Wikipedia:Request for Admin Sanctions

Request for Admin Sanctions (RAS) is a process to allow the community to consider sanctions against administrators who are claimed to have shown a pattern of misbehavior or abuse in performing administrative duties, with or without the use of admin tools. Administrators accept that they are held to a higher standard of conduct than other editors, and that they may be subject to sanctions differently than non-administrators. The process must be certified by the community and validated by the Arbitration Committee using the methods described herein.

Process

The process looks similar to an RfA, but requires certification by four users. Two of these users must be administrators, and all of them must be in good standing and have had a registered user account for a period of no less than one year. The certifying editors should be users who have not been directly affected by a sanction imposed by the admin being brought to RfAS in the prior 6 months. Standards to participate in RfAS discussions are the same as for RfA, including length and format, with certification replacing the nomination sections and other cosmetic changes as the community sees fit. Once initiated, the RfAS must be certified and evidence (including diffs) presented within 48 hours or it may be deleted without prejudice. Once a party has certified an action against an admin, the certifier may not certify another action against the same admin for a period of 12 months, although the party may participate in a later proceeding certified by other editors.

Community participation

Each participant can state their reasons for supporting one of the following options or similar: Affirm (or No Action), Sanction or Desysop. A Bureaucrat may consider any opinion that isn't an Affirm or No action as a call for some type of action, including actions other than the stated option, for the purpose of determining consensus.

Participants, the certifying parties and the subject of the RfAS may also ask questions to either the certifying editors or the subject of the RfAS. A discussion area will be available for general discussion of the material.

Modification of process

At any time, the Arbitration Committee or any Bureaucrat may suspend, extend or vacate the entire process for any valid reason and issue a summary dismissal or closing with or without prejudice, at their discretion. In addition, the Arbitration Committee retains subject matter jurisdiction over administrators' behaviour, and may at any time elect to supersede a RfAS with its own procedures (including a summary motion or full arbitration case). Otherwise, the case should be open for discussion for seven days after being certified.

If the admin is not available for part of the process, a Bureaucrat should use whatever reasonable actions are needed to insure the process is fair. They should consider all reasonable requests for extension or short term temporary suspension by the admin being brought to the process. The RfAS and talk page should typically be fully protected during temporarily suspended processes, to disallow out of process input. In the event of extraordinary circumstances and unavailability, the community may decide to indefinitely suspend or dismiss a process in a venue such as WP:AN.

Determining consensus

While the RfAS process is not a vote and there is no numerical "line in the sand", the threshold to place sanctions against the administrator is around 50% voting for an option other than Affirm. Discretion is given solely to the Bureaucrat closing the process as to the weight of any vote or comment, including which to discount completely. They may impose other restrictions or sanctions as the situation warrants. The process can only be closed by an uninvolved Bureaucrat regardless of obvious outcome, excepting intervention by the Arbitration Committee. Possible results are within the discretion of the closing Bureaucrat and are limited one or more of the following:

No action or Affirm, with or without admonishment or other minor restriction

Sanction including topic bans or temporary loss of admin bit up to no more than 6 months

Desysop without prejudice to start a new RfA at any time.

Validation

Every case is deemed to be automatically appealed to ArbCom who has the final say in all desysoping, per existing policy. The closing Bureaucrat will notify ArbCom using a method of their choosing. ArbCom has up to 7 days to either:

Endorse and validate the result "as is" or with modifications to the sanctions

Overturn with prejudice

Reverse and Remand for another RfAS, to continue the existing RfAS, or to take the case themselves

Continuance for up to 30 days

Other acts as they deem necessary.

If ArbCom does not act within 7 days, it will be taken as an endorsement of the consensus delivered by the closing Bureaucrat, but they have up to the initial 30 days to overrule themselves for inaction. If no action has been taken by ArbCom for a full 30 days after the RfAS discussion is closed, the bureaucrat's decision can be considered de facto validated. At any time during the RfAS or within 30 days afterward, ArbCom has the option to void the proceedings and take the case up themselves instead, or dismiss outright. Sanctions given should be immediately enacted by the closing Bureacrat and will be considered temporary until validated by ArbCom, unless ArbCom instructs otherwise.

The methods and systems for ArbCom to respond, void or validate the process will be decided by ArbCom themselves as an internal process.

Once a RfAS has been validated, the community is barred from using only the events that precipitated that RfAS as a basis for future sanctions or RfAS, unless the original RfAS was vacated without prejudice. This does not otherwise prevent those events from being used in further proceedings as evidence of a pattern of abuse.