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The Bureaucrats' noticeboard is a place where items related to the Bureaucrats can be discussed and coordinated. Any user is welcome to leave a message or join the discussion here. Please start a new section for each topic.

This is not a forum for grievances. It is a specific noticeboard addressing Bureaucrat-related issues. If you want to know more about an action by a particular bureaucrat, you should first raise the matter with them on their talk page. Please stay on topic, remain civil, and remember to assume good faith. Take extraneous comments or threads to relevant talk pages.

If you are here to report that an RFA or an RFB is "overdue" or "expired", please wait at least 12 hours from the scheduled end time before making a post here about it. There are a fair number of active bureaucrats; and an eye is being kept on the time remaining on these discussions. Thank you for your patience.

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No current discussions. Recent RfAs, recent RfBs: (successful, unsuccessful)

It is 23:14:36 on July 15, 2024, according to the server's time and date.

Resysop

Could someone resysop my account please. Thanks Kevin (talk) 03:12, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Former admin in good standing, looks fine to reflag to me. Xclamation point 03:19, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

 Done, welcome back Kevin. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 03:31, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Sheesh, you always beat me, AD. I was finding this http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Steward_requests/Permissions&diff=1419948&oldid=1419774 just to make sure, and you go and swoop in :D. Welcome back, Kevin :) -- Avi (talk) 03:36, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Just a reminder to update WP:FORMER when you resysop someone. :) MBisanz ^talk 03:49, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I was just about to do it when you got in there first, MBisanz. You're quite quick yourself. ;) —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 04:39, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks all. Kevin (talk) 03:59, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Welcome back :-) J.delanoy^gabs_adds 04:24, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:RIP guidelines

It was suggested that a notice be placed here regarding a current discussion. Given the sobriety of the topic, I agree. We currently have a discussion underway to establish (what looks like "guidelines" at the moment) for how the passing of community members should be handled. I think it's probably best if a Bureaucrat close the matter when the time comes. I'm guessing on this one, but maybe 5-7 days total? The discussion is at: Wikipedia talk:Deceased Wikipedians/Proposal to establish practices to be followed for deceased Wikipedians Thank You, and Kind Regards, — Ched :  ?  14:39, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

It appears that the 27th would be acceptable by the community as a closing date — Ched :  ?  09:57, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

RfA fix

Probably minor, but Kww's RfA is listed as unsuccessful rather than consensus not reached. I believe that's incorrect. I'd fix it myself, but I'm not sure of the etiquette (or protection status of the page). Thanks! Hobit (talk) 03:20, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

It was indeed the incorrect wording. I have standardized the wording. Useight (talk) 04:08, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Bot flag request

Hi,

User:Citation bot seems to have had a bug where if two instances were running at once (perhaps because a user manually operated it on a page) the bot would edit the wrong page. To fix this I have had to set up multiple user accounts [ User:Citation bot 1 User:Citation bot 2 User:Citation bot 3 User:Citation bot 4], but these do not yet have bot flags. Could somebody please flag these as bots?

Thanks, Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:04, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

 Done EVula // talk // ☯ // 14:15, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Closure of EddieSegoura's ban appeal

Resolved

 – now closed by User:Kevin. –xeno ^talk 21:31, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Link: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#EddieSegoura Ban Appeal

Could a bureaucrat please close this ban appeal, making a determination of whether or not it was successful please? EddieSegoura's talk page has been transcluded to allow him to comment. The transclusion probably needs removing and the content copying into the AN page to keep the AN record complete. Many thanks in advance,  Roger Davies ^talk 11:20, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

 Done by Ncmvocalist

I don't think Ncmvocalist is a bureaucrat? Nathan ^{T (formerly Avruch)} 19:24, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I was not aware that ban appeals could only be closed by bureaucrats. Can someone point me to the relevant policy or guideline? My understanding was that the entire remit of 'crats was the assignment of +sysop, +bot and renames of users. My further understanding is they have no special abilities in closing debates outside of RFA. Perhaps I'm in error. Pedro :  Chat  19:34, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I hadn't realised this was requested by ARBCOM Pedro :  Chat  19:39, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Wow - not only did Ncmvocalist not allow a bureaucrat to close the discussion (as requested by an arbitrator in an issue forwarded by the committee), he actually participated in the discussion and opposed lifting the appeal. Then he closed it against the appeal. I think that was a poor choice - maybe it didn't effect the outcome, but I don't see the reason to skip the norm for this sort of thing. Nathan ^{T (formerly Avruch)} 19:35, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

(od) For the sake of good order, and noting the comments above, would an uninvolved bureaucrat please re-open the appeal and make an independent determination before reclosing it? My apologies in advance for any trouble this causes,  Roger Davies ^talk 20:21, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

• *cough*WP:RFBAN*cough* MBisanz ^talk 20:40, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I've re-opened it. No comment about whether it should be a user, sysop, or 'crat, who closes it, but the recent tendency of involved users to close community discussions strikes me as a terrible slippery slope to descend. –xeno ^talk 20:49, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I have closed the discussion. I was not aware of any ARBCOM request relating to the closure, however I am completely uninvolved, and would be extremely surprised if anyone else formed a different opinion as to the consensus that was formed. Kevin (talk) 21:37, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not necessarily disputing the result, just the closer. Allowing an involved individual to close a discussion just because the decision is clear doesn't make it right; and it sets a bad precedent if we allow these inappropriate closures to stand. Thank you for your attention to this. –xeno ^talk 21:45, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Whatever next. A recent tendency usually involves a number of weeks, not years - we're in the latter category when it comes to this practise. And as for precedent, too late - if this needs to be changed, then codify it in policy please. Either way, it seems that some people are intent on ensuring this project is entirely over-run by bureaucracy than common sense. And as for you Avruch, stop making bad faith accusations - I don't follow this noticeboard, so it wasn't a matter of "not allowing" a crat to close it. Further, community practise does not require a crat to close a discussion, whether it's about imposing a sanction or an appeal - it would be foolish to treat this case any differently, if ArbCom actually deferred this decision to the community. Why Roger Davies would go out of his way to give special treatment here in favour of bureaucracy is beyond me; it certainly does not further the core purpose of this project. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:09, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Forgive if I'm being dense, but are you saying that you closed it yourself, despite your involvement, in order to make a point?  Roger Davies ^talk 12:10, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Umm..what? I closed it in line with the reply I gave to Carcharoth at that very discussion. I have further comments and questions for you below. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:24, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Where was the bad faith accusation? Or any accusation at all? Perhaps you were unaware that Roger had requested a crat close the discussion, but even so closing it despite having participated (even if you thought the result was clear) wasn't the best choice. Nathan ^{T (formerly Avruch)} 12:11, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I've no interest in your ongoing attempts at power grabs on the various noticeboards. if you are not an impartial party to a discussion, you should not be the one closing it. it's common sense. –xeno ^talk 12:52, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely not; you're simply escalating this by making it personal - you think that's the common sense way of resolving disputes on Wikipedia? Whatever your response, all I can say is "impressive display xeno". Both you and Avruch are evading the fact you've been out of sync with community norms, and that it achieves nothing remotely productive. If you want to push for a change, do it through policy. Or are you trying to hush this up because you know there'll be a divide on who wants more red tape? What are you going to do...reopen every single one of those discussions because zomg! someone participated (or even had a different view than you) but then dared to give a neutral conclusion for the discussion, which was supported by the rest of the community? It's a number of years since multiple reports have been closed in this way with regards to editing restrictions, sanctions, bans and god knows what else...trying to push your preferred change in this way is certainly not the best choice. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:24, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Could you substantiate this claim with some examples? –xeno ^talk 14:26, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Here's a handful that demonstrate such a narrow definition of involvement is not supported by practise: ban discussion with closer supporting ban and its outcome/closure; discussion with closer supporting ban and closure/outcome and outcome/closure; discussion with closer supporting ban and outcome/closure; closer proposed ban discussion with closer supporting ban and outcome/closure; discussion with closer supporting unban and closure/outcome and again, outcome/closure; discussion with closer supporting ban and outcome/closure; discussion as well as its closure/outcome and outcome/closure. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:11, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I have no opinion on the ban appeal one way or the other. I'll assume that you weren't aware Roger asked for a 'crat to close it, although I'm not convinced you wouldn't have closed it anyway. If there is a long-term trend of involved people closing discussions to determine the outcome, then you are absolutely right that I am out of sync with that trend. I believe that if you support or oppose an appeal (request, poll, whatever) you should not be the person to judge its outcome. While you say you are just participating in a trend that we have somehow missed, you have a history of pushing the envelope with respect to roles -- and its hard to see how this is not a continuation of that effort. Nathan ^{T (formerly Avruch)} 15:41, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I note your opinion about involvement, but respectfully disagree in the interim. Of course, if your view was supported by policy, there would be no issue - and if you feel so strongly about it, I suggest you attempt to get it codified. Otherwise, I don't believe it is usually considered so narrowly. Yes, I wasn't aware of this noticeboard discussion. Out of curiosity, excepting this thread, was anyone from the community aware that we would be trying something so out of step with practise that a crat was going to be closing this discussion? Did the community get to discuss it? No and no. At the very least, I wonder why Roger Davies did not make an effort to leave a note of the request at the crat's noticeboard? Whatever was the cause of the omission, the outcome could not have been different. There was no justification for avoiding discussion, or not leaving a note at the discussion itself. A little more good faith would go a long way; but whether you (or whoever else) choose to assume the worst regarding my editing is quite out of my hands, so it's best I don't spend (or arguably waste) any more time on this. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:11, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

(od) Background: ArbCom would like to see more ban appeals handled by the community and, indeed, we have several in the pipeline. However, this does mean that they run a reasonable time and are closed impartially. The idea of bureaucrat involvement is merely to minimise the chances of a further appeal arising out of improperly handled/closed appeal.  Roger Davies ^talk 12:07, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

You did not explain (or forgot to mention) why the community was not informed, let alone given an opportunity to comment, on this proposed substantial change to normal practice. Incidentally, I am likely to look at such a proposal favourably, but given that the decision is the community's, why unilaterally attempt to change the norms? Honestly, I'm baffled...when are ArbCom going to give me a reason to say "yes, ArbCom has improved" if the clumsy communication and stuff-ups are still on the rise and weighing down improvements in other areas? Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:24, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid I'm having trouble (i) understanding why you're attaching so much importance to a request and (ii) recognising your description of the current ArbCom. I note your thunderous silence about your pointy and involved closure.  Roger Davies ^talk 15:31, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

(I) I attach importance to it because the request does not have wider support as dictated by practice over the past few years. Why are you not answering my question - the one where I asked you why ArbCom did not notify or give the community a chance to discuss the idea of making a crat close a ban discussion, when it has not formally done so before?

(II) Let me put it bluntly; we elected new users (like you) to improve ArbCom. This included ensuring communication between community and ArbCom was more open and clear so the community can also voice its opinion, as well as (or so we hoped) you lot making less stuff-ups (aka rash and foolish decisions that are not supported by the community, as well as terrible case management) - you failed on both of these fronts, despite making somewhat limited progress in other areas.

(III) When I dignified your nonsensical claim with a response, you have gone ahead and ignored it or evaded its substance, and then assumed bad faith - you repeated the claim despite it being patently false. This sort of behaviour or outlook is not constructive to this project. So this is the final time I will tell you. I don't believe my closure can be considered involved as defined by practise. Your dissent was noted, but it is not supported by practise that has far outlived your (and many others) tenure in ArbCom; if you'd like to see a change to that practise, I suggest you get it written into policy. If you'd like examples of this practise where there is no narrow requirement on who closes a discussion, see my diffs in reply to xeno and Avruch. If you still fail to comprehend, it is perhaps impossible for me to try to spoonfeed this to you in any other words or plainer English. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:11, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

A request is a request is a request. I personally have no problem whatsover with it being closed by a non-crat, or by a non-admin for that matter, providing they're uninvolved.

I note what you say about openness but our progress on many fronts so far has been massive. Yes, we won't get everything right first time – and yes, we'll learn by our mistakes – but a huge weatherchange has already been accomplished.

Like the others here, I disagree that the uninvolvement policy has changed. While it may not have always been strictly adherred to here in the past, that does not itself change community consensus.  Roger Davies ^talk 17:47, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm coming in to this a bit late — was there an official request from ArbCom made somewhere for a bureaucrat to make the final call on the ban appeal decision?

If so, was there a discussion anywhere prior to that request about this expansion of the bureaucrats' role on Wikipedia?

Was this a one-off trial, or is there an intention for 'crats to be responsible for all contentious ban/unban requests in the future?

If thereis going to be an expansion of 'crat responsibilities, there probably ought to be some community input. While I have no complaints about the 'crats performance of their existing duties, I'm not comfortable with expanding their scope until we've all had a chance to think things through. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:55, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

In this instance, it was a one-off informal request here in order to expedite impartial closure of one case. If arbs are going to be written into a procedure, it would only be done after consultation/discussion etc. The whole ban appeal structure is, at the moment, experimental and evolving, as we try to find ways to handle them efficiently and swiftly.  Roger Davies ^talk 17:54, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Phew! I thought I was the only user on the whole of Wikipedia that had these questions and views...thank you for confirming I'm not the only one that is horribly lost by this substantial attempt to change to practise, without community discussion. Appreciate it. :) We're in the same boat; awaiting responses. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:16, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, and this may come as a surprise, I've made those exact arguments myself. If you see the recent poll on whether 'crats should have the technical ability to desysop admins you'll find that I argued against the change specifically because bureaucrats were never selected for that sort of task - or any other apart from those which they currently perform. That is, I think, quite apart from accepting a one-off request from an arbitrator to close a discussion initiated by the arbitration committee. It is also unrelated to the issue of involvement, of course, which has become the chief issue in the above discussion (rightly so, I think). Nathan ^{T (formerly Avruch)} 17:48, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Funny how it turns out

In my second RfB, there was significant concern as to how I would perform with username changes, and much less concern about RfA's. Since the time I have, thankfully, passed RfB, all I have done is usernames and I haven't had the opportunity to close a single RfA. Go figure -- Avi (talk) 16:24, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I figure most opposes made on frivolous things like demanding "experience" with renaming are stupid - and you've been proven right. Much like people who get opposed for "not enough edits" yet make excellent admins. Really, the result of your RFA/B is generally separate from your ability to use tools well. Majorly talk 16:30, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Temp sysop an alternate account?

Can you temporarily sysop my alternate account Thatcher131 (talk · contribs)? I've been given oversight for the audit subcommittee and I'm not entirely clear which of the different deletion and revision hiding/suppression features are available to admins and which to oversighters. I figure it would be easier to temporarily make my old account an admin rather than try and have the oversight flag removed from my main account. I'll give it back in a couple of days after I do some testing and familiarize myself with the different interfaces. (My original user name was Thatcher131, after I renamed, I recreated the old account to prevent impersonation. I'll post from that account to show I still control it.) Thanks. Thatcher 18:05, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

• This is me again, I still control this account. Thatcher131 (talk) 18:06, 29 April 2009 (UTC)