Forum:By the book

I've noticed a number of times that the cases of admins performing significant actions (bans, deletions, page locks, etc.) has increased significantly, and that a thread under discussion has the potential to greatly increase the ability of admin discretion.

From the other thread, I take it that the author did not intend for his proposed rule to be heavily modified, I would like to address the relationship between policy and administrative discretion, because I can see the potential for abuse.

I would like to bring this issue out in the open, and possibly make a rule about it. Even if it doesn't pass, I'm interested in the role that we expect policy to play in a site that is becoming increasingly more "ruled" by admins rather than "moderated" by admins.

Isn't that why we have policies? To provide guidelines for Wookieepedia? Isn't that why we have CT- to get the will of the community on relevant site issues? It seems to me that all users should be bound by all policies and all consensus track decisions, as well as Mofference decisions. That would include admins and would preclude them from acting outside the boundaries carefully delineated in our policies.

Some thoughts:


 * 1) Blocking by admins should be kept within WP:BLOCK at all times, as well as relevant policies that outlines violations specifically. Therefore, a user cannot be blocked for something not on the WP:BLOCK page. Additionally, the actions of a user in IRC should not be reflected on Wookieepedia. I.e. no blocking someone on Wookieepedia for a personal attack made in IRC, because we have separate guidelines for the two mediums. Also, let's have leeway on this for sockpuppets, because they shouldn't exist anyway. I'm not suggesting we allow sockpuppets to get off while the master gets banned.
 * 2) Admins should not utilize their powers of locking/protecting pages to stop edit wars/talk page feuds they are involved in, save in the case of clear and undisputed* vandalism(* undisputed among other admins&mdash;vandals and the other party of the feud don't really count, unless the other party is also an admin, in which case locking the page is pretty silly).'''
 * 3) Admins should not unblock themselves unless A) the block was stated to be "non-serious"- i.e. not for a policy violation. B) An overwhelming majority of admins agrees that the block was unjust.
 * 4) Admins should not use their power when it comes to closing contentious CT/TC debates they are involved in, particularly if the vote is close, without consultation and the agreement of a majority of other admins. This is to prevent partiality when it comes to those debates and is not meant to preclude admins from closing threads with clear consensus. As far as what "clear consensus" is, I would say if one has to ask if it is clear consensus, it probably isn't. In hard terms, I usually think 3 to 1 or more, but that's just me.
 * 5) Admins should keep their administrative actions within policy and consensus as much as possible. Rather than have a silly laundry list of specific dos and don'ts, perhaps we should have a general guideline of behavior for admins to follow. And this would not preclude admins from participating in Consensus Track or Trash Compactor debates, but merely ensure that administrative actions have a basis in policy.


 * This is a discussion primarily for administrators, but all members of the community are welcome to chime in. Feel free to bring up new ideas, revisions, provisions, and especially cookies to the discussion, because everything is better with a nice, warm, chewy cookie. And please try and use bold when it comes to expressing a final opinion on each option, so consensus may be easily determined.

And if I've stated something already codified somewhere, please point it out. I'd like to think that most of these are standard practice anyway, but having a written policy may be a good thing to add officialness to them.

Talk amongst yourselves

 * Obviously, I support all of these ideas. Otherwise, I wouldn't have posted them here.  Atarumaster88  [[Image:Jedi_Order.jpg|20px]] ( Talk page ) 17:10, 18 September 2007 (UTC)