User talk:Geogre/Demotion

Comments on the worth of this idea

Please have my babies. - brenneman ^{L} 14:13, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

• -) As Churchill said to the lady who proposed equality between the sexes and asked him what, really, was the difference, "I can't conceive, madam." At the same time, this was just sitting there, an obvious and easy idea. In the old days we couldn't do it because the software was more opaque and it required waking up the stewards or something. These days, it ought to be much, much simpler. All it takes is a page with a "imposed on X" and "expires on Y" listing. It doesn't even have to be publicized very widely. Geogre 19:33, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand

Doesn't the Arbcom already have these as possible remedies? I am pretty sure I have seen them at least propose temporary turning-offs of the bit, with both automatic reinstatement in one case and with optional RfAs in others. Is the idea to encourage them to more liberally accept cases that might include such remedies? To take a less hypothetical example, how might it affect proceedings at the current Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Kelly Martin? —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 15:59, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

My understanding is that this would be "arbcom light." In Kelly's case, a streamlined "this adminstrator was incivil" notice would be put somewhere, and an arbcom member would decide if this was the case. Just as an admin assigns a block for incvility with a set expiry time, so to the arbom member assigns a block of rights for a set time. No full box and dice mock-trial required.
brenneman ^{L} 16:06, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

ArbCom has the ability to do this now. There isn't any expansion or contraction of powers involved here. What's changing is the philosophy. Right now, "de-adminning" is a huge hairy ordeal, with shaming, shunning, and RFA to follow. That makes ArbCom very unlikely to apply it except in the most horrendous circumstances. My feeling is that our admins are excellent editors before they get to be admins, and when we block them, we cut ourselves off from their skills to prevent their misusing a few tools. Right now, blocks are free and common, but de-adminning is rare as hen's teeth. Given the way people think of it, it should be rare, but the aggrieved "regular users" feel like admins are getting a halo, getting tenure, and some of the admins think that, too.

What I want is to see an ArbCom-liter, if not AC-lite. I want to see a demotion that reverts automatically after a certain time, with the traditional ordeal and punishment reserved for recidivists. At the same time, a multitude of these demotions should be powerful evidence for the drumming out of the long time brinksmen and lawyers.

As for whether it has been done in the past....not that I'm aware of. I've seen, "Will lose status and must RFA" and "Will lose status and may not RFA for X," but never a "demotion for a cooling off period" that wasn't due to the direct intervention of Jimbo or other high poohbah. Geogre 17:48, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Sure, make me go find it :-) : Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pedophilia userbox wheel war#Ashibaka. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 18:19, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I should say though that I think this is a good idea and I fully support it. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 18:46, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

• Thanks, Bunch. It seems simple and painless, but I can imagine some will want no common editing abuses counted, some wanting all common editing abuses counted, etc. That's why I wanted to write this and just hand it off to ArbCom for them to set up as an internal. If this goes open to all voices, people will complain that it isn't exactly what they wanted and, once again, make the perfect the enemy of the good. This isn't supposed to fix the Eternal Question in place, much less solve it, but it is supposed to reduce the pain we feel while we grapple with it. (On the Ashibaka situation, I thought that took direct intervention from Above, but never mind. If it didn't, then that's what we should do more of.) Geogre 19:30, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I think it did require some special work/db manips. I too think this is an idea with some merit. ++Lar: t/c 20:23, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

• Given everything else we do, though, it seems like we ought to be able to do this. We seem to have more developers now and more involved developers, and the burrocrats are a little more responsive, too, so maybe this will get past my user talk page. Geogre 20:26, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

So this boils down to "the community urges the arbcom to consider temporary deadminship as a possibly remedy". But as has been noted, Arbcom has already temporarily deadmined three users already, and first did it in 2004... Zero0000, BorgHunter and Ashibaka. So this page boils down to "the community urges the arbcom to use this remedy more often"? --Interiot 19:01, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

That's not quite what I was aiming at, but, if that's your reading, you're entitled to it. What I was suggesting was something much more usable. I was suggesting that this be a category of injunction, with a process behind it. It's a step up from "please think of this more" and a step down from "OMG instruction creep!" I wanted to suggest that there be a page that ArbCom can refer to, and that administrators seeking remedy can point to, that outlines a regular option to be employed. I was trying to be very, very modest. I have in mind much better solutions, but I thought, pending the possibility of advocating something more rigorous, this would at least be a start. As for whether it has been done in the past, I'm not sure that it has been done this way, with a clear window of demotion for a stated amount of time, rather than an ad hoc scramble. Also, the lack of a second RFA is an important distinguishing feature. Geogre 19:08, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I should also point out that, if this had been in place, some of the Carnildo mess might have been mitigated. Instead, we had three RFA's on Carnildo, with his losing all three and being promoted anyway. If the arbitrators and beurocrats had actually intended that he get his buttons back in the first place, then they could have stipulated it. Then, even if the community had not agreed to the usual extent, it would not have mattered. Geogre 19:08, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

The arbcom did consider temporarily deadmining Carnildo and decided in favor of re-RFAing instead. Maybe hindsight says they should have chosen the temporary demotion, I don't know, but the option was definitely on the table. --Interiot 19:46, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I had thought not, too (thought that his offense required re-RFAmation), but in the event it sure seems like it was a few members of ArbCom who got the approval through. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how it appears, and that means that either they chose the wrong solution initially or reconsidered without any formal reconsideration. Geogre 20:00, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Most voted for it as the second option, with re-RFAing as their first option. So it was close. Maybe if there had been another option "temporarily deadmin for 6 months" along with "temporarily deadmin for 2 weeks", maybe the 6-month option would have gotten more support even back then. Mindspillage said in the 3rd RFA: "desysopping is not intended to be a permanent measure for an otherwise good user who can regain the community's trust". Maybe that means they thought that re-RFAing would be easier than it's turned out to be. So the solutions seem to be either make temporary deadminships explicitely temporary, or maybe fix RFA. --Interiot 20:23, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm all in favor of both. This is my humble submission to the former, and I pledge my aid to anyone who can think of a method for the latter. Seriously, both need work. (By the way, there is a theory that I was adminned by "affirmation" because there is no RFA page extant for me. In fact, I went through votes, like everyone, and it was 32:2. (No, I will not forget those two.) It's just that it was so long ago that the pages were differently named and filed. Oh, and 32 pro- votes was a huge landslide in an enormous turn-out at the time. And hard disks used to be 20 megabytes, too.)) Geogre 21:20, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

This is actually really good...

...and I like pretty much everything about it. How do we possibly move this forward? --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:17, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

• That, of course, is the $64,000 question. I'm not at all sure. I've avoided policy proposals for a year now. I think of them, but I usually lack the... the... the patience (?) to go through mounting them, having people say nothing during the discussion period, and then having people vote them down with comments that show they haven't read it. Geogre 19:10, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I mean, do you think we can find a group of admins who would be willing to pilot it, and we can do a test run similar to the WP:PROD one? --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:26, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
    • As it's currently drawn up, it's an arbcom remedy only... so your options seem to be 1) talk to arbcom members individually, ask whether they'd consider it, 2) get a lot of support from the community, and note to the arbcom that the remedy has a lot of support (though they still wouldn't be reqiured to use it more), or 3) try to make it a popular issue in the next arbcom election. --Interiot 19:50, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
      • Well, I think the first step is getting administrators willing to dive into this (familar to the optional recall petition, except it has more "official" oversight) and finding one or two ArbCommers who'd be willing to look at the cases, and then seeing how it goes for a couple months. I think the difficult part is the first. --badlydrawnjeff talk 21:40, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
• I've done #1. I suppose this is #2, although I'm not pushing it much. As for #3.... Well, I doubt it still...maybe, but I doubt it. This is not revolution that we're talking about or Reformist Agenda. This particular item aims solely at "let's apply the remedy as it is needed, as it is needed much more than it is employed, but let's be fair, clear, transparent, and consistent about it." Geogre 19:58, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I like the concept

Especially how it integrates problems from both sides of the aisle/fence/DMZ. Involuntary de-adminning is largely permanent in our current climate, and we need more options on the table. I don't think it needs quite so much detail in the "Process" section, though; ArbCom can figure out their own time periods for most things, I expect. Otherwise, it's got the potential to do some good, not least because it's something ArbCom can implement internally without having to go through a formal public bloodbath !vote. -- nae'blis 18:18, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes....and no?

To give a view from another side of the fence, I could largely go for this: providing it is a guideline and not mandatory. I've never been a fan of mandatory sentencing - I prefer to trust good judges who know the case in point, rather than legislators who pontificate in the abstract.

My problem, is a simple principle: we don't do punitive. It is why, although I was in too bad a mood to chime in, I though arbcom's proposal to block John Reid for a week, in the Giano case, was absurd. If (and let's leave that 'if' as a hypothetical - lest we go down a pointless alley), if arbcom thought Reid had misbehaved in project space, then removing him from project space (or notice boards) for a time would have been a preventative remedy - stopping him contributing to articles would have been absurd. Similarly, if an admin behaves badly as an admin, then suspending or removing those tools is a correct response. But if we have an admin who deletes crap, blocks vandals, and protects pages competently, but in his spare time gets involved as an editor in a lame edit war etc., then removing his admin tools makes no preventative sense. Without them, he's likely to do more content editing, which is precisely where the problem is arising. Better to treat him as any other editor and 3RR block etc., or even suspend him from content editing if he can't behave. Removing unabused admin tools is simply punitive.

Incidentally, I do agree that we should have easier ways to keep admins in line. If it was easier to demote, then it would be easier to promote. I appreciate the fact that your criteria is 'ill-will' or bad-faith - I think that's right. We don't want a process that is open to being used for ideological warfare or will leave admins running in fear of being bold in difficult circumstances. However, do think that there should be other limited criteria for demotion 1) a repeated unwillingness to respond to concerns of fellow administrators. Here I don't mean when admins are divided - i mean if everyone else is against you, you should have the wisdom to back down. 2) Rank incompetence. I've had to pull one admin up repeatedly for terrible judgement calls - and simply not 'getting it' with key policies (WP:BLP no less). In that case, I think he got the message, but sometimes I think we have some admins who are simply not up to it. If we want to be able to promote borderline admins, we need to be able to demote (without prejudice to their good faith) those who, after several chances, don't measure up. (Gosh, I'm getting long winded). --Doc^g 17:05, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

• I think you're right. Part of my campaign against the use of WP:NPA is that people are treating insults...and, worse, perceiving offense...as a justification for a block. I don't care about a nastygram here or there. What I care about is whether a person is trying to prevent our ongoing endeavor to cooperatively edit. An administrator who disregards policy and consensus in the use of the tools is clearly someone who is announcing an intent to overrule the rest of the site. That can't be allowed. I can think, and I can even argue loudly, that every high school article needs to be deleted and salted. I should be applauded for that. If I start deleting them, then I need to have my ability to delete taken away (if I ignore warnings, of course). The really electric cases of this were Ed Poor and Snowspinner "accidentally" deleting project pages. If someone goes to make a point like that, it's way too far. We're all unhappy, but doing junk like that means that you're trying to make other people unhappy. I thought Tony Sidaway was another case. He was never so awful, and he did much good, but he also genuinely believed that administrators know best and that "process" is an impediment. Even the wisest person needs to work by established procedures, if only so that the unwise can have some trust that there isn't abuse and so that the uninitiated won't fall for the arguments of the disgruntled and start believing that there is a conspiracy. Even the most abusive actions, though, don't negate the value of the person, don't mean that the person isn't still committed to his or her own vision of what is best, and shouldn't mean blocking. The remedy needs to be preventative. If you have reason to believe that John Reid will disrupt project pages in the future, keep him away from them. If not, then just take the criticism in stride and trust that everyone is big enough to be hollered at once in a while. Geogre 21:29, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Perhaps, when tempers calm, we are not actually on different planets. But then it is a matter of degree. As for personal attacks, on reflection, perhaps blocks aren't generally the wisest response. Although we're human, and when provoked by unnecessarily aggressive comments, it is a natural response. On the other hand, perhaps the best way of enforcing some decency and civility is the social sanction. "No, we don't discourse like that here. If you do, we will think less of you, and pay less attention to what you are trying to say. Now, calm down and make your point in a rational manner." Perhaps if I'd been slower to block Giano, you'd have been slower to defend him, we'd both have been better off - but that's water under the bridge. As for process? Process is useful, sometimes essential. I get frustrated with those who break it unnecessarily, and, in an attempt to short-circuit some debate, end up with six debates over whether their curtailment was justified. Perhaps it was, but it was also counter-productive. However, I have equally no patience with those who want to defend process for its own sake: "Hey undelete that and send it to xfD, so we can all delete it properly". Don't waste my time. If the result is patently correct, pass over it quietly. Man was not made for the Sabbath. Further, unless we end up with formal methods of legislation (heaven forbid) we need to accept that process evolves by a certain amount of creative rule breaking. It is OK to push at the boundaries, as long as you are willing to recognise when your experiment is failing, and graciously retreat. IAR - so much defended or maligned - is in its own way an essential rule. Although I suspect it is misnamed. It should be 'pay heed to all the rules - and then, when necessary, break them'. If IAR is used correctly, then the pragmatic community should say 'well, yes, of course, obviously'. If they don't, then consider that you may have got it wrong, and learn. Anyway, I'm digressing. But to digress further, I wonder if this authority/trust vs community/democracy thing needs to be seen differently. Authority does not need to be unaccountable, and the verdict of 'who turns up to vote' is not necessarily remotely democratic. The synthesis might end up being more 'representative democracy' - which is, to some degree at least, what arbcom is. It is neither the arbitrary power of a single Jimbo (or an unaccountable cabal), but neither is it the howl of the gathered mob. Athenian democracy will never work, when not all Athenians are equal (and we are not - you are not to be equated with an account created yesterday) or only an arbitrary .1% of Athenians turn up to speak. Personally, I'd trust my fate to those whom the community elected - before I trust it to those who elected themselves to speak for the 'community'.--Doc^g 00:24, 29 November 2006 (UTC)