Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Inactive admin email

Discussion working up to RfC

Yes, the stewards tend to be rather particular that it must be communicated directly to them, either via private communication from the admin or via m:SRP, I can't see them bending the rules they apply to all 700+ wikis just for us. MBisanz ^talk 20:13, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I largely agree with Xeno's changes that you reverted as well. One problem is that inactives probably won't know what a global account is or have an account on meta... Xeno can't we do a local page here just for this? Gigs (talk) 20:04, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)I too prefer the revisions that Xeno and Gigs have made. My intent in propsing the draft was never that there would be a default to desysop unless the editor responds--an admin Dead man switch, if you will. The problem of inactive admins is not nearly so great that it requires such a measure, and this is by far the wrong place to claim some sort of consensus has arrisen supporting it. My preferred method of enacting this would be

To make desysopping voluntary
To start an RfC to determine if there is community support
To make a bot that handles the emailing automatically, and sends future emails as admins pass whatever activity cutoff we decide upon

Arcayne, if you'd like to get something done here, may I strongly suggest you drop the personal crusade angle? It isn't helping, and is only further dividing people. As far as the stewards are concerned, that's why we need to put the link in the email, as I don't see anything getting adopted as policyThrowaway85 (talk) 20:16, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As long as its on en.wp the steward will probably act on it, but an edit to m:SRP is the best way to go about it. –xeno^talk 20:17, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So long as the bot (if it is to be one) posts the reply somewhere in their userspace, or stewards have access to the raw emails (not forwarded, etc), then I could see that happening. Desysopping based on some editor's say-so seems unlikely. Throwaway85 (talk) 20:21, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Stewards will want an edit on en.wp or meta. Period. –xeno^talk 20:23, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is there an en.wp equivalent to the meta link you posted? Also, if the global sysops deally goes through, as seems likely, then wouldn't they have to go to meta anyways? Throwaway85 (talk) 20:32, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Global sysops is a red herring. We don't have an en.wiki equivalent for m:SRP, but the admin in question could edit their talk page and say something to the effect of "Please remove my administrator privileges effective immediately", and then someone could point a steward at m:SRP to that difflink. Though, it would be more efficient for the admin in question to post directly to m:SRP =) –xeno^talk 20:34, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Works for me. If they don't have meta accounts, then that's fine. The goal shouldn't be to desysop every inactive admin or get them back editing, but rather to offer the opportunity to inactive admins to relinquish their bit and help us out on the housecleaning front. It's totally up to them whether they do so. Throwaway85 (talk) 20:39, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure need a formal RfC for what will be a relatively uncontroversial action, but it might be nice to break this conversation and the draft email off onto its own page because we are veering pretty far offtopic for this page and it looks like we do have resolve to actually get something accomplished here rather than just talk, and we just need some space to hammer out the details. Gigs (talk) 20:42, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The RfC was so that we could legitimately sign it as "the community". What about making a bot for it? I sure don't feel like sending 800 emails manually. Anyways, shall we move things to Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Inactive admin email?

Yeah if we want to sign it as the community and have a bot doing this on an ongoing basis then I agree we should do an RfC... probably just a simple talk page one though. I'm going to move this conversation over to the talk page there and leave a pointer on WT:RfA Gigs (talk) 21:05, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My thoughts:

If it's a bot job, we should probably make it so it does not do the same person more than once ever. This ensures that no one ever gets more than one email from the bot. If they ignore it then we shouldn't keep harassing them, and if they no longer read the email then we aren't accomplishing anything by sending.
I think that even with a bot, we should just direct them to pages on en and meta where they can request bit removal. As has been pointed out, the idea of wiki-identity is based on making an edit here under that name (or solving a committed hash). We shouldn't create new security holes while trying to close them by trusting emails instead of edits. Gigs (talk) 21:19, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with both of those points. A slight modification to your first: Should not message the same person more than once for each period of inactivity. That is, if an editor is inactive for a year, comes back for a year, then is inactive for another year, it seems reasonable to resend the email. Throwaway85 (talk) 21:30, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure it's a critical point either way, but if we do it that way, we need to pick a longer interval so that people don't get mad about the spam if they are irregular editors who definitely don't want to give up the bit. Another question is whether we should even solicit a reply if they don't intend to give up the bit. If we did, would we track this and then use it as an opt-out list from further emails? Is this overcomplicating things? Should we just ask them to consider giving it up and ignore it if they don't want to? We will lose any data on reachability of inactive admins, but I'm not sure that it is worth the extra complication. Gigs (talk) 21:38, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't hurt to solicit, then at least have it shown as received somewhere. Either way. Throwaway85 (talk) 21:50, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know that it's necessary to ever hit someone up with a second email; if they got the first and then came back, there is no reason to assume that their second (or third or fourth) period of inactivity will be any deviation from the pattern that they have sent. It's probably not harmful per se, it just seems a bit like overkill. Shereth 22:38, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The purpose of the email is to assess who's intending on returning to the Project and who is not. We know what to do if they respond in the positive (yep, coming back "soon") or in the negative (nope, voluntary de-sysop), but so far, I have not heard about what we do if we receive no reply at all. Are they intending to come back? Are they dead? I'd like to hear a little more about what we do at that point, for I believe that in the absence of reply, we might need to assume that they do not plan to return. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 01:56, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We do nothing, of course. –xeno^talk 01:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Let me see if I understand you, Xeno. The only way that you are willing to consider de-sysoping an editor is if they themselves choose it? How do you address the matter of dead admins or admins who have abandoned the project, either out of disinterest or disaffection? - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 02:31, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

For now that's all we have consensus for. I think it's important that you accept that as the scope of this mini-project at least for now. The numbers and data that come out of this endeavor might be useful for any future discussion regarding non-voluntary inactivity de-sysop. Gigs (talk) 02:39, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Arcayne, anything more than what is proposed would require a change in policy, which would require a large RfC with much forum-shopping. This, on the other hand, can probably be dealt with here, with maybe a thread at AN to judge opinion, plus bot authorization should we choose to go that route. Throwaway85 (talk) 02:45, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. I'll be patient. I guess this is what pulling a freight train by one's teeth feels like. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 02:54, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A sound analogy - as the proposal was handily rejected, yet you tried to push it through like a freight train with this "you're inactive! email" Of course the answer is "do nothing" - until the community agrees that inactive administrators may be deadminned. –xeno^talk 19:12, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was proposing a means by which active admins are more appreciated. I'm terribly sorry you are unable/incapable of seeing that. Maybe you could stop trying to provoke me or trying to have the last word, Xeno. What are you so terrified of? - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 21:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So, please tell this non-admin how we track this bot'd email to the inactives? - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 19:57, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Someone would need the password for the email address registered to the bot, in order to login and check the replies. –xeno^talk 19:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why wouldn't you just have the bot post them to its userspace? I thought the issue was moot anyways due to the requirement of the editor themselves posting to meta. Throwaway85 (talk) 20:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If it did that, it would need to advise the users it was going to reproduce private correspondence on wiki. I think Arcayne is more talking about the emails that said "returning" or "no" or something. –xeno^talk 20:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well the holder of the bot account would have access to that, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to concentrate access to information like that, even if they were a well-respected and highly trusted member of the community. Throwaway85 (talk) 05:50, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should just dodge that whole issue and only solicit resignations by telling people where and how they can do it. Then we don't need to worry about the return address. Gigs (talk) 03:34, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Good plan. A "please do not reply to this email" should suffice. Throwaway85 (talk) 04:10, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So what's our next step? I'm a programmer but I have pretty much no MW bot experience. Gigs (talk) 04:46, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't be too hard to whip something up in php, python, perl, etc, that grabs names from the inactive list, navigates to their userpage, hits "email this user", and sends them the email. I think we should make sure everyone agrees on the content of the email, then take it to WP:RFBOT. As far as the MW bot interface goes, there's plenty of opensource bots out there already. We can ~~steal~~ borrow their code. Throwaway85 (talk) 09:50, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On that note, my programming skills are nowhere near where they should be. Gigs, if I grab you some source code for an already-running bot, do you think you can work with it? What language would you prefer? I've seen php and python bots kicking around, could probably find something else if need be. Throwaway85 (talk) 00:31, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]