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This is a Request for comment (RfC) on a proposal to implement Community de-adminship (CDA) on the English Wikipedia. Community de-adminship (a form of Administrator Recall), would be a method for the Wikipedia community to remove the administrator tools from existing Administrators who have lost the confidence of the community.
You can read an FAQ, prepared by editors who worked on it and support it, here.
This page opened for comments 18:50, 22 February 2010 (UTC), and will close 23:59, 22 March 2010 (UTC).
The proposal
The community is being asked whether a proposal for community-based removal of administrator privileges, called Community de-Adminship (CDA) should be implemented as policy on the English Wikipedia.
If WP:CDA is adopted this will require two other amendments:
It will also be necessary to amend the policyWikipedia:Administrators to include reference to the WP:CDA process. This step will be undertaken as a technical matter at that page as and when needed.
Closure
When the debate here is concluded, it will be closed in the usual way. If sufficient consensus has not been reached after thirty days, and further discussion would be useful, it will be extended.
If the RfC ends in consensus to implement, such implementation will then be subject to review by the Bureaucrats and Jimmy Wales.
Discussion
Comments by some of the editors who prepared the proposal
There, a poll was conducted that attempted to evaluate the levels of community support for various proposals seeking to create a method by which the community at large (as opposed to Arbitration Committee) could pass comment on the actions of and if necessary remove the tools from, existing Administrators.
The main conclusions of this poll were as follows:
The status quo, (i.e. no such process being available) whilst garnering some support, was very unpopular. 77% of respondents did not support its continuation.
Only one proposal achieved a greater degree of support than opposition – "Wikipedia:Community de-adminship" (CDA) – which received a majority of 13, and the support of 65% of those who considered it. This proposed process was designed as a "mirror image" of the existing Wikipedia:Requests for adminship (RfA), and part of its appeal was evidently its familiarity.
The reasons for dissatisfaction with the status quo are complex and varied, but a view was regularly expressed that if the community at large has the authority to appoint administrators through the RfA process, then the community should also be able to remove their powers.
Some wording changes and clarifications as identified above (Section: Update from WT:CDADR). Few of these were controversial.
An increase in the nomination period from 3 days to 7 days.
More emphasis on pre-nomination attempts to resolve any disputes.
Most complex of all, a more specific statement about how the outcome shall be judged. Various options were considered and two specifics are identified as part of this RfC (see below).
In many cases the above discussions were a conflict between:
The desire to make the process simpler or easier to implement in order to avoid allowing those perceived as having abused their Administrative tools to continue without fear of sanction, and
The desire to avoid a system in which Administrators, who almost inevitably find themselves taking on potentially controversial tasks on the community's behalf, are discouraged from taking action for fear of reprisals via a Recall method that is too easy for aggrieved editors to make use of when they don't get their way.
The resulting changes to the Guide to Community de-adminship were a compromise between these two poles.
Caution: Imagining CDA as a 'reverse RFA' or mirror image of RfA is misleading and harmful.
The CDA proposal has been portrayed as a 'mirror image' or 'reverse' of the RfA process. This representation is potentially quite harmful, as it implies certain symmetries. While at the most simplistic level one could argue that the two processes are equal and opposite – one flips the switch on, one turns it off – in practice the circumstances surrounding each case are very different.
RfA is voluntary; CDA is compelled. An RfA starts at the time of an editor's choosing. A CDA is imposed by other editors, generally at a stressful time, and probably right after the admin was involved in a major conflict.
RfA generally begins with the presumption that a candidate is competent and ought to be promoted. CDA demands at least prima facie evidence for misconduct, misuse of tools, malice, or incompetence. CDA is inherently confrontational.
RfA begins with (at most) one or two nominators' support in the tally. CDA begins with the admin 10 votes in the hole, as all of the nominators can be expected to vote.
RfA is predominantly about an indvidual's contributions and efforts. CDAs will almost always arise from extensive interpersonal conflicts, and will often fit within a pattern of broader disputes among multiple parties.
RfA places virtually all of the evidence and discussion right on the RfA page. CDA hides the admin's statement and counter-evidence on the talk page, leaving only the nomination.
RfA is a frequent, everyday event. Standards are well-established, most candidates typically face the same sort of questions and examinations. Most participants (candidates and voters) in the RfA process know what to expect, and have extensive experience in it. CDA will be an exceptional occurrence. Neither parties nor voters will have much idea of what to expect, nor will there be an extensive history or archives to look back on.
The glib assumption that since the effect of the two processes mirror one another then the mechanics of the processes ought to mirror one another too does not stand up under scrutiny. It is a specious, even dangerous false analogy.
Proposal development was hampered by set-in-stone votes barring review of previous decisions.
While this proposal has nominally been under development since at least mid-November, in practice the process being voted on now is essentially identical to the proposal drafted by Uncle G on 5 October 2009: [1]. Despite the many issues raised below, any suggestion of substantial changes to the proposal have been rejected as the issue was 'already decided'. A series of rigidly-structured majority votes have been used to introduce minor tweaks (number of days for nomination, adjusted eligibility rules, suggested percentages for 'consensus' to reduce Bureaucrat discretion, etc.), but there has never been any question of – or opportunity to – modify the original process in light of subsequent discussion.
Kim Bruning recently offered perhaps the most insightful analogy; I will allow those words to speak for themselves: [2].
Policy proponents have not identified any specific situations where CDA would be useful, nor any metrics against which it should be evaluated.
The proposal's proponents have repeatedly rejected calls to describe any specific situations – past, present, or future – where they believe that CDA could be used to benefit the Wikipedia community. In their FAQ, they explain this reluctance on the basis that such discussions might lead to "abusive sidetracks". At some point, the community will find out how this proposal will be employed. I think it would be far better to be open about this before it becomes policy rather than after — and it isn't fair to ask Wikipedians to vote on this pig in a poke.
As recently as 2 February, Hammersoft was still trying to get the proposal's proponents to express clearly and straightforwardly what the purpose and goals of the process should be. He was asking how we should define success or failure of the process — what problems is it expected to solve? His request was briefly rebuffed, and ignored.
Issues of procedural fairness
By far my greatest concerns about this process turn on its gross unfairness to its participants — especially the administrator being examined. The proponents of the process have been very concerned about creating a process which is very rapid, which has a low barrier to entry, which sysops should find genuinely threatening, and which has a 'democratic' appearance. Unfortunately, the result is a process that does not contemplate an administrator who wants to defend his actions, situations where there is misconduct by multiple parties (particularly by the nominators), or any interest on the part of participants in examining the evidence or discussing the situation.
Accusers enjoy a privileged, protected position from which to attack.
The sole issue open for consideration in the CDA process is whether or not the subject admin is to be desysopped: yes or no. While the CDA proposal offers the vague acknowledgement that the nominees' conduct will also be subject to scrutiny, the plain fact is that this process only generates one actionable response to one specific yes/no question. Unlike all other dispute resolution procedures on Wikipedia (RfC, RfArb, AN/I, etc.), the only party who can face sanction as a direct outcome of CDA proceedings is the sysop.
An unjustly accused admin – or even a justly accused admin who is not solely to blame – has no directly parallel venue in which to address the conduct of his accusers. Taking nominators to AN/I during the course of the CDA is bound to provoke an inconclusive but destructive firestorm. Any other option (RfC/U, RfArb) which might allow the community to deal with nominators' misconduct will run much more slowly than CDA. An admin who survives CDA might then have relitigate the same issues at RfArb. An admin desysopped by CDA will be accused of seeking revenge if he attempts to address the nominators' misconduct. A CDA will muddy the waters and exhaust the community's interest in dealing with any non-admin portion of the dispute.
Canvassing is essential to ensure the participation of involved parties, but will unbalance the decision-making portion of this process.
This process operates on short timelines. The nomination window is a maximum of seven days long, and the voting period is a further seven days. In order for a nomination to be successful, editors who share concerns about a particular admin will need to be able to organize themselves to marshal their arguments and evidence. This will require coordination and requests for participation. Similarly, the admin under scrutiny should be able to invite the participation of other editors who may have insight into or experience with the dispute in order to present a thorough, balanced defence. Whether such coordination occurs on-wiki, by email, over IRC, or at Wikipedia Review, it will happen. Moreover, in the preparation of a complaint (and in the presentation of a response), broad solicitation of involved and interested perspectives and testimony will often be highly desirable. To allow the community to fairly judge an administrator's actions, we want to have access to as much relevant detail as possible.
Unfortunately, once all of these editors have become involved in the preparation of a nomination (or a rebuttal), there is no way to ask them all to return to blissful ignorance for the voting stage of the CDA. The first, and loudest, voters on CDA are almost certainly also going to be the most deeply-involved parties.
CDA voters are self-selected, not community-selected. Many voters will be partial and biased.
As a corollary to the above point, it should be noted that participation in the voting is not in any way limited beyond the bare 'usual' blanket editing restrictions barring socks and banned/blocked users. While this has occasionally been presented as making the process 'fair' or 'representative' or allowing for a 'jury of one's peers', in practice we must acknowledge that there will be three rough groups voting in any given CDA.
Nominators and friends. These individuals drive the nomination and/or have had run-ins with the admins in question. However good-faith the nomination was, this group will end up attracting every POV-pusher who ever received a 3RR block.
Admin and friends. This bloc contains all of the people who think the admin is overall doing a good job, who disapprove of railroading them through a CDA, plus all of the people who think that any of the editors in the first camp are disruptive, wikilawyering wastes of time.
Crusaders. This last category contains all of the self-appointed Guardians of the Faith. They have strong (and often negative) opinions about admins collectively and the concept of adminship, and they have found in CDA an opportunity to proclaim on their particular hot-button issues. This group will be the only one which watchlists the CDA page and actively tracks new cases; they will form their own somewhat isolated, somewhat insular community around CDA. Many of them will initially be drawn from the small group of editors who developed this proposal.
Far from being an impartial and independent jury, these three groups will each have their own goals and their own particular axes to grind. The number of fully neutral, uninvolved individuals who will be willing to take the time to find the CDA nomination, review all of the evidence in detail, engage in discussion where necessary to clarify any points of confusion, and then vote (with attendant risk of future abuse from the 'other' side) is vanishingly small — and unfortunately much smaller than the three camps I've identified.
Note that this stands in stark contrast to the process by which (for example) Arbitrators are chosen.
There's no place for the admin to defend himself on the CDA nomination page.
The CDA nomination form includes no place for an admin to offer a response or defense. It's just nomination, signatures, diffs of notifications, and 'evidence in support of the nomination', followed by votes.
In other words, it's easy to drop in, see the nomination, the list of accusations, the cherry-picked evidence, and vote — all without even an inkling that the admin might have had something to say on his own behalf.
Detailed discussion and evidence will be shuffled off to a talk page.
An extended statement from the nominators – and any statement of defense or presentation of counter-evidence – will be stored on the talk page. This arrangement discourages any close inspection or analysis of evidence. Many voters who show up may not even be aware that such discussion is going on. Separating the discussion from the voting page may give the superficial impression of a smoothly-running, uncontentious process, but it discourages the openness and transparency that should be the ultimate aim.
Voting begins before discussion of or challenges to the evidence.
CDA offers no requirement or guarantee that an admin facing this process will be allowed time to prepare and present a statement in his own defense. After the nomination is filed, there is no time allotted to discuss or examine evidence before the process jumps directly into voting.
In an attempt to produce a process which is conspicuously 'faster' than the existing alternatives, corners have been cut.
There is no opportunity for compromise solutions.
Editors may agree that there are problems with a particular admin's conduct, but feel that alternative approaches (short of, or different from, desysopping) could be more beneficial. This lack of nuance is harmful. It could be that Wikipedia would well-served by imposing a topic ban or an interaction ban to keep an admin out of a contentious area. Some manner of probation subject to future review may be equally effective. If the only binding outcome possible is desysopping, it puts the community in an awkward place — do we let the defendant go free, or do we send him to the gallows? Parole, probation, community service? Not on the table.
There are too many bites at the apple.
How many times does an admin need to face the axe? There is no provision to protect admins from double jeopardy. As noted above, a CDA started as part of a larger dispute may require the same issues to be litigated twice: once in CDA, again in a follow-up RfArb. Other parts of the proposal seem to suggest that CDA can be used to desysop after a failed attempt via RfArb.
This process cannot handle sensitive or confidential information effectively.
The usual venue for handing desysopping – ArbCom – has established protocols and procedures for handing sensitive information. Under the heading of 'sensitive' I would include information that is specifically governed by the Privacy Policy, along with emails between users, IRC logs, methods for detecting sockpuppets, etc.
At CDA, the vote marches on during the whole period of time that the admin is seeking permission from email authors, participants in IRC conversations, or checkusers to refer to sensitive or restricted-access information in his own defense. Should an admin describe in detail and in public the method used to identify a recurring sockpuppeteer, just to save his own neck?
The final accounting
The way in which CDA proposes to close its discussions is flawed and prone to failure.
The thresholds are wild-assed guesses.
In technical terms, the thresholds coded into this proposal are 'wild-ass guesses', based loosely on the thresholds that apply at RfA. Given that this is a novel process with no historical precedent on Wikipedia, it seems presumptuous to assume that similar numbers with a similar 'discretionary range' should apply here as at RfA. It also betrays something of a lack of trust in the ability of 'crats to determine what constitutes 'consensus'. Are the 'crats expected to determine if a consensus exists, or just to count votes and add a veneer of respectability to the process?
The decision has a single point of failure: one individual's judgement.
Ultimately the decision comes down to a single bureaucrat's call — yes or no, thumbs up or thumbs down. The 'crats seem to generally be good, competent people, but even good people have off days. With the exception of emergency desysoppings and the very arguable authority of Jimbo himself, we do not recognize the authority of any individual on Wikipedia to desysop. It always requires a formal, clear, final vote by the Arbitration Committee (even the emergency desysoppings are subject to ratification). This proposed process would place that ultimate authority and responsibility – for the first time – in the hands of a single bureaucrat.
I would be the first to acknowledge that members of the ArbCom are at times just as flawed, biased, sloppy, grumpy, petty and human as any other senior editors — including the 'crats. However, the requirement for deliberation and a majority vote of the ArbCom before their motions and remedies take effect means that their individual defects can (hopefully) cancel each other out. The lone 'crat in this proposal doesn't have the backstop of a committee sharing the responsibility or officially making the call. While the single Bureaucrat may engage in public or private consultion before rendering a decision, it's ultimately down to him. Moreover, the first avenue for appeal is also to that single 'crat — one editor (under tremendous pressure and intense scrutiny) is allowed to reverse a decision on his own.
The role of Bureaucrats
By far the most visible role of Bureaucrats on Wikipedia is in the evaluation of Requests for Adminship and the promotion (or not) of new admins. They have both the technical and policy means to grant the sysop bit within the framework of existing policy. What they cannot do - under policy and by deliberate design of the wiki software permissions - is remove the sysop bit once granted.
What this CDA proposal aims to do is grant bureaucrats a new power to enact desysopping decisions. This represents a substantial expansion and shift in their powers and responsibilities.
Bureaucrat selection did not contemplate this responsibility.
When editors have been granted the Bureaucrat rights on Wikipedia, it has generally been through an RfB process. This process has generally focused almost exclusively on whether or not the candidate can carry out the existing roles and responsibilities of a 'crat — largely on whether or not they will judge RfAs in accordance with the established traditions in that area.
Two current 'crats didn't even pass through RfB; they were selected as enwiki's original 'crats so that we would have a way to create admins. None of the current 'crats was ever questioned about his or her views on or potential role in deciding CDA cases. The community has not had a chance to examine them in that light, nor have we had an opportunity to endorse them (or not) to carry out such a responsibility.
Traditional 'crat roles do not involve dispute resolution, inter-editor conflicts, or significant 'weighing' of evidence.
For better or worse, the traditional role of the Bureaucrat has not' been to exercise his own judgement to any signficant extent. After subtracting off sockpuppets, the expected role of the 'crat is to count votes and declare a promotion where the fraction of support exceeds 70-75%. The post is largely ceremonial, rather like a constitutional monarch who on paper holds substantial reserve powers, but who principally rubber-stamps decisions made by raw voting.
In the vanishingly few cases where a bureaucrat has seen fit to pass a candidate with less than 70% support it has prompted an uproar. I know of no cases where a 'crat has failed an RfA candidate with 80% (or more) support. The community's expectations of our 'crats in evaluation of an RfA are generally that they will act as 'moist robots' and just count the votes. If an RfA falls into what is the only 'true' discretionary range of roughly 70 to 75%, the 'crat can close as 'no consensus to promote', or just toss a coin. The community doesn't compel detailed explanation, and the understanding is that a borderline candidate can edit heavily for a few months and then come back for his successful RfA.
Oddly enough, the current wording of this proposal (and a source of much wrangling voting during its development) implicitly seems to acknowledge a lack of faith in the 'crats judgement. This CDA proposal imposes specific numeric bounds above and below which Bureaucrats are emphatically discouraged from exercising their discretion. This hard-numbers approach persists despite the fact that no one yet knows what a single CDA discussion will look like, or what range of discretion might be appropriate (or peculiar) to this process.
Bureaucrats should not be required to review their own decisions.
As the members of the community who did make the final call on whether or not an RfA was successful (vote-counting based or not), the 'crats would be placed in an uncomfortable position by the CDA process. If the original promoting 'crat thought his original decision was good, he might engage in public or private lobbying of his fellow 'crats. If the original promoting 'crat felt that the original promotion was in error, his judgement would again risk carrying far more weight than it should.
The 'crats need to be able to work together and to provide a united front to the community; it helps to maintain our trust in their judgement and their ability to fairly close RfAs. CDA will be much more divisive and controversial than RfA. The proposed expansion of powers and responsibilities will encourage greater inter-bureaucrat conflict, and potentially damage the trust in (and reliability of) the RfA process.
Finally, we face the extremely unpleasant prospect of Bureaucrats called before the ArbCom to defend their decisions and participate in appeals. I can see no way that such an eventuality will benefit the project. If people are unhappy with the way CDAs are closed, are we going to have to develop a Community DeBureaucratship protocol?
Simpler approaches have not been tried
The proponents of CDA have spent a substantial amount of time and effort to construct this elaborate proposal, but we are still left with the serious flaws detailed above. More unfortunately, they have rejected any suggestion that their goals could be accomplished by different, simpler means. Indeed, I believe it is possible to achieve the goals of this process without any need to write new policy at all.
An RfC followed by ArbCom motion serves the same purpose, with greater flexibility and resistance to abuse.
This approach has been suggested by Jehochman, among others. It requires no new policy whatsoever.
In a user/admin RfC, one of the statements can simply be "Based on the evidence presented, I do not feel that JoeBlow should remain a Wikipedia admin. ArbCom should withdraw his adminship." or some variant. If this statement is heavily endorsed by the RfC participants, the matter can be presented to ArbCom at the close of the RfC. An RfC isn't on a fixed clock, so there is also the opportunity to suggest and consider alternative remedies. (Note that non-desysopping remedies may not need to be forwarded to ArbCom; they can be enacted after a suitable announcement and brief discussion at WP:AN.)
The RfC should present evidence of misconduct, an opportunity for the admin to respond, the chance for other parties to comment, and a clear statement that the community supports desysopping. If the ArbCom finds the evidence and statements persuasive, it may proceed by motion. The ArbCom can simply desysop, or can impose probation or restrictions it feels will resolve the problem(s) identified. The ArbCom will also be able to sanction other parties whose conduct has been brought up in the RfC, restoring a fundamental balance that is lacking in CDA.
Arbitrators were explicitly selected by the community to resolve these sorts of disputes. They are not self-selected, they are not bound by raw numbers recruited by canvassing, and they are required to recuse themselves where there may otherwise be a perception of bias. This process separates the involved parties from the decision to impose sanctions.
If the ArbCom feels that there are more complex issues that should be examined, they can open a full case. Much of the evidence-gathering and a great deal of discussion will be available from the RfC, so one hopes and expects that the remainder of the case (workshopping and closure) should be able to proceed briskly.
While some might argue that policy modification violates the 'no new policy required' standard, I offer this alternative as still being substantially more lightweight than a new full-on CDA bureaucracy and framework.
One of the major arguments raised in favor of CDA is the claim that ArbCom are reluctant to desysop admins who have not misused the tools. I do not believe this to be entirely correct, however it is certainly true that bright-line abuses of admin tools tend to lead to desysopping. Our administrator policy explictly lays out the standards of conduct we expect from Wikipedia administrators (Wikipedia:Administrators#Administrator conduct) and notes that consistent failure to meet those standards "may result in the removal of administrator status". If there is a concern that ArbCom are not applying that policy with sufficient enthusiasm, the community can propose changes to emphasize, endorse, enhance, or otherwise strengthen the admin conduct provisions of the policy.
Admins who consistently fail to meet the standards (new or existing, as the case may be) can and should be brought to the attention of ArbCom if other stages of dispute resolution fail to achieve improvement.
We have CDA already: The ArbCom just enacted a rapid, community-driven desysop request.
On 20 January, an issue was raised at AN/I regarding a history of misconduct by a Wikipedia administrator, Craigy144. [3] The misconduct did not seem to involve any use of administrator tools or privileges, however the brief AN/I discussion generally concluded that Cragy144 should not retain his sysop bit. The matter was transferred the same day to ArbCom. The ArbCom declined a full case, opting instead to handle the situation by open motion. After allowing a week for Craigy144 to offer a response or explanation for his conduct, a summary motion was filed on 28 January. The motion passed with unanimous approval on 30 January: [4].
It seems that in situations where an administrator falls seriously short of community standards – even without misusing his admin buttons – and fails to respond to constructive criticism or take steps to remedy his misconduct, the ArbCom is ready, willing, and able to desysop. From filing to desysop was less than two weeks — this process actually ran faster than a CDA would have. The onus is on the community, however, to be clear about what its standards are, and what it considers to be a desysop-worthy problem.
In summary
For this long list of reasons, I find that the proposed process and structure are unfair and untenable, and unlikely to benefit Wikipedia. Virtually all of these points were brought up during discussions about the CDA process, but no resolutions were forthcoming. I must therefore oppose this proposal. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:13, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to try to refrain from making a habit of disputing every criticism raised, but I do feel compelled to point out one thing. In the second part of the first group, the issue is raised of the conduct of one editor. That editor does not speak for the other editors who support this proposal (as neither do I) and in fact is now an opponent of it. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:23, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I actually was in the process of amending that out when I saw your comment here. I don't think that this process should be accepted or rejected based on the (mis)behaviour of one individual. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:34, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for that. If, as the RfC goes along, editors would like for me or other supporters to respond to any of the other points you have raised, I'll be happy to give it a try, but I figure it would be premature and maybe kind of badgering for me to do that now. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:37, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for preparing this material. I think there is a lot of meat here: first, with regard to the diminished fairness of this process versus the existing. Second, with regard to the manner in which this proposal, while attempting to derive authority by styling itself as an offshoot or modification of an existing process, actually has little to no relation to any currently existing process; its closest forebear is probably the dramatically failed Wikipedia:Quickpolls. It's quite unpredictable how this will act in practice and the proponents have consistently refused to engage with any attempt to explore this issue. Christopher Parham(talk)20:25, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia, like iMDB, over-analyzes and edits contributions. Who are they trying to protect? The official argument is that nothing should be on Wiki that you wouldn't find in an encyclopedia. How absurd. The site is already loaded with tons of entries not in Funk & Wagnals. Besides, if you just want a clone of a printed encyclopedia, go to Encyclopedia Britainica online. The whole point of Wikipedia is to include the rarer entries popular culture is looking for but WON'T find in Funk & Wagnals. Much ado about nothing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Greatlakescinema (talk • contribs) 20:51, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Although earlier versions of this proposal were written as "reverse RfAs", the actual proposal presented here has moved beyond that glib oversimplification. Please read what the proposal actually says. Anyone can start an RfA, but the barriers to getting a CDA certified are considerable. However, the fact remains that the community that confers RfA ought to be able to make use of CDA.
Was the process of working up the proposal a mess? No argument from me. I was involved in it from beginning to end, and it often felt like root canal! The claims that there were never opportunities to modify the proposal are, however, utter nonsense; indeed, the opportunities probably went on for too long. I've read the quoted analogy many times, and I still do not get the point of it.
Please read the FAQ, number 11, for why we have refrained from "naming names" of administrators who might be subject to this process. The proposal calls for an automatic review after one year or five nominations, and the community can evaluate it by whatever criteria the community wishes.
Issues of procedural fairness
Many of the points raised are stated melodramatically, but do not hold up under scrutiny. The wording in the proposal about scrutiny of those who start the CDA is actually quite strong. The actual policy allows for a deliberate and thoughtful discussion of the case, with plenty of opportunity for the accused administrator and defenders to present a detailed rebuttal and have it considered before the polling is closed.
Read the proposal. The accused administrator has plenty of leeway to "canvass" help from those with exonerating evidence.
Despite the claims made, any certified CDA will be well-publicized and will be able to draw a representative portion of the community. There is every reason to expect that editors will come to the defense of a good administrator unjustly accused. Just look at the responses here at this RfC!
The accused administrator does indeed have the opportunity to present a defense. There is an entire section of the page for that purpose.
The proposal requires discussion on the poll page, while the associated talk page is for peripheral matters. In fact, per !votes and !votes without explanation are to be discounted.
Not enough time for the administrator to respond? Seven days before the CDA can be certified, and at least seven days before the polling is closed (unless a snow close for "acquittal").
No opportunity for compromise solutions? Nonsense. One can !vote against removal of administrative rights, and comment on milder alternatives.
As for bites at the apple, read what the proposal actually says about multiple nominations against the same administrator for the same reasons.
Sensitive, confidential information sometimes comes into play at RfA too. It has been handled there by a trusted person (often a Bureaucrat) reviewing the matter independently and reporting the nature of the situation to the page, without breaching privacy.
The final accounting
Those "wild-assed" thresholds went through more hand-wringing discussion than, I don't know what. If they prove to need tweaking, that will become apparent through experience, but is it really that difficult for a Bureaucrat to determine consensus here? If, after discounting all the per !votes and out-of-policy statements and ineligible comments and so on and on, there are 70% or 80% of the community saying they have lost trust in the administrator, is it really such a hard call?
If one Bureaucrat is unsure of the decision, they can consult others or extend the poll period, and there are mechanisms for appeal.
The role of Bureaucrats
Yes, this would represent an additional role for them. Are they really not up to it? Are they really more fallibly human than Arbitrators?
Simpler approaches have not been tried
This proposal would not do away with RfC/U or ArbCom. It gives the community an alternative. In developing this proposal, many editors looked at many alternative methods, and they all have shortcomings. It's easy to say there is some better way, but what is it, and what would it look like after scrutiny like that here?
This proposal is, in many ways, an alternative to making RfA more difficult. Do we really want to make RfA more difficult? The existence of CDA should actually be a sort of stress-release for RfA, in that a positive RfA decision would not be irrevocable.
There's an interesting chicken-and-egg phenomenon. I agree that the community as a whole is evolving towards higher standards of expectation, and both this proposal and recent trends at ArbCom reflect that evolution of standards. Perhaps the knowledge that this proposal was being developed was present in Arbitrators' minds; I don't know. Perhaps the very existence of CDA would make the few problematic administrators behave better and obviate the need for formal actions. It's hard to tell.
In summary
If you haven't already, please read the proposal itself. I think you will see that it is much better thought out than the critics portray it as. And please read the FAQ, as well as the excellent essay Wikipedia:WikiProject Administrator/Five Problems with a Single Solution. It is only fair that the community be able to withdraw its trust, once given. The procedures in this proposal actually make it very difficult to apply CDA frivolously. It will be an improvement over the status quo. --Tryptofish (talk) 06:41, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I hope that readers of the 'Five Problems' essay also look at its talk page, where I (and another editor) raised clear concerns about 'The Fix' described: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Administrator/Five Problems with a Single Solution. I will avoid a point-by-point counter-rebuttal of Tryptofish in this space, as I feel that readers of this page can compare my comments with his glib dismissals to reach their own conclusions.
I will raise one factual point, however. Regardless of what Tryptofish states above, the sample CDA page (Wikipedia:Community de-adminship/Example) does not now include – and to my knowledge has never included – any space in which the accused admin can offer a statement in his own defense. The proposed policy is equally silent on this point. Whether this oversight is deliberate or accidental, the statement that "[t]here is an entire section of the page for that purpose" is flatly untrue. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:07, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Then please let me clarify. The section to which I referred was the "oppose" section. Now, that said, perhaps you raise a good point, that the Example page should be modified to have a section specifically for the nominated administrator's rebuttal. That would be very easy to add with a simple edit, and is hardly a convincing reason, by itself, to oppose the proposal. And please do not insinuate about "oversight is deliberate". --Tryptofish (talk) 16:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That you believe (or believed until now) that it is appropriate and sufficient for the sole response from the admin on the CDA page to sit jumbled in with the 'Oppose' votes is telling. In any event, being permitted to make a few brief comments in a numbered list of votes is not the same thing as having "an entire section of the page".
When I suggested that the oversight was deliberate, I didn't mean that you were wilfully misstating the content of the proposal. I did mean that leaving out any dedicated space for an admin to respond to the charges might have been a conscious choice to further grease the wheels of a desysopping. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:18, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In my opinion, both would be extremely helpful: a) to include a prominent space in which the accused admin can offer a defensive statement(s) and b) to enhance the proposed policy to clearly articulate this point. I'd even go so far as to require the accused administrator to make such a statement, however succinct or not so.Duff (talk) 21:28, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Duff, as discussion here continues, I'm increasing convinced that you are correct. That's the kind of thing Ohm's Law was asking in #Intentions, below. (As for Hammersoft's point about not requiring, I would think that a non-response would be considered as such by the community.) --Tryptofish (talk) 21:50, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
To me, it does seem reasonable to REQUIRE an admin to respond to such a process (should this RfC result in one), once a nomination for CDA has certified and the CDA candidate is under consideration, if they want to keep their buttons. Of course you can't FORCE anyone to respond, volunteer or otherwise. Too, there might arise some now-unforeseen situations wherein the interests of the CDA-nominated admin or of the project are seen as best served by offering no defense. If so, a brief statement to that effect could be required of the admin and any such situations could perhaps be evaluated in context, as they emerged.--Duff (talk) 00:39, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
One issue related to that point, that came up in earlier discussions, is whether an administrator could game the system by choosing not to offer a defense, and then claim that they didn't know the CDA was taking place until it was too late. At the time, the decision of editors discussing the issue was to not require a response, and to trust the closing Bureaucrat to know the difference, with appeal possible in the unlikely event that the administrator really was on a break. (After all, there's a difference between a pre-announced wikibreak during which the administrator has had no user contributions since before the nominations began, and a simple absence of a defense during a period when other edits occurred.) --Tryptofish (talk) 17:35, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Expression of concern
I want to note that an editor who opposes this proposal has been repeatedly altering the FAQ page. I consider this to be inappropriate, and I am sure that, for example, TenOfAllTrades would not have liked it if supporters were to have altered his comments here. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:30, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My ears are burning. Why invoke my name here? Matt Lewis isn't my pet, and his actions are not my responsibility. (Indeed, he's been abusive and threatening towards me for months – with your tacit encouragement, Tryptofish – so I'm not even in a position to intervene effectively with him.) Perhaps you should file a request for page protection or use one of the other avenues of dispute resolution open to you? I would suggest to Matt that if there are points he wishes to make, that he can make them on this page under his own name — as everyone else is doing. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:00, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, he certainly isn't my pet either, so please don't say that stuff implying my complicity. Your concluding point, that he should make his points here like everyone else, is my point as well. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:03, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Your OTT anger has just never let-up TenofAlltrades - it is constant unrelenting furious anger, and has really got me down at points. You are so bad that if we got this crazy CDA, if you are ever even remotely like this elsewhere on Wikipedia, someone somewhere is sure to start one on you. You have just not stopped your negative condescending and quite bitter comments! So I react badly at times - what in God's name do you expect someone to do? You are the people who made me realise CDA cannot work - not by your aguments, but because you are an admin who behaves like a child. Admin like you at a CDA would be a nightmare. I'm the only person working on CDA who's really listened to and addressed your concerns, and I notice some of my arguments in your above leading sections on CDA too, so I can't be all that bad can I? Matt Lewis (talk) 20:43, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's what I think too. The change was the addition of arguments against the proposal, which would be entirely appropriate here, but not there. I'll wait a bit longer for other editors to comment, and if there are no objections, I'd like to change it back. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:15, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
About a month ago now, I included much-needed a "What are the Criticisms of CDA?" section into the 'FAQ' page (a page I never supported btw, even when I supported CDA). Tryptofish removed it, and suggested that it was playing into the opponents hands. I said I would replace it before this RfC (often when TenofAllTrades criticised the FAQ's bias, as he did on occasion) but I always said I would concentrate on the proposal first, and all the outstanding issues like the canvassing problems. No one can deny that I've not been working solidly on that, before finally realising that CDA cannot work.
The RfC started without any notice at all (hmm), so I didn't get a chance to put the Criticism section back in beforehand. So I've put back it in now (with a couple of points added). I can't see any problems myself - it doesn't criticise the faults of the proposal, only the criticism that have been raised over CDA as an idea. Tryptofish always knew my intentions for sure - I reminded him in several places over the past month. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Matt Lewis (talk • contribs) 20:45, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Seeing as we are now discussing this here - I'm relatively happy with the solution of open-archiving the 8. Q. What have been the criticisms of CDA as an idea (ie the non-technical criticisms)?) section, as I did support CDA when I contributed to the other parts (and to this one originally, but I won't qibble). What if people have issues with it though? They can put them to Talk I guess - I'll add that to the archive, and you can delete my counter-note at the top of the page (along with your own note of course). I wish we could come to these solutions without all the drama in between. Matt Lewis (talk) 20:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The "ombox"
Something else: looking back over the edit history, I find that this edit [5] was made to this page by another editor who opposes the proposal, seemingly as a prank. This kind of thing is very disappointing. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:01, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Prank? If placed by an opposing editor, it seems a bit beyond that. Messing with a high profile RfC in that manner should be looked into further. Jusdafax20:58, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You still haven't caught the greater irony yet though Tryptofish: it is the behaviour of these wayward admin (CDA is a magnet for them) that will render CDA useless. There are too many loose cannons with little respect for policy (not evil, just loose), and there is no appetite on Wikipedia to call them up on anything but the most serious crimes. They cannot be dealt with by Canvassing rules, or anything really. There is no way the Crats wll want to deal with their behaviour at something as public and important as a CDA. This RfC could poll 70% in support and I still couldn't see them taking up something so potentially damaging to Wikipedia. Not when we have RfC/u/arb too.
I think that this RfC is already a success in terms of the vote. Enough serious Wikipedians have turned up to vote upon a reasonably professional – if very imperfect - proposal (only just mind – it was inches from being not good enough). That means the Admin Recall process that has gathered momentum since last year cannot be fully debunked (despite some attempts, it has clearly survived ridicule), and thus momentum will not be lost for future developments after this RfC is over.
This CDA proposal will prove that enough people seriously want change, and it is becoming clear that the most sensible place for change is where it all begins, at RfA. Instead of 'patching up' the crazy award of unlimited-term Adminship with forms of 'admin recall' like CDA, we should deal with the “job for life” directly (and look at admin review processes too), and then look again at admin recall at a more sensible time in the future. We may find then that the current RfC/u arbcom suffices. I think this RfC will be a crucial step towards moving to the heart of the problem: RfA and what it provides.
Thanks Matt. I don't agree with everything you said, but I agree with quite a bit of it. Anyway, my own immediate concern is to draw attention to what that one administrator, an individual and not a representative of any group, did, especially if any users who came here during the few hours that the "ombox" was visible were influenced by it, and might want to understand it better. It had the unfortunate (and, I think, mean-spirited) effect of making it look like supporters of the proposal are illiterate and unintelligent. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:17, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have asked opposing admin 'harej' for an explanation here ('Oppose #21, below) and on their talk page. Jusdafax 06:25, 25 February 2010 (UTC) UPDATE: I find myself unsatisfied with harej's interesting attempt to explain this on their talk page, and have asked that the discussion be moved here. I'm afraid I'm at my limit of 'Assume good faith', and request other eyes on this. Jusdafax23:01, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've commented there (User talk:harej). Not to paint all administrators with a single brush, but maybe some opposers might want to be more circumspect about calling the community as a whole a "mob" or such. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:20, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Would Harej's addition have been a source of complaint if the English had been without reproach? Also, why do you assume that the error would be attributed to the proponents? I would image that many people come to this page to vote assuming the page was set up by neutrals.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:42, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's rather obvious if one reads the diff at the top of this thread. I trust that interested editors will read it and assess for yourselves. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:51, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I did read it, thanks. Does Harej have a history of opposition to this proposal? Is there some reason for assuming bad faith on his part? Frankly, if it was an intentional attempt to nail you, it was pretty pathetic. I'm not buying it. Are you trying to be perceived as victims, is that how it is?--Wehwalt (talk) 23:56, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I said history of opposition, he's allowed to vote as are we all. I would note that had he excluded the word "such", it would be perfectly proper English. The advice is good in any case, people should read the page. So you didn't answer my question, was there a history of opposition on his part? Some basis for bad faith. Personally, I have my senior moments. Doesn't mean I'm out to get people.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:25, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't keep track of every editor's history. I'm unaware of a history of opposition and I'm unaware of a history of incivility. I'm aware of [6] followed directly by [7], and now [8]. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:40, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I appreciate it. Look, this is a tough time, and this proposal will most likely fail, but it isn't personal and please don't regard it that way. I don't think Harej was out to get you here. I don't know him, we've had no interaction on WP that I know of and I'm not from the "thin blue line" school of adminship. His statement on his talk page was unfortunate, I will grant you. But if he was trying to torpedo the proposal he chose such a silly and unlikely means of accomplishing it (how long would the ombox stay there) that I'm not buying it. You are entitled to your own views of course, but I don't see hostile intent.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:46, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, thank you too. I do understand that. But there were comments at the time that the ombox was confusing users coming to this page. Users said that. I think it created a misleading appearance. Whether it influenced any !votes, I don't know. Whether this discussion is going to influence any !votes, I don't know. I just think it should be in the open. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:51, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK. Given that harej's talkpage comment re: this 'ombox issue' gives the 'f.u.' finger to me and wikipedia as a whole, which Wehwalt at least now acknowledges to be "unfortunate", I'm curious...
...what it would take to even give this admin 'harej a slap on the wrist, much less meaningful corrective action?
Indeed, is there even one admin reading this who sees the need to at least tell admin harej that this behaviour is, at best, unacceptable at any time but especially in a high-profile RfC that is regard to taking the buttons away from abusive admins?
And is the deep irony lost on admins that we have a concrete example, right here in this RfC of an abusive admin that this Cda, as awkward as it is, would allow the community to correct regarding harej's type of cavalier disregard of basic civility in the relationship between admin and non-admin?
Further, if Cda was in place as a mechanism, would this type of abuse not be curbed by the mere fact of Cda existing?
I suggest to the entire Wikipedia administrator community that these questions be pondered honestly, even as your ranks turn out to !vote down even this very modest attempt at community reform, which does not even require close to a majority vote to keep the admin buttons. Does not even one admin !voting against this feel a twinge of shame at this time? And don't you think the whole affair hardly reflects well on the admin community?
And to make myself clear: most admins are good people. It is the few, but clearly existing bad apples that are why this RfC is being held. Thanks for your consideration, Jusdafax01:33, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Have you attempted any other steps of dispute resolution? I don't see anything in your contributions to suggest that you have made any good-faith efforts to resolve the problem (snarky comments [9] on Harej's talk page don't count). In other words — you haven't demonstrated that we need CDA (or any variant thereof) if you haven't been able to show that a genuine and honest effort to use existing processes won't work. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:58, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I think that they've dramatically shown us why we should not pass this proposal. I have no doubt that were the option available, Jusdafax and Tryptofish would be trying to attract eight others to a torchlight procession, even without Harej's dropping the f-bomb on his talk page, because of a hideous assumption of bad faith on their part. Not good.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:46, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You just said that this was an instance of an abusive admin that CDA would allow the community to correct - it seems a fair presumption that you'd be attempting to initiate one. Christopher Parham(talk)14:39, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wehwalt: some olive branch! "Tryptofish would be trying to attract eight others to a torchlight procession"? I'm letting Jusdafax speak for himself and only speaking for myself here, but that is an immense leap of speculation as to what goes on in my mind. I have long insisted during the development of this proposal that it specify rigorous requirements of prior attempts to work things out with the administrator before any CDA nomination would even be contemplated. In no way would what has happened here justify a CDA that I could support. If, hypothetically, Jusdafax and eight other users were to nominate harej for a CDA based solely upon what I am aware of here, I would end up !voting to oppose that CDA. But Wehwalt, your efforts to impugn my integrity because I have drawn attention to things that I think are not playing fair in this RfC tend to confirm the worst fears of some of the supporters of this proposal, that there are a few administrators who will do anything to close ranks and attack anyone who questions one of their own. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:16, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is what it is, the fact that one uninvolved editor has joined in to agree at least as far as Jusdafax is concerned speaks volumes. You've done little to establish a separate position from Jusdafax (other than post hoc rationalizations) and your characterization of what certainly aren't as "attacks" brings to mind the image of a soccer player who is quite willing to dish it out, but if he's touched, he's rolling on the ground in apparent agony, hoping the ref will reach into his pocket and bring out a card. Harej could have been an nonadmin, he happens to be an admin. As I've said I don't know him. I'd still feel that your response to him was unfair and unwarranted. Good luck finding a history of me supporting a "thin blue line", I call them as I see them, and I've paid for doing that from time to time. Best,--Wehwalt (talk) 14:57, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So you think that an uninvolved editor speaking specifically to Jusdafax, and not to me, speaks volumes about me? It appears that you are not interested in modifying your description of me as leading a torchlight procession, even in the face of what I said about how I would oppose the use of CDA in such an instance. I think what I've actually said, as opposed to words you try to place in my mouth, is clearly, to an objective observer, very fair. And an objective observer can also judge the "ombox" that concerned me. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:47, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Observations re Casliber's comment
(In relation to oppose 34)
Why is the community is reluctant to make such requests [desysops — Coren] to ArbCom? I think it's an interesting observation, and I'd like to understand it better. --Tryptofish(talk) 23:23, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If I were to venture a guess, I would say that ArbCom's traditional willingness to look at the behavior of all parties when a case request is filed is probably a significant factor (since the filing parties are often involved in a direct personal dispute with the admin in question). When the matter is brought by uninvolved members of the community, ArbCom is much more likely to handle the matter by summary motion instead — especially if the facts themselves are not disputed — but that's a fairly recent development in the procedure and the community is only recently warming up to it. — Coren(talk)01:30, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is very interesting to me, and I'd like to pursue it further. Please understand that I'm not finding fault with ArbCom in any of this, but rather, exploring what I think may be good ideas to come out of this poll. If I understand Casliber correctly, he is talking about situations where there might have been good and valid reasons to bring the administrator in question before ArbCom, and, thus, ArbCom would have been quite happy to act. In contrast, I think Coren is talking about situations where the accusers are either misguided or have an ulterior agenda. I agree, and I think pretty much everyone would agree, with Coren that those are cases where the problem lies with the accusers and not the accused. ArbCom is right to look at that. But Casliber's point seems to be about editors who have acted in good faith and who have legitimate concerns, and yet who seem, somehow, to feel inhibited from approaching ArbCom even if ArbCom would have welcomed that approach. I've taught college courses long enough to know that, when something like that happens, there's a problem with mixed signals. Rather than just blaming this on the community, is this a signal of somewhere that ArbCom could do something better? --Tryptofish (talk) 19:34, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's a matter of perception. Editors, rightly or undeservedly, felt that bringing any admin behavior to ArbCom would result in an extended ordeal that could very well end up having them sanctioned. Because there were basically no mechanisms for a swift resolution without a protracted "full" arbitration case until fairly recently, that perception ended up being accurate enough to discourage filing — even if it was from an editor acting entirely in good faith.
That, and the common misperception that admins are untouchable in practice because of cabals or cliques, probably did more to protect ill-behaved administrator than any genuine reluctance from the Committee to take the bit away. — Coren(talk)01:06, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Coren sums it up well - I was going to post something along those lines above. Before I joined the arbitration committee, my impression was that there was a reluctance to review admin conduct (looking back this may have in fact been as much about editor reluctance to notify arbcom as well...). Since then, I have tried to remind the community at large just about as often as I could that the arbitration committee is available to review admin conduct - mainly with the hope that there would be greater fluidity at RfA. My gut feeling is that a few (but not many) editors (based on the greenness of experience and what they bring to RfA) are being given a chance with the mop that might not have been two years ago, but I could be completely wrong about this. Anyway, I have seen large numbers of complaints about admin conduct about where no further action has taken place. Hence I can only surmise this is where the breakdown is occurring. I also believe that the existence of community deadminship will not result in RfA being any easier. Before I joined arbcom, I told all and sundry I'd continue writing articles and participating in community activities - I hate the idea of the committee as shadowy figures who do little else but arbitrate. I get the impression that many of the committee are more visible now (though my lack of involvement in these matters before late 2008 may colour my view....) Casliber (talk·contribs) 01:26, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
One of the best points made by Ten is that this proposal basically gives you a free shot at an admin. If he escapes you are no worse of and can try it again at your convenience. If you take an admin to ArbCom, you are going to find yourself under a microscope as well as him. Note also the disadvantages in responding by the admin that have been pointed out in this proposal. They don't apply in an ArbCom case. --Wehwalt (talk) 01:49, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wehwalt, I don't buy the argument that a bad-faith nomination at CDA lets the nominators off scott-free. They would be putting themselves in a very public place, and there would be plenty of opportunity for the administrator's defenders to bring them to the appropriate noticeboard. As I read the oppose comments, it actually occurs to me that bad-faith nominators might end up revealing themselves as the trolls or whatever they are, once and for all, if they make the mistake of starting a bad CDA. In fact, you are (unintentionally) underscoring the kind of misperception that Casliber is trying to correct, I think.
Anyway, thank you Casliber and Coren for your insights here. I continue to find this very helpful to discuss. I want to explore this further. For now, let me please ask this: In the second part of my support !vote number 1, just below, I raise the issue of non-"bright-line" misbehavior. Do you feel that ArbCom is becoming able to work with cases like that? --Tryptofish (talk) 02:02, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It would be called "revenge" "escalation" and "battlefield mentality" if the admin's friends sought to brink the noms to account elsewhere.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:12, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, is arbcom able to judge on 'non-brightline' cases? Yes I believe so and I'd say that to me it seemed easier to review and desysop an admin than ban an editor for a significant hsitory of -just-under-the-radar behaviour. In fact, many cases involve examining repeated behaviour over time and judging or grading sanctions often involves looking at past conduct, both before and after warnings etc. in some detail. I can think of several cases rightaway where former conduct has been considered. I'd rather not dredge up specifics here, but I invite folks to review past arbcom cases where an editor may have several findings of fact and often quite a detailed discussion of remedies and alternatives. There is nothing to say that this level of discussion cannot take place in hte process of summarily voting a motion, or alternatively a well-circumscribed case which is a review of admin tools. Casliber (talk·contribs) 02:52, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is proving to be a very productive line of discussion. (And, of course, I agree, no reason to name names.) So, if it's the case that ArbCom is prepared to deal with non-"bright-line" administrator cases, and, in cases where it is appropriate based on the facts, to remove the sysop tools—to say, in effect, that the individual no longer has the confidence of the community—why then does there seem to be a discrepancy between what ArbCom members (or at least the two members, present or past, in this talk thread) perceive as the situation, and what so many of the community perceive? Why have editors who have had good reason to come to ArbCom decided that they should not, out of fear of scrutiny, when that fear is, apparently, unjustified (for that is what Casliber says he has observed)? I can understand why editors with bad-faith motives would, properly, be dissuaded by scrutiny, but why those with good faith? Is there something about the ways that ArbCom does things, or something about the way it communicates to the community, that could explain that? --Tryptofish (talk) 19:09, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The road to Arbcom is such a long and tortuous one, all the "have you tried other steps in dspute resolution" - it really is unrealistic to ask editors to jump through so many hoops to put a case in front of an overworked and inefficiently managed body such as Arbcom. DuncanHill (talk) 23:14, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've only skimmed through this, but it hits a note with me right now because for the first time ever I feel somewhat interested in actually bringing something up at arbcom. It's really unclear to me how to do so however, or whether or not it would be acceptable/appropriate/useful to do so. There is so much "think about it before filing" stuff in the arbcom instructions that I'm sort of scared to bring the subject up (that and the fact that I'm certain that I'll personally be attacked by the person in question, along with their friends...) — V = IR(Talk • Contribs)23:21, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is achieving a balance between "easy to file" and "orderly process" without encouraging vexatious litigation every time an admin does something one merely disagrees with.
The truth of the matter is that an admin who does things right will unfailingly accumulate opponents over time who have felt slighted by proper decision (or at least defensible decisions) that went the "wrong" way from their perspective. This is why while I agree in principle with a community-driven process to reexamine adminship, I doubt it is even possible to create one that does not open a door to simple vindictiveness and retribution.
Let's face a simple fact: many of the people who anxiously await a process like CDA do so with specific admins in mind they want to get rid of because they, at some time in the past, have ruled one way or another against them. Whether they are honestly convinced that having disagreed with their position is proof of malice or incompetence is irrelevant; as long as a process exist where a minuscule minority of "the community" gets to self-select as prosecutors, that process will be abused for POV pushing, vendettas and retribution. As someone wiser and more experienced than me once said, "When someone screams about 'admin abuse', it's most likely true – they're probably abusing admins again." — Coren(talk)15:03, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"...many of the people who anxiously await a process like CDA do so with specific admins in mind they want to get rid of because they, at some time in the past, have ruled one way or another against them..." - really ? Perhaps you have some evidence to back up this blatant stereotyping of the motivations of the supporters of this proposal ? Gandalf61 (talk) 15:16, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Of course I do; it would be difficult to be a sitting member of ArbCom and not be painfully aware of many of the long-lasting vendettas and persistent disputes simmering (or boiling over) in many places. If you expect me to point fingers or name names, however, you do so in vain. Not only would it be very much inappropriate to do so, it is also entirely besides the point: whoever they may be does not bear upon this discussion in the least — the fact that any self-selected minuscule fraction of editors gets to say what "the community" thinks of an admin and decide whether to punish them in its name is. — Coren(talk)15:35, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No need to name any names. Just tell us many of the 100+ editors who have voted in support of this proposal below want to "get rid of" specific admins. As you say it is a "simple fact" then presumably you must have a good idea of the figure. Is it 50% ? 75% ? 90% ? Gandalf61 (talk) 15:51, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can see six on a quick skim. I doubt it's more than 10% all told, certainly. Many also did not comment either way here — but would nevertheless be available to quickly raises the torches and pitchforks should this (or a similar process) come to pass. — Coren(talk)15:55, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"A process exists where a minuscule minority of "the community" gets to self-select" - isn't that true of RfAd? Any process on wikipedia will be subject to a degree of self-selection, and a minuscule minority were involved in electing Arbs, a minuscule minority participate at AN and ANI, or in RfCUs. To say that a process should not be followed because not enough people would use it invalidates all our procedures. DuncanHill (talk) 15:49, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
To a point. That's actually a fair observation in general and part of the fundamental governance problem on Wikipedia. The difference with arbitrators, at least, is that they are not self-selected and are very diverse. Certainly, no group of arbs were ever convened because they had a conflict against a specific editor which — by definition — the people starting and certifying this process would be. — Coren(talk)15:55, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think a part of that general problem is that processes are so complicated and off-putting - I had an email discussion with an Arb not long ago in which he agreed that for a particular problem I had in mind, there was no process at all that could be used, because the small-print of those he initially suggested either forbad it or made the process prohibitively restrictive and time-consuming. Processes that were simpler would attract more editors. Unfortunately, processes that are simpler to use and would attract wider participation repel those who fear flaming pitch-forks and the like. DuncanHill (talk) 16:10, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Coren. I can easily understand where this sort of slanted viewpoint comes from, but you've got to admit that it's a very jaded view which is easily attributable to your own experiences. I don't dismiss that view at all myself, but we tend to deal with the problems of individuals seeking "vengeance" fairly regularly and fairly well (on the whole) on a regular basis already, within processes such as RFC/U and RfA, within Arbcom itself, and even through noticeboards such as AN/I. People are pretty good at recognizing such motivations, largely through personal experiences I suspect, which is why I don't really give that concern much weight. This issue was addressed by the proposal, where it seems to have been decided that Bureaucrats would make decisions on all final outcomes. I've personally thought for while that the mechanisms to handle closing were over-processed and over-wrought, which is what the delay in bringing this to RfA can largely be attributed too I think. Would yourself and others feel more comfortable if this were, for example, simply a step in the path to Arbcom de-admining people based on summary motions? (ie.: placed Arbcom in the oversight role of the process) — V = IR(Talk • Contribs)05:01, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That would satisfy me completely. As I (and other arbs) have stated previously, we would be glad to have a process that is more lightweight than an arbitration request where the community can examine the behavior of admins. At its conclusion, the committee can then either rubberstamp the result (if it is clear either way) or possibly remand to an arbitration case if evidence is in dispute or turns out to be too complicated for a simple yes/no vote.
I'd still have some concerns about the exact procedural details of this proposal (I would suggest, perhaps, that the editors necessary to certify the dispute not count in the vote/poll, for instance); but those concerns are workable and are no longer show stoppers in my mind. — Coren(talk)14:38, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Rockpocket suggested that also, in the "neutral" section, about nominators not voting. I think that is one of a number of good ideas coming out of this RfC. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:50, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
How would such a process differ from the one that I outlined in my objection above — community consensus established through RfC, followed by a request for ArbCom motion (or case, if the issue is sufficiently complex)? Why do we need new policy to accomplish this? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:08, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
By being more focused, mostly. RFC tend to be difficult to sit down and evaluate because of the multiplicity of views; especially in controversial or contentious cases. Note that an RfC would do, and probably suffice in a pinch, but I can see why people feel it's a much less than ideal forum. — Coren(talk)17:12, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Intentions
Looking ahead slightly, I'd be curious to hear from some people in the oppose camp on what to change to make this more palatable. I'm perfectly willing to admit that I have a somewhat partisan view here, having tossed my hat in the ring on the "Support" side fairly early, but it seems clear to me that a significant portion of the the opposition here is to the current proposal, not the idea itself. I notice that someone has already forked one potential component of this into it's own proposal, but I happen to think that it would be best to keep working on this until most people find it acceptable. Part of the reason that I urged that this RFC be started was to see this exact reaction, so that we could deal with it, so let's try turning the discussion to what changes are needed. — V = IR(Talk • Contribs)00:54, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with and appreciate that. I'd like to add something I also said somewhere lower on the page: if (and I said if) this RfC ends up supporting this proposal, the RfC closure procedure requires review by the Bureaucrats and Jimbo before any implementation might be effected. I would certainly think that issues of this sort would have to be worked out at that stage, and so the kinds of comments Ohms is inviting are exactly what would be helpful. As far as I'm concerned, this RfC is an attempt to make Wikipedia better, not a competition. One thing I think has been pretty clear is that the "example" page needs to have a dedicated space for the administrator's response. I'm pretty sure there are other things about whether the nominators !vote or not, the amount of time for the administrator to respond, and whether there should be appeals to ArbCom. Correct? What else? --Tryptofish (talk) 01:19, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I fear that asking "What should be the next proposal?" is jumping the gun just a bit. The assumption that the development of new processes is required has been left unexamined. As I note above (in #Simpler approaches have not been tried) we haven't generally been taking full advantage of the existing policy framework. The ArbCom has not demonstrated a reluctance to desysop (even rapidly, by motion) when presented with a clearly-enunciated request.
I don't believe it would be prudent to proceed with another three or four months of bickering proposal development without a clearer picture of what problem needs to be solved. What specific admin misconduct issues are there that the community cannot deal with now? How do we respond to those problems? At least some of the proponents have taken the view that CDA (or a variant thereof) is necessary purely to act as a threat which can be levelled at any admin. Recent events indicate why putting another arrow in the quiver purely for its own sake isn't a good idea — it discourages discussion and the use of less-formal routes to dispute resolution. It encourages parties to immediately escalate to the nuclear option – or at least, to the threat of it – and chokes off reasonable discourse. It's the opposite of the Wiki way. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:07, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Those questions were asked outright – clearly and explicitly – during the several months this proposal was under development. The proponents have openly and repeatedly refused to discuss any specific misconduct issues that this proposal (or one like it) might be aimed at resolving. The usual reason given (and this is in their FAQ) is that any discussion of specific cases would lead to 'abusive sidetracks' and distract from the discussion. Unfortunately, this approach ensures that the community never gets to see how or even if the process would be useful. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:21, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, there's some framing there. The proponents have refused to name the names of specific administrators for the reasons stated, certainly. But the proponents have not by any means failed to name the kinds of conduct for which CDA is designed. See, for example, my second comments under my Support #1 !vote below. Now, that said, Ten and others who agree with him have every right to choose not to answer Ohms' question. But there is still noting wrong with Ohms asking it. Perhaps some users who oppose the proposal in its present form would like to suggest revisions to it that they would support in the future. That's entirely constructive and reasonable, for those who might wish to do so. That's what makes this process an RfC, and not simply a poll. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:05, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There's a number of problems with the entire body of work that went into this. Just one of them is that the RfC was started without any clear statement as to what would constitute acceptance by the community. Are we going to rely on a poll to approve a process that is not poll based but consensus based? This isn't an RfC in any traditional sense. It's a poll, pure and simple. It started out that way and remains that way. There's not much in the way of discussion by the wider community, which is what this RfC should have generated. The blessing this RfC could have been was hamstrung from the beginning. What could have happened was an open discussion about the various aspects of the CdA proposal. For example; "Should a CdA start with ten opposers before certification?" (followed by discussion). From that sort of structure, you could have readily identified what the problem areas are in the current CdA proposal. One kernel of truth that can be ascertained from the polling is that the current CdA proposal, in toto, is fraught with serious problems. But identifying what those problems are is going to be highly problematic. An opportunity was lost here. The community thinks it's voting on approving CdA, and CdA wasn't close to prime time. Now if you try to back up and get some solid discussion going, interest is going to wane. Alternatively, if you try to look at the tea leaves and discern what the serious problems are, then try another poll, the community is going to say "Didn't we just vote on this?".
So where are we? If this thing breaks 50% by 23:59, 22 March 2010 does it then become policy? What if it sits at 49.9%? A large number of people (myself included) will state that such a major change in policy should require a higher percentage, more like 66%. Note the current bureaucrat unchecking fiasco where there's a larger percentage but heavy dispute over whether consensus exists or not. So who gets to decide an acceptable percentage of support exists?
Also not addressed in the setup of this RfC POLL is whether or not to throw out votes based on edit counts or time of service (or both). 6 of the supporters and 10 of the opposers fail to meet the threshold of suffrage laid out by the CdA proposal itself. So, do we count people who wouldn't count in a CDA? --Hammersoft (talk) 15:16, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's possible that I'm nieve here, but my personal view of this Rfc (or poll, if you'd like) is that this RFC is merely step one in what will be a multi-part process towards turning this proposal in to policy. It's a mistake, and in my view a somewhat shallow viewpoint (although, understandable, based on past examples), to think that a proposal this large would be adopted after just one RFC. There's obvious support for some sort of "community de-adminship" process, regardless of whether it takes the form of something like the current proposal, some form of "term limits" (or terms of service at all), or something completely different. For those reasons I'm not personally concerned with nuanced interpretations of individual votes, or even the vote totals (as long as they don't break significantly in either direction. I should probably note that, even though I'm a "supporter", it would trouble me to see the voting here break even towards the support column, with the proposal in it's current state). What we need is a hint towards a direction to move forward in. — V = IR(Talk • Contribs)05:17, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This proposal has been through several RfCs already. This is the final vote on this proposal, and your vote of 'support' or 'oppose' determines whether or not this becomes policy. It worries me that there is confusion on this point. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:06, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'll make an observation that I hope may be informative to editors who come to this page unfamiliar with the discussions that led to the proposal, and who wonder about some of the complaints about the process under which the proposal was written. In my opinion, but I'm biased, the questions Ohm's Law and I asked here are reasonable ones. However, there are also editors including TenOfAllTrades and Hammersoft who sincerely believe that no proposal of this sort would be a good idea. Often, we end up talking past one another. People on "my" "side" would like to get suggestions for improvement. Some of those who disagree with us believe that improvement of this proposal is beside the point. But that doesn't mean that supporters of the proposal are not trying to listen to the opponents.
Anyway, it seems to me to be too early for anyone to be trying to predict the outcome of the poll here, or to be trying to spin the results. For now, I'd rather see constructive discussion about what's best for Wikipedia. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:05, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Two things; first, several times now there's been attempts at pigeon holing me as a person hell bent on killing this proposal or anything like it. That simply isn't the case and never has been. I have extremely strong opposition to the way in which this effort has been conducted. It's been highly unprofessional, fraught with cliquishness, poorly thought out and executed, and an utter mess. Which leads to the second point; how are we supposed to interpret the results if we don't even know what the metrics are? You got this RfCPOLL started but haven't spoken at all about what you think success is, how we're supposed to evaluate it, what happens if its met, or not met, or close, or what have you. It's kind of like you walked into a room of 400 people with an idea and said "Hey everyone, what do you think of this?" and everyone started speaking at the same time. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:57, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I apologize if I misinterpreted or misrepresented your position on CDA. It's not like I can memorize what every editor has said. Your comments above seemed to be critical.
If I understand your question correctly, you are saying that 18 users have participated in the poll so far who would not qualify to be nominators in a CDA under this proposal. It's not obvious to me that such users should have no right to share their opinions in a discussion about this proposal. As for what I "plan to do", I am taking this RfC, like most things in my life, one day at a time. I suppose that, about a month from now, if the responses here continue to be closely divided between support and oppose, I would tend towards the opinion that it's a bad idea to simply count votes and I would be receptive to discussion of how to proceed with the information obtained from the community in this RfC. It's not like I personally have any sort of magic power to force policies onto the Wikipedia community. That's a long time from now, and I find it premature to be jumping to conclusions. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:28, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It was premature to launch this RfC, and yes I am critical. Do you think it would be acceptable to include opinions from an 'editor' who is currently indefinitely blocked and has a grand total of 9 edits? It is not obvious to you that the opinions of the 18 who fail the suffrage metric of CDA have no right to share their opinion, but apparently it is obvious they have no right to share their opinion on CDAs themselves? Moving along; the discussion on how to proceed from this RfC should have occurred before this RfC went live. It's as if an experiment were constructed, but you don't know what the question is. The experiment is effectively useless. I think it would be strongly in your interest to close this RfC, take the results back to the drawing board, learn what you can from it, and apply that to CDA. That would be a good first step. Continuing this RfC carries the impression that should it pass (an as yet unstated metric), it will become policy. That's a grave mistake. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:49, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't been following the block history of every editor here, but I don't think someone who is indefinitely blocked should edit. Does that somehow render the opinions of all 100+ supporters so far invalid? I didn't say that the editors who would not qualify as nominators have no right to speak here; why do you think I did? I don't think the RfC was premature. There have been some editors complaining bitterly that it should have been started a few months ago and others who complain bitterly that it started too soon. And do you understand the difference, in the proposal, between being a nominator, and being able to !vote in the poll that follows? But I'm very glad to hear that you are not hell bent on killing this proposal or anything like it. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:00, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I made no comment regarding any other supports other than the ones who fail suffrage requirements of CDA. Why do you feel their opinions are not valid if they were to speak at CDA but are valid here? --Hammersoft (talk) 20:08, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, yes! That is because the editors who developed the proposal are convinced that it is very important that nominations for CDA not be made casually, or by editors acting in anger or haste. The 500 edits number was actually discussed at length (link). The concept is that new editors who, in some cases, certainly not in all cases, may present exactly the kind of issues you have just been raising here, should not be in a position to start a CDA if ten more experienced editors do not see the merits in their complaint. Despite all the hyperventilating that has met this proposal, that CDA would result in mobs carrying torches to come after good administrators, the authors of the proposal sure tried hard to make the process difficult to exploit. But that doesn't mean that new editors are persona non grata whose opinions should not count in this RfC. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:36, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why on Earth not? Apparently, they are capable of mob activity and carrying torches to come after administrators. Certainly an outcome of CDA is for the community to come after administrators. So why do you think the <500/3month crowd is suddenly going to be able to behave themselves here, but not there? Why the difference? (and, by the way, we're up to 19 now) --Hammersoft (talk) 20:50, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I really don't understand what you are asking: are you talking about new editors with fewer than 500 edits, or disruptive editors? And isn't it a bit early to be counting hanging chads? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:56, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm saying there's an apparent dichotomy that users with less than 500 edits and three months of service are not trustworthy enough to nominate at CDA (torch carrying mob, as you describe) but they are trustworthy enough to comment here, and have an impact on whether this proposal goes forward or not. You've failed to address this dichotomy. I keep asking it, and you keep non-answering it. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:59, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm non-answering it? No, I'm either not understanding your question, or disagreeing with you. (Anyone seeing what I meant above, about editors talking past one another?) And I never said that users are a "torch carrying mob". I said that some of the editors who oppose this proposal have called users that, not that I agree with them as a generalization. Now to answer your dichotomy: yes I feel that the barriers to starting a CDA need to be sufficiently high that editors with fewer than 500 edits (who, again, in the vast majority of cases are not a torch carrying mob) should not be among the ten nominators. And I've shown you the link to the discussion of that point by other editors, not just by me. Nonetheless I see nothing automatically wrong with editors with fewer than 500 edits participating in this RfC. That does not mean that they, or any other subset of the community, will determine by themselves "whether this proposal goes forward or not". Editors with fewer than 500 edits take part in all kinds of discussions on this website, and there is nothing wrong with that, obviously. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:47, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not trying to be dismissive or unresponsive about that, but, truly, I thought I already answered that, very clearly and specifically. Maybe I'm just not understanding something, or not expressing it the right way, so I'll invite other editors to try to answer further if they would like to. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:58, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Reading and replying to some of the above started me thinking about the reasons why I support something along the lines of this proposal. It's possible that a large part of my view comes from an American civics upbringing, because the main issue that leads me to support something such as this proposal is the idea of checks and balances. The fundamental problem that I see is that, like it or not, we (arguably) have two "camps" of people on Wikipedia now: editors and admins. Now, obviously, the overlap in those groups is actually 100% (you can't be an admin without being an editor, really), and I'll be the first to state that it's a bad idea to paint whole groups of people with a single brush. However, while thinking about this specifically from a group dynamics perspective, it's a decidedly good thing to use such classifications. The main reason for the bad feelings surrounding and inherent in this topic, which are easily discerned in many of the replies from both camps throughout these pages, is the simple fact that one group has a certain power dynamic, while the other group doesn't. The easiest solution to something like that is actually to empower some third group or organization (in this case, it'd be the policy behind a process) to oversight one of the other groups. The fact is that Wikipedia is growing up, and something along the lines of this proposal is simply a component of that growth process. — V = IR(Talk • Contribs)05:35, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The ArbCom is a third group – vetted very thoroughly by the community through a month-long inquiry and election process – empowered to oversee adminship. It is by far the most brutal and rigorous examination process that we have for filling any position of trust on Wikipedia. All Wikipedia editors (admins or not) are allowed to vote in ArbCom elections, provided they meet some very minimal standards for project participation. Non-admin editors are free to run as candidates as well, though none have so far been successful. Any Wikipedia editor (admin or not) is permitted to bring a case before the ArbCom.
The fact is that Wikipedia is growing up, and it has matured past the need for shoot-from-the-hip frontier justice and mob-with-torches lynching parties. We have established formal institutions to handle complex, emotional, otherwise intractable disputes through a reasoned, measured, deliberate presentation and evaluation of evidence, governed by elected, impartial representatives of the community. Individual Wikipedia editors – all of them – have the opportunity to indirectly influence the course of Arbitration through participation in the prior dispute resolution leading up to a case (intervention with involved parties, AN/I discussions, RfC, etc.) and to directly affect the course of a case through making their own statements, presenting evidence, and offering suggested remedies and findings of fact.
Now, while the ArbCom is what I would call an established process, that should not be mistaken for an ossified one. The ArbCom has been steadily taking a number of incremental steps to increase both their openness and their accessibility. Recent years have seen cases handled in a more transparent fasion, through open workshop pages and visible Arb voting and discussion of remedies (among other tweaks). More cases are being handled speedily by open motion, rather than through the full rigamarole of a case.
Support. It makes very good sense that the same community that confers administrator status at RfA should have the ability to retract that status when confidence has been lost. This proposal have been very carefully thought through, incorporating lessons learned from previous proposals. I urge editors to actually read the proposal: I think that you will find that many of the criticisms raised by opposers are actually not problems with the proposal as it is written. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:05, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Now that I've had a chance to read the comments so far from those who oppose the proposal, I'd like to add this to my own comment. I note the large number of users who state that ArbCom is already sufficient to handle the problem, and that this proposal would add nothing further that would be good. As editors worked on the early stages of this proposal, one idea that was much discussed was that of "bright line" misconduct by administrators, situations where an administrator unambiguously does things that violate policies of administrative conduct. I think there is consensus among both supporters and opponents here that ArbCom is, in fact, becoming very effective at dealing with that. But CDA addresses something else. There are a small number of administrators, certainly a small and unrepresentative minority, who make patterns of doing things that do not quite cross a bright line, but which leave substantial numbers of community members with a bad feeling about how things work at Wikipedia. They may be chronically incivil in ways that don't require AN/I sanctions but which are hurtful to other editors. They may POV push, or be imperious in the ways that they edit. Please don't get me wrong: this is not the same thing as someone who has a bad day and gets hot under the collar and makes a blunt remark once. It's not the same thing as someone who consistently makes difficult calls and does so in a professional way, even though it makes enemies. And I believe strongly that most of the community, far from being a mob, can readily distinguish the former from the latter. Just look at the "oppose" and "neutral" sections of RfAs. It is very common for editors to bring up issues that are not bright-line, and we accept the ability of the community to assess such things at RfA. The community should be able to assess this later, as well. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:53, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Tryptofish. This proposal provides a very moderate process--at least two thirds of the community need to disapprove of an admin for desysopping even to be considered. Ucucha19:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. ArbCom could be in the business of evaluating whether admins who haven't directly abused the tools have nevertheless lost community trust, but is poorly poised to do so and a separate process is better. This is not a response to a particularly recent or major crisis but simply remedying the mistake made when initially designing the RfA process: the community grants adminship but cannot take it away. Eluchil404 (talk) 19:32, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support The details don't really matter, since they will be changed after this is adopted regardless. The fact that "administrator" privileges are effectively given permanently right now is simply too problematic. This process is way over-processed right now, and I in no way endorse it's current structure, but even an imperfect system is better then nothing. — V = IR(Talk • Contribs)22:06, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
But how can we have a simple CDA process? The details are everything, surely. To adopt it first and work on it later cannot be right. There are other Admin Recall solutions that can be worked on (including RfA), so it is not really 'CDA or nothing'. Matt Lewis (talk) 22:13, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support a CDA process. The actual details of the process will be subject to modifications and evolution over time but this is a good place to start. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:46, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support a CDA process. Bureaucrats have earned ridiculously high support and trust from the community; granting them the power to remove the sysop bit will do more good than bad. In my mind, this is comparable to the re-evaluation of featured articles. Standards have changed, and the community continues to evolve. Details will be ironed out through RFC processes like this one. ...but what do you think? ~BFizz23:28, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. The core problem with RfA is that it does not allow us to be bold in electing admins because we cannot revert our decision later should it prove to be a mistake. Is CDA a perfect way to remedy this? No. But it's a reasonable approach. RfA is deeply imperfect itself, but as yet we have developed no better process for appointing admins either. I think RfA could be much improved, and the admin ranks greatly broadened, just by giving us the option to withdraw our trust from candidates, once we saw that it was being abused. It's unreasonable to expect us to be able offer our trust to any candidate on an irrevocable basis. Admins serve at the discretion of the community -- yet the community has no ability to enforce that discretion. As a recently appointed admin, I want the community to have the power to hold me to their standards on a ongoing basis. If they can be trusted to give me the tools, why can they not be trusted to withdraw them if I fail to live up to their standards? "Admin immunity" has to come to an end. CDA is long, long overdue.--Father Goose (talk) 23:32, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support on the basis that, however imperfect this is at the start it will become better as time passes, and a process for formal revocation of use of the tools is most assuredly required. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 23:44, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. My principal objection would be that with a sufficiently noticed poll, a majority should be adequate to remove tools, or even less than that when well-supported by cogent arguments, that's enough hysteresis for protection against frivolous removal. But this proposal is better than nothing, clearly. It provides for self-review, and if it turns out to be damaging, that can be fixed. There will be no mass removals from this process without that additional review of how it is working, good design. --Abd (talk) 23:45, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support, I think Father Goose puts it extremely well. It has long struck me as ridiculous that the community has had no workable method of establishing loss of trust in admins, and this has actually harmed the standing of admins in general. DuncanHill (talk) 23:49, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Accountability is the issue here. Community de-adminship will hold admins accountable to the community and will help prevent them from taking actions that don't have the community's support. Of course the details would have to be worked out not to prevent witch-hunts and the like, but it is important to have a way for the community to recall an admin who hasn't performed to an acceptable standard. ThemFromSpace00:02, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree with the idea that this is redundant to ArbCom procedures--it's useful to have a community-driven process, because it's important to decentralize power and because often ArbCom is bogged down or moves slowly. Just because relying on them has worked sometimes in the past (and I'm sure sometimes it has not worked, too) doesn't mean it's going to continue to, or that it's going to be as good as if we had an additional, community-driven process. I don't expect to see a lot of desysopings from this since the bar is really high for passage and since consensus is so hard to obtain on this project, but it's better than nothing (and that's why I don't share the concerns of some opposers that this process will make it too easy to deadmin people who don't deserve it). I'm also seeing in the opposes some quibbles with the procedure, from people who don't object to the notion fundamentally. I think that type of thing may be throwing the baby out with the bathwater and preventing progress. delldot∇.00:10, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Reluctant Support. I don't believe that arbcom is an effective agent of desysopping. Those who lose the bit tend to be admins with years of abusive behavior. Being a bad admin is not enough; you basically have to beg to have your powers revoked, and be friendless in terms of the committee. IronDuke01:09, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support The appointment of users as, essentially, admins for life, is, I believe, harmful to the community and the project, and since there is no move afoot to require re-certification after a certain amount of time, there needs to be a mechanism in place for recalling adminstrators who have overstepped their bounds or misused their power. The current proposal may have flaws in it, but at this time it's the only game in town, and I think it's preferable to have a procedure in place that can be tweaked once its flaws become evident in operation, as opposed to deep-sixing in advance it over some hypotethical flaws that never get confirmed. (The bird in the hand...) Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:31, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support As has been pointed out, the details are not set in stone. I do not accept that the community as a whole can't be trusted to recognize bad faith nominations of CDA. We are able to sniff that sort of thing out in every other community forum. Opposers who oppose on that basis show a stunning lack of faith in the community. Gigs (talk) 01:34, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - The community should have a method of removing the sysop bit just as they have a hand in granting it, and it should not require ArbCom to do so. -- Atama頭01:36, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. It's a great start. As IronDuke said, there have been admins with years of abusive behavior that are allowed to continue. This needs to stop. --Kbdank7102:02, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support the concept The details can be ironed out once there is consensus on whether there should be a de-admin process at all. I strongly believe that admins should vote in a separate section in this RfC. Many will have valid opinions both in favour and opposition to this proposal, and their voices should be heard, but I can't help but suspect that admin opinion will differ significantly from non-admin opinion. The distinction is clearly relevant. WFCforLife (talk) 02:08, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. This is something that absolutely needs to happen. I'd prefer that the terms were modified to make desysopping easier—I don't like the requirement of having 65% support the desysopping—but this would be a big improvement over the current situation. Everyking (talk) 02:19, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. There is vaccum on cases where there is community loss of trust and not so clear abuse of tools. That vaccum is not currently dealt with by ArbCom. Sole Soul (talk) 02:38, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. It's a shame that this proposal clearly won't pass, as it or something like it is absolutely necessary to restore faith in wikipedia's fractured system of governance. --MalleusFatuorum02:54, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Effective tenure for life at being an admin has to end, or the RfA process will increasingly grow to resemble, well, real deliberations over tenure. RayTalk02:55, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support The community granted the powers of an admin to a user, so it should have the ability to revoke those powers. There should be enough eyes on the process that admins will not be bounced out for no good reason, nor will accusers be allowed to go on a witch hunt without consequences. — MrDolomite • Talk03:01, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support I'm surprised to see such a lack of faith in the community. Surely the "unruly mob" concerns apply to RfA as well? What about implementing CDA on a trial basis, at least? Dabomb87 (talk) 03:15, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support I have seen repeated abuse from an admin (imposing his POV and get away with it) so this policy would have came very handy to stop this kind of abuse (as he had the unconditional support of his admin pals, though, it took a couple years for him to finally be de-adm).--Mariordo (talk) 03:46, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Administrators like Arthur Rubin have proven that we need such a policy. There have been times in the past when administrators have been abusive on an ongoing basis and editors have complained of bias in enforcing rules against such administrators. Rather than imposing lighter sanctions, what I've noticed is that fellow administrators will sometimes judge the level of offense to be less than what it really is, sort of covering up for them in a way... or in other cases, letting the abuse go on longer than they would with the ordinary editor. A policy like this will help to counter such abuse. ClimateGate (talk) 05:20, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. But just why Jimmy Wales should have any special right of review, when he has proved incompetent at using the block button himself, is a mystery. I strongly object to that aspect. The previous supporter's example of Arthur Rubin is spot-on, BTW. Tony(talk)07:05, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. This isn't perfect, and there are some valid concerns from those opposing, but I do not see this as a great threat to admins who do basically good work, nor as a process ripe for gaming that will be used to settle grudges (there are protections against that). ArbCom has been doing a better job of late dealing with problematic admins, but there's no question that a good chunk of the non-admin (and indeed admin) corps here at en.wikipedia think we need a community process for desysopping. I agree with that, and can pretty easily live with this proposal. I would add that I'm a bit bothered by some comments in the oppose section that suggest 65% non-support from the community is not sufficient to warrant a desysop. We would be talking about dozens of editors (more than 50) and two-thirds of the total saying, "this has gone too far, you are done with adminship." I think it's considerably harder to get those kind of numbers than some opposing might think, and personally I feel that even if 30 some editors who represent only 50% of the total are commenting in favor of desysop the admin should resign, because ultimately one's status as an admin is based on community trust, not on the fact that an RfA was successful once upon a time. While admins who work in difficulty areas deal with a lot of complaints about their actions, there's quite a gulf between saying "you screwed that up" and "turn in the bit right now"—at least for most editors who would bother to take the time to participate in a process like this. I think this thing is worth a shot. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs08:21, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support because I have come across a couple of idiot admins in my time on Wikipedia (proving that everyone is human, even admins) so having an easy way to remove them is a good thing.--Simple Bob (talk) 09:13, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support It's a start. The Wiki way is that the process will be modified as it goes along, and stopped completely if it goes wrong. We wouldn't have much on Wikipedia in terms of articles or processes if everything had to be word perfect before it was started. It's interesting to recall why Wikipedia was started - because Nupedia was too bogged down in an extensive peer-review process and was not moving forward. The community wants this process - let's get it moving. This is a decent workable proposal. My guibbles are wordings which make it appear that the process is current practise, or any parts of the process are the result of working consensus. It should be run as a beta version, with a full awareness of everyone involved that the process itself is up for discussion. SilkTork *YES!10:34, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've do have a couple of points on the SilkTork's above comment because it appears sensible in many respects (I may have said a lot of it myself at one point):
1) Regarding the detail being ironed out later, well ok to a degree - but some of it (like admin and canvassing) needed at least some serious work beforehand. I'd like to see at least a possible solution to the various problems before pushing the CDA. It is worrying that so many weak compromises had to be in the proposal (words like "admin must be editing recently" are just too ambiguous). I've seen a little evidence that things would be easier during (or after) a CDA trial to be honest, and it would be a while before every important facet of CDA is covered by examples of use. Is waiting for admin to be put up for CDA the best way to adapt the CDA? I'm not sure it is. Even labelled 'trial', CDA will likely be too disruptive imo, because of what I have come to believe are intrinsic flaws.
2) Regarding the community 'wanting' CDA - I do very much agree that the community want to see changes regarding admin, but I haven't seen enough evidence that they are particularly crazy about this particular method, despite the expected and understandable support votes. The "Reverse RfA" idea of CDA just didn't take off. CDA doesn't address all the concerns directly, like giving admin 'terms' instead of that "job for life" for example. CDA is a bit of a bandage on a structural problem, in many ways, and a bandage we can't keep clean. I'm not against any form of Admin Recall, I just haven't seen CDA stand up to the various criticisms (or enough attempts to make it stand up to them), and I cannot see CDA better withstand criticism simply for it being trialled. I've seen too much blind faith in CDA coming good, and it's been too protected, quite fiercely so at times. Matt Lewis (talk) 11:28, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. It's logical. The community must have the power to change its mind. We can tweak the process once we see how it works. It would be interesting to see how many of the oppose votes come from admins. --Michael C. Pricetalk11:51, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
But who are the 'community' who can vote someone in and then can change its mind? 'Community' is a useful general term for a 'broad consensus' here really: so a community "changing its mind" is a situation where a there is a new consensus to remove an admin. While the idea of reverse voting is fine in principle, I good idea alone is just not good enough: the guaranteed negatives of a CDA process (resulting from how the consensus is achieved) far outweigh the possible positives.
I do hope that this RfC pushed Wikipedia into publically looking at some much needed (and often discussed) changes: Set terms for adminship and a review process for existing admin. I think for that, the time has now come. Well, perhaps not immediately, but it can't be too far off now surely. Matt Lewis (talk) 12:15, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting indeed. As at the time of this posting 52% of the oppose votes come from administrators, with only 27% supporting. Kind of obvious who "the community" is I think. --MalleusFatuorum16:04, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Administrators should be directly accountable for their actions and potentially will return power to a disenfranchised community from controlling administrators and cabals. TorstenGuise (talk) 12:19, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support The community give the tools so the community should be able to decide if they retain the tools. Also it will be interesting as stated above to see the amount of Admins who will oppose. Mo ainm (talk) 12:32, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support I think whichever beaureaucrat, steward, closing this poll, should research how many of the votes in either direction are sockpuppets, as this is a very weighty important poll. In any case, I personally view this, as, although it might warrant some small changes here or there, the best solution so far to some important problems (see Five Problems with a Single Solution), by the way thanks to commenters urging me to temper this comment's earlier form. :p sometimes I put my foot in my mouth. --Lyc. cooperi (talk) 12:45, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Five Problems with a Single Solution is a good argument that some form of deadminship was needed, and were this only a poll an whether, in-principle to support such an idea, I would supoort it. But this is a poll on a specific, detailed proposal. That proposal does not look like being the solution envisioned by "Five Problems" to me -- indeed one of the points in "Five Problems" was that any "RfDA" process must be appealable to arbcom, which this process is not. Any supporter ought, IMO to consider not just the need for a deadminship process, but the merits and flaws of the specific proposed process. You may have doen so, but your comment, like many above, does not mention those merits and flaws at all. DES(talk)13:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Many ArbCom desysop motions have been on the basis that a specific administrator has lost the community's trust. Clearly ArbCom thinks admins should serve at the will of the community. A poll like the proposed CDA is a much better way of gauging the community's will than the opinion of fifteen individuals of what that will is. --GRuban (talk) 13:39, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Necessary. The standards have been quite high after extensive preliminary polling and discussions to prevent abuse. Pcapping14:13, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support The community decides who becomes an admin, the community deserves the right to desysop. I think this proposal works as well as any we could come up with. Angryapathy (talk) 15:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support I think the points made about indirect effects of having CDA in place are important, i.e. that it can take some pressure off the RfA process, no longer being irrevocable, and so on. Also, the argument back and forth about whether the Admin being recalled can respond, is overblown. I think it's obvious the Admin should respond and should be given a prominent section in which to do so, not buried down within the Opposes. But that is a technicality about operation of the CDA process, which would rapidly be amended to allow special designation of the Admin's response. --doncram (talk) 17:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We have long been in the vicious cycle that RFA keeps raising the bar for prospective admins because of how hard it is to get rid of problematic admins, and that the ArbCom often shies away from de-adminning people because of how hard it is for them to regain the mop. Indeed, RFA success rates are at an all-time low. We need to break the cycle, both because adminship is No Big Deal, and because accountability is a Good Thing. >Radiant<17:36, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Adminship is granted via a bureaucrat's evaluation of a community discussion, so it should be possible to remove it the same way. Many of the criticisms of the current proposal are generic fears that could be directed at any proposal. There will likely be problems and "growing pains" to work out, but none of the specific concerns are significant enough to keep me from supporting. --RL0919 (talk) 17:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. It should never be up to a bureaucrat whether or not an official can be removed. I don't think it should be a simple thing to remove an admin's rights, however, as a community, we should have a say in whether or not it happens. J DIGGITY (U ¢ ME)19:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You are aware that under current proceses no Bureaucrat ever desysops an admin, although the ArbCom as a group can and do desysop admins for cause? Under the proposed CDA process a Bureaucrat would make the decision as to whether the community discussion did or did not constitute consensus to desysop. DES(talk)22:46, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. We've a got a few too many runaway admins, and I'd like to see a more community-based approach to dealing with the problem. I wonder how often this will be used, but it's always good to have more arrows in our quiver. — Bdb484 (talk) 23:24, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Support. I think this particular proposal is flawed, probably unnecessary, and likely ineffective - I doubt that, if implemented, it would ever lead to a successful desysop. But I'm supporting it on principle, because I still think the idea of having a de-adminship procedure is basically a good one. This proposal isn't great, but I support trying it out for a brief period at least, in the hope that it might lead to a functional system being developed at a later date. Robofish (talk) 00:45, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I've been holding back on this vote 'till the 'crats weighed in, but feel the time has come to speak up. As some here know, I have been involved in the early and middle stages of Cda but withdrew towards the end for reasons beyond the scope of a !vote notice. It is enough to say that I believe Wikipedia has a hefty problem and that I'm not alone in feeling that way. This version of Cda is not my favorite, but a decent-sized tally, even should the Cda fail, will give us something to build on and send a message that there are a goodly number of editors who feel the current system needs improvement. My best to all concerned with the issue, regardless of their point of view. Jusdafax03:17, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And I see Dweller at #104. I have said from the start of my involvement with Cda that bureaucrat opposition (voting as a 'crat or not) would kill my support. Since the gap to 50% in this RfC continues to widen, the point is moot. I'm going to refocus on administrator term limits. Jusdafax19:56, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support as completely obvious. No admission process for anything is perfect. There obviously needs to be some way to get rid of problematic administrators or people who just aren't cut out for the position. If having an adminship is "no big deal" then it should be no big deal to revoke it, too. SnowFire (talk) 06:27, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, CDA cannot be used just to remove admin who aren't 'cut out for the position'. It is either a misunderstanding of CDA, or a con to say that it is. CDA would be damaging to Wikipedia, as dodgy admin can say "Look the system in fair! Vote me out if think you can!" when with CDA the system would not be fair, and people cannot vote them out. How will that make Wikipedia a better place? It's a step to a more solidly corrupt state. You can try for a CDA, but that in itself will only cause so much drama that all the extremely daft admin involved would prejudice the running of Wikipedia before, during and after the CDA. And if the admin has enough mates, you simply wouldn't win. The Bureaucrats couldn't judge that kind of thing anyway - so CDA simply won't happen. Admin are beyond canvassing (or any mid-range) rules, so CDA couldn't work until admin in general are better quality people, and that needs to ahppen via a different route to CDA. Matt Lewis (talk) 10:08, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support: I agree with constructively critical comments above that this isn't the best possible version of admin recall, but any version is a step in the right direction. The current system's just dysfunctional. By way of real-world analogy, in those democratic legal systems in which judges are appointed/elected for life, there is generally a way for the people to take a judge back out of office for abuse of power. — SMcCandlishTalk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀContribs. 06:36, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
Comment to above few votes: CDA simply cannot be used as a 'reverse RfA'. And isn't CDA trying to 'paper over the cracks' anyway? Many (if not most) of the 'oppose' arguments say that CDA will damage Wikipedia, and are not arguing that is should not be allowed in principle. Would people consider actually offering a fixed term to admin, rather a "job for life"? And instead of 'patching up' an archaic system with a well-meaning but toxic 'CDA' process, actually address the problems directly? There are proposals like 'Admin Review' processes too, where admin get reviewed. All of those are less destructive to Wikipedia in general than the CDA process. It they don't work, then maybe we should look at a form of 'admin recall' (and there are much better ones than this CDA). Matt Lewis (talk) 10:08, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I hope that people saying it can be "worked on later" are prepared to donate their magic wands! I put hours into trying to make CDA work, and it has flaws we could not resolve, which are simply insurmountable given the desperate state of adminship that we have (admin themselves will wreck CDA). Adminship needs to be changed from the ground up - we need to make it a fixed term, and subject to review. After a number of previous attempts to do so, someone just ran this CDA proposal with clear holes in it, and with various elements that did not meet consensus. A lot of issues were in the end simply denied. The "we can sort it all out later" philosophy, after hitting dead ends, is just foolishness given the seriousness of the process itself, and the stumbling blocks faced. The creation of this proposal failed consensus at various points in its making, and consensus being the glue that holds Wikipedia together, that in itself is a bad sign. Matt Lewis (talk) 11:11, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support In general I support the idea as deadminship is not really ArbCom's role and another mechanism needs to take its place. That said, simply adding a board of Bureaucrats to report such problem admins could easily lead to appropriate RfCs or a nomination to remove the "bit", or summary dismissal. I do NOT support this as the best method around, but that it is A method and the concept is both sound and necessary. — BQZip01 —talk16:49, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds to me like what you are saying is "Fleas on cats are a serious problem. It has been proposed to solve the problem by throwing cats into furnaces. I do NOT support this as the best method around, but that it is A method and the concept is both sound and necessary."--Wehwalt (talk) 17:05, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support. A community-based administrator recall process is long overdue. ArbCom, an appointed body which itself consists entirely of administrators, cannot substitute for the wider community. That said, I do have concerns about this proposal. First, it requires a consensus for desysopping, "reaching (as a rule of thumb) at least 65% of the total !votes polled". Then admins need only 35% support to retain adminship. I think that's far too low; I would require a consensus in the other direction, so that to keep their position, admins would need 70-80% support, just like at RfA. Second, the proposal says that the 10 nomination signatures must occur "within a period no longer than seven days", but I cannot tell whether this period has a minimum duration. If not, I am concerned that discussion and polling could start before the administrator has had time to respond to the nomination. Personally, I prefer my own proposal, User:Tim Smith/Administrator-initiated recall. Nonetheless, if implemented, this one could be improved and clarified over time, so I support it over the status quo. Tim Smith (talk) 21:03, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The signatures could be collected in 10 minutes, but can't be certified for at least one week, so the accused admin will always have at least 1 week to prepare and 1 week for the process itself under this proposal. CRGreathouse (t | c) 16:04, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There's nothing in the proposal to prevent certification immediately after the 10 signatures are gathered. The seven day discussion and polling period would then begin. A safeguard like the one you mentioned was suggested, but was not incorporated into the proposal. Christopher Parham(talk)16:40, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Seems to have adequate safeguards; provoking an admin into an abuse would be easier and more satisfying than pushing such a de-admining through. --Gwern (contribs) 21:12 24 February 2010 (GMT)
In the rare case that an administrator goes "vandal", how does initiating a 7 day community discussion address the need of not "waiting for other administrators"? --Allen3talk22:05, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. It's flawed, but it gets the ball rolling slowly in the right direction. Something has to be done to loosen the "pry my buttons from my cold dead fingers" mentality, and every journey begins with a single step. – iridescent23:04, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support. I can't believe this wasn't in place already. For what reason should we unconditionally trust the admins? We should be able to recall them. Kelseypedia (talk) 23:23, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Not the perfect system, but would be an improvement. I don't believe POV groups can hijack the process; they will provoke a reaction against themselves. Johnbod (talk) 03:49, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support After looking at the vote analysis script results (see comment at the bottom of the page). Too many "oppose" votes came from admins. Clear conflict of interest / neutrality violation. --Dc987 (talk) 08:14, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree that the non-admin vs. admin !vote gulf is strikingly wide at the moment. I have added the script link to the top of the page with the other links there. Jusdafax09:36, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not the best reason to do that surely? People need to read the voting comments without prejudice, so I've deleted the top link (it's at the bottom of the page anyway, and discussed in Talk too). Matt Lewis (talk) 10:23, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support, with some reservations. As of today, admins are almost completely unaccountable, and this has to change. The problem with this proposal is that it makes the recall a traumatic process. Being an admin is still seen as some kind of god-given right, so it will be necessary to have some "due" process to recall them. The opposite should be true: nobody has a right to be an admin; they are provisionally vested with some authority. They consequently should have terms and be automatically de-admined at the end of the term. Then they should be reconducted, if and only if, there is a consensus that they are good admins. Ninguém (talk) 10:27, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. When an admin no longer has the trust of the community, the community needs a way to remove them. I would hope that if this process were to be put in place, admins would also be far less likely to abuse their privileges. Wine Guy~Talk10:49, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. RfA rates have been dropping, because at present admins are effectively for life. So in the long run the CDA proposal will help RfA rates as well as get remove of bad admins. There are a few bad admins, who do harmful dispropionate to their number. ArbCom will be need in some cases, for example there a clique of admins / or non-admins with drudges. But ArbCom can be be slow. A procedure at as fast RfA is needed. --Philcha (talk) 12:50, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Currently, when there is a problem with an administrator, the only channel available is to request input from other administrators. Because of concerns about wheel warring and sometimes and "old boys club" atmosphere, most administrators have been reluctant to look into issues involving potential admin abuse. I believe this policy takes the burden away from administrators and gives the community a chance to weigh in. This policy is long overdue. Wapondaponda (talk) 10:49, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support as one of the key principles of any wiki, and one that is oft quoted at RfA, is that anything that can be done can be easily undone. This puts the ability to undue an action right where it belongs - with those who are able to do that action in the first place. If the community has the ability to grant Admin, it must have a parallel process to remove that status. The proposal itself is detailed and contains adequate protections for administrators to avoid nuisance requests. Jim MillerSee me | Touch me16:12, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support This isn't my preferred solution, as I believe it is flawed and a huge drama-magnet, but it is perhaps a move in the right direction. I still would prefer that adminship have set a set term length, after which an admin would be able to apply again, if they choose. Sχeptomaniacχαιρετε18:39, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - in practice, I doubt it'd occur except in truly exceptional circumstances. But it's the morally right thing to do. WilyD20:45, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support We need a process. This one seems as good as anything else. Arbcom gets rid of those who go _way_ over the line, but we need something to remove those who often go just a bit over the line. Hobit (talk) 22:32, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. There is nothing I like less than a "for life" appointment. The fact that all these nice people gave so many good reasons to get rid of it is just icing on the cake. J.M. Archer (talk) 00:34, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support--I support the proposal. I believe an important new feature of this policy is that it allows a bottom-up proposal from non-admins, and then allows the outcome to be determined via a very open emergent process. N2e (talk) 01:09, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Furthermore, I am surprised to find out that there is no formal process to remove sysop equivalent to RfA. Obviously, the emergency, temporary etc processes should remain in force --Jubilee♫clipman02:19, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I prefer the more democratic approach, but I seriously do not expect to see much in the way of community response. Most people do not participate and those with the administrator inclination do. My limited experience with internal procedures against an abusive administrator shows that existing Administrators protect their own. Therefore we do need additional tools to try to sidestep that gauntlet.Trackinfo (talk) 05:03, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support a while back there was a certain extremely stubborn admin (who will remain unnamed) who deliberately did not engage in straightforward conversation and refuse to date and time stamp his comments. despite many concerns raised, we could not apply de adminship. worse still he became an admin years ago before any stringent WP:RFA criteria was set. LibStar (talk) 11:37, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Switching to support. I believe all the issues I've had have been fixed, and while I don't like the general idea of desysopping good admins, I figure that's no reason to oppose this policy for serious circumstances. ALInomnom13:33, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - better than current situation; adequate safeguards. Admins are not a vulnerable minority that needs protection, and the wider community is not a pitchfork-waving mob (well, not often ...). Gandalf61 (talk) 14:28, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I am an administrator, and I would be willing to submit to this process. If the community has a serious concern over the behavior of an administrator, then the community should have a forum - short of Arbcom - to allow their voices to be heard. In many cases, I don't believe it's any better to have 18 members of Arbcom decide rather than have a larger portion of the community decide whether someone keeps their bit. Karanacs (talk) 17:25, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support -- Admins need to be held responsible by the community. Even if the mechanism isn't used often, it offers an additional incentive for admins to maintain a collaborate relationship with the Wiki community. Uncle Dick (talk) 20:48, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I must have become recently sensitized to seeing uncivil behaviour and biased judgement from a number of active admins, to such an extent that I am puzzled at how some people managed to become admins in the first place. Any community must have appropriate checks and balances to stay healthy. This process is obviously not perfect, but it provides a way for action to be seen to be done. The structure makes it unlikely that a single-minded mob would kick out admins on partisan grounds, though no other system could guarantee to always stay absolutely free of group-think issues. Ash (talk) 23:11, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - any social community that elects a subgroup that holds particular powers or responsibilities should have a standard mechanism for periodically (re)choosing those individuals. These things are usually called elections, and in all democratic communities, the people who stand for these roles are generally volunteers, as at Wikipedia. As a political scientist in a democratic country, i am amazed at the amount of heat this debate generates. I've heard many of the arguments, but remain of the view that all admins should have to put their hands up every, say, three years, and see if they still have support. All the arguments about it being a volunteer community etc are not relevant in my view. However, since there is no widespread support for such a measure, i will support any proposal that begins to make re-evaluation of an elected/vetted sub-group more possible. This is a small step in the right direction, but bigger steps will be needed in future. hamiltonstone (talk) 10:36, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support -I personally have had some good exchanges with adms, but several bad exchanges with those who were arrogant and opinionated. I would like to have a chance at a recall vote of both groups. รัก-ไทย (talk) 13:51, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. The arbitrary misuse, and occasional abuse, of misplaced authority by admins is unreal at times. I am not necessarily thinking of English WP here. Presumably any change of policy will apply generally across all projects of WP? Varlaam (talk) 17:57, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Default to support, I don't oppose and am not neutral. However, there was a chaotic tinge to the process that led to this particular iteration of a CDA-method RfC. My sincere hope is that this !vote will serve as a catalyst for all editors, opposers and supporters to agree to work together on something much more viable during 2010. Tryptofish, TenOfAllTrades, Ben MacDui and Jehochman for example could attempt to find common ground and work together to meet the desires of many to counterbalance the unfortunate current perception that has been expressed of admin-for-life/run-amok possibilities within the present project governance/maintenance structure. Sswonk (talk) 18:02, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it is early, apologies for throwing this RfC under the bus so quickly. For those viewing this comment in the future, at the time of my !vote (included) the count was 120 support to 134 oppose. I will be happy if the support increases significantly beyond that and am encouraged that, at a total minimum, impetus toward future implementation of CDA can start here, regardless of the outcome of this RfC. Having a community elected position which does not allow for a future simple community based mandate is counter-intuitive and we should remedy that sooner rather than later. Sswonk (talk) 19:01, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No problem, no apology needed. You said it in the spirit of constructive discussion, rather than the minute-by-minute horse race that I've been cautioning against. (But since you brought it up, I'll point out again that the "motion to close" last month was leading decisively for the first few days, only to be rejected 2:1 as time went on.) Anyway, I stuck my neck out on this, and I'm getting quite used to being under the bus. :-) --Tryptofish (talk) 19:09, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The problem I see with the seeking 'common ground' approach is that I just can't foresee any variation on this process that would satisfactorily resolve the concerns I raise above, or acceptably answer the questions posted in Wikipedia:De-adminship proposal checklist. In order to modify this proposal to have sufficient checks against abuse and make it fair to all participants, we'd have to change it sufficiently drastically that it would no longer be any faster or more open than the existing de-adminship processes and tools. (I refer again to the alternatives that I offer in my rebuttal.)
I will note that the "admin-for-life/run-amok" perception shouldn't in itself be a justification for developing new policy — and especially not bad policy. If we grant (for the sake of argument) that there is a widespread perception of 'lifetime admins run amok', it should trigger a calm, rational, fact-driven examination of the perceived problem. The community needs to figure exactly what the issues are. What problem admins have we dealt with successfully, and how does that differ from the situations where we have failed to do so? How do we define a problem admin, and why types of (mis)conduct warrant desysopping? Have our existing processes failed to respond correctly to problems, or have these processes simply not been used (or not been used correctly)? Can our existing policies and processes be tweaked to resolve these issues, or do we need genuinely new and separate mechanisms to fix the problems? If we find that there are really only a few admins who would be the focus of a new process, does it make sense to establish a whole new regulatory framework with all its overhead and drama?
Unfortunately, there has been a preference to shortcut that rational discussion of problems, expectations, experience, examples, evidence, and desired results. Over and over again, we've jumped past the analysis of the problem directly into attempted solutions. These proposals will continue to fail because they don't know what problem they aim to solve — or even if the problem exists in fact or primarily in perception. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:06, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As I said above, I'm happy to work on ideas. I can't help observing how the response to Sswonk's suggestion resembles the "health care summit" that just occurred a few days ago in the U.S. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:04, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
ArbCom have been more willing to desysop administrators who have shown to use the tools poorly. Generally speaking, if an RfC comes to the consensus that an administrator no longer holds the trust of the community, ArbCom will desysop them. I don't personally believe there is a problem to fix. I fear that if this proposal was to move forward, a lynch mob mentality would result and administrators who deal with controversial issues would regularly be brought through the community deadminship process. I also fear that administrators who make one mistake would also be sent through the deadminship process. All in all, I believe it will lower morale in the admin corps. Whilst the RfC, then to ArbCom route might not be ideal, I believe it serves as a good check and balance. Ryan PostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter19:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This proposal is likely to be harmful on a number of levels, discouraging administrators from boldly responding to sensitive and complex issues, while encouraging those who would use wiki-process to pursue personal grudges and vendettas. The current system, meanwhile, is humming along very nicely. I know of no administrator in the past 2-3 years whom ArbCom did not desysop, when presented with evidence of flagrant abuse of the tools, or place on probation which would lead to desysopping "next time," when presented with evidence of severe error or other inappropriate use. Christopher Parham(talk)19:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Of course if one is an administrator for life, then the current system is humming along nicely. But this view is not held by everyone, as many of us see significant problems. Egregious cases of admin abuse are in fact quite rare, but administrators frequently make poor choices, that may include favoritism or a lack of impartiality. Because poor decisions that are not egregious are tolerated by other administrators, certain administrators continue to make these poor decisions, and some start believing that their behavior is acceptable. It is because of these poor decisions that some editors hold personal grudges and vendettas against certain administrators. If an administrator is competent, fair and impartial then I see no reason why reasonable editors will hold a grudge against him or her. Because administrators are not accountable to the community, many administrators are too quick to pull the trigger when a problem arises, and fail to consider other ways to resolve problems that don't leave a bitter taste in anyone's mouth. By implementing the CDA, I believe admins will be more thoughtful about the decisions they make. As for Arbcom, the process works well for egregious violations, but Arbcom is somewhat mysterious, distant and isolated from the wider community. Consequently admin abuse may persist for a long time before it gets to Arbcom level. Wapondaponda (talk) 15:09, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps you could point to some of the instances in which you attempted dispute resolution against an admin who made such poor decisions, but the current system failed to act in the way you desire. A good example would be an RFC where the community clearly indicated that an admin had made repeated errors, but where a later ArbCom case did not result in desysopping. Christopher Parham(talk)16:09, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As previously mentioned, it is usually egregious or persistent breaches that tend to gain attention, enough for an RFC to be created. Other activities that involve poor decision making are simply forgotten, by most except maybe the aggreived parties who then hold grudges. I do not have a major problem with decisions made by Arbcom, however most grievances never get to arbcom. Wapondaponda (talk) 18:36, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: I've put a lot of work into CDA since I found it flagging a little in a 'Motion to Close' at the end of Dec (over 100 hours - and this is important to note), and a lot of it is still in there. In my experience the proposal hasn't been that carefully considered (serious discussion on the central Canvassing issue was very 'last minute'), and at least one major consensus has been ignored - the desire for a higher 'threshold' percentage (it was clear to me that 85% was the conservative 'mean average' of the voting results - not 80%, but the vote itself was disputed. A lot of people preferred the Bureaucrats to make the full decision, not the "percentages" so-to-speak, and felt the threshold shouldn't be too low). During my work on CDA, I have defended CDA quite passionately at times (eg "don't so be angry and cynical in your opposition", "we must give it a go" etc), but my eventual realisation is that CDA cannot work. A CDA-related AN/I on me made me realise what I had been blind to: the rapid amount of support (almost instant support) designed with no other intention than to get a decent editor into trouble. Selfish perhaps - but it was a real epiphany regarding CDA. It wasn't the editors that concerned me (I expected certain people to turn up) - it was the admin involved in it all. It was so unpleasant that I asked myself "does Wikipedia really need this?". A decent Canvassing section (and despite attempts, this CDA proposal doesn't quite have one) can possibly prevent a number of editors causing mayhem even before an official CDA starts (enough to be worth trialing CDA anyway). But it cannot stop admin - who are easily in contact - behaving badly, and supporting each other instinctively, and as various 'favours', as they so often do. We cannot be in denial about these things. Admin are editors too, and are fully capable of attacking another admin unfairly (and extremely bitterly too), and I cannot believe that any Bureaucrat would want that to be played out in such a public forum. CDA will prejudice Wikipedia itself - before, during and after the CDA, and the Bureaucrats decisions could become impossible to make fairly. The Crats just wouldn't be interested in it... Matt Lewis (talk) 20:29, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I worry that chasing decent-but-awkward admin will even be the 'norm' with CDA nominations, as most of the 'canny' admin could easily escape CDA anyway. Decent admin are easier to catch because they don't wriggle so much. CDA is not the only possible version of Admin Recall though, and RfA (the actual 'Request For Adminship' process) can still be improved, regardless of any form of Admin Recall that might be around. Basically, CDA is an unwashable bandage on a structural complaint. We need to get to the root of the problem: the quality of the RfA process (esp in the past, where it was much easier to become an admin), and the actual wisdom in actually awarding someone we don't really know such a veritable booty in the first place, eg such powerful and varied block tools, and a "job for life" over a sensible fixed term. Matt Lewis (talk) 20:29, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: I largely agree with TenOfAllTrades's analysis. I also feel that there's far too much drama on Wikipedia already, and CDA would simply add to this, without, I think, giving us much benefit in return. Scog (talk) 21:31, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
To be direct, I simply don't trust the Community to not abuse this ability. They (collectively; as one) are too quick to rush to judgment (generally speaking). Given the arbitration committee's willingness to desysop as of late, as Ryan P. points out above, I'm comfortable that any administrators who really should have their rights removed will have them removed. - Rjd0060 (talk) 23:08, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - I agree with a lot of what TenOfAllTrades has said. I also take issue with the supporters' proposed stance of "working out the details later". This is certainly a case of where the details matter, and at present, this is only going to lead to more drama. (Note: this doesn't imply that I have a solution, only that I think the proposed idea is worse than doing nothing). -- Bfigura(talk)23:12, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While I'm not trying to say that all supporters were in favor of working out the details later, at least two currently are. I'm merely stating that I disagree with them (not trying to put words in anyone's mouth). -- Bfigura(talk)23:18, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think it should be clear that the details can change, through normal processes of consensus for change. The long build-up to this proposal might give some the idea that it is now "finalized". No policy or process on Wikipedia is ever finalized. Gigs (talk) 01:37, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I understand. But if we implement a flawed CDA policy (like this one), the flaws won't get fixed until after they've been used to axe an admin or two. I don't see a reason to risk the damage, since I haven't seen any persuasive arguments as to why CDA is needed in the first place. -- Bfigura(talk)04:30, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
On thinking about this further, I'd like to make an observation. The procedure for closing this RfC requires that, if (and I said if) the proposal is supported, it must still undergo review by Bureaucrats and Jimbo before any implementation would be possible. I would suggest that revisions to the proposal that acquire consensus during this poll would need to be incorporated at that step. Now, please don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that editors should !vote for anything on faith or that they cannot logically oppose it on this basis. But I am pointing this out for any editors who might be interested, or who may wish to advocate for such changes. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:22, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: I believe the net harm to the encyclopedia will outweigh the benefits of weeding out a few bad apples. ArbCom is sufficient, and I hate to see abuse paralyze the already understaffed and overworked admin corps. bahamut0013wordsdeeds23:15, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I was expecting to support CDA. After reading the comments by TenOfAllTrades above, i think the current proposal is fatally flawed. I do think that a revised proposal, which deals with some or all of his concerns, might be worth enacting, but in light of the recent Craigy144 case, i am not convinced that there is as much urgency about this as IMO there once was. DES(talk)23:16, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I want to be clar, i suport the idea of CDA in principle, i have long though that some sort of community-driven process for removal of admin tools was needed. But I can't support thsi proposal, particularly not on a promise "oh we'll fix the details later". And the problem was worse when the ArbCom would only desysop for the most egriguious misuse of the tools. DES(talk)00:55, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While the proposal has some subconscious immediate appeal (live by the sword, die by the sword), the fact that no bright line is drawn—nor is there a mechanism proposed for defining one—makes this difficult to support. At a minimum there ought to be a mechanism to attract the attention of a random sampling of impartial editors to review the CDA, and a clear mechanism for them to interact with the agrieved (including none at all) and agree on the true facts of the matter, and how that relates to a de-sysopment verdict. —EncMstr (talk) 23:41, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with many of TenOfAllTrades's points, especially those regarding procedural fairness. I'm also not a big fan of the "requiring 10 people to support before the process actually starts" part. On one hand it helps to prevent frivolous requests, on the other hand, it runs the risk of starting inertia toward support before the process even begins. One of the main reasons that ArbCom elections switched to a secret ballot was so that the early voters wouldn't have the ability to set inertia and have their comments in the prominent position at the top of the section where they might have a disproportionate effect on later voters. This has a similar risk, except it would always force it in one direction. Given that ArbCom seems more willing to deal with cases through motions, I don't think this process is necessary as it may have been a year or so ago. Mr.Z-man23:45, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm very much worried about any proposal which would place administrators at the mercy of any mob that has an agenda to push. I would support a proposal for some sort of streamlined (and more orderly) RfC-like mechanism which makes the community's will known — something which this proposal approaches — but not make it binding without the check and balance of the committee being the final word.
Frankly, the relative inertia of the committee in cases of desysoping is a good thing; and there is nothing that would prevent the committee to simply "rubber stamp" by motion the result of any process that was fairly run and where concerns were properly heard. — Coren(talk)23:51, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I like the general idea of community-driven de-admining, but cannot support this proposal. In particular, I'm sure we would see admins who take action against any large, vocal group facing CDAs, causing a natural reduction in admin boldness. (This is a corollary to TenOfAllTrades's point about procedural fairness.) Designing a robust CDA procedure would be quite difficult and (I suspect) not a productive use of our time. I think Coren's suggestion (immediately above) is a much better option. CWC00:14, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose- I agree with many of the points put across by TenOfAllTrades. I believe ArbCom is sufficient in dealing with admins who should have their adminship removed. I think the system proposed would be too easy to abuse. OohBunnies!...speak00:39, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am afraid that this will become Wikipedia's grand theater of High Drama. I am also concerned that editors who have been justifiably sanctioned by administrators, including some who are very frequent guests at AN/I and similar fora, will use this mechanism against good cops. There are plenty of persistent troublemakers with more than the requisite account age and edit count, and well more than 10 of them can be rounded up in short order. I don't want administrators, or other editors for that matter, spending unnecessary time in recall proceedings, when they can better spend that time enforcing Wikipedia's policies and guidelines and improving Wikipedia's articles. The existing mechanisms are sufficient to deal with the very small minority of administrators who abuse their authority or tools.—Finell00:56, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I count two critical flaws. First: the committee is an important check on any movement that seeks the removal of administrator rights, but it is entirely ignored in this proposal as it stands. Second: the proposal holds that 65% in support of a desysopping means that there is a consensus to remove sysop rights. Hardly—anything lower than eighty would be unacceptable.
A community de-sysopping process should exist. And this proposal has clearly had a lot of work put into it. (Those editors who are its proponents have my thanks for their efforts in tackling what has long been an elephant in the room.) But a CDA process must incorporate a requirement to have the advice and consent of the arbitration committee in relation to every desysopping, as otherwise we will suffer quite grievously from the problems that Ryan Postlethwaite and Coren envisage. And we need to set the bar much, much higher, to reduce the incidence of trigger-happy desysoppings. A good start, but adjustments are needed. AGK00:54, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - This seems less like a reasonable tool for quality control and more a way for people angry at admins to go on the offensive. I see the word "community" in here but I'm not seeing the mechanism that somehow accurately represents the will of something so large. Is there no intermediate step that could be tried first before resorting to this mob magnet? Rob Banzai (talk) 01:00, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I oppose out of one specific concern that I don't feel can be adequately expressed by this or many other CDA proposals. I mean very well for those who deliberated upon the topic and worked and compromised to get this package of a proposal. I hope this process serves as a model for processes in the future. Regardless, my concern is that this role is not only handled by the Arbitration Committee competently, but more fairly than a community de-adminship process could. While arbitration cases by design scrutinize each party as the embattled editors they are, CDA is inherently biased towards the administrator; even if the nominees are scrutinized, it's the administrator whose name gets put on the CDA and its the administrator around whom all discussion is focused. This is especially problematic in cases where a lynchmob goes after an administrator who made a controversial yet appropriate decision. Because of these things, I feel I must oppose for now. harej01:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you "mean well for those who deliberated upon the topic", perhaps you can explain why a Wikipedia admin sees fit to place a bogus 'Om box', clearly designed to cast discredit on this RfC, at the top of the page in its opening hours? I'm sure many besides myself will find your answer of interest. There is also a specific section regarding this issue, above. Jusdafax06:19, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - On balance this seems more troubling than helpful and as someone has said, a drama magnet. I am not convinced that there is a sufficient problem requiring this particular solution. I am happy to allow arbcom to handle wayward admins. JodyB talk01:21, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Leave it to arbcom, there is no need for an additional layer of drama. Letting admins run the gauntlets to see if they make it to the other side is not the way to go. -- Kim van der Lindeat venus01:29, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - I don't see a need for it and as many have highlighted above, ArbCom can deal with this issue effectively and in a balanced manner. If anything is needed then it would be an extension and formalising of an ArbCom process. → AA(talk) — 01:34, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Having read other comments and opinions, I want to add that what I think could work is an "admin suspension" policy as a compromise, with ArbCom having the final say on either re-instating or revoking admin rights permanently. Pre-requisites for initiating this action would be clear evidence that admin tools have been abused on a number of occassions and could in fact be a quicker route to "suspending" abusive admins than this proposal suggests but I still oppose this process as it is too easy to be abused by blocs of editors with a grudge and will keep admins away from dealing the controversial subjects. → AA(talk) — 09:41, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wouldn't it be possible to achieve exactly the same thing by modifying the "appeal" section of this proposal to add an automatic, required, appeal to ArbCom? --Tryptofish (talk) 19:24, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That may be so (or may not be) but what we are discussing is the proposal as presented and as such it does not have this or other sufficient safeguards. If this is to become policy, it needs to be sufficiently workable in the form presented without a need to re-engineer the policy substantially. Having taken another look at it, it strikes me as flawed since nowhere does it provide the criteria upon which the CDA process should be initiated and why ArbCom is not capable of dealing with it. This, I think, is a fundamental requirement that needs to be stated. → AA(talk) — 20:21, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, with reservations. Although the community gives the admin bit, you might assume it should also be able to also take it away. However, in my experience, it does not take much effort for a momentum to develop against an admin who, although generally competent, has made a few bad decisions. ArbCom emergency de-sysopping exists if that gets gross, and Arbcom can apply conditions for re-sysopping. Otherwise, RfC and RfArb exist. I don't think we need further process as an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy. Rodhullandemu01:53, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose due to terms of process, though I may support an alternate form of community de-adminship. The currently stated requirement of "most of those above approximately 80% support for removal are passed, while most of those below approximately 65% fail, and the area in between is subject to Bureaucratic discretion" leaves an excessively large amount of discretionary power to 'crats, in my opinion. Policy that spells out the possibility of de-adminship with 65% (or near it) support is ludicrous. If that's the criteria, ArbCom alone is a much better solution than the proposed process. Steven Walling01:55, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - I agree with Tenofalltrades' arguments sufficiently to give me serious misgivings about this proposal. A modified Arbcom process might serve the community better. dramatic (talk) 02:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose No ta, bad idea and open to manipulation and agenda driven desysopping. The Arbs are willing to desysop for cause so what problem are we solving here? SpartazHumbug!02:39, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I could see this being open to some abuse as per Spartaz, plus, the arbitration committee is willing to desysop for cause. Removal for cause by ArbCom makes sure that all other methods were exhausted, and establishes firm grounds for removal. This proposal seems to make the administrator position into political office rather than something closer to civil service. SchuminWeb (Talk) 02:47, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've been on the fence over this whole issue for a while. Ryan's points above, combined with Tenofalltrade's arguments have convinced me that it is a bad idea. Personally, I think that ArbCom does a perfectly fine job of desysopping admins who have actually done wrong, without getting the ones who just made bad decisions. I fear that if this proposal is enacted, a few admins will get their rights revoked for less than what they get now, which is perfectly fine. This is a well-thought out and well-intended proposal, but I cannot support it. (X! · talk) · @174 · 03:10, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose A bad idea on several counts. Most obviously because it's not as if we have dozens of rogue admins running around damaging wikipedia. Arbcom, and the common sense of admins who resign, seems to do the job fairly well. But, beyond that, we hardly need more processes floating around and politicizing wikipedia. Enough time is already spent on various processes (navel gazing at WT:RFA is the prime example) and we definitely don't need more work for admins responding to questions and defending their actions in a desysop poll of sorts. One must bear in mind that this is a volunteer effort and adding more layers of non-encyclopedic work is hardly the direction we should be moving in. Finally, Wikipedia:Community_de-adminship/FAQ#7._Q:_Is_CDA_is_trying_to_resolve_any_existing_problems.3F is full of wishful thinking. One could argue the opposite on "beneficial" claims made there. Rather than act as a 'beneficial deterrent' it might be a detrimental deterrent with admins unwilling to take tough decisions. It might also be a 'detrimental deterrent' to running for RfA - why bother if ten editors and their socks can put you through the mill all over again. --RegentsPark (talk) 03:11, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose having been on the arbitration committee and in my time (and afterwards) there tried to highlight arbcom's role in reviewing admin tools, I can confidently say it is the least drama-inducing way of reviewing admin tools. The main problem I have noted in the past 12 months or so is a reluctance for the community to request a case of reviewing tools to the arbitration committee, not the committee's reluctance to take them. Another observation made while I was involved was that one of the areas where wikipedia needs admins the most is the trouble-spots, that is, articles and subjects which have been the subject of arbitration cases and are under some form of probation. It is these areas where admins using tools can quickly come under fire from one (or both) 'sides' if they have made actions viewed as unpopular. I fear a bloc of editors, especially eloquent or political ones, could easily take revenge by a path such as this. Hence this proposal could worsen admin shortage in wikipedia's sore spots. Casliber (talk·contribs) 03:22, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This was never a viable proposal (with this much discussion above, I have nothing to add on the subject of why that is), and it has been frankly disheartening to see editors with good intentions continuing to push refining it when any number of people have pointed out that fine details aren't what dooms such proposals. I hope the editors involved (who have, I repeat, good intentions) will accept at some point that it's time to stop moving on this. My apologies if the previous sounds patronizing; I don't know how else to say it, and it needs to be said. — Gavia immer (talk)03:58, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I'm against this for the same reason I support Life time appointments for Supreme court. If a single controversial action by an Admin can bring down wrath of a small group of editors, and then have a single beaurocrate make a up/down vote it corrupts the integrity of the adminship. I'm all for oversight but this method would cause admins to play ball to much to accomodate everyone, or worse it would cause them to not take an action strictly to maintain their position rather then because it is the right thing to do. Smitty1337 (talk) 04:17, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Would open a new arena for massive drama and would politicize adminship to an unacceptable degree. If there were multiple, recent instances in which ArbCom had failed to act when desysopping was clearly appropriate, I'd reconsider. But WP isn't a popularity contest, and this would be simply one more way to distract from building and maintaining the encyclopedia. Rivertorch (talk) 04:48, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This proposal is an invitation to mischeif and creates a disincentive for admins to take necessary actions that are not also popular. There is already sufficient procedure to rein in truly rogue admins. This process will snare some bold admins and turn others into capons. David in DC (talk) 04:53, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I simply don't see where there are all of these cases where there has been refusal to remove admin privileges when adequate evidence has been provided. We can't risk admins becoming timid when difficult decisions have to be made and we should avoid yet more layers of rules and yet more places for people to argue when they should be writing an encyclopedia. SteveBaker (talk) 05:24, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
User:TenOfAllTrades and User:Matt Lewis echo many of the concerns I have had since this proposal was raised. Speaking as an editor, I feel that the proposal's problems outweigh its benefits, and would still prefer to see a subcommittee of arbcom serving to expedite Admin-abuse issues. Speaking as a bureaucrat, should this pass, I will accept the community's decision and do my best (as always) to implement the community's consensus in any CDA discussions. -- Avi (talk) 05:27, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Per many of the above comments, there are simply too many potentials for abuse in this particular process as set forth now. I have no blanket opposition to such a process, but really: some of the concerns TenOfAllTrades lists above are dead simple--like the right of the admin to respond to the accusations--and the fact that they remain outstanding and unresolved demonstrates that this is not yet ready for adoption. Jclemens (talk) 05:45, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Oppose I think that the concept of community requested de-adminship is valid; however the details of this particular proposal need work. I didn't see anywhere in the proposal where the administrator can defend him/herself. Notanonymous0 (talk) 06:34, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose CDA would be too vulnerable to political games. Further, a pressing need for this policy has not been demonstrated as we already have systems in place to de-admin that can work faster than the proposal. AzureFury (talk | contribs) 06:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Spartaz's point about manipulation is well-made. Opening the de-admin process to community vote would expose Wikipedia to a new kind of troll: people who vote in CDA polls to de-admin someone purely for their own amusement and attempts to cause as much havoc with the process as possible. It will be next to impossible to weed out such under-the-radar-flying troublemakers. 3.14 (talk) 06:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
About that new kind of troll: Please note that it is actually quite easy to pull up the user-contributions of such a person and see this kind of single-purpose account pattern, and the proposal as written specifically instructs the closing Bureaucrat to discount !votes from such SPAs. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:44, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, when an admin goes off the rails, there are many ways to get them to stop. Blocking or banning come to mind. Community disapprobation is also a powerful tool. Then there is arbcom, which I consider to be functional enough to handle a real problem admin. This proposal will only handle admins who rub people the wrong way but operate within the rules. We need more people like that, not less. Speciate (talk) 06:52, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per what Ryan Postlethwaite, MrZ-man, and others have said. The proposal seems to have too much room in it so that the system can be gamed, more drama can be had (than is necessary), etc. Killiondude (talk) 07:18, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, this proposal will guarantee that any unpopular but needed tasks will never get done. It also is extremely prone to provide agenda-driven grief and drama to last for at least a couple of buckets of popcorn per week. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff)08:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This is why we have ArbCom. They are there to review the evidence dispasisonately, this process can be abused by grudge-bearers and will deter admins from taking necessary but unpopular actions. There has been no significant delay in ArbCom desysopping abusive admins in recent times. There is merit in suspension of tools during consideration of arbitration cases on abuse of tools, I think that is the only change we actually need here. The complexity of the proposal is an excellent indication that this is an issue fraught with massive difficulties, and in the heat of the moment we, as a community, are spectacularly bad at handling nuanced situations. I commend also Ten of All Trades' exceptionally thorough review, which points out numerous serious and inherent flaws in the proposed process. So, leave it to the arbitrators. Guy (Help!) 09:22, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This just inflates the idea that adminship is a big deal. There need not be a bureaucratic process to remove what should be and always have been janitorial tools. WP:RFA and adminship in general should be reassessed such that the "power" and/or stigma should not be attached to a "Block" button, a "Delete" button, and a "Protect" button. Adminship should be easier to take away and give, like it is on nearly all of the other Wikimedia projects. As it stands, the arbitration committee and processes do a good enough job removing the tools when the community feels it is necessary as I am very well aware.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 09:38, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose the problem with compulsory de-adminship processes is that many administrative actions, even if done perfectly, will make an administrator a lot of enemies. If these enemies decide to use the de-adminship process then the administrator will end up in a long, drawn-out fight to save their neck and with no guarantee that dispassionate members of the community will outnumber those with grudges. We already have people supporting this proposal "because admin X would be a good candidate for it". With ArbCom this problem does not arise, because if the people with grudges can't present solid evidence then the case will be declined quite quickly. The proposed process doesn't offer any way of countering this problem, and the removal percentages have been imported from RfA - which is a different process entirely. Hut 8.510:01, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose — In reading through all of the comments here, I'm reminded of a famous saying: "What is right is not always popular; what is popular is not always right". By placing the actions and decisions up to a popular vote through this process, elements of the community can and will seek to substitute its opinion for the judgement of an administrator. The admins were all elected or selected by the community to exercise their individual judgements. Many times a single admin will be called upon to make a single decision. That's why we as a community have them in place. The RfA process is designed to vet them for sound judgement in the first place. Yes, I acknowledge that good people don't accept nominations at RfA, and I acknowledge that the community, in good faith or otherwise, as individuals give the bit to people who turn out to be bad choices. I came here today thinking that I would be supporting the proposal, but I can't in good conscience let factions of aggrieved editors use CDA as a forum to seek retribution and retaliation against administrators that utilize the tools given to them, in good faith, for the benefit of the encyclpedia. Looking to the US Constitution for an example of guidance, members of the federal judiciary "shall hold their Offices during good Behavior" (US Cont. Art. III Sec. 1). This does not make them immune to being removed, rather they must be impeached by the House of Representatives and convicted by the Senate. The analog on Wikipedia already exists in RfCs referred to the Arbitration Committee. We already have the tools and the people in place to impartially judge administrator action, so this proposal is instruction creep and bureaucracy creep. Returning to the quote I used to open my comments, popular opinion may not provide the right solution in a situation. In all actuality, the right solution will likely ruffle feathers from time to time. Imzadi1979 (talk) 10:16, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This seems to be a solution looking for a problem to solve, and would serve no purpose other than to make it easier for disruptive editors to harass admins. I agree with Hut 8.5's comments above - by the nature of the job us admins upset disruptive editors, some of whom bear grudges (which extend to a genuinely irrational level with surprising frequency), and there's no need to give these editors extra opportunities for disruption when ArbCom and the various appeals processes provide a high level of protection against irresponsible admins. Nick-D (talk) 10:19, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - I appreciate the need for the community to be able to remove admins, but this process still smacks of knee-jerkism for all the work that was put into it. Permitted canvassing makes it to easy to game the process or turn it into a popularity contest (a clever user can coach people on what to say to keep their opinions from being discounted) and shunting the admin's defense to the talk page really is a big deal. Instead of canvassing I'd rather the nominating editor have to gather signatures the same way they do for an RfC, and once certified there should be a site-wide notice about the CDA, just like there was for this RfC. ArbCom has the ability to act swiftly in emergency situations, so we can take the time to work out a process that provides a bit more room for due process than this.--~TPW(trade passing words?) TPW is the editor formerly known as otherlleft 12:48, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - I wouldn't be an admin (not that anyone would ask) for all the tea in China. Sometimes the get it wrong. Mostly they get it right. We don't need this. Fmph (talk) 13:11, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per previous comments I've made regarding the development of this proposal (in particular the way less bureaucratic and otherwise more desirable alternatives were sidelined after the first Administrator Recall RFC) and its outcome. Rd232talk13:54, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Just don't like the what the community gives, the community can take away sort of thinking. The community attracted to this sort of procedure have the potential to turn it into a kangaroo court. Admins on the whole do a pretty good job and as volunteers they dont need a vehicle such as CDA being available to editors with axes to grind. The existing procedures (RfC escalating to ArbCom) are by far the best way to deal with admins perceived to be not up to scratch. --Bill Reid | (talk) 14:25, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose There are perfectly good means of desysopping a problematic admin. This proposed process feels too vulnerable and easily abused to be an improvement on the current system. ALInomnom15:18, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Switching to support. I believe all the issues I've had have been fixed, and while I don't like the general idea of desysopping good admins, I figure that's no reason to oppose this policy for serious circumstances. ALInomnom13:32, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I used to support a form of a community de-adminship, but the flaws that Ten of All Trades points out in the current proposal are too serious to ignore. Sandstein 16:26, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose There is already too much drama in the many venues for Wikipedia processes, and I think this will just add to it, taking resources away from other, needed, areas. I was almost convinced by the 'review' after five CDAs, or one year, but it's the drama leading up to an official CDA that will be so time consuming. And we already have a remedy for this procedure. Sorry supporters, I oppose. DD2K (talk) 16:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose — It should be substantially more difficult, and more objective, dispassionate, and neutral, to remove an administrator than it is to create one. By creating an administrator we are, by definition, moving away from the pure-wiki ideal by entrusting them with additional powers to act in those situations where ordinary editors cannot be trusted not to abuse those powers. Administrators — and I am not one — need the freedom to act without fear of having to defend themselves except in those rare instances when they have, in fact, abused their trust. ArbCom works just fine for that. — TRANSPORTERMAN (TALK) 17:04, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - This measure will force admins to either avoid areas involving contentious decisions or spend half their time defending themselves against vengeful editors. Bms4880 (talk) 18:10, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - CDA in theory is a very good idea. This proposal in reality is a half-baked mishmash of poorly thought-out ideas that actually wouldn't achieve its aims in most circumstances, and is extremely prone to abuse. If we really want admins to never make a contentious decision again, this is the way to go. Black Kite18:50, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - I don't see any evidence that the existing channels of RfC, noticeboards, emergency de-admining, and ArbCom are broken or insufficient. Of the very few WP admins I've encountered that I felt were unsuitable for the job, all but one are no longer administrators (and I'm not sure that the one can't be chalked up to a temporary bout of jackassery). Should an admin step out of line there are a dozen more who are available to intervene. I think this proposal addresses a perception rather than an actual problem, namely that admins have unchecked power and potential to abuse. In reality, there are plenty of checks and they are working. In this proposed process, I fear there aren't enough checks to keep it from being hijacked for abuse, as a vehicle to air grievances regarding editing disputes, or as a forum for people who have authority issues and want to use it to take perceived authority figures down a peg just for kicks. I'm sure you could find ten users who don't like any administrator, and if you can't, that just means that the admin is either new or isn't doing his or her job and is dodging potentially controversial problems. Gamaliel (talk) 19:14, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Agree with most of the opinions in this section, including: CDA being a good idea in theory but in writing a different story. As stated by someone above, the community grants Adminship to individuals and should (again in theory) have the ability to remove said Adminship but I, as well as others it seems feel this particular process of CDA might be too easily abused. These among other issues have forced to oppose. Jeffrey Mall (talk • contribs) - 19:17, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I am not inherently opposed to such a process, just to some of the details of this one. We should not enact a flawed process with the vague promise it will probably get fixed later. I agree that rogue administrators must not be allowed to go around using the tools to further their own interests, or to bully and abuse, but there appear to be other adequate means of stopping such behavior. Some of the provisions are thoughtful, such as requiring 10 editors to initiate the procedure, and requiring a supermajority to desysop, but I have real concerns about the vagueness of the canvassing provision. It would be all about "getting out the vote" and efforts to notify those likely to vote pro or con the de-adminning. It is vague as to how many editors the accusers may contact soliciting signatures, and it is vague as to how many editors the defendant may contact. This is quite unlike the RFA process, where I understood it was improper to contact others to go and participate, or even to place a notice on ones talk page that RFA was underway. Many parts of Wikipedia where editors !vote or where their arguments stack up pro and con are very thinly attended, and mention of a CDA on a project page, in a newsletter sent out to people interested in some particular thing, or even in forums outside Wikipedia could bring in enough votes to oust a good administrator (or contrariwise to keep a bad one). Fix the canvassing provision, and make sure there is an adequate way for the accused to defend himself, before trying again to create such a process. Would each CDA be listed in a box on the side of many commonly looked at pages, such as the "Centralized Discussions" box shown on the AFD log page, or at WP:AN? (Curiously, current RFAs are not listed there). Edison (talk) 19:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Excessively bureaucratic and moving WP even further away from the anyone can edit ideal. While does an editor have to have 500 edits to nominate instead of 490? Just more elitism creeping in WP.Gerardw (talk) 19:58, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - At first I liked the idea, but TenOfAllTrades' arguments regarding potential for compromise, single point of failure, and RfC/Arbcom alternative are very solid. Tryptofish just dismissed the compromise issue as "nonsense" and missed the point entirely about single point of failure (that a beaurocrat may be sure about their decision when they shouldn't be). --Explodicle (T/C) 20:55, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm certainly capable of missing things, but I did attempt to respond specifically and accurately. Some of the criticisms really are nonsense, in that they factually misrepresent what has happened or what the proposal actually says. About having a compromise short of de-sysoping, the proposal allows editors who favor an outcome short of de-sysoping to !vote against the CDA (since they do not support the idea of removing administrative rights), and comment exactly on what they would advocate instead. (In fact, I pushed for adding that to the proposal.) And if a Crat makes a wrong decision (something I honestly find unlikely), it will be very public, much as a badly closed RfA would be, except even more conspicuous. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:05, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
How do you figure that beaurocratic failure is unlikely? These CDAs are going to be a huge mess of drama (albeit warranted) so it will be much harder to find consensus than with an RfA... and good luck proving them wrong even if it's transparent. Also, !votes aren't a sufficient answer to the problem of polarized-by-design Support and Oppose camps; minority opinions will seldom gain enough consensus for a beaurocratic response. --Explodicle (T/C) 17:40, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose RfC plus ArbCom, or ArbCom alone in emergencies, are just fine. I am not aware of a single case where this method failed. There is too much politics and drama already; people should focus on article writing rather than playing survivor. Crum375 (talk) 22:09, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair, cases where admisn are generally ulpleasent or bitey to many people, make poor decisiosn with some consistancy, etc, but where no one instance is glaring or way out of line, are not well handled by the current system. DES(talk)00:32, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, for the same reason why elected judges are a bad idea. This process would force administrators to worry about the political ramifications of their actions, rather than concentrating on being an impartial arbiter of policy. The RfC/Arbcom alternatives are far better practice. –Grondemar22:40, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My reference to "elected judges" wasn't in reference to RfA (which I have no problem with), just this proposal. Like how judges who face reelection sometimes make politically-popular yet legally-questionable rulings, administrators if this system passes will be tempted to avoid making difficult policy calls in order not to make enemies that could bring them before this process. For example, an administrator might be more reluctant to protect a page or make appropriate blocks in the middle of an edit war between two nationalistic factions, fearing that one or both of the factions will drag him into CDA. I don't think that's desirable. –Grondemar05:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Your position makes no sense. You're apparently uncomfortable with judges being elected, but completely oblivious to the fact that administrators are also elected. Live in your own world, I prefer mine. --MalleusFatuorum05:30, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is a difference between judges elected once, but never needing to face re-election, and those who are subject to periodic re-election and/or popular recall. The latter might well temper justice with political calculation more than the former. That is, i think, Grondemar's point. DES(talk)00:32, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Ryan Postlethwaite, Christopher Parham, Crum375, Grondemar, et al.. While I like the idea, it's not needed and could be dangerously abused. The new ArbCom system needs to be tried first. RfC is also there. I don't want to have both eyes on a recall, but I'm open to the idea of recall. I make a lot of controversial blocks and deletions, and do not want that held against me. Bearian (talk) 22:52, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose In principal I would support a CDA proposal provided it was fair and I thought it might work as well as Arbcom, which for all its flaws is not known for reluctance to desysop admins. This proposal has some positive features, it has moved partway in the direction of giving crats greater discretion over remedies, but this needs more fleshing out and doesn't fit well with the current structure which is overly focussed on one remedy - desysopping. Now it's a racing certainty that those who file a CDA will do so because they consider that a desysopping is appropriate, but views in the community are liable to vary from filing a sockpuppetry case against the ten filers to community ban for the admin - with every conceivable shade of grey in between. I'm not convinced that the response to that should be to widen crat discretion, rather it should be to spell out that participants are being asked two very different questions. Is this admin at fault? and What should be done about it? Then let the crats work out the consensus. That could be as simple as only 55% consider that user:example merits a desysop, but a further 20% support admonition and a topic ban from Diesel trains, and 92% support a topic ban on the ten nominees from all steam train articles. But this proposal fails on several counts: Ten people are allowed to canvass on one side but only one on the other? The defendant and anyone choosing to defend them can't do so on the page but only on the talkpage? However those flaws could be easily remedied, rather more serious is the issue of gaming. Wikipedia Review already has way more influence on this site than I think is healthy, and they aren't the worst out there. I know this may sound paranoid, but we do need to be aware that there are sites out there that want to take us down, whether for the lulz or because our neutrality offends their world view; This proposal simply makes us and especially any admin willing to use the tools in contentious areas, way too vulnerable. I think this scheme could be less gameable if we required nominators to verify their identities with the office, but once we get to that stage, we seriously have to ask what is so wrong with Arbcom? ϢereSpielChequers23:26, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If user:example dares to edit another article about either diesel OR steam trains, outright banning from the 'pedia would be appropriate, and assassination would not be beyond consideration! Edison (talk) 04:14, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Given my own recent experiences, I totally hear you about those lulz, but I'd like to clarify a few of the other things you said. The proposal does allow users who oppose de-sysoping to comment that they prefer, instead, an admonition or topic ban, etc., but I think it would put a difficult and unanticipated task before the Bureaucrats, if they have to decide amongst various possible resolutions (and who carries it out, if they don't?). About the canvassing points you raise, the ten people are only permitted to canvass enough to amass that first ten, whereas the administrator is essentially unlimited. And, although discussion here suggests that a section ought to be created on the CDA poll page for the administrator's defense, there is already an "oppose" section where extended comments are encouraged, and so it is untrue that the defense gets sent off to the talk page. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:41, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I hadn't spotted the bit about only permitted to canvass until they achieve the first ten, and agree that sounds a little more balanced than I thought. However it leaves us with a proposal that I consider nigh on unworkable. Stopping a canvas operation at a set point is a recipe for Dwamah and disputes as to whether it was done to excess, and allowing the admin whose judgement is in question to break the normal rules of canvassing is bound to end in tears. I appreciate that the admin can respond in the oppose section, but still think they need their own response section. As for the difficulty of achieving alternative resolutions in CDA, remember Arbcom already can do this - and what would be the point of this system if it didn't aspire to be as good as the current system? ϢereSpielChequers18:58, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Proposal places all administrators at risk as conflict is inherent in administrative actions. I would, however, support a "term limit" proposal for all administrators, perhaps two to three years. The former administrator would then have the option of returning to an active editor's status or opening a new RFA to provide the community an opportunity to evaluate the Administrator's accomplishments and limitations. WBardwin (talk) 00:53, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The current system where the Arbcom can desysop is working fine. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. RFC/U and AN/I already provide opportunities for comment on questionable administrator actions. Ngchen (talk) 01:50, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. While I support the concept in a general sense, I feel that this proposal is not the way to go about it for the reasons others have raised. Probably a better idea would be to have each admin have their status re-confirmed (or taken away) by a regularly-scheduled community process every few years. (Give an admin an an initial renewable term of 2 years, for instance.) Good Ol’factory(talk)07:20, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that some system of de-adminship would be good, but this is not it. There are flaws in this proposal, something which even the supporters accept. We can talk about formal reviews, "developing as we go" and easily making changes, but how much time and how many RFC's would be required to actually make a decision? Something of such importance and significance should be better developed before we adopt it, or we'll have lost a number of good admins while we are still perfecting the proposal. Most admins (including myself) stick to relatively uncontroversial areas, and we have very few who are willing to make contentious decisions. I don't think we need to discourage them by hanging this over their heads. Also, some of the support !votes seem to be based on a lack of trust in ArbCom, without even considering the actual proposal. A large part of the community are not exactly fans of ArbCom, but I don't really see why we can't trust them with de-sysoping somebody when required. The general argument seems to be that ArbCom will deal only with issues where the admin has violated policy, but not where he has lost the community's trust. Why would somebody lose the trust of the community unless what he's doing is wrong? I can't think of a situation where it would be appropriate to bring something to CDA when it would be rejected by ArbCom, and not even a hypothetical situation has been presented by the proponents as far as I know. ≈ Chamaltalk¤12:57, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose reluctantly. We do need an easier de-adminning process than we have at present, but one that largely relies on polling is not desirable since I'm afraid that that will end up promoting greater cliquishness, strategic and defensive administering, politicking, drama, further dearth of admins in POV and sock-infested areas, and leave bad-blood in its wake irrespective of whether an admin loses her bit or not. Any de-admining process needs to rely on rational discussion, and assessment of strength of evidence and arguments rather than raw numbers (compare from, FA promotion process, and Arbcom setup). Abecedare (talk) 13:27, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose As unfashionable as it may sound, I believe that any CDA proposal needs to offer a modicum of protection for admins from spurious claims. These processes are always going to be painful for the candidate - just as RfA is - and we need to ensure that there is a legitimate grievance or misuse of their position before the voting! kicks in and that the votes! are made on such a basis. This proposal overly favours the nominator and, as far as I can see, does little to offer a platform for the admin even to defend themselves. My other concern is, just as RfA attracts its crowd, a regular core of voters would emerge with their own standards and POVs - there would be precious little "community" about it. CDA would need to be primarily discursive in order to be effective at weeding out the bad admins. A straight up or down vote is wholly unacceptable, we need to know why people are voting the way they are - just as we do at RfA. Especially with CDA, there are going to be people upset by legitimate admin actions and admins need to be protected from that; people could oppose if an admin took the other side in a discussion and we would be none the wiser. As it stands, this proposal could enforce an unbalanced pseudo-RFA on any admin at any time on the whim of a core of agitators - I am not suggesting all claims would be such, but you could find 10 people to back any POV, especially in contentious areas. In order for it to work, CDA would need to offer a fair and level playing field, I do not think that this is it. Rje (talk) 14:40, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Wiki.en has already an efficient and functional ArbCom which hadles these issues. A CDA could become a powerful weapon in the hands of trolls and their supporters. We don't need and we don't want ours administrators to be afraid of these people. I think that the seting up a process like that will certainly shy sysops away from dealing with sensitive problems. I agree with Rje and others who say CDA will always be harmful for the candidate even when the request is ill-formulated. Adminship is not only about popularity. Lechatjaune (talk) 16:10, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I admire that the community has worked hard to come up with this. However, it's an unnecessary increase in bureaucracy. We already have processes in place that can achieve the same end: Arbcom and RfC, per TenOfAllTrades.
I also worry about attempts to game CDA. -- Flyguy649talk
Oppose I don't feel the assumed problem is a huge deal, although I acknowledge that it is there, but also that ArbCom has been dealing with it rather well. Regardless, I came here to support this, as a less-than-perfect alternative but an alternative nonetheless. Sometimes the bureaucracy of options is a good thing. However, less-than-perfect is not always a net positive, and TenOfAllTrades has utterly convinced me that this is the case here. I think that analysis could set a good framework for how an eventual process might look, but after reading all the above comments I must admit to now being more partial to the RfC->ArbCom route than I was previously. I'll also add that I don't think CDA would be prohibitive toward administrative actions. ~ Amory (u • t • c)21:08, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This proposal is a problem masquerading as a solution. The number of recall attempts on administrators open to recall has been very limited. The number of those that got little to no support has been quite high - indicating a significant proportion of attempts here would be wasteful. Assuming for the case of argument that this would open up the process to a total of 4 times as many admins as have been open for recall, it would likely result in only a couple admins deadminned a year. The Arbcomm is already doing that.... This process would deter administrators from working in troubled areas with longstanding disputes (nationalist, political, fringe science), many of which have editorial cabals. Only some of those cabals come to light, often years after the cabals behavior violates guidelines (for example see the history of disputes over Eastern Europe). I thus conclude that this process will make the Wikipedia editing environment worse. GRBerry21:21, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I need to point out a flaw in the first part of your analysis. Open to recall is a voluntary system for administrators to join. By and large, those who do elect to join are excellent administrators, whereas problem administrators essentially never join. How many administrators de-sysoped by ArbCom were members of open to recall? The extrapolation is not valid. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:33, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Too much potential for abuse, for being used as a vendetta or another forum to shop. I don't see strong evidence that existing means for desysopping are insufficient, so this seems to be a solution without a problem to solve. rʨanaɢtalk/contribs22:30, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - good on paper until you realise Wikipedia is edited by humans. You can easily get enough users to certify, then possibly even to desysop. Sceptre(talk)00:53, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose If it ain't broke, don't fix it. We have a perfectly good system for desysop, no need to create a new one, which as stated above, could possibly be abused. Ronhjones (Talk)01:21, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. On the fence to begin with, but skimming through the "supports" (a good example being #37) solidifies my gut feeling that this would be used by the willfully ignorant and superstitious as a bludgeon against any admin who dares defy their various pet whitewashing attempts. These various fringe groups have a demonstrated record of intense tenacity (for evidence, take a cursory look at WP:RFARB, where fringe-warring is at the root of two of the three currently open cases, and one of the three recently closed cases), a level of tenacity which I wager far outpaces that of clueful members of the community. Hence, any proposal which boils down to "!votes" will have an automatic oppose from me for this reason (and, yes, I do recognize the slight grain of irony in that statement :-) ). Net time sink with no real point, ArbCom can handle (and has handled) the admins who are an actual drain on the project (rather than a drain on the energies / ego / self-love of fringe pushers). Badger Drink (talk) 01:31, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per various reasons above. I trust the Arbitration Committee on removing admins, and I think that this proposition is a dangerous turn from discussion and debate to a majority-rules atmosphere. I think the only way I would support this would be to see convincing examples where ARBCOM members have failed to handle an admin situation properly. Sorafune+101:58, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per harej. This is way to one-way centered, and puts the microscope from the community on the administrator without necessarily looking at the causes. In my opinion, the Arbitration Committee can handle this just fine as of now, and has in the past. Forums like this, are also a very easy way to instigate forum shopping, and vendetta searching, and this very proposal could easily be gamed for those very two purposes. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 04:49, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - there will only a consensus to remove an admin when it is so blindingly obvious that arbcom would do it anyway. This will cause drama and make no difference to the ease of removing under-performing admins.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Scott MacDonald (talk • contribs) 09:51, 25 February 2010
Oppose This moves us away from the examination of evidence as it is related to policy and community expectations and turns it into what will surely be a huge dramafest where the most vocal group wins. I have not yet seen any examples of what this new and extensive process with solve that our existing process does not. Chillum(Need help? Ask me)14:57, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Per TenOfAllTrades, and the many that can be summarised by "if it ain't broke". (At the same time, I am very close to !voting Neutral.) What I think lets this proposal down the most is that it is over-boiled, and as a result would be self-defeating. Rather than arriving out of current practice, it is a whole package presented as-is. The numbers (65%/80%) are arbitrary and the process was conceived in isolation. Before we introduce something like CDA, I would prefer that it was (a) seen to be necessary in practice and (b) based on what is known to work in practice. I'm unconvinced of both but I will focus my comments here solely on (b). We have ArbCom, we have RFC/U - we even have ANI. Under the CDA proposal, it would take a minimum of 33 or of 50 !voting editors to de-sysop an editor. I am unconvinced that so many editors would participate in a discussion at any of those venues except in the most exceptional of circumstances (in which case, I think the editor in question would be de-sysop'ed anyway). As such, I think that CDA would introduce a process that would be incapable of doing what it would be supposed to do. Let's start off working with the current processes - What are the problems with them? How can they be built upon? Foremost, I think there needs to a be an improvement in culture towards aminship - including among (some) editors with admin privileges. It is really is no big deal. -- RA (talk) 22:39, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
About some of things you said about the process leading to this proposal, please read the FAQ linked to at the top of this page, which briefly recounts, and links to, what was actually a very extensive and open process leading to this proposal. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:11, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My experience with that very extensive and "open" process was being told that this page is for developing the proposal and that my opposition to the idea was not welcome, and that there would be time for that at the RFC. Not exactly a consensus driven proposal, more like something developed off to the side without regard to criticism now presented as a finished work for the community to examine. Chillum(Need help? Ask me)00:10, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Chillum, at this point I can no longer remember the specific exchange to which you refer, nor can I do anything about what any other editor might have said to you. But I can say that quite a few of the users who oppose here came to that discussion and said things to the effect of this proposal is never going to be any good, so shut down any work on it now, and were told that they would be welcome to make constructive criticisms on how to improve it, but that it would be unhelpful simply to say that it was bad without suggesting improvements. Now, that said, I can see as this RfC goes along that there were probably cases, for example where it may have been pointed out that there should be a dedicated place on the "example" page for the administrator's response, where suggestions were made in passing during confrontational negative comments, and may have been quite literally overlooked in the heat of the discussion. I, for one, am still receptive to such suggestions now. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:20, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
To all who worked on bringing Community De-Adminship to RFC, for your effort, good will, determination and teamwork, I award to you (all!) these barnstars. -- RA (talk) 00:35, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply] (edit conflict) I appreciate that. I followed the discussion (at a distance) since the start of December and participated once or twice. I would like to clarify that I think that a great deal of work has been put into the proposal by those involved and that I appreciate their efforts, good will, intelligence and determination. Whatever my opinion about the final proposal, I think all of those involved in crafting the proposal and bringing it to the community deserve a very hearty round of applause and so I would like to offer to you all this barnstar. -- RA (talk) 00:35, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You excel yourself Ranpahiati. Teamwork! It was 80-90% bickering over proposal pushing v consensus building, as you couldn't fail to notice. This RfC eventually happened suddenly, partly because of the threat of a 'counter RfC' from one single editor. There was a number of outstanding concerns, and with only a small consensus on the chosen content between a couple of editors left in the room. As someone who is highly suspicious of barnstars at the best of times, is there a way of rufusing this one? Matt Lewis (talk) 11:25, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Initially I was prepared to support, weakly. But the flaws noted by TenOfAllTrades are too worrying, and the replies to those concerns were not comforting. The protection offered by the process for muck-splattered Admins in the more unpleasant areas of Wikipedia are minimal. Sabine's Sunbirdtalk02:57, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: Not only no, but Hell No. We've already seen that the community can't be trusted when it comes to choosing admins - a straight vote overwhelmingly dominated by bullet voting, "optional" questions that are nothing but, ambushes and hazing. In my observation, many of the most vocal advocates of community de-admining fancy that an admin's stepped on their toes at one point or another. If people feel that there isn't enough desysopping going on, work to strengthen/broaden the existing means; we don't need red meat thrown in the water. Wikipedia isn't supposed to be about voting. Why is RfA, and this proposal, curiously exempt from that ideal? RGTraynor 06:59, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I would support a community-based deadminning system, but this is not such a system. This is a community-based drive-by shooting system, and is especially unfair to arbitration-enforcers and admins working in ethno- or sci-political areas (which normally have a "Me-versus-them" style to begin with). One of the things that needs to happen to fix it is that the admin needs to be able to respond to accusations right on the page, where it'll be most visible to onlookers who'd otherwise have only one side of the debate and decide based upon that. —Jeremy(v^_^vBoribori!)10:36, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose basically per TenOfAllTrades's analysis. To go a little further: this method remains too open to gaming by POV-pushers. There are many areas of the 'Kipedia in which there are gangs of POV-pushers who'll try to take down any admin who stands in their way, and yes, some of these gangs are large enough that even if some members end up disqualified from certifying one of these recall efforts, enough will remain. The mere fact that the vast majority of cries of admin abuse on ANI are frivolous complaints from those who just didn't get their way leaves me hesitant about any form of community-based recall, and this one does nothing to alleviate my concerns. No, I'm afraid I cannot support. Heimstern Läufer(talk)13:53, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Shifting the power from impartial arbiters towards those who are more likely to be prone to bring personal vendettas with a lynch-mob mentality is a recipe for unnecessary drama. Spellcast (talk) 20:48, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why do you assume they won't be impartial just becase they have the same slightly expanded set of tools? Admins aren't the Borg, acting as one like a horde of army ants. Sabine's Sunbirdtalk01:21, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am assuming nothing, simply pointing out the obvious fact that adminstrators judging the behaviour of other administrators is not exactly a model designed to win friends and influence people. --MalleusFatuorum02:10, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
By arbiters, I mean ArbCom. They're the most trustworthy group here to evaluate evidence in making a decision to deysop, unlike the general community, where users are more prone to demand deysops based on personal conflicts. Spellcast (talk) 02:15, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Not because I think Arbcom is doing a fine job dealing with admins (much the opposite), rather because this version offers no meaningful protection for admins beset with vendettas. We often bemoan the shortage of admins willing to work in controversial areas. At the same time we propose to make it easier for those with a grudge to tie up admins with frivolous process. Cognitive dissonance, anyone? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:53, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's clear that you don't understand the meaning of the term "cognitive dissonance", but you have reminded me of an article I've been meaning to invest some time in, so thanks for that. --MalleusFatuorum01:07, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose- I'm not against the idea in principle, but the process suggested does seem to be somewhat biased against the admin. In particular, a clearer way for the accused to rebut evidence is, in my view, needed. I'm afraid they need to go away and think about this a bit more before I can Support it. Anaxial (talk) 07:45, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The problem that this proposal is intended to counter is much less than it was a few years ago. The proposal would encourage the gathering of mobs and I find the cure to be worse than the disease. Sam Blacketer (talk) 14:57, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose I do not feel it is appropriate for the non-administrator community to have the power to desysop administrators. It is better the way it is currently, with Jimmy Wales and the ArbCom being responsible for de-sysoping abusive administrators. Immunize (talk) 16:10, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I cannot see how this proposal has gotten to a vote with all the controversy surrounding it. The current system may not be the best, but if we are replacing it with something that is even more debated, it is just asking for more trouble. --Willy No1lakersfan (Talk - Contribs) 16:30, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose While I feel that there should be a mechanism for the community to revoke admin rights, and that this should not ultimately be in in the hands of arbcom, the current proposal is clearly bad. Any mechanism that proposes a vote immidiately after an on wiki conflict should not be implemented. Polls should be a mechanism to start a process, not a mechanism to reach a result. Taemyr (talk) 19:05, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I understand your larger point, but I want to correct what you said about "immediately after an on wiki conflict". The proposal as written would not allow a successful CDA immediately after a conflict between users and an administrator. There must have been evidence of going through the prior steps of dispute resolution, or the attempted nomination cannot be certified. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:15, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - having ArbCom de-sysop abusive administrators works well enough. Unfortunately, I can only see such a process encouraging more conflict among editors. Arbitrarily0(talk)19:44, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral
Personally, I've never had a problem with an administrator & so there's not much chance I'd nominate one for CDA. Having said that, if this CDA passes or fails? I won't complain eitherway. GoodDay (talk) 19:29, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral. While having this method to de-sysop ones who seem to be unfitting for this "rank" seems to be a good idea, I don't think someone who would actually be prove to be incompetent would be given sysop rights. SpecB (talk) 23:23, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A desysopping process would be more likely to have as its subject administrators who had lost the trust of the community in their fitness for office than administrators who were incompetent. As you say, those who can't do their job usually don't get elected. AGK01:06, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral in principle I approve of the idea of the community of editors having a greater say in who holds the reigns of power, but there are just too many doubts in my mind, raised by TenofAllTrades. And admittedly, coming from a limited perspective, while I have disagreed with only a very small number of admin calls, I have never really seen something that would make me want to recall one. I might be more open to a different plan.LonelyBeacon (talk) 03:13, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I generally feel that posting a "neutral" is pointless and I very rarely do it, but I find myself torn here. Although I wrote one of the early proposals and participated in the initial discussions, I did so only because it seemed to me this was something a lot of users wanted and it was important to get it right, not because I think we are overwhelmed with bad admins. I have since developed serious concerns that any such process can and will be abused no matter what safeguards we may try to place on it, and I for one do not wish to be party to a witch hunt. There are most certainly a few users who can't wait for this to be implemented because they hold a grudge against one or more specific admins, and the last thing we need is more drama. Also, it does seem that ArbCom has been willing to deal with more f these cases and to handle them in an expedient manner that reflects the communities will. On the other hand, it's hard to argue with the idea that the community grants adminship and should therefore be permitted to revoke it without being forced to appeal to ArbCom. So, I'm just not sure which way to swing on this. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:23, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The admins who are not fit to be admins in the eyes of the community, would never respect any CDA proposal, whether the community supported it or not. These are the admins who have contempt for the community and think interpretation of policy has nothing to do with the community at all. The community is an irritant to them once they have their bit. It is just sad that some of them are so far up the food chain that even arbcom will not touch them either. It's rotten to the core. Still, 'no big deal', and all that BS. MickMacNee (talk) 11:05, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While a community de-adminship process is needed, what is actually missing is a more formal process for enabling the community to administer any and all user sanctions, rather than just a de-adminship process. I developed a model Recall/De-adminship process a few years ago while the ArbCom RFC was active here: User:Amerique/Community_recall, but basically quit working on it after coming to the realization that what was actually needed was a viable system of "Community Arbitration," (or "ComArb!") something similar to ArbCom process with evidence, workshop and decision pages but allowing for participation of all editors in good standing in crafting all binding decisions, retaining the ArbCom as a court of appeals or for dealing with cases involving information that couldn't be discussed on wiki. The development of such a system would empower the community to take disciplinary matters into its own hands and thereby lighten ArbCom's caseload. (But I don't have the time to develop it myself so anyone interested would have to work on it if they want to see anything like this become a pragmatic possibility in the future.) Ameriquedialectics11:32, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
opposers have legitimate points, i agree with the goal of the proposal, but find it insufficient. I would recomend upping both edits and period of heavy contributing. Lynch mobs are too easily created.Weaponbb7 (talk) 19:07, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is always the rule of unintended consequences with, on paper, good ideas. I would say that at least 95% of admins are doing a great job and would have no worries. However, there are always a few bad apples that need to be held accountable and "admin for life" can be more detrimental if those few are allowed to abuse their power. I think it would be better to limit terms of admins to 2 or 3 years and can reapply after the term is up. After this time, quite a few may not want to be admins anymore, many will be reconfirmed with ease, but at least those few troublesome ones will have a much harder time getting reconfirmed. I think that is the better solution. MrMurph101 (talk) 19:17, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
About term limits, that's something that appeals to me too. However, I don't see how one could apply that retroactively to administrators already sitting. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:37, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If it were up to me, the current (active) admins would start their term when this rule would go in effect. Any inactive admin, say one that hasn't done anything for 6 months to a year or more would have to reapply if they're still interested. However, this could mean a deluge of RFA's when all these terms are up so perhaps those who have been admins for less than a year will get the full term and those that have been longer than a year get a half term. MrMurph101 (talk) 19:47, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In a term limit set up, I would suggest using each admin's "anniversary" of their "ascension" as the cut off date. Those who have served the 2 or 3 (or whatever) years would lose their mop on their next anniversary. Then thy could decide whether or not to reapply. This would stagger the administrative changes throughout the year. WBardwin (talk) 06:17, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly, and well said. This simple method may be the next focus of those editors concerned with the current 'admin for life' status quo. If the many-month process of this current version of Cda proved anything, it seems to me the central lesson is the simpler, the better. Jusdafax18:20, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You have, I hope, reviewed the math at WP:PEREN#Reconfirm_administrators and considered what doubling or tripling the number of candidates at RfA might do to the process? For example, I think we could reasonably expect that doubling the number of candidates would halve the time and effort that the community can put into reviewing any one of them -- unless increasing bureaucratic overhead (at the expense of writing the encyclopedia) is an acceptable, if unintentional, consequence in your mind. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:39, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at your link was of interest. I happen to strongly disagree with the premise and wording of that statement, and feel that should be reviewed. This is not the right place for a lengthy discussion, however, and as I suggest below, you may wish to comment further at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Administrator on 'WikiProject Administrator/Term Limits: a proposal'. I should add that the section is just getting started. Jusdafax06:55, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My own personal opinion on this is in favor, however I also recognize that this has the potential to cause a large amount of drama...enough of a potential for me to !vote neutral. As it is, Category:Wikipedia administrators open to recall seems to be a less dramatic way. I will consider my opinion on this more in the coming days, and may end up leaning either way. Ks0stm(T•C•G)19:52, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
By way of shamelessly lobbying you, open to recall works very well for good, responsible administrators who choose to use it, but, as something that is completely voluntary, is of no effect at all for administrators who choose not to use it. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:20, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the principle of a framework for CDA, and enabling WP to be self-policing. However, I do not see here a framework for fair governance of that objective. I see points on both sides of this issue; however I do not feel comfortable with a blind approval of the proposal, nor do I feel I have a viable alternative thought through with which to conscientiously oppose it. Alvincura (talk) 22:44, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral. I generally support the concept of CDA, however I don't believe this current proposal is nuanced enough to do the job. Considering TOAT's criticisms, there appears a few checks and balances that could be adopted to make this less prone to lynch-mobbing. For example. If the wider community (rather than the self-selected group that would likely bring a CDA and vote on it) really felt an admin required de-sysopping, then there should be no issues with separating nomination and voting. That is, the ten nominators should not be permitted a vote. Instead they should put their case and let the rest of the community decide. In summary, I think this is a decent place to start, but the process needs work. Rockpocket02:54, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would also add that I envisage that the admin him or herself wouldn't be permitted to !vote either (he or she would put their defense and let the community decide). The 10:1 ratio appears fair to me because it essentially removes any "lynch mob" influence from the !voting equation and, in most cases, would leave the decision up to the community independent of the individuals involved. As an admin, I would be happy for my tools to be reviewed under this scenario, because if I take out the 10 people that have a serious axe to grind yet still have a significant proportion of the community think I'm are unfit for the job, then I'm probably unfit for the job. Rockpocket20:00, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral As an admin who is happy to participate in the recall process, I'm not sure a 'formal' recall process is needed. Although, I note of the near 900 admins on the system, a bare 200 make themselves 'open to recall'. The reason I've gone 'neutral' on this, is I foresee a process that may be open to abuse; and I'm not sure there's really a problem - there have been admins who have been de-sysoped for abuse - and if it needs to be done, it probably needs to be done quickly. Kbthompson (talk) 11:02, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral - I am not against an admin recall process per se, and I have historically given support to such a process. However, I cannot ignore or dismiss many of the concerns of the opposition to this particular proposal. I'm not really concerned that good admins will loose their adminship by this process as proposed; the minimum super-majority and 50 editors support required will probably be rarely achieved, and even that is subject to bureaucrat discretion. In comparison my recall process is 10 certified editors and a tie or simple majority in support of removal, with no further discretion. The concerns I have are more the possibility of lots of unnecessary requests, the problems of RfA re-appearing and possibly getting worse with CDA, and I don't think the issue of canvassing has been fully settled. I am becoming more open to wider reform of adminship on Wikipedia, such as introducing fixed terms. Camaron · Christopher ·talk19:15, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral As the proposed policy aggrandizes new powers to the Arbitration Committee clerks and Bureaucrats; I wear both of those hats and the groups are sufficiently small that it would appear improper were I to take a persuasive position. MBisanztalk06:51, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral I can't really say that I oppose, because it does seem like a reasonable way of getting rid of th ebad ones, however it might end up being a Popularity Contest type-thing and might not turn out so well. So in the end, I just say I could care-a-less what happens. PlyPlay665 (talk) 04:45, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral I'm going to take a Churchillian stance on this issue. I believe that some admins may well abuse their privilages and use their position to bias articles, projects and other features of Wiki that are of personal interest. However, this may lead to perfectly capable and Wiki-abiding individuals (admins) being subject to removal from their position, in which thaty may well serve to help the site. Perhaps a further investigatiion is in order. I propose that installing a more efficinet security and scrunity system (perhaps a board of Wiki-security guards) would be effective in reducing abuses of privilages. Conducting a 1-month trial run is probably the best idea. My regards to the person who came up with the idea, of course. --Aubs 400 (talk) 15:27, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral ... I can't support per all the gigantic gaps in logic, reasoning and due process that TenOfAllTrades discussed at the top. On the other hand, I can't flat-out oppose since the core concept of the proposal is to follow community consensus and not leave things to ArbCom, and there was (though perhaps somewhat flawed) lengthy community discussion before this RfC began. I agree that there should be "some" (I use that loosely) way to reel in so-called rogue admins without ArbCom, yet I fervently disagree with the idea of a 'Crat closing these discussions as it effectively reduces the importance of a majority vote in ArbCom to a lone 'Crat or at best a "crat chat". As such, neutral but wanted to comment on this important matter. How about focusing on some absolutes that are entirely inappropriate that would likely lead to a CDA and define them as subject to a warning escalation system, ending in desysopping... such as use of tools to unblock oneself, perhaps? ♪daTheisen(talk)05:21, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
If the number of regular contributers continue to stabilize, the admins group will gradually become the largest group in Wikipedia. They will become "the community". Sole Soul (talk) 03:08, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While our total number of admins is still growing, and the number of active admins recently revived slightly, we currently have 881 active admins, down from over a thousand at its peak. Without a major change at RFA I don't see admins being anything other than a dwindling minority in the foreseeable future. ϢereSpielChequers14:15, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The number might stabilize, but the people who make up the number won't. The number stabilizing just means that the number joining is equal to the number quitting. There will still be "new" regular contributors, and old ones will still retire. Mr.Z-man14:58, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You both have points. But generally, being an admin is directly proportional with factors like your frequency of editing, participation in discussions and the years of being a member; and inversely proportional to other factors like the number of blocks. These factors make admins like a pool of the fittests that is gradually increasing. Sole Soul (talk) 12:26, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If the de-facto criteria for adminship were stable then I'd agree that the pool would gradually increase. But the expectations at RFA have been rising for some time now - once it was possible to pass with three months tenure and less than a thousand edits. Now it takes a rare candidate to succeed with less than four thousand edits and only six admins created their accounts less than a year ago, three of those are bots and one one of the others is a new account for a returning admin. ϢereSpielChequers19:39, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum: I do in fact realize that his really doesn't hold true anymore. In an ideal world, it would, but in this time and place it does not. However, if as the above user indicated everyone would be admins, they would have gained community trust, been seen as competent, and it wouldn't be a problem. PLUS that will never happen (as far as I'm concerned) NativeForeignerTalk/Contribs04:07, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I was thinking that as well, and I'm sure it was raised in the early discussions. I recently discovered that the Urban Dead wiki now has a full-fledged community appointment process that includes an automatic process of comment in order for them to keep the bit. They took the good from here and ran with it.--~TPW(trade passing words?) TPW is the editor formerly known as otherlleft 17:03, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have made the same comment elsewhere recently. Even the President of the United States only gets a four year term. If adminship is "no big deal", then why is it a "for life" appointment? Jusdafax17:08, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
About regularly-scheduled re-elections, there was (big surprise!) a lot of discussion of that earlier. The problem (among others) is that, with the number of administrators, it would take multiple simultaneous re-elections ongoing for several years just to get through the administrators we have now. The numbers are impractical. By the way, please note this: a reconfirmation RfA would require the administrator to get approx. 70% support, whereas CDA would require only approx. 30% support. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's certainly what's needed, but equally certainly it's not going to happen any more than this proposal is going to go anywhere. Telling that over 50% of the opposers are administrators, with only 27% supporting don't you think? --MalleusFatuorum17:15, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've actually been pleased with how many administrators have worked on and supported this proposal. I'm not making any predictions about the outcome here, but I do remember that the notorious "motion to close" was passing by a wide margin about 24 hours after it opened, but as time went on, it was rejected two-to-one. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:21, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I personally think the standard of adminship on Wikipedia is overall far too poor (unsustainably so in fact - something has to give eventually), but I don't find this statistic (as it stands) remarkable either way. If you study CDA it has clear downfalls - you either want to trial it, or you don't. Even when I supported CDA, I sat enough 'in the middle' to see that their were valid arguments both ways. Administrators are obviously less likely to want to trail something that could easily prejudice their very job: a few bad CDA's could make every admins life difficult, and the residuals (specifically from inter-admin disharmony) are too hard to prevent and manage. The Crats won't allow CDA anyway, as you know (and rightly so imo - such important things have simply got to be right). It is best to make changes to Wikpedia that no-one can so easily challenge - there are plenty of other routes towards change. Matt Lewis (talk) 19:19, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Turkeys don't vote for Thanksgiving, that's perfectly clear and what will scupper this proposal. Personally I'd be happier with fixed terms. That way at least the poor admins (of which there are far too many, just not so egregiously bad that ArbCom would be prepared to take action against them) would at least not be around for ever. --MalleusFatuorum19:25, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I favour fixed terms too (Wikpiedia has to lose this 'job for life' nonsense), and an Admin Review too. Maybe they could cross in some way. When we have a reasonable Admin structure for the first time in Wikipedia's history (Wikipedia needs to adapt as it grows if nothing else), then we could look at whether we need a singular Admin Recall or not. Likelyhood is that the current version of admin recall (rfc/u with arbs) would then actually suffice. Matt Lewis (talk) 19:53, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm also in favor of creating terms (not term limits) for administrators. I haven't seen much traction on the idea, though. It seems a number of people seem to think complicating the proposal with enforced breaks or something similar will make it better. I disagree, as I think it only makes the idea more difficult to support for those who might otherwise consider it. All we need is a simple term (2 years sounds good), and a plan for transition.
It would be interesting if some admins would consider voluntary terms to begin with, much as we have the voluntary admin recall process. If some admins were to reject voluntary recall in favor of stepping down or resubmitting an RfA after a specified period of time, it might open editors up to the idea of admin terms in general. Sχeptomaniacχαιρετε18:56, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I strongly support a fixed mandate for admins (say two years) with a minimum interval between successive mandates (say one year). Knowing that one will be a plain user at least 1/3 of the time would hopefully prevent an otherwise very human tendency of all bureuacrats, namely making rules that increase the power of bureaucrats. Then perhaps we would not need special procedures for de-adminship. Should this be a separate RfC? All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 13:28, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Should polls and votes of this sort really be taken seriously? What's to prevent someone from voting multiple times under their 16 or 42 different sock puppets they've been using for years. It's naive to think that doesn't go on. And it only takes a few people. Vicericecake (talk) 08:41, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
One way would be to randomly draw 200 (say) voters among the regular editors, urge them to vote, and count *only* their votes. One may define "regular editor" in any reasonable way (e.g. "anyone who did at least 50 edits in four out of the last six months"), as long as it does not unduly bias the sample towards admins. --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 13:28, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No position creates so many enemies as the ArbCom membership. Yet, two incumbent members (Kiril and Coren) had the largest votes in the last election. Sole Soul (talk) 12:51, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Without making a comment about THIS proposal, in Wikipedia we should always work together. As we start making more legal type provisions to desyop, we must eventually have provisions to balance them, such as block or other provisions to those who falsely accuse the admin. In essence, if you sue and lose, you have to pay all of the legal expenses for both sides. This is not the case in the USA but is the case in several countries. Let's try to work together instead of wiki-suing each other. Perhaps, require discussion with the penalty of block if there is anything but civility? Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 16:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's interesting to note that some of the voters using Support,Oppose and Neutral are saying exactly the same thing: "I support admin recall, but CDA is not the best method.", or "I support admin recall, but this CDA proposal isn't good enough". Admin might be more inclined to say it in Oppose (or Neutral) than say it in Support. Editors might be inclined to do it the other way. Rather than just tolling the votes, the main thing to extract from this RfC is whether people are saying they want to see changes or not. Matt Lewis (talk) 17:06, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If I was an admin, I would say the same thing. It does not look good if you say it flat out. AGF makes us sometimes forget human nature and social theories. Sole Soul (talk) 19:01, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds like spinning to me. This proposal is going down in flames. And yet, we are starting to hear from those creeping from the wreckage, saying "well, it shows the community really wants change" or "a majority of non-admins supported" (not sure on that, it is fairly close right now). When this RFC closes, as it appears unsuccessfully, take some time off from it. Build an encylopedia. Get some perspective. Then, and only then, consider whether you can come up with a proposal which avoids the very real flaws. I myself might be more prone to support if there was a gatekeeper, some initial evaluation, rather than a rush to mob justice.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:12, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. The correct way to see if people want changes or not is to ask that question. Reading the tea leaves from a different tea-cup (apologies for the messy metaphor!) only leads to failed proposals. --RegentsPark (talk) 17:19, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What sounds like spinning? Reading the results? I don't support any version of CDA, but it's the end of the line for the status quo on WIkipedia as far as I'm conerned. Admin have got to the point where they routinely spout such unconsidered and rude nonsense that it's a serious danger to Wikipedia. Matt Lewis (talk) 17:35, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That may be your considered opinion (which is not particularly important), and it may very well be a consensus opinion (which would be important). Either way, survey design is already a complicated art and drawing conclusions about things that have not been the focus of the survey is never meaningful. --RegentsPark (talk) 17:41, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm afraid that you simply reinforce the case that Matt Lewis makes with your "your opinion isn't important" comment. I'd suggest that it's your opinion as an administrator that isn't important on this issue. --MalleusFatuorum17:46, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps you misunderstood my point (or perhaps not). Matt said that Admin have got to the point where they routinely spout such unconsidered and rude nonsense that it's a serious danger to Wikipedia. My point is that he is entitled to his opinion (who isn't) but whether that is the general consensus or not needs to be ascertained, and this survey is not designed to do that. I'm not sure why you bring up my being an administrator because this is a fairly obvious element of survey design and is not an 'admin opinion' (whatever that might be). --RegentsPark (talk) 18:01, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's useful, thanks. That's me at no. 4 btw - my attempt at a paragraph has bamboozled the script! (needless to say I'm not an admin). I'll duplicate my signature. Matt Lewis (talk) 20:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Nakon! I've taken the liberty of putting a link to your script at the top of this page, since it is of high importance. Best, Jusdafax09:23, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is propaganda, premised on the view that admin opposes are a sort of "turkeys not voting for Christmas" thing. Opposes (from admin and non-admin) are generally based on reasoned arguments, notably a) that the process is dangerously flawed, b) that better alternatives for such a process exist, c) that the need for such a process is vastly exaggerated, since Arbcom mostly does well enough. To which I add (others seem less to have picked this point up) that the process of development of this CDA proposal, in sidelining the discussion and other options arising from the Administrator Recall RFC, is a perfect example of how a very small group of editors can set an agenda. Rd232talk14:46, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I doubt myself, Malleus and Tryptofish have anything in common (ie three people in this discussion alone). CDA was a railroaded to some degree - but most people sat and watched it happen. I no longer support any form of CDA, but I can still see that some admin are treating the support for this proposal with contempt. For voting for a Community de- Adminship?? C'mon. That kind of arrogant and OTT attitude will only help bring about the invitable. Change. Whatever that change turns out to be, Wikipedia is creaking (warping, frankly) for the need of it. Matt Lewis (talk) 21:15, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
After reviewing the pros, cons, and discussion of this proposal, I have organized my thoughts about a parallel, though unrelated, proposal that attempts to accomplish some of the same positive outcomes of this proposal while avoiding some of its pitfalls, via fixed terms for adminship. My ideas can be found at User:B Fizz/Admin for X years. Please feel free to copy its content to somewhere more appropriate, to discuss it here or on its corresponding talk page, or to print it out and burn it, as you see fit. In any event, I would appreciate your feedback. ...but what do you think? ~BFizz22:48, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Something needs to change, and to pacify those who are so worried about "drama" I'd be prepared to consider a fixed admin term of two years or so as an alternative to the inevitable battle that will result if this proposal is railroaded by the incumbent administrators. --MalleusFatuorum01:01, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Nakon's script shows the split between admins and non-admins, though the gap seems to be closing slightly -- non-admin support is up 3% to 54% from when I !voted, while admin support is up 5% to 24% in the same period. CRGreathouse (t | c) 03:06, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, obviously a lot of people don't care for this idea too much. I hardly think it's the best thing since the bread and the slicing and all of the wonderful sandwiches that followed, but I also think that it's basically okay, that we need something along these lines, and that this is as close as we've gotten, which does count for something. Apparently roughly 3 of 4 admins are opposing this proposal, and while there are certainly valid reasons to do so, I think the "ArbCom is doing fine with de-adminship" argument (which is quite prevalent) is problematic and gets right to the heart of the debate. There's a valid point to that argument, particularly since I happen to think that ArbCom is getting better about desysoping admins who lose "community" support. But for many editors (mainly non-admins) that just is not good enough. Right or wrong, this fact cannot be wished away—many good editors feel we need a communal mechanism to recall admins who are effing up. For admins to oppose this CDA idea and say "ArbCom is doing fine with that desysop thing" is frankly a bit tone deaf, irrespective of whether it is "right" or not. It's quite easy when one is an administrator to say, "no, what we've got now is okey dokey," because admins do not as a rule deal with the kind of situations that non-admins deal with, including: unjustified (or at least questionable) blocks, sometimes gratuitous warnings about behavior regardless of experience level, a general sense that their views might count for less than that of another editor with whom they disagree simply because said editor is an administrator, etc. It's difficult for administrators (and I speak from at least some experience here) to remember what it's like to not be an admin, and to not have what is undoubtedly a bit of a magic cloak (for lack of a better term) protecting you from "attacks" by other editors, but also from your own screwups. The inability—and in a way it's somewhat unavoidable and not entirely anyone's "fault"—of admins to identify directly and viscerally with the concerns of non-administrators with respect to the issue of lack of accountability for admins is a serious problem, and unfortunately it does generate ill-will and regularly exacerbates any number of individual incidents. I also think it's why a lot of the opposition to this proposal from admins, while generally well reasoned and in perfectly good faith, is inevitably going to sound like self-serving, I-don't-hear-your-concerns justification for the status quo to the many editors who find the status quo unacceptable. That's not necessarily fair, but it's also not at all an invalid way to feel about the discussion if you're a non-admin who has been concerned with this issue for months or even years.. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs07:53, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As an admin who voted no, I would say this: I would be minded to support if there was a clear showing of a problem this could cure, and if there was a gatekeeper, such as, say, a committee of crats, who would have to certify evidence of misconduct before a CDA vote could commence, and who would also oversee the process and its fairness (such as the timing of the vote, allowing the defense on the same page as the vote, etc.).--Wehwalt (talk) 13:19, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Which is to somewhat miss the point I think, at least under the present system where all of the bureaucrats and all of the ArbCom members are administrators. --MalleusFatuorum15:29, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I did a random unscientific sample of editors who voted "oppose" and found 100% of them were administrators. Isn't there some sort of conflict of interest. Who wouldn't want privileges for life. It is like asking a dictator whether he would like to hold free and fair democratic elections. Wapondaponda (talk) 15:24, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe it's because administrators understand just how bad of an idea this is? Their experience in working in the filthy trenches where they volunteer their time almost certainly has an impact on their opinion of this proposal. Conflict of interest? I think not. Is an administrator stripped of any right to have any say on anything having to do with administratorship? Come on. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:23, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Its good to know that some non-admins oppose the CDA. Still the majority of votes, 55% are from admins, which still says a lot. As for volunteering in the filthy trenches, aren't all wikipedians volunteers. Surely, aren't most of wikipedias 3 million articles written and edited by ordinary wikipedians. Don't ordinary wikipedians revert vandalism or report vandals. I think administrators should have a say, but we know by the very nature of this proposal, which in essence involves removing some power from administrators and giving it to the community, what the default opinion is — Preceding unsigned comment added by Muntuwandi (talk • contribs)
The filthy trenches I was referring to are places where non-administrators can not tread; blocks, page protections, deletions, etc. This proposal doesn't remove any "power" from administrators. The notion that administrators have some special "power" is utterly false. They have and do work at the behest of the community, working within guidelines and policies. They can't just do whatever the hell they want. That kind of power does not exist for anyone, even Jimbo. Attempting to color this poll as some kind of class warfare is improper. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:04, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The trouble with "random, unscientific polls" is that they are random and unscientific. They lead to dangerously incorrect conclusions. As it happens, I !voted "Oppose" and I'm not an admin - so for sure your conclusion is incorrect. Furthermore, you didn't do the opposite test - suppose that close to 100% of the "Support" votes were also admins - wouldn't that completely overturn your 'iffy' conclusions? Where is your control data? Perhaps you should look at some other polls - perhaps Admins vote to support the status quo in almost every similar poll? Bottom line: I don't know whether you're right or wrong - and neither do you - so either do a proper test (which on such a small sample really requires you count all of them) or forget this unsupported presumption of bias. SteveBaker (talk) 03:11, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why all the emotion? The scientific method depends on random sampling, but that's clearly not possible in this case. Those most likely to be aware of or to care about this discussion are administrators, those with most to lose. Those of us who aren't administrators know there's no way they're going to vote for Christmas. --MalleusFatuorum03:33, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There was a bug in the API where users without a registration date would have the current time returned as their registration date. It appears this bug was fixed very recently to show 1970 (unix timestamp "0") as the registration date. I have updated the script and it is now pulling the correct registration date.
