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Odd happenings with renames

Resolved

 – Just took a while it seems! SQL^{Query me!} 10:01, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

User:Thatcher, User:Ryanpostlethwaite and I were chatting in IRC about this last night with a rename I did from Internet Resource Providor (yes with an 'o') to IRP. This am User:Avineshjose says on my talk page page, User_talk:Rlevse#Usurpation, that the same thing happened when I renamed Avineshjose to Avinesh. It appears that upon rename the old is being recreated. Thatcher checked the bug fix site and there is a request in to do this but it's not marked as done. It's apparently an anti Grawp fix. There are some other possibilities too. Note that at the time I read this post on my talk page just now, the sig of Avenish says and points to Avineshjose, but Avineshjose shows no contribs but Avinesh does. Also, the Avineshjose and Avinesh home pages are exactly the same as I write this. Anyone know what's really going on and maybe some could approach the developers about this. There apparently is supposed to be a new button on renames to tell it not to do this but last night there was no such button. — Rlevse • Talk • 10:00, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Rlevse. I will say what I did in this morning. I tried sign-up with ‘avineshjose’ (old id) and it didn’t work. Then I thought of trying with the proposed (usurped) id, i.e ‘avinesh’ and it worked. However, it appears that ‘avineshjose’ is inactive with no contribs. I immediately signed out and recreated a new id of ‘avineshjose’. After seeing the ‘welcome’ window of ‘avineshjose’, I signed out again and signed-in with ‘avinesh’. Unfortunately, at that time, ‘avinesh’ appeared with blank page and 'avineshjose' with old contents without the 'welcome' window. Now I am manually copying contents from ‘avineshjose’ to ‘avinesh’. The process is yet to complete as I have to copy all my archive pages. --Avinesh Jose  T  10:50, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Unless I'm missing something, I'd say it appears someone created the account for the old name shortly after you renamed it. There does not appear to be any sort of functionality in the software at this time to do what you suggested, and, I re-installed / updated Renameuser locally myself, to try to get it to do so.

# 21:12, August 25, 2008 Rlevse (Talk | contribs | block) has renamed Avineshjose to Avinesh ‎ (2,746 edits. Reason: WP:USURP) 
* 00:01, August 26, 2008 Avineshjose (Talk | contribs | block) New user account ‎

You might check, and see if you can reset the password on your old account, otherwise, I suspect it's someone watching CHU. SQL^{Query me!} 11:07, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Grawp? — Rlevse • Talk • 11:43, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Checkuser info: the old account, now Avinesh (talk · contribs), has many edits on a specific IP range, and within that, many of them are on one specific IP. The new account Avineshjose (talk · contribs) was created on that same IP. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 12:01, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, that kills my theory. SQL^{Query me!} 12:02, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I already commented above that I re-created my old id (avineshjose) since it was not showing any contribution. So not to be confused with it. --Avinesh Jose  T  04:47, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Additionally, avinesh (usurped) is also shows any contribs. Is it so? I'm totally confused now. --Avinesh Jose  T  04:56, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, there's a very old edit. Bureaucrats can process usurpations of usernames that have edits that do not require GFDL attribution, and it looks like that's what happened here. WODUP 05:12, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I know, but my contribs also should be moved to the usurped id, right? At present, it is not done. --Avinesh Jose  T  05:25, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

No. See the contribution pattern: Step 1: (old) Avinesh --> Avinesh Step 2: (old) Avinesh --> Avinesh (usurped) step 3: AvineshJose --> Avinesh. =Nichalp «Talk»= 05:30, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

It was odd. The user subpages were moved from the old name (Avineshj...) to the new name (Avinesh), but the userpage and user talk page were not. I moved them. WODUP 05:57, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, it is working fine now. --Avinesh  T  08:24, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Also note, it often takes a day or so, especially if there are lots of edits, for everything to be fully processed in the database. — Rlevse • Talk • 10:09, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Usurpation

Resolved

 – Request filed at WP:CHU. X! who used to be Soxred93 22:46, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Request actually filed at WP:USURP. Useight (talk) 22:48, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

*facepalm* X! who used to be Soxred93 04:10, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I would like to have a second, non-admin account so I don't get interrupted by "New Messages" banners in the middle of working on articles; it's not clear to me whether I can usurp User:Janitor of Lunacy and still keep this account. It has no edits so there shouldn't be a problem. Your advice welcome. --Rodhullandemu 21:30, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

You could make a dummy account with which to usurp the one you want. Assuming the account exists and needs to be usurped, I didn't check. Useight (talk) 21:57, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Strangely, that had just occurred to me, but then it's been a long day. As I see it, the account exists and has no edits, so seems open to usurpation. Leave it with me. --Rodhullandemu 21:59, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks very much. --Rodhullandemu 22:53, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Bot flags

Re this readd: here, MaxSem took those out earlier this month, saying that "make" was obsolete and to use UserRights for everything. He's not the only one to say that. We need a final understanding/agreement among the crats and BAG members on this as currently the crats are doing it two different ways (make vs userrights) and the instructions are flip flopping back and forth. I think we should all be consistent here. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:52, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

In the long term the Bot log will be merged with the Userrights log, this needs to be done through the Bugzilla process and I believe MaxSem has a code fix to this end. Until that time, it really doesn't matter which system is used, since both will be merged. Of course, if the crats want to keep it separate until that time, that is their choice. MBisanz ^talk 00:59, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Will, do you want to keep it separate merely to make the monthly counting easier or is there another reason? Give MBisanz' input, maybe we should just go ahead and all switch to user rights. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:03, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

No, I prefer it because it makes it much easier to keep track of what actions are taking place. Were the user rights log searchable by which permission was changed in a given action, it would be a lot better. WJBscribe (talk) 01:08, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, the fact that Special:MakeBot adds bot flag actions to the bot status log makes it preferable. It's already getting hard to keep track of general user rights changes now that there are rollback, accountcreator and IPblockexepmt rights being given left right and center. If it is agreed that bureaucrats should stop using that system then so be it, but I think it should be based on discussion. As far as I know, no one consulted any bureaucrats about which interface works better for us before ruling one to be "deprecated". It would be nice if those who use technical features are occasionally asked their opinions about changes to them... WJBscribe (talk) 01:06, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm wide open to discussion. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:09, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I suspect it is not being done at the Meta level (where you would be consulted), but at the MediaWiki level, if you look at Makebot you see that the developers have formally declared it obsolete, as they did with Makesysop. I think the general goal is to move all actions to the Userrights log. Possibly that log needs a better filtering system, but since these changes were already committed the the code, I doubt the devs will be willing to keep support for the Make-X functions forever. MBisanz ^talk 01:12, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes I find the disconnect between those using the software and those writing it rather frustrating... WJBscribe (talk) 01:13, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I think our best bet at this point is to get the log merge into Userrights, as opposed to the last time they obsoleted a log and just did a page dump at Wikipedia:Bureaucrat log. Maybe one of our devs like MaxSem or Krimpet could act as a better information conveyor. MBisanz ^talk 01:17, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Argh! Everytime I'm glancing through text and see "Userrights" I always have to take a second look, thinking I saw my name. Useight (talk) 05:07, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

As the new boy round here, I'm happy to go with whatever the other Crats think best. And Useight - I'm getting quite handy at CHU, thanks to Will's expert help. How would you like to be renamed something that'll be less confusing on this page? How about User:Botflag, User:RfA or User:BAG? :-) --Dweller (talk) 10:09, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, User:RfA, that could be fun. Useight (talk) 16:32, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

If accusations of being an SPA are your cup of tea, go on ahead... :) bibliomaniac15 23:01, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

bugzilla:15376

I noticed that two renames of users with high edit counts create multiple log entries, so I've submitted a bugzilla report about it. Maxim (☎) 13:59, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

From experience, I think multiple log entries result if a bureaucrat resubmits a request that has timed out. Renames involving users with many edits are most likely to time out. WJBscribe (talk) 14:06, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Is there any way the developers could help prevent time outs on these requests? --Dweller (talk) 14:33, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

It is the same effect as deletions of pages with vast number of revisions timing out. I guess it's a performance issues. If a rename times out, you're best to do something else for a bit and check the logs a few minutes later to confirm that rename happens. WJBscribe (talk) 14:38, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

WJB renamed MBisanzBot as a test; no log duplication occured. The bug seems fixed. Maxim (☎) 15:19, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

It still timed out, but not for very long. When I resubmitted the request, it said that MBisanzBot didn't exist so presumably the request had already gone through. Duplication doesn't happen every time there's a time-out so we may have to keep an eye on the log for a while to see if the issue reoccurs... WJBscribe (talk) 15:24, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Seems like the change of attribution for each edit could easily be job queued. The downside is that the old user's Special:Contributions would visibly shrink as the new one grows, which could confuse onlookers depending on how long it takes. — CharlotteWebb 13:56, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

It already is - for renames of users with many edits it can take some time for all the edits to be reattributed to the new name. WJBscribe (talk) 13:58, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Well that's some relief (I've never witnessed something like this) but if that's the case it shouldn't have been timing out. Anyway Werdna says he might have fixed this but is unsure [1]. — CharlotteWebb 14:11, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I've seen renames take a whole day to update everything in the db. — Rlevse • Talk • 14:18, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Vote canvassing

A note to the bureaucrats: I appear to have been vote canvassed by email to vote oppose in the Everyking RFA. The person doing the canvassing seems to have missed the fact that I have already voted support. I am going away for the long weekend and will not be acitve on wiki, but I have sent a copy of the suspect email to Newyorkbrad. I doubt any action could or should be taken, but feel I should let you know, just in case the situation is more widespread. Martinp (talk) 18:59, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Obviously this is serious, if true, I've added the {{notavote}} template to the RfA in question for the time being. MBisanz ^talk 19:06, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Naturally I am concerned about this, and I hope whoever is responsible for this canvassing will stop or be held responsible somehow. I have been perplexed for some time by the fact that, while the vast majority of the support voters are known to me, I do not recognize many of the names voting oppose. Everyking (talk) 19:23, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I am also sad to see this, but personally am of the opinion that far more canvassing happens in these "discussions" than ever comes out in the open. I am convinced a lot of off-wiki conversations occur among both opposers and supporters in situations like these, plus a lot of "user contribution following" creating voting blocs. Unfortunate, but unavoidable. I hope that confirmation of the fact will however doubly encourage the closing bureaucrat to evaluate arguments on their merits rather than purely numbers, something I think the bureaucrats have generally done well in contentious situations, even if I have sometimes disagreed with their conclusions (which is neither here nor there - they are the bureaucrats, not me). The fact is, Everyking, that your RFA is a contentious one, and will be so regardless of who communicates with whom over what. At this point, I'm off to the airport, so going offline. Martinp (talk) 19:30, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Who sent the e-mail? Or do you not feel comfortable saying in public? --Random832 (contribs) 19:41, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much Martinp for stepping forward. Please do follow up; bureaucrats--please provide guidance about the best way of doing so. And if anyone else believes they have been canvassed inappropriately--for or against--I urge them to step forward. A primary reason I conominated Everyking is because he impressed me very much with his integrity over more than a year; he deserves a clean RFA, whatever the outcome. Best regards, Durova^Charge! 19:57, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

This is very serious. Martinp, would you consider sending the email to the active crats? I will attempt to contact Brad as knowing more details will certainly help resolve this situation. — Rlevse • Talk • 20:01, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I received Martinp's e-mail forwarding the e-mail he received. It is from a "throwaway" non-Wikipedia e-mail account and I don't think it is possible to identify who sent it (although I am hardly an expert in that area). Martinp has given me permission to forward it as needed, so I will be glad to send it to one or more of the bureaucrats, although it is not necessary to read the contents of the e-mail to know that off-wiki canvassing of opposition to this RfA has occurred. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:04, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Brad pls forward me the email. — Rlevse • Talk • 20:09, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

It is from a "throwaway" non-Wikipedia e-mail account and I don't think it is possible to identify who sent it In which case the possibility of a joe job springs to mind. Or maybe not. Whichever side it came from, none of us should pretend to be shocked and surprised. The best solution would be to get rid of the silly, counterproductive rules against canvassing. Basil "Basil" Fawlty (talk) 21:17, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Rules against canvassing are not "silly" nor "counterproductive", they are in place to prevent biases from creeping into a discussion. Useight (talk) 20:23, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Some off-wiki critics have actually said that it's a poor system that could be biased by canvassing in the first place. --Random832 (contribs) 20:25, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Dear IP, in good faith I'm going to suppose that you simply failed to log in as an honest mistake. Please re-sign under your regular account or contact someone with appropriate ops; I recently supported a checkuser request on someone who was using an IP address for meta discussions in violation of the Privatemusings arbitration case finding on sockpuppetry. Very few edits appear under your IP, but this is a high tension discussion, so please reduce the tension by helping to work this out in a regular manner. Best regards, Durova^Charge! 20:39, 29 August 2008 (UTC) Thank you very much. Durova^Charge! 21:31, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

And to MartinP, Brad, and Rlevse: thank you all very much for your prompt and diligent attention. Durova^Charge! 20:40, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

{remove a wp:abf comment} ah, that's better Tombomp (talk/contribs) 20:49, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

• I support Everyking's RfA but come on, this is almost certainly a joe job. Why would the mysterious canvasser send the email to martinp when there is no prior indication that he'll oppose the RfA? There are very good reasons to discard a number of opposes in this RfA but canvassing isn't one of them. Of course, I can't see any bureaucrat closing the RfA as successful when so many people with clout have opposed (guess this is like the reverse-Danny RfA...) Pascal.Tesson (talk) 20:51, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Let's keep an open mind and invite more input from honest editors. I've made the mistake of jumping to conclusions in the past--wouldn't want to repeat the error or see it repeated. Durova^Charge! 20:56, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Please can anyone that has received canvassing e-mails forward them to me. I can investigate this, and hopefully find out who's been doing it. As a bureaucrat, it might not make much of a difference, but as a checkuser, this is certainly something that needs investigating. --Deskana (talk) 23:35, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I have forwarded the copy I got from Brad. And I've asked at the RFA too. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:02, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Deskana that would be very helpful if the throwaway e-mail address happens to be connected to a throwaway Wikipedia account connected to a non-throwaway IP range. As most of us know, Special:Emailuser is now logged (and by that I mean "logged and available to checkuser"—I don't doubt that it has always been "logged"), but there doesn't seem to be any indication that the e-mails were sent internally, so possibly no dice here. — CharlotteWebb 13:51, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I should point out that there are a number of interesting and useful headers to be found in the email envelope that, with the proper knowledge, could correlate nicely with CU. I'll give a hand to any arb or CU that would like me to take a look (it needs complete forwarded emails, though, not just a cut-and-paste of the contents). — Coren ^(talk) 14:09, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

It depends on if he sent it from wiki or from an outside, non wiki source. From looking at it, I think it was done outside wiki. — Rlevse • Talk • 14:19, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

You can identify emails sent internally through the presence of MediaWiki:Emailuserfooter's text at the bottom of the message. If they do not have that, it is safe to say that they were sent from an outside client (eg., gMail; ie., not through special:emailuser), or they were sent before Emailuserfooter was in use (as of a few months back). Anthøny ✉ 14:53, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

That could be pasted into the email too, ie, spoofed. Checking the header is better. It'll show Atlanta routing if it's a wiki email. — Rlevse • Talk • 15:09, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

As an aside, there's a rather large thread about EKs RfA on WR. That would seem to be the same style of canvassing as the email (viewable/sent by/to both support/oppose personalites, but perhaps frequented by those more inclined to be of one or the other persuasion). Certainly the goal of reducing canvassing is admirable but let's not lose sight of why we have the canvassing guideline and what is bad about it. The guideline correctly calls out "messages that are written to influence the outcome rather than to improve the quality of a discussion." It could be argued that a strong reaction to a canvassing complaint when it's scope or influence is unknown will tend to inlfuence the outcome. Worrying about whether a particular viewpoint is a "canvassed" viewpoint without regard to the content itself undermines the very thing the guideline was intended to address. Canvassing, like trolling, would best be handled with "revert, block, ignore" rather than lots of boilerplate notices and consternation over a particular viewpoints motivation for posting. --DHeyward (talk) 07:56, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I am back from my trip and have made a statement on my talk page. Martinp (talk) 23:30, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

RFA options

I've started this: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Request for clarification on RFA options for User:Coffee and User:PeterSymonds, specifically on Coffee and PeterSymonds, but also with the hope that the arbcom will be clearer on future desyssops. — Rlevse • Talk • 02:47, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Motion passed and archived. --Jeremyb (talk) 06:53, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

What happens when consensus changes?

Majorly was promoted in December 2007, apparently after a discussion amongst the crats. The most recent RFA is Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Majorly which was withdrawn. Majorly's tendencies toward childish and disruptive behavior have been discussed again quite a lot lately. There's now Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Majorly which demonstrates the problematic behavior in question. There are quite a few editors there who have stated that Majorly's behavior is not what we expect from an admin. His own responses during the RFC have been criticized as evidence that he's unwilling to accept any responsibility for the problem. These behavioral issues have been going on for a long while now, and he shows no signs of improvement.

I submit to the crats that consensus has changed. Is there something you can do about this? Before you object, yes, I understand you lack the technical ability to change this permission. But, I cannot imagine a steward would refuse a request from our duly-appointed crats. Just to be clear, I am not asking you to institute some new process or approve some change in policy. A generalized solution would be nice, but it's not what I'm after today. Today, I'm just asking the crats if they would consider taking action in this one particular case. If you're unwilling to just proclaim that consensus has changed and have the bit pulled, how about another RFA whose results are binding this time? This would presumably be more palatable to anyone who would otherwise object to an overly-activist crat decision. Friday (talk) 14:58, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

My only concern here is that an action like this has a very high potential of setting a dangerous precedent. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 15:02, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's a concern. However this is a unique case, as far as I know. The crats gave him the bit after a withdrawn RFA. This is already unusual territory. The crats use their own judgement sometimes on whether a bit was resigned "under a cloud". One way to look at a decision here is that they changed their mind on that call. This would be entirely within their proper jurisdiction. Friday (talk) 15:09, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Bureaucrats can't decide this. Admins can only be desysopped by order of ArbCom or Jimbo (or a steward in an emergency). Bureaucrats are there to evaluate RfAs, nothing else. My RfA was determined as void. And I am not going through another RfA (I'd rather have my teeth pulled out without anesthetic). I suggest you open a request for arbitration asking the people who do have the power to do the job to do it. Majorly ^talk 15:07, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Majorly's right about this one. As I've written elsewhere recently, we do not reconsider decisions already made, especially nine months ago. I don't take Majorly's promotion as a reconsideration: the RFA was only withdrawn because someone claimed to have evidence of Majorly's being a sockpuppet of another user. When those claims turned out to be without merit, Raul wisely evaluated the RFA as it stood at the time it was closed: so he didn't revise a bureaucrat decision -- he only allowed Majorly to take back his decision to withdraw. Majorly was therefore promoted as an administrator in good standing, without any asterisks or caveats. Like any other administrator, then, only Jimbo and the arbcom can desysop him at the moment. — Dan | talk 16:12, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, novel things do happen occasionally, so I'm not very swayed by the argument of "We've never done that before, therefore we cannot do it." I guess he was not only allowed to un-withdraw, we're now pretending that his RFA never existed at all? I don't know if that's literally the first time this ever happened, but it's certainly not typical. I don't see what's automatically wrong with doing something new. Friday (talk) 16:43, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I would say Majorly is correct in that this is beyond the purview of the 'crats. While action may very well need to be taken, that is for arbcom to decide. Chillum 17:06, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree... the question is, who will make the formal request? I do believe that somebody is working on the request now.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 17:40, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, I wish they'd hurry up. Majorly ^talk 17:49, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Majorly, you could always set one up yourself an hijack the process </friendly jab> ---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 18:16, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Good idea. Majorly ^talk 18:17, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Friday, the community must first bestow the bureaucrats the mandate to recommend a desysop to stewards. We work on a consensus model, so this would need to be decided through regular channels if we have the mandate to do what you mention and not step on arbcoms toes. Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:19, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

The bureaucrats will recommend to the stewards that Majorly's sysop bit be removed when there is a community-approved desysopping system in place (the caveat being that that same system would also have to be in the bureaucrat's jurisdiction). Until then, it's up to Jimbo, ArbCom, and/or Majorly himself.
Majorly's regaining of the bit (not with a "forgotten RfA" as Friday suggests) is an unusual situation, but that doesn't mean that we can similarly suspend the usual process for demotion. One unusual situation does not necessarily beget another. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:34, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I concur. The primary role of the bureaucrat is to implement the community consensus for an RfA. Bureaucrats do not have the ability to remove the sysop bit on their own. Also, the community does not currently have the mandate to enforce a sysop-bit removal; that remains under the purview of ArbCom and Jimbo. If there is a sizeable grass-roots concern about Majorly's use of the sysop bit, it should be brought as an RfAr. I will take this opportunity to reiterate that I do believe that ArbCom should set up a dedicated subcommittee to expedite sysop-related issues, but that is not directly relevant here. -- Avi (talk) 17:42, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

A steward would never desysop on consensus of bureaucrats: it's against policy. They'd only ever do it if an ArbCom member requested it as the result of a case (public or private), and Jimbo would just do it himself. Majorly ^talk 17:48, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Toward an explicit mandate

Something like Wikipedia:Removing administrator rights/Proposal, perhaps? Friday (talk) 18:05, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

The most obvious question is how the loss of community confidence would be demonstrated. It's certainly not clear to me that Majorly has. Tombomp (talk/contribs) 18:08, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

This proposal depends on the crats using their discretion. How and when they choose to do so is up to them. This is why I intentionally used vague wording. I'm not sure why someone would request such a nasty job, but the crats asked for it. :) Friday (talk) 18:13, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I disagree it's a nasty job: see my thoughts on it. Majorly ^talk 18:16, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

It was interesting just to note the current wording for "removing admin rights", criterion 2 :"Requests for comment: If a request for comments on use of administrator privileges is filed against an administrator, and there is a strong indication that the administrator has lost the trust of the community, the administrator may voluntarily resign or stand for reconfirmation. A bureaucrat may be asked to review the comments to help determine consensus, though they have no obligation to do so." - I know Majorly called the RFC on himself so I guess it doesn't necessarily equate to an RFC on "use of admin privileges" (although it links to plain old RFC, so that may be considered a moot point), but some could argue that the discussion has gone that way. Majorly has stated he will not resign, so if (and it's a big if) there's a "strong indication that the administrator has lost the trust of the community", and Majorly doesn't resign, he must stand for reconfirmation, right? The Rambling Man (talk) 18:18, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

No, if the RfC determines that there's serious problems with his adminship, and the desired outcome for him to be desysopped, he can either voluntarily have himself desyopped, or others can take it to arbcom for them to look at it. We don't force people into reconfirmation RfA's. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 18:23, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so what I'm reading at Wikipedia:Removing administrator rights is not correct? If not, fine, but it should be reworded, deprecrated, deleted, or whatever because right now it's a little confusing. Well, it is for me. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:25, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, the key word is "may". The problem with all processes short of ArbCom is they're voluntary. Tombomp (talk/contribs) 18:25, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

No, it's okay, the confusion comes from me not being awake enough to note this isn't a policy, guideline or anything more than just private musings. Heh. Perhaps, Friday, you should start with firmer foundations...! The Rambling Man (talk) 18:26, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

It's documentation of what processes exist for those who may need to know. I have made adjustments that hopefully will reduce confusion. Feel free to edit further. Jehochman ^Talk 20:06, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

It's all become somewhat academic. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:31, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Why? I see this as a reasonable and harmless step in the right direction, without regard to any specific case. Friday (talk) 18:34, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

• Strongly opposed as discussed here. -- Avi (talk) 18:52, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't actually agree with Nichalp that an explicit mandate is needed for everything new. The great majority of standard practice on Wikipedia is the result of ever-growing tradition, rather than explicit mandate. Furthermore, this community is so fearful of the law of unintended consequences that it is all but unable to agree to any explicit proposal. My goal in my above comments was simply to argue that we should not begin to re-evaluate a months-old decision. Let me try to explain why.

RFA is a formal process for getting the opinion of the community in writing. We accept comments for a week, and at the end of the week we make a decision on the basis of what has been written. The idea is to make a decision that reflects what the community thinks at that moment. It's the formal process for gathering data that ensures maximal fairness and openness. So we cannot simply reverse a nine-month-old decision on the basis of suspicion that the community's opinion may have changed. If we suspect that the outcome of another RFA, held right now, would be very different, then we need a new formal process for holding a review of someone's adminship, or something like that. It in turn needs its own standards of evaluation. Ad-hoc speculative reversal of decisions, as has been advocated in this thread, is out of the question.

Nor should we allow the possibility of reviewing an old decision because we think that we made a mistake in interpreting the data as gathered within the original week during which the request was open. Since that's not the issue here, I won't waste space by defending my view, though I'd be glad to write up some arguments for anybody who's interested. — Dan | talk 19:03, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

We don't need to have a mandate for something new. I mentioned the mandate part as desysopping has been the traditional role of arbcom, and if bureaucrats were given the rights to desysop or recommend desysopping a person, I would be certainly interested in the devolution of powers and roles. That needs to be figured out. I note that Wikipedia has moved from a open collaboration model to a more feudal system of rights management. A good or bad model, that open to question, and out of scope here. =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:26, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Even if Majorly was sysopped in an unusual fashion that is no carte blanche for the Crats to unsysop him in even more unusual fashion. If there were community consensus for the lines to blur between ArbCom and the Crats, then we'd have to consider how we respond to that consensus, but in the absence of it, I would argue strongly against this move. --Dweller (talk) 09:50, 3 September 2008 (UTC)