Hiya, and wishing y'all all the best this February! So our administrative autonomy is a bit of a remnant of the old Wook. It was initially made by a former administrator in response to some admin infighting in 2007 (the details of which aren't relevant here, but you can see for yourself if you wish) and then amended in 2018 with some chunky bureaucratic legalese; in hindsight, the rules that it sets out clearly are to keep permanent bans in place and to let admins freely interpret policies, such as blocking a user for "disruption." It stipulates that in order to overturn a ban, for example, a public admin-only Consensus track vote be held, which is a bit much and rather peculiar, given that it only takes two seconds for a stingy admin with an itchy trigger finger to ban someone :P
Anyhow, it seems like we can reprupose this into something that's actually useful, with the bureaucratic fluff cut out:
Basically, the spirit of the policy is just to have a system in place for disagreements among the administration (disagreements happen all the time everywhere), but especially when it concerns administrative actions like deletions and blocks. It covers the loophole that decisions that have been made via community consensus, such as a page deletion via Trash compactor, shouldn't be overturned without another community vote. It also keeps the principle that blocks issued even by former admins are still valid—but specifies that they can be reversed if there is a admin majority in favour.
The proposal also gets rid of the idea that decisions have to be made on the spot with whatever admins are active on the IRC, which, aside from the fact that it literally isn't possible any more, plays on timezone differences and activity levels, allowing some admins' voices to be dismissed. Instead, every admin should be contacted and given an opportunity to speak on the issue and of course extend discussions where necessary, before a formal decision is made.
What do we all think? Granted, this is a major-ish policy and my life is getting busy again as well, so rest assured I won't move this to CT vote for at least a week. OOM 224 (he/him) 22:36, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
Discussion
- Definitely a fan of these revisions, nice work, OOM. JediMasterMacaroni(Talk) 22:53, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
- A public admin-only CT seems like such an archaic concept, to me, honestly. Full support for the new version, much cleaner.—spookywillowwtalk 01:19, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- Looks good to me. Not sure if the undeletion item should also mention the technicality that admins should be able to undelete, without an admin consensus needed, erroneously deleted pages (for example, files that have been deleted as unused despite actually being in use). Imperators II(Talk) 09:23, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- Good point, added! Also mentioned the Notability policy for articles. OOM 224 (he/him) 20:13, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- Quite the improvement in term of concision and language. NanoLuukeCloning Facility 12:10, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- Absolutely in favor of revamping. The way it was written is a relic of the past, and the way it required a public admin only vote to overturn a block very much felt like a form of public shaming to me. Supreme Emperor Holocomm 16:40, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
- Per J-Mac, great work! LucaRoR
(Talk) 16:50, 8 February 2023 (UTC) - Much cleaner, great work! #HeadSpikesWalls (she/they)
(talk!) 00:16, 8 March 2023 (UTC) - I like it, it was a tool used by an authoritarian to keep others with authority in line. I'd suggest a reduced time period of 48 hours instead of a week. In a digital age I think that's enough time for someone to see the ping, know it's a serious situation (in all likelihood) that needs a response and get back to the rest of the admin team. I feel that a week prevents action for potentially time sensitive issues, such as when statements have been made in the past after something has occurred. Perhaps this could be a sub-vote of the wider update if people feel differently? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Manoof (he/him/his) 00:36, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
- Hmm, you do make a good point about time sensitive issues. One week would indeed be very unideal if a timely response is required. If the idea is to get responses from all admins for non-pressing issues though I do think a week would be fairer for something like a permaban from some years ago. Perhaps 48 hours minimum in policy but allowing a longer, more lenient waiting time for unurgent matters is the way to go. OOM 224 (he/him) 00:59, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
- Great work OOM, thank you. VergenceScatter (talk) 03:03, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
- Voting is now open: Forum:CT:Administrative autonomy revamp OOM 224 (he/him) 17:57, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
