Wikipedia talk:Administrators open to recall/Archive 2

message: I'm withdrawing from this category.  I'm finding that people are misrepresenting my view and also seem to be playing politics with this category and that's not what I came here for.  Like Lar said, this is supposed to be a voluntary category, and I'm becoming disappointed that people who don't even list themselves in this category are attempting to foist their viewpoint upon those of us who have done so. Hiding Talk 13:29, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Steve, I assume you are referring to me as much as you are referring to anyone, and I would like to apologize if I have misunderstood or misrepresented your views.  Dragons flight 18:49, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

text: If you're referring to my comments above, I was thinking purely for the future -- of course people can interpret this category however they want, but I would like to see it officially implemented one day, which would necessitate something less, as Lar put it, "ad hoc". For now, of course, it is what it is. Also, I'm not on the list because I'm not an admin ;) - Che Nuevara 04:56, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Withdrawing

message: Idiot alert. I'm not sure I entirely understand what is meant by 're-confirmation'. Does this mean that some existing admins want to be 're-confirmed' that they are admins, or does it mean there are users who used to be admins that want ot be re-confirmed that they are admins? I don't get it. 
I believe this could be made clearer in the article. What do you think? Rfwoolf 09:07, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm confused, too. If it means running an RFA to see if there's consensus to keep a current admin, I don't think the bureaucrats would agree to it. They've traditionally been cool towards official participation in processes related to this category as long as it's voluntary (and not policy).--Chaser T 13:07, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Someone in this category could always resign their adminship (by request to a Steward) and then re-apply. -- SCZenz 14:33, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Quiet promotion requests and RFAs aren't the only way to regain adminship status. There's also ArbCom. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 20:18, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Re-confirmation". What's that? 

message: Following a request for speedy renaming, this category is now :Category:Wikipedian administrators open to recall, and the original :Category:Administrators open to recall has been deleted.  As a result, its edit history is no longer publically available, and there are over 350 broken links.  If the new name is to be retained, could we  the old page and restore its history? Tim Smith 18:27, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't really have any objections. Alternatively, I'd be happy to just fix those links (the two double redirects have already been taken care of, which leaves us with 359 instances). A lot of those are talk and user talk pages though. --S up? 19:05, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I just crunched the numbers: out of those 359 redlinks, 111 are not on talk pages. Out of those 111, 45 are archived RfAs/BfAs/RfCs/etc. so there aren't really that many articles to fix. I also went ahead and fixed the broken links on some of the more high-profile pages (WP:FIRED, WP:MOP) which leaves less than two dozen userpages (plus all the aforementioned user talk pages) with redlinks. --S up? 19:48, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, S.  Fixing all the links would be great, though there's still the matter of restoring the edit history.  Also, :Category:Wikipedian administrators open to recall might actually be better as :Category:Wikipedia administrators open to recall.  The former suggests Wikipedians who are administrators of any kind, while the latter would denote administrators of Wikipedia specifically, in line with :Category:Wikipedia administrators. Tim Smith 19:59, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think either suggests anything, it's just a matter of personal preference. I was thinking of Wikipedian as an adjective, as in "British administrators." Feel free to change it if you want, the idea was simply to make it clear that this is a Wikipedia-specific category, and I think either works. Dmcdevit·t 04:51, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Oh, just for the record, I originally fixed the links on a few pages but obviously left archived XfAs and talk pages alone. That's most likely where the discrepancy comes from. -- S up? 08:20, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree that Wikipedian seems not as good as Wikipedia. We are all Wikipedians and may be admins elsewhere. Did the category history get merged? ++Lar: t/c 12:17, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, i'll go ahead and rename it as soon as someone creates the new category. I'm not sure of the protocol. Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 05:53, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think a bot will do the recategorization.  Centrx has requested the name change at WP:CFDS.  Lar, according to WP:MOVE, category pages cannot be moved, but only copied.  So the category history exists at the old page, but did not get merged here.  (The talk history did get merged.) Tim Smith 13:49, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It got renamed again, and I noticed because I saw an edit to my user page (by an admin since it's protected) I think there are still some inbound links that need cleaning. I've been trying using whatlinkshere for various things but I am finding some that were wrong from the last move still. ++Lar: t/c 19:58, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Speedy renaming 

message: See also Wikipedia:Community_enforced_administrator_recall in which an involuntary process with some superficial similarities (but in my view vastly different) is proposed, and more specifically Wikipedia_talk:Community_enforced_administrator_recall#Forced_vs._Voluntary_(CAT:AOTR) where I rebut. ++Lar: t/c 18:43, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See also Wikipedia:Fully Uncompelled Binding Administrator Recall which I just became aware of. Needs to be referenced from somewhere. :) ++Lar: t/c 01:31, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  See also addition 

message: There is an ongoing request for reconfirmation (see also here); the administrator's recall commitment is here. Tim Smith (talk) 19:03, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ended now.  Outcome logged.  GRBerry 17:19, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Modified status to show that there is now (in the next stage of the chosen process) an RfC. ++Lar: t/c 21:25, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Heads up 

message: Given the number of people in Wikipedia who are willing to lodge trivial or bad-faith accusations, any admin who signs on to this list is nuts. (Well, maybe just overly idealistic.) Just one admin's opinion. Raymond Arritt (talk) 18:27, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's why it's voluntary (one of the nutty admins) ++Lar: t/c 00:28, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  That's what was said when the Wikipedia started: given the number of vandals and extreme POV pushers with time on their hands on the Internet, anyone who signs on trying to add actually useful information and thinks it can stay around would have to be nuts as well. This list is like Wikipedia itself, it can't possibly work in theory, it only works in practice. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 18:52, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Strangely enough, plenty of us have sat on the list for years(?) without the sky falling, or really anything going wrong. -GTBacchus(talk) 19:23, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Who, me? Nuts? Keilanatalk(recall) 21:17, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Bad actors

message: See Wikipedia:Admin Accountability Alliance and Wikipedia talk:Admin Accountability Alliance which is another proposal. This one is voluntary to join but posits some enforcement teeth beyond the court of public opinion. Early versions (and who knows, I may have been reverted, it may be back to that way) did not at all comment favourably on the very successful process we've seen used here in the 11 recalls we've had so far. Also see Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship and in particular this diff where I do an analysis of the 11 recall processes we've seen initiated so far. Suffice it to say I do not at all agree with Radiant's characterizations in a number of areas. ++Lar: t/c 21:30, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I should clarify in case it is not clear, that the justification aside, the proposal/process/policy/idea/whatever itself is interesting and novel, and if some serious issues with it could be resolved, is one that could exist alongside this process/idea/category/whatever and admins could be in one, the other, neither, or both, so I'm actually in favour of exploring it further. ++Lar: t/c 03:44, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  see also Part Deux 

message: I have just created the following subpages for reference:
* Automated recording of changes to this category, powered by User:BryanBot... this tracks all (non bot?) changes to the category. Put this page on your watch list if you are interested in seeing which admins are added or removed and by who. BryanBot is used for this function in many places and this works well. Feel free to fiddle with the criteria it uses as needed
* Reference list of criteria/process descriptions of admins willing to specify all or part of their criteria in advance. I started it with mine. I allowed for there possibly being different pages for the criteria and for process descriptions... I would encourage anyone to develop their criteria AND their process steps IN ADVANCE, and then to commit to stick to them. This will make the process much smoother in future, and increase community confidence in the word that you give. I do not feel that other people should actually add entries, only the admin themselves. Again please feel free to tweak this as needed but it should serve as a good resource for questions such as the one directly above about what makes sense. 
Hope these help! ++Lar: t/c 20:34, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is great -- thanks. --A. B. (talk)   —Preceding comment was added at 15:47, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New reference pages 

message: Over the last month, Lar has individually messaged the members of this category about the desirability of increasing the predictability of the recall process, suggesting that they document their intentions at Wikipedia:Administrators open to recall/Admin criteria.  As a result, about a third of the membership is now listed there.  But that still leaves about two-thirds of the category—almost a hundred admins—without criteria or a process specified.  Recently at User_talk:Lar/Accountability, one member wrote:
Lar objected in response that having one standard takes away from the "and it's voluntary" style of the category, so I proposed a compromise: create a default standard and process which would apply unless the admin had specified otherwise prior to the recall attempt.  That way, admins who hope someone else will create criteria and methods for them, and admins who would rather create their own, can both be accommodated.  Lar thought the idea merited batting about, so I've posted it here for discussion.
In response to the objection that we would have to eject everyone from the category and ask them to rejoin, and get the default right and never change it again, I suggest that we can escape these inconveniences by presenting the default as a recommendation rather than a strict requirement.  So treat the default as an option akin to the others in the table, but formulated and maintained not by any particular member, but by all of us.  Members could explicitly commit to the default, or commit to something else, or just not specify anything, in which case the default would be a recommended and uncontroversial fallback at recall time.
As far as what the default criteria and process should be, what does everyone think of starting from the original formulation of six editors having over 500 edits and over one month of tenure?  There's precedent for conducting reconfirmation at RfA, so I would suggest it as the default venue. Tim Smith (talk) 21:55, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: As long as it was clear that the "Default" had to actually be selected by the admin to be the set that was in effect I think it's a great idea. My concern there is, as always, that different people are operating under different assumptions about what is effect. The other concern I have is that the original criteria/process was what several early recalls used and they ran into bumps because those don't specify enough. I didn't specify every last jot and tittle because I like process (or making people's heads hurt :) )... I did it because I think the less ambiguity, the better. Thoughts? ++Lar: t/c 01:31, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we can make clear that the default is provided for convenience and does not take effect unless confirmed by the admin, while still recommending it as a fallback at recall time if no previous arrangement was made.  I agree that the original formulation could use some fleshing out; I see it less as a finished construct than as a framework on which to build.  If no one objects, maybe we could copy it to Wikipedia:Administrators open to recall/Default process and start filling in details? Tim Smith (talk) 01:28, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

text: Update: I've posted a draft.  What does everyone think?  It's less detailed than Lar's, but hopefully it can help to prevent chaos at recall time.  It's meant to be community-edited, so your input is welcome.  Tim Smith (talk) 22:58, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems pretty good to me. For some completely different (and non serious) ones, see User:Majorly/Recall :) ++Lar: t/c 21:13, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Default criteria and process 

message: Hello all, as a relative novice stumbling upon this page it took me a while to get my head around the concept of recall, and this is particularly because the purpose for voluntary recall (or some potential purposes for it) are not included in the page's text. Perhaps it would be useful if someone were to explain why this voluntary program exists (ie- to promote accountability among administrators, to further involve editors, to avoid the danger of becoming an "elite", etc...). Of course I would do it myself, but I'm not an administrator and I don't know everything about voluntary recalling. SaintCyprian  Talk 18:23, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to take a cut at what you think the purpose is, and put it here for comment. To me it's about being accountable. I don't want to force the community to drag me to ArbCom kicking and screaming if I have massively went off the rails, it's that simple. The whole thing is a pledge that it won't come to that, along with some processes to help make sure, and some history so we can see what went before. ++Lar: t/c 18:51, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Stating the purpose

message: For those using , if you now change the template call to , it will now automatically place you into the "admins open to recall category". The content of the box is unchanged. - 52 Pickup (deal) 23:04, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  userbox 

message: The page is supposedly about recall but the main body of the text calls it 'reconfirmation'- implying the request for recall will end with non-recall.  It should at least call it recall or briefly mention the difference between the two, if there is one.  If admins are not really open to recall, the page should be renamed "administrators open to reconfirmation."  :) Do you see what I mean- this page is written as if reconfirmation (an added level of confirmation) is a foregone conclusion.  Do you mean reassessment?  Only in English reconfirmation means getting adminship confirmed again, i.e. re-affirmed that they are an admin, not just discussed.  That's what it means in British English, anyway.  I think the writers mean 'reassessed' or 'reviewed'? Merkin's  mum 12:18, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm... There are other outcomes of a recall than reconfirmation, see my page for example. I'll have to take a look to see if there are possible changes that could be proposed. However this text has been this way for a very long time, and it "defines" what people agreed to. Changing it may be problematic for that reason (no changing agreements post hoc)... ++Lar: t/c 18:06, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not suggesting a change in meaning, and I think admins already know what they're agreeing to when they're signing up to be open to possible recall.  But the wording here is misleading- it implies recall is just 're-confirmation'- which may often be so but isn't always the way (in theory).  In a way it's unfair to any admins who might sign up thinking they're only agreeing to be 're-confirmed', when in fact there's a chance they may be recalled.  Unless this whole thing is a formality/gesture and they're not ever facing possible recall?Merkin's  mum 23:51, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The history of recalls so far suggests it's not just a formality/gesture.  My concern remains that I don't want to see what people agreed to changed without getting re-agreement. (see also "Stating the Purpose" two threads above, if there is confusion, it's worth sorting, don't get me wrong, ...) Can you suggest a revised wording?   ++Lar: t/c 18:23, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: As it stands the wording, if you look, at least of the first couple of paragraphs, says they agree to re-confirmation.  I.e. to have their adminship re-confirmed, not re-assessed.  It implies having it re-confirmed (i.e. 'passing ' someone's attempt to recall you, is a foregone conclusion.  At least, that is what 're-confirmed' means in the UK.  Calling it 're-assessed' would be more accurate if that is presumably what the aim of the purpose is.  Or reevaluated.  I'm not trying to change anything, except the wording which as it stands implies a recall doesn't mean possibly losing your adminship, just having it re-confirmed.  Or maybe we should add "usually means re-confirmation." This would just be the truth as perhaps unfortunately, some admins do not get re-confirmed, do they, when they are taken through the process of possible recall?  Do you see what I mean?  Or do they?  I mean, I know it can sometimes indirectly at least lead to someone losing their admin status, as arguably happened with Mercury.  Plus, it should carry at least the possibility of recall, if the purpose is to assess the consensus of people's view of the person's suitability for/use of the tools, and whether they need to be recalled.  Isn't that what "open to recall" means?:)Merkin's  mum 02:30, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: the language in this article does not discuss "recall" much

message: "These administrators are willing to stand for re-assessment of the community's consensus about their adminship if a sufficient number of editors in good standing request it. The number of editors, their standing in this project, the good faith of the request, etc. are entirely up to the user's discretion, as participation in this category is completely voluntary. For example, an admin could choose to be accountable to six editors with over 500 mainspace edits and over one month of tenure; however some admins have imposed other restrictions (or none at all).
The desire is to keep this as simple as possible. Just ask, nicely, on the administrator's talk page, and if a sufficient number of others agree, it's done. The venue for re-assessment shall be an open question, to be decided by the entrant. Participating admins are encouraged to outline their understanding of this commitment and the procedure they intend to follow in more detail on their user pages. For convenience, a default procedure and set of criteria are available.
Adminstrators can voluntarily add themselves to Category:Wikipedia administrators open to recall to show their intent."
-What do you all think?:) Merkin's  mum 02:56, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry I missed this, what's the diff exactly? "re-assessment" vs "reconfirmation" or is it more? I personally don't see that as a substantive change but I think ANY change to the wording needs everyone to reapprove, so any change should mean everyone is dumped out of the category and has to readd themselves. ++Lar: t/c 17:24, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That's all the change I was after.:)  Has it always had this strange wording which implies a request for recall will always end "happily"?  That's inaccurate and so not fair even to those who sign up, as it may mislead them.  That would be annoying though if everyone had to re-add, I admit. Sticky Parkin 00:00, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Possible small tinker

message: I've had to modify my recall policy some months back as someone wished to de-sysop me on account of my posting on a site they felt to be objectionable. As a result, I added this clause to my recall page, with an addition at the end to prevent myself from being able to game the policy by opting out at a particular point. Just FYI - Alison ❤ 04:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Who decides if it's for political purposes? It's an interesting clause, to be sure. :) ++Lar: t/c 00:44, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Who decides? Well, more than five editors in "good standing" - if they decide it's for political manipulation (such as a BADSITES thing, as happened before when I was threatened by User:PouponOnToast with de-sysopping per the recall process), then in can be nullified. It's just an insurance against political oustings - Alison ❤ 00:49, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Political purposes" clause