User talk:RenamedUser jaskldjslak901/recall

• I'm truly sorry it has come to this, but Secret's behavior has indeed been erratic and I will be asking everyone from the list to comment here on his continued suitability as an administrator. For the record i did contact Secret about this a week ago by email. I am told he discussed the email on IRC and is preparing to ask for his admin bits back after giving them up yet again, yet I received no reply whatsoever. Below is the entire text of the email I sent.

  "I am emailing you today not as a member of the arbitration committee but as one of the ten people listed on your admin recall page. I note that you have retired again from admin duties, but in your message at BN you said it was "probably" the last time, leaving open the possibility that you could just ask for the tools back at any time.

  I am afraid my purpose today is to ask you to change that from "probably" to "absolutely".

  This is not to say you were a complete failure as an admin, but the underlying concern that some of your actions would be a bit erratic seems to be a reality. I don't know if you noticed, but I undid your block of Ryk72. You blocked them while citing arbitration enforcement as the reason, which makes it impossible for them to appeal in the normal manner. (I realize you may have also suspected socking, but that is nothing to do with AE) This user was not the subject of the discussion and no other user or admin had commented on the matter before you summarily blocked them. This placed this user in the position of having gone straight from an editor in good standing to someone who was über-blocked and could only appeal to the committee. This is not the one and only reason I came to feel as I do, it is just the most recent.

  You have been more open and honest about your own issues than many people would be, and I really do respect that. A lesser person might have tried to make cheap excuses for their erratic behavior or lashed out in anger, or whatever, instead of just admitting it. I see you have been doing content work since relinquishing your admin tools. That is reassuring to me as I don't think anyone would want to see you leave the project entirely, and we can always use more experienced content contributors.

  I could go on but the crux of the issue is this: You have repeatedly decided you need to hand in your tools. You have suggested that this time it is final. You seem happier without them than with them. Given all of that, it seems like it would make sense for you to just formally announce you are permanently resigned from admin duties, removing any possibility that you could simply ask to get them back again without an RFA. I know your conditions require three people from the list to agree, but since it seems like you yourself agree this seemed like a quicker, quieter, more dignified way to approach it. "

  Beeblebrox (talk) 00:08, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Reading the above and knowing Secret for probably a few months now; I am not all too concerned about Secret's excessive resignation and re-requesting of the administrator bits yet. While I do admit having an administrator resigning and then rejoining the administrative team is a concern, I am not calling this an issue yet for me. Obviously before I say anything in regard to the recall process, I'll like Secret to comment here and will be asking him to do so now. John F. Lewis (talk) 00:25, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

His user rights log is a bit messy, but (just for clarity's sake) if I am reading it right this is the fourth time in the year he has been an admin that he has relinquished the bits and then asked for them back. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:36, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Who said I was discussing the email in IRC. The only reason why I didn't reply back was because I hardly reply back to my email to begin with unless its a urgent matter. With Ryk72, the only mistake I've done is that I shouldn't have been in that area to begin with and I wasn't familiar with the procedures of ArbCom enforcement so I messed up in handling it. I saw Ryk72 disrupting a very docile area under ArbCom enforcement. It was (and still is) a likely sock only to create disruption, and I did what I thought was the proper thing under the circumstances, block indef until the new account can be explained. I was willing to unblock but I saw it suspicious that the account refused to email ArbCom, so I let them handle it. I should have taken the block to AN/I instead. One mistake because I was unfamiliar with how the process worked is not "erratic behavior" can you give me more examples Beeblebrox? Secret ^account 00:40, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

From Secret's comments; I see no real issue now. John F. Lewis (talk) 00:58, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

• I see how Secret's resignations could be concerning for another sysop, but because Secret has made it known that he has an issue that requires him to back off during high stress times, I see his resignation as good stewardship of his own issues. I think we should see it in a positive light here. He resigns when he knows that are issues which can make his judgement questionable and then comes back when he is past them. I think that's the best way to look at it in this case. What do you think of this alternate approach, Beeblebrox?--v/r - TP 00:48, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
  • I resign at time of stress and when I need to focus on my private life, I'm relatively liberal when it comes to the tools. The past few months (since early October) I was stressed out to the extreme in real life. I spoke to several users privately about what happened and they could confirm. I rather not repeat it here for privacy and honestly for the project's sake. Secret ^account 00:53, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Secret's slightly erratic behaviour does not equal unsuitable or policy violating behaviour. Policy, as it stands, allows Secret to request his tools back under any circumstances other than resignation to avoid sanctions, and that same policy, as it currently stands, allows administrators to give up their tools for any length of time and request them back at any time. Your comments are completely counter productive, Beeblebrox. We want administrators to feel happy in giving up their tools, admitting mistakes, taking time out and coming back fresh and eager. It'll make your job as an arbitrator much easier, I'm sure.

Your comments on Ryk72 are interesting - it sounds more like you've got an issue with Arbitration Enforcement and not so much with Secret, but you're in a position to alter the conditions of Arbitration Enforcement, so fix it, as they say. I was passed Ryk72 when Secret stood down, and I'm still awaiting clarification from the committee whether or not an administrator nominated by the blocking administrator is granted the same exception from reversing Arbitration Enforcement sanctions as the enforcing administrator, especially if the enforcing administrator can no longer reverse their sanction for technical reasons (resignation of the sysop tools). Secret had reasonable grounds to believe this was some form of sanction avoiding account, whether evading a block, or ensuring a main account avoided sanctions for a controversial edit that fell within the scope of AE. Secret, I and several other users/admins did the usual SPI route and spoke to various checkusers for advice, we couldn't get anybody to touch the case with a barge pole and with no solid evidence for a block, it would have been an easy unblock to make, but devoid of any guidance on unblocking, it was left to you to deal with. It's nothing like the solid evidence of misuse or concern on which one would normally recall or even think about recalling an administrator and mentioning it, with only half the relevant data, isn't brilliant, Beeblebrox.

Anyway, I have no major concerns with Secret gaining his tools, and indeed, in him giving them up after a few months, for a bit of a break again, and repeating the process again and again. Log entries are cheap and I wouldn't worry about making too many of them.

Best, Nick (talk) 00:56, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

• I can't say I fall fully on either the "he's fine" side or the "bar him from tools forever" side here - I agree with Beeblebrox (who left a note on my talk page about this, because I'm also on Secret's ten-person recall list) that Secret's behavior has become erratic and potentially a problem - not in a will-delete-the-main-page sense, but in a too-many-little-things-are-going-wrong-and-I'm-concerned-for-him-and-the-actions-he-takes sense. Secret and I have had discussions on IRC related to this matter, and my impression is that he wants to let go but can't, and as a result finds himself on a back-and-forth bungee ride with both his admin bits and his feelings about Wikipedia. Ultimately, I'm not confident that Secret has "got [his] life straightened out" in recent weeks, as he says on BN that he has, and I do find myself concerned about his access to tools. It's not so much because "straightened out" is an admin requirement in my mind - I'd venture to say that most of us have lives that aren't straightened out all the way - but because Secret so clearly, to my eyes, is still struggling both onwiki and off, and yet is fighting to convince himself and us that he's got it all in hand while things continue to go wrong. In short, I think the best call here would be for Secret to no longer have free access to admin bits, at least for now.

  Here's the other side of it, though: I think Secret's recall criteria as he wrote them are far more restrictive than they need to be. "I will commit to never run for adminship again under this account, for which I salted RFA 4, or any account" isn't how I think this needs to end. Secret needs time off, and he needs it without the lure of being able to request his bits back. But when he has got things sorted out, I want him to be comfortable opening another RFA. Secret isn't someone whose administrative help we should be forgoing for life, and I would be very disappointed to find that the outcome of this process.

  At the end of the day, if I absolutely had to pick "recall as Secret wrote it" or "do nothing", I would sadly put myself on the "recall" side of the fence, but if I could write my own procedure here, what I'd want would be for Secret to voluntarily commit to a period of time - perhaps a year? two? - during which he is barred from regaining tools, and after which he may open a new RFA if he wishes. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 01:06, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Nick, I don't think you understand my point at all. I'm not so sure Secret does either. I am not suggesting that Secret is or was a completely terrible admin who regularly engaged in gross violations of policy. Not at all. This isn't actually about policy and it never was. It certainly isn't about arguing whether or not that user was a sock or not as that actually has absolutely nothing to do with why I overturned that block or why we I felt compelled to opent his discussion.

We don't have a policy that tells us what to do in this specific situation, which is (so I thought anyway) the entire purpose of him voluntarily selecting a group of people to serve as a sort of recall committee just for him.

Secret's own recall criteria call for him either losing the trust of the community or acting erratically. I am trying to make a case, without being a dick about it, that he has been acting erratically. Apparently Secret thinks I have been a dick about it. I didn't mean to be, and I don't actually think I was, but I am aware I am a little rough around the edges sometimes and it isn't always obvious when I am trying to be nice about giving someone bad news. That is why I tried speaking to him in private first, I honestly thought he himself believed that he should not be an admin anymore( since he more or less said so during this last resignation) and that he would ultimately be happier and more productive as a "regular" user without advanced permissions. The fact that he seemed to suddenly change his mind about that right after I suggested he just hang it up for good has done nothing to dissuade me from that position.

When you ask a group of people to tell you if they think you are acting erratic, and one of them does what you asked and your immediate reaction is to get highly offended and do the opposite of not only what they suggested but what you yourself have openly stated would probably be best, yeah, that looks a little erratic. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:49, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

• I became aware of this because it was mentioned on some other user talk pages that I watch. I realize that Secret has already agreed to the "middle ground" proposal below, but I still want to weigh in. My individual opinion is that the "middle ground" is not even necessary, and I am very saddened that Beeblebrox, with good intentions, nonetheless decided to pursue the issue. As far as I can tell, Secret made one debatable judgment, the Ryk72 action, and recognizes what his mistakes were. Beeblebrox is making a mistake that a lot of well-meaning people make, out of a lack of experience in dealing with an area of medicine, and reflecting a lot of preconceptions that are widespread in society. To the extent that Wikipedia is partly (not fully, of course) located in the US, please give some thought to the Americans with Disabilities Act, mostly the spirit (rather than the letter) of the law. Without going into my own personal history, this is a very personal matter for me, and so I care about it. A lot! What some people here are calling a "bungee jump", I would call "reasonable accommodation". Giving up the admin tools and then requesting them back does no harm to the project. I can understand how it looks messy to neurotypical people, but it isn't harmful. It's responsible. It's responsible management of a medical condition, no different than, hypothetically, an Arbitrator who during his/her term had to periodically list themselves as inactive due to cancer. We shouldn't find fault with someone because they try to do the right thing with a disease like cancer, and we shouldn't conduct ourselves any differently if it's a disease like Secret's. Anyway, I wish Secret well, from the bottom of my heart. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:17, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I always think of recall as a way of preventing someone or something reaching arbitration - it's really for a loss of trust stemming from serious breaches of policy or serious and prolonged lack of judgment. I've always considered it to be there to try and prevent something getting to Arbitration, it's a shortcut method to defuse a serious situation. Secret has been on top of things and has repeatedly shown he's capable and confident in saying "I've messed up" or "I don't want to do this at the moment" instead of insisting he's fine or that he didn't do anything wrong. I don't think he's unduly erratic, I think maybe the rest of us aren't "erratic" enough. I do think administrators when they're feeling a bit depressed or unwell aren't quick enough to give up their tools, or retire for a period of time.

I'd also add at this point, even if Secret is being a bit erratic in deciding whether they want to keep the tools or not, I don't really think that's the sort of erratic behaviour he was intending when he said "recall me if I get to be a bit erratic" - I'd be more concerned if they were blocking and the unblocking users at random or doing strange deletions, genuinely erratic things with the administrative tools, not with their account or permissions.

Do I think Secret needs some time away - probably, but as I'm not a doctor and can't actually say, all I can suggest is that if he feels some time off would be good, he should have some time off, and if he feels doing something he finds worthwhile, such as clearing an administrative backlog, would be enjoyable, then he should do so.

My more immediate concern is the dangerous precedent this sets, trying to recall someone who hasn't done anything genuinely worthy of desysopping (certainly no more than you, me or any other admin on this page, I would say). If we're honestly going to recall Secret for being a little erratic and without multiple serious and significant concerns over their judgement or standard of administrative actions, where does it end ?

Cheers, Nick (talk) 22:56, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Middle ground

I propose a middle ground between stripping Secret of his tools forever and letting him bounce between having his tools and not.

1. Secret agrees to have his tools removed for at least 6 months.
   • This vacation shall not be considered a resignation "under a cloud"
2. To get his mop back after 6 months, secret needs to either (A) convince a super majority of the editors listed this page that he should regain his mop or (B) pass another RfA.
   • If either of these things happen any 'crat can re-add the sysop package to Secret's account.

I think that this creates a situation where both Secret and the community can benefit. --Guerillero | My Talk 01:29, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

So six months is in June? I'm willing to accept that, as my behavior isn't "erratic" like Beebs said because of one block (yes I was extremely offended by that email and I didn't reply back to it), but I do need to focus on real life further. A few people know what I am going through right now. The only issue is that I refuse to go though RFA again as I already know what would happen as a result. Secret ^account 01:36, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Six months would be July actually. I guess I support this middle ground. John F. Lewis (talk) 01:44, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I think this is a very, very good middle ground, and I'd be comfortable supporting it. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 01:59, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

If its voluntarily agreed to, I can support.--v/r - TP 02:15, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I'd go with that, though I don't really like it and I'd like to see Secret be able to just get the tools back at the end of an appropriate period. This whole recall isn't far removed from the sort of punishment that has been handed out to errant administrators in the past after being sent through the Arbitration prcoess, and there's no suggestion Secret is sufficiently errant, erratic or unpredictable to warrant Arbitration, let alone be worthy of more than admonishment at Arbitration.

As I said above, I don't really like the idea of stopping or deterring administrators giving up the tools for a period - whether it's for personal reasons or just so they can focus on a specific bit of content. I think desysop and resysop on demand is a good safety valve to have available to administrators.

This may be the best option on the table though, so giving a tentative approval in the absence anything else. Nick (talk) 02:20, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I like this option. I propose that Secret amend his recall statement to state that all further sysopings/desysopings must be separated by a six month period. This behavior is erratic, but not necessarily a danger to the project. -- John Reaves 02:49, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Done Secret ^account 03:01, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I do share some of Beeblebrox's concerns, but at this point I think that this 6 month approach could be a good compromise, which minimises drama. However, I'm concerned that adding it onto the end of the existing recall criterion gives the impression that, even if three editors on the list decided to recall Secret, he could still be resysopped six months later. I think that implication is wholly incompatible with the promises made at RfA, and it's not what the people on the recall list signed up to, so presumably any confusion between the two points is unconventional; so could we make the separation clearer, please? bobrayner (talk) 23:01, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

I've tried changing the wording here. Is that OK? bobrayner (talk) 23:21, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Some thoughts

Secret, I only felt like I wanted to comment because I really liked you as an administrator, an editor and as a person. Your behavior with the repeated desysoppings, resysoppings, RFAs, reconfirmation RFAs, and now recalls, is way, way too much for what was needed and this is something that I have seen from you for years now. You should have been a sysop from 2006 to now, for all intended purposes. The only reason you haven't been is your own doing thus far. You shouldn't have to fear RFA anymore, you've already done something unthinkable in passing RFA three times now: once as Jaranda, a re-confirmation RFA, and once as Secret. You've shown that you can leave the toolset, come back and still be trusted by getting resysopped via the bureaucrats' noticeboard (too many times for me to go and look, actually). There's really nothing left to prove, we want you as an administrator. Over and over again the community has shown that it trusts you with handling the admin tool set, but the only reason we have had to is because of your own uncertainty and behavior. And looking at the comments above and through your recent rights log, this isn't something that is going to change. If you are now self-restricted to waiting six months between requests, I fear that all you are going to go through the RFA process again to get it sooner, only to drop it again later. This isn't conductive to what adminship is or should be about. If your mental health bothers you, leave Wikipedia for a while. If real-life calls and you're unable to edit for a month, leave. If you've lost interest in editing Wikipedia because of another's actions, leave. We all know though, Secret, that you are going to return eventually, and you'll want to resume being an administrator. We don't think you're going to abuse your tools while your real life goes on around you, do you? I, personally, don't feel like you would. So the next time you get the tool set, and you want to leave again for whatever reason, just leave. Your tools will be here waiting for you so you can pick up where you left off. Please, don't make us have to go through the rigmarole of showing we trust you anymore, we don't require it. If the community is really dissatisfied by an action of yours or feels you shouldn't be trusted, you will know quick. :) As for your recall, take it as a sign that we recognize that whatever is going on with you is affecting your behavior, and we support your stability here more than your need for tools. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 20:52, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

That could be good advice, but I also want us to cut Secret some slack with respect to giving him the option of actually having the tools turned off when he feels that, medically, it's better for the project to do so. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:59, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

In the same breath, I feel that is good, but it brings his medical health and real life to the forefront of the project in a very public way (and it's all logged in his rights log, to boot). That is certainly unintentional, and should probably be avoided. The project is in no more danger when Secret has the tools than when a vandal hijacks an account and blocks Jimbo Wales. Everything on Wikipedia can be reversed rather easily, and like I said, I don't feel like he's going to harm the project if he's gone and the tools are on his account. I think Secret has to learn that the admin tools are just buttons, and not something to fret over. Admin tools don't change interactions with users that much, so if he still comes here, his health would still play a factor into his editing. Leaving the site for a wikibreak is better, if that is the case. I know you've been chastised in the past for frequent wikibreaks, Secret, but that is very much preferable to dropping your adminship over and over (as I think this recall shows). Regards, — Moe Epsilon 21:19, 8 February 2014 (UTC)