Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard

Nyttend (t · th · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · manual reverts · rollbacks · logs ^{(blocks · rights · moves)} · rfar · spi · cci) (assign permissions)^{(acc · ap · ev · fm · mms · npr · pm · pc · rb · te)}

Requesting restoration of my admin tools, which were removed for inactivity. I've read Wikipedia:Administrators#Restoration_of_admin_tools but I'm actually not clear if I qualify, because I find some bits of the "Lengthy inactivity" line confusing. I was editing and using administrative tools frequently until 3 May 2021, after which I next edited on 11 February 2023, so my inactivity was less than two years long, but more than the one year specified a few sentences later. If I don't qualify because of the more-than-one-year line, could someone explain what it means? Thanks. Nyttend (talk) 22:09, 21 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

My understanding is that If an editor has had at least two years of uninterrupted inactivity (no edits) between the removal of the admin tools and the re-request, means exactly that, from between when it was removed, and now, which you wouldn't qualify for. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:11, 21 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

So if your understanding is correct, do I qualify for restoration, assuming no problems? I've been active since February last year, so in that whole time there's been less than two years of inactivity. The one-year line makes it sound as if I have to have just one year of inactivity to be disqualified for restoration, but if that's the case, I don't see the point of the less-than-two-years line. Nyttend (talk) 22:21, 21 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

Sorry, I was just editing my wording, I'll explain better here. My understanding is that if you have any two-year period without an edit from the date when you had the tools removed and today, then you wouldn't be suitable.

You don't fail the requirements, the time is less than two years, so you should be fine, but as it's such a close item to two years I'd like a bit more feedback. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:25, 21 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

Lee, I agree with your interpretation. Since the inactivity was less than 2 years in duration, and there are no concerns about current activity levels (over 100 edits in 2024 alone), Nyttend should receive the tools back following the customary 24-hour hold. Welcome back, Nyttend. 28bytes (talk) 22:46, 21 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

Agreed. We'll open the 24 hour hold in that case. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:49, 21 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

+2, not excessively inactive and appears to have already returned to activity. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:03, 22 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

The one-year line means that people in your position would need to go through RfA if they remained inactive for a year after their desysop. You resumed activity less than a year after your August 2022 desysopping. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:19, 22 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

• Not that my opinion means anything, but the fact that Nyttend has been fairly active editing means that few editors would be concerned about him regaining the tools and breaking things. We could use the help. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 06:26, 22 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

  I second Dennis, and would like to add that Nyttend himself was generally a very good administrator whose resysopping would be to our great benefit. Kurtis ^(talk) 11:41, 22 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

  That "generally" is beautifully subtle  :) ——Serial Number 54129 15:59, 22 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

  He had like, what, one user conduct RfC 14 years ago? He's grown a lot in the years since then. Nyttend's a good egg. Kurtis ^(talk) 16:36, 24 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

• Perhaps should be mentioned that the clock for inactivity should actually start from 7 July 2021 rather than 3 May 2021, as the alt account User:Nyttend backup would count towards activity. -- Pawnkingthree (talk) 14:13, 22 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

  That seems to be a rather minor point given that there is (so far) unanimous agreement between 'crats that this request is valid and acceptable. Primefac (talk) 14:16, 22 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

  Indeed. Pawnkingthree (talk) 14:20, 22 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for the explanations on one/two years. Once this concludes, and I have the tools back (or someone raises a reason to wait more than 24 hours), I think I'll propose a change of wording on one/two years, based on what's said here. I'd appreciate your help on the wordsmithing, since I'll try to improve the wording without changing the meaning. Nyttend (talk) 20:36, 22 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

  Done. 28bytes (talk) 23:30, 22 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

Thanks! I chose not to reapply when I returned to activity, since I figured I ought to show that I could be active first (i.e. no question that I was just returning to get the tools back), but I'd mostly forgotten about it. But in the last few days I've had to report a blatant spammer to AIV, and I realised that I'd rather handle the situation instead of waiting for someone else. Once I propose a clarification to the admin policy, I'll ping participants here. Nyttend (talk) 02:57, 23 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

Hopefully this alleviates the need for a long discussion at WT:ADMIN. Floquenbeam (talk) 15:02, 23 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

Your and Isaacl’s fine-tunings look good to me. 28bytes (talk) 18:02, 23 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

And to me. The alternative would have the effect of discouraging returning former admins from spending some time as a non admin member of the community before asking for the return of the tools, I hope we can all agree that Nyttend like returns should be encouraged. ϢereSpielChequers 19:43, 23 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

As someone who has had a bit of influence over the development of these policies I agree. There's often a chance of running into the law of unintended consequences in policy wording, and we certainly don't want to discourage a return to activity before asking for the bits back, quite the opposite. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 22:58, 23 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

I don't understand why the 'crats appear to be letting non-crats (and non-admins) make decisions about closing the RfA. The latest thing is it's now supposedly closed by a non-crat and another editor blanked the entire RfA as a "courtesy". Courtesy to whom? As far as I can tell, the candidate has never withdrawn; indeed, they haven't edited in over 24 hours. And even if they had withdrawn, say e-mail a 'crat to express their view, why wouldn't a 'crat then close it as withdrawn? And since when do we blank RfAs? I know 'crats often take a hands-off approach to "regulating" RfAs, but this goes way beyond that.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:02, 30 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

I reverted per above, and to put my onetime bureaucrat hat on, I see no reason to blank it. People are having panic attacks over how mean it is, but actually reading through it, if anything it was pretty tame with a lot of encouragement passed on to the user. It won't be the last one like this with the new rfa reform proposals in place either. Wizardman 23:37, 30 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

Speaking as the "another editor" who blanked the RFA after it was closed, I will agree on one point: crats really need to step in here. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:38, 30 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

• Crats: you need to nip this in the bud with a polite but clear statement that non-Crats should never be doing this. If not, this will happen again, and frankly, this isn't fair to the candidate, who might have logged in only to see it "closed" when it wasn't closed. This is clearly disruptive and needs addressing, for the sake of the candidates. This is WP:RFA, not WP:ANI, the margin of error is a bigger deal. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 05:36, 1 May 2024 (UTC)Reply
• What are you guys talking about? You don't need a crat to close an RfA early and it's usually not crats that do it. Just like AfDs only need admins when the outcome could plausibly be deletion, RfAs only need crats when the outcome could plausibly be successful. Otherwise it's just a discussion like any other and you don't need a special hat to see which way the wind is blowing. – Joe (talk) 06:59, 1 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

Ok, so personally I'd rather all RfAs were closed either by the user who initiated them or by a crat. However, our exact wording says that any user in good standing can close these discussions.

I think any RfA that is closed by a non-crat without a withdrawal will always be contentious, so perhaps it is worth changing that to avoid these sorts of conversations in future (as well as the closure revertions and associated drama). Nothing untoward has happened here, but we do have enough crats to be able to monitor and close SNOW/NOTNOW RfAs.

It's worth noting that we have asked the editor if they wished to withdraw, which would have been my primary reason not to let the RfA run it's course. Personally, if I ran for RfA in good faith, I wouldn't want someone closing it. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 08:35, 1 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

Actually, lots of SNOW/NOTNOW RfAs have been closed by non-crats without any issues. If crats want to close these discussions, they can certainly do so, but I would oppose any "you have to wait for a crat" rule as a prescriptive measure, given how common it is that the non-bureaucrat closes work perfectly fine. If crats become more active in this regard over the next couple of years and it turns out that 99% of the time, crats are closing these discussions, we can go and descriptively write that into the policy, but that isn't what current practice looks like. —Kusma (talk) 10:55, 1 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

Can you point to an example of a contentious early close before this one? – Joe (talk) 12:42, 1 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

Seeing as I participated in the RfA, I was never going to take part in its closure. As such, I'd prefer for other bureaucrats to speak up but none have yet. But speaking in a general sense: As Joe Roe says, the process allows for non-bureaucrats to close obvious SNOW failures. While ToadetteEdit said they weren't withdrawing yet, the outcome of the RfA was not in doubt given the feedback presented and RfAs have been closed early in the past even when the candidate hasn't yet wanted to withdraw. Eventually, people start opposing because the candidate hasn't yet withdrawn.

Once this particular RfA had been closed, there was no need to re-open. The reopen, plus the addition and subsequent revert of the courtesy blank without consulting ToadetteEdit either way, was inappropriate and unnecessary. Why everyone skipped the discussion phase before reverting each other is beyond me. ProcrastinatingReader wrote this kind message after closing the RfA, whereas everyone else reverted or added to the RfA post-revert without discussing anything. Acalamari 07:25, 1 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

• I have seen non-Crats do SNOW closes (not optimal but acceptable), but this was something different, particularly given the new rules on when voting would start. It seemed everyone was clustering to handle it, except the Crats. RFA is the domain of Crats, after all, and recent RFCs have indicated that the community wants Crats to be a little more proactive in clerking in general. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 08:12, 1 May 2024 (UTC)Reply
• Of potential note, Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/2024_review/Phase_I#Proposal_17:_Have_named_Admins/crats_to_monitor_infractions will be seeking additional feedback in Phase II of that RFC. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:07, 1 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

The following inactive administrators are being desysoped due to inactivity. Thank you for your service.

Criteria 1 (total inactivity)

1. Deskana (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

   Last logged admin action: July 2020

Criteria 2 (100 edits/5-year rule)

1. Mets501 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

   Last logged admin action: September 2017

• — xaosflux ^Talk 00:00, 1 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

Deskana (t · th · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · manual reverts · rollbacks · logs ^{(blocks · rights · moves)} · rfar · spi · cci) (assign permissions)^{(acc · ap · ev · fm · mms · npr · pm · pc · rb · te)}

For total inactivity in excess of one year the bureaucrat access for Deskana will be removed. Thank you for your lengthy service Deskana! Best regards, — xaosflux ^Talk 00:00, 1 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

SRP filed. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:04, 1 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

I have removed the bureaucrat flag per request at SRP; thanks for their service throughout the years. EPIC (talk) 01:48, 1 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

I join in thanking Deskana for their many years of serving the Wikipedia community. BusterD (talk) 12:38, 1 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

Is it possible for Wikipedia:Bureaucrat activity to be updated? Or is this tracked somewhere else? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:03, 1 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

Staxringold (t · th · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · manual reverts · rollbacks · logs ^{(blocks · rights · moves)} · rfar · spi · cci) (assign permissions)^{(acc · ap · ev · fm · mms · npr · pm · pc · rb · te)}

I truly love Wikipedia but, despite my best intentions, life has just clearly gotten in the way and I've not had time to re-engage as I thought I would. Per the Notice left on my talk page, I think voluntary resignation makes more sense than forcing you all to go through the automated process and added work. Maybe one day I'll be back editing more heavily, but I'm pretty clearly due for de-sysop'ing, given my current activity level. Staxringold _talk^contribs 12:52, 1 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

  Done. Primefac (talk) 12:53, 1 May 2024 (UTC)Reply