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Discussion has been fragmented, making it difficult to follow. The situation as a whole raises questions of the proper boundaries between bureaucrats, the arbitration committee, stewards, the community as a whole, and to a lesser extent the election coordinators and election commission since the initial dispute took place on a page related to the elections.
I believe it is important that exceptional actions such as this be noted here so that all bureaucrats are aware of them. I also believe that further discussion with the wider community would be valuable and would hope that Maxim will participate. If this page is not the most suitable venue for that discussion, perhaps links to more suitable pages could be provided.
It is my view that, to a far greater extent than other activities at Wikipedia, the role of bureaucrats is narrowly defined. As the name "bureaucrats" implies, we are expected to follow process, and implement the wishes of the community. The original "bureaucrat" permission gave only the ability to set the admin bit, not the ability to remove it. The ability to remove the bit came much later, and was intended to allow the English Wikipedia community to be self-sufficient in handling de-sysoppings for inactivity and when part of an arbitration proceeding. Original policy discussions took place at this RFC in 2011. Notably, the provision to allow de-adminship when an admin is behaving disruptively was closed as WP:SNOW after 15-1 opposition. The provision allowing bureaucrats to de-sysop only those accounts where there is evidence that the account has been compromised barely passed, and has not since been amended. The intent at the time was to reserve these exceptional emergency cases to the stewards.
There is further discussion at Wikipedia talk:Bureaucrats/Archive 4#Emergency desysopping (v3) where several participants specifically mention that they could support bureaucrats invoking WP:IAR to de-sysop an admin under certain circumstances. The discussion did not have wide participation, however, and did not lead to any sort of consensus.
I would also like to observe that I have reviewed Wikipedia:Former administrators/reason/for cause and do not believe that there has been any previous example of a bureaucrat de-sysopping anyone for cause in the absence of clear instructions from the Arbitration Committee. The most recent similar situations were in 2006-2008 and were performed by Jimbo Wales (talk·contribs), and were controversial. I may have missed some cases since those that were ultimately resolved with the affected individual being re-sysopped are not indexed anywhere and are therefore difficult to find. The Uninvited Co., Inc.22:32, 16 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
I've been assuming that the case would discuss the role of bureaucrats and have been reserving my (non-privileged, ordinary editor) analysis for its workshop. However if the bureaucrats would like to have the discussion here, then that's fine, too. Thanks for your historical info. isaacl (talk) 00:01, 17 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
I think the way Maxim handled it, immediately and publicly posting their reasoning to the arbitration committee, was sufficient to make the IAR perfectly permissible, even for a crat. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:00, 16 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
Given that the so-called 'emergency' (whether or not it was an emergency- it had been 3 hours since the reblock and Fred has not unblocked himself again?) has subsided, shouldn't the permissions be restored to ultimately be decided on by the committee? Barring an injunction, temporary desysop motion, or similar... –xenotalk23:13, 16 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
While a desysopping in this situation is, in itself, not unreasonable or unprecedented, it should not be overlooked that crats quite simply do not have the authority to perform discretionary desysoppings, even in emergency situations. If there is a pressing reason to do so, meaning something so serious and urgent that it cannot wait for either Arbcom or a Steward to act, then sure, an IAR desysopping would be reasonable for the protection of the project. However, that's not what happened. Self-unblocking is an abuse of the tools, repeatedly doing so is an additional offense, and yes, these acts make one subject to desysopping. But, contrary to what a lot of people seem to think, it's not a bright line for desysopping, and while Fred was rightfully desysopped, nothing fundamentally gives crats the right to make that sort of judgment call, even though they have the technical ability. Yes, IAR is a thing, but I don't think it is all that reasonable to invoke IAR in order to usurp the authority to desysop, especially in a non-emergency situation where there is no risk of harm to the project. Tool misuse is scandalous, and tempers on all sides were already heated. An IAR desysop was an overreaction, and an understandable one that we can certainly let slide, but it was unnecessary, and while I have great respect for and confidence in our crats, including Maxim, and we should not let crats get into the habit of invoking IAR to perform discretionary desysops. Swarm talk 03:43, 17 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
WP:VPPOL might be a better place to ask questions like, "Should bureaucrats be allowed to perform desysopings without direction from Arbcom?", and "If so, when?". WP:BN is a little backwater. --Izno (talk) 04:04, 17 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
I've said my 2c on the case page already, but wanted to add support to what Swarm said. I think it would be appropriate for a bureaucrat to do an emergency desysop IAR-style if the situation was ongoing, but once the threat of tool misuse (and particularly tool misuse that would harm the project) has passed, it should only be up to ArbCom to take action. I think it got struck in my comment on the case page, but I'll also reiterate that my concerns are not with Maxim or his actions, but rather what should be done in future cases. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 19:09, 17 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
For the record, I too support Maxim's action. The situation had been pulling in more and more different administrators, and it was clear that Fred Bauder was not interested in discussing things since he was simply unblocking himself within minutes. Maxim's action stabilized things and reduced disruption to the project. I wouldn't want to see bureaucrats routinely taking it upon themselves to de-sysop administrators that they deemed unruly, but this was an unusual situation. So in this particular case, I believe that Maxim showed good judgment. --Elonka08:07, 18 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
I only recently became aware of this cluster bleep, but after looking into it a bit I will add my endorsement (fwiw) to Maxim's IAR intervention. Swarm's analysis is solid, but this was a highly unusual circumstance. This kind of IAR action can be tolerated because it was immediately subject to review and could easily and quickly have been overturned. IAR is always going to be a judgement call, and I tend to take a very conservative view of it. (Invoking IAR should be safe legal and rare.) In this case I think the call was a reasonable one. -Ad Orientem (talk) 21:32, 19 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
If we want to emphasize that having the admin bit is not a big deal, then having it temporarily removed should similarly not be a big deal. I am in favour of bureaucrats having some leeway to make judgement calls about temporarily desysopping particularly to stop flagrant misuse and wheel-warring in the cold light of day. If it's found that concerns were unfounded, they can just re-sysop the account in question, no harm done. I think in this case the concern was Fred would continue to wheel war (we will never, of course, know if he would have done or not, there's little to be gained from speculating on this), and so I'll just add my little, near-meaningless endorsement of Maxim's actions here. Fish+Karate09:51, 20 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
Based on early comments lets not continue this here, if someone wants to propose this the right venue can be used - thank you for the replies. — xaosfluxTalk23:41, 17 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
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.
BN is not the best venue, but since we are directly talking about issues realted to the (unblockself) permission - throwing out a feeler: What if we just removed this access from administrators (and perhaps adding it to bureaucrats to deal with issues of rogue admins)? — xaosfluxTalk21:40, 17 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
The number of admins who accidentally block themselves or test blocks on themselves, and have to unblock themselves, far exceeds the number of rogue unblocks. Stephen21:43, 17 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
I would agree. I think the current situation is fine—if you screw up and block yourself or you're doing tests, sure, go ahead and unblock yourself. If someone else blocks you, then even if you think they're way out of line, you appeal the block, you don't just reverse it. Also, I recall some admins who did unblock themselves during the Robdurbar incident because the account was so clearly compromised; they weren't penalized in any way but were instrumental in keeping the problem in check. SeraphimbladeTalk to me21:58, 17 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
Adding a post-close idle thought, Stephen's point made me wonder if there would be a way in pemrs to undo your own selfblock but not other's blocks of you. Ben · Salvidrim!✉00:37, 18 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
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.
I've just globally locked Esanchez7587, as he was clearly going rogue after few years of inactivity, which smelled like a compromised admin account.
This is just a notification, and no desysop was performed on my level: whether or not to desysop is your call. (Since they're locked, they cannot perform any actions. Hence no desysop from me.)
Global lock is sufficient at the moment as he cannot do anything more - just waiting on other arbs to reply regarding anything else. WormTT(talk) 17:36, 22 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
AntiCompositeNumber is correct. Since they cannot log in (either using Web or via API) nothing can be done with the account. That's why I just locked the account, not desysop'ing. — regards, Revi14:46, 23 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
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.
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.
Resysop request (Randykitty)
Latest comment: 5 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion
I am nearing the end of my 3-month self-imposed wikibreak and hereby request to have my bit restored. I still have a week to go, so there's no urgency. Thanks! --Randykitty (talk) 18:22, 25 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
Since we dropped our bits at the same time for the same reason and have been inactive the same period, symmetry demands I also request my bit back at the sams time. Thanks SpartazHumbug!21:07, 26 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 5 years ago5 comments5 people in discussion
I noticed that 2FA has been recently pushed through for WP:INTADMIN as an office action. Are Bureaucrat accounts currently required to have 2FA? If not this creates a security hole. Crazynast19:31, 26 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
Not 'yet' at least, WMF is still working on their requirements, along with the mechanics for it. These topics are being currently reviewed by WMF Trust and Safety team along with the development Security group. — xaosfluxTalk20:10, 26 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
Done. 28bytes (talk) 17:46, 22 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
Doing... — xaosflux Talk 21:44, 24 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
