This proposal closed with the adoption of the rule. Thank you. - Citrusellaeditswikis (talk) 05:03, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
Update: This is the LAST DAY for discussion of this! It will go into effect tomorrow if there is not a sudden rapid change in consensus. Current consensus is to adopt a Wikipedia-like policy of one year of inactivity from the individual user's last edit, one-month's notice, and being able to just ask for your permissions back if you lose them via this process (unless there are concerns, i.e. stuff like questions about the user's behavior, not being sure the account wasn't compromised, etc.). If there is no change in consensus within the next 5 hours, this will go into effect at midnight Eastern Standard Time (UTC -5, so about 5am UTC). - Citrusellaeditswikis (talk) 23:52, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
Hi, everyone! This is a post to discuss a potential new wiki policy (which is why it's a site notice AND an announcement!). This new policy would concern inactive admins (also called sysops in some places on the wiki) and/or bureaucrats (and potentially people with "content moderator" or "thread moderator" rights, which also include elevated rights/tools) having elevated permissions removed if their accounts are inactive for a particular period of time.
I thought about proposing this policy after reading about a similar policy regarding admin accounts on Wikipedia, intended to prevent wiki damage in the event of an old account becoming compromised/hacked. Wikipedia's policy states admins can be desysopped in the following two cases:
- Has made neither edits (things that make recent changes entries/page history entries) nor administrative actions (things that make log entries specifically) for at least a 12-month period, AND/OR
- Has made fewer than 100 edits over a 60-month period
Bureaucrat activity requirements are similar.
I think Habitica Wiki may be at less risk of hacked accounts and/or at less risk of a hacked admin/bureaucrat account, so my initial suggestion is perhaps five years of no activity and no "minimum activity in [x time]" requirement. Specifically, I think that the simplest way to not constantly have to be figuring out rolling dates all the time is to maybe just time it from the beginning of the year for each year, i.e. if we were to start in 2025 then anyone who last edited before the start of 2020 could have their rights removed, in 2026 then anyone before the start of 2021, etc. (This does mean technically the requirement is more like 5-6 years of no activity depending on when in the year someone became inactive.)
Wikipedia requires multiple notices before the removals. For the no-edit variety, it's 1 month and then a few days before. I think we could stick with this or just stick with the one-month (and then one when the actual removal is done, of course). The timeline for notices is just something I'm less sure about so I don't know what to suggest.
Wikipedia has a process for requesting admin rights back which boils down to "you can just ask for them back if it was an inactivity/voluntary removal, unless, a) there were questions about whether you were using admin tools appropriately, you were banned (different from a block, on Wikipedia), lengthy inactivity (2 years (double the inactivity removal period), or 5 years with no admin actions), account security concerns (i.e. person granting rights isn't 100% sure the account is controlled by the same person), or the person granting rights isn't convinced the person is planning to become active again (i.e. they're worried the person was inactive, has asked for the rights back, but will stay inactive)."
I think a similar process would work fine here, i.e. people who have their rights removed can just ask for them back unless there's a problem with their editing/tool use, there's any concern their account is hacked, or there's concern they won't become active again.
None of this would apply to "users" that need to retain user rights for technical reasons in the wiki's software (for instance, there's an admin "account" on this wiki that is related to an extension that would keep its admin/etc. user rights if this policy were to become official). Bureaucrats that fall under the inactivity period, if this becomes policy, would have their rights removed via a request to Wikia/Fandom staff.
In short, I think a policy like this, put in place to mitigate potential damage if an abandoned account is hacked, is a good place to start discussion:
- Users can have their elevated rights removed if they have not edited since the start of the calendar year 5 years prior (i.e. if the policy were in effect right now then it would apply to users who last edited prior to the start of 2019; if it went into effect starting next year (2025) then for the entire year it would apply to users who last edited prior to the start of 2020; here is a parser function that will always show what the calendar year five years before the current date is (or should if the page is purged): 2019)
- There should be a notice one month prior to the removal of rights.
- Users can ask for the rights back unless there's a problem with their edits/admin behavior, their account might not be secure, or they might not intend to become active again.
(EDIT 18:18, 1 November 2024 (UTC): One single comment has changed my thoughts and made me think the Wikipedia policies regarding total inactivity (one year since the individual user's last edit, otherwise mostly similar) may be a better choice to mitigate potential damage if something were to go south (i.e. an account gets compromised and causes a lot of damage because even though we're not as visible as Wikipedia we also have less admins/etc.)
What do you think? Do you think a policy like this is a good idea? Do you think the proposed rules are a good idea? Do you prefer Wikipedia's rules? Do you have a suggestion different from either of those? I want this to be a discussion that comes to a clear consensus (on-wiki so in the comments of this blog post), so I think this discussion should stay open for a full month (until the start of December, enough time for discussion to flourish if it's going to, and for any contesting to occur as well) and then immediately go into effect, though with a one-month's-notice requirement, that would mean the first time this policy would actually be exercised would be at the beginning of 2025. (Which is what I really mean. No matter what the agreed on rules are, I wouldn't start doing removals until 2025.)
Thank you for taking a look at this proposal and for sharing your thoughts or ideas! Have a good day!