Community de-adminship RfC enters voting, Canvassed with a Wikipedia banner Options

[Abd]

In all its glory.

This is a fairly mild proposal, not a whole lot less cumbersome than taking an admin to RfAr, and the biggest argument against it, in my opinion, is that it might be almost useless, but it is not worse than the status quo, and might be better, and might be improved on review, which is built into the proposal, so I supported it after some thought, even though there are aspects that are inadequate.

The arguments against are featured prominently at the top of the RfC, authored by TenOfAllTrades, who has provided plenty of reason, in the past, that someone might want him removed. Right now, Oppose votes are leading, with many of them based on an impression that There Is Nothing Wrong, Everything Is Peachy Keen, I've Not Encountered Any Rogue Administrators, So If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It.

Which is probably true for most Wikipedia editors. Until they do encounter one or a few.

I just thought it was odd that this wasn't being discussed here, given, etc., etc.

[everyking]

Community de-adminship is the basic solution to all of Wikipedia's problems related to administrators. That some people either don't see that, or are too self-interested to care, is appalling to me. This is actually a very weak proposal--it would be necessary to obtain 65% of the vote against an admin in order to desysop him or her--but the opposition to it is centered around the belief that any system at all, even a very weak one, is too threatening to accept.

[CharlotteWebb]

If participation in the above-described system becomes mandatory and assuming there is no burden of evidence, I believe I could rally a 65% vote against any current admin, good, bad, or ugly (barring only the brand-new) with little difficulty.

Submit requests directly by e-mail if this passes (if you don't know my current address, find someone who does).

Come on now, we'll have a bushel of fun. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/dry.gif)

[everyking]

If participation in the above-described system becomes mandatory and assuming there is no burden of evidence, I believe I could rally a 65% vote against any current admin, good, bad, or ugly (barring only the brand-new) with little difficulty.

Submit requests directly by e-mail if this passes (if you don't know my current address, find someone who does).

Come on now, we'll have a bushel of fun. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/dry.gif)

Impossible. I'd be surprised if you could find 65% against any admin at all. There are a few who might fail on a simple majority vote, but I think any admin could find support among 35% of participants. Any admin so deeply unpopular that they couldn't even find that much support would probably have already been desysopped by the ArbCom.

[CharlotteWebb]

Impossible. I'd be surprised if you could find 65% against any admin at all. There are a few who might fail on a simple majority vote, but I think any admin could find support among 35% of participants. Any admin so deeply unpopular that they couldn't even find that much support would probably have already been desysopped by the ArbCom.

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/laugh.gif) Alrighty then, give me a name.

[Somey]

If participation in the above-described system becomes mandatory and assuming there is no burden of evidence, I believe I could rally a 65% vote against any current admin, good, bad, or ugly (barring only the brand-new) with little difficulty.

And they'd basically eliminate the policy after the first successful attempt, right? Or else make it "voluntary".... They'd claim it was all grossly unfair, "offsite canvassing" skewed the results, blatant sock-puppetry and meat-puppetry, and so on. That's the usual pattern, anyway.

And just to be clear, there should be burden of evidence - without that, they'd lose more reformers than abusers, assuming they desysop anybody at all.

[everyking]

Impossible. I'd be surprised if you could find 65% against any admin at all. There are a few who might fail on a simple majority vote, but I think any admin could find support among 35% of participants. Any admin so deeply unpopular that they couldn't even find that much support would probably have already been desysopped by the ArbCom.

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/laugh.gif) Alrighty then, give me a name.

Well, OK--if you could do something about Raul654, I might just fall in love. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wub.gif)

It's probably not going to succeed, looking at the numbers as they stand now, but the reality is that even if it was adopted it would be so ineffectual that it would have to be strengthened later on. Still, though, it would be progress just to have a procedure "on the books".

[Zoloft]

Community... deadmin... pigs... flying... frozen... skating... hell

The mists are clearing... I see a vision... don your Nikes... drink the communal potion and lay down... the mothership will soon be here.

[Doc glasgow]

Community de-adminship is the basic solution to all of Wikipedia's problems related to administrators. That some people either don't see that, or are too self-interested to care, is appalling to me. This is actually a very weak proposal--it would be necessary to obtain 65% of the vote against an admin in order to desysop him or her--but the opposition to it is centered around the belief that any system at all, even a very weak one, is too threatening to accept.

Community de-adminship has always been the biggest wast of time discussion imaginable.

The basic problem is, although everyone agrees there are "bad admins" who it should be easier to remove - everyone has different people in mind.

If you need a "consensus to de-admin", then you'll never one for anyone, unless the admin has done such unquestionably bad things, that the current arbcom process would de-sysop by speedy motion. So, nothing gained.

If the consensus is lower, you'll see all sorts of politically-motivates requests for deadminship. I'd have faced several by now - all of which would have failed (if narrowly). This would have been a wast of my time, and the community's time. However, it would certainly would have been fun and caused lots of drama - which is usually the point of creating new processes on wikipedia.

That's the other reason these things fail. Whilst the bar to de-admin is set high, the bar to trigger the process is normally low. Wikipedia likes its processes to be open to all. That also means that you'd get lots and lots of spurious requests by disgruntled people - all of which would fail.

Would I get de-admined by such a process? Highly unlikely. Would you find 3/6/9 or even 20 editors (or even admins) in good standing willing to trigger it? No problem.

The same would go for Lar, Raul, SlimV, David Gerard, most of arbcom, indeed just about anyone with any type of profile on Wikipedia.

For "community deadminship" read:

"fruitless process of putting random admins in the stocks and throwing things at them for the fun of it. PS, the admins in question will usually (if not always) enjoy the notoriety/victimhood that ensues. Occassionally, this process will lead to the death of a victim, but no need to worry, because such victims were terminally ill anyway and would have died of natural causes in 24 hours had the stocks been unavailable. This is among the best types of entertainment on wikipedia."

This post has been edited by Doc glasgow:

[Kevin]

The most insightful thing I read there was "Wikipedia is still in its political infancy".

I thought it was a great idea, getting rid of abusive admins, until I remembered I was one of them.

[Abd]

The proposal is not a rigid voting process, and discretion remains with a closing bureaucrat. A guideline is provided that suggests bureaucratic discretion between 65% and something like 80%, I forget. Not easy to accomplish a desysop with socks, sorry to disappoint you.

However, if you take the socks off and go in completely naked, it might distract everyone enough.

The basic problem here is common with communities that set up a consensus standard for decisions and then don't realize that consensus changes and if a consensus is required to reverse an earlier decision, that sets up a severe bias toward the status quo. I've seen many times that the "consensus organization" status quo becomes displeasing to the majority, but it benefits enough members that they will steadfastly oppose change and be able to prevent a new consensus from forming.

And this happens even more often than is easily visible, because disgruntled members leave. So it's even possible that, if all the original members were to assemble and consider the matter, the earlier consensus would be overturned by consensus (which necessarily means, here, "rough consensus," some organizations insist on complete consensus, and they either abandon that or they die as organizations, becoming only a shell of their former position, with a few people wondering where everyone else went or dismissing them as "trolls" and "malcontents" and "whiners.")

What's really silly is that all this was worked out centuries ago, and "the consensus was" majority rule. No situation continues without the continued consent of a majority. Some decisions require "absolute majority," but even the most basic laws of an organization can be changed by an absolute majority (a vote of more than half of all eligible members. This presumes that membership is active in some way).

And then short of absolute majority, the same fundamental changes can be implemented by a supermajority, typically two-thirds, of those assembling and voting after notice. That a situation -- any situation -- would continue in the face of a two-thirds majority of those voting upon notice is preposterous, but this proposal only allows a decision beginning at two-thirds.

Normally, officers can be elected or removed by simple majority vote; that is because officers are positions requiring trust, and majority trust is minimal, wider trust for some officers is important.

Sophisticated organizations that value consensus, then, set up consensus as a goal, not a fixed restriction. They will discuss in depth, and may back off from making quick decisions based on a mere majority. But who decides when enough is enough? The majority of those voting on the subject!

Wikipedia's adhocratic structure is not conducive to this, it needs supplementary structure that is more formal and reliable, such as a Wikipedia Assembly. Proposals to form one have long existed, and were even supported by quite a number of arbitrators, but it was assumed that consensus was necessary to form such a representative body.

That's the error, which locks the status quo in place. An Assembly should be formed, probably off-wiki, and this would not require on-wiki consensus. It would have no specific power, only the power to advise, but if properly constituted, this power would be overwhelming. It would be a representative body, and there are devices that can be used to create that efficiently. It is possible for such an Assembly to be fully representative, not merely representative of a majority, and classic organizational rules can be used effectively, all that is needed is representation in deliberation, to keep discussions manageable.

And the Assembly could recommend that an admin be desysopped, and, if the Assembly was truly representative, even if only of a large faction, without there being any larger faction opposed, it would happen unless it were an abusive recommendation. The Assembly itself could and would set up a committee to examine any particular issue, delegating the task to a relatively small number of members, who would then prepare a report, based on collected testimony and its own investigation. The report would include recommendations, which would go back to the Assembly for an acceptance vote. Standard deliberative process! The result of that vote, absent some sort of "official recognition" of the Assembly, would simply be coherent advice, backed with evidence and considered argument, the best that could be assembled. Ultimately, it would be Completely Stupid for the WMF to ignore this, it would be practically suicidal.

For if the Assembly represented enough editors, it could, should it run into a brick wall on-wiki (unlikely, actually), simply recommend to its members, back through the chosen representatives, to the full community of Wikipedia editors represented, that they start their own damn wiki, picking up all the Wikipedia content they choose to port (start with all, by default), and having enough labor and resources available to maintain and grow the thing beyond that. But this would be the big stick carried, actually using it would be unlikely to be necessary.

On the other hand, large factions could do this anyway, if organized, and that's what scares the shit out of some arbitrators and administrators about "cabals." (Short of forking, they can seriously push and influence on-wiki activity.)

May the faction with the best ideas and the will to implement them win! But it is generally better to find ways to cooperate, it is more powerful. "Majority" is a minimal standard for where advisability of action begins, other things being equal.

The most insightful thing I read there was "Wikipedia is still in its political infancy".

I thought it was a great idea, getting rid of abusive admins, until I remembered I was one of them.

Look, I've served nonprofits as an officer, and when it appeared that I no longer represented at least a majority, I've been happy to step down. In fact, I prefer to step down well before that point, it's terribly frustrating to struggle with a disunited organization, where every significant action becomes controversial.

[Jon Awbrey]

The basic problem here is common with communities that set up a consensus standard for decisions …

The basic problem here is with people who do not have a φreekin clue what the word "consensus" means.

Jon (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)

[victim of censorship]

Community... deadmin... pigs... flying... frozen... skating... hell

The mists are clearing... I see a vision... don your Nikes... drink the communal potion and lay down... the mothership will soon be here.

Community de-admin ....thats the day the sun burns out.

[Apathetic]

I haven't really reviewed this in great detail, but I'd be interested in a running tally and proportion of admins vs non-admins voting for and against.

At a brief glance it looked like the turkeys were handily voting against Thanksgiving =)

edit: Did a quick'n'dirty check:

42 users (53%) 13 admins (25%) supporting
36 users (46%) 39 admins (75%) opposing

6 users 2 admins neutral (not included in above calculations)

This post has been edited by Apathetic:

[Malleus]

I looked at the figures a couple of hours ago and came up with 52% of opposes from admins vs 27% of the support votes, so no surprises there.

The opposes that amuse me the most are the "we don't want a popularity contest", but isn't that what RfA is?

This post has been edited by Malleus:

[Doc glasgow]

I looked at the figures a couple of hours ago and came up with 52% of opposes from admins vs 27% of the support votes, so no surprises there.

The opposes that amuse me the most are the "we don't want a popularity contest", but isn't that what RfA is?

This is irrelevant.

The reason most experienced users will oppose this is that they know it is pointless. It will not desysop anyone who wouldn't get desysopped anyway, and it will cause pointless drama.

Having said that, that it will cause drama is probably the reason it has so much support too.

[Malleus]

I looked at the figures a couple of hours ago and came up with 52% of opposes from admins vs 27% of the support votes, so no surprises there.

The opposes that amuse me the most are the "we don't want a popularity contest", but isn't that what RfA is?

This is irrelevant.

The reason most experienced users will oppose this is that they know it is pointless. It will not desysop anyone who wouldn't get desysopped anyway, and it will cause pointless drama.

Having said that, that it will cause drama is probably the reason it has so much support too.

It may be irrelevant to you, but it confirms what many suspect, which is that any proposal for change will be blocked by sitting administrators, many of whom ought to have been chucked out on their ear already.

So I agree with you that it's pointless, but not for the same reason.

[GlassBeadGame]

I looked at the figures a couple of hours ago and came up with 52% of opposes from admins vs 27% of the support votes, so no surprises there.

The opposes that amuse me the most are the "we don't want a popularity contest", but isn't that what RfA is?

This is irrelevant.

The reason most experienced users will oppose this is that they know it is pointless. It will not desysop anyone who wouldn't get desysopped anyway, and it will cause pointless drama.

Having said that, that it will cause drama is probably the reason it has so much support too.

It may be irrelevant to you, but it confirms what many suspect, which is that any proposal for change will be blocked by sitting administrators, many of whom ought to have been chucked out on their ear already.

So I agree with you that it's pointless, but not for the same reason.

But I agree it is pointless for the real reason. The ordinary Wikipedian is as much of a problem as the Admins. No amount of internal "democracy" is going to make Wikipedia more responsible and answerable to stakeholders outside the project.

[Jon Awbrey]

But I agree it is pointless for the real reason. The ordinary Wikipedian is as much of a problem as the Admins. No amount of internal "democracy" is going to make Wikipedia more responsible and answerable to stakeholders outside the project.

This is just basic statistics — sample a population of full of hypocrites and you get a sample full of hypocrites.

Jon (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)

[Doc glasgow]

I looked at the figures a couple of hours ago and came up with 52% of opposes from admins vs 27% of the support votes, so no surprises there.

The opposes that amuse me the most are the "we don't want a popularity contest", but isn't that what RfA is?

This is irrelevant.

The reason most experienced users will oppose this is that they know it is pointless. It will not desysop anyone who wouldn't get desysopped anyway, and it will cause pointless drama.

Having said that, that it will cause drama is probably the reason it has so much support too.

It may be irrelevant to you, but it confirms what many suspect, which is that any proposal for change will be blocked by sitting administrators, many of whom ought to have been chucked out on their ear already.

So I agree with you that it's pointless, but not for the same reason.

It confirms it only to idiots who are not thinking.

I will oppose this and it will not be fear of accountability or whatever nonsense you want to infer. It will be because it cannot work.