Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Granting bureaucrats the technical ability to remove the admin flag

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is consensus agreement that, "Members of the bureaucrat user group are granted the technical ability to remove the group "administrators" from users using the interface at Special:UserRights".

This permission is absolutely conditional on it being used for technical, routine cases and is NOT intended to allow 'crats to remove SysOp for anything more than routine maintenence of the project. This decision does not support 'crats removing SysOp in cases other than uncontroversial procedure.

I heartily thank all participants for a collegiate discussion of a contentions proposal. Sheer numbers are anathema, but, a ten-to-one ratio of reasoned arguments is as clear a 'consensus' as we can hope, in a contentious arena; 312-33 WIGS with mostly well-reasoned arguments, is compelling; however–in caps, and flashing yellow comic-sans–the naysayers are not to be ignored, and tells our 'crats to "BE FUCKING CAREFUL" with our trust.

I cannot emphasize the phrase "technical ability" enough, without resorting to flashing-comic-sans, and considerable cowbell. Despite the large margin of approval, there is a certain level of apprehension behind this change. You are being trusted to handle this new responsibly.

Consensus shows that the community believes 'crats can be trusted with the technical ability to -SysOp, with the expectation that they will use this power only in absolute, strict accordance to the will of the community. I remind our Bureaucrats that you are expected to maintain an exemplary standard of conduct, and at this level, there is no room for discretion without appropriate consultation with the community (respecting IAR, COMMON, etc). In particular, this permission has been granted because, at this time, the community believes inactive admins should be have their permission revoked purely as a matter of procedure, and may then be resysopped without further discussion (except in exceptional cases). ^ref

This consensus has the expectation that they will use this power only in absolute, strict accordance to the will of the community.

The community has not agreed to allow non-stewards to "De-Sysop" in other circumstances. Any such decision would require further proposal and consensus.  Chzz  ►  01:24, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

---

Currently, bureaucrats on the English Wikipedia have the technical ability to grant the administrator user privileges (variously referred to as the 'bit', 'flag' or 'user group'), but do not have the ability to remove the administrator privileges. Instead, removal of the admin flag must be performed by a steward, typically in response to a request placed at meta:Steward requests/Permissions. However, the ability to allow bureaucrats to remove the admin flag is available within the MediaWiki software and is enabled on some other Wikimedia projects.

Discussions in February 2009 and January 2010 led to a January 2010 proposal entitled WP:Requests for adminship/Bureaucrat Unchecking, which narrowly failed to achieve consensus. Following the successful outcome of Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/suspend sysop rights of inactive admins in June 2011, it was decided to re-discuss this idea. Due to concerns from previous discussions about multiple issues being considered in a single discussion, this proposal has been narrowly worded to cover only the technical ability to remove the administrator bit. The question of when they would be permitted to do so will be determined by a policy. A parallel proposal about policy questions is under discussion at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Bureaucrat removal of adminship policy.

RFC started: 20:04, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Proposal

“ Members of the bureaucrat user group are granted the technical ability to remove the group "administrators" from users using the interface at Special:UserRights. ”

Discussion

See also: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Bureaucrat Unchecking and Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Bureaucrat Unchecking/Poll

Since the question can be answered as either "yes" or "no", this RFC is structured like a straw poll. The existence of support/oppose sections does not mean that discussion is discouraged. General discussion should be added in the designated section.

Support

1–100

1. Support - If a bureaucrat can grant the admin buttons, they should have the power to remove the buttons as well. Bureaucrats are among the most trusted members of the Wikipedia community, and giving them this technical ability corrects an obvious flaw in the structure Wikipedia uses to operate with. Jusdafax 08:28, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
2. Support - Misuse can be handled by ArbCom as per any other tool misuse, and in any event is easily reversible. I trust ArbCom to come down like a tonne of bricks on a bureaucrat who abused the additional right. Pedro's concern on the talkpage is a valid one. If have no objection to a reconfirmation process for all bureaucrats if this gains approval. WJBscribe (talk) 11:29, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
3. Support. I've supported this before, and since desysoppings are now going to start happening more frequently with the inactive admin removal process, it makes even more sense to have trusted local users do it. We can assume bureaucrats to have better knowledge about the details of the local policy and standard procedures than stewards (remember that stewards who are active community members here aren't supposed to perform any enwiki desysoppings in the first place). Many Wikimedia projects have already added this right to the bureaucrat package: meta, simple.wikipedia, en.wikinews, hi.wikipedia, fi.wikipedia, etc. While bureaucrats weren't exactly selected for this task, I have no problem trusting them with an additional responsibility which is closely related with their current job. Jafeluv (talk) 11:53, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
4. Support - it's the logical counterpart of Bureaucrats' ability to create new admins. How and when they should use such a power is a matter for discussion, but I can't really think of any good argument why they shouldn't have it. At the very least, it could be used when an admin is ordered to be desysopped by ArbCom. Currently, as I understand it, if ArbCom wish to remove an administrator's tools, they must contact a Steward; granting bureaucrats the technical ability to desysop would make the process quicker and easier, and allow it to be conducted entirely within the English Wikipedia. Robofish (talk) 14:59, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
5. Support the technical ability, and also strict usage. AD 17:29, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

   Support - If bureaucrat's have the ability to grant the buttons, why don't they have the ability to do the opposite? It's illogical. Island Monkey ^{talk the talk} 20:08, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

6. Support This technical ability should be a part of the permissions of Bureaucrats, as long as there is clear policy on when it is appropriate to use. -- Ed (Edgar181) 20:14, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
7. Support Bureaucrat's should have the technical ability to do this. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:16, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
8. Support as the person who started this RfC. As people said already, it's the usual system that a "higher" group can grant or remove all rights below that group. Admins can grant or remove rollback, autopatrolled etc. and they can remove it again. No-one so far claimed that this might lead to problems. The only exception so far is bureaucrats, who can add two rights but not remove them. This proposal would just create a situation that one would expect to find. How and when the crats should be allowed to use this right is a question for the parallel RFC about a policy to govern this. Regards SoWhy 20:21, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
9. Support. It bureaucrats can creat new admins, they should also be able to remove them for cause. Jewishprincess (talk) 20:29, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
10. Support one of the last bits of "dependance" on outside help to administer the project, also opens the way for better de-sysoping procedures. Also given that inactive admins are now to be de-sysoped this gives the crats something to do :) --Errant ^(chat!) 20:32, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
11. Support - Now that completely inactive admins are going to be desysoped, bureaucrats will need this ability. Reaper Eternal (talk) 20:35, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
12. Support Should have been there all along. The ability should be added no matter what happens in the other RfC. If there is no policy governing it's use, 'crats can be trusted to not use it outside of policy anyway. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 20:43, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
13. Support. To me this seems like an obvious change to make, for several reasons:
    • Allowing the same group to both grant and remove the flag centralizes the process, which provides maximum transparency. Anyone wishing to monitor requests for adminship removal could watch our own bureaucrats' noticeboard, rather than a Meta noticeboard that also contains requests from other wikis. Also, going forward, logs regarding a user's admin status would no longer have to be split between here for granting and Meta for removing. (Unfortunately, past logs would not be unified by this change, but that is not a reason to perpetuate the problem into the future.)
    • We already entrust bureaucrats to perform the much riskier task of giving admin permissions, and potential bureaucrats are scrutinized very closely as a result. In contrast, having removals done by stewards means the task may be performed by someone who has little or no experience with English Wikipedia and has never been vetted here for so much as being a rollbacker. Although I expect it would be very rare, if a bureaucrat were to abuse the privilege, they would be answerable to the local community and Arbitration Committee.
    • Bureaucrats have successfully been given additional responsibilities in the past. The original 'crat role was just for promoting admins. Everything else was added later. This is just one more addition, and it is more closely related to their current function than past additions were. Additionally, this is already implemented for some other projects with no apparent problems. --RL0919 (talk) 20:49, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
14. Support a higher level of independence for enwiki. Also, bureaucrats will no doubt need this ability with the new inactivity policy in place. Regards, MacMed^talk_stalk 20:51, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
15. Weak support based off the new inactive admin policy. Were this policy not in place, giving 'crats the ability to remove the admin bit would have no real use. demize (t · c) 20:54, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
16. Support for use with the new 12-month inactive-admin policy. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:02, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
17. Support increased demand for new inactive admin rule. Marcus Qwertyus 21:16, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
18. It makes sense that the same people can flip on and off the admin bit, and it also makes sense that enwiki handles its rights changes autonomously, without the need for help from stewards. Ucucha 21:19, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
19. Support - Yes yes, please yes. It seems like the most difficult thing to do on Wikipedia is to de-sysop someone. Now, it shouldn't be easy to do so, but just the same the hoops we have to go through to do so are silly. We've tried for years to have some formal de-adminship procedure, or mandatory recall, etc. But the most reasonable suggestion is to put the ability in the hands of bureaucrats, the same people who make the ultimate decision to grant adminship in the first place. Another reason to do this now is because of the new policy to remove the admin bit when an administrator becomes inactive for a year or more, and giving crats the ability to do this will make that smoother as well. -- Atama頭
20. Support - Logical / highly trusted users / easier to follow user rights log Agathoclea (talk) 21:33, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
21. Support I think the level of scrutiny crats receive at RfB is enough to qualify them to operate with this capability. Qrsdogg (talk) 21:41, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
22. Giving bureaucrats the ability to also remove administrator rights seems logical if they are presently trusted to give it out in line with policy. --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 21:59, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
23. Support this will help as the desysop action would apRpear in en.wikipedia logs; and it would enable a reversal of a mistake, if that ever happened! It will also reduce the impression that adminship is irreversible. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:13, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
24. Support under increased demand. --Rschen7754 22:43, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
25. Weak Support -- Makes sense, although I think Ched Davis makes some excellent points in his essay. Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 16:07, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
26. Support as another baby step towards a meaningful community desysopping process.—S Marshall T/C 23:17, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
27. Support As long as bureaucrats adhere to policy, there is no reason not to grant them this ability. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:32, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
28. It's a wiki, anything you can do, you should be able to undo. Courcelles 00:41, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
29. Obviously, we still need to get the rest of the crat policy rolling, but ErrantX has got the ball rolling with the first vital part (see discussion at the bottom of this page). Ncmvocalist (talk) 01:27, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
30. Support. Despite the fact that Pedro has a valid point, I don't think tehwiki will break. WJBscribe is also correct - all sorts of nasty things would rain down upon any who misuse this right, which I think is a low probability anyway. Net positive. In addition, it's already well-nigh impossible to become a crat anyway.  Frank  |  talk  01:33, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
31. Weak support Despite the ongoing hullabaloo about hacked admin accounts, I think it would be slightly hypocritical to on one hand desysop inactive admins while on the other hand granting bureaucrats the ability to desysop anyone—making them more of a target for password guessers. However, I don't see why this is a real bad thing, and this would give stewards a little less to deal with. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 03:15, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
32. Support – Seems to be the logical thing to do, if bureaucrat accounts are secured. —mc10 (t/c) 03:52, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
33. Yes - no brainer. → ROUX ₪ 04:09, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
34. Support that is how MediaWiki comes configured by default. I'm unsure why its not that way here. jorgenev 04:14, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
35. Support. Logical. Jenks24 (talk) 05:38, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
36. Support. I rather have bureaucrats who are among the most trusted users of the English Wikipedia desysoping admins than Stewards who are by definition less familiar with our culture and processes. Eluchil404 (talk) 07:06, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
37. Strong Support, mostly in line with Eluchil's reasoning. Ironholds (talk) 11:35, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
38. I trust our 'crats more than the stewards. Not because stewards are untrustworthy (they're very good at what they do), but because I know our 'crats. I !voted in several of their RfBs and I see their work on a daily basis. I imagine many admins feel the same and, even though most of the actions with this new ability would be uncontroversial, it's nice for it to be done by someone you know. I think it's daft that, if I want to hand my bit back, I have to go and ask someone I probably don't know, on another website. Having all the logs in one place is also an advantage. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:52, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
39. I don't see a reason why the group that turns on a switch aren't the same ones that turn it off. GB fan (talk) 12:58, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
40. Support. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 15:29, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
41. Support. I really thought they already had this ability and if I had needed to ask someone to do it would have gone looking for a 'crat. Rmhermen (talk) 17:34, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
42. Support, makes sense. (See particularly HJ Mitchell's comment above.)--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:56, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
43. A step in the right direction. Ben MacDui 18:48, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
44. Support Seems sensible. Warden (talk) 19:25, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
45. I agree with Edgar181, it of course needs to be worked out when this ability should be used. But I'm sure there are some cases when it's appropriate, so support. Peter 19:34, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
46. I continue to support granting bureaucrats the ability to remove adminship from accounts. I am not concerned whatsoever with "rogue bureaucrats" (which hasn't even happened yet), because any bureaucrat who started desysopping people out-of-policy would likely find themselves rapidly de-bureaucratted and possibly even desysopped as well. Acalamari 20:28, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
47. Support A good first step. What's needed is a framework to establish that administrators are not "Untouchables," in the Robert Stack sense, and that they can be blasted from their tools by something short of an H bomb. I'd like to see an orderly procedure that would allow recall of any administrator who has failed to adequately use his tools. ScottyBerg (talk) 21:31, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
48. Support What is this, the 1000th time that this (or something very similar) has been proposed? — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:10, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
49. Support If they can grant it, they should be able to remove it. Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 22:13, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
50. Support per HJ Mitchell. If we can't trust bureaucrats to stick to policy (and to refrain from using the technical ability until policy is agreed), who can we trust? Rd232 public ^talk 22:55, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
51. Support Don't see why not. If we can trust bureaucrats with granting adminship, than shouldn't we trust them with the removal of it. Sir Armbrust ^{Talk to me} _Contribs 00:43, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
52. Support per above. 28bytes (talk) 01:58, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
53. Support This does need to be made easier.Griswaldo (talk) 02:44, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
54. Weak Support Deysopping is a big deal and problably should be used for global admins(stewards) and Jimbo only, although to improve the deysopping proccess, I give a Weak Support.--GoldenGlory84 (talk) 02:56, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
55. Support – Seems like common sense to me. Graham87 09:55, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
56. Support; instead of having to go to Meta every time a desysopping is to be requested, allowing the on-wiki bureaucrats to do it makes the desysoppings faster and more effective. HeyMid (contribs) 12:27, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
57. Support as means to impliment policy option which I also agree with.TCO (reviews needed) 13:31, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
58. Support, I don't see a security concern with giving this ability to some of Wikipedia's most trusted users. Ajraddatz (Talk) 14:29, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
59. Support Logical- if 'crats are trusted to grant the rights, they should be trusted to remove. jsfouche ☽☾Talk 15:14, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
60. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 15:55, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
61. Support. The community needs to be moving in this direction. Long overdue. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:38, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
62. Support bureaucrats can be trusted with this power, possibly more so than the stewards can. If the number of desysoppings is going to increase because of recent policy changes then this would also speed up the process. Hut 8.5 16:54, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
63. Support – I've been an advocate of this idea for quite some time. It makes perfect sense for the control of this function to be in-house, so to speak. If the community wants bureaucrats to go through a reconfirmation before this is implemented, I think that's reasonable. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 02:12, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
64. Support—puhlease. This idea of a civic servant's job for life eats away at the relations between admins and non-admins, and generally degrades the whole idea of admins. Tony (talk) 04:10, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
65. Support It's about time. If they can give the bit out, they should be able to take it back. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 04:36, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
66. Support Earth calling wikipedians: It’s an all-volunteer hobby. The grand priests can stop acting like… grand priests. Greg L (talk) 04:44, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
67. Strong Support Making people goto the Stewarts has always been an extra level of beaucracy at WP. I'm in favor of removing thhat beaucracy and giving it to a beaucrat... oh the irony of that tought makes me smile.---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 06:31, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
68. Support on the principle that bureaucrats are trusted figures in the community. hare j 06:44, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
69. Support Bureaucrats are give the rights to grant admin ship why not give them the rights to remove it. I see no harm from this if anything was to happen from this it would only be better things. Plus there will no longer be a need to call in a Steward who could be off doing better things.--Dcheagle 07:05, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
70. Support - we currently have a situation with 2 probelms regarding sysoping:
    1. If a 'crat sysops someone by mistake, (s)he can't ubdo his/her action - this is unlike all other technical abilities users have here.
    2. The sysopping log entries and the de-sysopping log entries are in different places, making it harder to see the history of the situation.

    עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 07:24, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

71. Support This seems something that can be taken care of within this wiki, so -with a proper policy- why not? L.tak (talk) 08:44, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
72. Support. I have recently begun dipping my toe into non-article space. This seems like a very intuitive proposal, since the bureaucrats are the conduits for technical acquisition of the bit, why not make them the conduits for technical removal of the bit? LHM 09:18, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
73. Now that inactive admins need to be desysoped, this just makes sense. --Conti|✉ 09:30, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
74. This will be a big improvement. Apart from the House of Lords, it's routine for access to powerful tools to expire. Lightmouse (talk) 09:34, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
75. Support per User:Eluchil404 Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 09:47, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
76. Support. Seems sensible. Rcsprinter (talk) 10:14, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
77. Support Od Mishehu raises two excellent points above, which I fully agree with. Yoenit (talk) 11:04, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
78. - Dank (push to talk) 11:32, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
79. Support - I've never understood why we felt it was so important for them not to have this ability.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 11:33, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
80. Support Willking1979 (talk) 12:06, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
81. Support It is logical. As discussed, this is the technical ability, NOT the authority to make that decisionNorth8000 (talk) 12:23, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
82. Strong support That should help keep the administrators in line. Joyson Noel ^{Holla at me!} 12:51, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
83. Support The remit of a 'crat is to determine and enact a consensus, using the tools available to them. Providing access to a tool that is already an option so that they may further perform their duties seems eminently appropriate. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:54, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
84. Strong support per User:Jusdafax at the top of this section and others who have echoed him. Jsayre64 (talk) 13:40, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
85. He giveth, he taketh away. Reasonable enough indeed. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 13:52, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
86. Support. Seems reasonable to me. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 14:34, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
87. Support - to cite Lovecraft, "do not call up that which ye cannot put down." He who can grant admin privileges should be able to revoke them, if only to self-revert in case of mistakes. Huon (talk) 15:09, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
88. Support - why not? (ok, so i read the 'oppose' down below, but i am not convinced. and...worst case scenario, it can always be changed again in the future. no decision is irrevocable... Soosim (talk) 15:18, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
89. Strong support - Being an admin should not be tenure. Admins are custodians of the people, and should consider themselves accountable. In practice, I think revocation will be very rare. Wxidea (talk) 15:55, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
90. Support - If they can grant administrative rights, they should be able to remove them as well. Zuggernaut (talk) 15:58, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
91. Support. No need to go outside en.wiki for a purely technical action. Tiderolls 16:03, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
92. Support. No reason to decline. Intoronto1125TalkContributions 16:13, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
93. Support. Even in case of accidental misuse or a compromised account, the function of any individual admin is not so critical to the site that a temporary and inappropriate loss of ability to an admin would do major damage. If they gain the ability, there must be clear policy on when a 'crat has the authority to use this function. SDY (talk) 16:26, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
94. Support Because our crats are under intense scrutiny already. I'm more worried about the ability to emergency desysop a rogue admin than a rogue crat. HereToHelp ^{(talk to me)} 16:28, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
95. Support — the new process of desysopping is even less of a "consensus-evaluation" than the decision to grant the bit; if bureaucrats are trusted to read an RFA (be literate) and make a decision (have a brain), then they'll surely be able to do this as well; in fact, it's one of the most brainless tasks ever, even a bot could do it: count the days, flip the switch. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 16:31, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
96. Support - for many reasons stated above. However, it is worth being mindful of Sven's comment (first oppose); this should not be opening a new class of situations in which this new technical ability is to be exercised. Jd2718 (talk) 17:21, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
97. Support as per RL0919 above. Kaini (talk) 17:46, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
98. Support. If an admin goes rogue, it can be addressed more quickly. If a crat goes rogue... Well, they can already do worse damage than trying to desysop a bunch of people. Grandmasterka 18:20, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
99. Strong Support for all of the benefits that have been put forth above, but especially because it would centralize our user rights log going forward as opposed to the current system, where it's split between enwiki and meta. Also, per Grandmasterka in that we have far bigger things to worry about than a rogue crat abusing this ability. jcgoble3 (talk) 19:02, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
100.  Sandstein  19:10, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

101–200

101. Strong Support - we need to make this process easier and more accessible to fix the RfA process. This is a step in the right direction. - filelakeshoe 19:31, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
102. Steel Strong Support Unnecessary bureaucracy is not required, and having to go cap-in-hand to Meta just to remove admin privileges seems like unnecessary bureaucracy. Giving the 'Crats this function is something which of course should not be taken lightly, but the Bureaucrats are the single most trusted usergroup on the English Wikipedia, and as such they should have this capability. It's Malpass⁹₃! (_drop me a ^___) 19:35, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
103. Support As it sits, the only way to deop someone is to file a petition to Arbcom in triplicate. It's more difficult than it should be. If a crat can revoke the mop as easily as they can give it out it should make it much easier to deal with abusive administrators. —Jeremy v^_^v ^{Components:V S M} 19:39, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
104. Support - bureaucrats can grant administrator status, so why not enable them to revoke it? Given concerns about perceived "rogue admins", this proposal is a good step towards improving accountability at Wikipedia. Eliminating the requirement to make a request at Meta streamlines desysopping - a process that, currently, some see as unnecessarily complex and time-consuming. SuperMarioMan 20:01, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
105. Support - Has anyone ever provided a good reason why turning off the bit requires different rights than turning on the bit? Guy Macon (talk) 20:15, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
106. Support Bureaucrats have the power to grant people administrator status, so why not have the power to get rid of it as well? Jaguar (talk) 20:25, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
107. Support - Administrators (and other rights groups) are under the principle that no action cannot be undone. That principle should apply to bureaucrats as well. — Edokter (talk) — 20:52, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
108. Support - I see no difference between admins stopping editors (removal of a user's editing rights) and this proposal for bureaucrats to stop admins (removal of a user's administration access). The pyramid would be more complete if it was implemented. Chaosdruid (talk) 21:39, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
109. Support - I think that this is a good thing for bureacrats to have. GamerPro64 22:39, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
110. Support As long as it is only rarely used, I see no reason for bureaucrats to not have that power. I know there have been a couple of admins that have gone bad, but as far as I know no bureaucrat has gone bad. JDDJS (talk) 22:41, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
111. Support - It will be important to curb abuses. - Al Lemos (talk) 23:00, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
112. Support - and about time was well. Necessary to get oversight systematised. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 23:29, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
113. I worry that the new ability may be granted before the community can re-vet the present bureaucrat team (some of whom, in my view, are not competent). But that worry is mitigated by: the arguments that abuse is unlikely, and (per Acalamari) would be promptly reversed; and by the obvious benefits of hosting this process on our home site. Support. AGK [•] 23:39, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
114. Support - It seems rather intuitive to me. My76Strat ^talk 23:53, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
115. Bob House 884 (talk) 00:00, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
116. Support purely technical right for an established and clearly defined use. Very low potential for abuse. Calmer Waters 00:23, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
117. Support It makes sense to me. Anyone trusted enough to be a bureaucrat is not going to abuse this ability, and it saves the trouble of fetching a steward. --T H F S W (T · C · E) 00:25, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
118. Support - Camw (talk) 00:34, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
119. Per AGK and Anonymous Dissident. Crats know the community better than stewards do, in general. sonia♫ 01:00, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
120. Strong Support - Wikipedia has become a community with two castes. The administrators are easily granted the keys to the kingdom, and it is nearly impossible to revoke them. This would be a small step toward a much needed additional level of authority and accountability. Njsustain (talk) 01:03, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
121. Support At the very least, they should be able to perform un-controversial de-sysoppings (i.e. at request of the admin to be de-sysopped).
122. Support Glad we finally got over this hump as a community. One step closer to the way things should be. Gigs (talk) 01:57, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
123. Support - What's the point of being at a higher level than someone else if you cant completely control the levels underneath you. If bureaucrats can't take away admin powers then they are basically the exact same thing as admins. Also inactive admins can be stripped of admin status much quicker to avoid confusing new people as to who's there and who isnt. Kangaroopowah (talk) 02:18, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
124. Support Bureaucrats are among the most trusted users and have gotten a lot of review. This is a minor user right and if it is abused, which is an unlikely scenario, then the abuse will be detected easily. I also believe that the ideal situation of Wikipedia is that the maximum number of responsible users be given the maximum number of privileges, because that encourages project participation. If someone will use this function, then it should be granted. Blue Rasberry (talk) 02:28, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
125. Support English Wikipedia should not be a place where stewards are needed for routine tasks. We've now made it, however wisely, routine to remove the tools for inactive accounts, and we should take care of that within the project. ‡ MAHEWA ‡ • talk 03:25, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
126. Support If we can trust bureaucrats to giveth, we should trust them to taketh away. Anyways, it shouldn't require an act of Steward to de-sysop. I've hopes that a better de-sysop process will move us closer to a better RfA process. --JaGa^talk 03:34, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
127. Support There should be no higher 'qualification' needed to remove the bit than there is to grant it, for one. For two, small changes to make de-sysopping easier are likely to make RfA less of a bloodbath as people will be more likely to be reassured that rogue admins can be reined in faster and with greater ease. For three - why on earth not? What possible harm could result? Pesky (talk …stalk!) 06:05, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
128. Support Since a bureaucrat can add the admin flag I don't see why they shouldn't have the ability to remove it. They are the most trusted Wikipedians so I don't see why they don't already have this ability. Themeparkgc  Talk  07:13, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
129. Support, seems like a logical step. — Cirt (talk) 07:26, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
130. Support - despite the fact that I do not support the removal of the bit from inactive admins, I do agree that since it has been implemented, this is a necessary step to take. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 07:35, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
131. Support - especially in a case when an admin shows different behavior on treatment of different sides in a discussion. ..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. Humour Thisthat2011 07:54, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
132. T. Canens (talk) 08:08, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
133. Support per ErrantX and Ucucha, remove the asymmetric ways we currently deal with rights. Hekerui (talk) 08:34, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
134. Support in general, but let there be two of them to revoke it. In general, single votes do not always work right in the world, that is why there are 3 person panels, etc. History2007 (talk) 09:28, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
135. Support If a bureaucrat can grant the adminship, they should have rights to remove it as well. Easy as that. --WhiteWriter ^speaks 11:02, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
136. Support, I don't see a reason to withhold the technical ability. The crats will only use their rights within policy anyway. --Taelus (talk) 11:42, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
137. Support - reduces bureaucracy by waiting for the stewards. Ratibgreat (talk) 12:17, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
138. Support this small first step on the road to RfA reform. Malleus Fatuorum 12:23, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
139. Support - This is necessary to the overall administrative reform and something that should have been granted to Bureaucrats some time ago. A slam dunk. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 12:40, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
140. Support Tyrol5 [Talk] 12:50, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
141. Weak Support. I don't see why it's needed, but I certainly don't oppose 'crat's having this ability. My only reservation is that it will increase the difficulty to recruit more 'crats. Worm^TT · (talk) 13:04, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
142. Support. If bureaucrats can grant admin rights, then I think they should have the ability to remove the rights as well. However, there should be a discussion before desysopping (meaning a bureaucrat can't decide it by him/herself).--EdwardZhao (talk) 13:52, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
143. Support. As long as this doesn't result in wheel wars, I see no reason why this ability shouldn't be granted. In fact, I'm surprised this hasn't already been implemented. Of course, any action based on this should follow policy. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:18, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
144. Support The guy granted admin status would understand the issue best. Kauffner (talk) 15:44, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
145. Support based on the principle that all technical privileges should be reversible. Also kudos for separating the policy discussion into a separate RfC. Deryck C. 17:15, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
146. Support - Per most of the comments above. Why should they be able to grant access but not remove it? Makes no sense.Intothatdarkness (talk) 17:44, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
147. Support. Seems common sense from the technical standpoint. It's good that getting the policy right is a separate issue, or series of issues. DBaK (talk) 18:10, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
148. Support We put quite a high level of trust in bureaucrats and they respond well to that trust by not taking hasty decisions. I'm sure that we could extend that trust to the ability to remove admin rights. This move would have the effect of making adminship a bit more fluid and removing some of the job for life feel of adminship, and help keep admins on their toes. --Salix (talk): 18:30, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
149. Support Some Admins just get a rush of blood to the head. In Lord Acton's phrase, "power corrupts". However, as Juvenal observed, "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?". Laurel Lodged (talk) 19:39, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
150. Support Since adminship is no big deal, surely removing it is no big deal as well. TotientDragooned (talk) 19:59, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

     This RFC is not about the relative "big deal level" of removing rights. We're debating who gets to do said removal, which is an entirely different thing. Pedro :  Chat  20:13, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

151. Support I strenuously opposed the last RfC on the subject because at the time we had no real need for crat removal of admins and no plan for what *social* arrangements would accompany the technical change. Both of these concerns have been obviated. Protonk (talk) 20:30, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
152. Support At least the bureaucrat that granted the admin rights for a user should have the ability to "redo" that action. Not so sure if it's a good idea that all bureaucrats should be able to remove the admin flag from an admin. iNic (talk) 21:04, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
153. Support Technically if they can give it, they should be able to take it away. When and how is another matter as we know and discussed elsewhere. -- Alexf^(talk) 21:49, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
154. Strong support Will make the process of removing admin status a little faster and there is an utterly minuscule chance that this right will be abused. Makes sense. That Ole Cheesy Dude ^{(Talk to the hand!)} 21:51, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
155. Support - anything to make the admin-related processes less creaky. HeartofaDog (talk) 22:47, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
156. Support - If one has received consent from the community to give users the right, there should be no reason why one shouldn't be able to undo it. — Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 01:03, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
157. Strong Support - This needs to be done ASAP to ensure that should an administrator start misbehaving they can be recalled much easier than under the current system of waiting for a steward to remove the admin privilege. Barts1a | Talk to me | Yell at me 01:15, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
158. Support - this corrects an obvious flaw in the system. Samwb123^T-C-E 01:43, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
159. Conditional support - good idea, but someone should be required to double-check the 'crat's decision and only 'crats who have the power should have been handpicked by stewards or community vote first. --Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty | Averted crashes} 02:18, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
160. Support, for subsidiarity and comparable redundancy. I see no reason why they shouldn't have had the "technical ability" in the first place. Blurpeace 02:25, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
161. Jujutacular ^talk 03:15, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
162. Strong Support (Conditional) It seems to me that the role of bureaucrat logically is among other things an administrative one. Whether or not a bureaucrat is permitted by policy to make the decision to remove adminship is of no issue as to whether or not a bureaucrat can implement it, especially since they already have the ability to grant adminship. There should be no need to require the physical involvement of a steward when according to applicable policy, the decision to remove adminship has been made. This is a great way to remove unnecessary overhead and speed up the process when speed may be necessary, especially in the case of a documented "emergency". I do condition this support on all actions being taken under this ability being listed in a special page that logs all details of the transaction including a required explanation by the person removing adminship and whether or nor it was made in an "emergency" situation (this requirement should apply to all persons who remove adminship).  Jim Reed (Talk)  03:23, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
163. Support. Surprised this didn't already exist, makes complete sense, the group who grants Admin can also take it away. Devils in the details of the policy. Green Cardamom (talk) 04:38, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
164. Weak Support I don't think this change is all that necessary, but I can see the use in it (and I don't recall any situations where a bureaucrat account was compromised so security should not be too great of an issue). Captain panda 04:59, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
165. Support. Should be able to undo what they can do. No real concern about politicization of the bureaucrats. They only appoint per policy, and will only reverse per policy. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:59, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
166. Support. The need for more hands on deck for the task of desysopping comes not only from the new inactive-admin removal process, but from the increasing size and scale of Wikipedia in general. On the issue of security, IMO this would actually increase the security of the project due to quicker response to compromised and rogue admin accounts. 'Crats are just as trustworthy for this task as stewards, so why not allow them to pitch in on this task? Why should we have to go through the extra step of waking up a steward? szyslak (t) 07:15, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
167. Support - Great idea. We have a lot of proud administrators that are using their administrator access as an award. In fact if stewards and Jimbo can remove administrators, then bureaucrats should too. -Porch corpter (talk/contribs) 10:08, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

     Addendum: The supporters' reasonings are good reasonings. But this could also help when a crat accidentally adds another user as an admin, the crats can just revert their action. Also this could help at any RTV request, as crats not only can rename the user but also remove the admin flag with it. -Porch corpter (talk/contribs) 09:03, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

168. Support: The proposal seems to make sense, including the argument concerning the current split of user rights logs when a bureaucrat creates an admin here and a steward removes such privilege. If other wikis allow bureaucrats to de-sysop at present, what was the rationale for not allowing the practice here from the start? --Sgt. R.K. Blue (talk) 08:51, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
169. Support – I'm switching my !vote from "oppose" to "support". enwiki business should be handled by members of the enwiki community. As others have said, Stewards and those unfamiliar with this community, its policies, and its decisions tend to make mistakes. enwiki bureaucrats are also held accountable to the enwiki community instead of an outside authority, so the enwiki community can have more control how how desysopping is done on their own wiki. Granting bureaucrats this power is in line of the concept of "federalism" and "states' rights". I was hoping for the adoption of reconfirmation elections in case users regret granting bureaucratic rights to certain users before they realized that those users would be able to desysop or threaten to desysop users in the future, but it has been argued that as long as this community remains vigil, abuses and mishaps would be easily identified and rectified. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 15:18, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
170. Support, bureaux have the privilege of granting so they should be able to remove. ~~EBE123~~ ^talk_Contribs 22:03, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
171. Support. I understand the concerns below that a rogue 'crat could desysop everyone on the en.Wikipedia, so 'crats also need the ability to de-'crat each other. Cla68 (talk) 00:12, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
172. Support - Bureaucrats are a level above admins. They should have the ability based on community consensus to remove admin. rights. Without consensus, they shouldn't remove them from any admin. normally, but should they have the technical ability? Yes. CycloneGU (talk) 16:03, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
173. Strong Support - I definitely agree with this. There should always be other options on the table to make sure things here go smoothly. Lighthead ^þ 16:24, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
174. Support - Admins are created within the wiki, it shouldn't be necessary to go elsewhere to de-admin. Bazj (talk) 17:05, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
175. Strong Support - We're a huge wiki. Let's not waste stewards valuable time by making them take care of our local issues when we can handle them ourselves. --Addihockey10 ^e-mail 18:27, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
176. This seems like an obvious, to me. I would like to make sure that there are certain steps and criteria in place that must be met in order for a bureaucrat to be able to remove the flag, however. Strikerforce^{Talk Review me!} 18:39, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

     I agree, but that's for here. CycloneGU (talk) 19:21, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

177. Yea, sure, why not. It's no big deal. -- Y not? 20:23, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
178. Makes sense to me, and the limits of this technical capability presently supported at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Bureaucrat removal of adminship policy seem sensible. — Scientizzle 20:44, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
179. Support I believe that beuracrats should be granted this right, but the process should be like deleting an article. only after a proposal from an editor and a community discussion where the sysop has the ability to counter statements should the beuracrat be allowed to desysop someone. No one should have the power to just do away with it on a whim. Chris (talk) 20:47, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
180. Support per Job 1:21. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:39, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

     ...what? CycloneGU (talk) 21:55, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

     I'll paraphrase it then... "the WP:CRAT gave, and the WP:CRAT hath taken away; blessed be the name of the WP:CRAT." --Redrose64 (talk) 23:01, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

     Ah. Carry on then. CycloneGU (talk) 23:08, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

181. Support. Wholeheartedly. Cind.amuse 21:45, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
182. Support. If bureaucrats have the ability to grant admin rights, they should be able to revoke them. This answer narrowly answers the question, as the policy, as stated, would be a separate issue. -- Alex146 (talk) 01:40, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
183. Support Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 03:38, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
184. Support. A highly desirable reform. I hope there will be more like it. Noetica^Tea? 04:19, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
185. Support If we trust them to assign it then there's no logical reason to not trust them to remove it. Steven Walling 05:05, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
186. Support. Bureaucrats should have internal (admin) oversight authority, as well as internal oversight responsibilities. Int21h (talk) 05:44, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
187. Support Long overdue and welcome. Bureaucrats can certainly be trusted to use this power only as directed to by the community. I hope they won't have to do it often, but they're clearly trusted enough to serve this role in some fashion. --Alecmconroy (talk) 05:47, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
188. Support - The original decision to leave desysopping to stewards was made waaaaaaay back when the consensus regarding the role of 'Crat was far from certain. Much has changed since all those years ago and the role of 'Crat is now very uncontroversial. This change simply rectifies that historical anomaly. Manning (talk) 06:26, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
189. Strong Support Finnaly. Good news. Qantasplanes (Talk with me) 06:45, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
190. Support no earthly reason why en wp should not be able to deal with internal matters. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 07:32, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
191. Support per Mahewa. cc 08:36, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
192. Bureaucrats should have the technical rights to add/remove all rights on the English Wikipedia, including checkuser and oversight as well. (But I support the piecemeal approach to these proposals, and the rest can wait till later ...) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:40, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
193. Support Even though I think this is putting the cart before the horse, my worries about that being a factor in misuse are insignificant. Mtking (talk) 10:36, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
194. Support I think that this agrees with administrative principles; we generally consider an authority trusted enough to bestow privilege or property A to also be trusted to remove privilege or property A if necessary. Or else you'd need a co-driver to step on the brakes while you only have the right to use the accelerator. Brythain (talk) 11:29, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
195. Support If Bureaucrats can add admin permission why can't take it away? Also removal will be quicker if the admin abuses the tools.--Breawycker (talk to me!) 13:08, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
196. Support this makes sense, it probably should have been set up this way in the first place. --99of9 (talk) 14:02, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
197. Support 'crats are much more familiar with eniwiki workings than stewards. There are policies and review areas to review any misuse of tools already. Casliber (talk · contribs) 15:19, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
198. Support Seems logical and more efficient. And adds an element of representative democracy and greater self-rule here at the English Wikipedia, if Bureaucrats who have themselves been voted to that position by the English Wiki community, and can already give admin powers, now have the ability to remove it according to due process. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:44, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
199. Support Utterly ludicrous and nonsensical that they can switch the bit on and not off. The ability should also be within the powers of local bureaucrats, not on meta. Current situation is farcical. Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 16:39, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
200. Support Also give bureaucrats the ability to switch off the bureaucrat bit as well as that is also settable by 'crats. Geraldo Perez (talk) 17:54, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

201–300

201. Support fits together nicely with other current and recent proposals. Jd2718 (talk) 18:34, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
202. Support It's the logical thing to do. AGreenEarth (talk) 18:44, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
203. Support technical ability should be granted immediately; exact policy circumstances probably merit some discussion/consideration. Buckshot06 (talk) 18:46, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
204. Support Complete support; personally I seem to have below-average reservations about the terms of usage too, but that is for the other RfC Jebus989^✰ 20:15, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
205. Support my support for this proposal is long-standing and well-documented in past discussions. (also)Happy‑melon 21:15, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
206. Weak support. I don't believe this is necessary although I agree it makes sense for the sake of consistency. ~Amatulić (talk) 22:02, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
207. Support as long as they are enacting decisions made by community consensus and policy, then it makes sense to allow bureaucrats to have this ability. Warfieldian ^(talk) 02:33, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
208. Support As many have said, it's just something that crats should have logically. These are essentially the most trusted users on Wikipedia (for no good reason), so I see no reason that they shouldn't be entrusted with this ability. Swarm ^X 02:58, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
209. Support If they giveth, they should be able to taketh. --MrRadioGuy P T C E 04:44, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
210. Support No reason why we should trust crats to hand out the bit, but not to remove it consistent with what ever policy is decided in that regard at the other RFC. Monty₈₄₅ 04:52, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
211. Yes --Shabidoo | Talk 06:09, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
212. Support It's logical. If they can grant administrator privileges, why can't they remove administrator privileges as well? Bejinhan talks 14:01, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
213. Support Admin'ship is a privilege, not a right. Community discussion and/or any sort of due process is not necessary. A group as trusted as bureaucrats should have the ability to remove admin-ship and do so with a hair trigger. They need this technical ability to deal quickly with any issues. Community discussion can then take place to determine if loss of admin privileges is permanent or not. Plus, to quote Bill Cosby, "[they] brought you into this world [they] can take you out", as others have mentioned.--RadioFan (talk) 14:18, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
214. Support. I would normally oppose this procedurally, for the reasons given by those who do oppose it, but I approve all four of the proposed policies currently under consideration and am adverse to having a second vote on this after a policy has been approved. I know people didn't want to ask more than one question at once, but the way the questions were split seems improper. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 14:28, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
215. Support This sounds feasible. "When you arrive with these - then you die with these." --  StarScream1007  ►Talk  16:23, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
216. Support Of course the bureaucrats should be allowed the ability. They can grant it, so why not revoke it? Bureaucrats aren't idiots, they wouldn't be in the position they are in if they would even think about taking away rights from innocent administrators. Quiggers1P (talk) 16:35, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
217. Support providing there are clear community-supported guidelines for bureaucrats to follow regarding this, in the same way that there are with the granting of the sysop bit. -- The Anome (talk) 19:21, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
218. Support. It doesn't make sense to make it only one-way. Bureaucrats can be trusted to safely remove sysops rights. elektrikSHOOS (talk) 19:45, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
219. Support. Some admins are using these rights not properly, this would be a quick way to take these not properly used rights back. Kavas (talk) 20:47, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
220. Strong Support; Multiple reasons: 1. If they have the ability to grant it, they should be able to revoke it. 2. Bureaucrats are higher ranked than admins. 3. Bureaucrats themselves are monitored, like bureaucrats watch over admins. If a bureaucrat abuses the power, they should be, I would say the word to use would be, de-bureaucrat'd. (We should have a bot that auto-trouts bureaucrats that abuse their powers, however) LikeLakers2 (talk) 20:56, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

     Comment - that bot is impossible. It would have to have a sense of intelligence. Now issuing a command to a bot to place a trout on a userpage of an abusive bureaucrat while it at the same time removes the bureaucratic and sysop powers would not be too farfetched... CycloneGU (talk) 21:15, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

     LOL. Someone should start a BRFA for User:Troutbot ASAP! --RL0919 (talk) 22:17, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

     Yeah, someone should! Now, lets not joke around too much. This is a Wikipedia vote for something important, you know! LikeLakers2 (talk) 22:27, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

221. Support. I support this as a natural evolution of the administrative/bureaucratic system. Going to a Steward is unnecessary if a Bureaucrat can do it locally. But, if this is such a natural fit (they grant it so they should be able to revoke it), I am curious as to why Bureaucrats did not have this ability to begin with. --maclean (talk) 21:20, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
222. Support. Sounds logical. Regards, Comte0 (talk) 21:30, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
223. I believe crats not being able to desysop is mostly a historical relic that was never changed due to inertia. Mr.Z-man 00:21, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
224. Support. The more checks and balances, the better. --Tenebrae (talk) 01:05, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
225. Support. Bureaucrats are among the most highly trusted editors on Wikipedia, and I think the process of removing administrative rights needs to be simplified. LittleMountain5 02:19, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
226. Support- As per the many above and as Courcelles simply puts it "It's a wiki" Mlpearc powwow 02:58, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
227. Oh yeah. It's been a long time coming. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 03:59, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
228. Support. A necessary tool for bureaucrats, completely logical. SteveStrummer (talk) 05:10, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
229. Support. --BigDwiki (talk) 06:54, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
230. Support. The potential for abuse are much greater with granting rather than removal of the admin privileges. Since granting is already performed i see no reason to disallow removal. Beta M (talk) 09:52, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
231. Yes!.This is a great idea!.Some of the admins are inactive.As adminship is granted by Bureaucrats, they should also have the rights to remove the status given by them Roh^G ??· 10:33, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
232. Support - Seems like a logical thing to have in place. ItsZippy (talk) 14:40, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
233. Support - I don't like to say "as per all the above", but that's pretty much it really -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:21, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
234. Support - Makes enormous sense to me. --Orlady (talk) 18:37, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
235. Support - It is about time that such a logic step should be proposed. It has my full and absolute support. Dolovis (talk) 23:18, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
236. Support. mabdul 01:20, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
237. Support - an administrator has caused numerous problems by changing citations and names of files. This administrator has been subject to some sanctions but two days ago was still creating problems. --Rskp (talk) 07:06, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
238. Support makes sense to me. Bencherlite^Talk 11:46, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
239. Agree basic principle he that giveth, taketh away Crazynas ^t 16:27, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
240. Support - This is overdue in my opinion. Bureaucrats already have the power to grant the admin flag, and as far as I know, bureaucrats are generally held to a higher standard than admins. --SoCalSuperEagle (talk) 17:00, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
241. Support - This proposed setup worked well at RationalWiki when I was there, even though almost evrybody was an admin and thus there was more adminning to supervise. Wikipedia is of course much bigger, but I'm sure that this new power (the simple power to strip a rogue admin of their powers) will be very useful. Totnesmartin (talk) 17:08, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
242. Support - The main opposition point here seems to be "if there's no problem, why fix it?", in other words "if there is no need to trust bureaucrats w/ a new power, why give it to them?". My response to that would be to point to the spirit of WP:AGF which guides us to trust others, unless given reason not to. In other words, I think the question here is "Is there any reason not to trust bureaucrats with the de-adminning?" I don't see any... NickCT (talk) 19:32, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
243. I'm a pretty big supporter of the idea that enwiki's adminship being completely enwiki-centric. In an ideal world, we'd have a community-mandated deadminship system in place, similar to RfA, with bureaucrats removing or granting adminship as per the community's wishes. I realize that's not the exact concept being proposed, but this RfC puts us one step closer to that ideal. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:11, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
244. Weak support - subject to policy being fair and can avoid any potential abuse --Topperfalkon (talk) 22:16, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
245. Support - Not having this in place seems illogical. Julianhall (talk) 22:19, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
246. Support - I also support the creation of an administrator blackball system and the right to remove administrators and bureaucrats by petition and referendum. Trilobitealive (talk) 01:04, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
247. Support - No admin is irreplaceable (misuse can be reversed when detected). -- Scray (talk) 02:43, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
248. Support - In many different computer-related areas, it is simply logical to give a doer the power to undo his own actions. In fact, I can think of very few other instances on Wikipedia where a user cannot undo the actions he has done. An editor can revert himself, an administrator can undelete or unblock, a rollbacker can restore. Why should bureaucrats not be given the same logical ability? Quinxorin (talk) 02:56, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
249. Support - I saw a lot of admin abuses against users, but not all of these abuses were noticed or considered by the members of the Arbitration Committee. Psychiatrick (talk) 07:54, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
250. Support If Crats can grant then they can remove. Royalbroil 11:47, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
251. Support Clear choice. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:18, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
252. Support —SW— ^talk 15:14, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
253. Support Per my long standing support for this, and makes even more sense now that inactive admins can have their adminship removed. CT Cooper · talk 20:11, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
254. Support It seems only logical that those who can grant a privilege, should have the ability to remove it. - Nick Thorne ^talk 02:57, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
255. Support Per clarifying discussion with xeno and Dabomb87 below in the Oppose section. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 05:11, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
256. Support Lately seen a few cases where newly appointed admins are not able to handle the stress and go to a level of profanity which seems unnecessary. I think admins ought to uphold a high level of EQ so as to understand to a greater level the rights and duties of adminship. Being a subtle characteristic to judge, I think bureaucrats should have the ability to correct what could seem like an inadvertant mistake later on. Sharda Mandir (talk) 05:59, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
257. Support Being able to grant but not retract a capability is silly. One either deserves a specified level of power or does not deserve it. Even if asymmetric power made sense, the ability to retract should be more freely given, not the ability to grant. Granting is intrinsically the more dangerous operation, because a capability's hazards can be actualized only after the capability has been granted. Ornithikos (talk) 06:59, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
258. Strong support. Symmetry of grant and revoke. Stronger, faster response to disruption that doesn't involve other admins, but does involve persons more accessible than stewards who have a specific responsibility to check disruption. -SM 08:42, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
259. Support Large local communities (like en-wiki) are enough self-sufficing. Meta, Foundation and stewards should help to small wikis, should control privacy, should work on polycies which must be unified in all projects, and so on. It is our local business, how we must work with our local technical abilities (if respective abilities are allowed by MediaWiki software). Alex Spade (talk) 14:54, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
260. Support  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 22:46, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
261. Support It's logical that if they can grant adminship, they should be able to take it away Theking17825 06:08, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
262. Support - per Principle_of_least_privilege#Limitations. Bearian (talk) 17:54, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
263. Support - Seems entirely logical. WhiteArcticWolf (talk) 19:36, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
264. Support - because I prefer local solutions where possible, would prefer Stewards to be mainly concerned with cross-wiki business. Pi (Talk to me! ) 20:00, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
265. Support for the basic reason that it is the most logical step to take. The number of bureaucrats currently active leaves very, very little room for abuse (and at the present time the number of users with this right is hardly going to increase exponentially) so I see very little reason not to allow this addition.  urban f o x  12:09, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
266. Support Makes logical sense to me. The ability to grant seems more open to abuse than revoke, why not give them the lesser privilege if they're already entrusted with a greater?Gregtheross (talk) 12:24, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
267. Strong support — If bureaucrats can create sysops, they shouldn't have to contact a steward or developer to undo the action. Plus, redundancy is good. DemonicPartyHat^(contact) 13:51, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
268. Support - I can see the potential for worry here: There's no guarantee that the criteria for admin rights removal won't become more lax in the future, long after this proposal is approved and forgotten. But, as it stands now, I do support the idea. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department: Please take a number} 19:10, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
269. Support - It makes perfect since that bureaucrats should be able to take back what they can give. --Nathan2055^talk 19:15, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
270. Support - What the others have said; if they can dish it out, they should be able to take it. BigDom 21:52, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
271. Support-per common logic. Tarheel95 (talk) 04:12, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
272. Support as it makes sense to try to keep logs here, as well as to be able to undo what we do. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 06:17, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
273. Support it makes sense. --Fox1942 (talk) 16:33, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
274. Support: makes sense to me as per the comments above, if bureaucrats can grant the powers they should be able to revoke. Jezhotwells (talk) 17:23, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
275. Support Admin MUST be a given a sense of responsibility in the crucial sense of knowing they can realistically be held to account. Whether it happens or not – people must understand that it is the possibility of being held accountable that really matters. Admin's almost-complete lack of accountability means that many of them behave exactly as badly as any non-Wikipedian would naturally expect (although on Wikipedia it is essentially-illegal to expect such a thing of course - we must assume they all mean well). Try and even suggest a RfC/u on an admin and you risk other admin come out of the blue in a threatening way and putting you in their black books. Admin have carte blanche to do anything up to major and continued abuse, and there is nothing around to encourage them improve themselves, let alone act appropriately. Barnstars etc nearly-always relate to Support in some way, and GA and FA icons are meaningless in terms of adminship actions. The obvious encouragement is a performance-related future - ie future RfAs leading to future terms – but admin inexplicably still retain their powers for life. After 10 years of Wikipedia? It's getting to be truly shameful. Wikipedians are told to just assume that responsibility is innate for this superior class of people for as long as they wish to be admin – but who are these people really? They are merely anonymous internet-users who are largely self-recruited (how much of the wider community really gets involved?). And frankly from what I've seen lately, anything that helps stop some of them actually swaggering around like they own the place has to be a good thing. I honestly feel that many of them would completely disagree on what the job is all about too. Matt Lewis (talk) 17:31, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
276. Support If entrusted to grant Admin status, then they should have the ability to remove Admin status as well.Tirronan (talk) 18:54, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
277. Support - I support this because i feel like some of my editors too feel that if a bureaucrat have give the right/buttons to the admin, he should also be empowered to remove his buttons/rights because sometimes admins can mistreat discussions as well as useful edits done by the users .BelongKhan
278. 'Support Makes sense. Spencer^T♦C 20:28, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
279. Support They are ridiculously trusted/vetted and more accessible than Stewards. --Cybercobra (talk) 06:08, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
280. WikiCopter 13:28, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
281. Support - yep. Ale_Jrb^talk 17:26, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
282. Support There are enough checks already in place to prevent abuses and Wikipedia should be able to take care of itself without relying on the Stewards. -Mabeenot (talk) 18:45, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
283. 'Support Makes sense. Per the above comments.--Epeefleche (talk) 23:13, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
284. Support While I don't see this as a need. I also don't see any reason to not support it. -DJSasso (talk) 23:58, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
285. Support No-brainer. EngineerFromVega^Discuss 00:10, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
286. Support Admin tools are not such a big deal, hundreds have them. So all the talk about security and stuff is unconvincing. On the other hand, having a larger group of people with this function will speed up process and create accountability. Pros are weight more than cons.--Cerejota (talk) 10:02, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
287. Support - per 'not a big deal', and also I trust that the desysoping technical ability will just be a button 'crats are mandated to push in certain policy based circumstances - thus I see no problem--Cailil ^talk 12:52, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
288. Support - In general, it should be even easier to remove Admin rights than to grant them. I'd even like to see term limits on them. We shouldn't have "Admins for life", as this inevitably leads to abuse. StuRat (talk) 15:51, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
289. Support When such a power should be used is elsewhere; but to deny the technical possibility of such a power is inane. As for term limits, 10 years (which would affect no current admins immediately) seems about right. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:57, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
290. Support Shadowjams (talk) 22:17, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
291. Support As far as I'm aware, every other user right can be removed by everyone who can grant it. Why should "administrator" be any different? If bureaucrats are trustworthy enough to judge consensus in RFAs, they should be trustworthy enough to obey an Arbcom revocation resolution or to grant a resignation request. Nyttend (talk) 23:01, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
292. Support — Waterfox ^~talk~ 00:09, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
293. Support Why not.. Suraj T 04:49, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
294. Support Why not? If it tidies things and doesn't bugger anything up - then that's fine with me! Brookie :) - he's in the building somewhere! ^(Whisper...) 08:45, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
295. Support My support goes to granting the ability to revoke the admin flag since they already have the ability to turn the flag on. Now the question is about the rules by which they would revoke the flag.Bruno talk 13:36, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
296. Support - Crats were given their status because they are trustworthy. If we are to doubt their trustworthiness in being able to remove an admin flag, then they should not be Crats in the first place. Mordecairule 14:37, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
297. Support. —Jclavet (talk) 03:05, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
298. Support: why the heck would you not support it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jake happe (AKA mrmeh) (talk • contribs) 06:06, 27 July 2011
299. Snow support as this will be much more efficient than getting a steward to fix the problem, and de-sysoping would be slightly more effective in settling down rogue admins than certain forms of corporal punishment used on Wikipedia. --Nat682 (talk) 05:30, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
300. Support Generally seems like a good idea, no counterbalancing concerns. Townlake (talk) 05:46, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

301–

301. Support. No worries as such about a bureaucrat having the techncal bit to do this, so long as the policy is straightforward and tight. I'd think (and would hope) unchecking could only be done through wide consensus, arbcom, or in those very rare emergencies when great and quick harm is being done. Gwen Gale (talk) 20:59, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
302. Support. It seems that bureaucrats can currently grant administrative access, based on community consensus, but cannot revoke it. If an administrator needs to be 'de-frocked' for any reason, including for their resignation, this can only be achieved by the actions of a small number of stewards. I think the system would be better if bureaucrats had this power. They're closer to the wikipedia community in terms of ease of contact. TehGrauniad (talk) 23:14, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
303. Support. 'Crats should be able to remove flags if they can set them - I concur with a number of support votes. Also, respectfully, none of the oppose comments have convinced me that this is a Bad Idea.™ ^Avic_ennasis @ 02:53, 26 Tamuz 5771 / 28 July 2011 (UTC)
304. Let's arm everyone with these and set them loose in Norway. Support Penyulap _talk 14:16, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
305. Support If they can grant such a thing, they should be able to remove it also.--Pontificalibus (talk) 17:25, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
306. Support. Vesting beaurocratship in someone is merely indicating that they are trusted to handle a bigger mop. If we trust someone to do that, we should trust them to be able to de-admin. I would not oppose some caveats to the bit, such as limiting the number of 'crats so empowered, if this is possible. bd2412 T 18:37, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
307. Support, as this is a large and active community, and we only have highly trusted users who have been voted for as bureaucrats.  Hazard-SJ  ±  02:31, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
308. Support - makes sense to me. I've never understood why the ability to add admins didn't also come with the ability to remove them if needed. Mike Peel (talk) 18:55, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
309. Support - I'd prefer to have this discussion after the other discussion about how it should be implemented is complete (it's a bit like voting at a general election for a party who are still deciding on their manifesto), but I see no reason for this not to happen. PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 22:21, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
310. Support. Stewards are indeed capable of performing this task if required, but it's more effective to have a local group do it instead. The accompanying policy amendments are concerned with pretty much non-controversial scenarios - frankie (talk) 16:43, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
311. Support. It seems perfectly logical, and would be useful in cases of admins going rogue. Willbat (talk) 02:00, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
312. Support - this change is necessary for any project wishing to "be its own master". More and more projects are implementing the feature. Autonomy is good. Tempodivalse [talk] 14:27, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Oppose

Weak Oppose As far as I know, Stewards are not so hard to come by that in the rare cases where we need to desysop someone, one can't be found. I understand that we have a new policy on de-bitting (is that a word) inactive admins, but in general I'd like to see it figured out beforehand how the new powers are to be used before we grant them. See Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Bureaucrat removal of adminship policy, where there is some disagreement about this. --causa sui (talk) 21:03, 7 July 2011 (UTC) Striking my !vote since the controversial "disruptively" clause was reworked. --causa sui (talk) 01:39, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Whether stewards are "hard to come by" is not really relevant. redundancy is good and the more trusted people can do something, the better for the project. And the fact that keeping things local makes life easier for all involved should not be ignored. As for the policy, the reason we created two RfCs to run parallel is exactly to address this concern. Had we first discussed how crats should use this right, people would have argued whether they should have it at all. Had we discussed whether they should have it first, the RFC would have been full of discussion on the "how?". This RFC can be successful without a policy to govern the right, since we can trust crats not to use it in that case. I don't think you or anyone really wants to argue that crats cannot be trusted not to use something without consensus to do so? Regards SoWhy 21:28, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Not sure if we should start threaded discussion here or in the below section - if someone thinks this is wrong, please be bold and move it. :-) That said, I don't have strong opinions about this and won't be squawking if it gets implemented, because I think bureaucrats are a clueful enough lot to know that they shouldn't use tools like this recklessly. And hopefully my oppose won't bother you too much since it looks like this will pass over my mild opposition. Still, I'll respond to your points.

1. On the issue of redundancy, it is not a good security practice. According to the principle of least privilege, the lack of a real-world need for the access is a strong argument against granting it.
2. It's a fair point that there is a procedural Catch-22 here, but it remains that I think the scope of the power ought to be defined before the power is granted. Sorry :-) You might understand my concern better in the context of the linked RFC, where there is some significant support for the proposal that bureaucrats should be permitted to unilaterally desysop users because they are using tools "disruptively". This is unacceptably vague, and I would want to know that that won't pass before I support granting the power at all.

On the (somewhat rhetorical) question of whether I want to argue that crats cannot be trusted to do something without consensus, you are correct that I do not want to argue that.

Regards, causa sui (talk) 21:48, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Good points but...

A wiki is not a computer system. If we that train of thought to its logical conclusion, we would have to desysop everyone not completely necessary for the project and have a staff of crats ready to resysop them iff the needs change on short notice. Obviously, that's not a working model. Wikipedia does not operate on this principle. We have hundreds of things that are redundant. We have more admins than we would need (if everyone of those used the tools all the time), we have a number of crats who have the tools but don't use them etc. It might not be a good security practice but I didn't claim it was. But granting crats the right to desysop does not create a bigger security problem than we already have (a rogue steward can do much more harm already than a rogue crat with the right could ever do but crats need to pass a higher bar than stewards).

You are free to think so. Unfortunately, the Catch-22, per definition, cannot be solved, so the parallel RfCs modus operandi is probably the best "solution" here. I don't think there is another one that would address the problems that arise of having one before the other...

Regards SoWhy 22:01, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. No huge deal either way, so I think we can leave it there. --causa sui (talk) 22:10, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Could you expand on what damage you think might be done by a 'crat removing admin privileges inappropriately? It's just a flag isn't it? If a 'crat turns off admin for a particular inappropriately, the only damage done is inconvenience to the admin for some period of time and would likely result in some loss of privileges for the 'crat. Seems to me that the need to protect the encyclopedia and editors far outweighs the need to protect admins.

1. Strong Oppose (Procedural) I know there is precedent for having parallel discussions, but I dislike the idea of giving them the technical ability when I don't know ahead of time what the policy that binds their actions is going to be. I'd support this if the procedural proposal finishes and I like how it reads, but not before that happens. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:38, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

   You can see what's being proposed, and get an idea of how likely each proposal is to pass, if you look at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Bureaucrat removal of adminship policy. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 11:38, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

2. Oppose. I see no reason for this, and none has been offered. Is there a backlog of admins that need to be de-admined? Unless a good case for the change is made, I'd rather not open another level for wheel wars. --91.221.120.78 (talk) 11:59, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

   There are several reasons mentioned above, such as having the logs at the same place, crats being more familiar with this project than stewards, the fact that it's a core wiki-principle that things that can be added by one person should be removable by them as well, etc. "Need" is never a good argument for or against anything after all (see my response to #1). Arguing with the risk of wheel-war is imho wrong, since unlike with admins, I don't think there was ever a case of crats wheel-warring about anything crat-related, so the argument is based on the faulty assumption that crats would wheel-war (which we have no reason to believe they will). Regards SoWhy 12:27, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

3. Oppose - this is a solution looking for a problem. In emergency situations that have come up before, stewards have been available. Handing this ability to bureaucrats is just adding to the number of people who have the ability to perform a function that potentially has a very high risk of damage if the account is compromised or the crat goes rogue. This isn't an issue of trust - it's an issue of security best practices. --B (talk) 17:37, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

   While the tail end of your comment could probably stand on its own, there are problems that have been identified to go with this solution. Perhaps the most frequently cited complaint is the counter-intuitive split in the rights logs (where additions are in the local log and removals in the meta log). Another problem is that stewards permitted to act on en.wp requests are those whose home wiki is not en.wp - and therefore they are generally less familiar with local policy. This lead to a recent issue where over 250 administrators were desysopped out of process (see [1] and [2]). –xeno^talk 17:47, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

   There was obviously a process problem here, but that should be resolved by improving the process, not by opening a giant security hole of people who have the ability to desysop. You're trying to solve the problem of "there aren't enough people with the power to desysop", which is not the actual problem. The actual problem is, "one person with the power to desysop didn't know what they were doing". Solve that problem. --B (talk) 21:29, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

   You solve the problem of people not knowing what they are doing by bringing in the people who do, the en.wp bureaucrats. jorgenev 07:49, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

   I don't understand the "very high risk of damage". The current ability of crats to sysop users carries a very high risk. Sysoping 50 vandal accounts is potentially catastrophic but desysoping 50 accounts? Both situations would be noticed in a matter of minutes but I can't see how the latter would cause any serious damage, unless 50 more pages in the CSD backlog is our idea of catastrophic disruption. Pichpich (talk) 21:51, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

   Ok, I'd be happy to explain. Imagine a hypothetical society where only police officers have guns, and only police captains can make people into police officers (this is our current situation). The worst case scenario is that a police captain goes rogue and starts handing out guns to criminals. In that scenario, both the police and the criminals have equal firepower. Now, imagine that you were to create a device that allows someone to zap their opponent's gun out of existence. Your new worst case scenario is that the police captain hands out guns to a bunch of criminals AND zaps all police officers' guns out of existence. Back to the real-world, by introducing this feature, the worst case scenario becomes a bot-controlled army of vandal-crats could desysop everyone but themselves and effectively force the shut down of Wikipedia to clean up the damage ... whereas if Bureaucrats don't have desysopping power, then at least the existing admins would have a chance of fighting back until a Steward could step in. --B (talk) 16:30, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

   Well I suppose this could happen. Then again, even under the current system, a very motivated rogue bureaucrat could hack a steward account. Also a group of terrorists who can't stand the open content concept might crash a plane into the Wikimedia servers. I don't think it's a great idea to drop efficiency and logical organisation just to prepare against doomsday scenarios that are beyond unlikely. We could for instance, decide to change the software so that deletions or blocks by a single user must be at least 5 minutes apart. This would completely shield us from rogue admins but at an absurd price. Pichpich (talk) 15:33, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

   Stewards are personally identified and accountable for their actions. The Foundation knows their real world names and how to contact them. Bureaucrats, like administrators, are pseudonymous and there's no real controls guaranteeing that a malicious sleeper account does not ascend to that level. --B (talk) 14:58, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

   By the same reasoning, 'crats should not be able to grant administrative authority, AND admins should not be able to remove editors' rights either. Njsustain (talk) 18:11, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

4. separation of powers. -Atmoz (talk) 21:23, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
5. Oppose. I agree with B: this is a solution in search of problem. The current system works just fine; if the most frequently cited complaint is the counter-intuitive split in the rights logs would it not be simpler to just have the way the log works changed? Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 23:51, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

   From what I understand, changing the way the logs work would require a huge rewrite of the MediaWiki software, which is imho a lot more complicated. Regards SoWhy 09:59, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

6. I see no need to change what has been the way it is for years. Prodego ^talk 20:06, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

   Same could be said about a number of things... Jim Crow laws, inter-racial marraige, the glass ceiling, the social security administration, etc... just because it's the way things have been doesn't make it right or ideal. If it's wrong/broken, then it should be fixed.---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 06:35, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

   While you'll note me in the "support" column, comparing this to the fights for racial, age and gender-based equality is utterly ludicrous. Ironholds (talk) 14:02, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

   And rather offensive. It sure looks like Balloonman is comparing people who oppose this change to supporters of Jim Crow legislation. Ucucha 16:34, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

   Well, quite. Balloonman, mind weighing in? Ironholds (talk) 16:40, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

   Simple, the argument that "it's been that way for years" is not a valid argument, so I picked some of the more ludicrous examples wherein that argument has been used... and continues to be used. At least the people who say, "if it's not broke don't fix it" imply the belief that the system works. Arguing that "this is the way its always been" isn't even making that premise. It's just saying, I don't care if it works or not, lets leave it the way it is.---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 20:00, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

   Nobody is being oppressed here. This is nothing like any of those. LiteralKa (talk) 05:16, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

   That seems like a rather knee-jerk reaction. Do you not agree that "it's been this way for years" is a poor argument against changing something? A more credible argument might be at least "it's been this way for years and I see no good reason here to change it", but even that is weak. Finding allusions to oppressive status quos offensive does not diminish the point made by Balloonman, and using the "analogy was offensive" card to dismiss an argument is dishonest IMO. Destynova (talk) 17:40, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

7. Not for current crats - I think it would be safe to say that the current crats were shown support, to a certain degree at least, based on the rights the crat "group" had at that time, along with other factors. I don't think that current crats should get new technical abilities. I would be content with new prospective crats having this technical ability though.--Rockfang (talk) 16:11, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

   So, similarly, we should disable Revision Delete and Special:Nuke for any admin promoted before they came into use? Lets be clear, here; we're talking about the technical implementation of a userright. Nothing more, nothing less. This userright will be based on the idea that a bureaucrat, faced with a community or ArbCom decision, is competent to decide what they want. This is precisely the same standard expected of existing bureaucrats when deciding whether or not to create admins. Sure, the technical specifications of the job have changed, but the requirements - good judgement and the ability to decide what equates to consensus - are identical. Ironholds (talk) 16:40, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

   Should every judge be recalled when a new law is passed? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 17:00, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

   No to both of the questions above. Nowhere did I mention removing rights that users already have.--Rockfang (talk) 17:13, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

   Sure, but the principle is identical - you're saying that a 'crat cannot be trusted to use this tool because he wasn't in possession of it when the community selected him. So why don't you follow the same policy for administrators? And could you explain what will change (other than technical stuff) in a 'crat's job description if this passes? Ironholds (talk) 17:18, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

   If I implied that I thought that a "crat cannot be trusted to use this tool because he wasn't in possession of it when the community selected him", I apologize. That was not my intention.--Rockfang (talk) 03:24, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

   Then could you explain what you did mean? Ironholds (talk) 11:02, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

   I think that if a current bureaucrat wants another technical ability, maybe something like Wikipedia:Requests for permissions could be used. I don't think that a whole new RfB should be done like mentioned below. I'm not extremely knowledgeable about the code behind the software used here, but perhaps a new bureaucrat user group could be created with this technical ability enabled by default. Any current bureaucrats could then request the bit and if approved, be moved to the newer group. One might think that this could lead to a ton of bureaucrat user groups, but I don't think technical abilities like this one are changed often. I could be wrong though. I hope that somewhat clears up my opinion.--Rockfang (talk) 16:17, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

   Requests for Permissions is used for those rights grantable by an admin; nobody is saying they have to have another RfB. The proposal is to give existing crats the right, not require them to jump through hoops to get it. Precisely how would an admin approve a 'crat for a technical tool? Ironholds (talk) 18:25, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

   When I mentioned the "having another RfB", I was referring to oppose #16 below. I never said that admins should be giving rights to bureaucrats. That would be quite odd in my opinion. I said something "like" Request for permissions. It doesn't have to be exactly the same.--Rockfang (talk) 20:04, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

8. I don't think anything has changed since the last eight times this was brought up. The logs are fragmented between two sites currently, but they'll only become further fragmented with this change. As for the suggestion that this will reduce bureaucracy, it's completely unfounded. I think keeping the stewards responsible for this is fine. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:47, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

   Oh, right. We're now über-concerned about account security, so we're killing off inactive admin accounts. Seems largely like security theater, but whatever. A few people have mentioned that this changes the dynamics of the situation and makes it more rational for the bureaucrats to have this power. Of course no one seems to mention that the stewards were so fast to respond to the first (and largest) batch of removals that their response time actually became the problem. I don't think making an edit at Meta-Wiki every few months is a very high burden and I still don't see the purpose for this proposal. Part of me thinks that it's part of a larger scheme by a few people to make bureaucrats more powerful on a larger scale (and in the future, hold another "Requests for comment" [read: vote] to expand bureaucrat responsibilities). But I guess we'll see. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:53, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

9. This is taking a risk with no real need. I see no problem with the stewards doing this, as they have done just fine in the past. Also agree with much of the above, and Pedro. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 23:18, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
10. Oppose - If it ain't broke, don't fix it. --FunkyDuffy (talk) 00:33, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
11. Oppose I do trust and respect the couple crats I'm familiar with; however, I can too easily foresee some major drama down the road with this. The entire "removal" idea is barely unloaded, and we're already seeing a bump in the road. If we're going to have "local" ability given to users here, then I'd much prefer an un-bundled RfBit for this ability. I just see this as furthering a divide between editor, and those with more tools. Perhaps it is just a technicality, but to me it represents a shift in power that makes me feel all too uneasy. Looks like this will pass without much problem, but at least I'll have this post to look back on. :) Sorry guys, and all due respect to the current crats. — Ched :  ?  00:49, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

    Just a quick comment regarding the "bump in the road". Its interesting that the bump happened even though only stewards can currently remove rights. Indeed, it was the steward concerned's lack of familiarity with enwiki policy that seems to have caused the problem. I doubt that the request he actioned would have been actioned by an enwiki crat. I might have an over inflated sense of our abilities, but I would like to think that enwiki bureaucrats are more in touch with the wishes of the enwiki community than the average steward. We're also more accountable to the enwiki community if we get it wrong. As, I've said above, I've no objection to bureaucrats being reconfirmed if it's feared that some of us are out of touch. WJBscribe (talk) 16:28, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

12. Oppose as a solution looking for a problem.  -- Lear's Fool 04:52, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
13. Oppose The stewards are faster at removal (where speed matters over accuracy) than crats and won't act when crats have the technical power. Beyond that, it adds a politicized power to the crat group, which thankfully has generally avoided that quagmire over the years. MBisanz ^talk 12:56, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

    I don't think that's that first part is correct. meta:Stewards says that "Stewards generally do not perform actions on wikis where local users are available to perform them, except in emergency [...]" (emphasis added). As such, this proposed change would not stop them from acting when speed really matters. Regards SoWhy 17:41, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

    Indeed, I would expect that (similar to Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures#Removal of permissions), any local policies would not (and probably could not) "constrain the authority of the Wikimedia Stewards to undertake emergency removal of permissions on their own discretion, pursuant to the relevant policies governing Steward actions." The remainder of MBisanz's oppose stands on its own, however. –xeno^talk 17:58, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

14. Per McBride. --Closedmouth (talk) 14:01, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
15. Oppose I think only the steward is allowed to remove admin rights. --Amerq (talk) 14:05, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

    Did you mean to say that only steward should be allowed to remove admin rights? Otherwise, yes, your statement is factual as regards en.wiki, but it doesn't explain why you oppose the change. –xeno^talk 15:52, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

    Oppose unless reconfirmation elections are held – The voters who entrusted rights to our current bureaucrats didn't entrust them with the right to remove sysop rights from others. Expectations for bureaucrats will change, but voters didn't have these expectations in mind when they selected our current bureaucrats. Bureaucrats shouldn't be granted this new power retrospectively. If we're going to grant bureaucrats this power, then each bureaucrat elected prior to this proposal's creation should go through a reconfirmation election in order to determine whether they meet the new expectations. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 15:20, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

    So we can never evolve a rights-based process without throwing everything out and starting from scratch? Should we have had reconfirmation for every admin when rollback was added? How about when they all got RevDel? I also disagree with the entire idea. Current crats were elected based upon trust in their ability to determine consensus in discussions regarding whether or not an editor should be an administrator, and that is exactly what this change allows them to do. This provides no greater action on the part of the crats than to determine consensus and act upon it. The direction of the change is irrelevant. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 17:34, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

    If there reconfirmation elections every once in a while, then we wouldn't have had the problem with sysop accounts that have been inactive for years being compromised. I don't think granting rollback rights to sysops is a big deal. A reconfirmation RfA wouldn't have been needed there, but granting RevDel to sysops is a different story. I believe that a reconfirmation RfA should've held after granting that right to sysops. Granting RevDel to sysops is a giant leap many times larger than granting the right to remove sysop rights to bureaucrats. Prior to RevDel, voters never assumed that sysops would be given the ability to hide information and avoid scrutiny. I'm sure many voters wouldn't raised the bar for users applying for sysop rights if they had known RevDel would've been given to them. I'm also sure that they would've raised the bar for bureaucrats if they had known that bureaucrats would be given the right to de-sysop users. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 18:24, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

    I generally agree that RevDel might have been the place to look at who was getting the right rather than just adding to the existing bundle, but I find your use of the word "right" to be disingenuous. Crats are not being granted the right to remove the sysop bit from any account. This proposal is to give them the technical ability to uncheck a box which they already have the authority to check. Crats do not currently have the right to make editors into admins, they only have the ability to carry out the technical portion of a decision made by community consensus. This proposal gives them the ability to carry out the technical portion of an opposite action only when a community consensus is reached to do so. If you are worried about a rogue crat running around desysopping people, having one one of them go around adding the flag on random accounts, sleeper socks, bad hand alternates, or other is far more likely to cause damage to the project. I truly don't see the cause for concern as any admin unjustifiably desysopped would readily make it known to the community, arbcom, other crats, etc. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 19:16, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

    Switching to support – Since there isn't much support for the reconfirmation idea. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 14:40, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

16. Oppose Removal of rights should be community-based decision. Kingjeff (talk) 15:48, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

    Hence, the community-based decision on when bureaucrats may remove rights. –xeno^talk 15:52, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

    Why does your philosophy apply to administrators and not general editors? WP is supposed to be a community based project, not an administrators based project. Njsustain (talk) 20:54, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

    Uhm. Sorry? Ironholds (talk) 11:40, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

    Uhm. Admins can take away user rights without much ado. For admin rights to be taken away, there practically needs to be an okay from the Vatican, even though admins have no more "qualifications" and IMO don't act any more ethically than any other users (barring obvious vandals). Njsustain (talk) 15:10, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

    Njsustain is quite correct. Yes I'm an admin and yes I could take away all of your rights and block you indefinitely this very instant. However if I was foolish enough to do that without strong community consensus and a mountain of evidence to justify my actions, I would be crucified by the rest of the admin body faster than you can blink (plus all of my actions would be immediately undone). Ditto for a 'Crat - they would only ever remove rights based on a community (or ArbCom) decision. No 'Crat would misuse the power any more than the Stewards would. Manning (talk) 06:34, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

17. Oppose I'm opposed to this because I dislike the idea of a developing hierarchy here on Wikipedia. Bureaucrats are not just like Super Admins. Should Stewards then be given the ability to remove Bureaucrats? Maybe Jimbo should be able to remove Stewards? No, the community based system is better than any bureaucrat system, even if the removal procedure still has community input.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 22:57, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

    Stewards already have the ability to remove the bureaucrat bit, and the admin bit as well. I think perhaps you have misunderstood the proposal, which is to give our local bureaucrats a technical ability that stewards already possess. It is not proposed that either bureaucrats or stewards would have the authority to use that ability however they please. Usage would be controlled by the policies approved in the other RfC, which proposes removals by 'crats only in situations where stewards are permitted to remove them currently. --RL0919 (talk) 00:42, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

    Well, did not know that. My reaction is still no, we should not be building a hierarchy. Every type of Wikimedia admin should be responsible only to the community at large, rather than to specific bureaucrats. I envision a Sysop getting in a situation where they make a decision, or support/oppose a proposal, or even overlook an incident because there's a bureaucrat above them who can initiate a removal of the Sysop rights granted to them by the Wiki community. It's an illusion, yes, but it could be a powerful one.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 16:02, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

    I fail to see how admins would somehow be responsible to the bureaucrats. As it stands now, stewards can remove the sysop bit; does that mean admins are responsible to the stewards? The bureaucrats (collectively) aren't going to be policing admin actions, removing the bit if they step out of line; we aren't the Gestapo. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:27, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

18. Oppose - No need. Toa Nidhiki05 19:52, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

    Why not? CycloneGU (talk) 04:21, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

19. Procedural Oppose Echoing concerns that the policy for USE of this tool is not in place yet. Would like to see all that cleared up before considering the implementation. -RunningOnBrains^(talk) 08:27, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

    It would be peculiar to have a policy in place for a use of a tool that does not exist - that is why these proposals are running in concert. –xeno^talk 16:47, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

    The tool exists, and it is already in use on some other WMF projects. As I understand the procedural oppose votes, the tool shouldn't be added until the policy for its spread from other WMF projects to this project has the beginning of consensus. --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 19:21, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

    When xeno says "does not exist", I'm pretty sure he means "does not exist here", not "does not exist anywhere". Regards SoWhy 19:35, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

20. Oppose. The stewards have long demonstrated that they are up to the job, and their relatively independent perspective removes de-sysoping from the domain of unilateral actions and wheel warring. ~ Ningauble (talk) 13:39, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

    We're not discussing whether the stewards are up to the job. We're polling regarding giving bureaucrats the technical ability, thus not requiring us to have separate conversations on the meta site regarding something that could be easily handled within this wiki. Also, the poll only questions about giving the TECHNICAL ability; it doesn't give them free reign to use it whenever they want to. Only if after a desysopping discussion or in emergency situations (say an admin. account is hacked into and the hacker is running amuck deleting pages). CycloneGU (talk) 21:10, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

    I beg your pardon? You seem to be saying ("We're not discussing ... We're polling regarding ...) that my comment is off topic. In stating my opinion I gave reasons why I prefer to have the stewards handle this, and those reasons are entirely germane to the question. Feel free to disagree, as many others evidently do; but kindly refrain from denigrating my participation as if I were being impertinent or disruptive. ~ Ningauble (talk) 15:22, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

    My intent is not to attempt to suggest you are being disruptive or impertinent. Let me split the reason into chunks and reply individually.

    • The stewards have long demonstrated that they are up to the job - Not one person here has questioned stewards' ability to do the job. We know the stewards are up to the job, at least 90% of supporters of this proposal will agree with me.
    • ...their relatively independent perspective... - Again, I agree with the statement that being on an entirely different wiki that they are independent of whatever occurs on this wiki.
    • ...removes de-sysoping from the domain of unilateral actions and wheel warring - It seems that you are using something that everyone agrees with (see my first two comments) as a reason to not further give bureaucrats a much needed technical ability. It is entirely possible for two en.wiki users to have an argument on the meta wiki. Wheel warring can still exist in the current structure as well; if someone from the meta wiki after a desysop discussion goes ahead and desysops, any bureaucrat or admin. who completely disagrees may still go ahead and readmin. in a wheel war. Obviously this would have bad consequences for the wheel warrior, but it can still be done.

    All that is being suggested here is to centralize the process on the English Wiki and not have to involve the stewards when we have our own bureaucrats who are entirely capable of doing the job. This is about a technical ability, not about the constraints for use which are in a different RfC. CycloneGU (talk) 16:39, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

    The question here is obviously not about the "constraints" on why a sysop should be removed, and I did not say it was. The question is about who should press the button. Several people expressed the view that it is better for bureaucrats to do it because they are more familiar with local conditions. I expressed the view that it is better for stewards to do it because they are more independent of local conditions. It is an honest difference of opinion. You do not need to mischaracterize my position in order to disagree with it. ~ Ningauble (talk) 17:57, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

    Well, on the one hand, a large number of users seems to believe that the bureaucrats are more than capable of being given a new button to push where warranted. On the other, again, I am not attempting to mischaracterize any positions, I simply was seeking understanding of why someone who knows nothing of local conditions on this wiki should have to be summoned every single time a desysoping is necessary. In an emergency a steward might not be available, and we need someone who can get it done quickly. Stewards can still be used in more extreme cases, no one has ever said to remove their ability to do the job in addition to doing this. I respect your reason, I was just seeking more insight on it as it could help develop the pertinent policies related to this. CycloneGU (talk) 18:13, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

    Thank you for (almost) retracting the misattribution of what I did not say. I recognize that this RfC is going the other way like a snowball running down hill, but when opinions are requested I have no problem giving a minority opinion. I do have a problem with a clear and succinct statement being twisted into something unrecognizable.

    To provide insight into why I said what I did say, it is simply that I place a high value on maximal impartiality when removing rights. This is not to say that bureaucrats are not generally able to be impartial, but that the stewards are more so. If this seems like an overabundance of caution, my view is probably influenced by having seen bureaucrats de-sysoped for cause at a sister project I frequent. Has a steward ever been removed for cause? ~ Ningauble (talk) 18:59, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

21. After thinking about this for a while, I have to come down to the strong oppose side. Simply put, this proposal would make the log fragmentation problem—the main problem that the proposal attempts to solve—much worse. There are two possible scenarios here: A desysopping of a "normal" administrator, without any advanced permissions (e.g. checkuser, oversight), and a desysopping of an admin who does possess extra bits on his account. Currently, in the first scenario, we only need to look at the Meta rights log to see if any desysoppings took place. If this proposal were passed, we would still need to look there, since the deadminnings that have been done to date would remain there, plus we would need to look here to see if the access removal occurred after the "cutoff date" on which this proposal took effect. On the second scenario, the removal would need to be done in Meta anyways, so we would have either split deadmin logs (some there, and some here), or we would have redundant logs (we apply -sysop here, but stewards need to apply -checkuser). In either case, this is simply too messy. In addition, this increases the surface area for attack vectors, as B noted, without even having to mention the change in the political power structure in the wiki. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 09:41, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

    What if bureaucrats had the ability to remove the extra bits? That would still put everything in one place then. CycloneGU (talk) 18:21, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

    Considering that they are not allowed to grant the extra bits, I don't see why they would be allowed to remove them. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 08:24, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

    Which means that the logs related to granting and removing those bits will be in one place. Not exactly worse than it is today. No, this doesn't fix past logs, but the perfect should not be the enemy of the good. And of course there are other support reasons that have been given. --RL0919 (talk) 15:02, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

22. There are 34 Stewards [3] and 35 Bureaucrats [4]. There doesn't seem to be any large backlog that would require their help. One steward made a mistake, enforcing a new rule that was passed after an administrator had their account hacked, for the first time in three years. [5] The damage was seen and quickly undone. So whether the administrator was inactive for a year or just a few days off on the weekend, it would've been the same results. You don't need to double the number of people who have the ability to de-syop people just to enforce a rule that won't make any difference at all. Dream Focus 01:02, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
23. Oppose Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Rotundly, no. --Phagopsych (talk) 17:58, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

    WP:IDONTLIKEIT absent a translation of the non-English portion. CycloneGU (talk) 15:06, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

    See here for translation. See also here. --RL0919 (talk) 15:12, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

    No offence, RL0919, but I am entitled to my own opinion. No reason to be called a swiftboater. The current system is good enough and has more safeguards. The supporters are still to make a strong case. If it ain't broke don't fix it! --Phagopsych (talk) 19:26, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

24. Strong Oppose This is attempting to solve a marginal problem. Furthermore, the solution is likely to have unintended consequences, including problems that others have highlighted and that so far have no been addressed by supporters. In summary, it's a bad idea to risk causing bigger problems just to attempt to solve a small one. Greg Comlish (talk) 06:25, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

    What claims of problems do you believe have not been addressed? Most of oppose comments have some sort of response, to the point that I've personally been holding back so as not to create a "harassing the opposers" vibe, and many of them repeat the same concerns. Of course you are free to find the replies unconvincing, but that's not the same thing. --RL0919 (talk) 15:02, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

25. Strong Oppose I think that users should be more involved in the removal of rights rather then putting this entirely onto a few users (as with the granting of rights.).Dusty777 (talk) 17:00, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

    Actually, users would be. I am not likely to travel to Meta to discuss a desysop, but I am more likely to participate if it takes place on my native wiki (this one). I made an April Fool's exception to create my account at Meta and post an AJF, but I haven't really been back there since (might return next April 1...). CycloneGU (talk) 22:40, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

26. Oppose with all due respect, I think it's appropriate to say that bureaucrats can recommend for speedy removal of adminship flag. Simply because if bureaucrats granted with this ability might be abused without due process. --Rammaum^talk_stalk 06:45, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

    The use of this ability will be strictly governed, any bureaucrat who (ab)used it outside their mandate would likely find themselves without the ability fairly quickly. –xeno^talk 13:38, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

    Oppose There appear to be several other avenues for users and other administrators to report or otherwise begin a discussion regarding the removal of Administrator privileges:

    • Administrators' noticeboard: Incidents,
    • RfC on use of admin privileges,
    • Procedural removals for inactivity,
    • The Stewards,
    • Request for comment on Administrator Conduct,
    • Arbitration Committee Discussion,
    • And Jimbo.

    It is not at all clear to me why an additional set of persons would need to be granted this authority when there are several fair, and effective ways to remove administrator rights. Is there some kind of backlog of admins that can't be handled by these avenues? I'd be willing to hear out reasons why Bureaucrats being granted this right would substantially improve WP above and beyond the current ways of removing admin rights. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 06:56, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

    This proposal does not seek to expand procedural aspects of removing administrative rights, or to give bureaucrats the "authority" to desysop administrators at will. It seeks to have the technical aspect of removing administrative rights handled locally (rather than at meta). –xeno^talk 13:38, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

    But xeno, this doesn't appear to be the case. One of the current proposals on the other discussion about when bureaucrats are able to remove adminstrator rights reads as follows:

    In an emergency when an administrator account appears to be compromised or otherwise uses the tools to disrupt Wikipedia.

    This strikes me as something that could be misjudged and abused because "emergency," "compromised," and "uses tools to disrupt Wikipedia" can mean different things to different bureaucrats (not to mention admins). If this proposal is on the table, I'm inclined to say oppose this authority being granted. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 03:21, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

    I think you're looking at the top of the RfC. That statement is a summary of a defunct proposal that has been replaced by a much more specific one: "Bureaucrats may temporarily remove the 'administrator' user right from a user's account in an emergency when an administrator account appears to be compromised." Here the term "emergency" applies to only one situation (an admin's account is compromised), and "uses tools to disrupt Wikipedia" does not appear at all. Dabomb87 (talk) 04:20, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

    Thanks for noting this change. You (and xeno) have changed my mind and I now will support the technical ability being granted, though I am still wary about whether bureaucrats will be equally accurate in judging when an admin's account is compromised. Nothing in that proposal has stated what evidence bureaucrats would use to make this judgment. I will be voting accordingly on the other discussion. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 05:08, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

27. Oppose in its current form. It would make 'crats a much greater target for password guessers/keyloggers etc. Who guards the Guards? I would Weakly Support if the ability was granted to a panel of three (or five) 'crats to be determined by majority vote.Gilderien Talk|Contribs 09:01, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

    Q: Who guards the Guards? A: Stewards. –xeno^talk 13:38, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

    Maybe it's just me, but your commentary and challenges to opposes make it look like you are a smidge desperate for this user-right Xeno. No big deal and all. It's just a website. Pedro :  Chat  20:54, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

    I suppose I can't help it if that's the impression that you get, but the intent of my responses here is merely to address various misconceptions (or misunderstandings) that seem to be present in some of the oppose rationales. (If I were desperate for the userright, surely you would find me in the support column? =) –xeno^talk 00:00, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

    The existing bureaucrat ability to sysop is surely of rather greater interest to a hijacker than the ability to desysop. (reasons censored per WP:BEANS). Rd232 ^talk 21:39, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

    Maybe, but if a "sleeper" 'crat could desysop (and they can be pseudonymous and unaccountable) they would have to be blocked by a steward, perhaps after causing massive dispruption because no 'crats or sysops would block them?Gilderien Talk|Contribs 20:57, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

28. Strong Oppose: it would remove a vital check and balance on the abuse of higher power, and there are too few proper checks and balances to begin with, lending to the possibility of wanton abuse of high-level rights. JohnChrysostom (talk) 12:16, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

    Checks and balances? Never existed on Wikipedia, probably never will. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 07:29, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

29. Oppose. At first sight this seems one of those 'equitable' things; if you can do then you should be able to undo. But that isn't how reality works in practice. We have a longish process before people are granted the status, the "bit", yet this proposal - no matter what processes get put in place - will, by definition, be shorter and not get so many eyes on them. This isn't about trust in the B'crats but about controlling the 'ease of mistake' factor. It's a solution in search of a problem; we don't have a need for this function to be more widely available than it already is, so why give the hostage to fortune that widening the possibility for error would bring? Demonstrate a verifiable *need* and maybe I'll change my mind, but I don't see one on the horizon. Because we can is insufficient. --AlisonW (talk) 18:24, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

    Not to make assumptions, but it sounds to me like you're confusing the purpose of this RfC. This is only about the technical ability for bureaucrats to remove the sysop bit, and has absolutely nothing to do with the "when" of that; that's covered in another RfC. This RfC passing would not create a shorter process (with fewer eyes) for removing the flag.
    In a scenario where this RfC passes and the second one fails on all accounts, the only time the bureaucrats could remove a flag would be when they mistakenly grant it (accidentally promote a crat instead of an admin after an RfA, etc). EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:35, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

    It is interesting that those who are opposing this are being all too regularly 'responded to' (and I shall put it no stronger than that) by those who seek to push it through. In response to this minor point by EVula I'd note humankind's inability to not play with fire once it has been created and I see a "technical" ability for a group to carry out a task here as no different. "Build it and they will come" is also an appropriate response; the idea that this could pass yet wikimedians subsequently choose to not actually put the ability into practice is, frankly, beyond belief. I stand by my earlier conclusion and position. --AlisonW (talk) 15:13, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

    So would you rather opposers be responded to only by fellow opposers? What sort of dialogue would that be? (also, how am I one of "those who seek to push it through" when I was incredibly late to the party, popping into the RfC in the 200 range?) I agree that the scenario I mentioned is unlikely; I wasn't making the argument that it would happen, but merely trying to point out that there's a significant distinction between the technical ability for 'crats to remove the sysop flag and policy-dictated criteria for when the bureaucrats can do so. That's all. EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:04, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

30. Strong Oppose as per MzMcbride and Prodego. LiteralKa (talk) 05:22, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
31. Strongest Oppose If there is just one bureaucrat with the rights as proposed turning berserk (see the Norway massacre), the harm to admins could be quite disastrous. This risk is much smaller if rights remain as is. Additional steward rights could always be granted to bureaucrats if they have proven sane enough. Shenhemu (talk) 01:03, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

    ...how in the world is this in any way, shape, or form comparable to the Norway massacre? Plus, stewards and bureaucrats are two totally, absolutely different categories of users. Sometimes an editor may hold both userrights, but the use of the tools for each is VERY different. EVula // talk // ☯ // 01:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

    ...HEAR YE, HEAR YE! I bring you the new Godwin's Law, Cerejota's Law: The likelihood of a comparison to the Norway Massacre emerging is inversely proportional to the importance of what is being compared to the actual Massacre.--Cerejota (talk) 10:09, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

    We could easily have a limit of 10 or 25 desysops/day for each bureaucrat, without changing this proposal significantly. Before the second day,we would notice and de'crat the rogue. A useful, if almost certainly unnecessary, protection (do we have a wire preventing everyone being made an admin, which would be much more disruptive?) but not a reason to oppose in principle. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:04, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

    That would not help much in a rogue bureaucrat situation, for reasons that should be obvious. If ever there is a rogue bureaucrat, someone will need to flag a steward (and in the worst-case scenario, the database will have to be locked while the situation is sorted out). –xeno^talk 15:01, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

    I oppose if it involves the CIA. The CIA is supposed operate outside of the US, not within. So as long as the post is from within the US the CIA has no right to remove or add content. See sleeper agents. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Detemad (talk • contribs) 14:23, 27 July 2011

    Indenting joke vote. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 06:21, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

    Based on this user's other edits, I don't think it was a joke, but it doesn't add value to the discussion, so indenting it should be fine. --RL0919 (talk) 14:03, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

    Comment, admins can simply be resurrected in a snap, so no problem, yes ? PLUS because it is less of a permanent thing, we'll get more admins approved because there is less fear of creating a monster. a win-win situation. Penyulap _talk 14:29, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

32. Oppose for the reasons stated in the relevant section of User:Chick Bowen/Why I am opposed to community deadminship. Since the proponents of new forms of deadminships continue to link it to bureaucrat unchecking, I continue to believe the argument that bureaucrat unchecking is separate from deadminship is disingenuous. Chick Bowen 15:11, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
33. Oppose mainly per MZMcBride and Prodego. This would be an unnecessary change, and there's really no need to handle it locally. Log fragmentation and "separation of powers" as someone mentioned above are important as well. Cbrown1023 talk 20:33, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

General discussion

See also: Discussion on talk page

• Awaiting further input, and considering all views before I either support or oppose. It certainly does/would change the power structure on the site if this is a go. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, perhaps it could give a "checks and balances" to what some refer to GovCom; if not in practice, then certainly in perception. — Ched :  ?  22:00, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

• I'd also like to note that there was recent discussion about lowering the bar for RfB, (which I supported). THIS certainly would make me want to rethink that. Hopefully the reasons are obvious. — Ched :  ?  22:03, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

That's an interesting point actually Ched. I was suprised that discussion was closed in the way it was - I thought it was fairly clear the percenatge that was been debated, but there we go. Is granting desysop to 'crats going to make RFB even harder? I can't see it's going to make it easier after all :). Given there was clear consensus that the RFB bar should be lowered at that debate (permalink) there is a ramification here. However I'm not sure in myself how strong this is as an argument against not adding desysop to the crat tools. Certainly food for though. Pedro :  Chat  15:16, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Any de-adminship is going to be well scrutinised, and I don't think we have such a large pool of crats (or the potential for so many more) that it gets to the stage that such things bypass scrutiny in the way that, say, "normal" admin actions do. --Errant ^(chat!) 20:33, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

My reservation is that the user conduct rules are weak (virtually unwritten) when it comes to the bureaucrats. Although it may turn out that a lot of the pronouncements in a crat policy can be lifted from admin policies, with some tweaks, it all takes time (and other user groups have most things written out as policy). At least for now, there continues to be a requirement that crats must remain admins (so the admin conduct umbrella applies at minimum). But nothing is forever, and attention will need to be given to this sooner rather than later, particularly as the bar gets lowered. Ncmvocalist (talk) 20:57, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

As far as I know, there is no "requirement that crats must remain admins"; and in fact, as we speak, there are two bureaucrats who are not admins (albeit both inactive). –xeno^talk 20:59, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

...which is even worse and highlights the need for a crat policy (including inactive crat accounts). :( Ncmvocalist (talk) 21:05, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Then lets address that to: Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Remove_Bureaucrat_bit_from_inactive_accounts --Errant ^(chat!) 23:36, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

BTW, is there a policy on inactive stewards? Guy Macon (talk) 21:23, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes. --RL0919 (talk) 14:57, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

No real opinion here either way, but should the banner not read "A proposal for granting Bureaucrats the technical ability to remove Administrator rights has been initiated" rather than the current "A proposal for granting Bureaucrats the technical ability remove Administrator rights has been initiated"? ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 08:13, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

There is so small a number of bureaucrats that the danger of abuse is probably not much bigger than if one grants the right to remove admin rights only to stewards.

But it is difficult to make up one`s mind about such issues as long as the candidates don`t provide photographs of themselves, which would bring about a principally wider basis for judging on such matters. It would be ridiculous to demand photographs as long as the candidates are not also obliged to reveal their real names, but this could, of course, as well be demanded. --Hans Dunkelberg (talk) 14:17, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

• Question: is this discussion happening in isolation or are there any parallel discussions concerning removal/recall of administrators? ScottyBerg (talk) 14:21, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

  I'm not aware of any organized discussions of that at the present. As you probably know, it has been discussed more than once in the past, but has never achieved consensus. --RL0919 (talk) 16:24, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

• I hate, I really hate, the phrase "a solution looking for a problem", which I see more and more and more, not just here in WikiLand, but everywhere else, too! Solutions need to be in place before a problem arises - otherwise we would have no speed limits and no safe crossing places on our roads until after there had been a fatal accident! The fact that a solution is in place can prevent the problem ever occurring. What's wrong with implementing safety procedures before someone's killed? And what's therefore wrong with with giving 'crats this ability before we suddenly find ourselves in an (unspecified) emergency situation where we "wish we'd done that earlier"? Pesky (talk …stalk!) 06:21, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
  • I hate that phrase too. Another one is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". We should be proactive, not reactive. Do we need to drive off the side of a mountain before we realize the value of installing guardrails? Some people just don't like anything to change, ever, and if they always get their way we end up with a moribund system. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 12:45, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
    • It might not be a bad idea to try to put this discussion in context by commencing a broader discussion on admin removal. I went through the previous discussions and I understand the concerns that were raised. In fact, I remember that in the climate change arbitration both sides accused each other of admin misconduct, sometimes correctly, sometimes not. I wonder if the right approach is to make it easier to become an administrator, but also easier to remove, so that it is not such a major thing. ScottyBerg (talk) 16:35, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
      • That is exactly what has bogged down this type of discussion in the past. We should stick to the questions at hand and the limited and clear cut circumstances outlined in the other RfCs. We should wait until these finish before muddying the waters with more radical proposals. Gigs (talk) 19:01, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I have seen suggestions elsewhere that if it becomes easier to desysop someone, the participants at RfA will be less intensely paranoid about granting adminship in the first place. If that is true, I think that it would be a good thing.James500 (talk) 06:29, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Possibly but this RFC is only about the technical ability to do so. Success of this RFC will not have any impact on when the crats on this project may desysop someone. That's a question for the policy discussion currently active which will determine the situations in which crats may use the ability if granted. A proposal to remove adminship more easily is not amongst them. See Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship for details on the history of such proposals. Regards SoWhy 07:21, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

• If the right is to be granted to 'crats, then it would seem appropriate that it be where 'crats have the support of the community through a confirmation process. Stewards have that confirmation process to undertake. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:12, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

• Well I was not willing to start a debate on hierarchy as part of this voting page... I was just looking for an opportunity to vote as I feel. However, I have not found the section Neutral for my vote. I think that on Wikipedia (a civilised and democratic location), power should be given or withdrawn by voting rather than by one man's decision, whatever is rank... For this reason I would vote neutral if I had the opportunity to do so. I am not opposed to the actual proposal for removing administrators' powers, I am opposed to the system that allows individuals to give and/or withdraw power. The gift or withdrawal of power should be a collective decision using a vote like the one subject of this page.--Christophe Krief (talk) 15:49, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
  • That is very close to what is actually proposed. Bureaucrats will not get the power to remove admins at will, they will merely get the technical ability to remove adminship when policy provides for that—that is, to implement the results of a community-driven process. Ucucha 16:06, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
• So when will Wikipedia have PC Wiki-Plods to control the bureaucrats? It goes on and on.--andreasegde (talk) 21:45, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

A few notes from a steward:

• The splitting of logs is (per now) governd by stewardpolicy, that says we have to have as many logs as possible on meta. Stewards have the ability to give them self global userrights-right, and the logs could be put on the local wikis instead (but that couldn't be done before SUL and global groups came), so this is entirely up to the (global) community to decide how it should work. The split-log problem would still exist if you allow bureucrats to desysop, since checkuser and oversight-rights can only be given and removed by stewards (and that can't be changed by a simple community decision)
• Stewards try to have people from all over the world; where you live is a big part of the election. Someone is always watching for emergency requests on IRC. As long as the requests come on IRC, it's likely that you will get faster response from stewards.
• Stewards don't care if you allow bureucrats to desysop or not - as long as you don't deny us to do it if we get a request on meta - diffrent policies on 800 diffrent wikis are hard for everyone of us to keep updated on (as was seen when a steward didn't read the new inactivity-policy good enough), but it's unlikely that we would do any non-emergency desysops on enwiki anymore.

Laaknor (talk) 12:37, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Note from an early Bureaucrat:

• Since I would be considered a person of interest, especially as I expect to resume 'crat duties when I have the time to devote to it, I will not formally support or oppose, but I will note that the lack of ability for a 'crat to remove admin rights was an annoyance during my years of activity, simply from a technical point of view. Bureaucrats are traditionally highly vetted and not numerous, both circumstances I approve, and I can't see that a person trusted to add an admin should not be trusted to remove one, both according to standards. If either lack of trust exists, that person should not have been made a 'crat, nor remain as one. Bureaucrats themselves have been removed. Further, a 'crats bad decision should not be lightly reversed, but is quite capable of being reversed. So I don't see why this is controversial. Cheers, Cecropia (talk) 20:29, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.