RfA is where editors go to become annoyed, where recall would be where they go if they are already annoyed. A month seems like the right ballpark so that nobody feels like they have to rush the process. Remsense诉 08:25, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- Also, for the editors arguing ten days for petitioning is too short – RfA itself is only seven days and I don't see many arguments this is too short. – Teratix ₵ 02:24, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- B reasonable enough, other options drag the time window too far or make it too short. Ratnahastin (talk) 07:10, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- B or C, not D we don't want to drag the process out too long, but we also don't want to shortchange it. There is a clear desire for community recall, and it should be implemented in such a way as to make it workable. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 12:37, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- B or C. I think the one-month timeframe strikes a good balance, where it's long enough to avoid being a referendum on single incidents but also short enough to avoid being a permanent sword of Damocles over admins' heads. E is acceptable to me as well but anything beyond 3 months is definitely too long, in my view. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 13:45, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- B or C but not A. I think a year may be too long of a time to silently build up animus. SWinxy (talk) 23:11, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- C only. I think the probability is quite high that there are more than 25 unblocked spam EC accounts out there - and it is fairly easy and cheap for a dishonest actor to get more of them. This is the MO of several spam sockpuppeteers. MER-C 14:51, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- C or D Options A, E, and F would keep admins stressed for too long, while Option B seems like too low of a threshold. BluePenguin18 🐧 ( 💬 ) 15:21, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- B as first choice and anything else as second choice. — Bilorv (talk) 08:29, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- D > C > B, but oppose all others; anything longer than a month is far too long, we don't want a sword of damocles hanging over an admin for an extended period. If someone has initiated a recall petition on me, I'm not likely to dive into resolving a contentious dispute, and for a short period that's okay; any substantive length of time, and we're going to be making admins inactive. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:57, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- B. C is acceptable as a second choice. Frostly (talk) 05:44, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
- Strong support B and D, but support anything else (i.e. option find a consensus). HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 02:18, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- C, but find a consensus. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 03:57, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- D. Second choice G. Oppose all others. There should not be "rolling petitions", we are not the 1922 Committee and hoisting swords of Damocles over admins' heads means admins will just not touch anything vaguely controversial once they're halfway to the threshold. I'm not especially against it being a longer period than 10 days, but the essential feature is that if the threshold isn't reached in the given time, it dies. Stifle (talk) 08:21, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- C or D, but something is better than nothing. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:16, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- C only, per Dilettante and MER-C. Draken Bowser (talk) 20:46, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- C+F is probably best (adapting German A to the larger size of the English Wikipedia community), but we won't really know until we have tried it. Not opposing any of the options at this point. I don't think the "sword of Damocles" rhetoric is apt; I expect most admins will always have one or two editors asking for their recall, and we will get used to that. We do need methods to get more admins though (we have effective methods for desysop but no effective method to create new sysops). —Kusma (talk) 09:35, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
- D only I was going to say C but realised the "within the last month" would lead to the recall being open endlessly. This is meant to be about improving RFA not driving admins to quit. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:28, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
- ’’’B’’’ — Charles Stewart (talk) 12:21, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
Discussion (Initiation procedure)
- @Fanfanboy: If there's an alternate threshold enough people agree on, we should add it as an option. I have been trying to consider what other thresholds would be fine but looking for alternate suggestions. Something like 50 editors in 1 month or 75 editors in 3 months? Soni (talk) 16:08, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Why does Option A says "50 EC editors within the last year" when the German Wikipedia, which this proposal is based on, says "50 voting users within six months"? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:11, 9 May 2024 (UTC) - @Ahecht and @Tazerdadog make a good point. E will never be triggered without B being triggered first. Only way to remedy this is to increase the threshold for B, or lower it for E. (Only applies if both B and E pass) Fanfanboy (talk) 12:15, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- I'm a little surprised at the length of the periods being proposed here. Recall should be something used when an admin makes a serious mis-step, or a series of small ones. We shouldn't be creating "sign here if you don't like X" pages. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:57, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- I think the idea is that we already have pretty effective solutions for serious and obvious mis-steps, but not a good way of dealing with long term patterns of subtle abuse. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 13:48, 13 May 2024 (UTC)- That's an interesting distinction, between obvious missteps and long-term patterns of subtle things. I'm not convinced that ArbCom is ineffectual at dealing with long-term patterns. I think it's something they've actually gotten pretty good at, and I'm having trouble seeing how a petition signed by extended-confirmed editors would be so much better. In particular, there's a difference between a long-term pattern of subtle but genuine abuse, and a long-term pattern of making difficult but necessary decisions that make some users resentful. Having a petition just sitting there for a long period of time, waiting around for someone, anyone, to come and add another signature, seems to me to be an open invitation to put long-term pressure on admins who make difficult but necessary decisions, to make them feel like such decisions are just not worth the risk. And even if the petition ends up being unsuccessful, or if it's successful but the admin passes the reconfirmation RfA, that still means that admin had to spend a long time looking over their shoulder, when their energies would have been a lot more beneficial to the project if spent in other ways. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:01, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
- It also doesn't have to be abuse. It could just be a long-term pattern of incompetence or poor judgement. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:06, 14 May 2024 (UTC)- There's legitimate room for disagreement on whether we need community recall at all; I believe we do, other reasonable people disagree. But that's quite separate from whether we allow rolling recall petitions that remain up indefinitely, and that I'm firmly opposed to. There is no way that having an effectively permanent recall petition is a good thing for community morale. If mis-steps happen, we ought to look at them, determine (via the petition and, if needed, RRFA) if action is warranted, and then move on. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:02, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
- It also doesn't have to be abuse. It could just be a long-term pattern of incompetence or poor judgement. --Ahecht (TALK
- That's an interesting distinction, between obvious missteps and long-term patterns of subtle things. I'm not convinced that ArbCom is ineffectual at dealing with long-term patterns. I think it's something they've actually gotten pretty good at, and I'm having trouble seeing how a petition signed by extended-confirmed editors would be so much better. In particular, there's a difference between a long-term pattern of subtle but genuine abuse, and a long-term pattern of making difficult but necessary decisions that make some users resentful. Having a petition just sitting there for a long period of time, waiting around for someone, anyone, to come and add another signature, seems to me to be an open invitation to put long-term pressure on admins who make difficult but necessary decisions, to make them feel like such decisions are just not worth the risk. And even if the petition ends up being unsuccessful, or if it's successful but the admin passes the reconfirmation RfA, that still means that admin had to spend a long time looking over their shoulder, when their energies would have been a lot more beneficial to the project if spent in other ways. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:01, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
- I think the idea is that we already have pretty effective solutions for serious and obvious mis-steps, but not a good way of dealing with long term patterns of subtle abuse. --Ahecht (TALK
- I'm quite concerned about the concept of admins all having recall pages that could gain signatures because they do something that annoys an editor. This creates a chilling effect dissuading people from working in controversial areas, especially if they are close to the threshold. Stifle (talk) 09:24, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- I feel like we need to tackle the issue of rolling v. non-rolling recall petition periods, head on. Levivich (talk) 15:25, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Levivich And also whether signatures on rolling petitions are kept indefinitely or removed once they "expire". --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:09, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Levivich And also whether signatures on rolling petitions are kept indefinitely or removed once they "expire". --Ahecht (TALK
- I feel like we need to tackle the issue of rolling v. non-rolling recall petition periods, head on. Levivich (talk) 15:25, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
Reconfirmation threshold
What percentages of support are necessary for an administrator to pass a reconfirmation RfA?
- Option A: 65% for a pass, 55% and above is at bureaucrat discretion (similar to proposal 16C)
- Option B: 75% for a pass, 65% and above is at bureaucrat discretion (same as RfA)
- Option C: 60% for a pass, 50% and above is at bureaucrat discretion
- Option D: 55% for a pass, 45% and above is at bureaucrat discretion
- Option E: Desysopping should gain consensus. Rights are removed if 65% editors !vote to desysop, 55% and above is at bureaucrat discretion.
- Something else (specify...)
Note - Option A stated 66.6% for a couple hours. It was altered to 65% per discussion section below.
Survey (reconfirmation threshold)
D Sincerely, Dilettante 14:56, 8 May 2024 (UTC)E > D > C oppose B and A. Sincerely, Dilettante 15:46, 9 May 2024 (UTC)- C Fanfanboy (talk) 15:35, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- C —S Marshall T/C 16:33, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Find a consensus - All of the proposed numbers here are workable. This !vote is explicitly in favor of any consensus the closer thinks they can find in this discussion, and explicitly against a no consensus or trainwreck outcome. Split babies, find thin consensuses, flip a coin if you have to. Tazerdadog (talk) 16:47, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- C seems like the best by pure intuition and common sense Toadspike (talk) 16:50, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- To clarify, I oppose B. I am neutral on A. Support D, weak support E. If more than 50% of editors vote to desysop, that should get at least a crat chat, if not an outright desysop. Toadspike (talk) 11:43, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- E or D and oppose A, B, C Since the standard RfA threshold to create an admin sets the bar at a (super-) majority, it would make no sense that reversing the process sets the bar at a (super-) minority. Chetsford (talk) 17:03, 8 May 2024 (UTC); edited 17:18, 8 May 2024 (UTC); edited 23:47, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure reconfirmation adminship isn't meant to remove adminship, but to see if the admin is worthy of keeping it, so passing an RRFA means the admin gets to keep the mop. Basically another RFA that's easier to pass (depending on the consensus of this vote). Fanfanboy (talk) 13:36, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
- A or C Mach61 17:05, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- E or D. The community should not be allowed to desysop by cold feet. Desysop should happen when the community comes to the clear conclusion that its previous judgement was in error, not when it starts to waver a bit on its previous commitments. Imagine if we could nullify policies and guidelines by simply holding RfCs until we arrived at a "no consensus to continue", and then killed it. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 17:13, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Comment: It looks like C has the most support as the center choice, with E and A being the popular options on either side of it. I prefer C to a no consensus close, and I strongly encourage everyone to help avoid a no-consensus close on this. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 18:36, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- B, although I'd just specify it as "same as RFA." Reconfirmation RFA should be same as RFA, all admins should be judged by the same standards of support, and if RFA thresholds change, then RRFA should, too. If not B, then, in order, A>C>D (the closer to actual RFA standards, the better). Oppose E; someone with 60% against and 40% in favor should not be an admin, period. Levivich (talk) 17:20, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Although I really don't like E, that's still better than a "no consensus" outcome; I'll take recall with E over no recall at all. Levivich (talk) 03:11, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- Pro-any-consensus per Tazerdadog. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:14, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- C looks reasonable to me.-Gadfium (talk) 23:31, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Levivich summarizes my thoughts well. But find a consensus. Queen of Hearts (talk) 01:37, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- A or C, the threshhold should be lower than for RfA, since admins are likely to have ticked off a fair number of problematic editors, but not as low as E since there will be many people who would not vote against a standing admin for fear of reprisal if the recall didn't pass. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:03, 9 May 2024 (UTC) - E for now, simply because it's important to move cautiously so as not to end up alienating a critical mass of the community. We can always raise the threshold later, but it's very hard to repair the process's reputation if it starts sweeping out admins unreasonably. I do prefer any threshold to nothing, though. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 19:26, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- D. Any admin who gets to this stage is going to be at a disadvantage, and this still allows for consensus, in my opinion. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:31, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- E – It's hard to imagine cases that require desysopping getting to this stage but failing to meet this threshold. Remsense诉 02:18, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- E or D there's a certain logic to Levivich's idea we should just use the RfA thresholds, but I fear anyone going into this process will attract prejudice against them simply for the fact they are facing a reconfirmation RfA in the first place. The thresholds need to correct for this. – Teratix ₵ 02:30, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- B & E reconfirmation threshold should be same as the rfA process and desysopping can be considered incase editors vote overwhelming in support for it. Ratnahastin (talk) 07:15, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- C or D. As others have stated, I believe facing a reconfirmation RfA inherently puts an admin at somewhat of a disadvantage, so I think the thresholds should be tailored to account for that. Additionally – while I feel that E's threshold is somewhat too generous (per Levivich's reasoning), I do sympathize with its claim that "desysopping should gain consensus". For RRfAs that end in a crat chat, I would encourage the crats to view a "no consensus" finding as "no consensus to remove the tools"; most consensus-finding processes retain the previous status quo if no consensus is found, and I believe RRfA should do likewise. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 13:55, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- B The standard for removal of adminship should be an exact mirror of the standard for granting it, otherwise absurd results ensue. * Pppery * it has begun... 22:43, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- A or C are fine with me. It's a lower threshold for sure, but given the original confirmation as an admin there had been strong community consensus in favor of granting privileges. SWinxy (talk) 23:11, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- E. One would imagine consensus be needed to change the status quo (that is, the admin remain an admin). MER-C 14:54, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- B Agree with Pppery. The RRfA is a review of the admin's work thus far to decide whether they continue to hold the same high level of community trust seen in their initial RfA. BluePenguin18 🐧 ( 💬 ) 15:34, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- E (preferred) or D Agreeing with Theleekycauldron. Happy days, ~ LindsayHello 18:43, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- Find a consensus. Per Tazerdadog. Every editor has 1-3 preferences on the exact threshold they think fits recall best. But almost all of those would like to see a recall mechanism over none. All of these options are reasonable enough that I support each of them, as long as it results in a consensus. Please find a consensus. Soni (talk) 19:04, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
But almost all of those would like to see a recall mechanism over none.
- Perhaps a majority, but count me out of it. If I supported more than one option, I would say so. Remsense诉 08:14, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
- One can only find a consensus where one exists. Otherwise, it is a WP:Supervote. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:54, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
- A as the first choice, a conservative option to allow for the potential that people with grudges make up a non-trivial bloc at the RfA. Anything else as second choice. — Bilorv (talk) 08:29, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- C > A > B, oppose the others. We need to recognize that most administrative decisions, even good ones, make someone upset, and therefore a reconfirmation percentage is extremely likely to be lower than a corresponding RFA percentage. However, I'm not comfortable with someone remaining an admin with <50% of the community's support. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:57, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- B. The standards should be the same as a regular RfA. All administrators must hold the same level of trust in the community. Frostly (talk) 05:45, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
- Find a consensus. HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 02:27, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- E over D, and oppose all others, consensus should be needed to change the status-quo. Bear in mind that just as RFAs tend to happen when the admin is at their best, recalls would tend to happen when they are at their worst. Stifle (talk) 08:18, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- E>D per Stifle, lest we do to our admins what Athens did to her generals. Draken Bowser (talk) 21:01, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- D > E, oppose the others. A simple-majority vote count has worked well at Commons, so I think we can replicate it here. I agree with the spirit of E, "Desysopping should gain consensus", but think 65% is too high a threshold for desysopping; if you lose majority support of the community, you should not be an admin. So numerically I support D: 55% in either direction is a consensus, else up to the discretion of the closing bureaucrat. The main issue with making reconfirmation RfA the same as RfA (option B) is that a slight shift in turnout can lead to a different result; I fundamentally believe that the burden of making a change lies with those seeking to make that change. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:31, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- C or D for a start, we can revisit this after the process has run a few times. —Kusma (talk) 09:38, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
- E only If the point is to desysop an editor then the threshold should be set as such, otherwise a minority could eject admins. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:33, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
- An RRFA is basically another RFA. If an RRFA passes, the editor is NOT desysoped, they instead keep their admin. Fanfanboy (talk) 12:19, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
- Are they desysoped by the recall petition passing? If not they are a admins when the RRFA happens, and if they fail they are desysoped. It's a desysop process however you name it, and if 40% can desysop an admin then thats a problem. Also the community hasn't repeatedly asked for a process to allow admins to be reconfirmed, they have asked for a process to desysop admins. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:45, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
- An RRFA is basically another RFA. If an RRFA passes, the editor is NOT desysoped, they instead keep their admin. Fanfanboy (talk) 12:19, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
Discussion (reconfirmation threshold)
- Unlike typical RfA candidates, RRfA candidates have already been an admin so we have a track record to go off of. With the former group, we always have to account for the chance that the user will end up making mistakes more frequently as an admin than as a normal editor so a higher threshold makes sense. Additionally, admins shouldn't be discouraged from controversial moves/areas (AE in particular is on life support) because of the risk of recall due to a minority holding a grudge. Sincerely, Dilettante 15:54, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- It's very minor, but can option A be modified to 55-65% (rather than 66.6%)? It would be equivalent to shifting RfA thresholds down 10% and is slightly more intuitive, with no real impact, since crats hold cratchats for things a few % either side of the threshold anyway. Giraffer (talk) 15:56, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Done. Soni (talk) 16:57, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- What does the German Wikipedia use for threshholds? The same as their standard RfA? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:15, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
Eligibility to RRFA
When is a recall petition not allowed for an admin?
- Option A: For 12 months after an admin successfully runs for an RFA, RFB, RRFA, or Arbcom elections (same as proposal 16C)
- Option B: For 12 months after an admin successfully runs for an RFB, RRFA, Arbcom elections
- Option C: (In case of non rolling requests) For 6 months after any failed recall petition
- Option C+: (In case of non rolling requests) For 12 months after any failed recall petition
- Something else (specify...)
Note - "RRFA request" was edited to "recall petition" to easier clarify the petition versus the actual RRFA.
Survey (Eligibility to RRFA)
- A and C. Admins should not have the threat of an RRfA being opened at all times. They're people too. Sincerely, Dilettante 14:56, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- A and C > C+ Fanfanboy (talk) 15:43, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Find a consensus - All of the proposed options here are workable. This !vote is explicitly in favor of any consensus the closer thinks they can find in this discussion, and explicitly against a no consensus or trainwreck outcome. Split babies, find thin consensuses, flip a coin if you have to. Tazerdadog (talk) 16:48, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- A and C Toadspike (talk) 16:52, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- C Chetsford (talk) 17:05, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- C. I think A is a bit too generous to the admin, A 3 or 6-month cooldown from election may be better, but I'm not opposed to it Mach61 17:08, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- A and C per above :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 17:18, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- I'm at "none of the above" for now. I'd support something like 3-6 months after gaining the admin bit, regardless of how it's gained (RFA/RRFA/admin elections/Act of God/etc.). I don't see why RFB or Arbcom elections would matter at all if we're talking about de-sysop and not de-crat or de-arb. If recall also applies to crats and arbs, then I'd say the same 3-6 months. I'd have a 1-3 month "waiting period" or "cooling off period" for failed RRFA requests. Levivich (talk) 17:26, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- OK, A and C or C+. I don't really have an opinion between 6 months (C) or 12 months (C+); I'd support whatever others support. Levivich (talk) 17:33, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- A and C are fine. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:35, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- A and C or C+.-Gadfium (talk) 20:49, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
- A and C+ (edited to change from C to C+). --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:31, 9 May 2024 (UTC) - A and C seem fair. Regarding A, if an admin isn't doing something that earns them an ArbCom desysop, the harm of giving them twelve months to get their act together and "learn on the job" is low. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 19:38, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- C+ is also fine by me (and probably preferable). Extraordinary Writ (talk) 02:39, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- C, but probably for 12 months, not 6. (Edit: thus really C+.) If someone screws up during their first year, I don't want to have to wait a year. But we should be cautious about "double jeopardy". --Tryptofish (talk) 21:33, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- A and C+ 12 months after initial election and 12 months after unsuccessful petitions. Administrators simply should not have to face such intense public scrutiny so often. – Teratix ₵ 02:34, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- A & C, seems reasonable. Ratnahastin (talk) 07:18, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- A or C. I would also be amenable to a split system of something like "12 months after initial election, 6 months after RFB/RRFA/Arbcom/failed recall petition". ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 14:00, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- C, although I'd agree that a year is better. In an unusually crazy circumstance there's always arbcom. Valereee (talk) 20:12, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- A and C. A successful run means that the community has overwhelmingly promoted them, and the recall should reflect that by granting a grace period. SWinxy (talk) 23:11, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- A and C Per Extraordinary Writ, the horrific misuse of admin tools that would justify a recall petition during their first year after a successful RfA is surely already addressed by ArbCom desysopping. BluePenguin18 🐧 ( 💬 ) 15:45, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- A & C+ Seems obvious that new admins should have time to learn the job, and it wouldn't be right to subject them to RRfAs or the threat thereof again and again without some respite. Happy days, ~ LindsayHello 18:47, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- A & C, per above. A year is not too long to allow a new admin to learn the ropes; ARBCOM still exists for egregious mis-steps. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:57, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- A and C+ to avoid double jeopardy. If it can't wait, it can go to ArbCom. MER-C 18:22, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
- A and C. Stifle (talk) 08:18, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- A & C ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:18, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- C+ ArbCom is still going to be option. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:39, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
Discussion (Eligibility to RRFA)
We could even say something like "Bureaucrats can disallow any RRFA that is found to be repetitive or tendentious via a crat chat. Tazerdadog (talk) 16:50, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
Recall Petition Suffrage
When can eligible editors vote for a recall petition?
- Option A: No limits
- Option B: If they've not supported an recall petition for the same admin in the last 2 years
- Option C: If they've supported less than 5 currently open recall petitions
- Something else (specify...)
Note - "RRFA request" was edited to "recall petition" to easier clarify the petition versus the actual RRFA.
Survey (Recall Petition Suffrage)
- B and CSincerely, Dilettante 15:00, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- A > C, Oppose B. If an editor has concerns over a given admin, they should be allowed to re-state it later. C makes sense as a protection against spurious "vote to recall every admin" but I'd personally still prefer other ways to do it (Say #Removing_signatures so uninvolved admins have leeway to remove votes on RRFA requests). Soni (talk) 15:20, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- C > A Fanfanboy (talk) 15:46, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- A > C, Oppose B, precisely per Soni.—S Marshall T/C 16:35, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- C is an important safety valve. This is not a hypothetical - it happens on DE wiki. Tazerdadog (talk) 16:53, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- A definitely, C also Per Soni, Tazer. Toadspike (talk) 16:54, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- B and C per Dilettante, oppose A. Chetsford (talk) 17:21, 8 May 2024 (UTC); edited 23:48, 8 May 2024 (UTC); edited 00:26, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- A and strongly oppose B
or Cneutral on C. I don't want to have to choose whether to support an admin recall because I'm worried that later another admin might get recalled who I would support recalling even more. This is especially true in the first year or so of recalls, when there will be more recalls than usual (because backlog). Limits like B or C are a terrible idea IMO. We don't limit how many admins we can support for RFA, or how many we can oppose at RFA, why would we limit how many admins we can vote for recall? Levivich (talk) 17:29, 8 May 2024 (UTC)- If you have 5 requests for recall that you are currently supporting and a 6th opens up you want to support even more, you may strike one of your 5 and support the 6th. Tazerdadog (talk) 17:48, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Why would we limit ourselves in this way? If there are 6 admins that should be recalled, why can't I vote to recall all 6? Levivich (talk) 17:51, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- What are the chances of there being 6 requests open at one time? Fanfanboy (talk) 19:04, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- OK that's a good point, but this is a heck of a roundabout way to institute a throttle. I don't oppose capping the number of simultaneous open recalls, and 5 is a perfectly reasonable cap, but if that's what we want to do, let's just have a rule that says "no more than 5 can be open" rather than "no one can vote in more than 5 at the same time," because the latter just seems, well, roundabout. Levivich (talk) 03:06, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- What are the chances of there being 6 requests open at one time? Fanfanboy (talk) 19:04, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Why would we limit ourselves in this way? If there are 6 admins that should be recalled, why can't I vote to recall all 6? Levivich (talk) 17:51, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- If you have 5 requests for recall that you are currently supporting and a 6th opens up you want to support even more, you may strike one of your 5 and support the 6th. Tazerdadog (talk) 17:48, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Pro-any-consensus as described by Tazerdadog at #Initiation_procedure. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:39, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- C. We do not want to allow mass desysop nominations.-Gadfium (talk) 23:35, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- C as a safeguard. Queen of Hearts (talk) 01:55, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- C --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:33, 9 May 2024 (UTC) - C is fine, but it's not going to be useful if we choose a non-rolling option for petitions. I think there's an argument for "you may sign x petitions per year" as well, although I'm not going to be the one to propose it. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 19:43, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- B, although I'm unenthusiastic about the whole idea. At least we don't want people to keep "going after" the same admin. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:35, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- A Levivich is right about the weird incentives an outright limit would create. If editors indiscriminately support mass recalls, just sanction them. – Teratix ₵ 02:46, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- A or C either of them are fine. Ratnahastin (talk) 07:20, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- A. I share Levivich's concerns about the drawbacks of limiting editors' ability to participate in recall petitions. If editors are using the recall process disruptively, I believe our existing disciplinary procedures should be sufficient to handle them. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 14:08, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- C, but I don't envision that many admins will have to go through a recall each year. SWinxy (talk) 23:11, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- C Given the strong support for blocking recall petitions against an admin during the six months after one fails, Option B would unnecessarily disenfranchise concerned editors. Levivich has argued that it is better to throttle the number of open recall petitions to five, rather than limiting a user to voting on five open petitions. However, during the initial rollout, we can easily imagine one of the 70K extended-confirmed editors initiating five frivolous petitions, blocking legitimate ones until they close. BluePenguin18 🐧 ( 💬 ) 16:12, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- A, because this is needless bureaucracy. If someone is supporting any and all recall petitions out of spite, we should sanction them, and you can't legislate away spiteful behavior. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:57, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- B and C - C to stop mass desysop nominations and B to stop WP:DEADHORSE. If a recall petition was not successful, then the admin should not be recalled over the same issues unless other concerns arise. MER-C 18:20, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
- B and C to provide somewhat of an inhibitor on frivolous or vexatious requests. Stifle (talk) 09:32, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
*A if editors start signing all and every recall disruptively they can be dealt with through the pre-existing processes. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:43, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
- Striking any support for this due to better understanding after my comment at #Discussion (Expired signatures on initiation petitions). Any form of rolling petition is going to require to much bureaucracy to stop the petitions from being endlessly open. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 09:24, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
Discussion (Recall Petition Suffrage)
- I can think of a few serial opposers who would potentially sign recall petitions en masse. Just as no-one stops them from participating in RfAs, likely no-one is going to be removing them from petitions. I don't think every admin should start off with a baseline of two or three of the same signatories. Sincerely, Dilettante 15:54, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- I can think of more than 5 current admins who should be recalled. So what? If editors abuse the recall system by initiating too many frivolous recall petitions, they should be dealt with the same way in which we deal with editors who abuse any other editing privilege. But if one editor starts 10 recall petitions and they're all successful, give that editor a barnstar, they've done a great service to the encyclopedia. The idea of limiting how many recalls an editor can support is just... disenfranchisement. We don't limit how many AFDs people can start or how many they can vote for -- though we do TBAN those who abuse this privilege. Should be the same with recalls. Levivich (talk) 17:32, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Can you think of more than 5 who realistically have a chance of being recalled? At any given moment, it's rare more than 1 or 2 have the impetus necessary to reach the minimum. Even if it is disenfranchisement, it's still more suffrage than non-arbcom users have now. Sincerely, Dilettante 18:04, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- I have started a related discussion about this in #Discussion (Striking/Removing signatures). I think that will be a simpler solution for this concern. Soni (talk) 17:40, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Also, just for the record, there is no such thing as a "serial opposer." Go ahead and look through recent RFAs: there is not even one person who opposed all or even a majority of them. Maybe that happened someday in the distant past, but it hasn't happened in the last five years (since I've been reading RFAs). "Serial opposer" is a myth. Levivich (talk) 17:52, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- I view this comment as prima facie evidence of... Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:53, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- I can think of more than 5 current admins who should be recalled. So what? If editors abuse the recall system by initiating too many frivolous recall petitions, they should be dealt with the same way in which we deal with editors who abuse any other editing privilege. But if one editor starts 10 recall petitions and they're all successful, give that editor a barnstar, they've done a great service to the encyclopedia. The idea of limiting how many recalls an editor can support is just... disenfranchisement. We don't limit how many AFDs people can start or how many they can vote for -- though we do TBAN those who abuse this privilege. Should be the same with recalls. Levivich (talk) 17:32, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- So wait this is who can participate in the readminship vote or who can vote to start the readminship vote? In either case, I'd assume extend all the requirements for participation at RfA. I'd figure the thing we'd want to create rules for would be who can initiate the vote -- avoid the same person repeatedly initiating votes about the same person, etc. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:36, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Per the terminology of this page, "vote for RRFA request" means just "I signed for Rhododendrites to go through RRFA (another RFA, pretty much)". A "vote in RRFA" means "I Support/Neutral/Oppose Rhododendrites continuing as admin".
- There is no distinction made yet for "vote for RRFA request" and "initiating RFA request". Any editor can be the first vote on an 'RRFA request', and it would not matter for most of #Initiation procedure options as well. Soni (talk) 17:46, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- I have altered the terms to be clearer. The first is now called "recall petition" and the latter just "RRFA". Soni (talk) 18:04, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
Striking/Removing signatures
Under what circumstance can a vote on a recall petition be stricken or removed? Support more than one option if needed.
- Option A: If a CheckUser confirms an editor as a possible sock. Recall petitions cannot be successfully closed without a CheckUser confirmation
- Option B: If an uninvolved admin determines the editor as disruptive
- Option C: The same circumstances as an RFA
- Option D: If they are voting frivolously at multiple recall petitions, as determined by an uninvolved admin
- Something else (specify...)
Note - This section was titled 'Removing signatures' for a couple hours. It was altered to 'Striking/Removing signatures' (and the question adjusted) per discussion below. "RRFA request" was edited to "recall petition" to easier clarify the petition versus the actual RRFA.
Survey (Striking/Removing signatures)
- A and C Fanfanboy (talk) 15:50, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Never, see discussion.—S Marshall T/C 16:37, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Find a consensus - All of the proposed options here are workable. This !vote is explicitly in favor of any consensus the closer thinks they can find in this discussion, and explicitly against a no consensus or trainwreck outcome. Split babies, find thin consensuses, flip a coin if you have to. Tazerdadog (talk) 16:53, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- A Obviously sock votes should be struck. Otherwise, I think consensus was that RRfA request votes do not need to be justified, so they can't be struck for content/reasoning. Toadspike (talk) 16:56, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Support D, but emphasis on “frivolously”. There must be clear evidence of unserious signing or a “take down all admins” mentality, we can’t strike signatures simply because they signed three petitions in rapid succession. Toadspike (talk) 11:46, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- A and B I made this comment in the discussion, however, I firmly believe that all petitions should require a mandatory CU review of all signatories prior to advancing to reconfirmation, with the CU only being permitted to strike "possible" socks (blocks would still require a full SPI). There are sock farms that control multiple Extended Confirmed accounts and, on EN, the brokerage rates are becoming very high (I personally know of one recent case involving more than $20K in unsuccessful paid editing on a single article). Given that, there is an escalating pecuniary incentive for surreptitious paid editors to attempt to kneecap Admins active in certain areas. This is just a very minimum guardrail and one that wouldn't even be difficult to get around. Chetsford (talk) 17:11, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Comment: I think this is in reference to my proposal that
Any admin (uninvolved with the user in question and admin the petition is against) may unilateraly topic ban/page block disruptive users from starting or supporting positions
. This was meant to import one facet of Contentious topics, without designating all of RRFA as a CT. The idea was that if one person was constatnly opening frivolous requests, or signing in bad faith, they could be blocked from doing so without the trouble of finding consensus at WP:AN. Striking individual signatures wasn't what I was concerned about. So support A only Mach61 17:19, 8 May 2024 (UTC) - C, which I just added. RRFA should run the same as RFA. Right now we're talking about RFA moderation; whatever the outcome of that, it should apply equally to RRFA. RFA = RRFA, is my view. Levivich (talk) 17:36, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Levivich This is about the petition to start the RRFA, not the RRFA itself Mach61 18:08, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, Soni set me straight on that :-) I think the recall petition (RRFA request) should be governed by the same rules as RFA, when it comes to moderation (e.g. striking/removing votes). Levivich (talk) 18:25, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Levivich This is about the petition to start the RRFA, not the RRFA itself Mach61 18:08, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Neither B nor D. Too discretionary. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:42, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Prefer A, not opposed to B, C or D.-Gadfium (talk) 23:37, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- C per Levivich. Queen of Hearts (talk) 01:56, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- Find Consensus. My individual preferences are A, D > C > B. My central !vote is for 'Find a consensus' so I broadly support every Option here if it results in consensus. I specifically added D based on below discussion because I would like admins to have leeway when dealing with individual editors, as an alternative to hard limits like Option C of #Recall Petition Suffrage. If someone is voting recall on every admin, the community should have some tools to handle that, I just prefer this tool slightly more. Soni (talk) 05:24, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- A. It would need buy-in from the checkuser team, otherwise the second sentence should be struck. Oppose B and D for giving the appearance of WP:CABAL. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:35, 9 May 2024 (UTC) - C is fine for now; if signatures are being removed inappropriately, we can rethink at that time. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 19:46, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- A, C, and D. I think all three of these are potentially valid reasons. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:38, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- C per Levivich. – Teratix ₵ 02:54, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- A if confirmed to be a sock, as filing the recall petition would in violation of their original block. Ratnahastin (talk) 07:23, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- C to make it closer to RfA. SWinxy (talk) 23:11, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- C per above. Checkuser doesn't work all that well for sophisticated abusers and UPE spamming should always be a disqualifying factor. MER-C 14:47, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- C RfA-associated processes should seek similar procedures to minimize WP:CREEP. BluePenguin18 🐧 ( 💬 ) 23:15, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- C is flexible and allows for unspecified kinds of disruption beyond sockpuppetry or frivolous votes. — Bilorv (talk) 08:22, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- C, which I understand as "when someone is found to be violating WP:SOCK or the TOUs when they cast their !vote." B & D are likely to cause drama, and I believe A is a violation of CU policy as written; see comments below. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:57, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- C per Levivich. Frostly (talk) 05:47, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
- C, but find a consensus. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 23:41, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- C per Levivich, and to keep it simple. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:46, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
Discussion (Striking/Removing signatures)
- Should never be removed under any circumstances, but may be struck if it turns out the contributor was mistaken or not in good faith.—S Marshall T/C 16:36, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- I see striking and removing to be effectively identical for RRFAs. If that distinction matters for others, we can broaden the scope to include both. I wanted to ask "When are votes not counted" more than "Should votes be specifically removed". Pinging @S Marshall: Soni (talk) 16:52, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- As a counterpart to discussion in #RRFA Suffrage, I'd like to add an alternative Option C, probably something like "If an uninvolved admin determines the editor as voting frivolously on RRFA requests". Instead of limiting all editors, I would prefer to give more leeway to admins on removing votes. If someone is voting for a bunch of admins on RRFA requests, this would be a simpler way to handle it. I'll wait for a bit before adding the Option, just in case others have suggestions Soni (talk) 17:37, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Added this as Option D. Soni (talk) 05:24, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- Has anyone consulted with the Checkusers as to whether "A" is actually feasible? I know other similar proposals have been rejected in the past due to WP:NOTFISHING (which, as I understand it, is based both in policy and technical limitations of the tools). --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 13:49, 10 May 2024 (UTC)- I've added a note on WT:CheckUser. Not sure if there's another location watchlisted by active Checkusers. Soni (talk) 17:15, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- Checkuser here (you asked for an opinion and this is mine). I don't see any reason to deviate from our normal site-wide sock-striking practices. The clearest expression is probably the essay at WP:SOCKSTRIKE, which is rooted in the policy at WP:EVADE. These procedures are both longstanding and well agreed. If a vote is from a sock of a blocked user then you block the sock and the vote can be struck or removed (IMO probably just struck with an explanation, but there are times it's best to remove entirely). No sockblock no strike, adds stakes to the equation. Normal blocking admins are usually quite capable of doing that, and normal editors are usually good at identifying and bringing to attention suspicious accounts. However if additional certainty is required for a particular account or two, then sure a checkuser can be consulted as normal. The NOTFISHING problem potentially arises in the second part of the proposal and some of the comments:
Recall petitions cannot be successfully closed without a CheckUser confirmation
. Checkusers are not going to check every account (or even a significant proportion) in a recall proposal - that would be fishing, as well as probably also ineffective. If you want a checkuser to just sign off on a recall motion, then that's not going to provide the guarantee it implies, nor add much to what's already out there, IMO. Considering these two aspects it seems to me to be unnecessary to mention checkusers at all here, and there should be reference to standard sock-striking procedures (I guess that's option C). -- zzuuzz (talk) 18:53, 11 May 2024 (UTC) - I began writing this before seeing zzuuzz's comment above, so I'll just not my agreement briefly. My reading of A as written is that it asks CUs to sign off on every account signing a petition, and that would require checking each of them, which is not permitted by policy. And, of course, it is no guarantee of anything. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:57, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
Desysop after Recall petition
After a successful Recall petition, when should an admin be desysopped?
- Option A: If an admin does not start an RRFA within 30 days of a successful Recall petition, within a bureaucrat's discretion (same as proposal 16C)
- Option B: If an admin does not start an RRFA within 10 days of a successful Recall petition
- Option C: If an admin does not start an RRFA within 30 days of a successful Recall petition, although the admin should not use the tools during those 30 days.*
- Option D: If an admin does not start an RRFA within 30 days of a successful Recall petition, although the admin should not use the tools during those 30 days in a manner that could be seen as prejudicial to the ultimate outcome of the RRFA (by, for instance, blocking petitioners).
- Something else (specify...)
Note - "RRFA request" was edited to "recall petition" to easier clarify the petition versus the actual RRFA.
Survey (Desysop after Recall petition)
- A > C Fanfanboy (talk) 16:06, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- A.—S Marshall T/C 16:38, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- ...and Oppose C, which is a well intentioned but poorly thought out proposal. We don't want some sockfarm using the process to knock out an inconvenient sysop in the run up to an election/stock market floatation/whatever. Remember that a sysop is still a duly elected sysop until we reach consensus otherwise, and we should expect a lot of recall petitions to fail.—S Marshall T/C 22:07, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- A I think the admin should have some time to prepare and allow tempers too cool. Candidates can choose to RfA whenever they want and are expected to pick a time when they'll be available throughout the process. RRfA should give some of that courtesy where possible. Toadspike (talk) 16:57, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose C, paralyzing admins is a bad idea. Support D (common sense), although such behavior is highly inappropriate and probably already covered under other policies. Toadspike (talk) 11:48, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- A, the admin will know any conduct they have before starting the RRFA will be intensely scrutinized. Mach61 17:09, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- A per Toadspike's rationale. Also D, which I just added. Chetsford (talk) 17:13, 8 May 2024 (UTC); edited 23:57, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- C, which I've just added. 30 days is the right time frame, to give the admin plenty of time to think about it, consult with others if they want to, prepare for an RFA, and launch the RFA at a convenient time within a reasonable time frame--10 days is not enough for that. I disagree with "within a bureaucrat's discretion" of option A, because I don't know what that means. I added a prohibition against tool use during the 30 days. Recently, an admin was desysoped by arbcom, and between the time that it was obvious that the admin was going to get desysoped, and when the case closed and the desysop happened, the admin used their tools to their benefit; I felt this was improper and should not be allowed. Levivich (talk) 17:40, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- A. Give crats leeway for actual unusual circumstances (fishy votes in the petition, candidate unavailable due to IRL issues, waiting on an arbcom case to resolve). Conduct with the tools during these 30 days will be sufficiently scrutinized by the community. Tazerdadog (talk) 18:38, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- C is a good idea: The recall petition was successful and the adminship is in peril. It should not be used during the RRFA. I'm fine with any other option too, though. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:44, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think the limitation added in D is necessary; the provided example "blocking petitioners" is an absurd scenario that's pretty much already forbidden by WP:INVOLVED and would quickly lead to numerous oppose votes in the RRFA. A better example would be "assigning oneself permissions that would otherwise be gone with a desysop". ~ ToBeFree (talk) 11:38, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- Support C and D, weaker support for A. Bureaucrat discretion should always be possible, e.g. if a recalled admin is restricted from editing by personal circumstances during the period.-Gadfium (talk) 23:41, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- C or A. D is too arbitrary, B is too small a window. Queen of Hearts (talk) 01:59, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- C, I guess (followed by A). I've never been fond of the (presumably unenforceable?) "gentlemen's agreement" not to use the tools, which ArbCom has shied away from in recent years. But an interim desysop might prejudice the re-RfA, and I prefer to err on the side of caution at this point (as explained above). The problem with A is that it creates warped incentives to wait out the 30-day period. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 19:52, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- D. There should be more than 10 days to act, as 10 days is an awful lot of pressure. As for tools, saying they cannot use the tools at all is like saying they are guilty until proven innocent. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:41, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- In the interests of speedy resolution, RRfAs should, by default, begin immediately after a successful clean recall petition, but the administrator under scrutiny should have discretion to ask bureaucrats for a different timing if there are real-life issues or they need time to reflect or de-stress. – Teratix ₵ 03:05, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- This is a good idea. — Frostly (talk) 05:49, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
- B , reconfirmation rfA should begin ASAP after a successful recall petition. Ratnahastin (talk) 07:04, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- Agree with Teratix's suggestion - no need for arbitrary waiting periods. * Pppery * it has begun... 22:45, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- My big concern with that is that you need to guarantee the admin in question can actually spend a full week running through an RRFA process if a petition passes. If a RRFA begins immediately after successful recall petitions with no controls, admins may be forced to go through a potentially strenuous process without the time and energy. Soni (talk) 09:31, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- Honestly I think Teratix is correct, as once the threshold has been reached, it should automatically commence the full process. SWinxy (talk) 23:11, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- C Agree with Teratix that RRfAs should begin immediately after a successful recall petition, but the same busyness that could justify asking bureaucrats for up to 30 days of delay could justify being unable to ask for that extension, so we can treat the account sitting idle (tools-wise) as proof of the need for delay. BluePenguin18 🐧 ( 💬 ) 23:29, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- A as first choice, giving reasonable leeway for the subject to fit what will work best given their availability. In regards to C, I'm not sure we want to be in the business of monitoring whether a person is using the tools (who would even be able to tell whether they'd used some rights such as viewing deleted pages?). If C passes then instead we should remove the tools (temporarily) until/unless the re-RfA passes. — Bilorv (talk) 08:27, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- A. I don't like the crat discretion, but I dislike the timeframe of B and the tool-use prohibitions of C & D even more. 10 days is far too short; 30 days is still on the short side (I've stepped away for months at a time for RL reasons, and I expect that that will continue). And I don't like that we're making the recall petition, rather than the RRFA, the determinant of whether someone can use the tools. Admin actions between a successful petition and an RRFA are going to be under a lot of scrutiny; I can't see how any inappropriate tool use would not violate our existing policies. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:57, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- A if any. Stifle (talk) 08:19, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- A. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:49, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
Discussion (Desysop after Recall petition)
There should be a rule stated here that the clock pauses while the admin being recalled is under scrutiny in an active case or case request at arbcom. Arbcom should be allowed to go first to give the community the maximum amount of information. Tazerdadog (talk) 16:56, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Agreed. If I am not mistaken, this is generally how community processes work – when ArbCom steps in, we step back. Toadspike (talk) 16:58, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
I added an Option D. Option C seems ripe for abuse by a well-organized minority. Chetsford (talk) 23:57, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Option D seems just paranoid and should be removed. Any admin who runs around blocking their "foes" willy-nilly would be speedy-banned (as well as desysop'd, of course) by any other admin with a pulse, or a steward worst comes to worst. That's already the case today, we don't need a new rule about it. SnowFire (talk) 02:26, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
Seeing multiple editors agree with Teratix's suggestion, it should probably be added as an option explicitly to help gauge the consensus. My suggested wording was something like *Option E: (In addition to another option) RRFAs should be started as soon as possible after a successful recall petition
.
I still think it should include some explicit leeway for editors who are around but cannot go through RRFA right away. But someone who supports the Option is better off phrasing it as they best can
Soni (talk) 03:27, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
Recall petition discussion
Should votes in a Recall petition be limited to signatures? Can they have discussion?
- Option A: Reasoning can be added, but no further discussion
- Option B: Only signatures can be added. No reasoning or discussion
- Option C: Signatures and one link can be added. No reasoning or discussion
- Option D: (In addition to another Option) General discussion section separately on talk page
- Option E: Reasoning and discussion allowed
- Something else (specify...)
Note - "RRFA request" was edited to "recall petition" to easier clarify the petition versus the actual RRFA.
Survey (Recall petition discussion)
- A,
but I would also like a 'General discussion' section separate from voting.Support D for a trial run. Fanfanboy (talk) 15:53, 8 May 2024 (UTC) - C > B > A, Neutral D, Oppose E. The recall proposal as written is intended to reduce the amount of drama and stress that happens in the name of discussion. Having a discussion section separately will only encourage more back-and-forth bickering. General discussion should either not happen, or be limited to user talk and AN/ANI, if needed. Soni (talk) 16:16, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- A and D. Preventing discussion reduces the quality of our decisions.—S Marshall T/C 16:39, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Find a consensus - All of the proposed options here are workable. This !vote is explicitly in favor of any consensus the closer thinks they can find in this discussion, and explicitly against a no consensus or trainwreck outcome. Split babies, find thin consensuses, flip a coin if you have to. Tazerdadog (talk) 16:56, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- A and D, though I might support a word count cap on comments and a ban on replies, so that the request pages don't get bloated. There has to be a place for discussion, because pushing it to User Talk will not relieve stress on the admins. Toadspike (talk) 17:01, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- A and D. If we allow replies on petitions, people will mistakenly apply the expectation that RfA opposers must explain their !vote, which doesn't make sense for a petition. Mach61 17:20, 8 May 2024 (UTC)*
- B Chetsford (talk) 17:14, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- E (which I added) I don't see the need to do it differently than we do at any other discussion, e.g. RFA, RFC, AFD, etc. etc. Levivich (talk) 17:56, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- E first choice. Support D in addition to other options. If not E, then A > C > B. Levivich (talk) 03:19, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- C>B>A>E. D is okay together with the others. Any is fine. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:48, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- A and D. Not opposed to E, but I think allowing/encouraging a reason is important, so oppose B and C.-Gadfium (talk) 23:45, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- E Queen of Hearts (talk) 02:01, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- E, followed by A+D. Just like at RfA, letting someone's spurious claims be (visually at least) unrebuttable isn't a good idea. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 19:55, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- E. Because discussion is how we find consensus. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:42, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- Find a consensus per Tazerdadog :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 22:04, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- B and D The actual petition votes should be signatures only, but there should be a section or talk page for general discussion. – Teratix ₵ 03:08, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- A , to avoid drama that can be caused by the gravity of the recall process. Ratnahastin (talk) 07:08, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- E preferred, A and D also acceptable. Oppose B and C. In my opinion, it's important for petitioners to be able to provide a rationale; admins should be able to know what the complaints against them are, and being able to view the rationales would also help uninvolved editors discern whether a currently open petition has merit or not. Encouraging rationales also disincentivizes random drive-by recall votes, which would be likely to be unhelpful or demoralizing. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 14:18, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- E, or whichever is closest to RfA. SWinxy (talk) 23:11, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- E as first choice. Consensus on Wikipedia is found through discussion. — Bilorv (talk) 08:28, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- E While reasoning and discussion may create conflict as admins justify their behavior, greater communication may resolve some disputes and avoid proceeding to a RRfA. BluePenguin18 🐧 ( 💬 ) 16:18, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose B & C; if people are acting in bad faith (and I include the admin under scrutiny, and their potential supporters, in this) we should be able to say so. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:57, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- E. Recall petitions should have similar procedures as RfAs. Frostly (talk) 05:50, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
- Strong support E, but really find a consensus. HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 02:25, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- A but oppose E, recalls are likely going to be contentious and discussion can be had at RRFA if needed. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:54, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
Discussion (Recall petition discussion)
- @Fanfanboy: I have explicitly added an Option D. As written, just all of A-B-C were intended to skip having a "general discussion" section. Soni (talk) 16:16, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Levivich: To be clear, a "RRFA request" is the same as saying "I want them to stand for recall" not the actual RFA like process (Which is just RRFA). If this is too confusing, we can replace all instances of "RRFA request" with "RRFA request petition" to make it clearer in the sections. Soni (talk) 17:51, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Soni: Thank you for clarifying, that did confuse me! Maybe we can call it the "recall petition" and the "RRFA"? Levivich (talk) 17:54, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Done. Soni (talk) 18:03, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Soni: Thank you! And also thank you for your ongoing efforts shepherding this process! Levivich (talk) 18:24, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks for the change. I felt that "Re-request for adminship request" was a confusing phrase, and could be interpreted as the admin in question starting their re-request for adminiship. isaacl (talk) 18:39, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Done. Soni (talk) 18:03, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Soni: Thank you for clarifying, that did confuse me! Maybe we can call it the "recall petition" and the "RRFA"? Levivich (talk) 17:54, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Levivich:
I don't see the need to do it differently than we do at any other discussion, e.g. RFA, RFC, AFD, etc. etc.
So my reasoning for doing it differently here was because general discussion risks litigating the same matter multiple times at different locations. An admin going through recall may have to potentially respond to AN/ANI threads, recall petition and RRFA; and the same for other editors discussing the concerns. This risks the entire process getting strifed to an exceptional degree, which is the central concern I have been working against.
- As a completely separate sidenote, the dewiki process can be probably summarised to A+D. Soni (talk) 22:07, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
|
Finer points
If there's any implementation details not already covered by the previous sections, please add them here.
Reconfirmation by admin elections
Can an admin stand for reconfirmation via Administrator Elections?
Survey (Reconfirmation by admin elections)
- Sure - if an election happens to line up in their 10 or 30 day window. Tazerdadog (talk) 17:54, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, any method for +sysop should be available, meaning RFA and elections. If elections end up being scheduled (meaning, you can't just launch one whenever you want, there have to be certain times when they're run), then the admin should be allowed to stand in the next scheduled election even if it's more than 30 days (although they shouldn't use their tools in the interim). Levivich (talk) 17:46, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, as if they were never an admin at all Mach61 18:10, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Absolutely. It also would make no sense to prohibit this – someone prefering the admin election process could else also simply resign and immediately apply for an admin election. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:50, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah Might as well. Fanfanboy (talk) 19:15, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Yes; no reason not. Queen of Hearts (talk) 02:02, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- No. This process is going to be complicated enough as it as; adding a strategic element where you have to decide which process you'll "score" better at and/or how long you can drag the process out isn't a good idea. If admin elections (which have only been approved for a once-only trial) become well established down the road, we can revisit at that point. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 19:58, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, so long as the community is continuing the elections option for other RfA candidates. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:43, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- OK. SWinxy (talk) 23:11, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- Yes I agree with Extraordinary Writ that we know too little about how admin elections will compare to the traditional RfA process, but the hypothetical posed by ToBeFree shows that prohibiting reconfirmation via admin elections could be easily sidestepped. We could dictate that all admins that resign in the face of a successful recall petition can only regain the tools through an RRfA, but what if the admin resigned while the recall petition was one vote short of passing? With too many scenarios to account for, let us WP:Keep it short and simple. BluePenguin18 🐧 ( 💬 ) 00:30, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
Discussion (Reconfirmation by admin elections)
What would the threshold be? Obviously it can't be whatever we agree on above, since there's no room for bureaucrat discretion in a pure vote. If it's just the same 70% cutoff at WP:AELECT, then there's no need to shoehorn this into the reconfirmation process: the admin should just resign and run at the next election. (In practice this will never happen as long as the reconfirmation threshold is lower.) Extraordinary Writ (talk) 02:16, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- I think this would best depend on whether the discussion at #Reconfirmation threshold above leads to a consensus for default RfA thresholds or lower ones. And I'd say that if the reconfirmation RfA has a 10-percent-point lower threshold than a normal RfA, the same should apply to reconfirmation elections. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 11:45, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
The summary of consensus from phase one was that the community should be able to compel an administrator to make a re-request for adminship (RRFA) was for a "Re-request for adminship" procedure that could be initiated by the community.
Thus I think the re-request procedure itself should be the same, whether it is done on the administrator's own initiative, or as a result of a petition from the community. This includes the criteria for determining if the re-request has succeeded. isaacl (talk) 16:51, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
Reconfirmation threshold for admin elections
What percentages of support are necessary for an administrator to pass a reconfirmation admin election?
- Option A: 70% (equal to normal admin elections)
- Option B: Less than 70% (specify a preferred percentage)
- Option C: Depending on the consensus at #Reconfirmation threshold above, in the middle of a normal RRfA's discretionary range. That's 70% for option B, 60% for option A, 55% for option C, 50% for option D, 40% for option E.
- Something else (specify ...)
Survey (reconfirmation threshold for admin elections)
- C. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 11:57, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- C Fanfanboy (talk) 12:09, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
AC Levivich (talk) 15:32, 9 May 2024 (UTC)- C --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:37, 9 May 2024 (UTC) - C, with the caveat that we may change this as we get experience with the process. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:45, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- C (which is equivalent to A in my preferred world). * Pppery * it has begun... 22:46, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- C, which I also hope aligns with A for RfA-RRfA-election consistency. BluePenguin18 🐧 ( 💬 ) 04:06, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
- C, with the note that it should be pegged to the admin elections threshold. If it changes, this should too. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 07:47, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
Discussion (reconfirmation threshold for admin elections)
It took me a while to realize that this isn't the same as #Reconfirmation threshold above, as this deals with Wikipedia:Administrator elections in conjunction with the question above. SWinxy (talk) 23:11, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- Oh, sorry. Yeah, the classical RfA process is also "election" enough to make this terminology a bit confusing. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 08:32, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
Notifications for petitions
When a petition is created at the Wikipedia:Admin Reconfirmation page, what notifications should be made (beside the admin's talk page)? Choose all that apply.
- Option A: None; watchlist the reconfirmation page if you're interested.
- Option B: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard
- Option C: Template:Centralized discussion ("there are x admin reconfirmation petitions pending")
- Option D: Watchlist notice ("there are x admin reconfirmation petitions pending")
Survey (notifications for petitions)
- B, C, and D. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:46, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- Only A. Anyone should be able to create petitions, but this shouldn't generate too many notifications for everyone else. The other options also incentivise high stakes and drama to the petition process that I was hoping to avoid. If there's sufficient concerns about an admin, they can happen normally at WP:AN without every petition expressedly being posted there. Note that I still support all successful petitions being posted at AN, and the actual RRFA being added to all the locations RFAs currently are. If a non-rolling recall petition passes, I am okay with B and C. Soni (talk) 21:58, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- Note that if A is not passing, my preferences would be Only B > Only C > B+C > D. I am explicitly for find a consensus over not finding it Soni (talk) 01:02, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
- A for petitions, all RfA notifications for the actual RRfA, as per Soni. Fanfanboy (talk) 12:10, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- B, but C and D go too far. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 13:53, 10 May 2024 (UTC) - C and D. Cremastra (talk) 19:54, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- In the exact same places that RfAs are notified in, which currently means D. * Pppery * it has begun... 22:46, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- Agree. — Frostly (talk) 05:51, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
- C and D to reflect RfAs. (The CD template also notifies for RfAs.) SWinxy (talk) 23:11, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- Same as RFA, so C + D. Second choice is either C or D, third choice is B, fourth choice is A. I worry that both A and B will reach a skewed, predisposed, or "involved" audience, while C and D are more likely to alert more uninvolved editors. Levivich (talk) 17:47, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- B I proposed listing at WP:CENT and watchlists once petitions hit 50% of the thresholds during open discussion, but after further thought, let us avoid the headache of un- and re-listing petitions as signatories shift around that amount. While it seems most want individual recall petitions to last a month, at most, I expect that on the majority of days during the next two years, we will have at least one open recall petition, so C and D seem likely to make editors ignore what goes on at WP:Admin Reconfirmation instead of widening participation. BluePenguin18 🐧 ( 💬 ) 00:47, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
- A and B are okay. C and D don't work properly. These petitions are open for a year without early closing or even just "oppose" being an option. Their number will always be larger than 0 as soon as the system is accepted by the community, and the worst petitions would gain the longest visibility. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 15:55, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
- The current consensus at #Initiation procedure seems to be against the petitions being open for a year long. Fanfanboy (talk) 15:41, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks Fanfanboy and sorry, I forgot to take this into account. I was still thinking about the originally proposed 1 year. My concerns about C and D are lower if 6 or 3 months, and mostly alleviated if 1 month is the consensus there. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:05, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- The current consensus at #Initiation procedure seems to be against the petitions being open for a year long. Fanfanboy (talk) 15:41, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- A or B. The only reason I can think of that a petitioner wouldn't want to post to AN anyway is that they're afraid of blowback. I'd prefer they be forced to factor in that social cost before starting a petition in the first place. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 07:49, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
- A or B. RRFAs should be notified as per RFAs, but there's no need to before hand. If an editor has a problem with admin they can find the recall and sign it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:57, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
Discussion (notifications for petitions)
Other options welcome. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 20:09, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
If other notifications are precluded with option A, it seems unduly restrictive. If no one knows about a petition, they won't be able to sign on. The decision would be made by a self-selected group of page watchers. It might be more effective to appoint a designated committee in that case. If other notifications are still permissible with option A, then there would be incentive for a "get out the vote" style campaign, which I feel would be unnecessarily divisive. isaacl (talk) 03:13, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
The question assumes that you have to notify the admin in question. Is that actually codified anywhere, or should we create it as its own question? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 13:55, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think we need to ask the question, I think we can just create a user talk page notification template and mention it in the petition instructions. Nobody would object to that, it's what Wikipedia does for all the other processes. Levivich (talk) 01:44, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
Expired signatures on initiation petitions
If a rolling petition is used, what should be done with signatures that have "expired" because they are older than the longest rolling period (e.g. 1 year for Option A, 1 month for Options B and C, etc.)?
- Option A: Expired signatures should remain untouched.
- Option B: Individual signatures should be struck when they expire.
- Option C: Individual signatures should be moved to a separate archive page when they expire.
- Option D: Individual signatures should be removed when they expire.
- Option E: Entire petition pages should be archived once they have gone an entire longest rolling period with no signatures.
- Option F: Entire petition pages should be blanked once they have gone an entire longest rolling period with no signatures.
Survey (Expired signatures on initiation petitions)
- C > E > F although the only option I'm really opposed to is A. I think the last thing we want is a giant list of old grievances on display. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:32, 14 May 2024 (UTC) - C > E > F I agree with Ahecht on this one. Fanfanboy (talk) 17:39, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- B and E. Keep a record of signatures, but don't keep that list of old grievances looking like it's still active. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:34, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- Any/all of these are fine. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:01, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- D > C. Neutral F > E > B. Oppose A. Keeping expired concerns permanently in one location risks making a permanent "list of everything wrong this admin did" attack page. Because page history exists, it should be fairly straightforward for someone to read through removed individual signatures (and associated discussion if any). However, the page, even archived, could risk becoming a permanent list of detractors and flaws. If an admin is being serial opposed by someone, we do not want to give them undue weightage by having their points be repeatedly kept in the same place. Soni (talk) 00:16, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose rolling petitions, but if they are taken forward, E > C > F > D > B. Oppose A. Stifle (talk) 09:33, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
- Prefer "not A" for reasons expressed above; support any of the other choices equally. Levivich (talk) 18:28, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
Discussion (Expired signatures on initiation petitions)
- What happens when a signature expires? I doubt the editors concerns will have just gone away. Will they just be allowed to re-add their signature keeping the recall open permanently in the case of rolling recalls, or does their need to be some kind of call down? If there is no cool down why have them expire at all, the process simply becomes 'x' amount of signatures over an endless period. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:02, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
- This question is being asked at #Recall Petition Suffrage. Soni (talk) 04:29, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
General Discussion
Confirming Extended Confirmed as Voter Requirement
The original proposal 16c clarified that voters in an RRfA request must be extended confirmed, which is now also a requirement for voting at RfA. However, 16c didn't necessarily get "broad consensus". We might need to add a section to this page to confirm that only extended confirmed editors' votes in an RRfA request count. Toadspike (talk) 17:04, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- #Initiation procedure is already intended to cover this. If there is a suggestion for non EC editors to count for an RRFA request, it can be added as an option and gain consensus there. All three proposals suggested during "Open discussion" phase happened to include EC, so all options currently do as well. Soni (talk) 17:09, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Good point, I somehow forgot that. Thank you. Toadspike (talk) 11:51, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
Dispense with the questions section for an RRfA
By the time we get to an RRfA, there's been extensive discussion about the issues at hand and the admin has already gone through a full RfA process. Let's get rid of the "questions" process and all the baggage that goes with it. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:28, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- Then where/how does the admin address the concerns? Levivich (talk) 17:49, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- A dedicated section? The point isn't to say the admin can't respond; the point is that we would be deadminning for cause, so keep it focused on that cause rather than have another round of loaded questions, pop quizzes, and personal bugbears. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 01:28, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- I don't perceive RRFA as a discussion as to whether an admin should not be an admin, but whether an admin should continue to be an admin. The issue at RRFA isn't "did they misuse the tools" (that's what arbcom is for), the issue at RRFA is "do they have the trust to be an admin?" It's the same issue at issue at RRFA as at RFA; the difference being that at RRFA we have a track record of admin tool use to examine and not just a track record of edits. I'm not a huge fan of the questions at RFA (or RFA at all), but I still think that because it's the same issue being decided, it should be decided in the same way: an RRFA should be a full RFA process. Levivich (talk) 02:58, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- +1 Soni (talk) 05:25, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- I feel compelled to point out that this really sums up the problem with these RRFA proposal(s):
The issue at RRFA isn't "did they misuse the tools" (that's what arbcom is for), the issue at RRFA is "do they have the trust to be an admin?"
). There is no thing-in-itself of adminship separately from use of the tools. If there is a lack of "trust" in someone's adminship that is somehow unrelated to misuse of the tools, then that lack of trust isn't a valid concern to begin with. Separated from any concerns over actual abuse of admin powers, this proposal aggravates the already dangerous tendency to equate adminship with some kind of social rank or esteem -- while also creating a new mechanism for removing any dissenting voices within this "trusted" group. It's difficult to overstate how disastrous that could be for the project. -- Visviva (talk) 05:33, 10 May 2024 (UTC)- A series of bad or suboptimal closes. Unhelpful sanctions on CTOP areas. Chronic or serious incivility (eg opposing an rfa because of the candidate's gender identity). Anything we'd WP:CBAN over. These are examples of potential reasons to desysop someone other than tool abuse. Levivich (talk) 05:55, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- I don't perceive RRFA as a discussion as to whether an admin should not be an admin, but whether an admin should continue to be an admin. The issue at RRFA isn't "did they misuse the tools" (that's what arbcom is for), the issue at RRFA is "do they have the trust to be an admin?" It's the same issue at issue at RRFA as at RFA; the difference being that at RRFA we have a track record of admin tool use to examine and not just a track record of edits. I'm not a huge fan of the questions at RFA (or RFA at all), but I still think that because it's the same issue being decided, it should be decided in the same way: an RRFA should be a full RFA process. Levivich (talk) 02:58, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- A dedicated section? The point isn't to say the admin can't respond; the point is that we would be deadminning for cause, so keep it focused on that cause rather than have another round of loaded questions, pop quizzes, and personal bugbears. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 01:28, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
Delete RRfA petition after conclusion?
What happens to the page in the case of non-rolling petitions? Is it deleted, blanked, kept, or is the fate wholly up to the user in question? and does that vary based on whether it meets the threshold? The obvious argument for keeping is that it makes determining suffrage for petitions easier. The obvious argument against is that keeping a list of an admin's detractors is demotivating and easy to abuse. Copied from talk. Sincerely, Dilettante 18:25, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
- It shouldn't be deleted - Wikipedia keeps a permanent record for a reason and admins should not try to hide from their past. Fine with blanking, or not, though. * Pppery * it has begun... 22:47, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
Making the case for need
Editors who are formulating this proposal should give some serious thought to making the case for why such a proposal is needed. After each of the survey points above has been hashed out, there will need to be a community-wide RfC on whether or not to make the proposal a policy. (Arguing that there was a consensus in Phase 1 to create some sort of proposal will be insufficient.) Are there examples of ways in which the status quo is not meeting the community's needs, that the new proposal will address? How will you answer concerns that good admins will be mistreated by the proposed process? --Tryptofish (talk) 00:51, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- I think these are reasonable concerns and, specifically, that this - "After each of the survey points above has been hashed out, there will need to be a community-wide RfC on whether or not to make the proposal a policy." - is a good and salient observation. Chetsford (talk) 01:00, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- While I'm sure you're correct about the need for a RFC to present the final proposal, I'd like to pause and grumble that we need 3 full monthlong independently closed RfCs and a community consultation period to make a change. We are clearly not a bureaucracy™Tazerdadog (talk) 01:19, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- I'm coming at this as someone who attempted, unsuccessfully, to get consensus for a similar proposal many years ago, and I know what you are going to be up against. What's worse than spending 3 full months working on something before getting a change? Spending 3 full months working on something, only to have it shot down. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:29, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think there's any need for that. If we get a "no consensus" on some details, we can always attempt to push through a final proposal that mostly represents communitty consensus; otherwise, giving more opportunities for bikeshedding and nay-saying is absolutely counterproductive. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 01:33, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- That sounds to me like "famous last words". I'm speaking from experience, but if you want to relearn it for yourself de novo, go right ahead. (Rolls eyes at the thought of "attempt to push through".) --Tryptofish (talk) 01:41, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- I meant via a third RfC, the thing that's probably gonna fail that is for some reason being suggested. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 02:53, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- That sounds to me like "famous last words". I'm speaking from experience, but if you want to relearn it for yourself de novo, go right ahead. (Rolls eyes at the thought of "attempt to push through".) --Tryptofish (talk) 01:41, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Tryptofish The proof that the community is disconent with the status quo came with the approval of proposal 16. Mach61 01:35, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- That's part of it: a desire for something new. But the other part is whether there is desire for something specific that is new. Don't underestimate the hurdles to the latter. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:41, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- Why would we need another RFC after this RFC? This is the RFC to figure out the details that were not determined in the last RFC. I don't see a need for a third RFC. You can't get any broader consensus than something like RFA2024, why make everyone re-state what they just stated here? As the close of the last RFC said, "further consensus should be sought on which, if any, is to be adopted," and that's what we're doing here. Levivich (talk) 02:52, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- The summary of consensus from the first RfC says
Phase II of this review should therefore consider specific proposals for RRFA initiation procedures and further consensus should be sought on which, if any, is to be adopted.
The current survey doesn't provide a way to evaluate "if any" procedure should be adopted. If the phase 2 discussion is modified to accommodate disagreement, then I don't feel another discussion is required. In its current form, though, a discussion on a consolidated proposal for the administrator recall process would be needed to determine consensus. isaacl (talk) 03:07, 9 May 2024 (UTC)- The way to evaluate "if any" procedure should be adopted is to evaluate each proposed procedure and see if any is adopted. Or to put it more clearly, the question isn't "will there be a recall procedure," the question is "what will the recall procedure be, exactly?" "Will there be a recall procedure" was answered in Phase I (yes), and Phase II is to answer "what will the recall procedure be, exactly?" There is not a need for a Phase III that asks to confirm Phases I and II. Instead, Phase III should be the trial of the procedure decided in Phase II. Levivich (talk) 03:14, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Joe Roe: as closer in case they want to weigh in on what they meant (if they remember). 03:23, 9 May 2024 (UTC) Sincerely, Dilettante 03:23, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- I meant that there is no consensus for a any of the proposed recall procedures, then obviously we won't have a specific recall procedure to adopt. That would be a very disappointing outcome since there is a clear consensus that we should have some sort of procedure, but I don't believe that in a consensus-based decision making process one discussion can restrict the outcome of another (i.e. force one of the offered options to be adopted; in other words, consensus can change). I didn't mean there there should be a Phase 3/confirmation RfC and I strongly disagree that one is necessary. We are already hurtling fast down the road of bureaucracy-over-consensus with these multi-stage RfCs and we don't need any more pressure on the pedal. The proposal was also to "allow the community to initiate recall RfAs", not "trial a way for the community to initiate recall RfAs". So although CCC again means that we can decide later to change or drop anything we agree here, there's no consensus for a specific time-limited trial as yet. – Joe (talk) 07:52, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- I agree there shouldn't be a phase 3 before proceeding. I think approval of the overall procedure needs to happen as part of phase 2. The way the discussion is currently structured, everyone can put forward their viewpoints on how to implement specific parts of the process. Users generally aren't going to try to obstruct progress on individual aspects, as that wouldn't be working collaboratively towards a consensus view. Thus I feel it would be a good idea to allow for disagreement to be expressed on the overall process. Sometimes putting the parts together doesn't result in a process that a consensus of users can agree with. isaacl (talk) 03:24, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- Say we have a vote and decide to buy balloons but we don't agree on exactly how many or what size or color because those questions weren't asked as part of the vote on whether to buy balloons, and although people discussed it, there was no clear consensus answer. So, we have a second round of voting on the number, size, and color of the balloons.
- Are you saying that in this second round of voting, we should also vote on whether to buy balloons at all, because some people would rather not buy balloons at all than buy balloons of the number/size/color that is chosen? Because it seems to me that the one thing that shouldn't be at issue in the second round is whether to buy balloons at all, because that was decided in the first round.
- Or are you saying that after voting on number, size, and color, there should also be a vote on approving the combination of number+size+color? Because that seems like unnecessary duplication.
- Or am I misunderstanding entirely? Levivich (talk) 03:44, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- I believe you understand that we differ on how agreement should be obtained on whether proposal has consensus support. Your analogy assumes that each aspect of the proposal is independent of the others, and a consensus view can be obtained by combining together the result of individual discussions on each part. I believe that there are interested parties who aren't raising objections on individual aspects, as they are letting those with strong opinions reach agreement on what they feel is the best approach for each, and are waiting to see the overall proposal so they can think about it as a whole, including the interactions between them. This is a common approach in the real world: allow the strongest supporters of a new initiative to work out what they feel to be the best proposal, and then consider it. This gives those who favour a new approach space to work out details without constantly having to defend the overall goals and objective, but still allows for consideration by all sides afterwards. isaacl (talk) 05:13, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
I believe that there are interested parties who aren't raising objections on individual aspects, as they are letting those with strong opinions reach agreement
Then those interested parties should raise the objections on the current phase, conditionally or otherwise. This proposal is not in a vacuum, and each section already has interactions with other sections currently. There are multiple supporting editors who reference other sections in their discussions, I see no reason why the same cannot be said for editors who have concerns.- Speaking more concretely, I am happy with adding additional questions to Phase 2 if necessary. Do you have an example question of what you want to ask? Soni (talk) 05:42, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- Each section is structured as supporting options A, B, C, and so forth. Thus there is no option for someone who doesn't support any of the suggested approaches. As you may recall from other discussions, I agree with allowing implementation details be worked out by consensus agreement with those who are implementing a process. However the details around initiating a recall discussion have been the key reason for objections for many years now. I think it's reasonable to have a discussion on the complete proposal once it has been shaped by the individual discussions.
- I appreciate there are different discussion styles, and some think all discussion should take place simultaneously, rather than giving space to proponents of a given proposal to work out details before that proposal is discussed by all. I understand why, but personally I feel it provides incentive for interested editors to be more obstructionist, rather than collaborative, and thus makes these discussions more confrontational than necessary. isaacl (talk) 06:00, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- Well, sorry to roll out the cliches, but this isn't a vote, it's consensus-building, and for once that's a meaningful difference: a vote implies some sort of procedural structure and the possibility of binding decisions, while consensus-building by definition needs to allow for the possibility that people can change their minds. Following your analogy, we might find that the only balloons on sale right now are giant puke-green ones with Donald Trump's face on it, so we decide that actually, we'd rather not have any. – Joe (talk) 08:08, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- I believe you understand that we differ on how agreement should be obtained on whether proposal has consensus support. Your analogy assumes that each aspect of the proposal is independent of the others, and a consensus view can be obtained by combining together the result of individual discussions on each part. I believe that there are interested parties who aren't raising objections on individual aspects, as they are letting those with strong opinions reach agreement on what they feel is the best approach for each, and are waiting to see the overall proposal so they can think about it as a whole, including the interactions between them. This is a common approach in the real world: allow the strongest supporters of a new initiative to work out what they feel to be the best proposal, and then consider it. This gives those who favour a new approach space to work out details without constantly having to defend the overall goals and objective, but still allows for consideration by all sides afterwards. isaacl (talk) 05:13, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- Courtesy ping @Soni:. I think this can be handled in phase 2 if we add a question and ping everyone. I think it's cleaner if we do a phase 3, because there's no self-referential elements (A concrete proposal instead of a skeleton with numbers being determined simultaneously - lots of conditional votes possible if we poll now.) Despite that I want to poll now partly due to bureaucracy concerns, and partly because I'm not convinced based on the overall tone of this discussion that this is going to have an unclear result.Tazerdadog (talk) 04:06, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- As a separate point, I am trying to help manage the structure and reduce chaos on this process, but I do not claim Ownership here. If there are additional questions that multiple of us agree on, any of us can/should add them. I am happy with other editors stepping in as needed. Soni (talk) 05:16, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Joe Roe: as closer in case they want to weigh in on what they meant (if they remember). 03:23, 9 May 2024 (UTC) Sincerely, Dilettante 03:23, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- The way to evaluate "if any" procedure should be adopted is to evaluate each proposed procedure and see if any is adopted. Or to put it more clearly, the question isn't "will there be a recall procedure," the question is "what will the recall procedure be, exactly?" "Will there be a recall procedure" was answered in Phase I (yes), and Phase II is to answer "what will the recall procedure be, exactly?" There is not a need for a Phase III that asks to confirm Phases I and II. Instead, Phase III should be the trial of the procedure decided in Phase II. Levivich (talk) 03:14, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- The summary of consensus from the first RfC says
- This is the precise 'bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy' this proposal was intended to avoid. We have obtained general consensus for a recall multiple times in the past (including 16), general consensus for this broader structure in Phase I (16C), and an open discussion just to let people hash out the "process" of this !vote and letting individual proposals be discussed before !voting starts. It reminds me of an adage I've heard offwiki... "If something doesn't go your way, just start another RFC until consensus changes."
- @Tazerdadog I am happy to see additional questions and pings to Phase 2 if enough editors think this is necessary. I personally do not think we need to "accommodate for disagreement" at every hurdle of the process, else we'll be asking "Is this a good idea" at every possible junction hereafter. But I'm also quite unclear what this additional question would be. Could you mock up an example question? Soni (talk) 05:08, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Soni:
- Something like this perhaps:
- Should administrator recall be implemented using this process?
- A: Support - Administrator recall should be implemented at the conclusion of this RFC. The other sections of this RFC give the specific rules and details for a recall.
- B: Oppose - Administrators should not be recalled using this process.
- C: Follow-up RFC required - A follow-up RFC is required on this. The exact details chosen will strongly affect whether I can support recalling admins using this process.
- Definitely interested in other opinions about this - feel free to wordsmith this pretty aggressively. If we add this question we need to list this discussion on WP:CENT directly, to ensure that we get the broadest possible participation. Tazerdadog (talk) 05:57, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- I still believe this question is redundant and has been asked already. But I am also okay if others want to ask this, so feel free to send it as is. I have made a short pass on the wording in situ, re-edit or reformat as you need. Soni (talk) 06:03, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- Please define "this process". Levivich (talk) 06:05, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- "this process" = Compel an administrator to file a RRFA to retain their administrator status by gathering signatures on a petition. The number of users required to trigger a RRFA, timeframe to gather signatures, threshold for success, and other smaller details are being established in their sections of this RFC. Tazerdadog (talk) 06:38, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- How is that a different question than the question asked in Phase I? Levivich (talk) 15:33, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- "this process" = Compel an administrator to file a RRFA to retain their administrator status by gathering signatures on a petition. The number of users required to trigger a RRFA, timeframe to gather signatures, threshold for success, and other smaller details are being established in their sections of this RFC. Tazerdadog (talk) 06:38, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- That sounds like a rerun of Phase I. There is already a consensus that we want a recall procedure, assuming the details can be worked out. – Joe (talk) 08:01, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- Joe, I've reread your close a zillion times (that's an exact number), and while I see a "rough consensus" for reconfirmations initiated by the community, I'm not seeing you finding a consensus for recall petitions, as such. If this part of Phase 2 is going to be conducted with some sort of recall petitions as an inevitable part of the process, that seems to me to go beyond what you found in your close. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:42, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- "Phase II of this review should therefore consider specific proposals for RRFA initiation procedures and further consensus should be sought on which, if any, is to be adopted" - petition isn't the only possible initiation procedure, it's just the only specific proposal so far because "Proposal 16c was well-supported and should be a starting point for these discussions." Levivich (talk) 02:03, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- This is basically what happened. Through Phase I, the main non-petition specific idea I could see was a "Consensus via ANI/similar". That had been rejected in 16D, so I was not keen to add ideas just for the sake of variety. During Phase 2's open discussion, it wasn't re-recommended, and no more non-petition ideas were discussed.
- If someone has proposals to initiate RRFAs that do not involve petitions, they should be welcome to add them. A similar case has already been made for the non rolling initiation procedures; not all of the remaining questions would apply to them as well. Soni (talk) 02:53, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- "Phase II of this review should therefore consider specific proposals for RRFA initiation procedures and further consensus should be sought on which, if any, is to be adopted" - petition isn't the only possible initiation procedure, it's just the only specific proposal so far because "Proposal 16c was well-supported and should be a starting point for these discussions." Levivich (talk) 02:03, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- Joe, I've reread your close a zillion times (that's an exact number), and while I see a "rough consensus" for reconfirmations initiated by the community, I'm not seeing you finding a consensus for recall petitions, as such. If this part of Phase 2 is going to be conducted with some sort of recall petitions as an inevitable part of the process, that seems to me to go beyond what you found in your close. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:42, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Soni: Others can of course disagree, but as the person who closed the discussion (which nobody has challenged yet), I've said multiple times that there was not a consensus for your proposal 16c, even in the broad strokes. I'm worried that your heavy presence in structuring this follow-up RfC has given undue emphasis to your own idea, with others just invited to "work out the details". I think it would be a good idea if you stepped back and let less involved parties (theleekycauldron, maybe?) manage the process of building consensus, which may still depart significantly from your proposal, or even reject the idea of RRFA after all. – Joe (talk) 07:59, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
I think it would be a good idea if you stepped back and let less involved parties (theleekycauldron, maybe?) manage the process of building consensus
Sounds good to me. I may have understood your "starting point for the discussions" comment a bit different than you intended, hence the 'Open discussion' sectioning phrased as it was.- That said, I will say that I've kept requesting other editors to define this structure from the start. The current page structure was adapted from leeky's original design, I asked for opinions on modular vs wholesale up/down vote, we've integrated Giraffer and Mach's proposals from Open discussion, and I've kept asking others to add additional options/alter the page as they want. Consensus can change, but the current !vote structure is me trying to best summarise all the ideas people suggested in Open Discussion.
- I'm completely happy to take another step back if others prefer, but I just wanted to highlight that this is still opinions from many editors being added; I just had been doing the final polish. Soni (talk) 08:19, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- Soni wanted the chance to direct how this proposal was going to be structured – I think that they've done a fantastic job getting it this far, and I agree with their reading of the close that 16c being a "starting point" does kind of lend itself to the setup we've seen so far. I'm happy to take over managing structure from here – I think we have a real chance at getting this past the finish line, if we clear the roadblocks. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 21:17, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- Definitely interested in other opinions about this - feel free to wordsmith this pretty aggressively. If we add this question we need to list this discussion on WP:CENT directly, to ensure that we get the broadest possible participation. Tazerdadog (talk) 05:57, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- I'm glad that I raised this issue, because the discussion here reveals a lot of things that haven't really been thought through. As noted, Joe Roe's close says in part:
Phase II of this review should therefore consider specific proposals for RRFA initiation procedures and further consensus should be sought on which, if any, is to be adopted.
There is a clear meaning to the words "if any": that it is at least possible that none of the "specific proposals" will get consensus to be adopted. Therefore, whatever is done in Phase II must include an option not to do the specific thing being proposed at all. And, as also noted above, the questions have all been formulated along the lines of "which of these options will be adopted?", without the option of "none of the above". That's a big problem! One cannot just wish it away, or ignore it. - And I agree also with the observation that editors who disagree with having such a recall process at all have, for the most part, been staying out of the way so that proponents can put together their best proposal. That's a good-faith thing to do. But it shouldn't be met with a bad-faith assertion that, well, that's your fault, because you should have been raising your objections all along. Maybe editors should have done that, or maybe they shouldn't, but if they didn't, that's not permission for saying that it was preordained in Phase I that anything that gets a local consensus during the Phase II brainstorming is going to become policy – even if that brainstorming was constructed in such a way as to lock out the view that the recall process as a whole might no longer have consensus, once the community sees the moving parts: you can choose which option, but you cannot choose "none of the above".
- Admin recall proposals have been made for years. And never has the brainstorming process been equated with the process of establishing as policy. There has always, previously, been a formal RfC about whether or not to adopt the proposed process, after the proposal has been formalized. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:51, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- Note: if, in fact, the decision has been made here that whatever pieces of the discussions above get individual consensus are going to become policy – that means that all administrators will find themselves subject to them. I've put this notification at AN: [1]. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:04, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- I'm concerned that your reading of Joe's close is inaccurate. He says that there is consensus to implement some kind of administrator recall, and that phase II should consider specific proposals on which to adopt. If we choose to adopt one of them, that's the one we go with. If we end up choosing none of them, then fine, we can have some other discussion in which we figure out if we want to choose something at all. But that's not a necessary thing because we already settled that question. Soni is right; this is needless bureaucracy. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 21:15, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- I'm just going by the wording as it is written. What happens if the discussion here yields "no consensus" on multiple key parts of the process? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:50, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- Then we've failed to follow through on our mandate, and the admin-recall process is incomplete and can't be used. Someone who thinks that they can put together a workable proposal that can pass would be welcome to use phase II as a starting place. What seems to be the question here is "what happens if every key question yields consensus?" and I will strongly oppose "have a new RfC to give the discussion one more point of failure". If phase II is a success, the onus will be on any subsequent RfCs to kill admin recall, not re-ratify it. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 21:57, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- If we're considering specific proposals to adopt here, then "not this proposal" needs to be an explicit option (at least under "initiation procedure"). I'm fully on board with a recall process along these lines, but I worry we're heading toward a procedural nightmare when phase II is closed and someone asks "what happens next?" Extraordinary Writ (talk) 21:59, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- The final closer of the discussion as a whole will let us know if there are any outstanding questions that need to be answered or what our next steps are – there's procedure for this, we're not going to get left in limbo. That's what I'm doing here, make sure that we're working towards concrete, achievable goals. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 22:09, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- With multiple editors, not just me, asking for "not this" options, that is not really, with all due respect, what you are doing here. You are simultaneously acting as facilitator and as a partisan who is trying to shut down anyone who disagrees with you. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:14, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- In what ways do you feel that I'm shutting down people who disagree with me based on my personal opinions? If your complaint is that I'm not letting people relitigate phase I questions, yeah, that's fair. I don't particularly see a problem with that, but I guess that's valid. If your complaint is that I'm using any capacity as facilitator to try and force a specific consensus, I'd be interested to know what you're seeing and how I can improve on that. Please feel free to leave any feedback on my talk page. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 22:48, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- Done. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:35, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- In what ways do you feel that I'm shutting down people who disagree with me based on my personal opinions? If your complaint is that I'm not letting people relitigate phase I questions, yeah, that's fair. I don't particularly see a problem with that, but I guess that's valid. If your complaint is that I'm using any capacity as facilitator to try and force a specific consensus, I'd be interested to know what you're seeing and how I can improve on that. Please feel free to leave any feedback on my talk page. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 22:48, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- With multiple editors, not just me, asking for "not this" options, that is not really, with all due respect, what you are doing here. You are simultaneously acting as facilitator and as a partisan who is trying to shut down anyone who disagrees with you. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:14, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- The final closer of the discussion as a whole will let us know if there are any outstanding questions that need to be answered or what our next steps are – there's procedure for this, we're not going to get left in limbo. That's what I'm doing here, make sure that we're working towards concrete, achievable goals. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 22:09, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- I agree that the result from phase 1 is that there is consensus support for the community having the ability to compel an administrator to make a re-request for adminship. Supporters of this viewpoint may have had different rationales; their collective support is what matters. Thus I do not feel it's necessary to re-visit a phase 1 question of whether or not the concept has consensus support. But I also feel the summary of consensus indicates that, as Joe Roe has stated, that the phase 1 result doesn't
force one of the offered options [in phase 2] to be adopted
. Just because the concept has support doesn't mean that any implementation of that concept has support, as some (though not all) of the implementation points under discussion have been sticking points in the past for adopting a recall process. I don't think another full RfC discussion is needed if a consensus is reached on the individual aspects of the recall process, but I think it would be good to have a checkpoint: describe the complete proposed process in one passage, and allow interested parties to affirm that the overall process is one they can support. As different users may have different dealbreakers, it is possible for each part to have consensus support, while the process as a whole does not. It's probably unlikely, but I feel the process will have a more solid basis behind it with a checkpoint. isaacl (talk) 02:09, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- I'm just going by the wording as it is written. What happens if the discussion here yields "no consensus" on multiple key parts of the process? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:50, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
How will this affect RfA candidacies?
Editors here seem to me to be a bit too confident that this proposed recall process will address the overall concern of RfA2024: that we should find more ways to get qualified editors to become administrators, and remove unnecessary obstacles. I know that one of the arguments that gets made for why a community-based recall process will make RfA easier (because I used to make this argument, myself) is that, if RfA !voters know that the community can recall an admin, then they will be less likely to oppose. But I don't know if that is true or not. On the other hand, I think an argument can be made that qualified candidates might decide that no one in their right mind would want to become an admin if that means being subject to the kind of recall process contemplated here, as soon as they make a tough call. Even if the process might eventually "acquit" them, they would still have to defend themselves. I think that could greatly reduce the number of new RfA candidates.
So – how would editors who support this proposal make the case for need in that regard? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:13, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- I think this is a reasonable concern that may prove to be true in the long run, but now that we're past the broad-strokes discussions of phase I, we should be focusing on the community mandate we have to create and implement an admin recall procedure of some kind. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 21:48, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- So you agree that it's a potentially reasonable concern. But are you saying that editors who are concerned about it now are not entitled to a rationale for why we should go ahead anyway? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:53, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- What we need is an RfC to decide whether or not we need an RfC to decide whether or not to implement the results of this RfC that's a follow-up to a previous RfC. Sincerely, Dilettante 21:55, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- Lots of things are potentially reasonable concerns. That's why we had phase I, to aggregate and discuss those concerns. This idea has consensus now, and it will require consensus to kill the abstract. Demanding that every editor have a satisfactory explanation before we go forward is not how Wikipedia process works. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 22:01, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- So you agree that it's a potentially reasonable concern. But are you saying that editors who are concerned about it now are not entitled to a rationale for why we should go ahead anyway? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:53, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- If there's a significant dry-spell following the passage of some desysop procedure, we can scrap it and agree the process did the opposite of the intended effect. CCC. At worst, we've lost 3-4 months where 1 or 2 more users could have used the mop. Sincerely, Dilettante 21:52, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- How is that different than a trial implementation? And what if we don't just have a dry spell at RfA, but a slew of drama in recall petitions? These aren't idle questions. Just look at what happened with another, less controversial proposal, here: WT:RFA#Feedback on the "new RFA process". --Tryptofish (talk) 21:57, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- It's different because it's de facto permanent. A trial is for x months, and then we need a discussion to renew it. This is for an indefinite length of time (assuming it passes), unless we hold an RfC that determines otherwise.
- If we have a slew of improper petitions, I'll be first in line to scrap the process. Sincerely, Dilettante 22:01, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- How is that different than a trial implementation? And what if we don't just have a dry spell at RfA, but a slew of drama in recall petitions? These aren't idle questions. Just look at what happened with another, less controversial proposal, here: WT:RFA#Feedback on the "new RFA process". --Tryptofish (talk) 21:57, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- The alternative to doing something is doing nothing, and we know where doing nothing goes.—S Marshall T/C 21:55, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- If the problem that we must do something about is not enough active administrators, it confuses me how you seem to be arguing that what we must do is a process whose only outcome can be to reduce the number of administrators (both directly and indirectly by discouraging adminship through greater bureaucracy). While something can be better than nothing, it can also be worse. Or maybe you have something else in mind as the problem for which doing nothing would be inadequate? —David Eppstein (talk) 07:47, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- The reason we're not electing enough sysops is this: before I give someone the power to unilaterally control my edits or ban me, I need to be bloody sure I trust them. So I tend to support less and oppose more. If we had a way to reverse a recruitment error then I would need less trust. So passing RfA would be easier.—S Marshall T/C 07:42, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- @S Marshall: we have effective ways to reverse recruitment errors: Wikipedia:Former administrators/reason/for cause. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:13, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- No we don't. Before Arbcom will accept a case, the delinquent sysop has to get dragged to AN/I and fail to utter the Humble Apology of Automatic Sysop Exoneration. Under that system, an idiot with a mop can keep it forever if they choose.—S Marshall T/C 17:03, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- None of the former administrators listed on the page I linked to above kept their mops forever. What I hear you essentially saying is that we have too many administrators; there are active administrators who should be desysopped but have not been because that's too hard to do currently, in other words, the Arbitration Committee sets the bar for acceptable admin conduct too low. The bar for acceptable conduct needs to be raised higher; this will unleash a new wave of overdue desysoppings. Then down the line, some will complain that so-and-so was unfairly desysopped and call for a new "desysop review" procedure, because the community rushed to judgement rather than give the matter the careful consideration that the Arbitration Committee would have. – wbm1058 (talk) 18:16, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, that's likely. Some decisions are bad, because we're humans; so we need to be able to re-think and reverse them. Which is the whole point...—S Marshall T/C 18:27, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think it's really hard to grasp the concept that people want a method for removing admins that doesn't rely on admins removing other admins, even if the admins doing the removal are elected for this purpose. In other words, admins should be directly accountable to non-admins, not just to or through other admins. Levivich (talk) 18:29, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- The regular method(s) of requesting administrative privileges will be available to anyone who failed a re-request. Whether or not a re-request process is enacted, there will be future discussions on how administrative privileges are granted and removed, because there always are. isaacl (talk) 21:39, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- As I read more comments, it increasingly seems to me that the question of whether a recall procedure will decrease the number of admins, because fewer candidates will find it attractive to run an RfA, or increase the number, because RfA !voters will feel less reluctant to support, knowing there's a recall procedure, is something we will find out only after the proposal might be implemented, and we see what happens. But I have some suggestions for those editors who are concerned that the proposed recall process will cause harm. Don't assume that there will ever be an RfC on whether or not the community will adopt this recall proposal. I'm seeing a lot of pushback to my suggestion that it should happen, and I think it's fairly likely that all of the discussions above will be closed with a consensus to adopt the arithmetic mean of the options offered, and that will be that. So instead, comment in the #Initiation procedure section, above, that you are in favor of ArbCom accepting the role via the existing WP:RFAR process, instead of having petitions. That may be your last opportunity. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:30, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- Solely regarding a consensus result using an arithmetic mean: I don't think that's likely. Generally Wikipedia users consider that to be the evaluator of consensus imposing their own viewpoint on the discussion. (Yes, there are times when users will let that by in the interest of being conciliatory, but I don't see evidence that will happen here.) isaacl (talk) 23:22, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- About that (the arithmetic mean), I agree with you that it would be absolutely contrary to WP:CONSENSUS, and I said that to indicate something that I would see as a bad result. Personally, my perception is that a significant number of the proposals have comments more-or-less evenly distributed over the A–E (or whatever the letters are) spectrum, and I'm not seeing anyone doing the work that it will take to get editors to agree on where the balance of sentiment resides, and I think that such discussions are going to be very difficult to close in a valid way. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:29, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- You said it was fairly likely; personally, I don't think so. It's only been six days; plenty of time for people to consider and consolidate their views. isaacl (talk) 00:34, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- About that (the arithmetic mean), I agree with you that it would be absolutely contrary to WP:CONSENSUS, and I said that to indicate something that I would see as a bad result. Personally, my perception is that a significant number of the proposals have comments more-or-less evenly distributed over the A–E (or whatever the letters are) spectrum, and I'm not seeing anyone doing the work that it will take to get editors to agree on where the balance of sentiment resides, and I think that such discussions are going to be very difficult to close in a valid way. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:29, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- Solely regarding a consensus result using an arithmetic mean: I don't think that's likely. Generally Wikipedia users consider that to be the evaluator of consensus imposing their own viewpoint on the discussion. (Yes, there are times when users will let that by in the interest of being conciliatory, but I don't see evidence that will happen here.) isaacl (talk) 23:22, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- As I read more comments, it increasingly seems to me that the question of whether a recall procedure will decrease the number of admins, because fewer candidates will find it attractive to run an RfA, or increase the number, because RfA !voters will feel less reluctant to support, knowing there's a recall procedure, is something we will find out only after the proposal might be implemented, and we see what happens. But I have some suggestions for those editors who are concerned that the proposed recall process will cause harm. Don't assume that there will ever be an RfC on whether or not the community will adopt this recall proposal. I'm seeing a lot of pushback to my suggestion that it should happen, and I think it's fairly likely that all of the discussions above will be closed with a consensus to adopt the arithmetic mean of the options offered, and that will be that. So instead, comment in the #Initiation procedure section, above, that you are in favor of ArbCom accepting the role via the existing WP:RFAR process, instead of having petitions. That may be your last opportunity. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:30, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- None of the former administrators listed on the page I linked to above kept their mops forever. What I hear you essentially saying is that we have too many administrators; there are active administrators who should be desysopped but have not been because that's too hard to do currently, in other words, the Arbitration Committee sets the bar for acceptable admin conduct too low. The bar for acceptable conduct needs to be raised higher; this will unleash a new wave of overdue desysoppings. Then down the line, some will complain that so-and-so was unfairly desysopped and call for a new "desysop review" procedure, because the community rushed to judgement rather than give the matter the careful consideration that the Arbitration Committee would have. – wbm1058 (talk) 18:16, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- No we don't. Before Arbcom will accept a case, the delinquent sysop has to get dragged to AN/I and fail to utter the Humble Apology of Automatic Sysop Exoneration. Under that system, an idiot with a mop can keep it forever if they choose.—S Marshall T/C 17:03, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- @S Marshall: we have effective ways to reverse recruitment errors: Wikipedia:Former administrators/reason/for cause. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:13, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- The reason we're not electing enough sysops is this: before I give someone the power to unilaterally control my edits or ban me, I need to be bloody sure I trust them. So I tend to support less and oppose more. If we had a way to reverse a recruitment error then I would need less trust. So passing RfA would be easier.—S Marshall T/C 07:42, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- If the problem that we must do something about is not enough active administrators, it confuses me how you seem to be arguing that what we must do is a process whose only outcome can be to reduce the number of administrators (both directly and indirectly by discouraging adminship through greater bureaucracy). While something can be better than nothing, it can also be worse. Or maybe you have something else in mind as the problem for which doing nothing would be inadequate? —David Eppstein (talk) 07:47, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
Re: the question of whether a recall procedure will decrease the number of admins, because fewer candidates will find it attractive to run an RfA, or increase the number, because RfA !voters will feel less reluctant to support, knowing there's a recall procedure, is something we will find out only after the proposal might be implemented, and we see what happens.
The recall procedure will decrease the number of admins, because that's all it can do. The only question is whether the recall procedure causes a small, insignificant decrease, or a larger decrease. It's sure to raise the drama level several more notches; drama surrounding admins is not healthy for RfA. – wbm1058 (talk) 00:42, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- It's an open question in my mind whether, in the first year under the recall procedure, we see more RfAs or more recalls. – wbm1058 (talk) 00:48, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
Frequency
I'm a little concerned about those working in areas where they inevitably make a lot of enemies. Very long complext discussion, so I apologize if I'm just not seeing this, but has someone proposed how frequently such a petition can be started? What I'm primarily concerned with is a petition failing, and someone opening a new one the next day/week/month. I kind of feel like once a year is sufficient? Valereee (talk) 17:59, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Valereee this is addressed in the section Eligibility to RRFA Mach61 18:12, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you, stupid of me not to see that! Valereee (talk) 20:10, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- I will say that this is effectively also involving #Initiation procedure. Some proposals have 'non-rolling' petitions (need to be explicitly started and pass/fail), while others are rolling (so cannot have a "petition failed" as such). The section Mach mentioned is still probably best suited to handle these concerns, both for petition frequency and RRFA frequency. Soni (talk) 20:21, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you, stupid of me not to see that! Valereee (talk) 20:10, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
Open discussion
This section was open from 5 May to 8 May to help narrow down the scope of Phase 2. Soni (talk) 13:35, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
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This section is intended to help narrow us down in scope first. After a few days, we'll vote for specific proposals. Tweaks to 16CPer the close, 16C is a good starting point to this process. What changes to the current wording would be sufficiently good? Soni (talk) 15:06, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
Other RFA2024 proposalsHow would an RRFA interact with admin elections or another proposal that passed? Soni (talk) 15:06, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
Implementation detailsAre there any implementation details an RRFA process should consider Soni (talk) 02:48, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
ProcessIn a few days, the open discussion section will be closed for more specific votable proposals (probably 7 days or so?). Is there a preferred structure for that? Soni (talk) 15:06, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
Proposals for other RRFA mechanismsI want to clarify that while I saw a decent amount of support for 16c, and that's why I suggested it as a starting point for this discussion, it didn't gain broad consensus in the first phase. So while tweaking the details of 16c and going with that is certainly an option, it's not the only option. Now that we know the community wants some sort of RRFA, there might be new ideas for how it could be triggered, and I think people should feel free to propose and discuss them here. I also don't see any reason why there can't be more than one triggering mechanism, if multiple proposals find consensus. – Joe (talk) 13:00, 5 May 2024 (UTC) Voter eligibilitySo only users with Extended Confirmed (30 days + 500 edits) can cast a vote to initiate the RRFA process poll, but then anyone can vote in the actual RRFA? Am I the only one seeing the mismatch in account eligibility between the two steps? OhanaUnitedTalk page 14:09, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
General Comments
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