Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Request for comment on administrator activity requirements

Request for comment on administrator activity requirements

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Should we increase the minimum activity requirements for administrators to an average of 20 edits per year, over a 5 year period? Worm^TT(talk) 19:04, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Administrators are trusted members of the community and therefore have certain additional tools. However, standards for administrators have risen over the years, and many legacy administrators do not meet the standards we would expect of new administrators. One such expectation is that of activity levels. Ever since 2011, we have removed administrators who are fully inactive for over a year. However, we still have many administrators who fall far below a reasonable level of activity to be considered well versed in the changes in policies and procedures of Wikipedia.

As such, this proposal suggests updating the Procedural removal for inactive administrators, as per below.

Collapsed current text, to be modified
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Administrators who have made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped.[13] This desysopping is reversible in some cases (see #Restoration of adminship) and never considered a reflection on the user's use of, or rights to, the admin tools. The admin must be contacted on their user talk page and via email (if possible) one month before the request for desysopping and again several days before the desysopping goes into effect. Desysopping on inactivity grounds should be handled by English Wikipedia bureaucrats. The summary in the user rights log should make it clear that the desysopping is purely procedural. If necessary, the user's userpage should be edited to clarify the status — particularly if any categorization is involved.

Administrators who meet one or both of the following criteria may be desysopped for inactivity:

1. has made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least a 12 months period OR
2. has made fewer than 100 edits over a 60-month period (coming into force 1 January 2023).

This desysopping is reversible in some cases (see Wikipedia:Administrators#Restoration of adminship) and never considered a reflection on the user's use of, or rights to, the admin tools. The admin must be contacted on their user talk page on two different occasions before the desysopping goes into effect. Desysopping on inactivity grounds should be handled by English Wikipedia bureaucrats. The summary in the user rights log should make it clear that the desysopping is purely procedural.

If necessary, the user's userpage should be edited to clarify the status — particularly if any categorization is involved.

This raises the bar for Administrator activity levels from more than 0 edits in a rolling 12 month period (i.e. 0 edits per year over 1 year) to 100 edits in a rolling 5 year period (i.e. average 20 edits per year over 5 years). This would encourage those admins who participate less in our project to increase their participation to a minimal level, rather than simply encouraging them to make a token edit each year.

Administrators should be given ample opportunity to increase their level of contribution, should this well-publicised RfC be successful it should go into force at a date that the community can get ready for. All administrators should be notified of the change if the RfC is closed successfully. All administrators who will be eligible to be desysopped should be notified of the risk at least twice on their talk page before removal. For those at risk of being desysopped for criterion 1 they will be notified one month prior and several days prior. For those at risk of being desysopped for criterion 2 they will be notified 3 months prior and 1 month prior. In addition, any editors who are falling lower than an average of 50 edits per year over a 5 year period should be notified by talk page message annually that they are at risk of falling below the required level in the future.

These numerical values will also help Bureaucrats in their judgement for "Restoration of adminship", under the "A bureaucrat is not reasonably convinced that the user has returned to activity or intends to return to activity as an editor" requirement. An admin should show that they are unlikely to fall back to inactivity criteria before being resysopped.

Stats

A report run on 18 March 2022 has shown that this change will affect 197 administrators, approximately 20% of the group, warning a further 163. It should be noted that these activity requirements should be considered minimal and can be increased in the future. Regarding a stricter alternative with some consideration below (100 a year over a rolling three year period - i.e. 300 edits in the last three years) this would remove 396 administrators and hypothetically warn a subsequent 67.

Endorsement / Opposition

March 17 - 24

• Support as proposer I've been thinking about this for quite some time, and have put together some data over the past few days to see what might work. In my opinion, 20 edits a year is not onerous and should be a very minimum that we should be expecting of our administrators. Equally, we should understand that sometimes admins have periods of inactivity and we should allow that. This proposal is aimed to strike the balance of finding that minimum requirement (roughly 1.5 edits a month), while still allowing breaks. I've done my best to phase it in, so that we can adjust to the change too. Worm^TT(talk) 19:03, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  Noting that I fully agree that 20 edits a year is lower than what we should expect from our administrators, but I felt that proposing 100 edits per year would not pass. I have run the numbers, and while 100 edits per year would remove ~40% of admins, I believe that the remaining 60% do almost all the work. 100 edits per year feels like the right end goal, and if we can go straight there, then I support that, but I am happy with 20 per year as proposed. Worm^TT(talk) 10:21, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support. In fact I would be willing to support up to 100 edits per year (as opposed to the proposed 20) and as short of a 3 year rolling period. Additionally I would also support removing the notification requirements. The idea should be we have admins who are still actively trying to be a part of the community rather than having to be nudged and reminded. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:08, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support And no, it is not a coincidence that several arbitrators are concerned about these type of admins. We've had case after case of clueless "legacy admins" stirring up drama with bad blocks and so on. This seems like a reasonable standard of engagement for retaining admin status. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:13, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support "Legacy admins" that can't meet these very minimal expectations are not actually acting as administrators at all. They retain the bit and the ability to do harm with no actual responsibility or improvement of the project. I cannot think of any good reason not to implement this. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:16, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support On a good day, I can do 100 edits. On a really good day, I can do 100 mainspace edits. Let's start with this proposal and see how we get on. Hopefully, it will reduce the pressure on Arbcom that have had to deal with administrator accountability and conduct a bit too much recently. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 19:19, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  I also support Pawnkingthree's suggestion that any "legacy" admin who opposes this should have their view discarded as having a clear conflict of interest. (Note, I don't think that should happen to any of the handful of existing opposes as I read this). Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:30, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

  Why stop at legacy admin? Why not say any admin should have their participation discounted because every admin has a COI with this? My answer for why not is because this is a community discussion and the entire community is invited to participate. I hope whoever closes this doesn't weight or discard comments in this way. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:49, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

  I oppose any move to disenfranchise people just because they are affected by this change, especially if we only disenfranchise those who hold a particular opinion. The people most affected by this change should be heard -- if all they say is "oh no I want to stay an admin" this won't be very persuasive, but if they have a genuinely useful contribution, I would like them to make it without being dismissed out of hand. —Kusma (talk) 14:51, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

  I’m with Barkeep and Kusma on this. Everyone should have their say, “conflicted” or not. Discounting the views of the very people affected by this change would be a terrible precedent. That said, and at the risk of being Captain Obvious, people who only check in once a year seem very unlikely to be the type to even see this discussion, much less participate in numbers sufficient to derail it. 28bytes (talk) 14:57, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

  I meant "given less weight than" not "discarded". Sorry, having a busy day elsewhere and only dropping in. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:10, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

  I disagree with a blanket reduction in weight for admins. (And you seem to as well, since you said you didn't think existing opposes should be affected.) Typically in English Wikipedia discussions, we want to hear opinions of those affected by changes in process, particularly those most affected, and those able to thoughtfully reflect upon their own experiences and that of others. If an editor (admin or not) is unable to make a convincing argument, then their expressed viewpoint will hold less sway with other participants. Closers should not prejudge that any argument from a specific class of editors should be automatically considered less influential. I appreciate this creates a built-in inertia, as it's hard to get enough interested editors to reach a consensus for change, but that's a consequence of English Wikipedia's decision-making traditions. If we want to overcome this, it should be in a deliberate manner, not by choosing on a case-by-case basis whose views are going to be given less weight. isaacl (talk) 21:02, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

  I'm with everyone else except for Ritchie and PK3 on this for sure... Huggums537 (talk) 06:41, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support - indeed, if anything I think these are too lenient. If somebody's been effectively absent for this long, they may be so out of touch as not to be entirely capable of handling the current Wikipedia culture and expectations. --Orange Mike | Talk 19:22, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. I would prefer a higher minimum, and I like Barkeep49's suggested 100 edits per year average over each rolling three years. But this is a good start, and I strongly support it. Boing! on Tour (talk) 19:24, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support (Non-inactive admin comment) This will gently draw legacy admins back into the project, if they so want, less than onerously—and as yer man suggests above, this is extremely, almost too lightweight—and should, concomitantly, play a role in admin retention; not by drawing them in, but by going some way to ensure they don't get desysopped for failing to keep up with events. Cf. several recent arbcom cases. SN54129 19:24, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. Twenty edits annually is less than two per month. I'd suggest we could increase the requirement, but this is a good step. Calidum 19:26, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:34, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• The proposal is nice and simple, as it can be checked by looking at Special:Contributions and clicking "100". I'm pretty pro legacy admin retention, but I also find it depressing if this leads us more than 5 years into the past (sometimes 10 years) for some admins. A higher threshold than 1/year may either lead to people not bothering or could actually lead to them rediscovering that they like editing Wikipedia. We could actually consider weakening the "one year inactivity rule" instead. —Kusma (talk) 19:37, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  I support 20 edits/year and oppose higher requirements for the moment. I'd like to see us encourage people to come back to edit, not give them an unsurmountable-seeming task before their desysop date on 1 January 2023. And we need to replace the inactive old admins by active young admins. —Kusma (talk) 14:57, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

  @Kusma: as a first pass, sure, but the desysopping 'crat shouldn't forget to check deleted contributions as well. Wikiacc (¶) 16:49, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

• Support - Sorry, Kusma. We still don't need admins making less edits within five years. Also, helps reduce likelihood of ArbCom cases. George Ho (talk) 19:39, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  I haven't opposed the proposal and am actually pretty supportive. My main point is that the requirements should fit with the 50/100/250/500 edits thresholds of Special:Contributions so they are easily checked. —Kusma (talk) 19:47, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  Oops, my bad. George Ho (talk) 19:59, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  @Kusma: The number of edits to display in a contributions page is entirely customisable and can be set by a URL parameter, e.g. this link will show your edits in groups of 314 [1]. It would be trivial to create a user links template that contains a link for the last "X" contribs (as long as the number is less than 5,000). 192.76.8.70 (talk) 20:34, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  I know that, but why use a template when it can be done without? —Kusma (talk) 20:51, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support making less than ~20 edits/actions per year shows a lack of engement and a high change of a lack of understanding of current policies. The fact that almost 200 users with these tools have failed to meet this isn't a good look. Terasail^[✉️] 19:42, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. Like several others above, I would have been willing to support a stricter requirement, but I know there has been reluctance about this in the past. This is a modest expectation for someone who wants to retain advanced tools, and a step in the right direction. --RL0919 (talk) 19:46, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. 100 edits in 5 years is a very generous requirement to meet. All but the most truly checked-out administrators should be able to manage 20 edits a year. 28bytes (talk) 20:02, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  FWIW I prefer WTT’s original proposal to the stricter standard proposed by Barkeep, but I wouldn’t oppose the latter. It seems sensible to start with a modest tightening (which WTT suggests may lower the number of nominal admins by ~200) and then see if we like the results of that tightening before tightening further. 28bytes (talk) 13:21, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

• No - What we are doing now seems to work. You can always justify more and more, until you discover you've gone too far, and you run off someone who might have come back as a good admin, because they didn't want to do RFA. I can't blame them. So to me, the only question is, "is the current rule adequate and working?", and I would say yes it is at this time. What bad thing has happened? Nothing. Crats have a little more leverage and leeway than 10 years ago, and now the public can opine due to the 24 hour wait. It seems fairly balanced right now. Change for change's sake always has unintended consequences. Aaaaand, this is still super easy to game. Trivial, in fact. So it might make us feel good, but it isn't a real solution. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 20:03, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  Still not convinced, but will withdraw my objection. If we do pass this, we need to do more than just this. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:52, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

  To you, preserving and keeping an admin tools is "trivial"... or not a big issue. However, there are potential security risks, especially per WP:SECUREADMIN. Has hacking a less active admin's account happened before? --George Ho (talk) 20:41, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  @George Ho: Yes, it has happened before, numerous times. For a somewhat recent example see Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 13#Level 1 desysop of Epbr123, an admin who had been inactive for basically 8 years but who kept the toolkit primarily by showing up once a year to archive their talk page. They were hacked in November 2021, though thankfully the account was only used to vandalise the article on George Floyd. 192.76.8.70 (talk) 20:49, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  Yup, and an old one I bumped across a few days back Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive155 § Hello. We won't be having such jolly hackers most of the time. ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 21:04, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  Hacking the account of an admin that edits once a month is no easier than hacking the account of an admin that edits 100 times a month. If you think this is going to increase security, you don't understand security. That is a lame reason to support. This proposal is not going to magically make hacking less likely. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:07, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

  Reducing the number of accounts with administrator access reduces the attack surface - one of the basic rules of IT security is that you keep the number of users with access to elevated privileges to a minimum. Having a pool of a few hundred admins who actually use the tools is more secure than having a pool of a thousand. 192.76.8.70 (talk) 01:30, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

  Maybe security and chances of hacking are "lame" reasons to support the proposal. Indeed, I don't know how else to rebut your latest argument especially in the same way 192 IP user made above. Nonetheless, taking away a less active editor's admin tools is preferable to allowing the said editor to retain such tools. Trust and activity levels of an admin have been expected. I'm still troubled by and/or reeling from your argument about seriousness (or lack of it?) of an issue about (an account of) a less active admin. Furthermore, I'm still reading WP:ADMIN over and over, which all admins, including less active ones, have been expected to follow. As-is, the policy mentions inactivity of admins but not much literally, even when "inactivity" or "inactive" is used numerous times there. Maybe admins are (expected to be) equal to each other and to non-admins? George Ho (talk) 02:56, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support It would go to say if you are active on Wikipedia, you are going to be knowledgeable of what is going on, and how to respond as an admin. Makes sense, if you aren't active, you don't really need to use the tools. RickinBaltimore (talk) 20:07, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - Donald Albury 20:10, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support any standard that isn't particularly hard to meet. In July of 2014 I failed to hit Wikidata's requirement of 10 admin actions in 6 months, and was desysopped for it. Due to that same inactivity, I wasn't even aware that such a policy had been passed. I then missed my first notification, and got a "last call" notification on a beautiful day in Marseille and decided I'd rather keep walking around. And y'know, that was fair; I felt that at the time, and feel that now. Admins who aren't sufficiently in touch with a project to meet any arbitrary (reasonable) standard should not be admins there. This would finally be a leap in that common-sense direction. I'm fine with blatant gaming, because that means someone's still at least somewhat aware of current community norms. And it's not like there's ever a shortage of work; even a true "content admin" can still take 20 (or 100, or more) CAT:UCSD speedies a year. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 20:14, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support I would probably change the numbers of some of the criteria, but if we get sidetracked by discussing that, we will paralyze the discussion. So I'm supporting this for now, on the assumption we can fiddle with the numbers up or down later. Don't want the perfect to be the enemy of the good. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:17, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  just in case Barkeep's idea takes off, I'd support Barkeep's numbers too. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:05, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support, I like the idea of an average over 5 years rather than just raising the minimum for one – it accommodates scenarios in which a person may have a longer term absence yet still wish to re-engage with the project. Giraffer ^{(talk·contribs)} 20:19, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support per above. Therapyisgood (talk) 20:22, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support for many good reasons already given. It's not a lot to ask, and it will be a net positive in reducing problems with out-of-touch admin actions. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:29, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
  • I want to add that I also support Barkeep's higher threshold, although I would still want to have notifications as a matter of fairness. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:39, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support I'd support much more stringent requirements, but am not opposed to this as an incremental improvement. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:42, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  High level summary of my "more stringent" (so I support pretty much everything up to this):

  • 10 edits or actions per year minimum - if you don't meet this we don't chase you down, you just get removed
  • Rolling 100 edits or actions for 3 years - if you don't meet this we try to track you down for the month we do now
  • No BN resysops unless you manually resigned within last 6 months or it is something related to an arbcom reinstatement

  There seems to be a lot of people worried about what if they had to go through RFA today - if they are that worried that there isn't community consensus for privileges maybe they shouldn't hold them. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:39, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support and I'd support a higher edit count threshold as well per Barkeep and others above, although I wouldn't support the removal of notification requirements. Additionally, if this new policy is enacted, there should be a transition plan, as there are likely to be a number of administrators who aren't considered inactive by the current policy, but would be considered inactive by the new policy. They should be notified and given some kind of grace period to react/respond. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 20:53, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  Per the proposal, it seems the grace period would be the rest of 2022. Or do you mean a grace period on top of that? -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 20:57, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support - would happily support Barkeep's higher requirements, but let's start here. firefly ( t · c ) 20:57, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 21:10, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support, and I would happily endorse the higher requirements suggested by Barkeep49, as 20 edits per year is still a very low bar. Schwede66 21:15, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. Not enough by far, but it's a good start. I would like to see a higher admin action count - this proposal can be met by the old "delete and undelete my userpage to get a logged admin action" trick. (Also, Worm That Turned, nitpick: proposal is inconsistent about whether desysopped has one or two 'p's). GeneralNotability (talk) 21:22, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  (and for what it's worth: I find the use of that trick to keep your +sysop bit so offensive that anyone who does it should be immediately desysopped. At that point you can't even claim that you knocked out a bit of the admin workload, you're just doing it for yourself) GeneralNotability (talk) 21:33, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  Fixed. I always spell with two ps, not sure how I missed that one Worm^TT(talk) 10:24, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support as a starting point. DanCherek (talk) 21:24, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. User:Worm That Turned/Admin activity is a fascinating report. I don't want to say that we handed out adminship freely before 2010 but we measured long-term commitment differently then. That's fine, no reflection on anyone. If you removed the bit from every administrator who hasn't taken an action in five years it wouldn't damage the project in any way, and would (as others have rightly noted) reduce the risk of compromised accounts. Mackensen (talk) 21:25, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support as a starting point, including supporting Barkeep's suggestions. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:27, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support as proposed. I would probably also support Barkeep's ideas, but would like to know how many additional admins would be affected by the more stringent limits. I think the figure might be the entries in yellow in the "500 edits go back to" column of User:Worm That Turned/Admin activity, but some of those people would already be within Worm's limits.-gadfium 21:38, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Thanks to Worm for updating the report with a 300 edits/3 year column. I will settle on "neutral" for Barkeep's suggestion while reaffirming my support for Worm's proposal.-gadfium 01:24, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support Stephen 21:42, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support 20/year, but I'm reluctant to support the 100/year that's been suggested by some supporters. My 500 edits go all the way back to 2017, and I would hardly consider myself to be on the verge of becoming so out of touch that I can't be a competent and effective admin. I would want to see the effect that 20/year has before considering supporting anything more stringent. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 21:53, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support My only concern was over whether this was 20 edits per year, or an average of 20 per year (which is answered in the original description), otherwise this is such a low bar I can't see any reason for not supporting it. On the other hand two recent incidents show why it's should be supported.LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmission∆ °co-ords° 21:57, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - And really, I think it should be just ADMIN actions, not just generic edits, but will support as written as an improvement. EnPassant♟♙ (talk) 21:59, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support 100 edits per year with 3 year rolling period, as suggested by Barkeep49, and support WTT's proposal as second choice. Anyone making under 100 edits a year over an extended period is essentially guaranteed to be out of touch with community norms. This will likely cost us a small number of admins, but it will also incentivize some inactive admins to edit more, which will help (very marginally) reduce the amount of admin work to be done, and it will reduce the disruption from out-of-touch legacy admins. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:02, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support more than reasonable minimum. Colonestarrice (talk) 22:54, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support Both the written proposal as well as Barkeep's proposal. Very light preference for keeping at least one notification per some of the arguments in the thread. Happy Editing--IAmChaos 23:57, 17 March 2022 (UTC) edited 22:40, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support per above. The proposed bar is still laughably low, but it's a step in the right direction. -FASTILY 00:02, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support Decreases the number of ArbCom cases and potentially encourages semi-retired admins to return to editing. HouseBlaster^talk 00:46, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. It's worth noting that the 100 edits/5 years proposal wouldn't have made a difference in any of the three most recent ArbCom desysop cases, but I still think this very minimal standard will be helpful in ensuring that administrators are at least somewhat familiar with current community norms. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 00:48, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. Dennis Brown makes good points (particularly on understandable reluctance to go through RfA these days), but my opposition is based mostly on knowing multiple admins who for various reasons left Wikipedia for years and then returned, without becoming dangerous loose cannons, as well as regretting some of the treatment of long-time admins at ArbCom recently. We're in danger of losing a ton of institutional memory and valuable admin work through treating the bureaucratic pile-up in the project as if it's desirable in itself. Moreover, while admins are required to do their best to keep up on policy, we don't expect perfection and we don't expect unanimity of opinion; diverse frames of reference are an asset in the admin corps as they are in the project overall, and this well intentioned policy change would further erode that diversity. We don't know what skill sets and knowledge a given admin who's become busy off-wiki or walked away from wiki-stress for a while may have to offer; we shouldn't assume they're invalidated by that admin not having haunted the noticeboards for the last few years. "Out of touch", "experienced with methods that have fallen out of common use", and just plain "old", all assumed to be deleterious in this proposal and in the previous changes ratcheting up standards for inactive admins to retain or regain the tools, can all be reframed as potentially useful other vantages from which to view issues, and our admins are supposed to be primarily problem solvers, not rule enforcers. If an admin chooses to return and resume helping out here, that's great, and if they mess up in some way, that can be dealt with. Yngvadottir (talk) 00:58, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

  I disagree with the point raised about institutional knowledge. If these users are inactive that knowledge is already lost, as they aren't here to provide that knowledge. If those users are active preforming actions that don't require the admin bit then losing that bit won't prevent them from contributing that institutional knowledge as they can still contribute at the relevant venues as any other user can. Likewise if they return after a period of inactivity, they can share their knowledge with or without the admin bit.

  Also the point on the bureaucratic pile-up has the same problem. If those admins are inactive, they aren't contributing to clearing that backlog. If they are active and working on the backlog, they won't fall afoul of these requirements. Either way, nothing is lost by removing the bit from admins who are inactive. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:45, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

  This conflates judgment about admin worthiness and admin utility. An editor with admin privileges who has gone years without using the tools may very well be a decent, sober, trustworthy individual that any sane person would love to have around for the beverage of their choice but they are manifestly not an administrator, at least not in practice. There is no shame in removing tools they obviously feel no need to use. If they really wanted to be actual admins then they would perform admin tasks but for whatever reason they don't. This proposal and the support for it do not mean that the community thinks they are somehow less than for making such a determination. This lack of activity is a choice those inactive admins make for themselves with no coercion and we should trust that they know best why they are inactive. They are, however, inactive and thus do not contribute to the diversity of the admin corps or solving problems or provide different vantage points or any of the other potential benefits that their actual service would provide. They are non-entities in all those dimensions. The project loses nothing by desysoping them. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 20:30, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

  Very harsh, Eggishorn. This is a volunteer project. We all have a perfect right to go away for a while and do other things. Adminship is neither a paying job nor a sacred duty, and I see elsewhere people worrying we don't have enough admins—even in Sideswipe9th's response above yours, which has confused my mention of the "bureaucratic pile-up" with a complaint about task backlogs. What we will lose is the good admins they might have been again upon their return. You may regard them as "non-entities" in the here and now, but are you willing to extend the assumption of bad faith by telling them they can't return to adminship without starting again at RfA because being absent for any reason means the community should assume they're untrustworthy? Yngvadottir (talk) 09:50, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

  This is a volunteer project. We all have a perfect right to go away for a while and do other things. This is exactly my point. If some-one chooses to contribute as an admin, great! If they don't choose to do so, that's also great. If they choose to contribute as an admin and then decide later they won't continue to do so, that's also great. It's only "harsh" to ask for the tools back in the latter case because we've somehow come to think of RfA's as judgements on a person's worthiness. It isn't (or shouldn't be) and asking for editors to either use the tools or give them up is basic practicality. In the real world, it's routine for volunteers and professionals alike that they don't continue to have access to systems and sites where they once performed work but no longer do so. Why is this different? Because they might possibly, maybe come back and contribute? If they make that choice, then they can ask for the tools back. There is no bad faith in asking people to not play games with tools just so they can maintain the bit. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 16:28, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

  Even if your mention about the "bureaucratic pile-up" was not a reference to the task backlog, and for which I would like clarification for what you meant by that so I can strike part of my comment if necessary, an editor who has the tools but is not using them either through admin specific inactivity or more general inactivity is still not contributing to the valuable admin work mentioned. Aside from being a name on the list, and a potential security risk due to the increased attack surface (inactive users are less likely to be maintaining good password practice), what benefit does a long term inactive admin provide? Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:59, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

• Strong Support — Worm That Turned, you probably should even increase the threshold. Generally speaking, The mop isn’t a bragging right and having or getting it isn’t a reward, or merely having it “for the sake of having it” The sysop must use their tools! There are several backlogs in which admins are needed, this is curious and very bizarre, with a 1000+ system operators, a backlog is definitely an anomaly, thus as aforementioned even the threshold was exponentially increased I’d still support this. In summary if you have the mop you must actively use it! Celestina007 (talk) 01:03, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support per Barkeep49, except I have a gentle preference for retaining the notifications. Ajpolino (talk) 01:29, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support per Mackensen. eviolite (talk) 01:54, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Strong Support Excellent and long-overdue change. That administrators can keep their tools by making just one edit per year is laughable. If they're making fewer than 100 edits in a five year period, they clearly don't need sysop tools. I would support more stringent requirements than those proposed, but this is a major improvement from the status quo. Adminship is a toolkit, not a hat, and if admins are not using their tools (and there are far far too many admins who have performed ZERO admin actions in a decade or more) clearly there's no reason not to revoke their administrator status, while leaving them with access only increases the risk of compromised admin accounts. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 02:12, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - If you're barely making any edits to Wikipedia and not keeping up with the community's discussions and evolving practices, that is a good sign you should resign the tools. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{a little blue Bori} 02:39, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Strong Support for Barkeep's higher limit. Support for WTTs lower limit if Barkeep's proposal fails. That said, I don't think either number is high enough. From a security perspective, having inactive admins is bad. Any security audit worth its teeth would flag any account with advanced permissions that hasn't been active for removal of those privileges as they pose a risk. From a tooling perspective, if a user has the admin bit and isn't using it, then what is the value in them keeping it? If they aren't making any admin actions, then nothing is lost when it comes to admin business load by removing it. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:41, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support, and support 100/3, though with Worm's notifications in order to encourage re-engagement with the project. Would welcome a clause to discourage gaming, such as "Any activity, such as using AWB once a year, to gain required minimum activity levels, which by consensus discussion is seen as gaming, would result in desysopping." SilkTork (talk) 02:49, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support higher standard suggested by Barkeep. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 03:42, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. For comparison, this is exactly 1/5 of the requirements of Simple English Wikipedia. --Rschen7754 06:32, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support Mccapra (talk) 07:46, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support per proposer. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:48, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - While I'd prefer admins meet more stringent "activity requirements" to remain in that role, this proposal is a reasonable step in the right direction. I am thankful that WTT had the presence of mind to set motion to raising this bar.--John Cline (talk) 07:56, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

  Addendum - To be clear: I support this proposal including the full limit of BK49's increased minimum threshold with equal preference and satisfaction. For future consideration: the enhanced stringency I eluded to above involve requisite formulae that impact system game ability by spreading the edits (broadly) across the period that the minimum average represents. As it stands, either proposal (of the two) can largely be overcome by a single day of editing flurry which practically negates the purpose of having an inactivity clause at all.--John Cline (talk) 01:09, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support this is still a very generous standard and we do have issues from time to time caused by admins who've been inactive for a long time and aren't up to speed on current standards. Hut 8.5 08:46, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. As proposed this is insufficiently stringent. Leaky caldron (talk) 08:53, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

  Really? I think this is as stringent as the proposal can be. I don't know how stringent you want the proposal to be. AFAIK a proposal too stringent hasn't fared well. Do you favor Barkeep's alternative proposal, or what stringent alternative do you propose? --George Ho (talk) 09:42, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support By definition, someone who isn't meeting these minimum requirements isn't really an admin, and adds no value in an admin role. I'd support a further reduction of 100 edits/5 years down to 1 year, or even 6 months. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 09:24, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support original proposal. Whilst we are not exactly overflowing with admins, the problem of not having enough admins to do admin work is not exacerbated by removing admins who don't do admin work.
  Less inclined to support bear traps. Stifle (talk) 09:26, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support I would even support a higher requirement than this. Modussiccandi (talk) 11:47, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support I also would support higher requirements. Lectonar (talk) 11:55, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support It's probably a good idea to have higher requirements. Sea Cow (talk) 12:09, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - I'd be against having a super high admin actions count being required, there's certainly things that can be done with the toolset that don't actually appear on the list, and moreso that trying to game admin actions is dangerous. However, if you can't commit to doing 60/100 edits over three years, you aren't an active editor on the site. Using AWB, this can be done in a single hour. (I've averaged 40 edits a day over the last four years). I can totally understand an editor not using the site for a year (maybe for a newborn/sickness, etc), but three years seems like it's very much on the top end of that estimate. You could easily make the argument of having an average of 100 edits over three years wouldn't be ridiculous. I would expect an admin who had the tools to be vaguely active on the site. Perhaps, at RfA we should give more precendence to "has used the tools well previously", so the only new requirement would be that someone had decent activity levels before running. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 12:41, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support 20 edits a year should not be difficult for anyone who actually wants to stay engaged, and should help make gaming the system more difficult. (And if any barely active admins come out of the woodwork to oppose this they should be discounted as a conflict of interest.)-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 12:51, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

  This is a discussion, not a vote. The views of people most affected by the proposal should certainly be heard and not just dismissed simply because they are affected (and all admins are somewhat affected by this, even those who are currently active. Do you want to discount their views as well, or only if they are opposing? That doesn't seem fair either). "Oppose, this would take away my admin bit" is not a strong argument, so it will not carry much weight. But if a ten-edits-in-ten-years admin shows up with a better argument, I would like to hear it and seriously consider it. —Kusma (talk) 14:47, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support with additional support for higher requirements. ZettaComposer (talk) 13:05, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - Something higher than the current 1/year is needed. We should be expecting administrators to be engaged with the community and keeping up to date; if you've been largely checked out for years it provides both a security hazard and a risk that actions will be performed that are not in line with the last 5-10 years of policy changes. Hog Farm _Talk 13:13, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - As someone who currently rarely edits I see the need for this change. What needs to be said though is that not everyone that does not edit is not keeping up to date, but it is in general a fair assumption. In my case it is a combination of 2FA issues and a heavy work load that keep me logged out. But I have relevent pages in view to keep up-to-date. (And have a looong list of bookmarks for things that I need to look into when logged in. Agathoclea (talk) 14:18, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - per Barkeep49 and even more stringent requirements. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:19, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. The requirement should be stricter, but this is a start. If the admin is not using his mop, what good is his mop? I disagreed with the argument that old admin knowledge will be gone if they are removed. If they are not using their mop for many years, it is very likely that things have moved past their knowledge, and their knowledge and experience years ago may not be relevant again today. Pilots have to perform 3 take-offs and landings in a span of 90 days to remain certified, admins should also be using their mop to remain "certified". SunDawntalk 15:40, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support 100 per Barkeep. If you're not able to maintain that sort of activity, then you really don't need the tools. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 16:12, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support and also support the more stringent requirements proposed by Barkeep49. I'm not proposing but would support even more stringent requirements: 1,000 edits over 12 months? That the 100 are mainspace edits? That admins desysopped for inactivity should have to reconfirm? Admins should be active community members, there shouldn't be any way for someone to hang on to the bit for years and years without meaningfully participating in the project. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:18, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose - Per Yngvadottir's well-reasoned arguments. This proposal does nothing to prevent gaming the system, which is the problem it appears to be trying to solve. Reaper Eternal (talk) 17:11, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

  I don't think the problem, generally, is blatant gaming. The problem is users who have lost the level of enthusiasm they used to have and aren't really interested in being active admins and haven't followed changes to policy and expectations of admin behavior, but still edit once in a while. Then, one day, they see an edit they don't like and they do something completely out-of-touch like block someone they were directly in a content dispute with, and it's off to ANI we go, and if that doesn't get through to them, ArbCom. And then fifty people make statements about whether to accept or decline the case, the arbs vote, the admin in question is suddenly far too busy to participate in the case, so it sits around for several months and then they get desysoped anyway. I believe that's the problem we're trying to deal with here. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:28, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

  Exactly what Beeblebrox said; furthermore I can see two suspended cases at WP:ARC right now, and another one that required some tact and diplomacy to avoid a third. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 18:52, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support While I understand the concern about loosing admins (and the extremely high bar of RfA), I think it's wise that we reduce our attack surface by requiring admins to meet the 100 edits/5 years threshold. I support 100 edits/3 years as well. Any sufficiently active admin should be able to meet that threshold.~ Matthewrb ^{Talk to me · Changes I've made} 17:37, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support This is the least we should be requiring. I'd also support 100/3 years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doug Weller (talk • contribs) 17:44, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support Ultimately, the admin corps doesn't want high turnover because they prefer the current political consensus of editors they get along with. The reality is that there's a Pareto principle issue and the bottom end of the distribution is always near losing the mop. The community could implement this proposal and do even more, by mathematically figuring out where the split is between the productive 20% at the top and the ragged-edge of the folks who recently asked for a mop back, got refused, and quit editing. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:20, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

  I need to give a big ole "citation needed" to the admin corps doesn't want high turnover because they prefer the current political consensus of editors they get along with. One admin (WTT) proposed this RfC and a second admin (me) proposed an even stricter threshold that has gained some traction. And by my count the admin corp is overwhelmingly supporting this RfC. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:35, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

  Put more finely, no organization wants to risk their exclusivity unless the individual members defect in search of a better prize. No office holders seek accountability by the reactionary public unless they need plebs to overturn the holder's opposition. I welcome individual admins supporting this proposal but ever since the 'crats rigged RfA it has been apparent the admin corps doesn't want bottom-up change. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:17, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support rolling average is a wonderful way to handle scenarios where folks might have a temporary time away but otherwise be engaged and want to continue to be so. We're not losing any institutional knowledge if the person has been inactive anyway, and too many incidences of legacy admin out of touch with current policy of late. Star Mississippi 18:23, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support -- TNT (talk • she/her) 18:43, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support as a minimum set of requirements. Would also support more stringent requirements including 100/3 years and beyond. Our admins should be active. If they're not active for a period of more than a year, give up to the tools and claim them back when you're active again. If they're not active for 3 years, RfA is the way forward. Gricehead (talk) 18:54, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support as proposed. I don't see a downside to tightening the current requirements and, given recent issued with the misuse of tools by legacy admins, a tangible benefit for the change.-- Jezebel's Ponyo^{bons mots} 19:29, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support 20/year over 5 years, oppose anything more stringent. The current standards are quite lax, but if we raise them too high we increase the risk of chasing away people who are fundamentally a net positive with the mop. I disagree that reluctance to run the gauntlet at RFA a second time makes someone unfit to be an admin. Vanamonde (Talk) 19:46, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support, but this won't change much in the way that many people here are asserting it will. Less than 2 edits/month is the bare minimum of simply reading Wikipedia once in a while for other purposes and correcting a spelling mistake or broken link here or there, to say nothing of interacting and remaining current with the community. The three ArbCom cases we've had recently involving "legacy admins" involved editors who were making far more edits than that. This proposal is a useful step forward in defining inactive admins and solving that problem, but as far as legacy admins, edit count does not define them and therefore this proposal does nothing for them. The problem of legacy admins is fundamentally a problem of admins who fail to remain current with Wikipedia's policy, but still actively edit Wikipedia, thereby getting drawn into disputes and making poor administrative judgements. Inactive admins simply don't edit Wikipedia at all, making them easy to catch numerically with edit count tools and the like as seen here, but one's knowledge of policy is not determined by edit count. Pinguinn 🐧 20:19, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support and I would also support more stringent standards. I am all in favor of long vacations and wikibreaks and slow periods, and we always welcome back editors who lose interest and regain interest. I took a four month wikibreak ten years ago but made 44 edits in that time period, and nobody said a word about it during my RfA. But a five year plus "wikibreak" is, in effect, a retirement. We do not need administrators who are out of touch with community norms suddenly deciding to get involved again in a disruptive fashion. Cullen328 (talk) 01:36, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support per above as a minimum set of requirement.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 01:59, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support, with preference for 100 edits over 3 years, per Barkeep49. It takes less than an hour to make 10 medium-effort edits. Based on this, 100 nontrivial edits can be made in less than 10 hours. If an administrator cannot dedicate just 3⅓ hours per year to editing Wikipedia, which averages to less than 17 minutes per month and less than 4 minutes per week, that administrator is unlikely to be sufficiently involved with the community to consistently execute informed administrative actions. This proposal is very low-stakes: any former administrator who has recently been desysopped for inactivity can simply make those 100 edits before requesting restoration of adminship. Hopefully, the higher activity requirement will encourage low-activity administrators to stay engaged with the community and make substantial, informed contributions when they are able to do so. — Newslinger talk 04:54, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. This is a relatively conservative adjustment in the right direction. Administrators should be expected to maintain a level of activity that keeps them engaged with the project and informed on policy changes. Mz7 (talk) 09:18, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support Administrators should have some kind of activity (100 edits in 3 years and 20 admin actions in 5 years) Thingofme (talk) 10:41, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. I'd support more stringent requirements too, but we can start with this. – Ammarpad (talk) 10:47, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support per proposal. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 14:49, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
• No need to rehash the above arguments, but this is good and fine. Rolling count is a good way of handling it. Agreed that we should revisit the 'crat requirements to do something similar, but NBD. Barkeep's suggestions are probably fine too, but I say for now while there's consensus, KISS. I will say the notification changes have been given somewhat short shrift in the discussion above, but I think is fine as well. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 16:14, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

  @Amorymeltzer perhaps we just amend, that if you get -sysop for inactivity at all - you also get -crat. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:27, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

  Dunno - lets think about that later, don't want to deal with the edge cases of non-admin 'crats right now! — xaosflux ^Talk 16:29, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah, I think that's probably the way to go anyway — I think it's what folks generally imagine and what we've generally tried to create (although by no means necessary) — but agree for another day. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 16:50, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support I have commented elsewhere on other proposals, and will comment further on my talk page if somebody wants my opinions on other proposals. As far as the proposal here: I support it as written, and I oppose any amendments. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 17:39, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support but I like Barkeep's numbers to start. I LOATH to lose trusted servants, even if they haven't been active for a while. When my dad retired from active military service, he was kept in the inactive reserve for seven more years to hit his thirty. While my father was not completely up-to-date on his top secret stuff, he was well-known and trusted inside his community and would have been welcomed back and re-oriented if his service was required by the nation. I wish Wikipedia could establish a reserve of trusted humans who've chosen to step back for a while (a move I generally think wise for all of us). Such a reserve might consist of admins who have merely not edited recently (numbers to be determined) and perhaps if they needed to RfA, perhaps there should be some adjustment to the required passing percentage. Such a reserve member might be required to stay informed and connected; we might decide how best accomplish this. For my part, I'd like to give those who might be considered "gaming a system" the benefit of the doubt; I prefer to think such actually don't want to sever their connection with trust and responsibility. If anyone agrees with me sufficiently, please start a thread further down for discussion, as opposed to mucking with this quite heartening thread. BusterD (talk) 20:33, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

  If you dislike los[ing] trusted servants, including less active ones, then why do you favor Barkeep's more? Honestly, WTT's (original) proposal (i.e. the '100 edits within five years' rule) gives admins a couple more years and more chances, if not more forgiving, than Barkeep's ('100 edits within three years' rule). Right? BTW, let's not make too many alternative proposals for now or do the same way NSPORTS RfC was. George Ho (talk) 21:11, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support the proposal as currently written (i.e. 100 edits over five years), but I also support the idea currently floated by Dennis Brown on his talk page—specifically, giving bureaucrats the ability to open a broader discussion over at AN or another similar venue for borderline cases. See my comment there, as well as this recent disccusion in which an administrator who had been desysopped for inactivity was declined and directed to submit a new RfA should he wish to regain the toolset in the future. On the one hand, I do think that summarily resysopping upon his return to active editing would have been premature, but I also don't like the idea that we're forcing him to re-endure the entire rigorous process that is RfA when he is clearly a reasonable, intelligent editor who I think most would trust to exercise good judgment in using the tools. I wouldn't want to deter him or others like him from continued engagement over what can be seen as increasingly rigid standards. Kurtis ^(talk) 02:50, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support admins have important roles and they should be active on the community. They should be aware of evolving community standards. I always support higher requirements for admins. This is an improvement. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 06:08, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. Would also support the 100/3 requirement. An admin who cannot make 100 edits in 3 years wouldn't have any need for the tools. This would also reduce security risk by decreasing the attack surface. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 10:24, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - feels like a no brainer. If you're not active enough to make 20 edits a year over a five year period, you shouldn't hold one of the highest levels of permissions. Anarchyte (talk) 11:17, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support I would also support the 100/3 proposal a 3-year rolling period. There's certainly scope for even stricter set-up, but I didn't want to go as far as backing the 500/5 proposal at this point. This will remove very few actual logged actions being done, and move the actual admin count closer to the active admin count. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:47, 20 March 2022 (UTC).
  • Tweaked slightly, as I had misinterpreted Barkeep's not really misinterpretable proposable - I'm fine with the reduce timeline, but didn't want to go a 300/3 proposal (which is what 100 edits and a 3 year scope would be) - in effect, I like 100/3. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:44, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

    In fairness I did propose two ideas: that 20 edits/year was too low and that 5 years was too long. I gave outer bounds for what I would agree to separately (or in combination). My read is that some who are supporting my concept like both but that a larger amount of editors (and with enough support that if it doesn't get consensus I'd like to see it addressed in the close) support the 3 year timeframe rather than increasing the 100 edits total. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:31, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support, with no prejudice to adjusting the numbers later on. Recent ARBCOM experience has shown us this is a necessary move. Cavalryman (talk) 00:37, 21 March 2022 (UTC).
• Support - I would like to see something more strict but why let perfect be the enemy of good. It is a step in the right direction and hopefully more steps will come. PackMecEng (talk) 02:58, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support original proposal and Barkeep's amendment. Common sense with negligible downside. Retswerb (talk) 05:44, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support 100/5. Any admin should be able to easily meet that standard if they want to keep the mop. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 06:00, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support Seems like a fairly low bar to pass. --Jayron32 15:16, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. The mop is not a prize or a right. It's a recognition that you're capable and willing to do work. If you're not doing that work, there's no reason for you to have a mop. This is a really low bar, nobody who is legitimately doing admin work should have any trouble meeting it. And, as others have noted, if you're afraid you won't be able to pass a new RFA, then that's on you. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:21, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. I'm not convinced this proposal would do much beyond an initial fell swoop of admin removals for people who haven't edited at least one hundred times in the last five years. Other than that, it feels like it's mostly just kicking the can down the road. The proposal addresses "rather than simply encouraging them to make a token edit each year" as the problem. In the status quo, if Admin A stops editing right now and makes a token edit next year, Admin A keeps the bit. Same thing happens to Admin A if this proposal passes. Two years from now, Admin A again makes a token edit. With the status quo, Admin A keeps the bit and if this proposal took effect, then Admin A still would keep the bit. It takes five years of Admin A making annual token edits before anything changes and now Admin A's token edits are no longer sufficient and Admin A gets desysopped for inactivity with this proposal. So this proposal doesn't solve the problem it addresses - future Admin A making annual token edits - until half a decade goes by. "Sure," you say, "but that's better than nothing." And, to that I say, "Is it, though?" In most cases, I would agree. But I'm not so sure it is in this particular case. Everyone knows it is like pulling teeth to make any reform to RFA in any capacity. I predict that, should this proposal pass, it will be even harder to make any change for at least the next five years, as people will be extra hesitant to do so while still waiting to gauge the full effectiveness of this proposal. Is this proposal worth putting the kibosh on other proposals for five years? I feel it is not. Yes, we'll drop a couple hundred admins right out of the gate. And, of course, some number of admins who reach the five-year mark in any given year, for example, some of the fifty admins who lasted edited in 2018. I would absolutely support a proposal that changed the minimum number of annual edits from one to twenty. That would solve the "annual token edit" problem just as well as this proposal and, while it wouldn't be as effective at trimming out admin accounts that have currently gone many years without making a cumulative one-hundred edits, it would catch many of them a year later if they didn't make twenty more edits between now and then. I just don't see the benefit of potentially hamstringing ourselves for five years over simply changing the annual editing requirement from one to twenty. Useight (talk) 17:53, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

  @Useight: I would absolutely support a proposal that changed the minimum number of annual edits from one to twenty. But that's essentially what this proposal is, so I'm having trouble understanding your opposition. I also don't understand your comment about waiting 5 years; as proposed, someone who has made 1 edit each in the past five years would be desysopped in January 2023. That'd be waiting 9 months, not 5 years. If you're saying "what if someone makes a hundred edits today, and then only 1 for the next few years", I would say that that's by design, as the intent is not to punish people for taking an extended wikibreak, but rather to say that if you do, you'll need to return to moderate activity within 5 years (and at least check in yearly in the meantime) if you expect to keep your admin rights. 28bytes (talk) 18:24, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

  The difference between the "twenty each year" and the "one hundred over the course of five years" is what I attempted to explain in the second part of my comment, so I guess it makes sense that if one wasn't worded well, the other would also be confusing. I am, in fact, speaking of the latter group, people in the future, not those who would be desysopped in January 2023. I'm saying that if Admin A stops editing in January 2023, and then starts making annual token edits, this proposal would not result in anything different for Admin A from what already happens, until five years have passed. Therefore, if the problem is "admins make annual token edits and keep their tools forever", then this proposal barely addresses that. If the problem is "inactive admins come back after being desysopped for inactivity and request their tools back without reacquainting themselves first", then I submit that this proposal barely addresses that, too. Useight (talk) 19:49, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

  OK, thanks for the clarification. I'd submit that the proposal does solve the "admins make annual token edits and keep their tools forever" problem, or at least changes the "forever" to "for 5 years," which is an improvement. Regarding your second point, I had raised a similar concern below, and someone suggested that the "has returned to activity or intends to return to activity" requirement would address that concern, which I thought was a good point. 28bytes (talk) 21:31, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

  or at least changes the "forever" to "for 5 years," which is an improvement. I absolutely agree with that statement. My concern is more on a meta level. That a year from now, for example, someone comes up with a (potentially) better improvement and it fails to get any traction because of comments like "We just had a change and haven't seen it fully play out yet" or whatever. That we're sacrificing the potential for improvements for the next five years (which, admittedly, might not happen anyway) in favor of making this marginal change. I did consider the "has returned to activity or intends to return to activity" requirement as well and I believe that it renders this proposal even more marginal. For example, without this proposal, Admin A making token annual edits but then forgetting one year and asking for the tools back possibly (probably?) wouldn't get them back because of that bureaucrat discretion even if they had made one hundred edits 59 months ago, or even half that, for that matter. Which means that this proposal would give us no real benefit because the bureaucrat discretion already covers it. This all leads me to think that the major benefit of this proposal is going to happen right at January 2023 and then minimal benefit after that, at the potential cost of not being able to successfully make other proposals for five years. Alternatively, if it was twenty edits in every calendar year instead, then we'd still get, I believe, a huge chunk of the January 2023 benefit, more benefit in each subsequent year, and not potentially hamstring our future proposals for five years. Which is why I would support that and not this. Useight (talk) 15:14, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support this proposal at a minimum, but i'd also support the tighter requirement put forward by Barkeep. The manner in which someone can make an edit a year, or none at all and return after several years with an expectation of their "status" returned is not great. The issue to me moreso is the ability for someone to return from long-term inactivity and have a free token to returned adminship. This sentiment was expressed more eloquently by Xaosflux above: if they are that worried that there isn't community consensus for privileges maybe they shouldn't hold them. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:28, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support I like Barkeep49's suggestion (of 100 edits minimum per year). 20 edits a year for an admin is too low. Some1 (talk) 02:46, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support I think the current activity level requirements are too low. It's also not like an admin can't get the rights back, as some activity with a subsequent request to BN should be enough in most cases to restore the permissions. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 01:06, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - Makes sense. – SD0001 (talk) 04:21, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - I won't let perfect be the enemy of good, and the change proposed is certainly a good one. 100 edits per year (at least) is what I think a reasonable goal which shouldn't impact the admin workflow much while weeding out legacy admins. That said, the quantitative measures such as this one does not address one aspect of the problem, which is the quality of edits. We already have this issue with sockpuppets making minor edits and becoming auto-confirmed edits only to wreak havoc on semi-protected articles. The same goes for EC 500/30 restriction. The toolset of an admin is huge, therefore we should give some leeway for the bureaucrats to refuse to retain the tools if the nature of edits suggests they were likely made to end up just above the threshold (for example someone editing a few days before the deadline and making minor edits all the time). I don't know how often WP:GAMING appears in admin circles, but our rules should be tight in that respect, in particular when speaking of admins, whom we have to hold to a higher standard. (Jc37 has a point). That said, it's going in the right direction.
  I'll add that 20 edits/year ≠ 100 edits/5 years. The difference is that with an edit flurry, in the former case you are granted "immunity" for a year, in the latter - for 5 years. Also, I don't support Tamzin's contention that gaming the system is OK for admins because that means that they know the rules. Whether an admin cares about the rules but decides to purposefully be on the edge of legality by attaching to the letter, rather than the spirit of regulations (or, to be more specific, one particular regulation), or doesn't care about the rules, it doesn't matter because they aren't needed, nor welcome, here as admins in either case. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 08:57, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support These requirements, no matter which option is chosen, are terribly low and there's no point in holding the title of admin if you're that inactive. As mentioned they can also request restoration of adminship if they wish to contribute again. Seeing a lower total number of administrators would urge some users to put themselves out there and apply for adminshipment themselves. So by increasing the activity requirements you should, in idea, end up with a higher amount of administrative activity and fewer inactive admins (which is the goal I believe). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hey man im josh (talk) 00:22, 2022 March 24 (UTC)
• Support. The proposed requirements are not the least bit onerous, in my opinion. The admin toolset carries with it the responsibility to use it for the benefit of the project - if the tools aren't being used, there is no benefit to the project and no need for the tools. Averaging one edit every two weeks isn't a lot. I've seen the recent incidents brought to ArbCom over low-activity administrators mis-using the tools, so the current rule doesn't seem to be working well enough.

  I don't think Barkeep's proposal is necessary at this time; there appears to be a high level of support for the initial proposal, so if it is found to be ineffective, tightening the criteria shouldn't be difficult. --Sable232 (talk) 00:52, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support, and I would support Barkeep's higher standards. I think current admins should have to meet the standards that RfA candidates have to meet, and this is a step in that direction. No editor has to have the tools, and if admins want to keep their tools they should have to be active members of the community, and that is shown by actually conducting edits on Wikipedia. Z1720 (talk) 01:07, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. If an admin can't do recent changes patrol for 30 minutes every few years, there's no loss to the community if they lose the tools. It's also good security to reduce the attack surface, particularly ones who may not notice it quickly. Politanvm ^talk 02:14, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. Good direction of travel.  — Scott • talk 02:15, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose This looks like bureaucratic creep to me. I sort of understand the sentiment behind this, but it just looks like a solution in search of a problem that for the most part I don't see. Rarely active admins are hurting the project how? -Ad Orientem (talk) 02:20, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

  I believe one of the (rather minor) problems is people hacking into one of the accounts and having a little problem. Second, having syspot is a privilege, not a token. Sysopship should be given to people that is active and helpful, it's like having an inactive moderator in any other community. Third, it would reduce many arbcom requests. MrMeAndMrMe_{Let's talk} 20:12, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support. Admins should continue to contribute and engage. AtFirstLight (talk) 20:37, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support up to 100 annually if over five years. Three seems too quick to axe someone who’d been greatly invested in and trusted by the project, and was still showing relatively regular interest. Innisfree987 (talk) 02:22, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support the original proposal or the 100/3 proposal. Admininstrators are trusted by the community through the RfA process now because of both their ability to contribute effectively to the project and the expectancy that they will continute to do so. Bsoyka (talk) 02:35, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support Trending in the right direction, but even more stringent is probably a good idea too! Leijurv (talk) 02:37, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. And I would support much stricter requirements. I've been editing WP almost every single day for more than 4 years, and I still feel like I know nothing. I feel that admins should be expected to stay reasonably up to date and generally on it. Dr. Vogel (talk) 02:40, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support, both this and Barkeep's higher standards. I was shocked to find out how low the activity requirements are for retaining admin status. Obvious security hole. -- asilvering (talk) 03:12, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support minimal threshold which can be increased in future. _signed, 511KeV ^(talk) 03:23, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support the proposal as written, and I would also support Barkeep49's suggestion of averaging 100 edits per year over a rolling 3 year period. Inactive admin accounts are indeed a security risk, as an active admin would likely notice that their account had been misused and take appropriate action while a hacked inactive admin account could go unnoticed if the hacker's actions are subtle enough. — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk) 03:43, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. – B203GTB  • (talk)  • 05:47, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose - I simply see no reason for this added requirement. If an admin misbehaves, there are mechanisms in place to deal with that quickly and effectively. This just adds a silly "hoop to jump through".Shajure (talk) 05:56, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• support the 100 edits per year. One edit per day, and you have 365 edits per year. Or if you make 10 edits per day, then editing just 10 times per year is not a difficult task. Apart from security risks, having false number is also disappointing. Statiscally, if we have 1,000 admins, then most of the work is done by 300 admins (thats just an example, not backed by actual stats). Its better to have close to accurate number of active admin, than to an incorrect one. Then there is also the issue of keeping up to date with policies. —usernamekiran (talk) 06:21, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

  I struck out my comment above. I want to update it as: support 20 edits/year, and rest of the requirements same as suggested by Xaosflux. —usernamekiran (talk) 21:19, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support. – The current situation gravely skews (20% is no joke) the stats which influence community decisions regarding adminship. To soothe the hurt egos, one may introduce the Category:Retired admins. Loew Galitz (talk) 07:03, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

  I like that idea and I do hope someone takes it forward. Worm^TT(talk) 08:44, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

• I also like the retired admin cat idea, less as an ego balm and more as a token of appreciation. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 14:17, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Great idea, or "admin emeritus/emerita", with userbox and everything. Celebrate people a bit. —Kusma (talk) 14:38, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks to Jkudlick, we have Template:User wikipedia/Retired Administrator. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 15:26, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

• Support - a higher edit count will also be good. Kpddg ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:02, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support but I suggest an Admin Reorientation for older admins who are thoroughly gobsmacked by the many technical and cultural changes seen since their active days. Some very valuable admins/contributors might be lost due to the perceived learning curve. I mentioned this on the admin noticeboard.Babajobu (talk) 09:10, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. Of course, like any such proposal there will still be a few who want to game the system, but that's no reason to reject this worthwhile improvement. MichaelMaggs (talk) 09:19, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support I would support the proposal as worded; I would also support making it 100 edits per year over a rolling 5 year average, or over a rolling 3 year average (which would be my preference over the options proposed). Administrators need to be actively engaged with the project to keep abreast of changes. Naturally, people's enthusiasm and the time they have available will vary over time, but I don't think that expecting the occasional decent spell of activity over the course of three years is unreasonable. We're not talking about blocking inactive accounts - just asking that admins either maintain some minimal level of activity or step back from their 'superuser' position. I'll add that if this passes, aobvious gaming of the thresholds (e.g. by adding comments to a discussion one word at a time so as to inflate one's edit count) would in and of itself be grounds for desysopping, as a POINTY nose-snubbing to the community and the decisions that it makes. Girth Summit _(blether) 09:27, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support I'd also support higher limits. Nigej (talk) 09:32, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. If anything, I think the bar is still extremely low. —  HELLKNOWZ ∣ TALK 11:19, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support Possibly with a higher limit as Barkeep has suggested as well. RickinBaltimore (talk) 11:38, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• support per all the above reasons--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:00, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support 20 edits a year is not onerous and would at least increase the chances of those admins getting interested in editing Wikipedia again. AryKun (talk) 12:06, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support the original proposal as well as additional condition mentioned by Girth Summit to prevent system gaming. It makes sense to expect someone with admin tools to engage with wikipedia, otherwise I think the user doesn't need to have them. Lulusword (talk) 12:31, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support, but tighten it up for security reasons. Number 1 is fine, and pretty reasonable. But as a security issue, I disagree that any admin should keep the tools for five years with little admin activity. Number 2 leaves a potential opening for account hack. I think we need to start checking after one year. If no response, shut down the tools. I also think we should look into whether or not the infrequent admin is using the tools only for their own activity. That in itself defeats the purpose of community need for the tools. — Maile (talk) 13:25, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - not an issue for me as I can't see myself dropping to that level, but I would like to see a get-out clause if there is a very good reason: for example, long-term illness followed by a recovery, or a long-term work posting to a location with poor web connectivity. Deb (talk) 14:03, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

  @Deb This was something I did consider, but I thought that 100 edits over 5 years was such a standard that any exception with a good reason should be considered an edge case and handled by the 'crats. If we increase the standards over time, we should consider an exception option. Alternatively, this could be something we focus on more as part of a Resysop review. Worm^TT(talk) 14:20, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

  @Worm That Turned From a security perspective I'm not sure it makes any sense at all to have an exception option for de-sysopping due to inactivity. It makes more sense to put the exception onto RfA/Resysop review, imo. -- asilvering (talk) 15:49, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

  Sorry, I should be clearer @Asilvering. When I was putting this proposal together, I considered adding an exception, but I had much stricter numbers. We have examples, such as User:Lustiger seth, who passed an RfA with a specific purpose in mind. Should we grant an exception? Maybe, maybe not - but it's cases like theirs that gave me pause. Overall, I think that spreading over 5 years and handling on "resysop" instead of "desysop" got the balance right. Worm^TT(talk) 16:10, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

  Commons activity policy has a nice relief valve for that situation. But I also think there's a real difference between a 1 year activity level and a 3 or 5 year one. Giving that longer time is already giving them latitude for real life events that take them away. So if we ever moved to a 1 year level I'd want to see us adopt something like commons but as long as we're at these longer timeframes I think we're OK for this situation (especially as WTT notes that there is some appeal to the crats). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:14, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support perfect is the enemy of the good --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 14:30, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. Our problem is that there are too few admins, so why go looking for more ways to reduce that number even further. There is an argument for desyssoping completely inactive admins, but someone who is doing even a small number of admin actions is getting something useful done. SpinningSpark 14:50, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

  Are there admins out there who are making a small number of useful admin actions and who would be affected by this proposal? It seems to me that most admins who are doing the token edits have given up performing admin actions.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 15:12, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

  @Spinningspark: I agree that "someone who is doing even a small number of admin actions is getting something useful done," but those aren't really the administrators this proposal is designed to address. When you look at WTT's statistics, you'll see that there is a fairly large contingent of administrators who have made no admin actions whatsoever in the last 5, 10, or even 15 years. I struggle to understand what downside there could possibly be to remove the tools from someone who hasn't used the tools even once since, say, 2005. 28bytes (talk) 15:14, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

  Cases are easy to find. User:Aaron Schulz is on the redlist according to the stats report above, but made an admin action today. There are also cases of editors who work mainly on other language versions or Commons, but need admin tools here for their work. SpinningSpark 19:41, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support good one and Barkeep49 makes a good point. I am not sure what 100 admin actions mean, but we need Admins who want to contribute to the project, not ones who need to be reminded that they could contribute. 20 for sure, 50 I guess is also achievable.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 16:18, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - The word community comes from the same word as commune, the Latin communitas, pardon not adding all the extra marks, joint possession or use. In a commune or a community there are those entrusted with certain tools or abilities to enforce the community rules but the tools belong to the community. Any number of criteria may be placed on individuals in order to gain or maintain such tools or abilities. In regards to Wikipedia, there is no higher position than editor and no more important role than that of a member of the community. This is why the community is the one that entrusts the admin through the RfA process and why all thoughts concerning how an admin is confirmed or denied should be rightly considered. Likewise it is the community that should decide how those tools and abilities can be maintained or removed. Thus this discussion. The community and the pages/articles on which discussions are had are not social media sites but without an element of social interactions you do not have a community, even when those interactions are targeted toward the purpose of creating a better encyclopedia or enhancing community well-being. Striking that balance is difficult. Admins that are never here can not maintain that social connection with the community and are in danger of losing touch with the ever changing flow of community consensus. This is why @Worm and @Barkeep and other arbitrators, I'm sure I missed a few like @Beeblebrox, are bringing up this discussion. I agree that something needs to be done and if creating a threshold to keep these admin's in touch with the community they were entrusted to serve will accomplish that then I support it. Otherwise the admin has already obtained the highest position within the community the day they created their account and that will not be stripped of them unless they break faith with community rules like any other editor that does so. --ARoseWolf 16:53, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - there are various professions with tools that include access to confidential information and enhanced abilities within their operating systems, that also require 'continuing education' to maintain access to those tools. For example, attorneys can be required to engage in a certain amount of hours of continuing education every few years to maintain their licenses. While the RfC proposal is a much lower standard, it seems reasonable to increase the required level of ongoing engagement due to the nature of the admin tools. Beccaynr (talk) 17:00, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support about time too. Lost count of "admins" who make one edit a year to keep the mop, also seen plenty of examples of those types rushing headfirst and using the tools when they're clearly out of touch with current guidelines and policies. Sure it's a volunteer project, but absent admins are absent, and can safely be "disarmed" because there's no problem with them running for RFA again if the (current) community retains trust in them. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 17:28, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support ~ a rolling count is a great way to both track who's being active and allow for the occasional periods of inactivity without punishing the latter. Happy days ~ Lindsay^Hello 17:49, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - I mean, I'm a complete nobody-gnome who lurks around fixing a typo here and cleaning up a vandal there, I wouldn't consider myself remotely devoted (or qualified) enough to be an admin, and I would have no issues with this activity rate. An admin who isn't currently active and hasn't been for some time shouldn't be an admin; there's no reason for them to retain the bit. NekoKatsun (nyaa) 19:00, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support Why not? – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 19:33, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support as still a trivial requirement - Any admin who cares to keep there privileges should easily be able to do 100+ meaningful edits in a couple of hours. If you can't manage that in five years you are not active in any meaningful way and cannot be up-to-date with the policies and guidelines (unless they just read and take no actions, which IMHO is worse). However I don't think the number of edits should mater, but how many times have they actually used the mop. If an admin does tens or hundreds of thousands of edits a year but but never touches the mop they are a valued editor, not an admin. KylieTastic (talk) 19:37, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support as a good first step. Cabayi (talk) 19:54, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support I don't think this will do much, if anything, but that's not a reason to oppose. Would prefer this over 36 months, but it's a step in the right direction. Chaddude (talk) 20:36, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support Moneytrees^{Talk🏝️CCI guide} 21:16, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support this will clear the admins that are basically retired quicker, I fully support Zippybonzo | talk 21:29, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support This is a simple and well structured activity requirement. Protonk (talk) 21:35, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support as long as there is advance notification. Wouldn't object to the time period being reduced to 3 years though. -Kj cheetham (talk) 21:45, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support And agree with all the comments above that this is still far too low a threshold. Number 57 22:04, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support: this is not much more than a bookkeeping exercise, removing people who are on the books as admins but do not perform that role to any meaningful degree. I'm not concerned that this would remove anybody who should be returning to a high activity level without the scrutiny of another RfA. There are security issues with these admin accounts, and their usernames create clutter to wade through when looking for active administrators to contact. — Bilorv (talk) 22:21, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

March 25 - 31

• Support but I would prefer that there be some threshold for admin actions as well. If an admin is doing less than 10 admin actions a year then I am not sure how current they can be on the tools. Gusfriend (talk) 01:06, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - Long overdue. The proposed requirements are too low, but its a start. Jusdafax (talk) 03:35, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support I don't see how this would have an adverse effect. I would just make sure that "admin actions" includes anything done as a functionary ... for a period when I had oversight I didn't feel a need to do most of the admin actions I had regularly done before, and now do again. Daniel Case (talk) 04:32, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support What I really like about the proposal is the rolling requirement - recognizing that some editors may need a wikibreak (for numerous reasons). --Enos733 (talk) 04:33, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• Strong support, much needed and long overdue. Like many have said, I would be in support of much higher activity requirements, but I do understand that this sort of incrementalism is the only way of getting it done. @Worm That Turned: thanks for doing what you do. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 05:14, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support: Seems like a low bar to hit for any vaguely active user. Agree with the arguments that admins less active than this are likely, at the very least, rusty on procedure. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:03, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - I'm shocked that administrators can remain in the role while not contributing to our encyclopedia for a long, long time. (It's like the supervisor who rarely works but retains the power to boss around their subordinates—it's unfair, morally repugnant, and leaves workers feeling disenfranchised.) This proposal doesn't go far enough IMHO, but it is a start. Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 08:04, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• Weak support Better than nothing, but I would be in support of much higher activity requirements. The higher the threshold, the stronger my support. The Banner talk 10:22, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support: From a security viewpoint its probably best for those who are minimally using the tools have them withdrawn without prejudice. There's also a need to remain somewhat proficient on policies, guidelines, practice etc. We must absolutely allow for admins who have RL commitments that means they must take breaks from admin admin and indeed editing activities and must have processes for welcoming them back, and it seems to be the case that we do have such processes. And whatever criteria are set some will likely simply go minimally past it to keep the badge, maybe by trivial contributions. In many ways this does not go far enough, but it certainly is a not unreasonable start point, and to o further it might be necessary to consider alternative more complex criteria or a proficiency/attitude test which might be a lot more difficult, burdensome and troublesome. Thankyou. Djm-leighpark (talk) 10:45, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose we should be looking at ways of getting more users involved and reducing the admin backlogs rather than looking at ways to reduce the numbers of people who could feasibly do the job. If security is a concern that can be beefed up with methods like 2FA (I can keep my machine logged in for a year without being re-validated) and more granular permissions. We could also automate responses in the case where an admin suddenly starts making edits after a period of inactivity. GimliDotNet (talk) 11:03, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support and would also support higher activity requirements. Paul W (talk) 12:41, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support per all above, and I'd support higher threshold. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 15:24, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support Still a bit lenient.....persons who just comply with the minimum of this standard will still have competency issues. But a step in the right direction. If tightened up further, would suggest adding editing, not logged action requirements. Admins serve in admin roles without necessarily having logged actions. North8000 (talk) 15:46, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose all this seems to achieve is to reduce our admin pool. It'll still be very hard to become an admin, so it will increase workload, and make it harder for people like me to come and go depending on health/workload. Nobody can commit to a certain level of activity every year over 15 years. Secretlondon (talk) 16:19, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

  I think you misread the proposal. It says 100-edits over a 5 year period. This is only being assessed over 5 years, not 1. Few of our admins have even been editors for more than 5 years. --Jayron32 16:27, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

  What do you mean "increase" workload? 20 helpful edits is not difficult. I understand if it were a little bit more, but this at least brings a couple of editors back and helps us overall. MrMeAndMrMe_{Let's talk} 17:12, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

• Begrudging support. 20 edits a year?? Goodness me. A keen newbie vandal can usually clock up that number in half an hour. Can't we attach electrodes somehow? That should keep 'em on track Martinevans123 (talk) 21:25, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support Absolutely mind boggling that so many admins would not hit these bare minimum of targets. //Lollipoplollipoplollipop::talk 21:44, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support 100 edits over 5 years is not onerous at all. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:02, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - This seems like a very reasonable adjustment to the standard (I would support even more strict numbers). Any admin who wishes to keep their tools should easily be able to reach this level of activity to do so. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:29, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support: An average of at least 20 edits a year is generous enough, if not too relaxed - especially for administrators who are expected to handle much of Wikipedia's "dirty work". As stated numerous times above, any admin with low activity clearly does not need the privilege. Liamyangll (talk to me!) 01:33, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support Give it a go with 100 edits over 5 years, and then tighten the criteria gradually making it 100 edits over 3 years starting from 2025. 4nn1l2 (talk) 01:58, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support for many of the reasons listed above. If an admin cares to keep their admin powers, they can easily make 20 edits Dec. 31. Significa liberdade (talk) 03:55, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. For a long time, I believed that we were better off with more admins than with less, and if you retain some minimal level of connection to the community, it wouldn't be hard to get back up to speed on changes to policy. Recent events have forced me to reconsider that belief. Guettarda (talk) 04:30, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. 20 edits per year is more than reasonable. dizzyflamingo (talk) 04:46, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - as one of the movers of the original "inactivity" process, I think I supported a higher threshold then, but (believe it or not) it was then an idea that many were very dubious about, & the lower limit was used. It's good to see this is no longer the case. Also open to a somewhat higher bar. Johnbod (talk) 04:58, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support 100 edits in 5 years, and the slightly more stringent 100 edits average per year for in 3 years also. Leaving the laughable current criterion in place because the proposals are not enough is not a convincing argument. Meters (talk) 05:03, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Corrected. Misread secondary proposal, but still support it. Meters (talk) 07:49, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support 20 edits a year, but not higher, for now. Let's take things slowly, see if legacy admin retention increases, and base a future discussion on solid statistical grounds based on the impact of this higher threshold. Pilaz (talk) 06:17, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose This seems like a solution in search of a problem. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 06:41, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

  How is letting a less active admin hold/retain admin tools for more than five years not a "problem" per your definition? George Ho (talk) 07:13, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support the original proposal which effectively is about more accurately defining what active means. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 11:16, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support any number greater than zero. I personally would have raised the number even more so would prefer Barkeep49's proposal (or again, anything more stringent). Administrators are people who volunteered to preform services. If they cannot or do not want to perform these services, which is their right, they should not keep the title, as they do not "own" this right. Having admins who only log in every year to do a single edit is exactly the type of admins we should not have around. --Gonnym (talk) 14:43, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose with all due respect to the supporters of this proposition (and their well laid arguments), I still feel this is polishing the brass on the titanic and therefore pointless in the grand scheme of things.^Thanks,L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 14:19, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - an improvement on what we have. I agree that we should be more aggressive in retiring admins with competence issues, but we should at the same time be more accommodating at RfA. Contra those opposes based on this not going far enough, it's more realistic for us to pursue both goals in small improvements whenever they are available. — Charles Stewart (talk) 14:47, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. I think this is a modest change to encourage those users entrusted with sysop tools make at least some limited use of them on a somewhat regular basis and maintain a minimum amount of involvement with the project. Mdewman6 (talk) 17:48, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support Admins barely active are not useful for the projects. --Yann (talk) 18:00, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support A too generous minimum. Debresser (talk) 18:01, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support/Oppose Support the concept, oppose the weak requirements. This should be higher, much higher. An admin should be moderately active. The community granted the rights/tool to people who need and would use them. Volunteer positions can have requirements, be it activity or continuing education.--☾Loriendrew☽ ☏(ring-ring) 22:24, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support But possibly do a trial run and gather data on whether this is a problem or not. Are legacy admins suddenly popping up and going rogue? Don’t we need all hands on deck? Also, make it easy to reverse in case a real editing pro goes dark temporarily and then comes back. Josh a brewer (talk) 02:26, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - still a pretty low level of activity to keep tools. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:42, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support the concept of an activity requirement, but I'd rather see the edit requirement be something higher than 20, like 100 edits (and really, even if they want to do their 100 edits in a single year, that's only like 1 edit every 3 days, so even 100 yearly edits isn't that high of a bar to clear).Canuck^{89 (Talk to me)} 06:48, March 27, 2022 (UTC)
• Support. There's more to being an administrator than the title — there's also the responsibility and work that is attached to the role of admin. We should expect more, but if you can't get it up for at least 20 edits per year, you forfeit the privilege that comes with the designation. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 09:14, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support Showing up is the sine qua non of volunteering. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:18, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support I see this as a reasonable minimum, and should also give us a more accurate view of the state of adminship in the project. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 13:56, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support as Mz7 put it, less involvement than this doesn't leave the admin "engaged with the project and informed on policy changes". I would go higher as well. ☆ Bri (talk) 14:03, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support with no opposition to higher requirements. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 04:39, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support as the requirement is not onerous, and not required to be actioned. For those that are active on other projects, 20 edits per year are still not a big load on them. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:54, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - The requirement should be even higher than that in my opinion, but at least this is a good start. — Golden ^{call me maybe?} 10:54, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - You can't/shouldn't be an administrator of a project that you don't engage in and haven't for years. --PresN 14:54, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support would go a long way to solving the issues arising from dormant administrators clashing with new community norms. – Teratix ₵ 15:35, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - A lot of good discussion has been generated already. I have no problems with its implementation with community consideration so far. Sennecaster (Chat) 17:53, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. There are very real problems with Wikipedia, particularly with the number of volunteers who desire to participate in good faith, and the underlying issue is that the consensus we have adopted as a community has made it increasingly complex and difficult to perform any volunteer tasks. I've been reviewing some of the excellent tutorial materials that are now available, but frankly if I wanted to make my first edit today I would be thoroughly discouraged by what's needed to participate. Instead of demanding more activity by administrators, we should be asking why administrators become less active, and how important the various backlogs really are to this project. Instead of making it even more difficult to do the job, we need to take a hard look at how much more bureacratic it has become over the years. This request for comment is an excellent example: how many volunteers are going to read every comment? Certainly the person who closes it will, but most others will rely on that individual's judgment of what the consensus of the discussion turns out to be because we lack the privilege of time to absorb it all. I believe this suggestion is made in good faith, but adopting this without first addressing the underlying issues will not advance the project in any meaningful way.~TPW 18:03, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  In most cases I think they've just lost interest in being as engaged as they once were. There's nothing unusual about that, it's human nature. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:25, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

• Strong Support: And it's still far too low, at the end of the day. But this is a good start. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 23:00, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Amended thought: I also support Barkeep's proposal. And, if there is indeed such a backlog as others note, I wish to propose an even higher standard than Barkeep's: in addition to 100 edits over 3 years, I propose an additional 10 logged admin actions per year, each rolling year (say, March 31, 2022 to March 31, 2023), without prejudice to higher requirements. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 21:48, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support and support Barkeep's stricter version too. These are both very reasonable asks. Crossroads ^-talk- 07:21, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - I was an admin for several years, then had a five-year break. I'm coming back to a Wikipedia that still has its core values in place, but expressed in a number of different ways. I've had to refresh my memory on a variety of processes, look things up that I used to do regularly, and in the process learn a number of new processes and guidelines, and I'll keep doing so for several months before I take a shot at reapplying. I think asking admins for this minimal amount of activity to keep the mop is entirely reasonable, if only to help them keep up to date on changes as they go. Tony Fox (arf!) 01:45, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
• Reluctant Support - This is a useful change but it also will reduce the number of admins, a group that is already too small,understanding that it thins out the admins who already aren't contributing much. - tucoxn\^talk 03:49, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
• Neutral comment. The policy essentially says that just because you are a Veteran admin that served for one year over ten years ago doesn't mean you should continue to receive benefits of having rank of admin for the rest of your life so let's give em' an honorable discharge without any benefits. I wonder what would happen if we treated our soldiers who only served a short time this same way. Imagine the outcry. Huggums537 (talk) 09:18, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

  I think there's a bit of a difference between soldiers who put their lives on the line for their country and volunteers who want a little have access on a website. Worm^TT(talk) 09:26, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

  Well, sure that is true there are differences there, but I think the correct comparisons you want to draw are the ones between the soldiers who had formerly put their lives on the line, and the admins who also formerly put their lives on the line in the form of time they gave to the project when they gave it. It's not like inactive veteran admins are trying to "have a little access on a website" any more than veteran soldiers are trying to "get a few M16 rifle's". Huggums537 (talk) 13:50, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

  This is getting offensive. No admin puts their lives on the line. No matter what the level of harassment they become subject to, it's fundamentally different from being a military veteran and it's insulting to both parties to keep making this analogy. Please stop. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 14:34, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

  Let me explain. Both soldiers and admin volunteers "put their lives on the line" in the sense that they have both given up part of their lives in the form of their own personal time of service to the community. In other words, they have given up part of their life, or "put it on the line" for the sake of the community. That is one thing all soldiers, and really any volunteers in service of their community have in common. The thing that is offensive is to say that one volunteer who has served part of their life has donated something more valuable than another volunteer. Many soldiers gave up part of their lives to serve the community, and didn't risk any danger of actually losing their life at all, but we still say they "put their lives on the line" to serve the community because they gave up their valuable personal time for us. It is the same for other volunteers in the community as well. Huggums537 (talk) 17:19, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

  Nobody is saying any one is less of a valued contributor, but to use you very strained analogy, if you go AWOL for a year can you just walk back onto the base and start issuing orders again? If you retire with the rank of colonel, does that mean that you are able to command any soldier of lower rank for the rest of your life, even though you aren't actually in the service anymore? I don;t like the analogy either, but it is also just incorrect on its face. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:36, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

  I was making a general comparison of commonalities between volunteers. I think it is carrying it a bit too far to compare the strict rules of the military to the very broadly interpreted, often debated, sometimes ignored rules of Wikipedia. So, I kind of dislike that analogy, and think it is incorrect. Huggums537 (talk) 20:22, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

  Also, in my comparison, I was arguing that inactive veterans aren't trying to come back for guns, rank, or authority any more than inactive admins are. I just thought I would reiterate that. Huggums537 (talk) 21:07, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

  Huge difference between "veteran" soldiers and "veteran" admins: unless one was also a war soldier, admins don't kill, and admins haven't been drafted/sent to war. How about one computer expert working on codes for one company or corporation instead? George Ho (talk) 19:26, 30 March 2022 (UTC); edited, 19:27, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

  There hasn't been a draft in nearly half a century. There are tons of soldiers who were never drafted, or killed anyone during that time who we all say put their lives on the line because they gave us their precious time for our country, not their actual real lives. The same can be said of our national volunteers. What is actually offending is the suggestion that there is such a huge difference between these volunteers that we can't see any commonality between them. Huggums537 (talk) 19:55, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

  As an admin and a veteran (draftee, served 8 months in Vietnam as a clerk, see the photo of the reenlistment office where I worked at Long Binh Post), I find this whole attempt to compare adminship to military service ridiculous. Desysopping an inactive admin is not denying them any benefits. - Donald Albury 20:49, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

  You have the right to your opinion. Thank you for your service, as both a veteran and admin. Huggums537 (talk) 12:38, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support That will ensure that people stay up to date on policies and rules. If people return after a very lengthy hiatus they might not be aware of the current standards. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 14:33, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support this is a good start, though as others had mentioned, I'd also prefer a certain number of admin actions as well. But any admin who hasn't been around at all for 5 years will likely be out of the loop of how Wikipedia works, and so shouldn't be an admin. Joseph2302 (talk) 14:45, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support A small but effective step in the right direction.Edmund Patrick – confer 18:13, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
• Qualified Support I'm in favor of a minimum activity threshold, and agree with many above that, if any thing, the proposal is too low. But, the proposal as written requires a minimum number of edits, and appears to distinguish between edits and administrative actions. So, an Admin who takes dozens of administrative actions on a daily basis but does not edit mainspace at all would appear to be subject to removal under this proposal. Is that what is intended? I would not agree if that is the intent. I would not distinguish between admin actions and edits for purposes of this proposal. The threshold should be edits and/or admin actions. Banks Irk (talk) 19:38, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

  @Banks Irk while you raise a good point, the general proposal does not require any edits to "mainspace". Many admin actions have corresponding edits (block a user - make an edit to tell them they are blocked, and possibly one to say the block review/request is done; close an xfd as keep - you make an edit about the old xfd; etc), so for most minimally active admins edits will be incidental. (Sure, there are plenty of edges like an editor who never does anything except delete CSD...but I think this is part of the point, such an editor may be falling out of touch). — xaosflux ^Talk 18:16, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

April 1 -

• Support as a step. Threshold for activeness could be tighter. Usedtobecool ☎️ 09:02, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
• Support. In agreement with so many others, it's a step in the right direction, but it's not enough. If, as Beeblebrox says, there's a problem with "legacy admins" blundering about, 100 edits over 5 years, which averages less than 2 edits per month, is not enough to keep people's minds in the game, so to speak. Dhtwiki (talk) 22:32, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
• Support. I like the idea of the rolling 5-year requirement; it allows for flexibility and does not penalise editors who contribute sporadically. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:34, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. I am a believer of the "trusted user" model for adminship rather than the "this is a job, don't shirk it" model. With that in mind, I see trusted users who are not currently contributing to the community as harmless. If they return to the community, I think most of the time we can trust them to pick up the mop tolerably. If they don't, most things can be undone, and if it's a continuing, repeated, or clear attitude problem rather than a mistake, they can be desysopped via arbcom. (There are some such cases, but not many; I think the whole "legacy admin" issue is overblown.) Meanwhile, if a long-absent admin logs in for whatever reason and sees a mess they can mop up, and do so, that is a net positive. We don't gain by saying, "sorry, we took away your mop, now someone else has to do it". (By the way, I would not be against terms and periodic reconfirmation for all admins, to improve accountability, thoughtfully implemented to minimize revenge opposition. But I don't see any particular reason to single out someone who happens to have become less active. Martinp (talk) 20:35, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose reluctantly, after a great deal of condideration - simply because of the number of users who see this as a "first step". I'm concerned that this may lead to rules being tightened so much that those of us who aren't the most active, or regularly involved with FA for example, will be squeezed out. We already see opposition at RFAs on the basis of not enough involvement in certain areas. Also as others have said, this is a solution looking for a problem. — Voice of Clam 18:21, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose I am an admin. My contributions page shows that I've made 50 edits since september. That is quite low activity. I didn't check, but I bet at most a made a few Speedy deletions over those months. This is already LOW participation, by my standards. Should I be kicked out of being an adimn? Why? What good would come from that? I don't do much, but I do some. I don't do much NOW, but I may do more later ( I plan to, maybe in a year, maybe in 10). If I fail for not knowing some recent rule, point me to it. If I mess up bad, then kick me out, regardless of having 10 or 10 thousand edits. Keep it simple: zero edits over some long'ish period of time, the user is presumed dead or having a complete loss of interest. Then close the account, admin or not, and free up the username after a couple of years. Admin is no big deal, why do people insist in making it so special? Nabla (talk) 20:40, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
• Support, as the rolling period allows for other priorities IRL; but activity should be measured across all related projects e.g. other-language Wikipedias, Commons, Wikidata. If people have been approved as admins here and are still active mainly there, then there is no need to remove their tools here. – Fayenatic London 21:11, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose and anecdote. I was made an admin in 2005, less than a year after I started editing, but with almost 6000 edits. I now have almost 40,000 edits, but there were less than 200 edits in the five years 2009-2013. If I had been de-sysopped in that period, I probably would not have bothered to get it back. I don't do much admin work, and when I do, I am careful to check that I am following the current standard, which makes me a bit slower than if I did it regularly. However, even if there aren't many, every admin action I undertake is one less thing for someone else to do. For that low-activity period, I did not consciously "leave Wikipedia" - it was a combination of some very significant things happening in the rest of my life and some heated Wikipedia guideline discussions. I think I still considered myself "a Wikipedian" throughout the time, I just hadn't spent much time editing. A nudge that my low edit count might cause a change might have brought me back sooner. Actually taking away that privilege at that time might have pushed me to leave completely, and the project could have lost the 15,000 edits I have made since then, and any I make in future. Admins have made a commitment to uphold the current policies in their actions. As a low-activity admin, I still value the trust the community has placed in me to do that, so I am still just as careful to ensure I don't do the wrong thing and damage that trust. --Scott Davis ^Talk 02:54, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

  Hi @ScottDavis, I do appreciate your line of thinking. Can I just note that firstly, 200 edits in that 5 year period would not have met this proposal standards, and secondly, there is a specific requirement to contact the admin twice before it happens.

  I'm looking for that nudge, I'm looking to encourage. I understand that we will lose some great people, but I'm also hoping we will get some great people back. Worm^TT(talk) 07:37, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

@Worm That Turned: I can see that under this proposed change, I would likely not be an admin now. My point is that I still have the values that got me trusted in the first place - the commitment to uphold and follow the rules etc. As an admin who might have become out of touch, I am extremely conscious to make sure I'm "getting it right" in the modern world. Any admin who has a pause and returns to Wikipedia will still have the attitude to improve the encyclopaedia. People with the admin tools who seek to wreak havoc are more likely to do it before they leave, not after they come back. --Scott Davis ^Talk 10:55, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

• Support with focus on the 100 edits per year across 3 years—I've not read all the content here, but focused on the early input and this material after 1 April, and searches for references to edit quality and articles. I do have some reservations about basing simply on edit count; but in counter to someone above who opposed because this might be a first step, I would think that the impact/response to this change should lead to a second step if warranted. For instance, editing style varies dramatically. Some editors really do not like to do small edits, but rather want to spend their effort on substantial additions or revisions; such "craft editors" will have a lower edit count during a period than someone who is a "tweak editor"; I personally am more in the "tweak" style than the "craft" style. In order to account for this style difference, might consider a look at # of articles edited and in what namespaces. There are some significant comments above on impact analysis that would be good following through on. There was a comment made about an admin edit requirement; I do think this would be a good thing, as it demonstrates use of the tools. Personally, I do not use the tools much. I've been on a wikibreak due to a conflict that arose from my AfD admin activities; call it wiki-stress. Not sure if I'll return to doing anything admin-esque on AfD, but I'm easing back into editing. Also, I do not see my adminship as being defining for my role as a wikipedia contributor, but an additional toolbox; if that toolbox were locked to me, I would not stop editing wikipedia. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 13:33, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose, the proposal is completely unnecessary and a waste of time. There is precisely zero evidence that these inactive admins are causing any kind of a problem or disruption. If some of them come back and resume more active editing, great. If not, leave them be. Nsk92 (talk) 13:51, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
• Support. Admins should be a bit more active and try to use the tools given unto them as they should.Volten001 ^☎ 20:20, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

  @Volten001:, by your argument, a former admin with no access to the tools is more useful to the project than a current admin who only uses them occasionally. Have I got that right? Either way, the project needs more active admins, but occasionally, the mostly-inactive ones will help whereas the former ones never will. --Scott Davis ^Talk 06:49, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose, I would probably be affected. I have other things going on in life. It's like saying "unless you are 100% active admin on an ongoing basis let's strip you of your rights". It's exactly the worst possible effect because it will remove heterogeneity from the administrator group and close the circle on people who stare at the screen far too much. Wikipedia needs the opposite. I would like to see the absolute opposite of this suggestion - ie. a proposal for transient administrators, a rotating administratorship maybe periodically assigned to university student groups or community interest groups within adademic or pedagogical fields. This could raise community engagement and enlarge the community at a time where long term editors are being sapped of energy and interest by a never-ending flood of policies like this one. prat (talk) 04:10, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
• Weak oppose. The requirements are not hard to meet, but they make the policy more complex. Since this proposal is targeted at people like me, however, I want to point to an underlying issue here. The project does not do a good job of keeping less-active users updated on policy changes. (The monthly admin newsletter is a good start, but not enough.) When I am active, I find that I only have the working memory to be involved in a few areas at once; any more requires significant time and keeping up with the drama boards (which is frankly bad for one's mental health). If we made it easier for less-active admins to catch back up, we'd probably have (1) more admins returning and (2) less of the belief, exhibited throughout this discussion, that only frequent editing can ensure that an admin is still well-versed enough in the project to keep the bit. Wikiacc (¶) 16:46, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

  Note there is also Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/administrators, which has been getting some updates recently. If you have more ideas on how to update users on policy changes (and any thoughts on how to get interested volunteers to help out), I think it would be great to have a discussion at, say, the Village Pump idea lab (there are some other, more directly-related venues I can think of, but they lack the number of participants at the Village Pump). isaacl (talk) 15:37, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

• Support This is a great start for a proposal. 20 edits a year should be enough for any long-term editor who has not fully checked out to make. As for more stringent proposals, they should be implemented later on to make sure semi-active admins have a chance to become more active before they are desysopped. A good end target for activity requirements might be like this:

  1. 100 edits per year averaged over a three-year rolling period.

  2. 10 administrative actions per year, averaged over a five-year rolling period.

  3. 20 edits in the past year. 2601:647:5800:1A1F:3581:FAF4:6129:CFEA (talk) 17:09, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

• Support 100/5, weak support 100/3, oppose requiring actual admin actions as part of either. (Speaking as someone who would actually have to check to see if he was currently meeting 100/3...) SarekOfVulcan (talk) 01:17, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

• Question is there a difference between "log actions" and "administrative actions"? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 19:25, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
  • @Jo-Jo Eumerus: - I believe so. For instance, viewing deleted content is an administrative action, but is not a logged one, and I don't think editing fully-protected pages goes into the admin log, either. Hog Farm _Talk 19:29, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

    Yeah editing protected pages wouldn't be logged as anything special other than an edit. I have been corrected, anything is tracked. Terasail^[✉️] 19:30, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

    Special:AbuseFilter/942 * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:34, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

It is probably worth noting that the mention of logged actions is from the text that already exists at WP:INACTIVITY. @Worm That Turned: Perhaps it would be good to highlight the text that is being added/modified, so editors can easily see what would be changed? --RL0919 (talk) 19:41, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Good idea @RL0919 - I've put it directly above the modification Worm^TT(talk) 19:48, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

FWIW, RL0919 and Worm That Turned, WP:INACTIVITY makes no mention of "logged actions". I believe the intended shortcut would be (the very similar) WP:INACTIVE which targets a different page. Best regards.--John Cline (talk) 07:48, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Hi @John Cline. WP:INACTIVITY is the policy which we're updating as part of this proposal. You're right, it makes no mention of "logged actions", though it does talk of "administrative actions", which are generally logged to be evidenced. WP:INACTIVE is the wikiproject (for want of a better word) that co-ordinated and actions the policy. Worm^TT(talk) 08:43, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes, thank you for your reply Worm That Turned, I understand. I commented only because it was said: "It is probably worth noting that the mention of logged actions is from the text that already exists at WP:INACTIVITY." I spent some time, after following that link, researching the history to determine when it was changed before I found the other page. Nevertheless, thanks again and be well.--John Cline (talk) 09:07, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

I do not think that editing through protection is a logged admin action in the normally understood sense of the word. Logged actions show up in the users' own log. Luckily for our purposes here it is not a particularly important distinction. The vagueness of that term is one reason why I am supporting this when I had my own proposal in my sandbox that was tied entirely to logged actions. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:52, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

• There's at least one bureaucrat who would be affected by this proposal; since the wording refers only to administrators it seems we would end up in the odd situation where someone is a 'crat but not an admin. Perhaps this requirement could be applied to 'crats as well? (If anything, familiarity with current community norms is more important for 'crats that it is for admins.) Extraordinary Writ (talk) 20:00, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  The question of keeping bureaucrat activity in sync with admin standards came up during the discussion that implemented our initial admin inactivity policy. It was addressed as a separate RfC after the admin change was approved. Presumably the same could be done this time. --RL0919 (talk) 20:17, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  That's fair: I imagine it would probably (hopefully!) be uncontroversial to sync the requirements back up. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 20:20, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  The crat requirements are currently more stringent than the admin ones, but yes - they prob could use revisiting if this passes. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:31, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

• To give some context to my support comment that this is a modest requirement, there is a list of links to inactivity policies for various Wikimedia projects at meta:Admin activity review/Local inactivity policies. Many are more strict than what is proposed here, with shorter time limits, higher editing numbers, and/or requirements to have logged admin actions (not just edits). --RL0919 (talk) 20:11, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• This is a reasonable step forward, but if I'm interpreting things correctly, a 1-edit-a-year administrator could still simply request the tools back the moment they're removed for falling below the 100-edits-in-5-years threshold, correct? Just wondering if a companion change to the resysopping criteria might be needed. 28bytes (talk) 20:14, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  Worm addresses this partially in the statement in that they could request it but the crats would presumably deny it on a "has returned to activity or intends to return to activity as an editor." basis. But bigger picture you're right that should probably be adjusted if this passes. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:18, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  This. I think the has returned to activity or intends to return to activity criteria is something that we were very reluctant to lean on much at first, but with time it is becoming more accepted. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:43, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

• @Dennis Brown: I'm kind of surprised to see you saying that what we have now seems to work. My apologies to Ev but they are an example I found of a legacy admin who keeps the tools forever despite not being an admin. Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Ev was in 2007 (and a perfect example of how different RFA is now). They were desysopped for total inactivity in 2012, and got it back for the asking in 2013. This post [2] in 2013 asking for their admin tools back was their first post in Wikipedia space in two years, and they've not made another one since. They have not used any sort of administrative tools since 2011, before they were desysopped for inactivity. They have not spoken to another user on-wiki in any way since 2014. But they make between two and ten edits each year, so they continue to be an administrator so long as they do that. I don't think Ev is gaming the system or otherwise malicious, but they stopped actually being an admin eleven years ago. There's no reason for a user like that to still have admin tools, it's an unnecessary risk for both security and drama. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:45, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
  • I looked at the RfA, and per what editors said there, Ev is a "he". --Tryptofish (talk) 20:54, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Fixed, thanks for pointing that out. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:32, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
  • This solution isn't a solution. Sure, we can pass it and pass ourselves on the back for being so clever, but it's trivial to bypass and nothing will change, except a handful of diehards will just go make 100 trivial edits every 5 years, or use the tools foolishly. This is like adding a latch to your screen door, hoping the burglar isn't smart enough to know to cut the screen and lift the latch. This. Doesn't. Fix. Anything. Maybe we need to revive the old community desysop plans, but limited only to inactive admin, and desysopping NOT for cause. That would work, that isn't passive. Only an active solution will fix the problem, not passive. I'm not interested in jumping on a bandwagon with no wheels. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 20:52, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
    • Just because we can't agree on a perfect, complete, foolproof solution to the problem doesn't mean we shouldn't do things that incrementally improve the situation, especially if they're easy to do and there's strong consensus for them. Yes, things would still be gameable even if we go forward with this proposal, but at least it would become incrementally more difficult (and more transparent/obvious) to game the system if these additional requirements were in place. Perfect is the enemy of good. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 20:58, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
    • Eschewing a heightened activity requirement because some people might still game it, in favor of active arbitration for ne'er-do-wells and some kind of community process, would seem to amplify drama rather than reduce it. I don't see how that's a good outcome for anybody. Mackensen (talk) 21:31, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
      • And passing a half baked, easy to bypass system that still requires admin act on the honor system isn't going to change the outcome. The logic that "a bad plan is better than no plan" doesn't hold water. Fix it right, or don't fix it. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 22:49, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

        If we're going to toss cliche's around, I'll raise you "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." Not trying to do anything because this is not the best possible option is simply giving into hopelessness. There's no reason not to at least try this option unless you're already convinced that it will fail. Even if it does "fail" the way you seem to think, then we get those inactive legacy admins to do a little more work around here. A little more camel-nosing later, who knows? they might actually be real admins again. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 22:55, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

        • Why not 90? Or 110? We're pissing in the wind here. Throwing an idea at a frustrated crowd that is willing to try anything. That anything isn't always better than nothing, and certainly not better than working on a proper solution. There is no basis that "solution" is a solution. It's just a random idea that seems to not take human nature into account, and the only possible redeeming value is so we can say "well, we did SOMETHING" and that isn't good enough for me to support. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:04, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

          You've piled up unsupported assertions without ever offering a concrete alternative for people to support. Conversely, you have not offered a reason why it's beneficial to retain low-activity administrators. Above, you rather confidently assert that they don't pose a security problem, which completely overlooks the whole question of attack surface. I know very few people involved in information security who would endorse leaving inactive, unmonitored privileged accounts lying dormant. There is also the problem of asserting that a long-dormant account, with few interactions on or off-wiki, is still operated by the original person. These are substantive questions. Mackensen (talk) 02:07, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

          • • You obviously don't know me. The first thing I did after becoming an admin in 2012 was try to pass a system when there community could vote out ANY admin, WP:RAS. I have a history of participating in ways to desysop undesirable admin. In fact, the last case brought to Arb regarding an admin was by me. Those with an institutional memory know I've been quite involved and have offered many ideas. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:08, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

              You're right, I don't. I'm aware of your involvement in the most recent desysopping, hence my surprise that you aren't offering a concrete alternative here. Mackensen (talk) 14:48, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

• Adjust RfC to allow for more stringent outcome? Worm That Turned, from the way this is going so far, it seems that raising to 20/year will pass easily, but many editors appear to support Barkeep49's idea for more stringent requirements. Would you be open to restructuring the RfC so editors can !vote on that, too? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:15, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  No need to change in my opinion. Editors are commenting on what I said and if enough support it then it'll have consensus and since this will hopefully be closed by someone skilled that consensus would be noted and implemente. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:19, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  This is off to a strong start, but my previous experiences in this area suggest that aiming low and making incremental changes is the best approach. Or maybe people just like Worm more than they like me. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:33, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  Both could simultaneously be true. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:03, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

  I have updated the RfC to mention @Barkeep49 suggestion, as well as re-running the report with the numbers that he has suggested. I don't think more is needed as the closer can judge by the comments if there is a significant uptick, and I'm concerned about splitting the vote - incremental changes work well in this area. The numbers that Barkeep have suggested removes double the number of admins that I suggested, but equally, the difference between 100 and 150 is not major, so I think that's probably the right "finishing" point for these sorts of changes (based on current activity levels). We could see how 20 a year works out, and bump it to 100 a year in a few years time, for example. Worm^TT(talk) 10:16, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

• Comment I think we should be looking at admin actions, not edit counts. I just ran across an admin today who keeps editing but hasn't used his admin tools....since 2010! That's crazy! Do we really think actively editing but not actively adminning administrators will, after years of inactivity, start helping out with administrative backlogs? I realize that I can't change the course of an RFC with a discussion comment but I just wanted to say that we should be looking not at administrators editing activity but whether or not they are helping out with admin work. They could be writing FA articles, which is great, but if it's been a decade since they have blocked a vandal or deleted a page of BLP-violating content, it's questionable that they should still be admins. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:40, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

I must amend my comment. I went back and reviewed this admin's logged actions again and they did block an account in 2018 but prior to that one action, it had been no logged actions since 2010. And another admin account I looked at today hadn't had an admin action since 2015! So I don't think this is an isolated incident. Didn't we, a few years ago, approach admins who weren't actively using their tools and ask them if they would consider resigning? I thought that happened a few years ago, maybe by bureaucrats. But perhaps it was just a discussion that occurred and no action was ever taken. This is a perennial discussion so I might be remembering things incorrectly. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:49, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Requiring admin actions does make sense (and some other projects require them), but even the minimal editing requirement we have now has weeded a lot of inactive "admins", and this somewhat higher should clean up even more. --RL0919 (talk) 00:08, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

For me it's about staying current with community norms and expectations and maintaining a social bond with the community. Actually blocking or protecting a page or deleting a page (the core three of the sysop toolset) is very easy on its own and even easier if you use Twinkle. New admin have no trouble picking it up - instead they're cautioned to go slowly for social reasons. From an account security perspective it would definitely be better for people to use the tools if they have sysop. From a running of the encyclopedia, I'm much less concerned that someone who is around regularly editing is suddenly going to go rogue with the toolset. It's that kind of risk I think this activity level helps with. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:11, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

I think this is the best summary - we'd remove fairly few negatives by also adding a logged actions requirement. I have plenty of administrative actions but none in, say, the DYK process. An active editor who doesn't use their admin tools is in touch with the norms but perhaps at risk of making an error when doing an administrative action...but so would if I branched into my inactive areas. (Not, of course, that I'm the model of flawless administrative actions even in the areas I am active in) Nosebagbear (talk) 10:02, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Liz: a bureaucrat did launch a trial balloon by trying to impress upon less-active sysops the community’s collective apprehension: encouraging them to re-engage in earnest, or, to respectfully return the toolset. I think they had some, but limited, success (though the sample size was probably too small to make any strong determinations one way or the other if this is a useful activity). –xeno^talk 11:46, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

At one time I sent "welcome back" notices to admins that came off the monthly inactives report - after most of them were just ignored because some were just there to get their "one edit a year" in I quit doing it. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:42, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

I completely agree with you Liz. If they aren't preforming admin actions they do not need the admin right. Gonnym (talk) 12:21, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

• We used to see (and probably still do, I haven't looked) admins who met the one-edit-per-year threshold by replying to the warning that they're about to be desysopped for not having made any edits in a year. That's irritating but AGFable. Now, if someone were doing that in actual bad faith, the equivalent would be twenty deliberately-trivial edits in a sandbox or such, the way we sometimes manage to catch people doing to get auto- or extended-confirmed (but much more often, nobody notices). Are bureaucrats going to be looking at contrib lists or just bot reports, even for admins near the threshold? And what's the plan for when something like this happens? And that really is a "when", not an "if". —Cryptic 00:36, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

  Suppose it could require n "admin actions" per period; then if an admin is making inappropriate actions they can just be dragged to Arbcom. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:42, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

May I ask why part 2 wont come into force until 1 January 2023? Assuming this passes (which looks likely as of typing this), why wait 8+ months to enact it? Thanks. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 09:29, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

These proposals are perennial and have historically failed. I wanted to give any administrators who might get caught up in them plenty of time to get themselves back involved in the community. I don't think anyone believes going from 1-100 is a good thing, so giving them over 6 months to reach the activity level seemed fair and a reasonable sacrifice to get the proposal over the line. Worm^TT(talk) 10:02, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Worm! Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 10:28, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

• Comment As I've mentioned elsewhere, the issue is Pareto distribution. We will always have the long tail of the distribution which now results in admins-in-name-only who keep the mop in defiance of WP:HATSHOP. I would suggest, instead, that we chop the long tail off. We can find current editors who would be suitable for RfA but give them the mop on something less than a lifetime basis, returning truth to WP:NOBIGDEAL. This way, we harness the enthusiasm of well-behaved editors who would be happy being term-limited admins with the potential to become lifetime admins like our current admin corps. For current admins, this would likely be unpalatable because the tools would likely be the same bundle and they might feel this to be a break of faith with the old-timers who haven't been useful since 2010 but still expect loyalty. I don't care if we develop some type of award to visibly recognize the HATSHOP crowd who aren't appropriate to the current admin challenges but they are the ones who have to go. I think the community could buy term limits as a way to gain consensus as many of those same editors could climb the ladder of offices with such a short-term appointment. No matter what sort of baseline minimum we establish for admin activity, there will always be the long tail and that is the issue to address. How many admin actions over how long a time is playing small ball at the margins, typical of the thinking you find on this website. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:00, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

  This concept had some level of community support during RFA2021 with the close suggesting a version of this might get consensus. Might want to (re-)read that discussion as you think about this. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:19, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

• Comment—I think we do have a definite divide between people who adhere to "if it ain't broke don't fix it" and those who adhere to "continuous improvement is the way to go". That's a natural divide that's part of my environment at work. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:16, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
• Comment. There also seems to be a divide between those who trust editors who have passed RfA, including to know when to abstain from using the tools or even to resign them, versus those who feel adminship is a job, and editors who aren't doing it (enough) now should have the tools removed. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:19, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

  The "trust gained is not permanent" group, or "unlike notability, trust is not permanent". --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 15:53, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Dennis' alternate proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

As Dennis Brown suggested above, having a system in place to remove inactive admins through a community discussion might be a better way. I agree with this because (as he said) it requires active involvement from the community. So how about something like this, instead of Worm's proposal?

Collapsed current text, to be modified
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Administrators who have made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped.[13] This desysopping is reversible in some cases (see #Restoration of adminship) and never considered a reflection on the user's use of, or rights to, the admin tools. The admin must be contacted on their user talk page and via email (if possible) one month before the request for desysopping and again several days before the desysopping goes into effect. Desysopping on inactivity grounds should be handled by English Wikipedia bureaucrats. The summary in the user rights log should make it clear that the desysopping is purely procedural. If necessary, the user's userpage should be edited to clarify the status — particularly if any categorization is involved.

Collapsed proposed text by Worm That Turned
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Administrators who meet one or both of the following criteria may be desysopped for inactivity: has made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least a 12 months period OR has made less than 100 edits over a 60-month period (coming into force 1 January 2023). This desysopping is reversible in some cases (see Wikipedia:Administrators#Restoration of adminship) and never considered a reflection on the user's use of, or rights to, the admin tools. The admin must be contacted on their user talk page on two different occasions before the desysopping goes into effect. Desysopping on inactivity grounds should be handled by English Wikipedia bureaucrats. The summary in the user rights log should make it clear that the desysopping is purely procedural.

Administrators who meet one or both of the following criteria may be desysopped for inactivity through a publicized community discussion:

1. has made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least a 12 months period, OR
2. has made less than 100 edits over a 60-month period (coming into force 1 January 2023).

This desysopping for inactivity is not reversible without a new Request for adminship. The admin must be contacted on their user talk page thirty (30) days prior to and at the time the desysopping discussion is begun. The discussion should last for a minimum of seven (7) days. English Wikipedia Bureaucrats should determine the consensus of the desysopping discussion and, if the consensus is to desysop, handle the desysopping on inactivity grounds. The summary in the user rights log should make it clear that the desysopping is purely procedural per a community discussion (with a link to that discussion).

Thoughts? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 17:54, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

• No. Considering that Dennis' problem with WTT's proposal was that it's a solution looking for a problem, this is even more so: we have a perfectly good inactivity process, of which the details are occasionally tweaked (such as is happening today). This, on the other hand, would re-write the entire procedure. It's not just an alternate proposal, but an alternate policy. SN54129 18:05, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• If an admin has been desysopped after a community discussion, then surely it is not "purely procedural", or there would have been nothing to discuss. -- Pawnkingthree (talk) 18:09, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose. What is happening with Worm's proposal and Barkeep's amendment is the community discussion. If the proposal doesn't get traction because there are too many thoughts that there should be more community discussion, that would be the time to offer an alternate. As this stands, it will just get in the way of what appears to be a workable solution to a known existing problem. Perhaps it would be better to withdraw this proposal until such time as and when it becomes appropriate to raise it. SilkTork (talk) 18:11, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• I've been in favor of some kind of community desysop method. But so far the community consensus has not been there. The idea of allowing such a method for inactive sysops only is interesting but I think this would need far more development/thought and would not want to see this activity proposal be derailed by that perennial proposal (albeit with a new twist). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:13, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. I think that having a discussion like this would lead to the kind of chaotic spectacle that we see at ANI at its worst. This would actually be cruel to the admin being discussed. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:15, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose Adminship is already too political. This proposal creates a rule that no one in our clique loses the mop unless the good ol'boy network says it's ok. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:15, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose - I don't think this was a well-thought-out proposal. As worded, this removes the automatic no-fault procedural desysop for inactive admins when they fail stated activity requirements, and instead we will only be able to remove inactive admins after a 7-day discussion, and do we have a separate 7-day discussion for each inactive admin? There are several every month. This is too procedure-heavy. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:18, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• Have processes of community review on admins, i.e. desysopping via community discussion, been proposed previously? From what I recall, they haven't succeeded or fared well. How should this proposal be different from other such proposals? BTW, oppose Dennis's alt proposal; he has (possibly apparent) advocacy for less than active admins, doesn't he? --George Ho (talk) 18:22, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

• Too bad this was so quick. I actually have a longer, slightly better thought out version on my talk page. Above was just off the cuff, so you can't really say it was a good or bad idea, it wasn't even an idea, it was a comment. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:18, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
  • I'll go look at it. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 19:23, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
    • Still needs tweaks, but basically, it is like a non binding RFC. The crats still have 100% control of the process, BUT when there is potential outcry, it allows them to get more input from the community. If there is way more negative than positive, the individual Crats can simply choose to not act, not re-bit the person. The key is that it is nonbinding, it is simply providing a format for the community to speak out when it is controversial. Similar to the 24 hour hold, but taken a little further for the rare times the Crats would benefit from hearing from the community. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:35, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
    • Technically, it is a change of procedure more than change of policy, because nothing is automatic, and the decision making process is the same, it only allows you to get more input in a slightly more formal way. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:40, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
      • So, it formalizes what 'crats could technically already do. I would have no objections to that. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 19:52, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
        • And I think it makes it easier for Crats to choose to not act on a request. I don't mean it like "blame shifting" on the community, but if 50 people show up to comment and overwhelmingly they think you shouldn't grant the bit back, it does provide a little cover and justification. Of course, Crats never have to act, never have to justify NOT acting. This would help the former admin understand why no Crat wants to jump up and add the bits back. Technically, they can always appeal to Arb, but they can do that now, it's just no one ever has because 99% of the time, they get the bits back, even though the community doesn't want them to. (talking about edge cases only) At each step, a Crat decides what happens next, even if it is against consensus, so there is no diminishing the Crat role. Again, it could be tweaked, but I think the general outline of goals is workable. In fact, you could do this now without any change of policy, if you get right down to it. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:59, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

          If we get to a point where no 'crat will do something, and arbcom petitions stewards to do it - we have a much bigger problem. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:00, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

          • I don't see that. If by some miracle the individual went to Arb and Arb took the case (unlikely if they are wise) and found they MUST be resysopped, I would imagine a Crat would comply simply because it is a valid request by Arb. I don't see Stewards ever getting involved. The shit would likely hit the fan after that Arb case, but that is all local. These are highly unlikely scenarios. Arb only handles what the community can't, and if anything, using the non-binding discussion would make it abundantly clear to Arb that the community can, and has dealt with it. Yes, anything is possible, but some things are highly improbable. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 21:32, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
            • Part of my thinking is that, even if it is just an open discussion at BN that lasts a day or so, by the time the re-applying admin has gone through that, it's not really that much more to do a new RfA. The situation where feedback to the crats would be strongly positive is also one where the RfA would pass easily. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:22, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
              • I'm guessing you've never tried an RFA ;) This is very different. It is a discussion only, nonbinding. RFA is hell. This is just uncomfortable. This doesn't even need a change in policy, it is only a Crat soliciting more feedback before they do a final read on policy. A Crat MUST follow policy, so if the personal qualifies on a technical basis but there is a large outpouring of negativity, the Crat can't technically deny them, but the Crat(s) can choose to not act. There is no policy that says an admin or Crat must act in any given situation. In other words, the request dies on the vine. This is completely within existing policy, nothing needs to be changed except some undocumented methods, ie: starting the discussion. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 00:56, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
                • You guessed correctly, and I take your point. :) Although uncomfortable versus, in effect, very uncomfortable is a matter of quantitative rather than qualitative difference. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:10, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

I'm not convinced that the apparently desired "uplift" to reflect the strong uplift opinions expressed can be identified through the closing consensus. Maybe 2-3 options now would been a more practical, speedy solutions than tiny increments over seemingly geological time? Leaky caldron (talk) 13:49, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

• Two minor points, Worm:
  1. Presumably the If necessary, the user's userpage should be edited to clarify the status — particularly if any categorization is involved. line isn't intended to be removed?
  2. I think also that has made less than 100 edits should be has made fewer than 100 edits (emphasis added), no?

  Not a big deal; mutatis mutandis, etc. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 16:21, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

  @Amorymeltzer The first, you're right, never intended that to go. The second - ugh, you're one of those people. Yes, ok, I've updated it. Worm^TT(talk) 17:30, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah sorry; not my best trait, not my worst. I didn't want to be one! A college roommate corrected me on it constantly and it just sort of happened... ~ Amory (u • t • c) 18:51, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

• Could I check whether this will remove the 0 edits/actions in the year or add to it? That is, would 0 edits in a year, or under 100 edits/60 months lead to removal? Or just the latter? Nosebagbear (talk) 17:50, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

  The updated wording is above but this will add to it - so if you make 100 edits in year 1 you will still need to make the one edit per year too. Worm^TT(talk) 18:00, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

• Is the intent that this should be a rolling 60-month period?—S Marshall T/C 11:53, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

  @S Marshall The calculation has been designed as an average across the rolling 60-month period. So if I made 100 edits today, I would be good for 60 months on that part - although it might look like gaming the system. In reality, it means that an active admin who is making say, a few thousand edits per year, can drop their activity to absolutely minimal (1 to 2 edits) for a year or so, and then pick back up without any problems. That's by design for this current iteration. Worm^TT(talk) 12:20, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

  I should also note that I would expect the report to be run on a monthly basis, similar to the current system, so you do have a couple of weeks "grace" on average. Worm^TT(talk) 12:21, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

  Would it be in order to suggest that we insert "rolling" before "60-month period" to clarify that? I know a lot of !votes are already in.—S Marshall T/C 12:23, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

  That is not in the existing wording of the policy for 1 edit/action in a 12 month period, but it is already understood and applied that way. --RL0919 (talk) 12:38, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

  Indeed. It's clear from the proposal that it is rolling, explained directly below the wording, so I don't think anyone would complain if it is added, but I also don't really think it's necessary. Worm^TT(talk) 13:03, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

  In practice, we will likely only evaluate this once a month instead of continuously. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:30, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

• I'm inclined to support. Looking back at my own history, I went through a period in 2011-2013 where I had just dove into a major IRL project and was basically inactive on wikipedia for 3 full years. Looking through my admin logs, I think I performed a total of 6 admin actions during that time. And yet, I would have still met the requirements being proposed here. So this really is a low bar. But, before I commit, Worm That Turned I'm curious; I see Geschichte and Timwi in your analysis table, but not Jonathunder. Could you run the analysis for them as well? Both Geschichte and Timwi met the proposed requirements, so while in theory I think this is a good idea, I don't see how it addresses the ostensible "We've got a rash of out-of-touch legacy admins running amok; we need to fix that" problem. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:33, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Jonathunder stats
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Admin name Last edit date 50 edits go back to 100 edits go back to 300 edits go back to 500 edits go back to Most recent action User:Jonathunder 2022-02-22 2021-11-15 2021-09-07 2021-06-11 2021-04-27 2021-10-09

RoySmith, It's quite simple to run them, yes - and you'll see that Jonathunder didn't hit either of these criteria either. However, you'll note that nowhere in my rationale, nor in the proposal, do I mention the recent 3 cases we've had at Arbcom - where the big issue was less that the admins were "out of touch" and more that they weren't willing to enter into discussion in a manner we'd hope for. This proposal is unrelated to those cases. Worm^TT(talk) 14:44, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

In response to some of the more recent comments on trust, I'm repeating a comment I made under a now-collapsed section: My sense from the support statements and past conversations on this topic is that editors generally prefer that those who are enforcing policies be actively part of the community, so that they are invested in the success of their actions. Editing over the last five years is an imperfect measure, but I think it's a reasonable first approximation. The recent responses to some of the requests to reacquire administrative privileges are along these same lines: it's highly recommended to have substantial periods of editing to demonstrate your level of engagement with the project. (As mentioned by others, there are also those who want to reduce the potential attack surface for security purposes.) isaacl (talk) 15:43, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Trust

jc37's discussion about lack of trust, etc.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Ok, so we have these proposals every so often, and they nibble a bit more and a bit more. But even if we ignore the nonsense of the editcountitis, I just can't get past how this really comes across as ABF ("Assuming bad faith", as opposed to AGF - "Assuming good faith") I have no doubt that for some at least (looks at User:Worm That Turned), this is well-meant. And for others, throwing darts at admins has long been a past time on Wikipedia. And I'm also not surprised at the abundance of meetoo/"sounds good to me" votes above. But here's the thing. At RfA we make a huge deal about how it is about community trust. It's part of why RfA is what it is. Because everyone has their own personal standard of where they draw the line on trusting someone with the tools and responsibility of adminship. And every person to be affected by this proposal passed the community threshhold of trust at the time they were imparted the tools. So now, for no given reason, we are saying we are removing the tools because we don't trust you. We don't trust that you have kept yourself up to date on current policy or process or practice. Well, how the blank do you know? So these admins are guilty until proven innocent? If they haven't been editing - which is the only way we have to tell anything, by a person's edits - how do you know what they have been reading? Sounds like assuming bad faith, to me. Or we don't trust the process of days gone by. Maybe we feel that the levels of trust back then aren't good enough now. To that I ask - then why is this based upon activity? If we are to say that and be neutral about it. then ALL admins from back then should ALL lose the tools and be required to pass a new RfA. To do otherwise invalidates the arguement. Of course, that's presuming that either of these are the real rationales. Reading between the lines (and admittedly, reading these types of proposals over the years have stretched my good faith for some of the commenters' rationales) - a lot of this feels like it's just an excuse to remove the tools from everyone who doesn't have a fanbase, social tribe, or clique. (Another example of "us vs them") Thus making the less-than-active editors easier targets. As I said above, I honestly believe that the proposal is well-meant, but it comes across as VERY un-wiki to me. Oh and to all those arguing that admins are "gaming the system" by doing token edits, I'll put forth 2 things. First, if we trusted them, we wouldn't be requiring it in the first place, and second, isn't this proposal a form of gaming the system to nibble at gettng rid of admins that some see as "undesirable"? I have no doubt that the all-too-common vote counter will come across and close this proposal as "successful", but that doesn't make it right. Adminship has always been about trust, and, always should be. I'm sorry to see the extent of the lack of trust on this page. - jc37 17:04, 21 March 2022 (UTC) So now, for no given reason, we are saying we are removing the tools because we don't trust you. Wrongedy wrongedy wrong. We are removing the tools because these individual are obviously not using them. We are, in fact, trusting them. We are trusting that they know their own situations well enough to know they can't meaningfully contribute as toolholders. And yes, we do want to make it easier to remove the tools from such non-users. The alternative is to drag them through one of two processes that are onerous for all concerned. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 17:24, 21 March 2022 (UTC) Try again. If we trusted them, as you state, then shouldn't that individual be trusted to make that call, instead of us requiring them to jump through arbitrary editcountitis hoops? This is about forcing one's wil upon another. That's not trust. Not at all. If you want a process for community de-adminship (which I might support) then do that. This, not-so-much. - jc37 17:33, 21 March 2022 (UTC) I don't see this as about trust at all, really. Deactivating inactive accounts with advanced privileges is just good security practice, and I see these proposals as more about security than about trust. We deliberately make that process very lightweight: the bar by which we measure activity is incredibly low (you basically have to be completely absent from the site for an entire year, under the current policy) and an admin who has lost their userright and isn't otherwise disqualified can get their tools back just by asking the 'crats. That's already enshrined in policy. The bigger part of this is that there has been an undercurrent each time this is discussed that editors want their administrators to also be part of the community here, not just automatons who swing by once in a while to push buttons. That is a sentiment that is not limited to Wikipedia: in the real world, most political systems require elected officials to be residents of their own constituency, many communities require police officers to live in the community they serve, and so on. A large proportion of editors who comment at RfAs express a desire for admins to be active content creators (see for example User:Ritchie333/Why admins should create content or Wikipedia:Content awareness, not content creation for some opinions on the matter), and proposals like this are further expressions of that desire: for the inactivity policy to reflect real participation, rather than just ticking a box once a year. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 17:45, 21 March 2022 (UTC) As I said above, I recognise that for some this is about the idea that they are part of one's tribe. But here's the thing, that's a RfA issue. Everyone was allowed a chance to express that, and you know what? The editor in question was entrusted the tools by the community. This is de-adminship based upon arbitrary criterion. We don't categorise articles based upon such criteria, but hey, we'll de-sysop a trusted admin... - jc37 18:01, 21 March 2022 (UTC) I would personally say that I see these proposals as less of a lack of trust that they once had, for me personally I never had that "trust" to begin with. You need to remember that a lot of editors don't know/were not around when some legacy admins were last active in conducting admin actions (I sure wasn't) and therefore never had that chance to build "trust" in these admins to begin with (Trust is earned not given). I can't "trust" someone I have never seen edit to be an appropriate administrator of the wiki. Though I am happy to support new RFA's when I can see the editor in question. If they return to editing then that is a plus in my book but just sitting on the sidelines gives me no confidence (No matter the reason as I would not be privy to that sort of information). Terasail[✉️] 18:04, 21 March 2022 (UTC) I appreciate that that is your personal perspective. As I mentioned that above - If you want them to lose adminship because you feel you weren't a part of the process that entrusted them in the first place or even if merely that you don't trust that past process, then that should apply to ALL admins who received the tools under that, not just some that meet some arbitrary numerical threshhold. - jc37 18:13, 21 March 2022 (UTC) Its not so much that I want to have users loose rights, but lets take you for example, I could go to your talk and ask for your perspective on current matters / see your responses to others. I physically can't guage a person who isn't around and I would not want to be a person who takes someones 5 year old opinion as their current stance on a situation. The whole security point is neither here nor there for me I just would like to be able to interact with people who manage and enforce rules on the wiki. Terasail[✉️] 18:23, 21 March 2022 (UTC) There's a very easy way to do that. The same way we can find out if any editor is currently active today. Check their edit history. Very easy to do. (And if you wanted more information, you could look to see if the editor has some sort of note about their activity on their userpage. It's not required, but some do. In my case, one might note the top userbox on my userboxes page, if one looked.) - jc37 18:38, 21 March 2022 (UTC) There's also this page of course. - jc37 18:40, 21 March 2022 (UTC) Yes, I do understand that, but the first user I opened had their last 20 contributions go back to 2015 with no userpage tag (No name drop) but this is the editor I refer to when I can't guage them and I refer to my last statement. Terasail[✉️] 18:48, 21 March 2022 (UTC) Then, if I understand you correctly, for you this is about removing adminship due to a lack of trust (as you note above)? - jc37 18:54, 21 March 2022 (UTC) Yeah, I understand that life changes but there is little point in my eyes of maintaining an "interaction, mediation, monitoring & enforcing" role in the wiki if you are no longer interested in doing those tasks. People will see the tag and may look for guidance, I would hope that any user in that situation is getting advice from someone who is still interested in developing the wiki. Terasail[✉️] 19:00, 21 March 2022 (UTC) I would too. I just think we could be more honest about this. The seeming lack of transparency on this is concerning. Maybe we need to discuss criteria for "losing the community's trust". But this page just feels like people saying that they don't think they can get that to pass, so they'll do this arbitrary thing instead, to see if they can slip it under the radar. The way that this is being done really makes me uncomfortable. - jc37 19:07, 21 March 2022 (UTC) @Jc37: Stop making this about something it's not. It's not about Capital T "We Trust You" in all things style trust. It's about small t We put our trust in you to do things that need to be done. They are not doing those things. If any trust has been broken, it's that we trusted them to be here and they are not. They have decided to not use the tools they were trusted with so they don't get to keep them indefinitely. It's as simple as that. Decrying editcountitis is just a red herring. How else other than an individual's own choices in engage with the project are we to evaluate their engagement by? Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:20, 21 March 2022 (UTC) That may be your definition of "trust" in relation to entrusting an editor with the tools and responsibilities of adminship, but we allow for a lot broader base of criteria at RfA. Again, show me how this isn't forcing your will, your version of "trust", upon others. Wikipedia:Advice_for_RfA_candidates#RfA essays and criteria is a fun read. It exemplifies even just some of the divergence of opinion on what each individual's criteria for entrusting is. But see, when an editor receives adminship, the discussion is closed, because they earned the community's trust. Not merely yours or mine. This is just an end run around that. - jc37 18:32, 21 March 2022 (UTC) They earned the community's trust to use the tools. Why is that a difficult concept? I note that you, yourself, didn't really have to "earn the community's trust". You passed RfA at at time when WP:NBD was fully in force, and trust was assumed. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:47, 21 March 2022 (UTC) I am not sure that old RFA standards are even really appropraite to bring up, I wouldn't put much weight in todays RFA 8 years from now.. People change and all that. jc37 is correct that they did earn the communities trust, however I think that its important for admins to maintain the trust with new & old editors by maintaining some level of interaction and that is why I think a 5 year buffer is appropraite since it allows for a decent length of inactivity (for whatever reason) but longer just seems that they are no longer interested in interacting with the wiki community. Terasail[✉️] 18:56, 21 March 2022 (UTC) @Terasail: Jc37 below stated {tc|Admins are merely editors who are entrusted additional tools...}} which is very much the essence of WP:DEAL and therefore brought up that old RfA standard themselves. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:02, 21 March 2022 (UTC) Nope, nothing to do with WP:DEAL. Merely just paraphrasing the top of Wikipedia:Administrators. - jc37 19:10, 21 March 2022 (UTC) (ec) - It's not that it's a difficult concept. The point is, it's your interpretation. And as I said above, if you do not trust the past process, then that should be equally true for ALL admins who received adminship under such. Not just a subset split out by some arbitrary numerical quantity. But whatever. Your argument proves my point. That this is entirely about no longer trusting someone who was trusted by the community in the past. - jc37 19:00, 21 March 2022 (UTC) No. You're conflating that sense of trust with the technical access control and task performance sense of trust. They are different things. If a 2003 admin who passed RfA with a self-nom and 12 "why not?" yes votes is still active, they are still actually being admins. If a 2021 admin is AWOL then they are not an admin. It has nothing to do with what we feel about a person or personal judgments about individual worth or ingroups and outgroups. It has everything to do with "are they actually, you know, admins?" Too many retain the bit and do nothing with it. They are not admins in any functional sense. They do not need what they choose not to use. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:08, 21 March 2022 (UTC) "If a 2021 admin is AWOL then they are not an admin." - who says? You? And how do we define AWOL in this case? By some arbitrary numerical threshhold? I get it. This is your opinion. This is your criteria of trust. And you want to change Wikipedia policy to match it. - jc37 19:13, 21 March 2022 (UTC) Well, yeah. That's how policy on Wikipedia works. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 22:02, 21 March 2022 (UTC) That's rather like saying "who are you to say what is notable? How do we define this?" - none of us are allowed to impose our own given definition of notability on the project, but where we can gather a sufficiently broad consensus (even if not unanimous by any means), that can be imposed on the project as a PAG. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:35, 22 March 2022 (UTC) (edit conflict) It is not unusual, even within entirely voluntary organisations, for a minimum level of regular skill usage to be demonstrated by proven activity. Leaky caldron (talk) 17:48, 21 March 2022 (UTC) Admins are merely editors who are entrusted additional tools and responsibilities. All things being equal, by your comment, all inactive editors should be blocked from the site. But we don't do that here. We trust until proven otherwise. - jc37 18:01, 21 March 2022 (UTC) All things aren't equal. I cannot block someone or protect a favoured version. Leaky caldron (talk) 19:00, 21 March 2022 (UTC) I meant in relation to additional tools. For example, a Confirmed editor has more tools and responsibilities than an unconfirmed one. (See Special:ListGroupRights.) What I was expressing (poorly, I guess lol) was that if we don't trust an editor with extra tools due to inactivity, then we should be blocking all inactive editors with additional tools. - jc37 19:19, 21 March 2022 (UTC) The equivalent thing would be to remove their additional tools, not to block them. For example, if a user was granted CheckUser or Oversight tools, and then became inactive, we would remove those tools. Which is in fact exactly what happens. We don't have any policy to do that with lower-impact privileges like confirmation or rollback, but if we did, it would hardly be the same as blocking the inactive users. --RL0919 (talk) 19:27, 21 March 2022 (UTC) I'd agree, but I was referring to autoconformed. (Again, sorry I wasn't clearer.) Though I dunno, maybe there is a Wikimedia way to remove autoconfirmed tools. Otherwise, to prevent someone from using those tools would be to block them. Consider someone abusing moving pages, for example. Regardless, you're prolly right. The point is likely better made by saying "removal of tools & responsibilities", because then we can look at all additional tool sets. - jc37 19:42, 21 March 2022 (UTC) Autoconfirmed and extend confirmed are a low-responsibility right because it's granted automatically. However ECU can be removed for vandalism or gaming the system but (Abuse filter) can revoke/decline autoconfirmed so normal admins should be able to delay autopromotion, I think. Thingofme (talk) 13:09, 22 March 2022 (UTC) This proposal is nothing like blocking inactive users. Happy Editing--IAmChaos 01:13, 22 March 2022 (UTC) Well, it's removing tool use from a user, which is pretty much all that blocking does. So yes actually it is. We can of course discuss the quality or value of the tools inquestion, but it's prevention of tool use, just the same. The only real difference is blocking merely prevents tool use for the duration of the block. This proposal will actually remove tools, not just prevent their usage. - jc37 03:33, 23 March 2022 (UTC) My sense from the support statements and past conversations on this topic is that editors generally prefer that those who are enforcing policies be actively part of the community, so that they are invested in the success of their actions. Editing over the last five years is an imperfect measure, but I think it's a reasonable first approximation. The recent responses to some of the requests to reacquire administrative privileges are along these same lines: it's highly recommended to have substantial periods of editing to demonstrate your level of engagement with the project. (As mentioned by others, there are also those who want to reduce the potential attack surface for security purposes.) isaacl (talk) 20:53, 21 March 2022 (UTC) I appreciate your opinion. I just think that this is a really poor way to go about that. If we want to set up a process for the community to say that they no longer trust a peron with certain tools, then fine, let's have that discussion. But (and not necessarily directed towards you, but more just a general comment) this is just arbitrary cherry-picking, and as we're seeing, just seems to bleed bad faith. - jc37 03:41, 23 March 2022 (UTC) a lot of this feels like it's just an excuse to remove the tools from everyone who doesn't have a fanbase, social tribe, or clique. (Another example of "us vs them") I don't get this at all. I have none of those (nor do I want them), but I think this change makes sense. If you're not actively editing, you're likely not in touch with how policies and guidelines have changed. Therefore you shouldn't be in a position to enforce them. Consensus can change applies to notability, and selection of folks as an admin. Star Mississippi 17:59, 22 March 2022 (UTC) Well said. I too have none of these (nor am I an admin). It's a mop, not a crown or a badge - it needs to be dipped back in the bucket regularly to be able to do any good. Retswerb (talk) 22:06, 22 March 2022 (UTC) You both are misreading what I wrote. that was one thing among several. and while, in my opinion, it does apply, it does not necessarily apply in every case. So if you both say it dpes not apply to you, I'll accept that at face value. I'll just note that I would be surprised if anyone actually wrote down that it did apply to them though, obviously. And yes, it's a mop, just an extra set of tools and responsibilities. I've re-affirmed that repeatedly, even on this page several times : ) - jc37 03:33, 23 March 2022 (UTC) I note that Jc37 has not contributed to mainspace since September 2021, and the last time he did was to edit-war on Justice League, so as far as trusting them with the admin toolset, my gut feeling is "no". Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 18:01, 22 March 2022 (UTC) lol nice. you know, with all the name changes around here, sometimes people might forget who they are speaking with or who might have lost the community's trust in the past. It's an interesting conundrum, to be sure.. Anyway, as for Justice League - it's a shame you apparently didn't actually check more into that. beyond the scope of this discussion, but whatever. Instead of using the tools on that situation, I chose to attempt to engage with an editor who had already been blocked for mass removal of text. but he clearly was less-than-receptive to that. he was clearly not following policy in several ways including brd, OR, and some stuff that looked like copyvio, but I won't claim to be an expert in that. I also seem to recall leaving notices about that at the admin's noticeboard and the comics wikiproject. but eventually, real life (tm) called and I chose to disengage. I'm a firm believer in "there's always another admin". So eventually someone else will address the situation. Notice, I still have not engaged since returning.. I really didn't need to respond to your nonsense, after all, you are welcome to personally trust (or not) whomever you choose. Oh and thank you for helping prove my point - That this is about expressing a lack of trust. As I said at the top - It's a shame the amount of lack of trust and honestly ABF that I'm seeing on this page, and even in this followup thread that I started. I hope everyone enjoys the bed they are making for themselves... - jc37 03:33, 23 March 2022 (UTC) I definitely don't agree with a lot of this feels like it's just an excuse to remove the tools from everyone who doesn't have a fanbase, social tribe, or clique. There are plenty of admins who, either currently or at one time, had/have a large amount of social capital but are not active. It happens quite frequently with the more stringent CUOS activity requirements, and a lot of removed-due-to-inactivity functionaries are editors who I personally hold in high regard. Seemingly, when they're able to return to activity they just email ArbCom and, assuming they still have ArbCom's confidence, receive the tools back again. I see the same principle as equally applicable here. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:30, 23 March 2022 (UTC) Trust - section break Hi @Jc37. I've been meaning to reply to your thoughts, but have been exceptionally busy over the past few days, so I do apologise for the delay. First, I'd like to appreciate that you note this proposal comes from a place of good faith - I do trust these administrators, who have long been part of our community, to not go wild and blow things up. Many would meet my standards for RfA, and I would gladly nominate them personally for a future RFA - assuming they were at a standard I thought the community would accept. However, I also believe that in general, those that have supported this proposal see things similarly. They're not suggesting that the administrators who are no longer as engaged as we would like are bad people, or that any one individual likely to harm the encyclopedia. However, simply looking at the numbers, we can see that between 1 and 2 fifths of the administrator force is inactive by even the minimal standards we've defined above. What's more, they've been inactive for years and years. That's not a problem, Wikipedia has changed over the years and our userbase has evolved with it, but we should accept that these individuals as a group, does do harm. Now, it might be due to security and surface area of attack, or it might be due to the idea that we "have enough admins", or it might be due to the risk of not being up to date with current norms - but the group as a whole is something that should be addressed. I wanted to address it with administrator reviews, on a personal level, so that we could look at each individual case if they actively wanted to keep the tools. The community didn't accept that proposal, and I understand that. This proposal doesn't put the strain on the community, or on the individual's in the group. What it does is ask them to get a bit involved, or give up the tool. It's not about editcountitis - but edit count is one of the simplest and easy to understand measures that we have. You are right that it is extremely easy to game, but you know what - I'm going to assume good faith and believe that our admins don't want to game it. Either they'll try to meet the criteria or they won't. Making 100 edits to you own sandbox will anger some people, but I see something more likely - making 100 corrections in article space in a flurry of activity. That is a good outcome, we get 100 good edits! The admin might remember what they liked about Wikipedia and make even more, 100 edits is more than enough to remember that. Overall, to respond to your thoughts - I don't believe we are saying we don't trust the admins involved. We are encouraging them to meet minimal community norms, we are giving them over six months to do it, and if they don't, we are specifically saying it doesn't reflect on them individually. I fully intend to look at how to improve WP:RESYSOP too if this proposal passes, perhaps with something along the lines of Dennis' solution. WormTT(talk) 10:27, 23 March 2022 (UTC) Hi. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. I'm aware there are those who foolishly look at a block of text and arbitrarily say tldr. And I know you know I'm definitely not one of those lol. (With that in mind, I split this to a separate section, please feel free to re-format as you deem appropriate : ) Ok so to try to address your comments. Yes, of everyone here, I think that this is a well-meant proposal by you. If for no other reason than we've been here before. It's just that I think doing this as "the path of lesser resistance" in order to get "something" to pass in order to address what you see an issue that needs addressing, is leading to something that comes across as in bad faith. "Lack of trust" done in this way just seems wrong to me. As we are a volunteer project, everything we do has always had the undertone of editors are assessed by their edits. By what they have done. This proposal is based upon lack of edits. What someone has not done. That just goes against the idea that Wikipedia is a work in progress. That there is always another editor to take up the task. Instead we are forcing our will upon these volunteers saying you MUST edit, or else. And while I realise that the comments are meant to be well intended, but it is nigh nauseating to see a comment like (paraphrasing) "Well and if we force them to make quality mainspace edits out of this, all for the better." That is so wrongheaded, I don't know how I can more clearly say it. We are a volunteer project. And when sanctioning another editor (and yes removal of tools, responsibilities, or whatever else - even for a reason that is claimed to be neutral - is still a sanction) we are always preventative not punitive. This is punitive - "You aren't volunteering as many edits as we want to force you to make, so we are removing admin tools and responsibilities from you" This is flat out wrong. Please tell me how it isn't flat out wrong and how this does not go against our long-standing principles? This isn't being "encouraging", as you say. (See: wikt:encouraging). Being encouraging is by providing positive words. This is enforcement (See wikt:enforcement). Compulsion. We are a volunteer project. No one is forced to edit. Ever. Full stop. I can hear the arguments from other observers already, but pause a second. You wanna know why this became a feature, not a bug? Well at least one of the reasons? Look down to the bottom of the page. I'm not a lawyer, and I'll happily let someone else explain the details. But when you volunteer contributions, it's under a license. What happens to Wikipedia if, for example, someone sues that they want to NOT license their contributions because they claim they were under duress? That they would lose some community-given "something", unless they "gave" the community x number of contributions. Yes, one could say that that's arguable. But welcome to the court system, it's all about arguing such things. So to avoid that, we do not - can not - force people to edit. Edits need to be voluntary Are there exceptions to this? yes, we set standards that one's edits can lead to sanction. So we can say that if you do not explain your edits, your ability to edit in one or more ways may be curtailed. But even then that person is not required to edit. They are welcome to email - we have several email addresses set up just for that. Ok, so the "security" argument. I fully expect I'll hear all sorts of reasons and whatnot from others that what I am about to say is incorrect. But think about this before quick replying at how clueless I am in the modern-day internet. Saying that doing this for security reasons - to "...reduce the potential attack surface for security purposes". To that I say, with no implied disrespect to the well-meaning people who have said it - Utter BS. Sorry. But it is. If, due to this proposal we remove (making up a number) 15 admins. And tomorrow we have 15 successful RfAs, then we have zero, ZERO reduction of potential attack surface. (Yes, I am simplifying it, but not by much.) The only way that argument works is if one wants to have fewer admins overall. Which, I presume, is well beyond the scope of this proposal. As for RESYSOP, yes I think that also needs addressing, but to say that here, is like saying we want to create the stick before the carrot. All the above aside, yes, from your examples, I think there is something that does need addressing, but we really should engage this issue from a different direction. You've given me food for thought on that, and I've been thinking it through. It might be that we just need to give a re-think to adminship as a whole - rfa, tools, responsibilities, potential de-adminship, possible other tool and/or responsibility groups, etc. I'm not sure, yet, still thinking on it. But I think even if we just look at merely this aspect of it, then let's target the issue head-on. Create a process whereby the community can decide they no longer trust an editor with the tools and responsibilities of adminship - it's should be a consensual discussion of some type. We've proposed several different iterations of this in the past, maybe we can come up with something this time that the community will agree to, But this is not the way to go about it. I do, of course, welcome your thoughts. - jc37 23:20, 23 March 2022 (UTC) I agree with your points, but not your conclusions Some specifics... As we are a volunteer project, everything we do has always had the undertone of editors are assessed by their edits. By what they have done. And when they have done it. We don't sanction for actions taken 10 years ago, we don't give out adminship to inactive editors. And while I realise that the comments are meant to be well intended, but it is nigh nauseating to see a comment like (paraphrasing) "Well and if we force them to make quality mainspace edits out of this, all for the better." I take exception to that paraphrase for a number of reasons. Firstly, we're not forcing anyone to do anything, we're simply putting in a level of activity required to retain a tool. What's more, I've said nothing of quality mainspace edits, my thinking was "Admins have been appointed in the past, due to good edits. If they do those good edits again, then our project benefits". Your paraphrase appears to be looking at the worst possibly thought process, which does appear to be how you have approached the proposal. removal of tools, responsibilities, or whatever else - even for a reason that is claimed to be neutral - is still a sanction I cannot disagree with this point - you are right, we are sanctioning the editors - but I disagree that it is punative at least in the Wiki-way of thinking. Preventative, not punitive comes from our blocking policy, and specifically explains where we use preventative blocks - specifically to 3. encourage a more productive, congenial editing style within community norms. In other words, this is a sanction - but it is preventative. What happens to Wikipedia if, for example, someone sues that they want to NOT license their contributions because they claim they were under duress? That they would lose some community-given "something", unless they "gave" the community x number of contributions. I'm not going to comment on this much except to say that it is nonsense - that's not what duress is. What's more, if meant as hyperbole, I don't believe it is doing your argument any favours. Paraphrasing some of your other points - work in progress or "many hands make light work", yes, this is the wiki way - but we have additional permissions for a reason and we, as a community, accept that admin is a big deal (cf. adminship is a desireable position). So, while we open the entire wiki to everyone (ish), we do limit certain areas with user rights, and since adminship is one of the more contentious ones, it's important that those who hold it are aware of the responsibilities it entails, as they update. Regarding encouragement - one form of encouragement is creating an incentive to do something, and that's what we're doing. There's two types of incentive, "carrot" (a positive incentive if you do something) and "stick" (a negative incentive if you don't) - this proposal can be seen as either. as a negative, your user-right is removed if you do not do something, or a positive, you can keep your tool if you do something. Glass half full, or half empty - it's a philosophical argument. Regarding the security surface area issue, we're looking at removing 200-400 admins through this proposal in the first instance, shrinking the surface area by 1-2 fifths. To give a comparison, we have only created 200 admins since the beginning of 2011. I'm not talking hypothetical's here - I'm talking actual numbers. WormTT(talk) 13:54, 24 March 2022 (UTC) Thank you again for your thoughts. Before I try to respond to your thoughts, I probably should clarify something in case it's getting blended together. I've commented on several assertions of others', and have said several things, and not all are related. For example, me opposing for editcountitis is separate from me opposing for forcing editors to edit, and all of that is separate from my separate concern about the (from my perspective) seeming lack of good faith I'm seeing here as well as how I just see all of this as an unfounded lack of trust. I do understand that commenters have explained the "why" of their current lack of trust. But it saddens me nonertheless. Anyway, moving on to your thoughts. First, just to pull one out of the middle, just to explain the comment. As I said, I am not a lawyer. And I have no problem saying I may have used an incorrect word when I used "duress". But I said that because I distinctly remember discussions (in the distant past) where some of what we now consider fundamental infrastructure were considered and decided upon. And that included how the previous decisions concerning having open/copyleft type licenses afftected contributions, and how that interplayed with editor expectations (both "of" an editor, and "by" an editor), and maybe my memory is faulty, but I seem to recall reading that part of why editors are labelled as "volunteering" their edits has to do with licensing (among other many other things). Edits cannot be forced or required of an editor, or legally it becomes "messy". Anyway, like I said, just recollections from the past, very likely very poorly summarized by me. To your first point. We aren't talking about giving tools/responsibilities to editors deemed to be inactive. We are talking about taking tools /respponsibilities away from editors whom the community has already entrusted with said tools/responsibilities. There is a massively big difference there. Regarding your second: There is a difference between saying that an editor needs to do "something", and saying an editor must make this many edits over this arbitrary time frame. And actually I can think of far worse than what I am saying, as beans-ish as these discussions tend to necessarily be, I really do try to avoid what we can : ) - But the thing is, you and I may be well-meaning, but you or I may not be involved in the next discussion, and who knows how they may interpret your well-meant words, or mine. Once we encode these things, even though we do say that policy pages are to reflect common practice, and not the other way round, I'm sure that you've been in enough discussions to note how a particular phrase is written can affect the outcome of a discussion regarding content or an editor's behaviour. And so yes, we are forcing someone to edit in order to retain the tools and responsibilities of adminship - regardless of whether you or I agree whether that this is appropriate, in whatever context - we are indeed doing that. Regarding your third: I have no doubt that you see this as preventative. Especially based upon your other points about security. I disagree on both counts. But due to your further clarification, I suppose I can accept this as a subjective determination. Not thrilled with that, but I suppose I can accept it being subjective. Which is, I suppose what you are also referring to in your later point about carrot and stick. Regarding security: One word. Wow. I totally missed that this is intended to remove 200 admins. That has surprised me enough that I dunno how I want to respond to that. I saw your charts above, clearly I need to re-look at them. I saw them as theoretical examples, not as action plans. And in light of all of the above, I'll reiterate that we do need to look at RESYSOP if this passes (as it looks like it will) because "just asking for the tools back" that was agreed to in past discussions when the idea of activity threshholds were allowed by the community in the first place, just doesn't appear to be the case anymore. It's now up to the subjective choice of bureaucrats. Who, I've long been on the record as saying I trust, but who I think are being put in a "hands tied" position to pretty much initially deny all requests and basically have a crat chat version of a mini rfa to return tools at all, now. Somehow I don't think that that was what was envisioned when this whole merry-go-round started. Consensus can of course change. But I don't believe I was overstating that we're seeing "nibbling" with each additional proposal. - jc37 02:47, 25 March 2022 (UTC) I'm going to focus on one argument you make here jc. There are lots of ways to volunteer for this project. We have many editors who volunteer for this project each day by making some kind of helpful improvement without even registering for an account. Given the large number of ways you can volunteer, I think it's entirely reasonable for the community to say, if you would like to volunteer in this special way, that gives you special abilities, we expect something a bit more from you than we expect from other kinds of volunteers. They're not being told exactly how to volunteer for this - maybe they'll add a citation or maybe revert vandalism or rewrite a lead. There are literally dozens of other choices they could make to volunteer with or without sysop. That freedom is the great joy of being a volunteer and they retain that freedom whether they edit enough to keep sysop or not. When we remove sysop, or any other user group, from someone they are not being stopped from volunteering - block is where preventative not punitive comes in - they are simply being asked to volunteer in a different way. That's not something everyone will agree to. And losing people who are mission aligned is always sad. But also we're a community and it's ok for the community to set standards. But this proposal won't stop anyone from volunteering in dozens of different ways to help Wikipedia at whatever frequency they want. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:22, 24 March 2022 (UTC) Hi Barkeep49, thank you for sharing your thoughts. And yes there are many venues within Wikipedia in which one can edit. But this proposal is not talking about quality of edits, but merely quantity. And so everything we do here which others can see, is an edit (I say that very loosely, because I'll shy away from the debate of whether clicking a button is an "edit" : ) And I'll accept that not everyone sees the tools and responsibilities the same way (we've seen quite a few different perspectives even on this page alone). But I'm not sure that I would call being entrusted with some tools and responsibilities, as editing in a "special way". It's just editing. It may be at times editing stuff that maybe other editors have not been trusted to edit. But I really hesitate to add any adjective that suggests that an editor with these tools and responsibilities is "better" than any other editor. Trusted differently, sure. Better? uh uh. There are editors I trust as editors who have never been entrusted with these tools, nor ever asked for them, nor wants them. I wouldn't say any editor is better or worse than any other. We all bring our own specific-ness to the table and I would like to believe, each is special in their own way. I am aware that there are those who are jaded and just see those as words. But I believe this and my life experiences have routinely and repeatedly reinforced this to me. And no, I of course do not believe you are jaded in that way, I just wanted to express why I would hesitate using "special" in this context. - jc37 04:04, 25 March 2022 (UTC) Specifically regarding the security aspect (and leaving aside that whether or not there are any new admins is independent of this proposal): active editors are more likely to notice any edits or other actions using their account that weren't performed by them, and so do pose a lower security risk than inactive editors. isaacl (talk) 01:33, 24 March 2022 (UTC) Indeed, also (in general, on any site) newer accounts are probably more likely to have securer passwords than older ones, and even if you assume rates of password reuse haven’t changed, older accounts are more likely to have their decrypted passwords publicly dumped somewhere. Same principle applies vis a vis active old accounts and inactive old accounts; suspect a greater proportion of the former group have taken measures to have strong and non-reused passwords than the latter group, given the number of incidents of account compromises which active admins should probably recall. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:35, 24 March 2022 (UTC) Jc37 talks about a lack of trust, but their entire opening post is above all an exercise in misunderstanding, misreading or mere bad faith. PS: dropping this here. SN54129 14:44, 24 March 2022 (UTC) "What happens to Wikipedia if, for example, someone sues that they want to NOT license their contributions because they claim they were under duress? That they would lose some community-given "something", unless they "gave" the community x number of contributions." I expect what would happen would be the foundation's lawyers would send them a thank you letter for giving them a good laugh. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:12, 24 March 2022 (UTC) We can't trust admins who haven't engaged with the project for years. Sorry, that's obvious, not because we don't like them but because the project is dynamic and policies, guidelines, processes and procedures change all the time. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen a long-absent admin pop by to "help" with the main page and fuck it all up. Should not and must not be allowed to continue. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:16, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Question from Rotideypoc41352 (02:43, 29 March 2022)

Tangentially, what plans have we for gathering and publishing data on the effects of this proposal, if it passes? From a quick skim, people seem curious about the proposal's effects on legacy admin activity and on admin backlogs. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 02:43, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Taking a quick look at adminstats, some 300 current admins have not performed a single logged admin action in the last year, and another 198 have performed less than five. If the bottom half of admins, as measured by logged actions, were desysopped, it would have very little effect on the project. (We have admins who have performed thousands of logged actions in the past year. Disclaimer: I am about half-way down the list [#287], with 96 logged actions in the last year.) Looking at a sample of admins with just one logged action in the past year, some already have at least 100 edits in the last five years, but one I looked at has had less than 100 edits in the last eight years. Remember, this proposal would not enter force until January 1, 2023. After that, we would undoubtedly see the number of desysops for inactivity go up, but it would take years for admins who have become inactive less than five years ago to lose their mop. I think any deleterious effect on admin activity and backlogs will be too miniscule to measure. Donald Albury 14:23, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm also interested in any potential positive effects (if following more stringent requirements, we see a uptick in activity, especially among the previously inactive) or even a resounding no, it didn't do anything. A study like this would require a lot of work, so I was wondering if any organized effort to collect data is being planned. Thanks for taking the time to reply! Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 03:10, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

It wouldn't take too much effort to keep a copy of the adminstats now and do a new one in Dec 2022 - we could see what the median number of logged actions/edits of current admins was - logically it should rise in the run-up to it kicking in (if it's doing more than pruning the admin list) Nosebagbear (talk) 15:29, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

While what you suggest would be an interesting statistic, I think the main thrust of the RfC was to nudge admins with minimal editing activity to stay more engaged with community norms. Admins could easily retain their mops under the new standard without necessaily performing any more admin actions than they have in recent years. Most admins actually don't perform very many admin actions. About one-quarter of all admins have not performed any logged admin action in the last two years, and another quarter have each performed seven admin actions or fewer over those two years. So, I don't expect that nudging admins with low edit numbers to make a few more edits each year will have much impact on the number of admin actions they perform. Donald Albury 17:42, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Move to close

Per Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Duration:"An RfC should last until enough comment has been received that consensus is reached, or until it is apparent that it won't be. There is no required minimum or maximum duration...". The result here seems clear enough, and has for some time. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:44, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. In fact, I was thinking about doing so two days ago, but figured that a close on such an important topic would be better left to an admin. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 21:57, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

I agree that a discussion does not need to run 30 days if there is a consensus. I hope that a skill uninvolved editor will consider closing this if there is such a consensus. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:22, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

There is no rush at the same time though. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:24, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

It would be great if the uninvolved closer was an admin who has been dormant for 11 months... :D Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 16:33, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.