Commons talk:Bureaucrats

Re-write of Bureaucrats page

I have made a proposal at Commons talk:Bureaucrats/Proposed. Please comment on the talk page there. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 19:17, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. This page now updated. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:06, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Usergroup OTRS-member

What is the nature of this usergroup, and should it be applied to all OTRS-members? -- Avi (talk) 04:23, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

All the ones with access to permissions-commons, I would think. Rocket000 (talk) 04:47, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

So can a local crat give me access, please? -- Avi (talk) 05:58, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposal to manage inactive Bureaucrats

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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No consensus to create a separate, higher standard for bureaucrat activity. Those bureaucrats who qualify as inactive per Commons:Administrators/De-adminship will also have their bureaucrat flag removed. Guanaco (talk) 04:50, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

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I propose the following addition to this guidance: Bureaucrats that are inactive on this project for more than three months may lose these rights in line with the norms and procedure defined at Commons:Administrators/De-adminship.

•  Support as proposer. --Fæ (talk) 10:07, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
•  Support Sounds reasonable. --Krd 11:08, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
•  Comment: I could support some sort of policy that enables de-crating for inactivity. Three months seems a little short, though, and six would fit in better with the de-admin policy. Also, de-admin is based on non-use of the technical sysop tools, and an analogous policy for crats wouldn't make much sense as many crats need to make use of the technical crat tools quite rarely. For the active crats the community role tends to be more important than the merely technical one. One could perhaps think of de-crating for inactivity if there has been no use of the technical crat tools and no or very little community engagement on this project for six months, with some agreed definition of what "no or very little community engagement" should mean. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 11:30, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
  • I agree with a lot of what you say: I don't think it should be based on use of bureaucrat tools (I also think the de-admin policy is imperfect in that regard). The reason is that bureaucrats (and admins) often need to decide things without actually using their tools: an admin closing a DR as keep isn't using their admin tools, a bureaucrat closing an adminship request as rejected isn't using their bureaucrat tools, but such decisions nevertheless (mostly, I know non-admin closures are sometimes allowed) require being in that role and should definitely count towards activity. I could even imagine any edit to count towards activity (that's what we do on eowiki). darkweasel94 11:40, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
  • The rationale for 3 months (which is effectively 4 when counting an additional 30 day notice period) rather than matching the current 6 months for admins, was that this seems an awfully long absence for someone who would be expected to be active in leading on major issues and policy development. Any 'crat, for whatever reason, taking a wikibreak, or having very low activity levels on the project, for more than a couple of months I would expect to make their plans or needs clear rather than just going off grid without explanation. Expectations for handling long breaks for a 'crat would be a useful addition to the guideline if based on working practice, which might tidy up the distinction between a reasonable break of a month or two, and a long sabbatical where it would be better to return the flag and run a quick re-request on BN when next available (as you did recently Michael). It's no big deal, happy to see a reasonable consensus on the details. --Fæ (talk) 11:49, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
•  Question Is this needed? Can someone be a bureaucrat but not an admin? And if someone looses their admin tools do their bureaucrat tools go as well? Looking through Commons:Bureaucrats/Archive there are a number of previous bureaucrat. Under what process did they loose their bureaucratship? Liamdavies (talk) 12:18, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
  • I know a few voluntarily resigned. I'm not sure this policy is really needed. --Dschwen (talk) 12:24, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
  • I do not know of any past case of a bureaucrat being removed for inactivity. Pondering the definition of the role of a Bureaucrat shows that this is a 'stronger' community role than that expected for Administrators. For this reason, having a bit more definition around behavioural norms for retirement, or an expectation for notification of planned inactivity, is of benefit. The figure of "9 bureaucrats" is fairly often referred to, but if you need some time from a bureaucrat in the short term you find that this boils down to far fewer who may respond (in the past, around 1/3). Guidelines that encourage bureaucrats to notify or hand back the flag when entering a long period of very low activity, will have the benefit of encouraging others to step forward from the Admin corps. A simple tagging of the list of current bureaucrats to show which are temporarily inactive would be pretty useful too. --Fæ (talk) 14:07, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
    • I agree with Liamdavies. If removing of admin tools means removing of crat tools, current policy for inactive admins should be enough to de-sysop inactive crats. Furthermore, 3 months is very short, since crats don't need to use their tools very often.--Pere prlpz (talk) 16:58, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
•  Oppose – I believe that three months is too short, and I don't consider Bureaucrats who were inactive for three months to be dead-weight. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 12:56, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
•  Neutral for three, {{S}} for four, {{O}} for two. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 13:11, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
• You only become a bureaucrat, when you have admin rights so it's fair to have an inactivity policy imho. Three months is too short though; I'd do less than 5 admin/crat actions in six months or if someone loses their admin rights they automatically lose their crat rights too (same for CU/OS imho). Trijnstel_talk 14:09, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

• This is what I'm getting at. Is it actually possible for someone to be a bureaucrat without being an admin? If it's not then this policy seems redundant as loss of adminship would automatically mean lose of bureaucratship. If this isn't the case, then I support Trijnstel that losing adminship automatically removes bureaucratship. Liamdavies (talk) 17:34, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
  • It is possible, which is why I support the addition. Only oversight is difficult as you can't do your work properly without having the admin right. Also for checkuser (some projects have checkusers which aren't admins), but in most cases the checkusers without admin rights have the view deleted contribs rights etc (which we haven't arranged here yet). My personal belief is that if people aren't active enough for keeping the admin right, they should lose all other rights as well. Trijnstel_talk 15:14, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

•  Neutral I think that it is better to simply decide that anyone who is desysopped because of inactivity also ceases to be a bureaucrat, checkuser and oversighter. --Stefan4 (talk) 20:15, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
•  Oppose The current Russavia desysop vote, has led me to think that there are uses for inactive crats. Yes alot of being a crat is to be to press the buttons and to do the donkey work, but not being an active crat also means that they are uninvolved in any ongoing controversy and are less personally involved with any of the personalities at play, maybe bringing a fresh pair of eyes to an issue.--KTo288 (talk) 20:43, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
•  Oppose 3 months seems too short, and "inactive on this project" would need to be more clearly defined (tool use, any edits, or something else?). Personally I like Stefan4's idea of automatic loss of higher tools when someone is desysopped for inactivity better than developing separate rules for each of these roles. --Avenue (talk) 22:02, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
•  Oppose But full support for Stefan4's idea. If you loose the sysop status, you loose all other higher tools as well. Makes perfect sense. --Hedwig in Washington ^(mail?) 07:44, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, I am moving to a second proposal based on the comments, so someone may want to mark this vote as closed, unless there are objections. --Fæ (talk) 07:57, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Second version to remove time constraint

I propose the following addition: Bureaucrats that become inactive on this project may lose these rights in line with the norms and procedure defined at Commons:Administrators/De-adminship.

This avoids the main objection in the discussion above that 3 or 4 months is too short a period of inactivity, but brings it into line with the sysop flag by just pointing to that process.

•  Support as proposer. --Fæ (talk) 07:57, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
•  Comment I would support a proposal which states that upon deadminship all higher rights - bureaucrat, checkuser and oversighter - are also lost. Liamdavies (talk) 08:10, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
• Better, but not perfect imho. What if people don't use their admin rights, but do use their crat rights? (same for CU/OS) Trijnstel_talk 15:16, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
  • I read my sentence as being a period of inactivity as a 'crat rather than as an admin. If there is doubt then common sense ought to apply. The process includes a 30 day notification period and someone should be able to speak up and point out an exception to the guideline. --Fæ (talk) 15:22, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
    • What do you mean by "inactivity as an 'crat"? Do you mean a Bureaucrat who doesn't often make entries in "Special:Log/rights"? --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 03:58, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
•  Question Commons:Administrators/De-adminship says that it works for admins and bureaucrats. Therefore, your addition doesn't change anything. I think it already works as Liamdavies says. I'm I missing anything? Or are you just trying to clarify the wording of the current policy?--Pere prlpz (talk) 15:34, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Good point. Interesting that the 'crats voting earlier did not spot that as the process. Perhaps all that is needed is the link to the sysop policy to effect this. --Fæ (talk) 16:40, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

If it ain't broke

I see no pressing need at the moment to come up with policy to manage inactive crats, and even if we did this is the wrong way round to do it. We should do this as a two part process, first asking the community if they believe that there is a problem, only if the consensus is that something is broken should we begin to fix it.--KTo288 (talk) 16:17, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Creating the above proposal and adding a note on the village pump, was a way of asking the community this question. How would you like to do it? --Fæ (talk) 16:37, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

No you did not ask the community if they thought this was a problem that needed fixing, but instead presented them with a solution to one that you think exists. Linking from the village pump one would be immediately faced with your proposal, and the natural response would then be to vote. Even an oppose vote could then be taken as a tacit admission that there is a problem one which can only be solved by changing policy. You could have started a thread on the pump to determine first if the community as a whole felt that there is a need for this. Only if there was a genuine concern that inactive crats was a problem should voting be initiated, and only in a way in which the community wants to go.--KTo288 (talk) 18:19, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

I have no problem with the question being raised, would you like to raise it? At the end of the day this may be as simple as adding a link to the admin policy and saying in this policy that the same process applies. Not something that needs to be a huge or contentious debate from my viewpoint. --Fæ (talk) 18:24, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

No, I'll pass, as I said I don't feel that there is a problem, feel free to do so if you wish.--KTo288 (talk) 16:53, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Mark for translation

Are there any arguments against marking this page for translation? If not I'll go ahead and do it. --Dschwen (talk) 23:21, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I guess it is safe to mark for translation as we don't have any /lang subpages that would be overwritten. --Dschwen (talk) 23:48, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Ok I did german (added a lot of new translations) and spanish (mostly from the existing page) and set up redirects to the translated pages. --Dschwen (talk) 00:33, 31 January 2014 (UTC)