Requests for comment/Minimum voting requirements

What this is

This is a proposal to create a policy specifying minimum numbers and approval percentages to promote users on projects to administrator or bureaucrat without local bureaucrats.

Why this is needed

Stewards are currently charged by the Stewards policy to not decide, yet there is no policy or guideline in place specifying when consensus has been reached, nor when the consensus is considered valid.

Examples: Someone wants adminship on a project with no local admins, they vote for themselves. Most users would not think this constitutes a meaningful election, but certainly 100% approval from 100 different users would. Would three users voting for someone be enough to appoint a bureaucrat?

What we need

Minimum requirements to elect Importers

Suggestion:

Temporary: advisory notice with no opposes for temporary

...or 1 + 1/2 –SJ+

Permanent: Three supports over a week for permanent access,

What about the overall support? 50%? --MF-W 16:31, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

3 + 1/2 –SJ+

• For temporary transwiki import rights: notice on local community with no opposes. For permanent: 3 voters + 2/3 support over a week. — Dferg (talk) 18:18, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
• We should really only be granting transwiki import rights. XML import is insecure, which is why we don't use it under normal circumstances.  – mike@meta:~$  01:29, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Minimum requirements to elect temporary Administrators

Suggestions:

Three months: Advisory notice, no oppositions.

...or only one support. --MF-W 16:31, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

No opposition, or at least 1 + 1/2 (50%) support. –SJ+

Six months: Election, at least two supports, 80% support

80% for 2-4 votes means all must be supports. I think 2/3 support is enough. --MF-W 16:31, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, at least 2 + 2/3 support.

Make that at least 1 vote. You're making people run to meta time-and-again. Seb az86556 03:09, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

A year: None, either a six month temporary at most or grant permanent adminship.

Agreed, can get 6 months repeatedly. –SJ+

Minimum requirements to elect permanent Administrators

Suggestion: A minimum of five supports and 75% overall support.

I think 2/3 support is alright. Individual wikis will choose their own policies; since en:wp has quite a high standard and is only at 80%, requiring all wikis to adopt 75% seems overkill. –SJ+

Minimum requirements to elect Bureaucrats

Suggestion: 15 votes over a two week minimum period, 80% support. Two bureaucrat minimum per project, and one year of inactivity results in loss of permissions.

10 + 3/4 support, with 2 bureaucrats needed before either is promoted. The elections can be staggered; one crat can be elected but not promoted until a second election completes. –SJ+

I think that two bureaucrats should not be an obligation. Bureaucrat abuse can be only in granting or not granting sysop or bureaucrat flags without community consensus. If a crat clearly refuses to grant a flag when community supports granting this flag, it can be granted by stewards under conditions mentioned above. If a crat grants some flag without community consensus, the second bureaucrat will not be able to help anyway. If one bureaucrat resigns, why the project should wait until someone else will be elected? I think that if the project wants to get a crat who is in good standing, why not? — NickK 22:12, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

10 + 3/4 support. "no 2 bureaucrats" per NickK . SergeyJ 22:37, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

When are local bureaucrats considered non-responsive?

Suggestions:

To remove an inactive bureaucrat: One year of inactivity (automatic)

Inactivity as in, no edits to any Wikimedia project? Then yes. If one is active anywhere and has a valid email, it should be possible to track them.

To perform bureaucrat functions locally by a steward: One month of no local bureaucrat activity.

Clarification is neccessary: Is bureaucrat activity only a bureaucrat-rights related action or any action/edit by the bureaucrat? I'd prefer the latter. I also suggest that before stewards may perform bureaucrat actions the local crats (active and non-active ones) should be notified; and stewards should wait 3 days then before they act. --MF-W 16:31, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

+1 –SJ+

To bypass a local bureaucrat, either promoting a new bureaucrat when a current one does not follow consensus or removing the local bureaucrat as a result of no-confidence: Two weeks, 15 votes, and 80% in-favor of bypassing the local bureaucrat(s).

This seems too high to me; a quite small minority of 21% can hold 'their crat' even if he destroys the good ambience on a wiki. 2/3 in favor should be enough. --MF-W 16:31, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

15 + 1/2. –SJ+

Removal of inactive administrators on small projects?

Suggestion: Five votes, 80% approval, over two weeks.

Seems ok to me, but what is a "small project"? Maybe a wiki where global sysops have access? --MF-W 16:31, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

4 + 2/3. –SJ+

Suggestion: Inactivity for more than a year -> automatic removal. Seb az86556 03:10, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd think that would go with Removal of inactive administrators on small projects? above. Also, should this be automatic as in "we need to patrol regularly for inactive admins" or "when such an inactive admin is reported"? Kylu 11:44, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

(Moved) "When reported" of course. And that should refer to logged actions, not some token edit. Seb az86556 23:33, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Temporary removal of inactive administrators taking leave, on request

Suggestion: On the subject's request. Re addition of the rights at the local project.

What are "inactive administrators taking leave, on request" and what is "Re addition of the rights"? --MF-W 16:31, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

+1 (admins sometimes request to have their flag removed by stewards; but then sometimes want stews to reinstate it as well) –SJ+

So, someone has a Full House set of permissions (admin, bureaucrat, oversight, checkuser) and goes on leave, so you remove his permissions. Six months later, he wants his permissions back. Do you require a new local election for OS/CU, or can it just be regranted once they have admin & bureaucrat back? What if they only grant admin and deny bureaucrat? Lots of little holes that have "obvious" interpretations which aren't codified anywhere. Ionek 17:32, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Removal of administrators against their will

Suggestion: On lack of confidence in the local administrator, the membership of the project should be able to remove said administrators.

Typical reasons for a lack of confidence in local administrators are: Abuse, neglect, inattention.

Invalid reasons for such a vote, which will result in dismissal of the complaint, are: Age, location, handicaps where reasonable accommodation can be taken (see ADA 1990), race/ethnicity, caste, orientation, religious beliefs, political affiliation, tribal affiliation, and contributing to other projects.

Projects with no local bureaucrats or arbitration committee

Suggestion 1: Removal requires a greater vote than the minimum to elect an administrator, both in percentage and minimum duration.

Suggestion 2: In the event that the local discussion regarding the removal is disrupted (for instance, the administrator summarily bans the editors discussing the removal and deletes the vote), said administrators rights will be immediately removed and actions regarding the discussion reversed by stewards, in order to allow for discussion. Further disruption in the form of vandalism results in the (former) administrator being banned from that project until the discussion is finished.

Projects with local bureaucrats and/or arbitration committee

Suggestion: Projects with either local bureaucrats or arbitration committee are encouraged to develop a method of no-confidence recalls to remove administrators in cases as mentioned above. Stewards are still requested to perform rights removals in the event of an emergency. (Needed: Examples of emergency and non-emergency behaviors, to clarify future situations.)