In the Athenian democracy, ostracism was used as a way of defusing major confrontations between rival politicians (by removing one of them from the scene), neutralising someone thought to be a threat to the state, or exiling a potential tyrant.

Any five administrators may demand another administrator to re-submit to WP:RFA to have his or her administrator privileges confirmed. There need not necessarily be a charge of severe abuse, it suffices that the requesting admins feel that the admin to be ostracized has reached a point where they cause more harm than good, have lost their focus or good judgement or otherwise need a reality check.

To avoid bad faith nominations by recent accounts, the ostracism is reserved for administrators; this process is thus a tool to address friction within the admin population, such as wheel-warring. The actual re-confirmation of the ostracized admin is, as always, decided upon by the entire community, so that it will be impossible for any number of admins to actually defrock another admin who is still endorsed by community consensus. To avoid harassment, the same admin may not be ostracized sooner than three months after their last ordeal.

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