Wikipedia talk:Administrators
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"Involved" exception when dealing with threats
[edit]Based on what I see at WP:AN#More admin misconduct, I suggest adding more explicit language to the vandalism and "purely administrative" areas concerning involvement to the effect that any administrator may take appropriate measures to deal with any editor who makes threats against them or anyone else. I'm sure somebody can argue how "threats" may be parsed, but we can certainly agree on violence, stalking, or doxxing as obvious candidates. Acroterion (talk) 19:00, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
- One simple addition would be to add "or threats" so it reads "In straightforward cases (e.g., blatant vandalism or threats)...". However, lists of examples tend to expand with time and end up being read as definitive statements. In the recent incident linked in the OP, I doubt that anyone would have reacted differently if "or threats" were present—the people concerned have no idea and would have made the same fuss regardless of what this page said. Johnuniq (talk) 02:43, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
- The things Drmies was having to deal with were 100% covered by the "straightforward cases" exception, no questions asked. I agree with Johnuniq that a wording change wouldn't have made a difference in this situation (or in any others I can envision). Extraordinary Writ (talk) 03:42, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
- While I agree with you, there was some sentiment for a leisurely consultative approach, or for a put-up-with-it-or-resign approach, citing the policy, an interpretation with which I profoundly disagree. But I'm sensitive to instruction creep too, which is equally subject to philosophical gaming. I find the parlor game of "is this admin involved because they 'disagree' " tiresome and time-wasting, and I view the language of the policy as a bit equivocal. I may be influenced by spending the past couple of days writing contracts, which causes anyone to second-guess every word they write. Acroterion (talk) 14:18, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
Two-year inactivity rule phrasing
[edit]Admins removed for inactivity have to run a new RfA if they want to be resysopped after a two-year period of inactivity. For admins removed under the recent 5-year/100-edit inactivity requirement, does that mean two years after the removal of admin tools
(as WP:ADMIN#Restoration of admin tools suggests), or does it mean two years from the last edit or log action
(as WP:RESYSOP suggests)? It doesn't really matter which answer we choose, but it's important to resolve the ambiguity one way or another so there are no issues when it inevitably comes up at WP:BN. Probably the easiest solution would be to change the sentence here beginning In the case of an administrator desysopped due to a year of inactivity...
to "In the case of an administrator desysopped due to inactivity, the two-year clock starts from the last edit or log action prior to the desysop" or something like that. (This came up previously here.) Extraordinary Writ (talk) 23:21, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
- Is this RfC getting at what you wanted (which wasn't formally closed only because consensus was clear so it didn't feel like a formal close was necessary)? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:23, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
- That involved a different inactivity rule (five-years-from-last-tool-use), but you're right that it's basically the same question. I think the best way to follow the logic of that RfC is to make the change I suggested above, which hopefully won't be too controversial. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 23:29, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
- Wearing my full formal wikilawyer hat, A) WP:ADMIN is policy and WP:CRAT, of which WP:RESYSOP is part, is a summary of policy, so where they conflict it has to be RESYSOP that's incorrect; and B) the shorter 1-year period for no-edits only applies if "an administrator desysopped due to a year of inactivity" - that is, the one year total inactivity rule, not the 5-year/100-edit one.Wearing my reasonable person hat, B is bonkers, and, for that matter, so is all the text after the boldface "Over two years with no edits". The specific inactivity rule shouldn't matter; and if you accept that, then I can't for the life of me think of a situation where you can get desysopped without it being either involuntary (and thus ineligible), for inactivity, or making an edit to request it. And I doubt I'd be the only person to look far askance at a resysop request saying the two-year-zero-edits rule should start from the desysop timestamp instead of the actual last edit solely because you asked to resign on Discord or IRC or whatever instead of even bothering to log on and ask at WP:BN like a normal person. Just look for a two-year period with zero edits - simple rule, easy to check, makes sense.Not that any of that, or the rfc about the 5-year-no-logged-actions rule, deal cleanly with the 5-year/100-edit inactivity rule - you can be inside the limit of either or both of the "Lengthy inactivity" subitems while still qualifying to be desysopped for having under a hundred edits. But that's one of the things that the "bureaucrat is not reasonably convinced" rule is for. —Cryptic 01:08, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
- If people are fine with replacing the bullet point with "a new RfA is required if the admin was totally inactive during any two-year period ending after the desysop" (or some more elegant wording), I agree that'd be even better. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 03:48, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia:List of administrators/Discord
[edit]How do people feel about creating a list of administrators who can be contacted on Discord, similar to Wikipedia:List of administrators/IRC? I anticipate there will be some concerns because the Discord server's public logs are oversightable here, and some support because IRC is so thirty years ago. Folly Mox (talk) 13:43, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
Proposal to update WP: INVOLVE language
[edit]Currently WP:INVOLVED policy regulates permissible conduct of Admins and editors performing non-admin closures.
This policy was created before the existence of WP:Contentious topics. Inside the first sentence In general, editors should not act as administrators in disputes in which they have been involved. (bold emphasis mine) the term dispute is not well defined, despite the fact that some WP:Contentious topics are exceptionally well defined, e.g WP:ARBPIA while others like WP:BLP are not narrow in scope. Inspired by the larger discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Possible_involvement_of_Admin_in_ARBPIA_area I would propose we workshop an updated text. In my opinion, updated text should contain the following:
- Minimal maintenance changes once implemented
- Defined definition of disputes with regards to CTOP
- Avoid over-restricting admins from making common sense edits or effectively banning them from entire contentious area unless explicitly stated
- Provide clarity who/when dispute scopes can be redefined e.g by ARBCOM?
~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 14:24, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
- Just noting that prior to posting this here, there were a half-dozen replies at VPP, see Special:PermaLink/1244500139#Update_wording_of_WP:INVOLVED for the last version of that discussion before it was moved here. Primefac (talk) 17:41, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
- I don't really understand what the goal is here.
- Administrators should not act as administrators when they are involved with a dispute, regardless of whether that dispute has any relevance to CTOP areas. Just because a dispute is within a CTOP topic area doesn't impact how broad that dispute is - for example administrators involved in a dispute about wording on the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal article should not be enjoined from acting as an administrator regarding a dispute over the JD Vance article, despite both being with in the post-1992 US politics CTOP area. An administrator who is engaged in a wide-ranging dispute about the legacy of the French colonial empire probably should not act as an administrator regarding French overseas territories, the articles about former French colonies/territories, and La Francophonie, even though this is not a CTOP area.
- Involved should always be interpreted broadly but reasonably. If there is doubt about whether you or someone is involved with respect to a given topic, then either assume that you are or ask for the opinion of admins who are definitely uninvolved with that area.
- I don't think we can usefully define "dispute" or "topic area" more precisely at this level. So all in all I don't understand what you think we would gain by making things more complicated than they currently are? Thryduulf (talk) 18:20, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
- What's missing here is the precurser discussion Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Possible_involvement_of_Admin_in_ARBPIA_area. Selfstudier (talk) 18:31, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
- Some time ago, I drafted an RfC about this in User:S Marshall/sandbox, and I wonder if that might be a useful framework for discussion?—S Marshall T/C 19:03, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
- I find the idea that an admin editing anywhere in a CTOP area makes them INVOLVED and therefore their tools are off the table in the entire topic area to be a very dangerous re-interpretation of the policy. If anything I'd like to see it formalized that this is not the way the policy has been generally understood, both by ArbCom and the broader community. Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 19:46, 7 September 2024 (UTC)