User talk:Jbhunley/Archives/2018/June

Binding recall

If you want help working up an established policy for RfA candidates to opt into a voluntary but binding recall, let me know--it does seem not too difficult to envisage and relatively likely (oof such a dangerous thing to say!) to have support in the editorship. Don't want to dream too big but maybe it would even make RfA a little less tense! Innisfree987 (talk) 19:00, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Innisfree987, do I see an oxymoron in your suggested policy? One can't 'force' someone to 'opt' in to a 'voluntary' process. That said, my personal view is that as the 'recall' question is about a voluntary process, and one that does not affect a candidate's eligibility, it is inadmissible at RfA. Depending on the questioner's views on the subject, the answer could always be the wrong one. The questioner certainly has a view otherwise they would not be asking it. I do not believe an RfC proposing this added layer of bureaucracy would gain much traction. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:26, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

@Kudpung: I worried my phrasing would leave this unclear (Jbh's comment at the current RfA was, as ever, prescient to note it would take some word-smithing). I hoped to emphasize I was not thinking of an RfC to force all RfA candidates to accept a recall procedure (effectively, make all future admins subject to recall); but rather to establish an available but elective procedure that would be binding if and only if selected (basically, my suggestion was in response to another user's suggestion a candidate's declaration alone was unenforceable). I imagined that in some cases, a candidate choosing to remove the specter of mop-for-life might make RfA a little less fraught. But maybe that would not be the effect; if it's not viable or desirable to create such an option, so be it. Innisfree987 (talk) 02:27, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Innisfree987, I've said many times that I don't believe 'user right for life' is an issue that most voters have in mind. The more contentious perennial issue is the one of a fast-track desysoping process. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:42, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

@Kudpung and Innisfree987: What I am proposing is not to force someone to accept a 'voluntary' procedure. Rather, since the current recall process is pointless because even those who post a recall procedure can ignore the result or opt out at any time, the idea is to have admins/candidates elect to use a process which they can not later ignore. Initially I figured that simply agreeing that the process was binding would be all that was needed but Xaosflux suggested at GreenMeansGo's RfA that a simple declaration would be unenforceable. To make it enforceable I think that the declaration of acceptance might be in the form of an editing restriction ie ignoring the recall procedure results in an indef block until they abide by the procedure.

Since agreeing to the procedure is not compulsory I do not see that there needs to be community agreement — it is a binding pledge made between individual admins and the community, just like agreeing to 1RR as an unblock condition is. The idea here is to build a community based recall process from the ground up through individual admins agreeing to binding recall. As the community gets more experience with the process and we see if the problems people think will come with community recall really occur or not, hopefully more new and current admins will agree to the process. After some point a consensus may form to require accepting the procedure as a condition of adminship but that is, in my opinion, far in the future.

I wrote a quick outline at User:Jbhunley/sandbox/ScratchPad8 and any help fleshing it out would be appreciated. I included one sample recall procedure and I would like to have several 'stock' procedures. One of the problems community recall has run into is no single procedure is well enough supported to gain consensus. Here an administrator can design a process they are comfortable with or, preferably, choose a stock procedure they are comfortable with. The end result being, I hope, is that more administrators will be open to some sort of viable community recall. Jbh ^Talk 15:55, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

It is unenforceable as is for a "desysop" action, without amending the administrator policy. This would not necessarily preclude "blocking" type events enforced by other admins. Something to consider regarding recall: Would an administrator be allowed to "withdraw" from recall eligibility (if so are there conditions that would prevent this)? Having admins opt in all under different individual guidelines is at best confusing for other editors as well. If the community wants to change the "recall standards" - would admins who "opted in" under old standards need to re-opt in (would they still be held accountable under prior versions, etc?). In my opinion, having a non-voluntary recall/reconfirmation process with community managed guidelines is preferable. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:42, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree with what you say, particularly about how confusing multiple procedures can be. If it were possible to come up with a single procedure that say, 8-10, of the senior/active/well-known administrators would agree to I think the idea may be workable with one or maybe two procedures. As to the desysop, it is true that the community can not enforce a -sysop but, by formulating the 'binding' part as an editing restriction the community can simply indef a recalled admin who does not resign.

As to the ability to opt-out after opting-in my initial thought is to say no but, on reflection, running it as a one year trial with the option to opt-out may be viable. If so, I would say that only admins who opted-in after their RfA would be able to opt-out at the end of the trial. After the kinks are worked out I think it should be a forever agreement. I will put some ideas about opt-outs on the notes page.

I would hope there would not be a call to make the system mandatory until a significant percentage of active admins have opted in voluntarily. By that point the system, as it exists then, would be the one proposed to be mandatory so there would be no transition issue for those already opted-in. At most I think it might be necessary, if only one or two recall procedures are to be used, to come up with a way to deal with tweaking the procedures for early adopters — possibly some minimum percentage of participating admins accepting the change, allowing opt-outs for major changes or some such. This is a tricky area where early adopters need to be protected and the system requires flexibility to respond fairly to problems which may only show up after the first admins agree.

If the community actually came to a consensus about this the consensus would trump whatever voluntary procedures exist. My purpose is to move the idea of 'community recall' forward using the tools we have to build consensus through practice and example. I would consider this a success if it were possible to come up with a binding voluntary recall system which 8-12 active admins were willing to sign up to for a year trial. Even better if new RfA's agreed to it.

I do not think it unreasonable to ask administrators to be accountable to the community after their RfA but I also know that any process must not be overly burdensome and fair to the administrator as well. Jbh ^Talk 19:06, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Then you should formulate your proposal for your system and test it at RfC, like I did with WP:BARC. We never assumed for a moment that BARC would fly, but we would have achieved something if it had. More importantly, it was the feedback the RfC provided which gave some insight on the way the community thinks. With your idea, tone of the problems will be: who determines the 'Eight men good and wise'? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:14, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

@Kudpung: Thank you for the link to the RfC. It helped me with some of the issues with getting community–wide buy in for a specific recall procedure. I have attempted to come up with a procedure which will, hopefully, allow a bottom up 'consensus through use' solution. I have applied the principles in WP:RECALL (That an administrator can specify recall terms.) and combined it with the use of voluntary CBAN like those at WP:Editing restrictions/Voluntary to propose an 'opt-in' recall procedure which has built-in teeth. A draft of how I think such a thing could be implemented is at Jbhunley/Essays/Binding community recall.

I would appreciate any input or insights you or my tps may have, particularly I am interested in if/how the procedure can be tweaked such that some portion of admins would be willing to subscribe to the process. The whole thing really depends on the good faith of the admin corps to be willing to allow for direct community accountability. I am hoping there will be a sizable group who feel since the community expressed direct confidence in the at their RfA the community should also have a mechanism to directly express a loss of confidence. Jbh ^Talk 20:42, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

I've read it. I still do not believe that it is possible to 'enforce' a voluntary process. Nevertheless, there's nothing stopping you from drafting a RfC and presenting your idea to the community. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:17, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for taking a look. I asked at, WP:AN#Question on enforceability of voluntary editing restrictions, about the current view on voluntary sanctions. Depending on the response I may open an RfA on that first. I think, if we do not already have it, a system for making enforceable voluntary cocommitments would be a valuable way to deal with some disputes. Much like what happened in the Rusf10/Alansohn New Jersey conflict. Jbh ^Talk 14:52, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

archiving ANI threads

I have unarchived an ANI thread that you archived. It was closed out-of-process by an involved editor, and you archived it prematurely. We have a bot that archives inactive threads. In the future, please just let the bot do this. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 23:04, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

@NinjaRobotPirate: OK. Responded [1] re your accusation of intentionally "disappearing" the thread. I'll take it as an off mood but you really should know better. Jbh ^Talk 23:28, 1 June 2018 (UTC) Last edited: 23:57, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi JBH, Not moaning - Just some advice - My general rule of thumb for archiving is if a thread is closed and it's either long or problematic then I tend to leave it for a full day or so as that way if there any issues it can be reopened (and plus those interested can still read it), Obviously the shorter/less problematic ones I tend to archive within 7-8-9 hours of it being closed but yeah the more longer and problematic should be left for a good day or so, Many thanks, –Davey2010^Talk 23:34, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

@Davey2010: Thanks. I agree and I tended to leave anything but the most obvious for at least ~12 hrs, generally archive evening/night stuff when I checked in the day; day stuff when I edit in the night, but yeah, I was not consistent with 24 hrs on the longer ones. I screwed up here when I saw the "No interest on this board in pursuing this issue at this time" close by a well known user so, carelessly, the time didn't sink in. If I had noticed it I would have passed on archiving it – not an excuse, just what happened. Cheers. Jbh ^Talk 23:43, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Meh don't worry about it - Mistakes happen I mean no one's perfect in the world, ANyway thanks, –Davey2010^Talk 00:10, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Moved RfC

Hey, I moved your RfC to a subpage of WP:RFC, which seems more appropriate for something like this (the title it was at could be the name of an essay or policy page, etc. The subpage makes it clear it is an RfC). I've left a redirect so any existing links won't need to be changed. Didn't think you would mind since you asked me to look at it last night. I think it's neutrally worded and well put together. I was actually planning on commenting on it this AM (got busy last night), but you beat me to it! TonyBallioni (talk) 14:01, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you! After I moved it I saw it should have been in WP:/Requests for comments/ but I was afraid I might break the bot if I moved it.

Thank you for your detailed comments at the RfC as well. You bring up cogent points about how my reading could lead to unintended conciquences. I do disagree on the derivation of authority to ban though. My reading would be that it derives from CBAN. In this case the community is represented by the editor making the promise, which is why I chose the wording I did when I attempted the change at WP:Banning policy. Admiditly it is kind of a 'policy wonk' type arguement so I figured I'd share it here. If it ends up being a keystone issue I will write up a comment about it at the RfC but I prefer to keep my responses there down as a matter of propriety. Jbh ^Talk 14:18, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

You're good. People of goodwill can look at the same issue and come to two very different conclusions. I've moved RfC pages in the past, and I don't think it's caused any issues, but I reset the RfC banner to be on the safe side. The portals RfC was moved to a subpage from one of the village pumps, and it didn't seem to impact anything in an unbreakable way. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:28, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

A page you started (Sorbolongo) has been reviewed!

Thanks for creating Sorbolongo, Jbhunley!

Wikipedia editor Innisfree987 just reviewed your page, and wrote this note for you:

Well that missionary really did turn out to be fascinating! What a great to read, thanks!

To reply, leave a comment on Innisfree987's talk page.

Learn more about page curation.

Innisfree987 (talk) 20:49, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

...well pre-autocorrect, that said “a treat to read” but it was great, too! Innisfree987 (talk) 21:10, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Heh… auto-correct and I have a mixed relationship… without it I spell like a child, a 'slow' child. With it, it is a toss-up whether I sound like I even speak English .

Thanks for reviewing those articles! Writing them gave me a good break while I figure out how to write about good 'ole Friar Ignatius. There is an unpublished thesis, in Italian, which I want to track down to satisfy my own curiosity after I finish the wiki-article. He was in the middle of some very interesting history. In particular I want to figure out the relationship between the East India Company and the Carmelite convent in Basra. From what I can tell of the politics of the time they should have been on opposite sides yet the Company seems to have been using the Carmelites to pass messages back to Europe apparently without fear of the friars passing the traffic to the Portuguese... That, and the politics which motivated Rome to spend a century before admitting to itself that the Mandaeans were not Christians. Jbh ^Talk 00:06, 12 June 2018 (UTC)