Throughout the history of the project, there has been a convention that adminship may be removed involuntarily only in cases of clear abuse. Users have proposed a variety of processes to ensure that admins have the continued support of the community, but none has gained widespread acceptance. Some administrators will voluntarily stand for reconfirmation under certain circumstances; see Category:Wikipedia administrators open to recall.
Through 2003, there had been only one case where adminship was revoked. Since 2004, the Arbitration Committee has dealt with cases involving abuse of adminship, both through review of de-adminships imposed in emergencies and through removal of adminship as a remedy in an arbitration proceeding.
There have also been cases where users have voluntarily relinquished adminship, and there have been cases where adminship has been suspended temporarily to enforce a cooling-off period in conflicts between admins. Throughout the history of the project, some purportedly voluntary de-adminships have taken place in the presence of a growing consensus that adminship may not be appropriate for the affected user. The arbitration committee has taken the view that users voluntarily resigning their adminship in such a circumstance may not automatically request it back and must go through the regular processes.
Unless otherwise mentioned, users are free to reapply at WP:RFA at any time. Those users desysopped by the Arbitration Committee may also appeal to that Committee.
Contents
Cases
Several users have been de-sysopped for various reasons. Some administrators have resigned or lost their rights after a long period of inactivity. They are listed at Wikipedia:Former administrators.
Former processes
As noted in the cases above, revocation of adminship was previously handled:
- On the mailing list.
- On the village pump.
- At Wikipedia:Requests for review of administrative actions
Proposed processes
Several proposals for alternative or expanded desysopping protocols have been considered by the community. In general, none has achieved a consensus to enact.
- Wikipedia:Administrators/RfC for binding administrator recall - August, 2015
- Wikipedia:Administrators/RfC for BARC - a community desysopping process - July, 2015.
- Wikipedia:Administrative Standards Commission - November, 2014; proposal to appoint administrators and to remove rights
- Wikipedia:Administrators/RfC for an Admin Review Board - November, 2014
- Wikipedia:Requests for Comment/Community de-adminship proof of concept - September, 2012
- WP:Guide to Community de-adminship – February 2010
- Amendment of successful RFA closures - May 2009
- User:EVula/opining/RfA overhaul - January 2009
- Wikipedia:Removing administrator rights/Proposal - October 2008
- Wikipedia:Admin Accountability Alliance - December 2007
- Wikipedia:Community enforced administrator recall - October 2007
- Wikipedia:Removal of adminship - October 2007
- Wikipedia:Fully Uncompelled Binding Administrator Recall - September 2007
- Wikipedia:Ostracism - a short lived proposal in September 2006 that five admins could demand another admin be forced to go through a new Request for Adminship to keep their status. After a lot of criticism on its talk page, it was made historical within three weeks.
- Wikipedia:Temporary Deadminship - August 2006
- Wikipedia:Admin recall - a complex proposal was struck down in August 2006, but resulted in a different proposal at Wikipedia:Administrator recall which includes the ArbCom as a check on abuses.
- Wikipedia:Adminship renewal - swiftly struck down in May 2006 as a rehashing of previous proposals.
- Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship/Proposal 2 - a proposal made in June 2005
- Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship/Old proposal - a March 2005 proposal which closely emulated the Wikipedia:Requests for adminship process, and which was rejected by a margin of over 2 to 1.
- Wikipedia:Administrator Accountability Policy - a series of proposals from September 2004, each voted on and rejected by a margin of about 2 to 1
- Wikipedia:Confirmation of sysophood - an April 2004 proposal for self-initiated periodic review of admin status that generated little interest or discussion
- Wikipedia:Quickpolls - during its short run in 2004, quickpolls were used to address admin disputes. Many of these were retaliatory listings.
- WP:RFA - occasionally, requests for revocation of adminship are made here but all have either been removed out of hand or voted down. An example of historical interest is at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/The Cunctator, and a more recent one is at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jasonr (reconfirmation).
- There have also been a number of policy proposals to revoke adminship from user accounts of people who no longer participate in the project, for example Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Inactive1 and Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Inactive2. These proposals have lacked widespread support.
Current methods of requesting de-adminship
- Voluntary self-revocation of adminship can be requested at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard.
- A small fraction of admins have added their names to Category:Wikipedia administrators open to recall, stating their intent that if a certain quantity of users ask for them to be recalled, the administrator may choose to resign voluntarily, or to engage in a discussion of such resignation. There have been several such recall proposals initiated by users, but in only one case did the administrator voluntarily give up adminship.
- Requests to revoke another user's adminship may also be made using the dispute resolution process.
See also
- June 2006 mailing-list post by Jimbo Wales
- Wikipedia:Administrators
- Wikipedia:Administrator Review - Historical
- Wikipedia:Former administrators
- Wikipedia:Removing administrator rights for processes
- Wikipedia:RFA reform
- Wikipedia administrators open to recall
- m:Stewards - Information about the group of Wikimedians who implement removal of access