Talk:Administrators

Old discussion (Sep 2003)

This place seems to have a lot of pages with 0 bytes in them. Maybe one of you might see to them? -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo stick 18:47, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Many of these 0 bytes pages contain history that is worth keeping and that was agreed on keeping. Please, if you are named sysop, don't delete them. user:anthere

I nominate Cimon to become a sysop here so he can delete all those pages. :) I'd help too if I was one. Angela

Respectfully decline "nomination". No wish to be a sysop here, or to even much participate in meta in general. Way over my head, and I rarely even visit this place. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo stick 13:24, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

And while you're at it, check out the blatant advert on User:GillianAnderson, eh? -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo stick 16:02, 21 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Advertising what? It just links to a user page on the German Wikipedia. Angela 18:54, 21 Sep 2003 (UTC)

What on earth are you calling blatant advert here ??? Even the user page on the german is ok. ??? Ant

Ulp! <tail between legs> I think it was the usernames similarity to a famous actress that led me to jump into conclusions, and leave my brain in the fridge. Ignore my comment. (if those 0 byte pages really contain important history, so be it, I'll have a check to see if I understand the reasons for keeping them. I thought I had checked the histories, but in light of my boo-boo with the advert-allegation, I had better check again...) -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo stick 13:24, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Ok. at least these following pages (maybe more) do not appear to have any remaining reason for existence, (not even for their histories AFAICT): User - apparently a message to Jimbo Wales, in the last non-blank version mirwin himself attests it being obsolete - Draft notes on diverse chaotic defect Avoidance and trapping - something that was transferred/made use of somewhere else, again blanker attesting the uselessness (any more) of the page - Is Larry Sanger a troll - no comment needed, methinks.

I volunteer to be an administrator here, may help with Wikimedia stuff in the future (like updating the donation page, etc.). Alex756 06:43, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I second Alex. He's needed to work on the donation page an en: when it was protected and I expect he will need to do that here too. Angela 20:13, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I also second Stevertigo as he asked on Brion's to do list. Angela 20:13, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I second these two is they want to be. Note that I am a strong deletion opponent. These pages may be relevant to some people, they are "history", and some find very interesting to dig through history. Even if dusty User:anthere

Change of policy discussion

Administrators should all have a user page, and links to their pedia. Plus a valid email adress. Imho. Otherwise, they should not be administrators. Additionnaly, no administrator should exist if not listed on this page. Imho. What do you think ? Anthere 11:22, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I have no objections to any of that. Angela 15:32, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I would like to promote a change of policy, because I think we have outgrown the current one. The current policy states : ‘’anyone who is sysop on any wikimedia project, can request to be made sysop on meta, no votes are necessary. Sysophood is granted automatically. ‘’

I think this policy is not the best.
Why ?

1. Sysophood is granted very liberally on starting wikipedias (ie, no voting procedure, no destitution procedure, no minimum of participation time or number of contributions). So, we currently have no guarantees that the future sysop is aware of some of the project basic principles.
2. There are sensitive pages on meta, such as the ones related to donations
3. Meta is more sensitive than wikipedias, because of the diversity of languages, which makes it more difficult to detect potential wrong doing.
4. Meta is slowly growing more active. Till now, it has been relatively free of malicious acts (vandalism and trollism have been reasonably visible and easy to fix), but it is likely to occur more frequently as we grow. While it would be unreasonable to expect to know each sysop, it would be reasonable to make so that current editors do not find themselves having to track totally new admin editions.

For this reason, while it is necessary to maintain that any sysop on any wikimedia project (or even that any participant on any wikimedia project) can request to be made sysop on meta, I suspect that sysophood should not be granted automatically, but that

• either some editors are able to give their opinion on the candidate
• or that a minimum set of requirements be respected

Why do people need to have a sysop account on meta ? (please add to the list)

• as most sysops on all wikipedias, to delete crap (undelete), block vandals (unblock), protect pages (unprotect), to edit protected pages, as routine management of meta itself
• to edit protected pages, perhaps related with languages needs. In short, not as part of meta clean up, but as an essential part of their local wikipedia management
  • Is there is an updated list of protected pages somewhere ?
  • Do these pages really need to be protected ?
  • If the update of the protected page is done only a couple of times per year, could it not just be unprotected for short times when it needs to be updated, upon request ?

What minimum set of requirements for sysop on meta could be respected ?

• Having a user page, if only to say “Hi” (Some sysops right now do not have user pages)
• Having a user page, with a link to his other wikipedian pages (so that we know on which wikipedia he participates) and where to drop him a word
• Having a valid contact address (registered and valid email address, or an email address indicated on his user page)
• Being (or perhaps having been some time ago) an active contributor on meta (more than xxx contributions)
• Having been an editor on a local wikipedia for a minimum time (perhaps 2 months ?)
• Having been a sysop on a local wikipedia for a minimum time (perhaps 2 months ? we may not have this information)
• Approval by at least a majority of people, or have no opposition ?

Who might give their opinion on the candidate ?

• Only active editors on meta (minimum of contributions on meta)
• All editors with an account on meta, at least one active account on any wikimedia project and a link between the two
• All editors participating to meta (including unknown user name, unvalidated user name, ips…)
• Being approved as a meta sysop by his local peers (but this is complicated to implement)

These are starting points for discussion. If you think of other points, please add them. I have no set opinion, but for the fact automatic status is a bad move. It would be nice that others than sysops decide upon this :-)

Please discuss :-)

ant

I think it is very important that people needing "to edit protected pages, perhaps related with languages needs" are given adminship. Perhaps there is no need for a vote in such cases, but the person could agree to only use their sysop powers for this function unless there is a vote. This lets people easily get access to pages they need to work on without worrying whether they can be trusted to delete pages etc. Angela 11:53, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I also think that adminship on meta should only be given for good reasons.
"Editing protected pages related with languages needs" seems indeed a relatively good reason, but I think that the following points of Anthere and Angela should be taken in account:

• "Do these pages really need to be protected ?",
• "be unprotected for short times when it needs to be updated, upon request ?"
• "the person could agree to only use their sysop powers for this function"

About the requirements, I think that the following are a rather minimun.

• "Having a user page, with a link to his other wikipedian pages"
• "Having been a editor or a sysop on a local wikipedia for a minimum time (2 months?)"

-- Looxix 18:50, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hemanshu indicated on irc that he did not need sysop status on meta. Anthere

Concerns about 170 pages being deleted by one new sysop on April 11

I just noticed that a very new sysop here -- User:Perl -- has deleted scores of pages yesterday. I'm concerned because it doesn't seem like he's following the process. It seems like he's "judge, jury, and executioner" and he's deleted so many -- see Meta:Deletion_log. He deleted 170 on April 11th. -- BCorr|Брайен 21:00, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

These were all deleted according to policy. I moved many of the pages to wikipedia and wikibooks before deleting them. It takes no judge to know to delete pages which contain absolutely no content and garbage pages created by banned users. If you have a problem with my deletions, please undelete the pages you would like to keep, but keep in mind that I moved a lot of rants to user subpages and then deleted the redirect. Perl 21:25, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm not a sysop, and 170 is an awful lot for anyone to check. It would be helpful if you could at least explain somewhere. It's nothing personal, but my concern still stands. Thanks, BCorr|Брайен 01:01, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

No. You did not follow the policy for many of them Perl. You infringe the policy of deletion here. There is a policy which states the pages should be listed on request for deletion before being deleted. That is first non respect of policy because many of the pages you deleted were never listed. Second, when pages are listed there, there is a time of at least 15 days to respect before deletion. This time was not respected. That is second infringement of policy. Look Perl, you are a new sysop here, it is understandable (though sad) that you do not know the policies. That is okay. Now you know them, so please respect them. We are here quietly working together, respecting each other and avoiding to crush each other toes. There are few rules on meta, and many of them are unspoken rules of people who have known one another for many months, so I understand that it is not clear. But when someone joins a community, the first thing he has to do to be accepted warmly is to accept the way the community is working, which can go through accepting some criticism. So, please, from now on, do in Rome as roman do :-)Anthere 04:11, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

---

Change of policy

Will go live on the 17th of april unless there is comments and disagreement.

see above change of policy discussion for arguments

For this reason, while it is necessary to maintain that any sysop on any wikimedia project (or even that any participant on any wikimedia project) can request to be made sysop on meta, I suspect that sysophood should not be granted automatically, but that

• either some editors are able to give their opinion on the candidate
• or that a minimum set of requirements be respected

People need to be sysop on meta for two reasons :

• as most sysops on all wikipedias, to delete crap (undelete), block vandals (unblock), protect pages (unprotect), to edit protected pages, as routine management of meta itself
• to edit protected pages related with languages needs. In short, not as part of meta clean up, but as an essential part of their local wikipedia management

This outline the general case, see exceptions below.

Any participant of any wikimedia project, following the requirements listed below, can request being an administrator on meta.

• Having been a participant for at least 2 months on at least one project (at least 100 contributions)
• Having a user page on meta, with link(s) to the local project user page, and valid contact address (registered and valid wikipedia email address in preferences, or an email address indicated on his user page)
• Being (or perhaps having been some time ago) an active contributor on meta (more than 100 contributions)
• Being a sysop on a local wikipedia or related project

The request shall be done on Meta:Requests for adminship. A time for opinion of at least one week will be given. The candidate will be named sysop here only if he is approved by a qualified majority of 75%. All editors with an account on meta, at least one active account on any wikimedia project and a link between the two, may participate and give their opinion on the candidate. It is not really necessary that the candidate is approved (there is no quorum), but in case of an opposition, enough people must speak for the candidate for him to become sysop on meta.

When the candidate become sysop, he should add his name to Administrator list, and ensure they keep a valid user name page, links to at least one other project and valid contact. Administrators not respecting this rules will be desysoped.

Exceptions

It is helpful for some people to have access to some protected pages on meta (related to languages files). In such cases, two options are possible

• Temporary unprotection of these pages, so that the user can quietly work on them for a limited time.
• Temporary sysoping of the user in question so he can edit the protected pages. In this case, the adminship shall be granted with no requirements and approval, but the user will promise to limit his activity to the necessity of his local project. Preferably, the admin status will be temporary.

End of sysopship
Any sysop inactive on meta for a full year will be desysoped. He may reapply through regular way.

End of policy change proposal

I would propose one minor amendment, and that is that the person be reachable by email, but not necessarily have their email address openly published. My understanding is that when I enter my email address in Preferences, people can (and a few have) email me through that link without learning my actual email address, unless I choose to reply. This helps keep my email address from becoming a spam magnet. Wesley 01:58, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I agree. Angela 13:10, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

of course Wesley. That was what I thought, not mandatory visible email, but mean to contact. Wikipedia email is perfectly ok. I insisted on it, because some people do not enter any email in their prefs. I entirely agree with you here. I add the precision. Anthere

---

Thoughts about de-adminship

Meta is a sensitive place with regards to sysop power for the following reasons

• It is not a self-standing project in itself, but a support for other projects, so its role is not as well defined than wikipedia for exemple
• Meta sysop rules may be different than the rules of the project where the sysop is editing most of the time
• Most users posting here do not come everyday, and few people actively check recent changes.
• Edition activity of meta sysops is mostly done on other projects, so it is not always very easy to get to know other people editing meta
• Meta is multilingual, which means we need to trust that sysops acting in languages we do not understand are not doing anything wrong
• Additionnaly, some users are asking to be sysops for limited tasks, such as editing a language page, not so much for local clean up
• Meta is edited by a rather small group of people, only loosely associated. Interaction between editors is limited (compared to interactions on wikipedias in particular), and problems with editors are limited. So we might wish that rules are rather easy going rather than strict, without being laxists.
• Finally, there might be over time a high number of sysops, for in reality a limited number of active ones.

This suggests

Point 1 : that sysophood should be granted for a temporary time, for ponctual needs, in particular for all those starting up a new project for example (to allow these people to work on meta protected pages necessary to set up their project). Temporary sysophood means temporary. There could be a way to technically grant temporary access (sysop for 30 days, just as we have blocked for 24 hours), or these participants could be manually unsysoped after for example one month.

• Benefit : no need to unprotected pages. Free access to protected pages for the necessary time to set up the wiki
• Benefit : upon request, immediate sysophood here, without going through the request for adminship

Point 2 : that sysophood should be removed after a certain time of inactivity, so as to avoid accumulation of inactive sysop. For example, no activity at all during 6 months. Or less than 10 edits during the year. This should not cause problem to the sysop, since he is not editing meta anyway. So why should he stay sysop ? If the sysop is interested again in editing meta, and needs sysop access, he may go through request for adminship again. Waiting just a week to have sysop status again, after a year of inactivity, should not be a big issue.

• Benefit : no accumulation of inactive sysops over the years.

Point 3 : that sysophood should not be a life time status. Get it if you need it. Keep it if people trust you. Quit it if you do not need it. Lose it if people feel they cannot trust you. Trust is not something that can be measured. One may lose trust if one goes strongly against the rules, but one may also lose it for limited but frequent little infringements. That does not mean people do not like the person, or do not like what the person is doing, just that the person gives more work to the community being a sysop, that not being one, because people feel that they have to watch his/her moves. A sysop is here to help the community in taking care of administrative tasks. He is here to fulfill some duties for other people. If the sysop gives additional work to the community because he has to be watched, then better that he is no sysop at all. Lot's of great work may be done without being sysop (try not to use *any* admin power for a month to check that out), and it would be nice that the benefit of a user to a community is not measured by his ability to gain sysop status or not :-).
This suggests to me, that sysophood should not be a life time status. It should be granted for a certain time (say, a year), thereafter, there might be a sort of automatic poll. If no opposition for the sysop to stay sysop, then he stays sysop. If opposition is voiced, then the sysop may lose sysopship if support fall below 75%. No quorum required. That is not a vote to gain support status, but a poll to express disagreement with the current situation. The point is not to bug everyone to vote to support sysop again (if there is no opposition, there is no point in voting your support again), the point is to allow sysophood status not to stay a life time status. If a sysop is not really strongly infringing rules, but is responsible for giving more work to the community because of lack of trust, then it is perhaps best that people have the possibility to express their opposition after a while. It is getting a bit problematic ihmo that once the sysop status is obtained, there is extremely little chance that it be removed. No democracy grants life time position :-)

1. Benefit : what is called a power status is not a life time status, hence reducing the feeling of sysop cabal
2. Benefit : allowing newcomers to give their opinion as well on a sysop approved 3 years before or approved by a tiny pool of 2 people.
3. Benefit : starting a poll to unsysoping people on purpose is likely to hurt the person feelings real bad. Automatically starting poll is less offensive and easier to manage for the opponent (he will not be perceived as a witch hunter :-))
4. Benefit : allow to unsysop people not for clear cut infringement, but for general general feeling of inadequacy.

To sum it up

• automatic de-adminiship for quick adminiship for temporary reasons (for example a month)
• de-adminship in case of no activity (for example a year)
• confirmation every once in a while, and de-adminiship in case of strong opposition (for example a year)

These are propositions. What do you people think ?

User:Anthere

No objection. Angela 11:15, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I support you 100% Anthere. Mark Ryan 05:59, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I completely agree. BCorr|Брайен 12:05, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Good idea. Perl 12:10, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Agree. Looxix 19:01, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm generally against limiting sysop status in time, for the simple reason that in most cases it will just add inconvenience without any real benefits. Meta in particular has often been largely dormant for months, until someone starts a new project (a big vote, documentation, etc.). But I'm probably talking against a brick wall here since most people take sysop status to be, well, a special kind of status that must be earned, worked for etc. If you must remove sysop status after n months, I suggest making n a reasonably high value, i.e. 12-16.--Eloquence 21:11, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The adminship process should not be a big deal. Anyone who's been an admin before should be granted readminship when requested. There will be rare exceptions to both of those rules of thumb.     I think imposing a brief delay before granting / regranting adminship is an acceptable inconvenience, for the extra harmonious advantage it provides. Sj 07:48, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Kaihsu

Funny. I hardly ever use my login here at Meta, and have contributed only 3 times whilst logged in. [1] How/when did I ever become an admin here? (I am an admin at en:, but never thought I was one here.) Any paper trail to enlighten me? Now I am de-sysop'd. -- Kaihsu 13:52, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

We noticed a bug about sysophood on fr and then on meta about 3 days ago, when we tried to desysop someone... the sysophood came back all by itself. 3 times we desysoped, each time, it "naturally" was restored, with no mention in logs. I suppose your problem might be related. Yes, we have a problem :-)

Anthere

Requests for Mon Wiktionary protection

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