Forum:Regarding non-admins being IRC chanops

Like every IRC channel on freenode, we have "chanops" who on paper are admins of this wiki.

Some users may be aware that there is one user of the channel (who edits the wiki on the rare occasion) who is also a "chanop". The user was "unofficially" given the flags back when we were having a spate of problems with one particular user, who hasn't stepped foot in the channel at all in 2012.

It seems to be that lately, one of the bureaucrats has (repeatedly) removed that user's rights in the channel. There is no evidence at all to say who it was so I'm not going to investigate it but I'm guessing it's either due to a personal belief against the user or a personal belief that non-admins shouldn't be chanops (please don't use this forum to accuse anyone). No disciplinary action will be taken against anyone because a) nobody knows who it really is that's doing it and b) there is literally nothing saying whether non-admins can be IRC-ops or not; can't take someone up on something that doesn't exist. This forum however is regarding whether or not any non-admins should have operator flags.

For now I'm going to abstain from voicing my own personal opinion on this but I am going to list pros and cons of non-admins having operator flags (in particular for #wikia-sims).

Pros

 * Can cover when no other chanops are online/active.
 * May have experience from elsewhere.

Cons

 * # wikia-sims seems to have enough ops anyway who are administrators; there is often always an active administrator (i.e. any voiced user) in the channel.
 * We don't get that many disruptive users.
 * Other non-admins in the channel may feel prejudiced that they don't have operator flags yet another user does, especially if say User A doesn't have op flags but has rollback yet User B has ops but no rollback. It may also lead to every other user asking for op flags and it can seem unfair if they're declined.
 * Having too many non-admins as ops may cause an uncontrollable level of disruption, leading to the channel becoming an unpleasant place. I've witnessed this in another channel before.

I realise I have indeed listed more cons than pros but that doesn't mean I haven't left anything out and it doesn't mean I'm biased towards one side of the argument. For now I am going to abstain from voicing any real opinion but I would like to know what other IRC users, particularly administrators, think so that we can get something put in place and I don't need to keep restoring that user's rights only for them to be removed again in a short space of time. 14:45, April 13, 2012 (UTC)