User:Swarm/recall

Recall policy demoted

Recall used to be a popular idea, but the reality is that I've never witnessed any recall or recall attempt actually occur in the community. Even users who have strongly condemned me as an abusive or incompetent administrator have never broached the possibility of recall. In the context of current community norms, there is simply no reason for administrators to maintain a meaningless recall policy. In addition, ArbCom has, in recent years, consistently proven very effective in delivering immediate emergency desysops as needed, so a more complicated process wouldn't seem to make sense anymore. If any user disagrees with this deprecation of my recall policy, I welcome them to raise the subject on my talk page, and I will gladly reconsider. However I simply do not see recall criteria as being a significant part of Wikipedia's culture anymore, and I will no longer stand behind this process. I retain the following text as, in my opinion, the best recall procedure ever created. Swarm ♠ 07:53, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

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Recall

A problematic administrator can only lose their tools in one of two ways: First, they can choose, or be pressured to, resign "under a cloud", which basically means that they voluntarily give up the tools in order to avoid receiving sanctions for blatantly obvious misconduct. Or, they can be stripped by the Arbitration Committee, which essentially means having a Supreme Wikicourt proceeding. Apart from these options, administrators are largely untouchable in their positions. If an administrator will not civilly address complaint about their own behavior, there's not much that can be done.

I became an administrator with a virtually unanimous, WP:100 consensus. If I can't maintain that kind of community trust as an admin, then I clearly shouldn't be allowed to keep the tools. Therefore, I'm open to recall— that means I voluntarily give the community the option to take away my adminship.

My recall process is based largely off of Alex Bakharev's process, though it's influenced by a wide variety of other recall processes that I've read. It is important to note that I will not arbitrarily subject myself to a stressful recall proceeding. Broadly speaking, there has to be some reason given and there has to have been some attempt to resolve whatever issue there is by communicating with me. Recall is not a first step but a last resort. Assuming these simple prerequisites are met, my recall process will be as follows:

Standard recall process

1. At least six established editors in good standing petition for recall on my talk page. If twice as many users (i.e. 12 or more, depending on the number of recall petitioners) verbally disagree with the recall petition or sign a counter-petition, the whole process is voided.
2. An RfC will be created to determine whether I should reconfirm my adminship. It will tentatively take place at the Administrators' Noticeboard and will last 24-72 hours depending on the clarity of the consensus. If a simple majority of those who participate in the RfC think that I should reconfirm my adminship, I will do so. If a reconfirmation RfA is called for, I cannot refuse to proceed—any editor may "nominate me" at RfA to initiate the reconfirmation hearing.
3. A reconfirmation RfA is held. It runs no different from any other RfA whatsoever. If I don't pass, I lose the mop. If I do pass, I retain it. I cannot refuse the result of the RfA. The closing crat will act solely on the result of the RfA, not on my own input whatsoever.

Users who can simply request the removal of my admin rights

Adminship is not a big deal. That's why I promise to resign the tools upon request of any one of these trusted users (but in contrast to the other process, I will do this upon their request not as a result of dubious surrounding circumstances, i.e., not "under a cloud" and without any implication that a loss of the tools is warranted).

Worm That Turned (talk · contribs) (my RfA nominator)

Floquenbeam (talk · contribs)

Kudpung (talk · contribs)

TParis (talk · contribs)

Trusilver (talk · contribs)

Questions

Why all the notes about how you can't refuse the results of a recall initiative?

Some admins have reneged on their openness to recall when they faced losing the mop. This has eroded the seriousness of the concept of recall in the eyes of many. I want to assure the community that I am dead serious about recall, and if it gets to that point, it's solely in the community's hands, not mine. Even if I did want to go back on my promise, I couldn't.

I'm not on that above list of users. How does this help me?

You can ask any of these editors to request that I give up the mop. If they agree with you that a loss of adminship is warranted (for whatever reason), they'll simply ask me to resign. This is an easy way to circumvent the normal process!

Aren't these users are just your friends?

I would hope to consider any and all Wikipedia users as "friends", but they're not on this list because I trust them not to request my resignation ever. The one thing these users have in common is that I entirely trust that they are responsible enough to evaluate my actions impartially, request my resignation if it is warranted, and decline to do so if it isn't.

These users aren't helping me!

If you can't get one of these editors to request my resignation, perhaps you should consider whether recall is truly warranted. But still, remember that this is just an alternative to open, community-driven forums, and you're free to initiate my easy, three-step, standard recall procedure.

Oh, come on, can't I just ask you to resign?

At the end of the day, yes. Forget the recall process, forget the trusted users, I truly will consider resigning the tools if it's asked of me. For example, if the community is in an uproar over my actions or something, and several established editors are telling me that I should resign, I may do just that. However, the odds of me resigning the mop just because one random editor thinks I should are probably going to be quite slim—"admin abuse!" is the war cry of any editor who doesn't get what they personally want from me.

My efforts to recall you have failed but I think the community made a mistake. Can I try again?

If a recall effort fails—be it by a successful RfA or a voided petition—there will be a "cool down" period of three months before another recall effort can be launched by anybody, and six months before an original petitioner can launch one. This is due to the serious nature of recall: you should be confident that recall is truly warranted, because if it fails, you're not going to have a second chance for quite some time.

Notes