Wikipedia:Admin recall (August 2006 proposal)/UnWikiVersion

NOTE: This streamlined, de-wiki'd version for ease of reading is based on this version of the policy proposal.

About Administrators

The community grants administrator status to trusted users who are familiar with Wikipedia policies. Administrators are held to high standards of conduct, as they are often perceived as the "official face" of Wikipedia. Administrators must be courteous and must exercise good judgment and patience in dealing with others. Nominees must have been on Wikipedia long enough for people to see whether they have these qualities. Almost all administrator actions are reversible. Adminship is primarily an extra responsibility as there are rules and policies that apply only to administrators.

About Admin Recall (WP:RECALL)

Admin Recall is a proposed process by which an administrator (sysop) can be recalled for a renewal of their administrator/sysop status no more often than once every nine months at most, should the community feel that their conduct, behavior, or actions might warrant such a review. If an admin has already been called for Recall previously, they cannot be called until nine calendar months have passed from the final closing of their preceding one. A new admin cannot be called for Admin Recall until they have been empowered as an administrator for a minimum of six consecutive months' time. I.e., if a person receives Admin access on January 1st, they cannot be subject to community recall until at least July 1st. There is no limitation on how often an admin may be recalled as a part of good faith community oversight, so long as the nine month limitation has expired. The goal of this proposed policy is to create a fair, balanced, and difficult to abuse level of community oversight of administrators by regular editors and other administrators.

If an admin recall request is properly certified, it will go to a full Recall Vote as per normal RfA rules, with two exceptions:

1: WP:SNOW cannot be used or applied to the Recall process at any time, and the Recall vote shall remain open for the mandatory seven days at all times, to protect the admin and give them the benefit of the doubt in the event the votes are going 'against' them.

2: Votes are not "support" or "oppose" but shall be either Recall, to desysop the admin; Keep, to not desysop the admin; or Comment to leave a note, opinion, or evidence.

Short short version (for proposal readers)

• (This is the policy, basically. The great depth of detail beyond and below this was to just try to address every possible concern I could think of pre and post drafting and proposing the initial version, and each section is just a clarification and expansion. Extra short version: 26 tenured people think an admin is unfit to serve, and agree thus. The community then votes on that fact, in another RfA).

Editor (regular or admin) with 5 months' experience and 500+ edits determines an admin should be recalled. He writes up the basis for this plus evidence and posts it to the to-be-recalled admin's talk page. 24 hours later, the nominator can file a recall request that lasts seven days. The recalled admin can enter a response at any time after the request is filed. If 25 additional people that meet the certification requirements are listed as signing agreement at the end of the seven days, the filing moves to be an RfA recall vote. The same as a normal RfA, but a support or "Recall" vote is to desysop, while an Oppose or "Keep" vote is to not desysop. The original filing, complaint, evidence, response, and certifiers will be listed at the top of the RfA recall page. Votes and questions for the admin below. If a consensus is "support recall", the admin is immediately desysopped after 7 days. No consensus for desysopping purposes is the same as a "failed" vote.

Consensus shall be approximately 65% to 70% or more of the votes cast saying Recall. Certification and RfA recall vote cannot be closed early for any reason, WP:SNOW/WP:IAR is not applicable or any derivative here unless WP:OFFICE intervenes for some reason. If either the certification or RfA recall vote fails at the end of it's respective 7 day window, it is permanently filed and archived. No records of the filing or Recall are to be deleted by any admin at any time unless authorized by WP:OFFICE. "New" admins can only be Recalled after six months of active service. No admin can be Recalled more than once per nine months. Desysopped admins who re-run for RfA and get reinstalled by admins by the will of the community are not "new" admins for this purpose, and have nine-month window from reinstallation instead of six.

Basics

Exclusions

Jimbo Wales, Danny Wool, Brad Patrick, Stewards, and any active member of the Board of Directors, are all excluded from this policy. Arbitrators or any current or future "higher than administrator" users (arbitrators, beaurocrats currently) may be called in this fashion for administrative recall, but their removal should it reach completion must be approved by the Board of Directors, Jimbo, or an official WP:OFFICE action as determined by and seen fit by them. Recall of other administrators will be as per this policy. Normal "admins" for this policy shall encompass anyone from "basic" admin level up to and including those who are regular admins with additional privileges and duties, such as Check User and Oversight.

Nomination standards

There are no official prerequisites for nomination or filing an Admin Recall, beyond the official filing itself. The filing user or administrator must be in good standing, have have been a member of Wikipedia for at least five months from the time of their first edit, and have at least 500 edits under "any" Wikipedia name space. The nomination statement and responses to questions should indicate that the user is familiar with the tools and roles of administrators. Any administrator may be nominated in good faith.

Limitations

1. Self-nominations under this policy will not be allowed at any time. If an admin wishes to completely de-sysop he can follow normal procedure for that; or if he wishes to put his standing to a community test for some reason, he can reapply for WP:RfA per policies there.

2. No admin can be submitted for recall earlier than nine months after the conclusion of any previous request.

3. No new admin can be submitted for recall earlier than six months into their tenure as an admin.

Prevention of potential admin abuse in process

Per this policy, any attempt to delete votes, the filing request, vote, or otherwise manipulate the procedure by use of admin-level abilities by anyone would be a bannable offense. Any improperly manipulated Admin Recall shall be restarted if for any reason it is non-recoverable, and all previous certifying users allowed to have the opportunity to recertify after being notified. Given the nature of this process and policy, any attempts at subversion by the nominated admin shall be taken as the highest level of importance by any observing administrators.

Actions by nominated admin vs. participants

The admin being nominated shall abstain from taking any direct administrative action towards any of the valid users who are listing as certifiers, for the duration of the certification process. Should the admin need to pursue any action towards one of the users for a matter that requires use of admin privileges (such as blocking, Check User, locking, page protection, or any other possible scenario that a "normal" editor would not have acccess to), that same nominated admin must get another admin to take the needed action to prevent a conflict of interest. Use of admin level privileges vs. a certifier or nominator during the nomination procedure is a bannable offense. Any admin actions taken by the nominated admin are to be reversed, and community reviewed. Any such actions by the nominated admin are to be clearly added to both the filing page, and to the top of the RfA vote page with explicit details of the action, for review and consideration.

Enforcement

To ensure that no admin under community review will take inappropriate actions vs. nominators or certifiers, a mandatory set of steps will be enforced by any other admin to protect the integrity of the system. Any admin may implement these conditions if abuse by the nominee is observed from the time the initial 24 hour notice is posted on the admin's Talk page, to the conclusion of the certification process. If an admin violates the integrity of the recall during it's process, he will likely find himself excluded from further participating in it. Should the certification or RfA recall vote be "unsuccessful", the duration of the blocking shall remain in place for the previous violations of subverting process and the integrity of the system. These time based blocks are not to be removed or undone by any admin; if the nominee does violate this usage policy during their time frame, they will need to be aware of the repercussions of this, and will need to held accountable for abusing the community trust. Any subversion as determined by other admins per this policy will result in the subverting admin getting a 24 block for each offense (cumulative).

Filing for Admin Recall

Any user or administrator in good standing may file a Request for Admin Recall. To do so, they will file a request at WP:RECALL, using a similar formatting to the initial filing of an RfC.

First step, Filing for Admin Recall

Format for filing

The formatting will be simple:

Filing user: (name/signature)

Administrator being recalled: (name/link to their User space)

Basis of Recall: (description of why the recall is being filed)

Evidence: (evidence--diffs, citations, etc.)

Administrator response: (response by the admin)

Those supporting creation of the recall: (signatures of 25 users--see criteria below)

Procedure

Filing

When a Request for Admin Recall is desired, the filer must post the above formatted as a notice on the Talk page of the admin in question at least 24 hours prior to filing the request. This is to give the admin adequete time to prepare a response. Once 24 hours have passed, the filer will then post a request at a URL such as WP:RECALL/AdminName. Once the request is filed, the admin is free to answer his response. The Request for Admin Recall will be listed on the parent page of WP:RECALL.

Obtaining Certification

From the time of nomination and filing, a minimum of 25 other users must sign on as co-signers of the nomination within seven days of the nomination's filing; this sets the required certification as a total of 26 users with experience, tenure, and good standing. The certification will be closed seven days from the time of filing. Certification signatures are only considered from Registered Users, and at no time from anonymous users. To prevent abuse of process, the admin in question, or the system, any user may sign on as co-signer if they have been a member of Wikipedia for at least five months from the time of their first edit, and have at least 500 edits under "any" Wikipedia name space.

The purposes of the restriction are to prevent abuse of the system or administrators, and to prevent certification stacking with the use of sock and/or meat puppets. The certifying user must meet the minimum requirements for tenure and edit count at the time of certification. Comments on the certification page itself are not permitted at any time--the certification as seen on the front page of the Admin Recall itself should be based on the merits of the filing complaint, and the response of the admin in question. Normal Talk page discussion of course is allowed.

The pending certification shall be clearly linked to for the community's review on both the Recall section, and on the normal WP:RfA section.

Failed Certification

Should certification fail, the particular Request for Admin Recall is thus archived, and that admin cannot be recalled for nine calendar months by any user.

Successful Certification

Even if the 25 user threshold is reached, the Certification will remain open for the full seven days, at all times, to allow possible discussion on the Talk page to continue, and to allow certifiers to remove their certification should they so desire. If successfully certified, within 24 hours of it's seven day completion the admin's Recall vote is to be initiated.

Second step, the recall vote

Actual admin recall vote - process

The initial filer's basis for the Recall and his evidence will be presented as the nomination for the actual RfA recall vote, with the response from the admin being recalled present directly below it; as a normal RfA votes and the tally are then listed below this, along with all discussion and questions for the admin.

Changes to "normal" RfA rules for recall

This recall shall follow all rules and procedures as defined under WP:RfA, with the following exceptions/differences:

1. WP:SNOW or early closing is not allowed at any time at all--the vote in every case is to run the full seven days in every single case to give the admin in question the benefit of the doubt, and to allow people to change their votes.

2. Unlike normal WP:RfA votes, a vote of support here shall be to de-sysop the admin in question. A prominent notice of this shall be displayed on the pages in question to avoid confusion.

2a. Votes shall be Recall to desysop, or Keep to not desysop.

3. The restrictions on users from the certification phase shall not apply to the recall vote, which will be conducted under otherwise normal WP:RfA rules.

4. A consensus will be required to de-sysop an admin per this vote. A failed vote, or a no consensus, shall be considered an unsuccessful recall that should be closed and archived. Ideally, consensus to de-sysop should be approximately 65% to 70% or more of the people contributing voting to "support" the removal and recall. As the recall process is two tiered to eliminate abuse and frivolous filings, Consensus shall be binding on the recall vote unless overruled by WP:OFFICE.

5. The recall vote shall be clearly linked to for the community's review on both the Recall section, and on the normal WP:RfA section.

6. Where the normal RfA rules state, "In exceptional circumstances, bureaucrats may extend the deadline or call for a revote if this will make the consensus more clear," this shall not apply in the case of a recall vote. A no consensus result shall result in closure of the Recall as unsuccessful. Again, this is to give the admin in question the benefit of the doubt.

Unsuccessful recall vote

In the event of an unsuccessful recall (failed, or no consensus), the vote shall be closed after seven days, and the particular Request for Admin Recall is thus archived, and that admin cannot be recalled for nine calendar months by any user.

Successful recall vote - final step, and "de-sysop"

In the event of a successful recall, the admin in question after the conclusion of the second seven day time frame is to be immediately de-sysoped, and removed of any "admin type" or "admin level" additional access privileges per the community's consensus will and decision.

After the Recall RfA

Enforcement

Should the recall vote succeed, the removal of sysop status is to occur within 24 hours of it's conclusion.

Reapplication as an admin

Any previous admin who was removed by the community is free to reapply as an administrator again at their own discretion, per normal WP:RfA guidelines. Should they become recertified by the community as an admin at a later date, they will be subject to the recall process not as a "new" admin with the six month limitation, but under a "nine" month limitation instead.

Sample Timeline, explanation

Just to clarify/expand on how it would work.

• Day 1: A user determines he should file an Admin Recall. He posts the above notice of his complaint with full basis/evidence sections on the admin's personal Talk page, to give the admin 24 hours' notice.
• Day 2: The user files the Admin Recall for certification.
• Days 2-9: Certification window
• Day 9: certification closes. If not met, Recall request closes. If met, within 24 hours the recall vote must be initiated.
• Days 9-16: Recall vote.

Rationales for requirements/limiting abuse or maliciousness

• 25 threshold: Most normal RfCs seem to get around/at most about 25 people signing on in support of a given outside view; this number was based on that.
• criteria for certification for users: The 500 edit and 5 months' experience is deliberate, and to eliminate frivolous certification or nomination by bogus usernames such as sock or meat puppets.
• Those combined: Serve to weed out the proverbial nonsense as some might say from nominations and certifications.
• Six months wait for new admins: Deliberately shorter than the nine months for seasoned admins--to give new admins time to establish a track record. The shorter time frame is because if an admin hypothetically would be a problem, it would hopefully be apparently fairly swiftly.
• Nine months' delay for renom: Intended to curb frivolous filing. It would be silly and ripe for abuse for an open window of nominations.

Summary

If 26 users in good standing with established time and editing track records (5+ months experience, 500+ edits each) agree that an admin is due for recall based on their actions or activities (1 filer, 25 certifiers) that admin is then subject to a binding RfA recall vote.

See also

• WP:RfA