Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard: Difference between revisions

To contact bureaucrats to alert them of an urgent issue, please post below.
For sensitive matters, you may contact an individual bureaucrat directly by e-mail.

You may use this tool to locate recently active bureaucrats.

Click here to add a new section

The Bureaucrats' noticeboard is a place where items related to the Bureaucrats can be discussed and coordinated. Any user is welcome to leave a message or join the discussion here. Please start a new section for each topic.

This is not a forum for grievances. It is a specific noticeboard addressing Bureaucrat-related issues. If you want to know more about an action by a particular bureaucrat, you should first raise the matter with them on their talk page. Please stay on topic, remain civil, and remember to assume good faith. Take extraneous comments or threads to relevant talk pages.

If you are here to report that an RFA or an RFB is "overdue" or "expired", please wait at least 12 hours from the scheduled end time before making a post here about it. There are a fair number of active bureaucrats; and an eye is being kept on the time remaining on these discussions. Thank you for your patience.

To request that your administrator status be removed, initiate a new section below.

Crat tasks

RfAs	0
RfBs	0
Overdue RfBs	0
Overdue RfAs	0
BRFAs	11
Approved BRFAs	0

Requests for adminship and bureaucratship update

No current discussions. Recent RfAs, recent RfBs: (successful, unsuccessful)

It is 03:34:04 on June 9, 2025, according to the server's time and date.

RfA behaviours

I wondered if any other Crats had seen this, or this (permanent link)?

Leaving aside discussions of specific individuals' behaviours, I wonder if we should consider some, erm, policing of RfAs? --Dweller (talk) 16:22, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I think Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship would be a more appropriate venue for discussion on this topic. Crats have a mandate to judge the consensus at an AfD, not to enforce civility or other conduct guidelines. If crats start to take an active role in policing RFA conduct, it will undermine their appearance of neutrality in making RFA closes. Monty₈₄₅ 16:38, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm aware of the difference and of our responsibilities. I wanted to communicate with the other Crats, not with the regulars at WT:RFA. As it's not a privacy matter, the mailing list is inappropriate and this is the appropriate forum. Any Crat can intercede at any RfA without breach of neutrality, and we often do. We just opt not to close it. --Dweller (talk) 17:09, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean by "policing" of RfA/Bs outside of deciding on the consensus, which includes, at times, the weight given to particular opinions? DO you mean striking out unhelpful comments? If so, we are going to have to decide between someone voicing honest passion and someone acting like a troll. Do you mean flat out removing certain statements? Do you mean applying blocks to troll-like or highly incivil respondents at RfX in order to protect the integrity and dignity of the process and the project? -- Avi (talk) 16:07, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

sigh, so much of the discussion at Wikipedia is so, well, bureaucratic. Someone raises a point that is at least worthy of discussion and the first response is to quibble over the venue for discussion and the second is to quibble over meaning. Avi, if you think it would be far too difficult to decide who is voicing honest passion and who is acting like a troll, come out and make that point. Cut to the chase. Enter the debate. There is one of those bluelink thingys that some people love to pepper their posts with that talks about Wikipedia not being a bureaucracy. It is must be Wikipedia's most widely ignored guideline. Dean B (talk) 19:49, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi Avi. I have an open mind on what we do. What I am convinced about is that we should do something. Happy to let consensus guide what that something is. But first, I want to know if other Crats think 'something' needs to be done. --Dweller (talk) 20:42, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Dean, this is the Bureaucrats' noticeboard . In all seriousness, my response to Dweller would depend on what Dweller has in mind. Personally, I would like for bureaucrats to be as non-intrusive as possible in RfX. If someone is acting like an idiot in RfX, I'd hope we, as bureaucrats, would recognize it and take the activity into consideration when we measure consensus. As for more extreme measures, we do have processes in force for handling disruptive editors (RfC's etc.) and any admin (bureaucrats included) can take protective measures in the case of harassment. A question for you, Dean (and everyone else, of course), if you saw a bureaucrat take protective action by blocking a misbehaving editor, would you feel that would affect said bureaucrat's impartiality when closing the discussion? -- Avi (talk) 20:46, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think a crat who "policed" an RfX should close it; they might not be partial because of those actions but there is no point in a crat acting in any way that might make people even slightly question their impartiality. Although we don't imho have a sufficient amount of crats, there should be enough of them to ensure that "policing" crat and closing crat are two different people.

On the topic itself, I think Dweller is correct. Of course crats shouldn't watch RfXs like hawks and delete any possibly offending content or block anyone making a slightly unorthodox comment but they should intervene when people use the RfX for off-topic discussions or general discussions not related to the candidate and move such discussions and/or block people insisting to have them on the RfX despite warnings. For example, discussions about whether admins should be article creators belong to WT:RFA, not the RfA of somebody who did not create articles; on the other hand, the discussion why this user did not create articles belongs there (or maybe the talk page). Of course any user can already "clean up" RfX discussions but they are often challenged by others, leading to more controversy and potentially edit-warring (for example there was an edit-war about the inclusion of one of Keepscases' questions recently). Crats on the other hand are respected by almost all participants in such discussions and their job is to preserve the "institution of RfX", so if they "police" an RfX it will be better for all involved. Regards SoWhy 20:59, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think this is necessary. Policing of behavior is not a part of a bureaucrat's job. (And I don't see why incivility in an RfA is different from incivility elsewhere. I looked at the link above and it would have been far better to have taken it to WP:WQA that to rant and discuss it on the RfA itself. Determining what is or is not civil is a consensus issue rather than a straightforward judgement.) --regentspark (comment) 21:18, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Bureaucrats may no more act as police than admins. Bureaucrats may judge finished RFAs, and nothing more. The community is more than up to the task of policing incivility. Andrevan@ 02:28, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

The community has not been policing incivility at RfA very well. --Dweller (talk) 16:45, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Then that's the community's failing. I'm not sure that bureaucrats should necessarily step in and pick up the ball that's been dropped. If we (as 'crats) police an RfA, it shouldn't be because it's part of our job description, but because we're seasoned editors with relatively level heads, a description that can easily be applied to non-bureaucrats. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:08, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

That is certainly true in theory but in practice a crat "policing" such problems will not be met with the same resistance as a non-crat seasoned editor. Maybe the better way would be to accept that the community failed and make it part of the crats' job description instead. Regards SoWhy 22:16, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, bureaucrats do tend to enjoy a bit of added freedom in policing stuff, but I prefer to consider it being because of who we are as individual editors, rather than just because we have a userright flag that most people don't. So... we're agreeing about how things currently are, just with different points of view about it. :)
I'd rather it not become a codified part of our job description, however, if only because it's not something that has to do with gauging consensus (such as with RfX closures) or something assigned to us for technical reasons (renaming and userright modifications). EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:54, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:RfA reform 2011/Clerks for a relevant proposal. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:45, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

That proposal seems to have been stale since July. As such we still have a problem with no solution. --Dweller (talk) 16:26, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

To be honest, neither of the two links you provide in your original post are symptomatic of a problem. The first is to an essay by Dayewalker (disclosure: I !voted support and still believe, on the balance, that that is a reasonable !vote) on his/her experiences. It is a personal statement, and I respect that, but the facts are that the candidate has a weak content contribution, did point to content contributions that were not borne out under scrutiny, and much of what the opposers said was legitimate. I'm not sure what a bureaucrat, or even the community can do in this sort of situation. The second link, to the ANI report on BadgerDrink, is where the comments ended up (disclosure: I !voted support and then withdrew my !vote). Badger's original comments, while harsh, were neither disruptive nor uncivil and this is borne out by the fact that several !voters used that as a basis for their oppose !votes. Do we really want to police RfA to the point where these sort of useful comments will disappear? The reality is that the RfA process, because it involves comments on people rather than content, will always be at the edge of civility. It is better to acknowledge that and let the community figure out when someone crosses the line. Appointing guardians of civility will only kill useful debate. --regentspark (comment) 17:30, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, OK, but looking at the bigger picture. We have about 730 active admins (this includes bots, I think. There are also 557 "semi-active" admins (fewer than 30 edits in the last two months), and that counts for something, so the effective number is higher than 730.) But anyway, we're loosing close to 200 a year.

I extrapolate the number 200 by looking at Wikipedia:List of administrators/Inactive. If none of those who have been active for getting on a year resume activity, then we'd have to de-sysop for inactivity the following numbers: December 2011, 13; January 2012, 18; February 2012, 15; March 2012, 16; April 2012, 17. Some will surely resume activity, but not many -- it's been near a year after all -- and then there are active admins who will resign or be de-sysopped by ArbCom, so this probably balances. This works out to about 200 a year.

And the number of new admins being admitted is almost negligible at this point. At this rate we will have zero admins in a few years. But we don't have to get to zero before it becomes a problem. I'm assuming that admin attrition is is not increasing in rate; if it is, so much the worse. But even if steady, simple arithmetic progression indicates we'll run low on admins in a shorter time than one might think. We have maybe a few years, but not a lot of years.

Unless there's a way to slow admin attrition (can't think of any), then perforce something needs to be done at at the admission end. I'm not sure what, but in my opinion efforts such as Wikipedia:RfA reform 2011 aren't a good way to get things done and aren't likely to succeed. Therefore, sooner or later the 'crats will have to step up, I think. Whether this would be in form of more active intervention as suggested above, de facto taking less account of raw vote totals, or what, I'm not sure. But probably something. Not today, not this year, but it's something to be mindful of, maybe. Herostratus (talk) 16:22, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

• I agree with your analysis of the difficulty. I'm certainly willing to help but remain unsure how best to do it. More active crat managements of RfAs has in the past hit a lot of resistance. Of course, I could simply grant +sysop to 20 accounts every month that I think deserve the bit to combat attrition, but I suspect I wouldn't remain a bureaucrat long if I started doing that... WJBscribe (talk) 19:27, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

• I strongly disagree with your analysis. We have seen that the number of admins promoted per given time period varies widely, but it is certainly not negligible. Furthermore, we have no reason to believe that, as you say, "Some will surely resume activity, but not many." Many Wikipedians are active or not at a given time depending on how much free time they have in their own lives, and we have seen many cases of inactive admins returning years later to request re-adminship or similar. There is no pending admin crisis, and if there ever were, it would be easily fixable in ways other than bureaucrat policing of RFAs (for example, if the Foundation were to offer some kind of editing stipend a la Mechanical Turk, an idea I've not heard proposed). I have yet to hear any explanation as to how bureaucrat policing of comments would lead to more admin promotions. The problem isn't there, the solution wouldn't fix the problem that doesn't exist. Andrevan@ 01:56, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

If RfAs still looked like this, I'd agree. But they don't. We've evolved a monstrosity that is increasingly off-putting to good candidates. I used to be able to persuade roughly one editor per month to run, but those I've asked this year have all declined for pretty much the same reason - they're volunteers, it's a hobby, going through RfA doesn't look like much fun, thank you very much. You're probably right that "policing" RfAs is unlikely to be the solution, but sometimes I think it'd be nice to try something new. I suspect we're already running a bit short on admins. There may not be huge backlogs, but I suspect there are few admin actions (especially speedy deletions) that anyone has time to double check these days. An admin crisis may be hyperbole, but I do think the project's diminishing number of admins (when IMO it should be growing) is an issue that needs to be tackled. WJBscribe (talk) 00:35, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

We're all no doubt reassured that "The problem isn't there, the solution wouldn't fix the problem that doesn't exist". Clearly Andrevan's detailed analysis is that there is no issue at RFA at all, that all is sweetness and light in fact; and that we're merrily giving lots of people +sysop after a vigorous but courteous and collegial debate. Obviously he's right - and after all his log [1] clearly indicates how he's right in touch with RFA promotions over the last year. And his regular input at RFA is such that he gets it right first time every time. I think I'd be more interested in the opinion of bureaucrats who take an active interest in RFA to be honest. Pedro :  Chat  20:56, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

It's certainly true that I haven't been terribly involved with on-wiki matters of late, but as you point out, I promoted several candidates in May, although I'm not sure what your comment about getting it right means. A simple glance at Successful_requests_for_adminship shows that we promote anywhere from one or two to about 10 admins per month. There are several RFAs active right now, some of which are on track to passing with little or no opposition. To WJBScribe's point, although this environment is quite different from 2004, it's not fundamentally different from, say, 2009. There are many external factors which may contribute to the decline in qualified admin candidates, and it is useless to speculate why 2011 has been a light year thus far. Perhaps the English Wikipedia has finally reached some level of saturation with the pool of prospective admins in the world at large. Maybe the community has decided to tighten its standards due to high profile cases of admins abusing the tools. Whatever the reason, I still see no reason not to believe that RFA is a self-regulating community process which will maintain a certain equilibrium. Andrevan@ 09:00, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't see a reason to codify things for this. If a 'crat stops by an RfA and sees something which needs addressing, s/he can address it. Otherwise, I don't see a need to add "policing RfAs" as another job role as I don't know that any of us have that much free time. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 17:09, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I tried this once. More trouble than it was worth. bibliomaniac15 07:50, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I may have done it once or twice, too, though I don't remember. I might not even have been a 'crat at the time. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 07:56, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

It was Bibliomaniac's experience that actually gave me reason for posting here. If a Crat caused such furore when trying to police an RfA, any admin had better be wearing asbestos underwear. We need to build a consensus that poor behaviour at RfA is unacceptable. I thought that could start with the Crats... but maybe there's another way to skin the cat. What if the community agreed/defined a set of unacceptable behaviours that any admin can and should remove from RfX? I don't know if it's possible to be prescriptive enough, but is the theory worth trying? --Dweller (talk) 09:59, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

In my observation, the more we try to codify rules and procedures the harder we make it to go about the work of producing the encyclopedia and being and becoming admins. It's always tempting to try to prescribe more and more rules to avoid each and every bad or undesired behavior that has or might in the future come about, but those rules have a cost. They drag on the functioning of the encyclopedia by requiring that they be read and followed instead of just using common sense. Those that don't wish to behave well won't anyway for the most part. I've long felt it's best to minimize the administrative overhead and do whatever we can to focus the most effort on improving the content. - Taxman ^Talk 08:35, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Malicious impostors

Resolved

 – Woot~! Bagged and tagged by Dweller, case close, emptied trashbin, emtpied dumpster, see'ya garbage truck~! Let's go~! We are going on a summer holiday... Yahoo~!

• User talk:Nick-D#About those impostors of mine
• Dear all, I have been directed here by User:Nick-D for an issue which I've brought up to his attention on his discussion page listed above. Lately, I have been the target of a malicious cherry-picking stalker who has turned impostor as well ⟨1. Dave1195 (talk · contribs) and 2. Dave1175 (talk · contribs)⟩. My initial reaction is that the jerk is one big asshole and he is trying to make my properly sourced and accredited edits look bad on them article pages, but of course I haven't made any such impolite comments until now for illustrative purposes. As the accounts are now blocked, I made a suggestion to Nick-D to have them locked as well with further extensions to Dave1165/1155/1145/1135/1125/1115/1105 so as to avoid more confusion in future. Thoughts anyone? --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 07:59, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

To expand on Dave's post, at the time I blocked Dave1175 (talk · contribs) they were impersonating Dave1185 by having his talk page appear on their page [2] and posting messages to editors Dave has been involved with using his customised signature [3] [4] [5] [6]. This is obviously well beyond the pale, so deleting the accounts outright (if possible) or changing the user names so that their edits aren't confused with Dave1185's seems warranted. I've worked with Dave1185 for years, and I found it tricky to figure out which Dave was which when I was imposing the block, so the potential for confusion is very real. Nick-D (talk) 10:19, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I see no issue with renaming the accounts. That is the limit of our ability to help however, as we do not have the technical ability to delete accounts or prevent further accounts from being created. --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 10:24, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

<e/c>Why would you want the indefblocked imposter accounts renamed? Surely the easiest and clearest thing is to leave them where they are, so they're unusable and future admins can easily see why they were blocked. It's tricky trying to anticipate every single variation on your username and I recommend a hearty dose of WP:BEANS before anyone, yourself included, speculates further onwiki about how variations are made. You might consider a namechange yourself? Otherwise, it's whack-a-mole RBI and I'm sure the admin community will help block the imposters as they pop up. --Dweller (talk) 10:27, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

• To clarify, my question is... "are you able to LOCK them accounts to prevent abuse/misuse in future?" --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 11:12, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

That's what blocking does. --Dweller (talk) 11:43, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Strange but other accounts that get BLOCKED and LOCKED shows when I review them, but these impostor account doesn't. Anyway, the CU results in the original SPI case page for Dave1195 wasn't clear so I was hoping that someone would be able to shed more light on who the sockmaster actually was, which is clearly missing in the case of Dave1175. Lastly, if it is within your ability, could you delete the current page content of both Dave1175 and Dave1195, then salt it permanently against re-creation? As it is, I don't feel comfortable with them. Thanks bunch. --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 11:53, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

You'll need to discuss the CU results with the CU team. Any admin can delete and salt for you; you don't need a crat, but I'll happily do it. NB you've got mail. --Dweller (talk) 12:22, 29 November 2011 (UTC) Now done. --Dweller (talk) 12:30, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks Dweller, you just helped me remember who the perpetrator might be and I concur with your finding. Nick-D, think you're up to the job to delete, lock and salt User talk:Dave1195/1175? --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 13:22, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I've done them already. If you agree that no renames are useful, please mark this resolved. --Dweller (talk) 13:25, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

• This happens from time to time, unfortuantely. I've seen it a few times (and been the target of it a few more). The best thing to do is just to block them and move on, obviously deleting user and talk pages that were created for imeprsonation. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:39, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
  • This was mentioned above, but "locking" an account has to do with the global account system - locking an account effectively blocks it on all wikis, and prevents the account from spreading to new wikis (for example, if you were to view a page on the Japanese Wikipedia while logged in, wham bang, you have a ja.wiki account without knowing it. Locking an account prevents this from happening). Locking is done by the stewards, and only in cases of demonstrated cross-wiki abuse. I don't think that it's necessary here. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 13:41, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

• FYI, I have a unified login in use on all wikimedia projects and the last thing I want is for the jerk to follow me to any one of them and cause confusion for me over there. Hence, the request to LOCK him out. --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 17:20, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

• Then you will need to ask a steward for help. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 17:30, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

• You could consider going to the global title blacklist, to prevent pages being created on all wikis with certain phrases in them. Admins can still create such pages, however. --Rschen7754 20:16, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

• I blacklisted the pattern (scroll to bottom), for what it's worth. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 02:07, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

• Oh noes... did you blacklist mine (Dave1185)? --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 04:14, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

It got blacklisted as

Dave11[0-9]{2}.* <newaccountonly|errmsg=titleblacklist-forbidden-new-account>

, restricting the blacklisting to those creating a new account. If they try to make a name that matches the regular expression, it will give them an error. --Rschen7754 05:25, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

• Whooops~! My bad, still struggling to stay awake after a long graveyard shift, thanks for the help... I've gotta turn in now or I risked becoming Mr. Dracula. Cheers all~! --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 05:32, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

• Not a problem, I've had this problem before. If this continues on other wikis, you can get it on the global blacklist too but you need to to talk to a steward. --Rschen7754 05:41, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

• Rschen7754, is it possible to add two more? DaveII85 and Davell85? Thanks~! --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 11:35, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

• I would contact King of Hearts; I'm not confident in my ability to write regular expressions. --Rschen7754 01:14, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

• I've fixed it, the regex is now .*Dave(11|ll|II)[0-9]{2}.* <newaccountonly|errmsg=titleblacklist-forbidden-new-account>. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 01:55, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks a million, guys... y'all rock~! --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 11:38, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Admin bits

Resolved

Requesting the admin bit back after requested removal because the reasons have settled themselves down for a good while now, but I promised to give myself a month, so hear I am at a month. Thanks in advance, -- DQ (t) (e) 04:58, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

 Done as there has been no controversy prior to removal or after (it has only been about 30 days since the removal request). ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 05:53, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Adminhoodship

Hello, 'crats;

Could I please ask your opinion re. a VERY rough idea; I am ONLY asking for 'crat-hat-opinion. And it's numbered just to help discussion

Not a proposal - just a question

1. FOR ONE MONTH ONLY <commencing on acceptence>
2. Users in good standing (<up for discussion> established/non-problematic/experienced/clueful - specific prerequisite: minimum of one year on English Wikipedia and 3000 edits; no blocks in the last 6 months>)
3. ... could apply for temporary SysOp, on <this page>. short 'support' / 'oppose' from all users would be welcome (but not necessary). Excess discussion is discouraged, but not prohibited.
4. There will be one week, to allow discussion.
5. At the end of one week, a BUREAUCRAT can decide to assign the permission. It will be removed after ONE WEEK. Only TEN users can be 'temporary admins' at a time.
6. They user will sign an agreement, to ONLY perform a reasonable number of non-controversial tasks, and a maximum of ten admin actions per day.^{Modified per discussion below  Chzz  ►  17:08, 1 December 2011 (UTC)}
7. Temp sysop would be strictly limited to a maximum of 10 users at a time
8. Their permission MAY be removed, without discussion, during the week, at the discretion of ANY CRAT.
9. After one week, the permission will be removed. The same user cannot request more than once, during the trial.
10. At the end of one month, all permissions are removed.
11. BUREAUCRATS have total discretion to remove rights at any time without prejudice. It is JUST a trial.

Note: This it not, yet, a proposal; it is an enqiry, to see if our 'crats might be amenable to it. It is just what it is; asking 'crats what they think.  Chzz  ►  23:46, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Too tired to check, but I think temporary sysop is a PEREN suggestion that the community has shot down in flames on a number of occasions. Crats have been selected on the basis of our respect for consensus; it's hard to come to such a group and ask for our unaffected opinions on something that's been demonstrated not to have consensus. But I'm tired and perhaps grumpy. Let's see if any of my colleagues disagree. At any rate, thank you for thinking and attempting to stimulate debate for the good of the project. --Dweller (talk) 00:14, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Tool_apprenticeship#RfC: Should we begin a trial? is not a zillion miles out. Throw me a bone here, What might work?  Chzz  ►  01:07, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I dislike the idea of temporary sysopship for several reasons. First, I don't think placing a cap on actions is acceptable for an place where IAR is supposed to be the big rule. If a temp admin made 11, 12, 20, or even more admin actions that were all perfectly done and uncontroversial (whatever that's supposed to mean), I don't think I would remove their rights for the sake of my conscience. Second, total discretion without prejudice and without discussion is A BAD IDEA™. Third, the permissions surveillance is a bad use of resources that could otherwise be used to deal with article writing/maintenance/backlogs. bibliomaniac15 04:59, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

@Dweller, it is, indeed, perennial. However, CCC and the current discussion I mentioned shows that some change might be acceptable to the community. I realise that a proposal like the one I described would be asking our 'crats to undertake a certain amount of work, which is why I wanted to ask here, before even suggesting it anywhere else.

@bibliomaniac15, 1. Good point; I've modified line #6 above - does that help? 2. I think that you might consider it a bad idea because, currently, SysOp is such a big deal; the entire purpose of this is to de-mystify things somewhat - and it'd be absolutely clear to the user that their temporary status might be removed at any point - plus, this is a one-month experiment only. 3. I believe that the experiment itself might result in perhaps 20 new admins (via RfA after it); considering the plummeting numbers of new admins (2007, 408; in 2008, 201; in 2009, 119; in 2010, 75. 2011, so far, 48^ref), I think the necessary work would be a net gain, long-term.  Chzz  ►  17:08, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Agree with bibliomaniac. This is just a tough idea to manage well. Andrevan@ 07:06, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Retired "(WMF)" accounts

Resolved

 – The Phillipe hath spoken

Over the last few years, a number of Wikimedia Foundation staff have created accounts with names containing the identifier "(WMF)" in their names (see, for example, User:Philippe (WMF) or User:Christine (WMF)). From what I understand, it's not possible for a random individual to create such an account; establishing a username with the "(WMF)" string requires special privileges. When these staff take official (or WP:OFFICE) actions on Wikipedia, they generally do so using their WMF accounts. (When they act as 'regular' editors, these individuals have normal non-WMF-labelled accounts.) Editors (including admins and 'crats) here are aware that actions taken by (WMF) accounts aren't subject to the usual mechanisms for reversal or dispute—when a concern arises it has to be taken up directly with the WMF office. An editor who reverses a WMF office action faces immediate blocking; an admin risks desysopping.

Which brings us to my concern. As of right about now, Christine's (User:Christine (WMF)) contract with the WMF has expired. To her credit, she has quite responsibly added a notification to her WMF account's userpage noting that she is no longer a member of the WMF staff ([7]). Nevertheless, she still has access to an account with the (WMF) tag, which means that she or – much more troublingly – someone who cracks her account would be able to take mischievous actions under the (purported) aegis of the Foundation.

While this is the first retirement of a staff member with a (WMF) account of which I am aware, I am sure that it won't be the last. We really don't want to leave accounts lying around that appear to have special privileges for making irreversible edits. As a matter of good practice, we should probably establish a standard process for handling the retirement of WMF staff, including and especially their user accounts. I would suggest renaming WMF accounts to make clear their current status—for example, renaming User:Christine (WMF) to User:Christine (WMF-retired) or similar. Thoughts? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 05:30, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

It's a reasonable request, I think. Have you talked to the WMF about it? bibliomaniac15 05:57, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm also amenable to the idea, provided WMF is on board. It might be better to just block the account so no one can use it, rather than renaming it. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 07:46, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I think blocking makes more sense. Renaming would created edits that appear to be attributed to (WMF-retired) when they were originally (WMF). That labeling could confuse people who look at those edits after the fact. I don't see any reason why the official accounts should be used after the end of official employment, even with a -retired designation. I'd suggest it is better to simply lock the accounts so they can't be used any more. Dragons flight (talk) 15:59, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Another related case is Sross (Public Policy) (talk · contribs) - I believe his employment on that project ended in September.Maybe we should have a category for WMF accounts? D'oh, Category:Wikimedia Foundation staff  Chzz  ►  14:31, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, we deal with this internally: I had that account globally locked yesterday. She has no access to it. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 16:46, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Just to back up Philippe (ingrained habit!); my staff account is indeed no longer active, and I cannot log into it. This account is my personal, volunteer account, which is cited on User:Christine (WMF)'s userpage, and also disclosed on my personal user page. FWIW, I'd also oppose a rename for User:Dragons flight's reasonings. Kethryvis (talk) 19:45, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Ah, that's no problem then. Is there a standard procedure for dealing with the retired/expired accounts of Wikimedia staff, and is there someone at the Foundation who is responsible for closing/locking out these accounts? From what I've gleaned from the Steward handbook, it's not possible for non-stewards to verify that an account has been locked, so it would be reassuring to know that there is some sort of formal process that makes sure that this bit of bookkeeping is done when necessary. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 05:12, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi TenOfAllTrades. Non-stewards can verify if an account has been locked using a number of methods. Every user has read-only access to Special:CentralAuth, which will tell them the status of a global account. There is also the Toolserver SUL tool which also has the status on the left hand side. Finally there is the global account log on Meta-Wiki which is searchable like all the other public logs. Hope it helps. PeterSymonds (talk) 10:01, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Or you can install NAVPOP and just hover over the account link. :) Amalthea 10:59, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

• What about MGodwin (talk · contribs)? Apparently he stepped down as general counsel last year, but his account still has admin privs. As far as I can tell, he hasn't made any admin actions since leaving the WMF, but he has edited occasionally, so it doesn't appear that his account is locked. Jenks24 (talk) 08:47, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

  FYI, User:MGodwin (formerly Mikegodwin) was granted adminship "as a Foundation decision" at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Mikegodwin. –xeno^talk 16:05, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Remove Admin/sysop status

I, Jason Lee, also known as AllyUnion, hereby due request the removal of my sysop status. Thank you. --AllyUnion (talk) 07:03, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

 Done Thank you for your contributions. EVula // talk // ☯ // 07:44, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Taking a break

Please remove my sysop rights. Thanks. T. Canens (talk) 00:40, 4 December 2011 (UTC)  Done Thanks for your efforts here. Please do come back when you're refreshed. --Dweller (talk) 08:21, 4 December 2011 (UTC)