Forum:Unfinished business regarding inactivity

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Hello, The Sims Wiki.

I'm proposing a discussion in good faith because I have noticed the lack of procedures with inactive administrators and bureaucrats.

There was originally an inactive admin policy in the past, and it was retired under the justification administrators shouldn't feel pressured to contribute a certain amount. That is good. However, I am bringing this back up because there is another perspective, and that is a security perspective.

LostInRiverview suggested a replacement policy on dealing with inactive administrators/bureaucrats on the retirement forum that never manifested.

“

With all this in mind, I support the retirement of this policy. However, I would like to suggest that we adopt a replacement policy which governs, among other things, administrator retirement, removing inactive administrators/bureaucrats from templates like Administrators, etc.

”

At the time of writing this, eleven administrators have been inactive since 2020 (and I am aware some are bots). Seven of these accounts are also bureaucrats.

• Beds (since 2020)
• Joey.eyeball (since 2018)
• Frostwalker (since 2018)
• Woganhemlock (since 2015)
• WoganBot (since 2014)
• Random Ranaun (since 2014)
• Jamie (since 2010)
• Duskey (since 2010)
• Bob Newbie is Kl (since 2010)
• KazeNoYouko (since 2009)
• Makiah (since 2008)

On the extreme side, seven accounts have been inactive for over eight years. Old user accounts should not maintain administrator and bureaucrat rights. It would be a good policy to remove extreme inactivity accounts as the security risk associated with leaving them to mature offers no benefit. The damage a hacked administrator account (much less a bureaucrat account) can do is substantial.

A counter-argument may be, "Nothing has happened here." I would respond that Fandom Staff (Wikia Staff) have also neglected to remove inactive staff accounts in the past, and it resulted in many compromised accounts.

Communities constantly grow and change. It may be nostalgic to leave old time accounts in staff positions, but it realistically offers no benefit if they have been gone for years. Being removed of rights does not remove your right to edit. Staff accounts that return are welcome to contribute. If they become upset at being removed after years of inactvity, that should speak for where their interests were. New blood should be encouraged where the torches are passed. Rights are not meant to be held onto indefinitely. People lose interest, they aren't up to date with the community, or might not even be familiar with the new Fandom interface. Relying on people to demote themselves for inactvity is not efficent as there is no checks and balance system to offset it.

This is not about requiring admins to perform a level of activity. This is a pragmatic suggestion dealing with old staff accounts on the wiki. Three to five years of inactivity is a fair time to consider automatically removing elevated accounts, but that number is subject to debate. I would also add inactive accounts that had their rights removed can reclaim them within 180 days per the policy. Otherwise user accounts should go through the process of requesting administrator just like anyone else. PsithurismLeaf (talk) 01:55, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

If someone has been inactive for many years with special rights, it is time to retire them, as they obviously are not members of the wiki anymore. I shall contact an active administrator to see what the procedure is. RedWizard98 (talk) 21:01, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Can we at least remove K6kaBOT and LiRBot from the list? Bot accounts should follow the bot operator's level of activity, and since me and LiR are both still active, they shouldn't be listed here. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 21:15, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, that's fine. I actually didn't know but there are even more old admin/bcrat accounts. I edited my list with the updated accounts. PsithurismLeaf (talk) 21:45, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Mild support, but with caveats. I think the rationale for a policy or procedure on revoking admin/bureaucrat rights of long-inactive accounts makes sense. However, the reality of the situation is, unfortunately, more complicated because many of these long-inactive accounts are bureaucrats. I think we've sort of realized now that promoting users to bureaucrat too quickly is a bad idea, but that was not always the case. Unfortunately, the result is that we've got eleven users on the wiki with bureaucrat rights, but only three of them (K6ka, C.Syde65, and myself) have edited the wiki in the last two years. One of the key aspects of bureaucrat rights is that they can't be revoked at the local level by other bureaucrats. Therefore, any policy or practice we might adopt which would mandate revocation of promoted status after a long period of time would not be able to be automatically applied to the bureaucrats—which is incidentally the user group that has the most power and greatest potential for destructive or disruptive activity in the case of compromised accounts. I don't know how staff feels about the matter nowadays, but my understanding in the past was that staff was reluctant to remove bureaucrats from their positions merely for inactivity, even if there was community consensus on a wiki pushing for their demotion. So, TL;DR a rule like what you describe would probably make sense (depending on the specifics) but the fact that we can't locally de-bureaucrat is a huge stumbling block in the way of making it work practically unless Fandom has had a change of heart. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk · blog · contribs} 03:43, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Edit - change to "support" - I've done a little bit of digging (i.e. I went and googled "fandom bureaucrat demotion") and it looks like Fandom staff have indeed changed their views on "auto" demotions of inactive bureaucrats. It seems like the general rule-of-thumb that's floating around is one year or more of inactivity in order to justify staff intervention. It would also make sense, then, that staff would've been reluctant to demote bureaucrats because under the wiki's previous policy on inactive admins, we'd pursue removal after just three months of inactivity. With that in mind, I would most likely support a policy proposal to demote inactive users (with "inactive," I think for simplicity, being defined as making no edits at all) who are inactive for a year or more. If we want, we could include procedures for these users to request rights back in a streamlined process, but I'd probably be more inclined to say that if a user has been inactive for a full year or more, they probably should have to re-request rights if they want them back. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk · blog · contribs} 03:58, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

My understanding is that the main reason the inactive administrator policy was repealed was in fairness to the inactive administrators, since inactive bureaucrats can't have their rights revoked by anyone other than themselves, Fandom Staff, Fandom Utilities, Fandom Helpers (the group is deprecated and has been largely replaced with Wiki Representatives), Wiki Representatives, and Wiki Specialists (the latter two groups were introduced in 2021 and therefore didn't exist back in 2013)

From what I've heard and/or researched, the last time Staff were asked to remove Bureaucrat rights from inactive users on this wiki was in 2013 at the latest. And based on my experience, Staff are more likely to remove Bureaucrat rights from inactive users nowadays than they were back in 2013. The Crash Bandicoot Wiki community successfully requested to have Bureaucrat rights removed from inactive users back in 2018, which seems to imply that we might have a chance of getting them to demote inactive Bureaucrats on this wiki now, should there be a consensus for it.

My suggestions on which Administrators and Bureaucrats should be kept and which should be demoted if there is a cleanout of inactive Administrators and Bureaucrats are as follows:

• Makiah = Should be demoted since he hasn't been active since 2008. The fact that his Administrator rights were revoked in 2012 implies that he would have had his Bureaucrat rights revoked as well, if active Bureaucrats had the ability to demote inactive ones.
• KazeNoYouko = Should be demoted to Rollback since he hasn't been active since 2009. And he had Rollback rights prior to requesting bureaucratship. The fact that he was last active long before the retirement of the inactive administrator policy implies that he would have had his Bureaucrat rights revoked, if active Bureaucrats had the ability to demote inactive ones.
• Bob Newbie is kl = Should be demoted since he hasn't been active since 2010. The fact that his Administrator rights were revoked in 2010 implies that he would have had his Bureaucrat rights revoked as well, if active Bureaucrats had the ability to demote inactive ones.
• Duskey = Should be demoted since he hasn't been active since 2010. The fact that his Administrator rights were revoked in 2011 implies that he would have had his Bureaucrat rights revoked as well, if active Bureaucrats had the ability to demote inactive ones.
• Jamie = Should be demoted since he hasn't been active since 2011. The fact that his Administrator rights were revoked in 2012 implies that he would have had his Bureaucrat rights revoked as well, if active Bureaucrats had the ability to demote inactive ones. He has however been active on various other wikis much more recently, including the Marvel Wiki in 2020.
• Random Ranaun = Neutral since he hasn't been active since 2014 which was after the inactive administrator policy was repealed. I did privately do some research on inactive Administrators and Bureaucrats on this wiki a few years ago. Just to see if any of them were still active on other wikis. And he does appear to have been active on certain other wikis more recently, including the Avatar Wiki in 2015. Not sure if he's still active on IRC, since I haven't used IRC since 2018 at the earliest and 2020 at the latest.
• WoganBot = Neutral for the same reasons as Woganhemlock, as this is his bot account. Though unlike his main account, his bot account hasn't been active since 2014.
• Woganhemlock = Neutral since he hasn't been active since 2015 which was after the inactive administrator policy was repealed. I did privately do some research on inactive Administrators and Bureaucrats on this wiki a few years ago. Just to see if any of them were still active on other wikis. And he would have to have been active on Fandom in 2017 at the earliest to have customised the community header of his test wiki, since the community headers that we have now weren't introduced until 2017. Not sure if he's still active on IRC, since I haven't used IRC since 2018 at the earliest and 2020 at the latest.
• Frostwalker = Should be kept for now since I have seen him on Discord recently. Even though I don't think he's been active on the wiki's Discord server in ages. And he hasn't been active on the wiki since 2018.
• Joey.eyeball = Neutral since he hasn't been active since 2018. The only reason I'm hesitant to support him keeping his rights is because he's had very little contact with the Administrator tools since his promotion in 2014, aside from the occasional deletion or two. I am however open to anyone who thinks that this seems like an unfair reason not to support someone keeping their rights. After all Administrators are not obliged to use their tools. And if his rights were to be revoked, this doesn't mean that I wouldn't support the reinstatement of his rights, should he return and request to have them reinstated.
• Beds = Should be kept for now since I do remember seeing her on Discord recently. Even though I don't think she's been active on the wiki's Discord server since February of this year. And she hasn't been active on the wiki since 2020.

The following Administrator and Bureaucrat wasn't on the OP's list. But I felt that I should list her anyway since she hasn't been active on the wiki in over two years:

• A morris = Neutral since she hasn't had any contact with the social side of the wiki to my knowledge since 2013, nor has she had any contact with the Administrator tools since then. Although she has since made the occasional edit or two between 2015 and 2021.

― C.Syde (talk | contribs) 06:52, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Personally, regarding the individuals active on discord, they need seriously contacting about whether or not they want to retain their rights, and if they're going to accordingly contribute to the wiki. Perhaps Fandom staff should be requested to remove user rights if we cannot find anyone local to do it. RedWizard98 (talk) 12:55, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Speaking as a Wikipedia administrator myself, where we have an inactivity policy, I'm supportive of such a policy here, if only because the sheer number of inactive bureaucrats are just ludicrous. Indeed, we promoted way too many users to bureaucrat back in the day, and even adminship was a bit too easy to obtain. On top of that, though, inactive admins returning can be a legitimate problem, as they may not be familiar with all of the changes to the wiki since then, and they may use their admin tools against current practice or simply look bad, being an admin who is unfamiliar with how the wiki currently works. As such, an inactivity policy is a must.

The inactivity policy that the wiki initially adopted was way too harsh and way too vague. It made no attempt to define "activity", leaving it entirely up to bureaucrats to decide, and set the time period for removal to an incredibly short 3 months, with 6 months being the threshold where they'd have to re-apply at RFA. Even Wikipedia isn't that harsh, with the thresholds being one year and two years respectively. This puts a lot of burden on both the admins working on the wiki and the bureaucrats enforcing the policy. No wonder it wasn't very popular.

I propose the following:

• Define inactivity as having made fewer than 10 edits or admin actions for one year. If admin "John" makes an edit in March 2020, and then only makes three edits between then and March 2021, they would be considered inactive. Admin actions include things like blocks and page deletions, which do not appear in user contributions but do appear in their respective logs.
  • One year is plenty of time for admins to sort out most life issues. If they absolutely cannot dedicate even a slight amount of time and attention to the wiki during that time, they should resign the admin bit. They are still welcome to contribute to the wiki as a non-admin.
  • Having a minimum number of edits/actions ensures that admins actually do something during that time. There have been instances where Wikipedia admins skirted the inactivity policy by making one edit a year—removing the message that they were about to be desysopped from their talk page. That being said, I personally feel that 10 edits is too few, but didn't want to be overly harsh (Wikipedia's requirement is 100 edits per 60-month period). Please feel free to suggest different numbers.
• Both administrators and bureaucrats are subject to the same inactivity requirements. In terms of whether the policy was ever unfair to admins, since bureaucrats are harder to remove, setting the same requirements should eliminate that. Bureaucrats are and should be expected to be more active and more responsible than non-bureaucrat admins. I would also like to add that bureaucrats are admins too, and should not be given preferential status over non-crat admins.
• Admins and bureaucrats should be notified on their talk page at least one month before being removed. This is intended as a courtesy to the user so they aren't caught out of the blue, and are given an opportunity to either participate on the wiki or resign sooner if they know they cannot commit to it.
• Admins and bureaucrats removed for inactivity may re-apply for their former position without going through another RFA or RFB within one year of being removed. This is the clause from the previous inactivity policy, just updated to meet the new inactivity requirements. Admins should ask at the admin's noticeboard, and a 1-week waiting period should commence in case anyone objects to their reappointment. If nobody objects after one week, they are re-sysopped.
• Admins and bureaucrats removed for inactivity must go through RFA and RFB again after one year continued inactivity following their removal. If admin "John" makes an edit in March 2020, is desysopped in March 2021 for inactivity, and continues to be considered inactive by March 2022, they must run for RFA again.
• Admin bot accounts follow the activity requirements of the bot operator. Bots themselves should be exempt from the inactivity policy, so a bot account should not be de-sysopped simply because it has not made any edits. Consequently, I would argue that making edits from a bot account should not be counted as activity for the bot operator, since bots can operate automatically without human intervention. If the bot operator is de-sysopped for inactivity, the bot should be de-sysopped as well.

Note that I specifically define activity as being activity on the wiki, so being active on Discord does not (and should not) count. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 13:15, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Re. RedWizard98: Why would Staff need to intervene? We already have three active bureaucrats to remove inactive admins. It's the bureaucrat bit that we cannot remove. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 13:15, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

I fully support the proposal made by K6ka above, except that I would propose that content moderators also be included under the policy. CMs have access to many of the admin tools, so the same rationale for removing access from inactive administrators and bureaucrats also logically applies to them.

Additionally, though this isn't fully within the scope of this proposal, I would also suggest that we amend the retirement policy to reflect the one-year window to return, instead of the current policy's 180 days. If we adopt the inactive policy as proposed, it would essentially punish users who choose to voluntarily retire rights by giving them only half the length of time to re-apply without filling out a full rights request as users who simply walk away with their rights intact. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk · blog · contribs} 14:10, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Support I agree with you all.Andyhamperado (talk) 19:07, 22 July 2023 (UTC)