Wiktionary talk:Votes/2019-09/Replacing de-sysop votes with confirmation votes

Cryptic passage

"In the past, rogue admins have mainly been curbed by ad hoc actions". @Metaknowledge: is there a reason for not mentioning these instances by name or linking to them? Seems useful for context. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:23, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

If you know, you know; if you don't, you don't need to. I rewrote it to avoid more people trying to dredge up old drama. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:30, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

What actual problem in the past would this have solved? DCDuring (talk) 05:39, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

I don't think that's an answerable question. De-sysop votes with prejudice are incredibly rare, which I claim is likely due to the status quo, but it's impossible to know how many such votes would have been started, or whether we could have avoided nasty incidents in the past as a result. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:07, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

• The rogue admins are 5 Wonderfools, who were blocked and de-adminned fairly and without any white tape - the going rogue couldn't have been prevented except for stricter IP checks. And Equinox (talk • contribs) went rogue once too. --Mélange a trois (talk) 17:38, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

  Just for the case it is not clear to the reader (the above user is Wonderfool): it is not Wonderfool that drives this vote. This vote does not introduce any additional red tape; if bureaucrat felt authorized to remove the bit before as a consequence of egregious misconduct such as massive wheel warring, they should feel free to do so after this vote as well. This vote introduces accountability for less severe, less clear-cut cases. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:07, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

• YOU WOULDN'T LET IT LIE! Equinox ◑ 00:02, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Most admins seem to be prone to victimising Wonderfool. DonnanZ (talk) 10:57, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

I consider Koavf to be a rogue admin, but no doubt nobody agrees. DonnanZ (talk) 10:45, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Rationale

@Metaknowledge: Thank you for the vote. Would you be willing to move the rationale to the vote talk page? While it is very clearly marked as a rationale and the move is not strictly necessary, I find it preferable since it reinforces the notion that voters only vote on the proposal and not on the rationale. The idea that vote pages should not directly contain rationales was proposed by someone else originally, and I think it was a good proposal. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:28, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Personally, I think the extra click isn't worth reinforcing something that is already clear. If you believe it will help the vote pass, you can move it. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:36, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

I defer to vote authors unless something egregious is on the vote page. This is not egregious, so the rationale will stay. --Dan Polansky (talk)

Two proposals: supermajority and plain majority

I would think it good if the vote contained two proposals: one that the confirmation vote passes if supermajority supports it, and the other one that the confirmation vote passes if plain majority supports it. I fear the supermajority proposal will fail and the plain majority variant will be more palatable to some. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:31, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

I prefer a cleaner, simpler vote. Let's worry about that if the vote is unsuccessful. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:36, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

All right, then. This will be an interesting vote, and I wonder about the outcome. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:43, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Confirmation vote or vote of confidence

When I started to discuss this subject, I used the term "confirmation vote". Recently, I learned there is the term "vote of confidence". If anyone thinks the latter term is clearer, we can discuss. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:46, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, I took that term from you, of course. I liked it because it didn't evoke any real-world political system, yet is reasonably straightforward. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:26, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Marketing

Is this a marketing thing, as in, "confirmation votes" is a gentler name for de-sysop votes? Personally, I would rather vote on a policy to just make de-sysop votes require 50% to pass. --{{victar|talk}} 02:47, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

It's not marketing. After my successful vote establishing the cutoff for votes to pass, I'm not eager to start saying that certain types of votes are exceptions to that rule when we can just as easily reframe how the votes work. If sounding more gentle is a side effect, well, gentleness is not something we have too much of at Wiktionary. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:20, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

I think your last vote failed exactly because you didn't give people options to vote for. --{{victar|talk}} 04:09, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Huh? My last vote passed. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:17, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

I must be thinking of an older vote. --{{victar|talk}} 16:32, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

I think it's actually been a while since I've had a vote fail, and it certainly wasn't relevant to this topic. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:44, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

It's a rather moot point, really. I can tell you though, based on how the votes stands now, I'll be voting no on it. --{{victar|talk}} 18:08, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Where is the status quo?

@Metaknowledge From which votes or documents do you derive 1. the share of voters that need to vote for somebody to become admin 2. the share of voters needed for someone to lose admin powers? Important information. I don’t know whether de-sysop votes currently require a supermajority, only that you claim so, and most other voters don’t know either. The legislatory history must be clear. Fay Freak (talk) 16:28, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

@Fay Freak: This vote, for instance, didn't pass because it did receive a supermajority: Wiktionary:Votes/sy-2012-09/User:Vahagn_Petrosyan_for_de-sysop. --{{victar|talk}} 16:32, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

@Victar Back then one didn’t even know when a vote passes or not. There was a vote on it recently. So it is Wiktionary:Votes/2019-03/Defining a supermajority for passing votes for both answers? Fay Freak (talk) 16:37, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm obviously aware of that vote. Then, as is true today, de-sysop votes requires a supermajority. Personally, I think that should be bumped down to a simple majority. --{{victar|talk}} 16:42, 12 September 2019 (UTC)