Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Clerking proposal 2015

RfA clerks are editors who oversee RfAs to maintain civility and decorum. In addition to their existing authorizations, we will discuss possible extensions to those authorizations in this RfC. We will also discuss who should be authorized to perform clerking tasks.

Role and responsibilities

Per this proposal, clerks are already authorized to perform the following basic actions, which will not be reconsidered in this RfC. The existing authorizations are as follows:

• Redact or remove votes that violate the policies on civility and no personal attacks. Definitions concerning what constitutes incivility and/or personal attacks can be found here (for incivility) and here (for personal attacks).
• If an editor casts a vote that opposes a candidate simply because they disagree with a policy that the candidate agrees with and/or plans to enforce, a clerk may remove the vote. (For example, if a candidate agrees with the three revert rule policy and intends to enforce it as an admin, a participant may not oppose the candidate simply because they disagree with the 3RR policy.)
• If a participant removes his vote or comment outright rather than striking it, clerks may reinstate the vote/comment and strike it.
• If a participant casts a vote that cites another editor's rationale, clerks may notify the participant if the editor subsequently changes their position and/or vote rationale.

The following extensions to the clerks' basic remit will be considered in this RfC:

• The authorization to do general cleanup on RfAs, manage questions, remove votes that are inappropriate or based upon clearly unreasonable rationales, and stop further voting on RfAs that are pending closure by a bureaucrat.
• An authorization to clerk on RfBs in addition to RfAs.

In this RfC, editors will have the option to specify whether they believe that any editor (not just clerks) should be able to perform the task that is being discussed.

Who may clerk

In this RfC, the community will discuss what user groups should be permitted to perform clerking tasks. The options include: bureaucrats, admins, specifically appointed editors, any editor who meets certain criteria, or any editor with no prerequisites.

Challenging clerk actions

Clerks should log all actions in the clerk actions log, which will be located at the bottom of each main RfA page. All clerk actions are subject to scrutiny, and may be undone if there is consensus to do so. Also, clerks may not edit-war or perform clerk actions to gain an advantage over other participants. However, clerk actions should not be reverted without consensus to do so. If an editor disagrees with a clerk action, they may challenge it at the clerks' noticeboard (preferably after consulting with the clerk), placing a note after the action in the clerk actions log. If there is a rough consensus to undo the action, then uninvolved bureaucrats may undo the action and should note this in the clerk log.