Forum:CT:Admin demotion loopholes follow-up

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The result of the debate was Support. —spookywillowwtalk 23:42, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Following up on Forum:SH:Admin demotion loopholes follow-up (and Forum:CT:Amending RFRUR and Blocking policy for elected positions and Forum:SH:Amending RFRUR before that, we do need rules in place for an admin blocking another admin, so here's the proposal:

1) Amend the following rule in Wookieepedia:Requests for removal of user rights with additions in bold: "Pursuant to the Blocking policy, a user who is blocked shall have any authorities and permissions revoked, including their user rights. The blocking of an administrator by another administrator is also pursuant to the rules under Wookieepedia:Administrators#Administrative abuse."

2) Add to Wookieepedia:Administrators#Administrative abuse LIKE SO (diff).

This includes the new paragraph:

If an administrator is blocked by another administrator, then, pursuant to administrative autonomy, the Wookieepedia administration shall vote among themselves on whether or not to overturn the block as soon as possible. The blocking administrator must not continue to issue blocks against other administrators while the vote is ongoing; otherwise, any more blocks by the blocking administrator are automatically considered invalid, and that user shall be blocked for violating this policy.

"Administrative autonomy" (a preceding section on the Administrators page) refers to the policy that an admin may not unilaterally overturn any administrative action by another admin without a group consensus from the rest of the administration. The purpose of this paragraph is to prevent a rogue admin from blocking other admins.

And also:

If the administration decides not to overturn the block with immediate effect, then a RFRUR must be immediately opened for the blocked administrator. Regardless of the block length, the blocked administrator shall have their user rights suspended and remain blocked for the vote's duration; if the RFRUR does not pass (i.e. the Wookieepedia community does not agree on removing an administrator from their position), then the administrator should have their user rights restored and be unblocked immediately.

The purpose of this paragraph is to concretely give the wider community a say in the removal of an admin. The condition that the admin team could overturn the block without a community vote is there to complement the paragraph above, which would prevent a rogue admin from triggering a needless RFRUR vote (or multiple RFRUR votes in which case the entire admin team would be blocked and have to sit out the votes).

The condition that the blocked admin remain blocked for the duration of the vote (which is fixed at 336 hours, i.e. 14 days, per the RFRUR rules) is to prevent a potentially bitter admin blocked for e.g. 3 days to go berserk based on the vote and also keep them out of the Discord server for at least the voting period, per Wookieepedia:Blocking policy#Rules 6: "All blocked users shall have any authorities and permissions revoked, including Discord server access, review board membership, social media accesses, and user rights, including access to any bot."

This same rule would also cover for cases where Fandom has issued a block, so the position of administrator would be removed accordingly without a RFRUR.

In practice, yes, a rogue admin could still ban everyone else, but these new rules would make them blatantly against policy.

Support

  1. My thanks to all those who have provided feedback. OOM 224 17:38, 30 April 2025 (UTC)
  2. Yeah, right now even if a ban is 100% invalid - say a friend steals an admin's phone and bans the entire team for memes - somehow all the admins banned in quick succession get automatically demoted. Or if an admin finally just loses their marbles and bans everyone on their way out - sure, everyone banned can be voted back in, but it seems crazy to me that we'd have to demote everyone and leave the site admin-less for two weeks. Valid bans sure whatever, which this allows for, but immediately invalid bans really shouldn't result in demotion; it's just a loophole waiting to be abused next time two admins get in an argument.—spookywillowwtalk 17:42, 30 April 2025 (UTC)
  3. Yasen Nestorov (talk) 17:42, 30 April 2025 (UTC)
  4. Lewisr (talk) 17:57, 30 April 2025 (UTC)
  5. Rsand 30 (talk) 18:01, 30 April 2025 (UTC)
  6. CometSmudge (talk) 18:21, 30 April 2025 (UTC)
  7. Wok142 (talk) 18:38, 30 April 2025 (UTC)
  8. 01miki10 Open comlink 19:16, 30 April 2025 (UTC)
  9. SaintSirNicholas (talk) 20:34, 30 April 2025 (UTC)
  10. Rakhsh (talk) 11:57, 1 May 2025 (UTC)
  11. Andykatib 12:05, 1 May 2025 (UTC)
  12. Imperators II(Talk) 13:53, 2 May 2025 (UTC)
  13. Combo breaker. Y'all need to make your signatures fancy. NBDani TeamFireballLogo-Collider(they/them)Yeager's Repairs 02:26, 5 May 2025 (UTC)
  14. Tommy-Macaroni (he/they) 07:58, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss