User:This, that and the other/community admin recall

Please, no need to use the talk page, just make signed comments (and carry out discussions) directly on this page.

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(This was guided by Drmies' wise closing comments at Wikipedia:Requests for Comment/Community de-adminship proof of concept .)

It has been established that any community admin recall system needs three stages:

• Certification. This is the "some sort of 'gate-keeper' [that] should be a requirement before the request" mentioned in Drmies' notes. It is meant to stop frivolous and pointy requests.
• Discussion and voting. Presumably according to a hybrid model, as outlined in the RFC.
• Closure. Done either by bureaucrats, or ArbCom, or somehow both (?). Obviously bureaucrats have to do the technical bit-flipping, but some people want ArbCom to make a final decision.

A couple of other things are, I think, important:

• Don't overcomplicate the system. Otherwise people will oppose based on the finest details. Or they will just oppose it altogether because they aren't comfortable with a process they can't wrap their head around.

Ideas

• Starting the discussion
  • Any user can launch a request to remove admin rights.
    • A basic requirement.
    • Exclude IPs, or require autoconfirmed, to launch discussion? If so, why?
• Certification
  • WP:RAS: at least four users, two of which are admins (plus other restrictions on these users)
    • Too bureaucratic.
  • WP:RRA: at least three admins of >1 yr tenure
    • Seems OK?
    • I feel that only dyed-in-the-wool Wikipedians should be able to count to any certification requirement. At the same time we need to make sure that the actual desysop discussion doesn't begin in the certification phase. Perhaps only admins should be able to certify, and once the limit of three is reached, certification ceases.
• Discussion process
  • WP:RAS: "similar to an RfA, including participation requirements, discussion length and format"
    • OK, but isn't really clear enough
  • WP:RRA: RFA-style discussion, with questions to certifiers/admin in question, separate sections for !votes, etc
    • Seems OK? I don't like the RFA-style "asking question" business, it should just be general discussion.
  • More like an RFC, with individual "viewpoints" (including threaded discussion) followed by the !voting at the end of the page
    • A compromise allowing for more freely-flowing discussion. But get rid of the "users who endorse this view" stuff, it won't work in this kind of thing
• Types of !votes to choose from
  • WP:RAS: No action or Affirm; Sanction; Desysop.
    • Fine, but sanctions are not really useful. It just overcomplicates things.
  • WP:RRA: Oppose / Retain / No action; Advise; Admonish the admin; Support / Remove / Desysop; Neutral.
    • Too many choices. The community doesn't have a private wiki/mailing list, like ArbCom, to coordinate this stuff.
  • Support (desysop) / Oppose (keep as admin) / Neutral
    • KISS principle. Oppose votes could have comments/suggestions for the admin in question (e.g. "Keep as admin for now, but he has really got to watch his demeanour in AFD discussions").
• Threshold
  • This needs to be opened up to a separate community discussion, where users nominate their preferred threshold (% support votes required to desysop) and justify it.
  • RAS just says "bureaucrat discretion". This is wishy-washy and the community probably won't accept it.
  • Obviously, the closer of the discussion will have to judge the consensus as they see fit.
• Who closes the discussion?
  • This was a major sticking-point between Dennis Brown's RAS and jc37's RRA.
  • WP:RAS: ArbCom to close as one of five outcomes; lots of other complex timeframes, etc. are mentioned
    • Too complicated.
    • Also, ArbCom's remit is not to judge consensus. We don't elect them to do that. We elect them to resolve disputes and suchlike. We elect bureaucrats to judge important consensus discussions (RFA/RFB), so they should close desysop requests as well.
  • WP:RRA: bureaucrat to close, and temporarily remove admin rights until ArbCom has reviewed the case
    • Better, but still too much bureaucracy.
  • Bureaucrat (or a team of bureaucrats?) to judge consensus close request as "Desysop" or "Keep as admin" or "No consensus". Affected admin can appeal to ArbCom if they want.
    • Reduces complexity. Gives consensus-judgment over to the people who know how. We really need ArbCom's input on what it wants to do ... can it really do any good to have a compulsory review of the case? What are they supposed to actually do?
    • I think the use of a team of bureaucrats (three?) as closers would be more palatable to the community.

Other notes

• ArbCom? One sticking-point in other discussions was that because only Jimbo and ArbCom have the power to desysop, they have to be involved in this process. This is quite untrue; the policy in question is WP:ADMIN#Review and removal of adminship, and I don't see why we, as the community, cannot change that, just as we can change any other policy (except the legal ones).

  The fact is, we don't need ArbCom involved here. As I explained above, ArbCom is not elected to judge consensus. And, what's more, I think ArbCom would be quite dismayed to hear they had to deal with yet another kind of request, since they are usually quite busy dealing with RfAR cases!

  As for the issue of trolling (ArbCom is there as a safeguard to prevent trolls from desysopping people), I think this is well handled by the certification process. It may be necessary to impose restrictions on who can participate in the vote if trolls begin to take over the process; however SPAs are already dealt with at RFA and this process may not need to be any different.

• Send back to RFA? See this interesting snippet from a Spanish WP editor. It is worth pointing out that eswiki doesn't have an ArbCom, but I don't think that is relevant here.