Wikipedia:Guide to Community de-adminship

• To participate in the completion of this, please go to Wikipedia talk:Community de-adminship/Draft RfC
• This is a 'diff' of this page before Jan 9th 2010 (the date the changes suggested in the 'revision polls' began to be made in here).

Community de-adminship removes the sysop right from an account, per the consensus of the Wikipedia editor community. This guide explains how the process works. (Note: This is a proposal and is currently under consideration as 'Option 4' at Wikipedia:WikiProject Administrator/Admin Recall.)

Overview

What this process is

This process is for removal of the sysop right from an account of a currently active administrator account, per the consensus of the Wikipedia editor community at large. Each request is formatted as a nomination, with accompanying outcome poll and discussion page, one per request per account that is to have the right removed.

This process is intentionally structured as a mirror image of Wikipedia:Requests for adminship, about which you can read more at the Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship. That is also the process to use in order to re-gain the sysop right after it is removed by community consensus.

What this process is not

This process is not for:

Emergency de-sysopping

Emergency desysopping of accounts for the immediate protection of the project is the province of Jimbo Wales, Stewards, and the Arbitration Committee. Discussions here take no less than 7 days, and are unsuitable for emergency measures.

Temporary de-sysopping

Temporary de-sysopping is the province of the Arbitration Committee. Requests for the same should be made to the Committee.

Voluntary desysopping

An administrator who wishes to no longer have access to administrator tools may apply to Stewards in the normal manner at m:Steward requests/Permissions.

Blocks, bans, topic restrictions, or other community sanctions

This process is solely for removing the sysop flag from accounts, and determining whether the community at large has a consensus for doing so. Blocks, bans, restrictions, and sanctions should be enacted through the usual mechanisms.

Dispute resolution or other discussions

Dispute resolution should proceed through the normal channels. Disputes with an administrator must be discussed first with that administrator, and then via the normal channels such as third opinion, mediation, request for comment, and arbitration. Mild or one-time only incivility should instead be reported to Wikiquette Alerts. If the administrator is listed at Administrators open to recall and you believe the conditions listed there have been met, they should be reported there.

A CDA request may be initiated only after substantial community discussion at a suitable venue, such as Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard or Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User, has failed to produce a resolution, and there must be documentation of these prior attempts.

Removing the flag from inactive accounts

Any administrator account nominated here must be an account that has actively used editor or administrator tools recently. There is no consensus at the English Wikipedia for removing the sysop flag from inactive administrator accounts (and indeed, some evidence from the English Wikibooks and English Wikinews that such actions are arguably detrimental to projects in the medium and long terms), and this process is not intended to cover that function until such a consensus is reached (if it ever is).

Removing rights other than the sysop right

This process covers solely the sysop right. And it only applies, of course, to accounts that actually have that right in the first place.

Getting administrator actions undone

The places for doing that are variously the enacting administrator's user talk page, Wikipedia:Deletion review (for deletion/undeletion), Wikipedia:Requests for page protection (for protection/unprotection), and Wikipedia:Administrator's noticeboard/Incidents.

Requests here are not valid if made on these grounds, and are subject to summary closure by Bureaucrats or the Arbitration Committee.

Other similar processes

• Wikipedia:Requests for adminship — where the community decides whether to add the sysop right to accounts
• Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval — where the community decides whether to add the bot right to accounts

The process

Before nomination

Before nomination here, consider whether your nomination is covered by the #What this process is not restrictions above. Attempt to discuss your concerns with the administrator, and to enlist the aid of other administrators. Attempt persuasion first.

Consider that nominations that do not address the core issue of whether the community as a whole does or does not trust the account to have the sysop right will likely fail, and possibly backfire spectacularly. Determining that is the purpose of this process. If this is not the issue in your case, then you are in the wrong place. In all but the most extreme cases, there should be a demonstrable pattern of repeated unacceptable behaviors, not just a single incident. Processes like this one usually result in intense scrutiny of all involved parties. The bright light you are about to shine on a particular administrator will reflect on you as well.

It is generally not acceptable to make repeated nominations of the same administrator for the same reasons, without materially new evidence, and such nominations may be speedily closed. Repeated resubmission of failed nominations may be treated as disruption.

Nomination

Nominations are made by creating a sub-page of Wikipedia:Community de-adminship. The sub-page is named after the account that it is to have the right removed. So to nominate, for example, User:Example for community de-adminship, the page is Wikipedia:Community de-adminship/Example.

Nominations may be made in either of two ways:

Nomination by the Arbitration Committee

The Arbitration Committee may, by a motion, decide to refer the decision about the sysop right to the Community as a whole, for community consensus. An Arbitrator or a clerk must sign the nomination, linking to the Committee's motion.

Nomination by the Community at large

Nomination by the Community at large requires the signatures of no fewer than 10 editors in good standing (defined below), within a period not longer than 7 days. Signatures must be placed in the nomination area of the requests, as a simple signed bullet point.

Nominations are expected to provide a short, single, objective statement of the nomination, supported by detailed and specific evidence.

Discussion does not open until an Arbitration Committee clerk, a Bureaucrat, or an Arbitration Committee member, certifies a nomination as valid. Nominations are not valid unless all of the following apply:

• Either the Arbitration Committee has passed a motion, or the requisite number of editor signatures has been collected.
• A notice of the de-adminship request is currently placed on each of Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous), the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard, and the Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard. (Anyone may post such a notice.)
• A notice of the de-adminship request is currently given to the account whose rights are to be changed.

Where nomination is made by 10 editors in good standing, those editors:

• must have all signed the request, themselves, within the 7 day period. Stale signatures are invalid and must be re-signed to be made valid.
• may not be subject to Arbitration enforcement editing restrictions, Arbitration Committee restrictions, or Community restrictions, including, but not limited to, topic bans, project bans, and paroles without the permission of the Arbitration Committee or another person or group empowered to lift those restrictions.
• must be active editors on the English Wikipedia, with accounts more than three months old and with no fewer than 500 edits.

Tip for editors who are not "in good standing": If you cannot convince 10 independent editors in good standing of the merits of your request, such that they take it up themselves, then your request is probably without merit and should not be pursued.

In addition, nominations by editors during an active arbitration process concerning the administrator to be nominated may be initiated only with the permission of the Arbitration Committee.

Parties to the CDA process may legitimately contact other editors to request specific input, but must at all times do so otherwise in strict accordance with WP:CANVASS.

Discussion and poll

Discussion and polling proceeds for at least 7 days after discussion opens. Discussion and polling may be summarily closed ahead of that 7 day deadline at the discretion of Bureaucrats or the Arbitration Committee.

Discussions are subject to the usual rules. Community de-adminship discussions follow the normal Wikipedia talk page etiquette. All editors are reminded in particular that the Wikipedia:No personal attacks policy applies to all parts of a de-adminship request.

Extended discussion belongs on the discussion page. The main request page is for the nomination, the poll, and the closure. All discussion not directly relevant to the purpose of the nomination, i.e. evaluating the level of community support for a given Administrator, may be refactored to the talk page of the request. (Tip: If you want to provide an extended comment, or to begin a discussion of an indirectly related point, link to a section on the talk page.)

Anyone may participate in the discussion. Civil, relevant, discussion, based upon our policies and guidelines, is welcome from any editor in the community, whether with or without an account. However, disruptive comments, and contributions by sockpuppets, banned users, or blocked users (unless blocked by the administrator being reviewed and when the CDA is materially related to that block) are not permitted and will be stricken.

The poll contains three sections: support, oppose, and neutral. An opinion is registered with a signed numbered list entry (the # markup), exactly as is done at Requests for Adminship. Comments are encouraged, and !votes presented without a rationale, as well as "per" comments, are discouraged and may be discounted by the closing Bureaucrat.

Community de-adminship is not a replacement for Wikipedia:Requests for comments, and is not structured like a user RfC. In particular, there is only one poll of signatures, because there is only one thing to assess: the consensus for removing or not.

Editors (including nominators) may change their minds during the discussion period. To signify that, simply strike through the old opinion (changing the # markup to #: so that the list numbering remains correct) and sign the new opinion.

Closure

Sometime after the seven days for the discussion have elapsed, a Bureaucrat will review the request and close it. Bureaucrats are volunteers, and closure is not required to occur exactly on the deadline.

Bureaucrats determine the consensus of the community, using both the opinion poll and the discussion on the talk page. There are two outcomes. Either the sysop right is to be removed or it is not. If the sysop right is to be removed, the Bureaucrat will present the request to a Steward, showing project consensus for the right to be removed by the Steward. In either case, the Bureacrat will close the discussion, recording the outcome, and archive it.

Bureaucrats are given the same discretion, and determine the community consensus in exactly the same manner, as at Requests for Adminship, with one added restriction, that no request shall be closed as a de-sysopping if fewer than 50 editors supported the desysopping. (The point of the process is determining the consensus of the Community at large.) Thus, for an Administrator to be de-sysopped, a Bureaucrat will review the discussion to see whether both a minimum of 50 editors and a general consensus support de-sysopping. Consensus is sometimes difficult to ascertain and is not a numerical measurement, but as a general non-binding descriptive rule of thumb, above approximately 80% support for de-sysopping would usually be acceptable; while support below approximately 70% would usually not be, and the area between is subject to bureaucratic discretion. In unclear cases, multiple Bureaucrats may be involved.

Bureaucrats are, explicitly, free to take into account rationales and discussion, and to discount any and all forms of sockpuppetry and canvassing to recruit people who are not part of the Wikipedia editor community (including single-purpose accounts created for the purpose). (The point of the process is determining the consensus of the Community.)

Bureaucrats may also, at their discretion, extend the discussion period in order to obtain wider input, or allow on-going active discussions to continue in order to reach a better consensus.

Appeal of a decision is to the closing Bureaucrat, in the first instance. One may also apply to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship in the normal way.

Speedy closure

If a nomination is clearly frivolous and/or subject to WP:SNOW in favor of opposing, then an uninvolved Administrator or Bureaucrat may close the discussion.

Review process

After one year or five CDA nominations, whichever is sooner, a formal review of this process will be made.