Forum:Vote: Extending the right to hand out Patroller rights to all Administrators

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Synopsis

For those of you not around for the prior discussion forum, I am here today looking to introduce a small quality of life change to the wiki and how we handle Patroller rights. Historically, Patroller rights have always been handed out exclusively by the Bureaucrats whenever they deem a user responsible enough to handle the tools, yet I and others are of the opinion that all Administrators should be able to do so as well.

Is this really all that important? Not really, but there have been times where it's been difficult to bring users into the Patroller ranks, as half of our current Bureaucrats are largely inactive, and with /d and Discord becoming a much larger influence on the wiki and interpersonal connections, there have been times when even the active Bureaucrats have had difficulty determining whether to hand out the rights or not.

!!! --Important-- !!!

In the case that this vote passes, I would like to clarify on the stipulations attached to the proposed changes:

• Due to some feedback that I received from the discussion forum linked above, I will also use this chance to specify that this right will only be extended to Administrators that are consistently active within the community.
• As with any Administrator action, granting a user Patroller rights can be reverted/vetoed should the community decide against it. Please exercise this right responsibly.
• A second Administrator/Bureaucrat must be willing to back you when granting Patroller rights. Both Administrators must make their support clear in the appropriate public setting.

Vote

Poll finished on 4:37 am April 16, 2021 (UTC). A consensus must be reached by voting before any action is taken. You can vote by placing one of the following lines in the appropriate section: Use # {{yes}} ~~~~ if you support the proposal. Use # {{no}} ~~~~ if you are against the proposal. Use # {{neutral}} ~~~~ if you wish to abstain. Please do not edit other user's votes.

Yes

Vote yes if you support all Administrators having the privilege to grant Patroller rights.

1. intrepid3597/30/24 [9:22am]
2. -Eckserah ^{Head Dataminer} 03:43, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
3. Imagine if I voted no on my own forum. ^寧靜 03:45, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
4. This is going to be so very good for our community, bringing up enthusiastic talent and breathing new life into our beloved nukapedia! -kdarrow ^{take her for a spin!} 04:07, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
5. Slipmcripfist (talk) 04:09, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
6. I've seen no convincing arguments against it, so sure, why not. --DirtyBlue929 (talk) 04:24, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
7. New California Ahoy ^{"Who are you, that do not know their history?"} 04:31, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
8. Aiden4017 (talk) 04:40, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
9. Jinau (talk) 04:44, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
10. Arc (talk) 04:46, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
11. |\| () |\/| /\ |) | Talk | Discord | NMC 04:53, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
12. Geomodelrailroader (talk 05:10, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
13. Kendallb9000 (talk) 06:23, April 10, 2021 (UTC)
14. Scribe-Howard (waster_93) (talk) 07:23, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
15. The Appalachian (talk) 07:30, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
16. User:Freedomrocks08 09:24, April 10, 2021 (UTC)
17. User:XxDerpyPeanut5xX 11:05, April 10, 2021 (UTC)
18. User:Iantheboi 12:55, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
19. AllYourFavorites! (talk) 15:45, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
20. Reasonable approach, so yes. --Findabair^{The benefit of the doubt is often doubtful.} 15:51, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
21. —Preceding unsigned comment added by FalloutofStarWars2077 (talk • contribs) 20:50, April 10, 2021. Please sign your posts with ~~~~!
22. Devastating Dave^{ZIP ZAP RAP} 20:01, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
23. Gilpo1 (talk) 02:55, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
24. DynV (talk)
25. Coldwave001 (talk)
26. Liny (talk) Q('_'Q) 02:02, 12 April 2021 (EST)
27. Knecinedit (talk) 06:17, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
28. This is a clear no brainer, I don't know why anyone would be opposed. -Not Alex

No

Vote no if you believe Bureaucrats exclusively should have the privilege to grant Patroller rights.

1. Based on the comments of others it looks like this proposal needs some work. As noted by Mara, there has not been any discussion on the third stipulation, which I think is improper procedure. As noted by Tag, it is currently not clear if admins can also remove patroller rights (which I presume also requires at least two admins?). If the second issue is sorted out I will vote yes. - FDekker ^(talk)

Neutral

1. I'm on the fence of this. The right to remove rights should also be given to appointing administrators, as this will turn this into a popularity contest and make it difficult, if not impossible, to deal with patrollers stepping out of line. Тагазиэль 10:14, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

1. MrGeeBee (talk)

Excluded votes

1. Idrk so imma go back to playing fallout 4 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Masterchief58x (talk • contribs). Please sign your posts with ~~~~! User does not meet requirements for voting (no edits or /d posts prior to vote).

Comments

I don’t see where the third stipulation was discussed. Great Mara (talk) 13:10, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Once again, I don't see where the third stipulation was discussed, why is it being voted on when only the prior two stipulations were even discussed. Great Mara (talk) 20:58, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure why that ends up being a big deal? The additional stipulation only strengthens the security of the patroller appointment as it requires multiple high level rights users to agree that the person is fit for patroller. Is there anywhere that it says that everything in a vote has to be specifically discussed beforehand? -Eckserah ^{Head Dataminer} 21:37, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

And why is a vote about extending the right to grant Patroller status to Administrators now suddenly shifting to place a restriction on said Administrators and even the Bureaucrats from extending Patroller status on their own to now requiring an additional approval? Great Mara (talk) 21:27, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

I didn't start the comment chain below, but that about sums it up. It's to prevent a singular admin from being able to just willy nilly create whatever patrollers they want regardless of how effective/malicious they end up being. I guess this is just to head off that worry/fear. I have no strong opinion on the third stipulation either way as patrollers are very low power rights users in general. -Eckserah ^{Head Dataminer} 21:34, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing this out, Great Mara. I agree and am curious as to where the third part came from? This vote should be based on what we discussed already, the first two sections as written above. -kdarrow ^{take her for a spin!} 09:01, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Most of the discussions have taken place over the past half-year or so across Discord, and then over the discussion forum linked here, all of which expressed a common inquiry into restrictions being placed upon the ability to haphazardly grant Patroller rights. Born from the same vein of criticism that resulted in the active status stipulation, came the sponsor stipulation for the sake of accountability.

The vote is as it is, but should it pass, it can always be changed down the road - I certainly have no qualms with the idea of others modifying upon what I'm trying to accomplish here. ^寧靜 16:59, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Discussions are supposed to be held on the wiki in the relevant discussion forum prior to the vote, not sequestered in whatever corner of Discord is being used at the time. That is the entire point of holding a discussion prior to voting, for transparency and easy record keeping. This has become the equivalent of an earmarked bill in congress as a result. This exact thing should not happen in future proposals or votes. Great Mara (talk) 21:22, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Also, to clarify: The administrators backing a patroller request can lose their rights also through administrative decision, right? Тагазиэль 14:25, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Could you elaborate on this a bit? AllYourFavorites! (talk) 16:01, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I was about to say, because the way you've phrased this sounds like you want the right to unilaterally demote or even ban any admin or admins who appoint a patroller who for whatever reason loses their rights through administrative action, which is... questionable, IMO. --DirtyBlue929 (talk) 16:23, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking about; are you asking about the second stipulation, or are you asking about our current administration policies? ^寧靜 00:31, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Basically, once given the Patroller rights, would they only be subject to removal by community vote or would admins be able to remove these rights with the same procedure? If we're implementing a simplified procedure for gaining rights, it should be balanced by a simplified procedure for removing rights - and this needs to be outright stated, rather than treated as obvious. Тагазиэль 10:29, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

I believe the confusion pertains to why the wording of the original question asks about taking away the rights of admins who have promoted patrollers. I'm assuming that was a typo. Can you clarify what you meant?

intrepid3597/30/24 [9:22am]

What powers do "patrollers" have regarding forum/discussions? Mak (talk) 07:59, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

None, patrollers merely have the ability to mark edits as patrolled and to roll back multiple edits in a single click. Look here for more info about rights-holders. --Findabair^{The benefit of the doubt is often doubtful.} 08:11, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

If what Тагазиэль mentioned in his vote is true, I hope this gets fixed if passed, I'm still for it. DynV (talk) 08:03, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

What did he mentioned though? I still don't really get the essence of his statement. --Findabair^{The benefit of the doubt is often doubtful.} 08:11, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

If I'm reading them right, and I'm unsure if I am, Тагазиэль is saying that patrollers could exploit admins that they are friends with to ensure other admins couldn't remove their patroller rights. Doesn't really make sense to me, because a bureaucrat could step in and stop that user from being given rank privileges. Aiden4017 (talk) 08:30, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

The question as provided to us by tag is thus: "Also, to clarify: The administrators backing a patroller request can lose their rights also through administrative decision, right?". He's attempting to as for a clarification. He asks if the admin/s who back a patroller request can lose their rights also through an administrative decision. From my understanding this is saying: If a patroller is bad/abusive would an admin consensus be able to vote to remove the admin/s that approved the patroller. This immediately raises a lot of red flags to me. Yes, admins should also have the power to demote patrollers, however a patroller, in general, has very few extra rights, and an admin shouldn't lose their rights just because they picked a bad patroller. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes and unless it violates the policies held by Nukapedia and/or Fandom, I don't see any reason why this would be a thing. Also to consider with this is the fact that there is a clear process in the administration policy explaining how to handle admins who break the wiki's policies of which there is nothing saying that any admin/crat is responsible for the patrollers they promote. Tag does this sound about right as to what you were asking clarification for? Just trying to help out here so it would be appreciated if you replied. Thanks! -Eckserah ^{Head Dataminer} 20:02, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about stripping admins of rights, but whether patrollers can have their rights removed by the appointing administrators as well. If we make it easier to appoint users that way, we should also make it easier to remove them.

My primary issue is not even the proliferation of rights - rollback and patrol are just convenient tools - but the fact that patrollers automatically gain access to areas such as security-desk on Discord, where the whole team discusses wiki affairs, and sensitive information, such as private messages sent to admins are shared and discussed.

This is a concern of mine as we had someone leak information from the desk last week, which led to a retaliatory banning, based on information that never should have left that area. Тагазиэль 07:53, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

(appending) Furthermore, if the right to remove patroller rights isn't explicitly granted to admins granting patroller rights, any rights holder removing them will get accused of being an autocrat and hounded to death with accusations of tyranny and abusing their rights. Тагазиэль 10:29, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Thank you very much for explaining this. Based upon the wording of your original inquiry it had seemed like you wanted admins to be able to be removed if they endorsed bad patrollers. I am very glad that this isn't the case and I apologize for misunderstanding what you meant. Thanks -Eckserah ^{Head Dataminer} 08:10, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

"This is a concern of mine as we had someone leak information from the desk last week, which led to a retaliatory banning" What on earth are you referring to? No one has been banned from the Discord since Ant, who was banned over three weeks ago for edit warring. The logs have not shown any bans since then. AllYourFavorites! 13:46, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

I was wondering the same thing. I can't figure out what he's talking about. I've been told that there's no rule against sharing discussions from the Security Desk by several rights holders, who promote open discussion. I shudder at the idea of some authoritarian hell hole where someone is executed for sharing information from meetings in a dark room. Fandom and our wiki's culture are all about openness.

intrepid3597/30/24 [9:22am]

The only thing I can think of that remotely matches this description is the recent incident where a user, who was recently banned from the wiki discord for being overly hostile to other users, began leaking information from the private channels of another discord server to people in security desk, in an attempt to "incriminate" certain members of the wiki discord in some vaguely-defined conspiracy against Tag. Screenshots of the security desk discussion were shared in the private channel that was being leaked from, and the server's admins proceeded to remove the user's access to these private channels. Nobody was banned; the user still has full access to the rest of the channels in the server they were leaking private conversations from. --DirtyBlue929 (talk) 16:49, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

What Dog said. Essentially, the security desk is supposed to be a channel where rights holders are supposed to be able to discuss affairs together in a private fashion. As it turns out, it is little more than a lounge with zero guarantee that information within won't be used to retaliate.

Dog, note that security desk is supposed to be a private channel. You are openly stating that leaking information is only a problem if it isn't our private channel. Тагазиэль 10:56, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

The "leak" where you asked a banned editor to spy and leak on another group of editors in a clearly marked private channel of another Discord? It's hard for you to declare how opposed you are to something when you facilitate the same. Regardless, I don't know who "leaked" that you were requesting leaks from other Discords, but it wasn't me. I'm not sure how this has anything to do with Patrollers. Why did you bring this up on this forum?

intrepid3597/30/24 [9:22am]

"Dog, note that security desk is supposed to be a private channel. You are openly stating that leaking information is only a problem if it isn't our private channel."

Perhaps I should clarify my points, then, Tag:

1. The information "leaked" from security desk was not publicly posted anywhere, only in the private channel that your source was spying on.
2. The information in question was screenshots implicating you in a scheme to spy on the private channels of other discord servers to gather dirt on other users of this site, including admins.
3. Specifically, they were screenshots of you posting chat logs of the private channel - which you do not have access to - provided to you by a user who is currently banned from the wiki discord server for totally unrelated reasons relating to community disruption and general rudeness. You posted these chat logs along with a confrontational message demanding an explanation from an admin you felt was "undermining" you or something.
4. Devoid of context, the logs could theoretically be interpreted as trying to undermine you, in reality I can safely state that they were simply venting their frustrations with how you handle your administrative position and the lengths they feel they have to go to in order to accomplish anything when you side against them on something.
5. The screenshots provided to the private channel did not result in any bans as you claim, and indeed numerous people expressed the opinion that they don't particularly care if anything "leaks" from that channel, they were more concerned with the fact that a banned user was actively attempting to take their words out of context to smear them in your eyes, and that you were taking said user at their word. It came across as a profound betrayal of trust which is why the user had access to the private channel revoked.
6. Finally, for the record, yes, I can confirm that intrepid was not the person who posted the security desk screenshots, and even if he was, as far as I know there are no rules against it. He is far from the only staff member who is fed up with your behavior.

The only person whose reputation or standing this leak has damaged is yours. I've tried to side with you against other users and give you the benefit of the doubt since joining the wiki's discord server, but your behavior recently - not just in this matter - I cannot defend.

--DirtyBlue929 (talk) 16:40, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Response to removal of powers: To stay on topic here, in cases where Patrollers abuse their rights, we already have an established community precedent in that they are held to the same standards as any other rights-holder, in that the community is allowed to discuss confidence in their abilities, or lack thereof.

As of the administration policy, gross abuses of their position are also subject to discretionary discipline, including progressive bans and removal of rights. With all of that in mind, I'm not sure there's any reason at all to have some special rule explicitly for Patrollers, especially when we're talking about a theoretical issue that simply doesn't exist yet. ^寧靜 17:04, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

I've been incredibly busy for the past few days, but now I'm regretting not jumping on here again sooner, because this conversation never should have progressed so far. Consider this an official administrative intervention, to keep the topics discussed on this forum directly related to the vote at-hand. Further off-topic comments will be removed. ^寧靜 16:55, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Something that hasn't been brought up yet - I'd very much like to see the administrators themselves interested in this proposition give some kind of statement effectively saying that they pledge to use these rights with the same level of standard that crats have gone by in the past. Remember, we are voting on whether administrators can hand out patroller rights, not voting on what the role of patroller should be seen as - I do not think this affirmative vote should be taken by admins to imply that we are OK with patroller being reduced to an utterly meaningless role handed out to (say) every vaguely-active person in the Discord. |\| () |\/| /\ |) | Talk | Discord | NMC 14:46, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

To be fair, if we can't trust our admins or bureaucrats with such a basic level of responsibility, we have multiple methods to remove their rights. As a "legacy" Patroller myself, I can attest that it's not such a big deal that would require someone to kiss the ring or swear loyalty or promise to be good, etc.

intrepid3597/30/24 [9:22am]

Nom, from the comments you have made here, it seems that you may not be taking everything into account. You say in the same breath that we are not voting on what a patroller is, yet claim the vote is akin to reducing it to "an utterly meaningless role." This is unclear to me, as to how it would have that impact. Before the vote and after, patrollers are and will remain just as important and crucial.

You continue, asking for a pledge from administration to "to use these rights with the same level of standard that crats have gone by in the past." Instead of me saying a sentence to suffice, I invite you to consider the significant number of hours and level of effort I have spent and put into working with new editors, training them, explaining how important and crucial the role of patroller is, advocating for them and its importance within our community. Subsequently, after appointment, consider my oversight of their progress in this role as well, patrolling the new patrollers, guiding their interpersonal communication, honing their editing skills, encouraging them, developing their confidence, and serving as a consistent resource as challenges arise.

I hope any concerns you have about my judgment and ability to make these decisions will dissipate. Keep in mind that all patrollers appointed in the last ~six months were my personal suggestions to Richie, who is also my bureaucratic mentor, having previously taught me how he approaches the process. That being said, I am confident that my personal, long-standing, and consistent investment in patrollers and future patrollers here at Nukapedia and your comment on handing out the role to "every vaguely-active person in the Discord" could not possibly be juxtaposed further. -kdarrow ^{take her for a spin!} 09:01, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Result

The vote passes. Active admins may now grant patroller rights. I've adjusted this in the policy. Jspoel 15:55, 17 April 2021 (UTC)