Proposal[]
There was a discussion last year about admin inactivity and the problems that that poses. The discussion tapered off without a firm consensus around solutions to the issue, but one thing which was proposed and generally regarded with support was the idea of restoring an updated version of the wiki's old inactive administrator policy.
Since that thread is over a year old and never reached a firm conclusion, I would like to instead propose the idea anew. I'm going to more-or-less copy the exact proposal that k6ka made there, with a couple minor tweaks. Here's my draft of what I'm proposing:
Draft policy[]
- Inactive content moderators, administrators, or bureaucrats (referred to as "members of the admin team") are subject to having their user rights removed after one year of inactivity.
- "Inactivity" is defined as having ten or fewer edits or administrative actions on the wiki in a year.
- After eleven months of inactivity, any user may initiate the demotion of an inactive member of the admin team via a message on the admins' noticeboard, to conform with rule 2 below. This request is simply a notification to the admin team and not a request to be approved/disapproved. Any member of the admin team may also enforce this policy without needing to wait for another user to request it.
- Inactive members of the admin team must be notified of their possible demotion on their user talk page at least 30 days before their user rights can be removed.
- This notice can be placed by any member of the admin team. If a member of the admin team fails to place this notice within a week of a user requesting demotion through the admins' noticeboard, any user may post it instead.
- After a full year of inactivity and at least 30-days notice, a bureaucrat may unilaterally demote an inactive content moderator or administrator.
- If a bureaucrat fails to act on this policy in a timely manner after the conclusion of the 30-day period, this policy provides community consent for a member of Fandom staff to process the demotion; any user may submit this request to Staff.
- If the demoted user runs any bot accounts that have elevated user rights, those rights should also be removed when the owner is demoted.
- After a full year of inactivity and at least 30-days notice, community consent is given for a demotion of an inactive bureaucrat via a request to Fandom staff.
- Any user may submit this request once the required waiting periods are concluded.
- A returning content moderator, administrator, or bureaucrat may be able to resume their previous position(s) under limited circumstances.
- If an inactive member of the admin team is removed from their position through this policy and returns to active editing within one year of their removal, that user may request the reinstatement of their previous rights through a post on the admins' noticeboard. A minimum wait of one week will follow any request to allow for community input/objection to a returning member of the admin team being reinstated. If there is objection to reinstatement, rights will not be granted.
- If an inactive admin team member returns to active editing more than one year after their removal through this policy, or else are opposed for reinstatement on the admins' noticeboard, they are not entitled to a speedy reinstatement but must instead submit new rights requests via TSW:RFCM, TSW:RFA, and/or TSW:RFB.
I would also propose a slight modification to the retirement policy, expanding the 180-day window for reinstatement to a full year, to align with what is proposed above.
Justification[]
The primary purpose of this policy is to ensure that admin team members are continuously engaged in building the wiki and the community. Users coming and going from the project is normal, and it's not unusual or detrimental for a moderator, administrator, or bureaucrat to become inactive for several months at a time. However, several community functions depend on admin team input or require direct action from a mod, admin, or bureaucrat (e.g. deleting pages, blocking users, promoting users). When the roster of moderators, administrators, and bureaucrats is filled with users who are inactive (sometimes for many years) it can be difficult for a user to know who to turn to for support or administrative actions.
The positions of content moderator, administrator, and bureaucrat require a certain level of community trust. An admin team member who is long-inactive may be unknown to several newer members of the community and may eventually no longer have the level of community trust necessary to continue serving in their role.
Members of the admin team are expected to be up-to-date on the goings-on of the wiki, including what the community wants and is focused on. Wiki policies, standing precedents, and other procedures can change over time. If an admin team member is inactive for a long period, they may not have a strong grasp of how the wiki functions if they return later on. This may lead them to accidentally take actions which are not appropriate or no longer accepted practice.
Finally, there is a risk in long-abandoned accounts as it relates to account security. Promoted users, particularly administrators and bureaucrats, have tools at their disposal that can significantly affect the function of the wiki. If a user's account is compromised, it opens the door for a person other than the account owner to exercise those tools, possibly for nefarious purposes. However unlikely this scenario is, it is something that has the potential to occur and should be reasonably guarded against.
LostInRiverview talk · blog · contribs 16:39, 11 November 2024 (UTC)
Discussion[]
This is more than enough of a buffer and reasonable expectations than an average wiki or even fandom would give. So I believe there is enough leeway in that sense.
But what about the case of let's say you, K6ka and C.Syde65 and the admin noticeboard, it has been since June since any of you have responded to it. And only you answered the development discussion board for months. Would that be the type of admin activity needed to be considered active? Not to mention, I have had multiple posts ignored on each of your guys talk pages (but granted some "choice" posts were answered so that wasn't completely ignored in each instance). However, I feel there was no need for this to be completely ignored.
I'd witness let's say a normal week before the roll call post... K6ka reverting a hand full of bad edits maybe 1-2 temporary blocks 1-3 times a week, and ignore everything else admin related to the community. C.Syde65 edit quite a few personal fanon pages and Sims 2 pages but do no admin related activities. This is not meant to be a dig at you guys, I just think this type of clarification would be helpful for us to know. Community wise, for months after I joined, this wiki was almost completely community abandoned by the admins, till you came in a did some discussion with us on the development discussion page.
Also, would this be retroactive? Although, I have enjoyed Woganhemlock showing activity both as an admin and doing wiki maintenance, 8 years is a long time to come in and try to preserve policies and protocols from 8 years ago without listening to the current needs of this wiki. Saying things such as "I am not willing to make any exceptions" seems unhelpful for a returning after 8 years admin to say, and their timing to show up during the height of the hot "vote" post seems rather convenient, even if it is not the case. But to be fair I rather keep this active admin (if they truly plan to stay active) even after saying all that, I just have concerns about the amount of time away to then come back and potentially block current hot topic changes the community is asking for, instead of listing to the communities wants and needs. 
- The proposal is ten edits or administrative actions in a twelve-month period. That really is exactly what it means. The type, scope, scale, and purpose of the edits are irrelevant to the policy as I've proposed it. If you feel it should be different than what I've proposed, feel free to express that. Bear in mind, though, that it's useful to have some firm, easy-to-determine number of edits to use as the threshold for this kind of policy, rather than something that would require interpretation. It's easy to look at a user's contributions and count the number of edits they've made since a certain date, and there really can be no disputing a hard number like that. But if the policy is more vague, like if it said, "the user should be regularly active," then that's open to a variety of interpretations and likely will mean the policy doesn't get enforced evenly, if it gets enforced at all.
- The policy would not be retroactive, but would apply to any users who are one year or more inactive when the policy goes into effect. They would be subject to the same 30-days-notice as anyone else. If someone was previously inactive for long enough to qualify under this policy but has since returned, this policy could not apply to them. Ex post facto rules should not be permitted; we can't hold people responsible to meeting a standard that didn't exist.
- As an irrelevant side question... why do you keep referring to k6ka as "k6ba" on this and other threads? There are two k's in his name. -- LostInRiverview talk · blog · contribs 19:22, 11 November 2024 (UTC)
- OMG, I am embarrassed, sometimes when I get something misspelled stuck in my head I can't shake it. That is my bad. The combo letter/number just threw me and I think I originally mistook the 6 for a b, then that was it wired in my head that way. Fixed my bad typo.
- OMG, I am embarrassed, sometimes when I get something misspelled stuck in my head I can't shake it. That is my bad. The combo letter/number just threw me and I think I originally mistook the 6 for a b, then that was it wired in my head that way. Fixed my bad typo.
- For the scope of this policy that makes sense. But it doesn't exactly fix the current standing issues of admins being basically community inactive. But that I suppose could be fall under a separate discussion, if you don't want this thread/discussion to go off too much to that tangent. Unless others agree that is more the issue, than a straight up arbitrary edit numbered count and/or within a time frame.
- For the scope of this policy that makes sense. But it doesn't exactly fix the current standing issues of admins being basically community inactive. But that I suppose could be fall under a separate discussion, if you don't want this thread/discussion to go off too much to that tangent. Unless others agree that is more the issue, than a straight up arbitrary edit numbered count and/or within a time frame.
- I would say that the inactivity you're referring to is outside the scope of what I'm proposing, but that's not to say that its discussion would be irrelevant here or that a policy/this policy couldn't be formed to refer to it. I'd be hesitant to put too strict of expectations on it, though. Real-life stuff can happen that takes people away for weeks or months at a time, but that doesn't necessarily indicate that someone has moved on from the wiki or that they couldn't still be a good mod/admin/bureaucrat if/when they returned. There should be a sensible middle-ground that we could find. My main concern on that is just figuring out a way to put that into a policy that is then easy enough to interpret so there isn't vast disagreement about what "active" means. -- LostInRiverview talk · blog · contribs 19:53, 11 November 2024 (UTC)
- Completely understandable.
- Completely understandable.
Honestly allowing a whole year of inactivity is too long and too lenient. 6 months is already pushing it. ODAPHII (talk) 18:29, 11 November 2024 (UTC)
- The length of inactivity and/or the number of edits needed to maintain official activity are amendable. -- LostInRiverview talk · blog · contribs 19:22, 11 November 2024 (UTC)
It doesn't matter to me how likely an account getting compromised is, after what happened on MTS recently, I say removing such abilities from a truly inactive user is necessary. Any damage would surely be reversible, but I'd much rather avoid the headache. Although Woganhemlock's recent activity would prevent this from being applied to them, I'd say if we demoted them and they returned, we'd probably be super willing to give them their rights back after they edit more. I think this would be a great policy, even if I prefer proper retirement rather than being demoted without knowledge. The only thing I'd do more is if the person was on the Discord to private message them or ping them to inform them that they're being demoted alongside the wiki messaging. I doubt they would resume activity, but it's nice to give them the best possible chance of knowing they're being demoted. I’m K.P.! Toss me a message if you need help! 19:29, 11 November 2024 (UTC)
- I think the courtesy of reaching out to someone on Discord is totally appropriate, but I'd hesitate to include that as a strict expectation in the policy. Not all wiki members are on Discord or on The Sims Wiki's server, and this includes the large majority of our currently-inactive bureaucrats and admins. -- LostInRiverview talk · blog · contribs 19:53, 11 November 2024 (UTC)
Considering MTS had a big issue relating to old accounts with popular downloads being updated to contain malware it is something that should be considered due to the rights Administrators and Content Mods have. Removing their rights can prevent people brute forcing their way into those inactive accounts and abusing the rights they have. nancyandthetabithas (talk) 19:31, 11 November 2024 (UTC)
- I support restoring the Inactive Admin policy at LiR's directive. Ѧüя◎ґ (talk) 22:39, 11 November 2024 (UTC)
I recall that we had wanted to remove some of our very old, long-inactive bureaucrats for some time now, but Staff had apparently declined our requests to de-crat them even after we had consensus to do so (this was when we had our previous inactivity policy too, many years ago). Bureaucrats can remove adminship, but not other bureaucrats, so it's at the whim of Staff whether or not that dangerous permission can be removed. The thought of one of their accounts getting compromised still keeps me up at night; account security was not a big thing back in 2010. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 23:47, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
K6ka brings up a valid point, why try to enforce a policy that cannot be followed through. I think it is maybe better to re-ticket fandom to see if they will honor this first, why waste time that only can be applied to admins and not bureaucrats.
- The proposal is based on the understanding that Fandom's stance on bureaucrat demotion had changed. It used to be that Fandom would not demote bureaucrats due to inactivity, even with community consensus. The current policy, so far as I can see, is that Fandom staff will demote inactive bureaucrats upon request if the bureaucrat has been inactive for at least a year. -- LostInRiverview talk · blog · contribs 00:45, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
- In that case 6 months for admins and 1 year for bureaucrats, since hands are tied otherwise. I don't see much of any other choice, unless a bureaucrat requests for demotion from fandom directly, which could be asked of the bureaucrat if they no longer feel they can uphold the position? but maybe that is a stretch. I think we should work with what we are limited to, since fandom has the last say anyways and just accept that.
- In that case 6 months for admins and 1 year for bureaucrats, since hands are tied otherwise. I don't see much of any other choice, unless a bureaucrat requests for demotion from fandom directly, which could be asked of the bureaucrat if they no longer feel they can uphold the position? but maybe that is a stretch. I think we should work with what we are limited to, since fandom has the last say anyways and just accept that.
- Worth noting that a bureaucrat has the power to demote themselves; they don't need to request that from Staff. Bureaucrats can remove their own bureaucrat flag, but can't remove the bureaucrat flag from other bureaucrats. -- LostInRiverview talk · blog · contribs 01:03, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
- Oh, I honestly, forgot that. So it can be requested directly to the user if they are active enough to respond. So in that case we can still request at 6 months, if they chose to reply, and if not then a year?
- Oh, I honestly, forgot that. So it can be requested directly to the user if they are active enough to respond. So in that case we can still request at 6 months, if they chose to reply, and if not then a year?
- I mean, you could ask anyone to resign at any time. There doesn't need to be a policy outlining when that would be asked for in the case of a voluntary resignation. It wouldn't really have an impact either way since Fandom's expectation is 1+ years of inactivity before a forced demotion. -- LostInRiverview talk · blog · contribs 01:09, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
- Perhaps on a separate policy, bureaucrats should have to have more accountability of activity/inactivity and should self demote if they find themselves inactive for 6 months or year on their own? With a grace period of being reinstated of lets say 6 months? Something to consider but again maybe in another policy?
- Perhaps on a separate policy, bureaucrats should have to have more accountability of activity/inactivity and should self demote if they find themselves inactive for 6 months or year on their own? With a grace period of being reinstated of lets say 6 months? Something to consider but again maybe in another policy?
- I would oppose that policy on grounds of impracticality. Since we can't force-demote a bureaucrat except for long stretches of inactivity, having a rule requiring a bureaucrat to be active or else to voluntarily retire is unenforceable. Being active can be a community expectation (and it is, if you look at part of the "requirements" for promotion to bureaucrat) but it shouldn't be a rule because it's not a rule we can reasonably enforce. -- LostInRiverview talk · blog · contribs 01:18, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
- A rule does sound unnecessary but as a suggestion under the responsibilities of an bureaucrat, doesn't sound unreasonable. I think it should/could be regarded as a courtesy gesture. So maybe not a policy then, just a suggestion considering how inconvenient the year long wait could/would be on the wiki. But maybe that is for another thread and not this one.
- A rule does sound unnecessary but as a suggestion under the responsibilities of an bureaucrat, doesn't sound unreasonable. I think it should/could be regarded as a courtesy gesture. So maybe not a policy then, just a suggestion considering how inconvenient the year long wait could/would be on the wiki. But maybe that is for another thread and not this one.
Second proposal[]
I think there is general agreement from the participants here that some version of an inactive admin policy should be re-introduced. There does not yet seem to be broad agreement about how strict the policy should be. There is not consensus to support the original proposed rule of 10 edits over 12 months, and the indication I'm getting from what has been said would seem to suggest that the rule should be stricter, not more lenient. I would like to propose the same rules as drafted above, except the expectation would be at least 25 edits or admin actions within a six-month period. References to one-year waits would change to six-months, and the rule allowing notification of an inactive admin after 11 months would change to notification after five. The 30-day grace period and one year period for re-requesting rights would remain as-is. Thoughts on this change? -- LostInRiverview talk · blog · contribs 23:10, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
- If I may. I think that it might be better to have a check list and if enough checks then they are deemed inactive. I think the biggest issue is as follows, any admin not responding to messages on their talk page even if while "active" should be a check against, admins not responding in any admin noticeboard, devolvement discussion or forum thread be a check against. If an admin is seemingly only a disciplinary role like blocking/reverting/warning users has to be weekly or monthly if they choose to not be active in other admin roles (such as answering their page, the admin noticeboard, development discussion, forums, etc.).
- If an admin is only acting like an editor because they are too busy to do admin talks as simple as responding to their messages should be given a chance to up their activity or ask for a demotion. I am thinking of specifically C.Syde, it is not because I have anything against them, I think they are very friendly and if/when you can nail them down helpful. But I literally had my first experience with C.Syde years ago I believe I messaged twice and they were never responded to ever... from years ago. Then when I actually tried again in May it took several messages and months for a response. I just really think that it might be better for an admin to be at least active enough to reply to their own messages in a timely manner. Even if that admin finds the individual annoying (I am referring to myself since I still have many never responded to messages from multiple admins). Addressing "squeaky wheels" are a part of the admin job if an admin cannot respond maybe leave it to one who can.
- Now I know that was off of what you are proposing but it is because I don't think an arbitrary number and time range is enough to really gage. But if you want that I'd say 3 months minimum 25 edits (as an absolute bare minimum and I hope it was because they got a new job or moved or something).
- I would have a hard time supporting a policy that has too many expectations, because that complicates the matter of figuring out whether the policy would apply to a user or not. I think that if an admin is not performing the duties of adminship but is otherwise active, that it's more a question of whether the admin should be demoted for cause, not whether they should be removed due to inactivity. I'd prefer to keep an inactive admin policy tailored specifically towards admins that are inactive in the sense that they just aren't here at all. I would also personally be hesitant to go much shorter than six months for the cut-off... I think three months would be way too strict. -- LostInRiverview talk · blog · contribs 23:33, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
- How about considering it for more of a check in with that admin instead? A courtesy to make sure they are still up for the role or not? I just think an admin can answer a message within a month or less if they are showing actual activity on the wiki. Well I base that off the strictest conditions, as I agree with ODAPHII that six months is pushing it too long. So if there is a split the difference compromise you feel better about—it doesn't bother me none.
- How about considering it for more of a check in with that admin instead? A courtesy to make sure they are still up for the role or not? I just think an admin can answer a message within a month or less if they are showing actual activity on the wiki. Well I base that off the strictest conditions, as I agree with ODAPHII that six months is pushing it too long. So if there is a split the difference compromise you feel better about—it doesn't bother me none.
- Or how about when implementation starts and the process of putting out the 1 month messages to all the admins 6 months inactive or with less than 25 edits in that time frame then see how that goes. If after a month of seeing who responds (and how they respond) and who doesn't you can gage how you feel that 6 month/25 edit parameter is. If you think it is too strict then make it longer, if you felt is wasn't too strict then implement it and only do less time the next time this comes up as an issue again?
- Or how about when implementation starts and the process of putting out the 1 month messages to all the admins 6 months inactive or with less than 25 edits in that time frame then see how that goes. If after a month of seeing who responds (and how they respond) and who doesn't you can gage how you feel that 6 month/25 edit parameter is. If you think it is too strict then make it longer, if you felt is wasn't too strict then implement it and only do less time the next time this comes up as an issue again?