UDWiki:Administration/Policy Discussion/Sysop Reevaluations

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Overview

Every Eight months from when a user is nominated to be a sysop, that user will come up for a re-evaluation by the community. The idea of this re-evaluation is to ensure that the sysop still has the trust of the community, which is vital for a sysop to have. This will give the community a chance to voice their opinions about how the sysop has been doing, and re-affirm or decline their trusted user status.

The idea of a sysop being a trusted user is a part of the guidelines for the general conduct of a sysop. The guidelines for the re-evaluation is the same as for being promoted to a sysop (which is reposted below), but with a few minor changes in wording.

Guidelines for System Operator Re-Evaluations

Once the candidate has reached their eight month mark from their promotion to sysop or put themselves up for re-evaluation (see below), the user is then subject to a community discussion. All users are asked to comment on the candidate in question, ask questions of the candidate, and discuss the candidate's suitability for continuing to be a System Operator. This is not a vote. It is instead merely a request for comments from the wiki community. This will continue for one week, as all users get a chance to air their opinions on the candidate. The reason for only one week for discussions is due to the high-profile nature of the sysops, and most users should be familiar with them.

Once the one week is up, the Bureaucrats will review the community discussion and make a decision based upon it. The user will be notified of the status of their request, and will be retained in their position should it appear that the community is willing to continue to accept them as a System Operator. In the event that the decision is negative, then the sysop will be demoted back to regular user status, where after a month's time, the user can re-submit themselves for promotion.

Before users voice their opinions on the candidate who wishes to continue their System Operator status, the following guidelines should be reviewed by the user:

General User Guidelines for System Operator Re-Evaluations

Before vocing their opinion on a candidate's re-evaluation bid, a user should consider some of the following questions:

  • Has the candidate spent significant time within the community as a sysop?
We define this as the candidate having made at least one edit in the past 3 months. It is recommended that a user look over the the sysop activity check and last 500 edits to determine the level of acivity of the candidate.
Note: The Truly Inactive Sysops policy dictates that a sysop who hasn't made an edit within four months is automatically demoted. Therefore, for a sysop to be re-evaluated, they need to have made an edit before that time-frame is up.
  • Has the candidate maintained significant activity within the community?
We define this as at least 50 edits under the candidate's name since their last re-evaluation. It is recommended that a user look over the candidate's last 50 edits in order to get a feel for the activity of a candidate.
Note: looking in a User's User contributions might give false results for this criterion, as the edit history used to be periodically purged on this wiki.
  • Has the candidate expressed interest in maintaining the community?
We define this as clear evidence that the candidate is already performing maintenance tasks and continuing taking a leadership role on the wiki.
  • Has the candidate expressed a desire to continue to be a System Operator.
We define this simply as indicating in the candidate's request their desire to continue to maintain the position.
  • Is there an indication of trust in the candidate.
We define this as a minimum of three other users (preferably users with at least 200 edits under their name and at least one System Operator), willing to vouch for the candidate's suitability for the role.

If a candidate is highly exemplary in one guideline, a certain level of flexibility should be extended to the other guidelines. Other guidelines for qualifcations may be used, these are just a few suggested things to consider before a user voices their opinion.

Nuts and Bolts

A new page for the re-evaluations will be created in order to keep it separate from the regular promotions. The new page will be A/RE. An archive of re-evaluations will be created similar to the archiving system of the promotions page. On the re-evaluations page, a section similar to the sysop activity check will be created to give users advanced notice as to when each sysop is up for re-evaluation to compensate for the reduced time and to let people know ahead of time when each sysop is up for re-evaluation.

Voluntary Sysop Re-Evaluation

A sysop can request a voluntary re-evaluation provided it has been at least four months since their last re-evaluation. The reason for waiting at least four months between evaluations is to prevent the possibility of a sysop constantly putting themselves up for re-evaluation. The guidelines for a voluntary re-evaluation is the same as a normal re-evaluation.

Bureaucrats and Re-evaluations

The bureaucrat's promotions process is in essence a re-evaluation of a sysop by the community. Bureaucrats go through regular process of re-elections, so each time they are elected, the community is renewing their faith in the sysop, and is not subject to re-evaluation through this policy. When a bureaucrat is not re-elected and becomes a sysop again, then the sysop is again available for re-evaluation through this policy. When this happens, the bureaucrat's eight months start from when they were promoted to bureaucrat.

Examples

  • User A is promoted to sysop on April 12th, 2009. User A's date for re-evaluation is December 12th, 2009. In their time as a sysop, User A is elected to being a bureaucrat on July 24th, 2009. For as long as they are re-elected to the bureaucrat position, their re-evaluation is delayed (due to the bureaucrat promotion process effectively being a re-evaluation by the community).
  • User B is a bureaucrat and was elected to the position on July 22nd, 2009. Unfortunately, they serve their term for three months and at re-election, they are not re-elected to the position. This means that their last re-evaluation is effectively July 22nd 2009 (due to the bureaucrat promotion process effectively being a re-evaluation by the community), and their new re-evaluation date is March 22nd, 2010.

Summary

This policy creates a system for the community to reaffirm the trust in the sysop (much like Bureaucrats have to):

  • Every sysop will be re-evaluated by the community once their eight month mark comes up.
  • This will start with whomever has been a sysop the longest, and every two weeks thereafter the next longest sysop without a re-evaluation will come up for review until everyone has had one or falls short of their eight months (i.e. new sysops can wait until their usual eight month period, while the ones who are past their eight months will have to cycle through).
  • This policy does not effect any account that Kevan may use as a wiki admin account, specifically:

Voting Section

Voting Rules
Votes must be numbered, signed, and timestamped. They can take one of two forms:
  • # comments ~~~~
    or
  • # ~~~~

Votes that do not conform to the above will be struck by a sysop.

The only valid voting sections are For and Against. If you wish to abstain from voting, do not vote.

For

  1. Author vote. --Akule Maker of fine, hand-crafted UDWiki sass since 2006 -- Akule School's back in session™ 22:12, 4 August 2009 (BST)
  2. Bob Boberton TF / DW Littlemudkipsig.gif 22:17, 4 August 2009 (BST)
  3. - I haven't read much past the summary but I assume it does what it says it does, giving the community the power to demote awful sysops and uselessness ones like Daranz, Swiers and Thari. Though I find 8 months a bit too long personally, that's a long time in which a bad sysops can do allot of bad things. --Thadeous Oakley 22:17, 4 August 2009 (BST)
    swiers never wanted to be a sysop. He only wanted the tools that come with the rank. He was always honest about this, and the community trusted him this tools, and i dont see why someone like you should be against him. --People's Commissar Hagnat [talk] [wcdz] 00:52, 5 August 2009 (BST)
  4. Definitely Needed --THE Godfather of Яesensitized, Anime Sucks Yalk | W! U! WMM| CC CPFOAS DORISFlag.jpg LOE ZHU | Яezzens 23:18, 4 August 2009 (BST)
  5. Yup --Banana reads Scoundrell for all of Yesterday's News, Today! 23:27, 4 August 2009 (BST)
  6. Very much needed.-- Adward  23:29, 4 August 2009 (BST)
  7. Every 4 months. 1/3 of the year. --Sonny Corleone DORIS I jizzed in my pants pr0n 23:52, 4 August 2009 (BST)
  8. --Paddy DignamIS DEAD 00:08, 5 August 2009 (BST)
  9. -Although Daranz is a friend of Kevan's and likely wont be affected, and although this has the potential to be misused... I have to be for it. Conndrakamod TAZM CFT 00:34, 5 August 2009 (BST)
  10. i usually was against sysop reevaluation policies... but heck, this was really well written. --People's Commissar Hagnat [talk] [wcdz] 00:52, 5 August 2009 (BST)

Against

  1. Against for 2 very minor points. 1) on reflection I think 9 months would be best (or at the very least date the evaluation from the close of their bid) 2) the Crat evaluation section needs a clarification to clearly state that it is from their last Crat election... Boxy cannot be the only Crat to have stayed in the role more than 8 months. The wording here means he would have immediately faced a re-evaluation on losing the position. --Honestmistake 00:09, 5 August 2009 (BST)
  2. All I read was more forced drama and more bureaucracy here. All this will be is an unnecessary popularity contest, because if a sysop is doing their job horrible enough they will be put up in Misconduct and should be demoted. Whether or not that system works is another issue.--SirArgo Talk 00:16, 5 August 2009 (BST)
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