Wikinews:Requests for permissions/Removal/Eloquence (admin/bureaucrat/editor)


 * The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a request for de-adminship/cratship/editorship that did not gain concencuss to remove. Please do not modify it.

Eloquence was one of the original contributors who helped get Wikinews set up. However, he's now moved on to better things and is the Deputy CEO of the WMF. This is somewhat of a conflict of interest akin to the Director General of the BBC having an editorial say in the running of BBC News.

As I understand it, all staff have privileges on any wiki to take "office action"; that would generally be items such as enforcing a court order against the WMF. That is required for the good functioning and governance of the WMF, but privileged access outside such scope conflicts with Wikinews' perceived impartiality.

Thus I am nominating Eloquence to have Bureaucrat and Administrator privileges removed to maintain a clear appearance of editorial independence. --Brian McNeil / talk 20:34, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments

 * Despite making this nomination I have not as yet voted. I would prefer some discussion towards consensus on this first. --Brian McNeil / talk 20:37, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * As Dendodge noted, Eloquence is a steward. Wouldn't he therefore still have the same powers as administrators and bureaucrats? Benny the mascot (talk) 20:52, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, so he doesn't need to be a 'crat. This is more to maintain an appearance of neutrality than anything. Den dodge  T\C 20:56, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Not exactly, a steward has significant restrictions on what they are allowed to do. (more or less they are only allowed to act if someone is repeatedly vandalizing pages, and there are no local admins around to stop them.) Bawolff ☺☻ 20:59, 22 December 2009 (UTC)


 * For those interested, previous decrat nom in jan 2008. Bawolff ☺☻ 20:59, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Just to note, I've notified Eloquence of this vote. Tempodivalse [talk]  21:45, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Does Eloquence has editor/reviewer priveleges at the moment? Where can I go to check this? Benny the mascot (talk) 22:01, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Eloquence at the moment has editor privs, but not reviewer. (All admins get editor status by default.) See Special:Listusers/Eloquence for a full list of rights. Tempodivalse [talk]  22:04, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Any administrator may "technically" grant themselves Editor privilege. Any 'crat can grant/revoke Reviewer privilege. I believe Eloquence has done neither – if in fact he's made any edits since Flagged Revisions was instituted. --Brian McNeil / talk 22:06, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I've asked for the removal of his editor priveleges here. Benny the mascot (talk) 22:20, 22 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm probably missing something obvious, but I don't completely understand the COI argument. My first thought was: So what if Eloquence is a staff member? How would it bias him against us? I suppose the reasoning is that he won't be a neutral party to articles that have negative information against the WMF (e.g. Former Chief Operating Officer of Wikimedia Foundation is convicted felon), but won't other editors have similar COI issues as well? And none of Eloquence's edits, AFAIK, have raised COI concerns so far; i don't agree with removing the bits "preemptively" when there's been no sign of trouble. Open to thoughts. Tempodivalse [talk]  00:52, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Could someone email Erik about this? It's only fair that he have a chance to respond. I pinged him at his talk page here, but I don't think he checks it regularly. Tempodivalse [talk]  00:59, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * As can be seen on the previous discussion, Erik is leaving this up to the community. I trust him not to interfere, even were Wikinews reporting on him in a bad light. However, it is the appearance that he has the ability to do so I see as the issue. There is not a real need for a lot of 'crats here but I do feel that those we have should exhibit signs of life on-wiki, even if that does not extend to using 'crat rights. The switch to Flagged Revisions and institution of a review process with various helper gadgets has caught out a few admins who've not realised what's going on behind the scenes for Google News. I expect Wikinews to continue changing on issues like that, processes will evolve and perhaps be sub-optimally documented. I would not use the term "probation", but any prior contributor of any level should go through some sort of reacclimatisation if they've been away for a long period. --Brian McNeil / talk 01:19, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I've emailed him, because to be honest, its really not fair to have a de-adminship request going on without his knowledge. Well he's previously said that he won't be offended if the community removes his privs, i think it would be very impolite not to at least tell him that a vote is going on. Bawolff ☺☻ 06:28, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Eloquence has been notified. response on talk page. Bawolff ☺☻ 07:49, 23 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I would have thought, with the Martin nonsense in the press calling the Wikimedia Foundation a protosocialist backed organisation people would understand that, while someone like Erik can fully be expected to work within the rules (He'd not be on-staff otherwise) it is indeed a matter of appearance. There are, and I speak from a sysadmin perspective, security concerns with long-term inactive privileged accounts. On any well-managed system you automatically close any privileged account that is, and will continue to be, inactive for a prolonged period. ShakataGaNai might be better able to testify the lengths gone to and level of persistence crackers will put in on a known high-value target. Even a quite modest botnet could make 100+ password guesses a day without ever using the same originating IP and thus triggering normal intrusion detection measures. That is one of my main reasons for supporting the inactive policy; it is an eminently sensible policy which minimises the available attack surface. It isn't barring the doors and raising the drawbridge; it's sensible precautions. I would fully support a fast-track back to privileges for anyone who loses them through inactivity, once they've demonstrated they are reacclimatised to current policy and conventions. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:34, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Lots of people here would have these "perceived" conflicts of interst. Like User:Bastique, who's also on the Staff, and user:Skenmy, who's with the UK WMF chapter. I'm sure there are many others with COIs to other organisations. We're not going to de-admin them as well just for "appearance", are we? How many casual readers do you think would notice that Erik has 'crat privs here (probably very few to none, considering he doesn't edit frequently and has a low profile here), or even care? Would it really damage our credibility that much? If we're worried about trying to appear more credible in the eyes of our readers, then we should be working more on lowering our correction percentages and reporting more accurately, not this. Cheers, Tempodivalse [talk]  14:18, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I hardly think we should worry about Martin (link for those unaware). He's most likely to view any action as confirming his suspicions. As for security, I'm sure Erik has a strong password, after all, he is WMF staff and something of a techie. And in the very unlikely event of his account being hacked, he's a steward - so taking away his privileges here will do nothing for security. the wub "?!"  14:24, 23 December 2009 (UTC)


 * This has been open for more almost two weeks now and most of the active users have opined. Could an uninvolved 'crat please close the request as appropriate? I'm saying "uninvolved" because this is a close vote, so it's probably best to have someone more impartial. Tempodivalse [talk]  02:31, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Votes
Move to amend by requesting that Eloquence's editor priveleges be removed as well. Participants in this discussion are asked to revote. (Initial request withdrawn) Benny the mascot (talk) 04:39, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Further note on that. Eloquence was given editor rights by Cirt during the give everyone we think is trusted editor status phase of flagged revisions deployment. Eloquence made two edits since receiving editor status, neither of which content edits (One was an edit to a system message to purge its cache, the other was a broken link report). It is quite likely that Erik is not even aware that he has editor status. Bawolff ☺☻ 06:48, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * -- Shakata Ga Nai ^_^ 20:36, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Avoiding structural changes for COI is simply good hygeine. -81.100.247.174 (talk) 20:39, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * with no comment on user's ability. We should try to avoid giving members of WMF staff privileges beyond editor. Most of them are stewards anyway, so this would not really have any effect beyond appearance. Den <em style="color:red">dodge  T\C 20:40, 22 December 2009 (UTC) Moved to oppose, see below


 * Note, though, that stewards do not automatically get "free reign" across all wikis, while they are technically able to make admin/crat actions globally, they can, barring an emergency, only use them on wikis where they have been approved by the local community. (e.g.: a steward shouldn't close RfAs or deletion requests on wikis where they don't have the appropriate permissions granted locally.) <font face="Georgia">Tempodivalse <font face="Georgia">[talk]  04:27, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * based on user's inactivity. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 20:46, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Doesn't actually need much discussion IMO. User has the power to perform office actions with or without these rights; they are no longer needed by Eloquence. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 21:00, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I support this per the grounds of the much vented inactive policy Brian | (Talk) | New Zealand Portal 21:07, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Benny the mascot (talk) 21:10, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * removal of bureaucrat, administrator, and editor priveleges. Benny the mascot (talk) 04:39, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sufficiently convinced by the COI arguments. As I've said in my comment above, he's never shown his COI in our articles to-date, and I have no reason to believe he will in the future. Besides, adminship (at least ideally) isn't supposed to carry any additional editorial influence. "Just so it looks good" doesn't strike me as particularly good reasoning. The only reason i would support the de-admining of someone is if I no longer trusted them to use the tools appropriately; that's not the case here. <font face="Georgia">Tempodivalse <font face="Georgia">[talk]  02:31, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * COI issues aside, they've made 50 edits in about three years. Surely that's reason enough to remove the bits? – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 02:57, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Eh, I don't really agree with WN:IP; I don't see a compelling enough reason to de-admin based solely on inactivity. <font face="Georgia">Tempodivalse <font face="Georgia">[talk]  03:10, 23 December 2009 (UTC)


 * No reason to suspect that he will not step back from any issue that he has a COI in. He has been in WMF for two years and at no point has this been issue. I have no idea why this is coming up now since there are several other WMF staff and we are not applying the same rule to them, for example User:Bastique. Also i'm somewhat uncomfortable where this might take us. Will we ban officers of local Wikimedia chapters? Like Tempo, I've always opposed the inactivity policy. --PatrickFlaherty (talk) 04:02, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Strongly per Tempodivalse. Also, WN:IP is a proposed policy, and if I remember correctly, there was some heavy debate on it. --Thunderhead 06:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't agree with removing rights for inactivity. Nor am I convinced by the conflict of interest claims. Many of us have external associations or views which could potentially present a COI if we became involved with an article on them. In that case we should take special care not to unduly influence, and possibly avoid the article altogether. But the vast majority of our articles can still be worked on with no issues. the wub "?!"  10:29, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, but in this case Eloquence is essentially our boss. He shouldn't have the same editing priveleges that we do. Benny the mascot (talk) 17:16, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
 * My view on this is: so what that he has extra privileges? He'll still be our "boss", so to speak, regardless of whether he has +sysop here or not, being on the staff and all that. IMO, this RfDa is suggesting that staff members should not have extra rights anywhere on WMF wikis, which kinda limits their ability to contribute to projects, and it implies that admins have extra authority over other editors, which shouldn't be (Adminship not being "a big deal" and all that). This actually seems a bit counterproductive to me - for instance, by the same reasoning, we should demote all other paid employees of the WMF, some of which are quite useful editors (such as user:Bastique), and be depriving ourselves of extra help. <font face="Georgia">Tempodivalse <font face="Georgia">[talk]  19:41, 31 December 2009 (UTC)


 * --As the Wub has said above almost perfectly. <i style="position:absolute;z-index:-1;bottom:0;width:2.8em;height:8px;background:#eee;"> </i>  Tris   12:20, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I have struck my support above as Tempo has convinced me I was wrong on that front. However, I am going to leave myself supporting as a user that inactive and out of touch does not have the support of the local community; although I'd be prepared to reconsider if I discovered Eloquence had been keeping an eye on developments here. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 18:39, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
 * —all the above arguments have convinced me to switch from support. Nobody is likely to care, or even notice, that Eloquence is a 'crat, and if we can't trust him, who can we trust? <em style="color:blue">Den <em style="color:red">dodge  T\C 11:28, 4 January 2010 (UTC)