Wiktionary talk:Votes/pl-2017-03/Desysopping for inactivity

Rationale
Voting on desysopping on a per-admin basis seems to be a waste of time if we can come up with an acceptable inactivity-based policy.

As for the specific policy:

I feel there should be a guard against the number of admins dropping below a certain threshold. I arbitrarily chose 20; since en wikt currently has around 100 admins, the threshold will not be reached any time soon.

As for the number of years, I feel 5 years is a good period. But from I have seen in desysop votes, there could be support for a much shorter period so I included 2 years in the proposal as well.

--Dan Polansky (talk) 14:15, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * The period of 2 years is used in Requests for comment/Activity levels of advanced administrative rights holders, which to my taste uses fairly complex language.
 * Also of interest is Admin activity review/Local inactivity policies, which lists inactivity policies of various Wikimedia projects. --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:09, 25 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Perhaps it would be useful to gather some statistics (if possible) on how many regular users have in fact been absent for X years and subsequently returned. Equinox ◑ 18:44, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't know how to collect such statistics. To have at least one example, I seem to recall Daniel Carrero made a fairly long wiki pause some time ago. @User:Daniel Carrero: Do you remember how long your wiki pause was? -Dan Polansky (talk) 11:33, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I checked Special:Log/Daniel_Carrero and then restricted the results to 2014. If we applied the proposed policy with 1 year only, Daniel would have been desysopped since there are no logged actions in 2014. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:45, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I was absent for almost 2 years, from June 2013 to April 2015, with a few edits in between. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 11:50, 26 March 2017 (UTC)


 * My personal feeling is that 2 years is too little (but more than 5 years is too much). That's just based on my experience of editing patterns and I can't quantitatively back it up. So if the vote proceeds as written, I am inclined to vote against 2 and for 5. Equinox ◑ 19:08, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Inactivity or sysop inactivity?
An inactive admin may return once a year or so to give late responses to queries on their talk-page, and thus never be subject to this policy despite being inactive. Perhaps last admin action would be a better yardstick than last edit. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 18:26, 25 March 2017 (UTC)


 * As currently written, this vote seems to be about sysop inactivity. With emphasis added, "If the number of admins is greater than 20, and a user who has admin rights has not used admin tools for at least X years as per Special:Log, the admin right can be removed from the user without further ado." —Granger (talk · contribs) 18:51, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, that ought to teach me to read more carefully. Thanks. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 18:52, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * In, I now tried to drive the point home earlier. --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:47, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Resysopping
I feel that if I'd gone AWOL for 2 years (I once took about 1 year's sabbatical) I wouldn't be more than slightly miffed if I came back to find myself without privileges; and wouldn't we all be happy to restore them on someone's return? — Salt  marsh. 12:23, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I am of two minds about restoring tools automatically. The reality is that the community and its policies change over time and that being too long disconnected from the community may result in not knowing the policies and no longer having the trust of the community at large (due to the new community). As long as the removal of tools is systematic and not personal, I don't see why a former admin should be upset or offended if they have to go through the typical process again after being away for two or more years. - TheDaveRoss 12:39, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Maybe I have more privileges than I know about :) — Salt  marsh . 13:01, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Some statistics
Here is a list of all admins who have taken a break of more than 365 days between uses of exclusively administrator tools (including myself, a 368 day break). It also includes people who are not local admins but have acted at least twice with a 365 day gap (i.e. Stewards). - TheDaveRoss 15:01, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
 * PierreAbbat, Jun-Dai, Kevin Rector, Amgine, Jusjih, Alhen, Richardb, Gauss, EivindJ, Sewnmouthsecret, Enginear, Mike Dillon, Pharamp, Dominic, Atelaes, Mzajac, Paul G, Tohru, Neskaya, Uncle G, Diuturno, Dvortygirl, Panda10, Equinox, Hamaryns, Versageek, Polyglot, Internoob, Conrad.Irwin, Pathoschild, TheDaveRoss, Jaaari, DAVilla, Daniel Carrero, Haplology, Wytukaze, MaEr, Visviva, Bequw, Thryduulf, Nbarth, Matthias Buchmeier, Dijan, Krun, Vituzzu, Beobach972, Ruakh, Dick Laurent, ZxxZxxZ

Here are the 16 admins who have not acted in five years (Paul G will join this list in May):
 * Timwi, GerardM, RJFJR, Brett, Richardb, Rodasmith, Jonathan Webley, Leftmostcat, Carolina wren, PierreAbbat, Goldenrowley, Mike Dillon, Enginear, BiT, A-cai, Sewnmouthsecret

Here are the 33 admins who have not acted in two years:
 * Timwi, GerardM, RJFJR, Brett, Richardb, Rodasmith, Jonathan Webley, Leftmostcat, Carolina wren, PierreAbbat, Goldenrowley, Mike Dillon, Enginear, BiT, A-cai, Sewnmouthsecret, Paul G, Pharamp, Dvortygirl, Algrif, Jyril, Maro, Mzajac, Mike, AugPi, Hamaryns, Polyglot, Atelaes, Yair rand, Conrad.Irwin, Jaaari, Diuturno, EncycloPetey

The one year measure is 49 admins, more than half. Actions in this case are limited to (un)deletes, (un/re)blocks, (un)protects. - TheDaveRoss 15:20, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I hadn't even realised you'd already made that list... --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 11:43, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

No more WF votes?
So, this would see an end to Wonderfool's sockpuppets starting their own de-admin votes. That can only be a good thing, as Wonderfool has other things to do. --G23r0f0i (talk) 10:12, 30 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Why would you say that? I don't think most of us feel that way about WF. I mean, votes are not such a big thing, but as for the regular work we do here, WF has been a useful contributor for years. —Stephen (Talk) 13:31, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Just for the record, section op is Wonderfool. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 12:54, 1 April 2017 (UTC)