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Archive 1Archive 2

Nothing stopping dedicated coordinated disrupters from recalling all admins at once

Based on what we're seeing today, there's no reason dedicated, coordinated disrupters couldn't put the entire admin corps up for recall right now. There appear to be no structural barriers in place to prevent such disruption. BusterD (talk) 13:47, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

If that happens, the chance of the petition(s) succeeding is unlikely. Editors can only sign to a max 5 active petitions at time, so the most 25 disruptive editors could do is take 5 admins to RRfA, where it will probably succeed because most editors will realise the petitions were disruptive. The chance of 25+ EC editors all working together to take down a few admins is already very low anyway. And if it does happen, they could be blocked for disruption. fanfanboy (block talk) 14:51, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
I'm guessing you haven't seen dedicated disrupters at work here. There are hundreds if not thousands of sleeper accounts queued up for such purposes. One blocked contributor could do it almost alone. BusterD (talk) 15:05, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
How many sleeper accounts are EC? I don't like how this process is currently working, but anybody accumulating even dozens of EC sleeper accounts just to sign petitions to nominate admins for recall seems unlikely. Any long-unused account that suddenly turns up to sign up to five petitions (the limit at any given time) is likely to draw scrutiny. Donald Albury 15:39, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
There are disinformation tactics which could be used to get regular wikipedians to vote in good faith for such a petition. Haste is a big part of such tactics. Does nobody imagine consulting companies and intel agencies playing a long game here and acquiring EC accounts to affect our work? It's the commencement of a dubious recall which is disruptive, not the outcome. One dedicated disrupter could do a lot with just a few EC sleepers (saving them for just such a disruption). BusterD (talk) 16:03, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
Even if you're right, the admin will still have to go through an RRfA. fanfanboy (block talk) 16:49, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
If two or more sleeper accounts awaken and sign a petition in their first few edits, I'm confident that a sock puppet investigation will be opened. Accounts found to be sock puppets will be blocked and their signatures discounted on any petition. Why would anyone who has bought EC accounts risk throwing ttem away when they are so likely to be caught? Do you have any evidence for your claims? Donald Albury 17:22, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
My original point was that we had no obvious structural mechanism for preventing dubious recalls. You guys want me to 1) perform invented equations, or 2) point to active disruption. I'll deign not to enter either arena. If I used hyperbole, I was attempting to draw attention to a flaw in our new system. BusterD (talk) 17:31, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
If you used hyperbole, you damaged your credibility by looking paranoid. How many admins have faced a petition for recall so far? I am aware of one, and he has a clear record of his conduct. Even then, it took two attempts. Admins also have a lot of power. They tend to be well known and have good knowledge of how wikipedia works. This allows them to defend themselves pretty well. I also think accusing opponents of being disruptive editors seeking revenge would be a pretty effective defence. Tinynanorobots (talk) 13:26, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
Touché. BusterD (talk) 13:30, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
The German Wikipedia has (rolling, up to a year long) recall petitions active against essentially all admins: de:WP:AWW. A lot of these have been signed only by the same three users and are unlikely to ever reach their quorum. Petitions do not have to be disruptive if we do not feed the trolls. —Kusma (talk) 17:39, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
There are no structural barriers to a co-ordinated group putting up all articles related to topic X up for deletion, or renaming. If it ever happens, the community will figure out an approach to manage it, and move forward from there. There's a tradeoff in making a process sufficiently resilient to misuse, while still making it effective. I agree that tuning this balance for the recall process is still a work in progress. I don't think we need to worry about all admins running re-requests for adminship at once, but it is certainly possible that there will continually be some recall petitions ongoing. Maybe at that point it turns into background noise, and the certification role of petitions will predominate. Alternatively, the community might find it overly distracting, and decide on a different certification method, or revisit the concept of the community requiring an admin to make a re-request. isaacl (talk) 17:53, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
In your example, if a coordinated group took on a content area, that would be disruptive to the pagespace for a time, but if a group targeted admins they wanted to peel off (say E. Dramatica folks, as an example which won't hurt anybody's feelings), a sudden slate of admin recalls would be a great way to disrupt the whole shebang for weeks. We'd be forced to accept such a slate as AGF. No rules against it. No structural barrier. Perhaps we might limit how many recall petitions could run at once. BusterD (talk) 18:06, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
Sure, the community can consider putting in restrictions for any process. When running your simulations, though, you get a sense of how likely a given scenario might be, and then you can weigh the tradeoff of mitigating it versus the additional cost. Given that community processes aren't laws, there are existing approaches to deal with being overwhelmed with submissions to any process – the community could, for example, defer the start of a process based on availability of volunteers. isaacl (talk) 18:47, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
I'm not sure wikipedians expected WikiProject Roads to go "on the road" itself, either. These first two recall petitions aren't representative of the threats I'm concerned about. We're about to watch two longtime sysops each go through 30 day gauntlets. Any LTA they've ever rousted, anyone they were forced to block might be one of 25 signers. Could be a payback time. In any event, 30 days is what we've agreed to, at least until one of the immediately filed tweaking RFCs closes. BusterD (talk) 19:07, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
Well, that wasn't brought about by a group of intentional disrupters, nor was it a case where structural barriers would have helped (sort of the opposite: fewer barriers in how the standards for having an article are determined might have kept that group interested in contributing). All I'm saying is that I think the extreme case of process overuse isn't that likely, while I do agree that discussing ways to avoid milder cases of overuse is reasonable. isaacl (talk) 22:56, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
I don't think you're wrong in between concerned about this; admins active in WP:AE (especially in the ARBPIA area) would appear to me to be obvious targets of malicious petitions created and endorsed by sophisticated bad actors. Ideally, the community would figure out what was going on before any real damage could be done, but we don't live in an ideal world. We live in whatever this one is. I'm not too worried about trolls or revenge petitions- I think those are easy to recognise for what they are and an even easier target for WP:BOOMERANGs. But to get back on track, other processes like SPI, AFC, and ANI can still be abused- I see no reason why recall couldn't be either. I also think I'd like to wait and see how it's being abused before figuring out what safety railings to install. GreenLipstickLesbian (talk) 10:39, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
I don't think AGF is a suicide pact. If a small group of people decide they need to dump a large slate of admins through the process at the same time, unless the issues that they bring up are blindingly obvious violations of ADMINACCT, they can get a warning or formal restrictions with or without a rule against it. Even if they were acting in good faith, doing something like that is obviously disruptive. Alpha3031 (t • c) 09:56, 5 November 2024 (UTC)
Fully agree. If a ton of sleeper accounts suddenly pop up to drown us in recall petitions, the assumption of good faith quickly flies out of the window. Same if it happened at AfD or anywhere else. We're not blindly committed to following a process if it has clearly been hijacked in bad faith. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:38, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
Sure there is: WP:IAR. If this happened, we'd recognise it as disruption and respond accordingly. – Joe (talk) 16:03, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

I gotta be honest...

...fuck the recall policy. It has resulted in nothing but drama. Wanna take bets on how long before recall is removed entirely and we go back to ArbCom deciding on if admins get desysopped? LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 23:16, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

No. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:19, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
BRB; busy commenting on a month-long process failing to have results after one week. Sincerely, Dilettante 23:21, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
I think the recall process needs tweaks, but I don't think it's going away entirely. My personal opinion is 50 supports over 2 weeks would be more reasonable than the current iteration. Hey man im josh (talk) 02:22, 5 November 2024 (UTC)
50 over 2 weeks basically makes recall toothless. Better not have it then. — hako9 (talk) 16:42, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
Any recall process needs to be designed to be low drama. This one does not seem well designed. —Kusma (talk) 10:42, 5 November 2024 (UTC)
This process has shat the bed straight out the gate. An open noticeboard thread with no consensus, no formal proposal for anything, and anyone can show up here and single-handedly launch the community into an unstructured, unmoderated, weekslong brouhaha of bickering and dirt-digging? With zero barrier to entry and no red tape to work through beforehand? It's near optimal for high drama generation. Folly Mox (talk) 03:37, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
I do agree that this phase needs some major changes. There are implementation issues, as there are with anything that is new and untested. I don't think anyone is saying this is going prefectly, and it needs major corrections, but as of right now it is a real process that is being used. Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 04:21, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
And now we have a successful recall petition. First through the door is always brutal. BusterD (talk) 11:35, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
With zero barrier to entry and no red tape to work through beforehand? The issue is, the petition itself is supposed to be the barrier to entry for the RRfA to begin with. Which is why we're running into a structural problem: how to set up a barrier to entry which won't devolve into the same process as the one for which we're putting up a barrier to entry? Limiting the amount of conversation seems to be a good idea, although the practical implementation of this remains to be fine-tuned. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:41, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
We really need to hurry up and get rid of discussion in recall positions. That's where the drama comes from, not the signatures. A petition is not a consensus-building process, it's the prelude to one; discussion isn't needed. – Joe (talk) 16:08, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Nothing stopping dedicated coordinated disrupters from recalling all admins at once

Based on what we're seeing today, there's no reason dedicated, coordinated disrupters couldn't put the entire admin corps up for recall right now. There appear to be no structural barriers in place to prevent such disruption. BusterD (talk) 13:47, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

If that happens, the chance of the petition(s) succeeding is unlikely. Editors can only sign to a max 5 active petitions at time, so the most 25 disruptive editors could do is take 5 admins to RRfA, where it will probably succeed because most editors will realise the petitions were disruptive. The chance of 25+ EC editors all working together to take down a few admins is already very low anyway. And if it does happen, they could be blocked for disruption. fanfanboy (block talk) 14:51, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
I'm guessing you haven't seen dedicated disrupters at work here. There are hundreds if not thousands of sleeper accounts queued up for such purposes. One blocked contributor could do it almost alone. BusterD (talk) 15:05, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
How many sleeper accounts are EC? I don't like how this process is currently working, but anybody accumulating even dozens of EC sleeper accounts just to sign petitions to nominate admins for recall seems unlikely. Any long-unused account that suddenly turns up to sign up to five petitions (the limit at any given time) is likely to draw scrutiny. Donald Albury 15:39, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
There are disinformation tactics which could be used to get regular wikipedians to vote in good faith for such a petition. Haste is a big part of such tactics. Does nobody imagine consulting companies and intel agencies playing a long game here and acquiring EC accounts to affect our work? It's the commencement of a dubious recall which is disruptive, not the outcome. One dedicated disrupter could do a lot with just a few EC sleepers (saving them for just such a disruption). BusterD (talk) 16:03, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
Even if you're right, the admin will still have to go through an RRfA. fanfanboy (block talk) 16:49, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
If two or more sleeper accounts awaken and sign a petition in their first few edits, I'm confident that a sock puppet investigation will be opened. Accounts found to be sock puppets will be blocked and their signatures discounted on any petition. Why would anyone who has bought EC accounts risk throwing ttem away when they are so likely to be caught? Do you have any evidence for your claims? Donald Albury 17:22, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
My original point was that we had no obvious structural mechanism for preventing dubious recalls. You guys want me to 1) perform invented equations, or 2) point to active disruption. I'll deign not to enter either arena. If I used hyperbole, I was attempting to draw attention to a flaw in our new system. BusterD (talk) 17:31, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
If you used hyperbole, you damaged your credibility by looking paranoid. How many admins have faced a petition for recall so far? I am aware of one, and he has a clear record of his conduct. Even then, it took two attempts. Admins also have a lot of power. They tend to be well known and have good knowledge of how wikipedia works. This allows them to defend themselves pretty well. I also think accusing opponents of being disruptive editors seeking revenge would be a pretty effective defence. Tinynanorobots (talk) 13:26, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
Touché. BusterD (talk) 13:30, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
The German Wikipedia has (rolling, up to a year long) recall petitions active against essentially all admins: de:WP:AWW. A lot of these have been signed only by the same three users and are unlikely to ever reach their quorum. Petitions do not have to be disruptive if we do not feed the trolls. —Kusma (talk) 17:39, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
There are no structural barriers to a co-ordinated group putting up all articles related to topic X up for deletion, or renaming. If it ever happens, the community will figure out an approach to manage it, and move forward from there. There's a tradeoff in making a process sufficiently resilient to misuse, while still making it effective. I agree that tuning this balance for the recall process is still a work in progress. I don't think we need to worry about all admins running re-requests for adminship at once, but it is certainly possible that there will continually be some recall petitions ongoing. Maybe at that point it turns into background noise, and the certification role of petitions will predominate. Alternatively, the community might find it overly distracting, and decide on a different certification method, or revisit the concept of the community requiring an admin to make a re-request. isaacl (talk) 17:53, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
In your example, if a coordinated group took on a content area, that would be disruptive to the pagespace for a time, but if a group targeted admins they wanted to peel off (say E. Dramatica folks, as an example which won't hurt anybody's feelings), a sudden slate of admin recalls would be a great way to disrupt the whole shebang for weeks. We'd be forced to accept such a slate as AGF. No rules against it. No structural barrier. Perhaps we might limit how many recall petitions could run at once. BusterD (talk) 18:06, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
Sure, the community can consider putting in restrictions for any process. When running your simulations, though, you get a sense of how likely a given scenario might be, and then you can weigh the tradeoff of mitigating it versus the additional cost. Given that community processes aren't laws, there are existing approaches to deal with being overwhelmed with submissions to any process – the community could, for example, defer the start of a process based on availability of volunteers. isaacl (talk) 18:47, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
I'm not sure wikipedians expected WikiProject Roads to go "on the road" itself, either. These first two recall petitions aren't representative of the threats I'm concerned about. We're about to watch two longtime sysops each go through 30 day gauntlets. Any LTA they've ever rousted, anyone they were forced to block might be one of 25 signers. Could be a payback time. In any event, 30 days is what we've agreed to, at least until one of the immediately filed tweaking RFCs closes. BusterD (talk) 19:07, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
Well, that wasn't brought about by a group of intentional disrupters, nor was it a case where structural barriers would have helped (sort of the opposite: fewer barriers in how the standards for having an article are determined might have kept that group interested in contributing). All I'm saying is that I think the extreme case of process overuse isn't that likely, while I do agree that discussing ways to avoid milder cases of overuse is reasonable. isaacl (talk) 22:56, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
I don't think you're wrong in between concerned about this; admins active in WP:AE (especially in the ARBPIA area) would appear to me to be obvious targets of malicious petitions created and endorsed by sophisticated bad actors. Ideally, the community would figure out what was going on before any real damage could be done, but we don't live in an ideal world. We live in whatever this one is. I'm not too worried about trolls or revenge petitions- I think those are easy to recognise for what they are and an even easier target for WP:BOOMERANGs. But to get back on track, other processes like SPI, AFC, and ANI can still be abused- I see no reason why recall couldn't be either. I also think I'd like to wait and see how it's being abused before figuring out what safety railings to install. GreenLipstickLesbian (talk) 10:39, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
I don't think AGF is a suicide pact. If a small group of people decide they need to dump a large slate of admins through the process at the same time, unless the issues that they bring up are blindingly obvious violations of ADMINACCT, they can get a warning or formal restrictions with or without a rule against it. Even if they were acting in good faith, doing something like that is obviously disruptive. Alpha3031 (t • c) 09:56, 5 November 2024 (UTC)
Fully agree. If a ton of sleeper accounts suddenly pop up to drown us in recall petitions, the assumption of good faith quickly flies out of the window. Same if it happened at AfD or anywhere else. We're not blindly committed to following a process if it has clearly been hijacked in bad faith. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:38, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
Sure there is: WP:IAR. If this happened, we'd recognise it as disruption and respond accordingly. – Joe (talk) 16:03, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

I gotta be honest...

...fuck the recall policy. It has resulted in nothing but drama. Wanna take bets on how long before recall is removed entirely and we go back to ArbCom deciding on if admins get desysopped? LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 23:16, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

No. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:19, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
BRB; busy commenting on a month-long process failing to have results after one week. Sincerely, Dilettante 23:21, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
I think the recall process needs tweaks, but I don't think it's going away entirely. My personal opinion is 50 supports over 2 weeks would be more reasonable than the current iteration. Hey man im josh (talk) 02:22, 5 November 2024 (UTC)
50 over 2 weeks basically makes recall toothless. Better not have it then. — hako9 (talk) 16:42, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
Any recall process needs to be designed to be low drama. This one does not seem well designed. —Kusma (talk) 10:42, 5 November 2024 (UTC)
This process has shat the bed straight out the gate. An open noticeboard thread with no consensus, no formal proposal for anything, and anyone can show up here and single-handedly launch the community into an unstructured, unmoderated, weekslong brouhaha of bickering and dirt-digging? With zero barrier to entry and no red tape to work through beforehand? It's near optimal for high drama generation. Folly Mox (talk) 03:37, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
I do agree that this phase needs some major changes. There are implementation issues, as there are with anything that is new and untested. I don't think anyone is saying this is going prefectly, and it needs major corrections, but as of right now it is a real process that is being used. Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 04:21, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
And now we have a successful recall petition. First through the door is always brutal. BusterD (talk) 11:35, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
With zero barrier to entry and no red tape to work through beforehand? The issue is, the petition itself is supposed to be the barrier to entry for the RRfA to begin with. Which is why we're running into a structural problem: how to set up a barrier to entry which won't devolve into the same process as the one for which we're putting up a barrier to entry? Limiting the amount of conversation seems to be a good idea, although the practical implementation of this remains to be fine-tuned. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:41, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
We really need to hurry up and get rid of discussion in recall positions. That's where the drama comes from, not the signatures. A petition is not a consensus-building process, it's the prelude to one; discussion isn't needed. – Joe (talk) 16:08, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Early closure

Discussion at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard#Requesting closure of Wikipedia:Administrator_recall/Graham87 seems to have reached the clear consensus that the policy does not contain any provisions for ending a petition before it has run its course (currently 30 days, although that might change). Are there any scenarios where it should be allowed to close a petition early? Possibilities include, but are not necessarily limited to, the following (not all of which are mutually exclusive):

  1. The petition has reached 25 signatures
  2. The petition has had 25 or more signatures for 24/48/72 hours
  3. The admin has acknowledged the petition is successful, but has not indicated whether they will resign or file an RRFA
  4. The admin has stepped down
  5. The admin has announced their intention to file a RRFA, but not specifically when
  6. The admin has stated they will initiate an RRFA at a specific time (e.g. "tomorrow", "Wednesday afternoon Pacific time", "in about a week")
  7. The admin has initiated an RRFA
  8. The filer wishes to withdraw the petition, and nobody else has signed it
  9. The filer wishes to withdraw the petition, but other editors have signed it

This is a discussion not an RFC, do not add bold votes. There may be things I haven't thought of. Thryduulf (talk) 14:01, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Per rule of lenity, the admin should have the final say. Sir Kenneth Kho (talk) 15:14, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
I see that Graham87 indicated he wanted to file the RRFA as soon as possible, but I'd like him to take a month as a kind of probation and prove that he has changed his ways. Sir Kenneth Kho (talk) 15:16, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
1, 3 and 8 are obviously a yes for me. I see 4/5/6/7 as subcategories of 3, and don't want explicit points for each subpoint. 9 I think the community is against, and 2 seems to be too much bureaucracy. If the 14th vote for recall wants to withdraw their signature, they can do it at any time, waiting for the 25th signature is not needed. There's already enough bureaucracy in play that the simplest solution seems most logical (25 sigs -> close petition -> discuss with crat when they RRFA) without the need for further complications based on edgecases. Soni (talk) 16:01, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
I agree with Soni's perspective. The simplest approach is to end the petition once the threshold has been reached, or the admin agrees that the petition is successful, regardless of the subsequent action they choose to take. As per process, they should discuss their plans with the bureaucrats on how they want to proceed. On allowing a filer to withdraw a petition that no one has signed: in practice, it's probably the easiest way to quickly resolve a petition that only one person supports. isaacl (talk) 17:08, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
I also agree. I think it's clear that we should not do 9, and I don't think 2 is necessary. All of the others seem good to me, and I'm not too bothered over the degree to which the admin lays out their plans. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:46, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
The second it reaches 25 signatures, I think it should be hatted by anyone with a simple closing statement such as "25 signatures reached. Moving to next stage of WP:RECALL." And I think the clock on the re-RFA should start when the close is made. Keeping it open longer seems like a recipe for drama and unreasonable candidate stress. I don't think I could ever support a recall process that forces an admin to be dragged over the coals for 30 days petition + 7 days re-RFA = 37 days. The shorter the better. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:34, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
Agree, close at 25, start the 30-day clock. Levivich (talk) 21:38, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
Agree with 1, 3. Somewhat agree with 8. fanfanboy (blocktalk) 21:54, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
Agree with 1 and 8. I would agree with 3 if the admin acknowledges the success before 25 signatures, on the condition that the acknowledgment be final (and considered equivalent to a successful petition). Either way, once the petition reaches 25 signatures, there's no need to keep the discussion open for longer to avoid a pile-on. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:36, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
What if the admin pulls the pin and asks the bureaucrats for a voluntary de-sysop? This would qualify as under a cloud, right? And the petition could be closed early? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:43, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
That's what 4 is asking, which I support (as a subset of other points). I would also consider resigning during an ongoing recall petition as under a cloud. Soni (talk) 05:45, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
Whether or not voluntary removal would be "under a cloud" depends on the strength of the reasoning the petitioners have given. If the reasoning is flimsy, or the petitioners don't give any – which the policy's current wording allows them to do – it wouldn't be fair to consider the voluntary removal "under a cloud". SuperMarioMan (Talk) 08:06, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
It has to always treated as a WP:CLOUD situation even if the petitioners don't give any reason. The distinction is impractical to handle and no one can make the call whether it's one or the other. —Alalch E. 16:13, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
Cloud determinations currently are and should continue to be made when restoration of adminship is requested. The presence of a recall petition is strong evidence that a cloud exists, but it is not a guarantee. I trust the bureaucrats to make a judgement call in the cases where it's not immediately obvious that there's a cloud. I can construct situations where petition does not equal cloud, but they are rare. A note of the petition at the bureaucrat noticeboard when a de-adminship request is made is probably appropriate. Tazerdadog (talk) 17:36, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
(Forgot to add earlier that the WP:CLOUD question is decided before restoration, not upon resignation.) I disagree. It shouldn't be considered automatic; it needs to be assessed case-by-case. The wording of Wikipedia:Administrators#Restoration of admin tools is "serious questions about the appropriateness of the former admin's status as an administrator..." For WP:CLOUD to obviously apply, the petition would need to raise such questions. A petition consisting entirely of signatures and no reasoning doesn't do that. SuperMarioMan (Talk) 19:02, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
But if the petition is closed early, then it may not present a full picture of the situation. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:25, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
I see. (I was answering only on WP:CLOUD, I hadn't considered the early closure options.) That in mind, I think early closure should be limited to 25 signatures + 1 day (to allow time in case any signatories change their mind); the subject proceeding straight to RRFA; or the sole signatory withdrawing. So numbers 2, 7 and 8 above. If there are concerns about administrators resigning promptly to evade scrutiny – rather than the whole petition page being closed early, perhaps only the signatures section should be closed early and the discussion area left open for comments until the petition window closes. SuperMarioMan (Talk) 22:03, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
In my opinion, acknowledging that the petition is successful and resigning is acknowledging that, for whatever reason, you are choosing not to contest the views of the petitioners. I appreciate it kind of sucks for an admin who just wants to avoid controversy and step down quietly and then later wants to help out with administrative tasks again, but I don't think it's practical to try to resume the petition. So while I don't think it should be assumed there were serious questions about the appropriateness of the former admin's status as an administrator at the time of resignation (from Wikipedia:Administrators § Restoration of admin tools), I think the resignation should be treated as one that relinquished the right to request restoration of administrative privileges without re-obtaining community approval. isaacl (talk) 23:14, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

I'd say a petition may be closed:

  • By any editor after 30 days have elapsed.
  • By any editor, after 25 extended confirmed signatures have been added.
  • As successful at the request of the admin. This can be explicit (the admin closes the petition as having enough support) or implicit (they start a RRFA or hand in the tools)
  • At any time if no valid editors are supporting the petition (someone withdraws their own unsupported petition, the initiator isn't extended confirmed, all the signers are socks, etc)

Tazerdadog (talk) 08:20, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Agree with the first three here, whatever that comes under (I assume 1 and 5-7 or original questions). "At any time" in the last bullet point is problematic, as some editors might think that within a few days of no signatures it'd be acceptable to close. If there are no signatures there should also be little to no issues/drama continuing the petition for the required time frame. CNC (talk) 13:14, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
@CommunityNotesContributor It says no signatures, not "no new signatures". If there is no single (non-sock) editor supporting the petition, it should be closed immediately in my opinion. Soni (talk) 13:52, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
We don't have to specify "any editor". And a reference to the petition failing is made further up in the text: If a petition fails ... —Alalch E. 16:07, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
I support Tazerdadog's suggestions. --Enos733 (talk) 18:21, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
I think Tazeradog's phrasing is both clearest written and most agreed with everyone in this conversation Soni (talk) 06:40, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Reworkshop open

You are invited to refine and workshop proposals to the recall process at Wikipedia:Administrator recall/Reworkshop. After the reworkshop is closed, the proposals will be voted on at an RfC. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 00:51, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

I appreciate the effort to put all of these questions in one place, but many editors have already commented on these issues (and at least one RfC has started. I would not want those comments lost in a second (or third) discussion. --Enos733 (talk) 06:52, 8 November 2024 (UTC)
I understand that – the point is not to debate the issues, the point is to hammer out what language will be in the RfC. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 06:54, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Categories

I have made Category:Recall petitions, Category:Administrator recall and subcategories to better organise recalll. Does anyone have any suggestions for what other categories should be created?

Perhaps Open petitions should be a category too? Soni (talk) 14:00, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

I think that closed/open petitions should be sub-catagories. fanfanboy (blocktalk) 14:26, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
I agree that open and closed petitions should be categorised separately. I also wonder whether the categories should have "Wikipedia" in the name somewhere, I can imagine people categorising articles about e.g. politicians who have faced recall petitions in Category:Recall petitions, especially if any individual petitions are notable (I have no idea if they are, but it's plausible). Thryduulf (talk) 18:48, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
Agreed. Definitely rename to include "Wikipedia". Probably if a real-world recall petition succeeds the article on it will end up being merged with that of the election it triggers. But I could totally see a failed recall petition becoming notable and deserving its own article. * Pppery * it has begun... 19:02, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
Petition Initiated Certified Re-RFA Result
Wikipedia:Administrator recall/ExampleUser1 1 January 2025 13 January 2025 Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/ExampleUser1 2 Passed
Wikipedia:Administrator recall/ExampleUser2 10 January 2025 14 January 2025 Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/ExampleUser2 2 Failed
Wikipedia:Administrator recall/ExampleUser3 25 January 2025 — N/A N/A
Wikipedia:Administrator recall/ExampleUser4 1 February 2025 14 February 2025 Pending Pending

Thryduulf (talk) 13:01, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Category:Administrator recall has been nominated for renaming

Category:Administrator recall has been nominated for renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether it complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 03:48, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Should a 'do not archive' template be added to Template:Admin recall notice/AN?

Should a {{subst:Do not archive until}} template, set to the maximum length of a petition (currently 30 days), be added to the AN notice?
See Special:Diff/1256799227. – 2804:F1...DF:61D4 (::/32) (talk) 21:22, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

No. The idea of the petition is to see if enough people independently discover misconduct sufficient to warrant a recall before it fades away. Keeping it one life support like that is contrary. * Pppery * it has begun... 21:28, 11 November 2024 (UTC)
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