IRC/wikidata-admin

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Proposed guidelines for channel, largely borrowed from IRC/wikipedia-en-admins/Guidelines.

#wikidata-admins is a closed IRC channel allowing for real-time communications among administrators on Wikidata and selected others. In addition to Wikidata administrators, access to the channel has been provided to some former admins, global sysops, and stewards. The channel is managed by its operator team. Wikimedia IRC channels as a whole are managed by the Group Contacts.

A list of all users is not available for the channel. See below for instructions on how to join. All participants in the channel are expected to abide by the guidelines.

Purpose

As envisioned by the founders and channel operators, the main purpose of the channel is to provide a forum for interaction among administrators. The channel provides a place for admins to obtain input from their colleagues on issues that arise from time to time, as well as to seek out an administrator with particular skills or interests to address a situation, or to locate a functionary such as a checkuser, bureaucrat, or steward where called for.

In addition to these primary purposes, the channel also facilitates social interaction among the administrator corps and other invitees apart from their day-to-day on-wiki dealings. It's a work channel with a lot of background chatting.

Important: The channel is useful for administrators to double-check themselves or obtain second opinions prior to acting, but in-channel discussion is never a substitute for an administrator's taking responsibility for his or her own administrator actions, nor for on-wiki discussions (on WD:AN or another appropriate forum) of controversial issues or decisions. Basing an admin decision on IRC discussion is a bad idea. You bear responsibility for your own actions.

Policy

All users who are able to receive (or currently have) admin rights on Wikidata are entitled to access to the #wikidata-admins channel. (For our purposes, "admin rights" is defined as the ability to delete and protect pages.)

This includes all users listed at d:Special:ListUsers/sysop, stewards (who have admin rights through the global steward group), and global sysops.

In the case of de-adminship for any reason, and the user is not a steward or global sysop, the user shall lose access to -admin.

Obtaining access

All Wikidata administrators are technically entitled to entry to the channel. Consider pinging the admins in #wikidata (with !admin) which may expedite the process. If you wish for 'automatic' access where a /cs invite command is not required, please ask an op while in the channel. A cloak is required for this, they will op themselves and do /mode +I *!*@your/cloak/here

Once an editor is granted access, he or she generally retains it indefinitely. No formal process for the removal of access exists and such matters have so far been addressed by the channel operators as a group on a case-by-case basis. Formal access to the channel will not be revoked unless a participant refuses to abide by the standards of conduct expected of channel members.

Purpose of IRC

Wikidata IRC channels exist specifically to support the wiki community.

• IRC is a useful communication tool. However, it is not an alternative to on-wiki debate, and is not intended to shortcut or replace good discussion elsewhere.
• Always remember that just because you might use IRC to chat, other Wikidata editors may not.

Channel guidelines

Users are expected to exercise good common sense. At all times, users should act sanely, civilly, and fairly.

1. Don't be a jerk
   • No incivility toward others and no excessively offensive language (and if complaints are heard, desist).
   • Others are to be treated in an appropriate manner, whether present or not.
   • You are responsible for your conduct; repeated warnings indicate a need to change — heed them.
   • Ask channel ops to defuse disruptive discussions.
2. Ask openly, don't canvass
   • No conspiring for reverts, blocks, deletions, protections, etc.
   • It's often a good idea to simply ask for outside input — comments, feedback, and suggestions.
   • If someone asks you to review or enact a block, ban, or support / oppose in any debate, think first and be neutral. Whatever the request is, if it has merit and you have reviewed it and checked it yourself, support it. If you haven't done so carefully, do not.
   • IRC is good for sanity checks, but is not a substitute for on-wiki consensus in situations where it would be required.
3. Privacy
   • All oversight requests should be made in PM, and should not be discussed in the channel.
4. Logging
   • Anyone may be logging, however, it is a gross breach of channel expectations to publish logs without permission. (Recaps of channel logs posted back on channel are usually ok.)

If needed, channel ops will discuss and decide when something needs to be done, if warnings have been ignored, or if the behavior is so egregious a warning isn't required.

Ops guidelines

Channel operators' main job is to help users, and act fairly and neutrally to keep the quality of the channel and its discussions appropriate.

1. Channel environment
   • A higher standard of conduct, fairness and civility is expected from chanops
   • You were chosen for careful judgment here too. Use it.
2. Guidelines for channel kick, temp/perm ban and access alterations
   • Warn fairly, first, in private if appropriate. Consider mediating in the background. Do not use kick/ban casually. Consider your neutrality before acting.
   • If it's just someone who refuses to cool down, often < 3 hours is enough.
   • If it's longer than a few days, check broad chanop consensus.
   • If there is disagreement, discuss.
3. Channel flags - flags typically used will be simplified to +ViA (admin/steward/global sysop), +votsriRfA (Op/SuperOp) and +votsriRfAF (channel contact). Appointment and management of Ops/SuperOps are by the channel contact or one of the group contacts.