To discuss, change or revoke a policy, please start a thread in the Community Discussions forum.
Shortcut TSW:IAP |
The Sims Wiki community has adopted this inactive administrator policy to address long-term inactivity from wiki bureaucrats, administrators, and content moderators.
Definitions
- The term "administrator" in this policy refers to a user who holds content moderator, administrator (sysop) and/or bureaucrat user rights on The Sims Wiki, unless otherwise specified. The term "user" in this policy refers to any editor of the wiki.
- "Administrative actions" include blocking/unblocking users, protecting/unprotecting pages, deleting/undeleting pages, promoting/demoting users, or other actions which can only be performed by administrators. "Edits" are any other actions that a user can perform that appears in a user's contributions list and/or on recent changes, such as editing a page, moving/renaming a page, or uploading a file. Performing a rollback is also considered an edit.
- "Month" for the purposes of this policy means a full calendar month (e.g. January 1st through January 31st, June 1st through June 30th, etc.). All dates are in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
- An administrator is "inactive" for the purposes of this policy only if they meet the eligibility criteria for inactivity as specified below. Inactivity within this policy has a specific meaning; an administrator may be referred to as inactive in other venues on the wiki, but may not be formally qualified as an inactive administrator within the definition of this policy.
- "Demotion" means the removal of content moderator, administrator (sysop), and bureaucrat user rights.
Policy
Procedures
- An administrator is inactive if they performed twenty-five or fewer edits or administrative actions on the wiki in the twelve-month period which ended on the last day of the most recent full month. (e.g. if the date was 15 February 2025, the twelve-month period would be 1 February 2024 through 31 January 2025, inclusive.)
- If an administrator is deemed to be inactive, the inactive administrator may become eligible for demotion.
- An inactive administrator may be notified by an administrator, through the inactive administrator's user talk page, of this policy and their potential eligibility for demotion.
- If an inactive administrator has been notified of their potential eligibility for demotion, they will have 30 days from the date of the notice to remove their inactive status by returning to editing and/or performing administrative actions. If the administrator removes their inactive status within this period, they are no longer potentially eligible for demotion unless they return to an inactive status.
- After 30 days from the date of the notice, an administrator who is still inactive is eligible to be demoted.
- If the inactive administrator is a bureaucrat, local bureaucrats are not able to unilaterally demote them. Instead, this policy empowers local bureaucrats to contact Fandom Staff to request that an inactive bureaucrat be removed. The decision on whether or not to remove an inactive bureaucrat ultimately lies with Staff.
- If the inactive administrator controls any bot accounts that have administrative rights, those rights should be removed when the inactive administrator is demoted. The right to continue operating a bot is not revoked.
- This policy does not apply to rollback rights.
Administration of policy
Administrators are expected to periodically monitor the activity level of other administrators, and to carry out the procedures described above if an administrator is inactive, or is within thirty days of becoming inactive. However, users may initiate these procedures if the administrators do not do so themselves. Users wishing to initiate demotion procedures towards an inactive administrator should notify the administrators through the admins' noticeboard that an administrator is inactive. If an administrator fails to provide notice to the inactive administrator within a week of the administrators being notified through the admins' noticeboard, any user may provide notice to the inactive administrator on their user talk page. Additionally, if an administrator is eligible to be demoted (see § Procedures, rule 5.) but another administrator does not take action on demotion in a timely manner, any user has community consent to contact Fandom Staff and request demotion through this policy.
Rights of demoted administrators
Demotion through this policy does not prevent a former administrator from seeking new or restored user rights through requests for moderatorship, requests for administratorship, and/or requests for bureaucratship, if they are otherwise eligible to seek those rights.
If a former administrator is demoted due to this policy and returns to active status within one year of their demotion, they may request the "speedy" reinstatement of their removed rights through the admins' noticeboard. In this situation, a minimum one-week wait will be imposed, during which any user may object to the restoration of the former administrator's rights. If there is objection to restoration, user rights will not be "speedily" reinstated, though they may still be eligible to seek user rights as outlined above.
A former administrator that is demoted through this policy is still considered an editor in good standing, and is free to return to editing if/when they choose. No blocks will be imposed on former administrators as a consequence of demotion under this policy.
Rationale
The Sims Wiki benefits from an active, engaged administrative corps. Administrators also operate from a position of community trust, which is strengthened through regular activity, but potentially weakened through long periods of inactivity. The wiki and its policies and procedures are subject to evolution over time; long-inactive administrators may not be up-to-date on present procedures and may be ill-equipped to aid or enforce them if they return to activity. Long-inactive or abandoned administrator accounts also present a potential security risk, since accounts which hold user rights can exercise those rights at any time. If an abandoned administrator account falls under the control of a bad actor, they will be able to perform administrative actions which are difficult or impossible for other administrators to revert.
Policy history
- 28 August 2010 - Policy created
- 20 May 2012 - Policy was amended
- 20 September 2013 - Policy was suspended following a discussion.
- 20 April 2021 - Policy was separated from the retirement policy and preserved for historical purposes due to a discussion.
- 16 July 2025 - Policy was amended and took effect again, as the result of a discussion.