UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard/Archives/Blockers, Take 2

Blockers, Take 2

rpeh brought up a point in IRC that I had forgotten about or perhaps initially misunderstood (after 5 months, who knows what I was thinking at the time): in the original proposal, rpeh's intent was that Blocker rights would be granted on a very short-term basis when an Admin left, then revoked when they returned. I saw the first part of his suggestion as being a permanently-granted role, and reading between the lines, I think some others did too. He tried to clarify in the ensuing discussion, but I think it got lost in the large volume of edits that ensued.

I certainly hadn't intended to ask for something that wasn't originally intended by the proposal. If others, like me, understood that this would be a permanent right, then all is well. If it's felt that this should be granted on a short-term basis only, then by all means, I'm happy to relinquish the privilege, except as needed. Since this is really a question of whether Admins want to grant the privilege to somebody every time they leave, I think it's really up to them to decide. Thoughts, admins?  &ndash; Robin Hood    00:36, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

:I understood rpeh's original proposal to be that, in addition to having permanent "blockers", we can grant temporary rights when necessary on a short-term basis.  That's a handy additional feature, but I understood the main proposal to be to create a new group of users that have the permanent right.
:Rereading the original proposal, it also reminded me of the suggestion of a page where blocks performed by non-admins would be listed immediately upon the block being given, so that there's a central page that admins can reference when investigating such blocks.  Should that perhaps be a subpage of this page, or of ?  --GK  01:00, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

:: I could see it going in either place, but my vote would be either in the AN itself or as a subpage of it, just so that it's in a highly-trafficked area that people are more likely to know where to find it. At first, I didn't like the idea of the page, but on consideration, I think it'll give us a convenient location to provide an explanation for the block, to ensure that all appropriate steps were taken, and to have follow-up discussions, if necessary.  &ndash; Robin Hood    17:59, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

:::Following up on my thoughts below about IRC and official wiki decisions, I think we also need some type of official wiki statement from Timenn about rpeh's current Blocker rights.  Specifically, are those rights supposed to be temporary?  In which case, how long are they supposed to last, or under what conditions are they supposed to expire?  In fact, I think perhaps the Blocker policy needs to be amended to state that any time temporary blocker rights are given, there needs to be some record of the expected duration of those rights (perhaps using the Current Blockers list, or probably even simply by including the expected duration in the comment written when assigning the rights).

:::Conversely, are those rights supposed to be permanent?  In which case, there needs to be a discussion on the wiki (e.g., here on the Admin Noticeboard, or else on the Blockers talk page) about those permanent rights, and in particular the two admins approving the decision need to post their approval.  Also, based on RobinHood70's precedent, any permanent blockers should be listed at Current Blockers.

:::Basically, I think for this policy to work, there needs to be some type of official wiki record of all Blocker-related decisions, so that the other admins know what is going on.  The whole purpose of temporary Blocker rights is that they are assigned when no other admins are active -- so by definition the only way for other admins to learn the details of the decision is if something is posted on the wiki.  Or else we at least need some discussion of what should be assumed in the absence of any extra information.  --Nephele  16:52, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

::::I asked for temporary blocker rights because he wasn't going to be around and we were experiencing heavy wandalism. If you think it would benefit the wiki to remove them and leave the site unprotected during the US nighttime, please feel free to remove them. rpeh  17:00, 23 August 2010 (UTC)