User:Jbhunley/Essays/Binding community recall

The English Wikipedia community has repeatedly attempted to come up with a viable method to desysop administrators who have lost the confidence of the community but whose behavior has not risen to the level required for ArbCom to take action. This is an attempt to address the issue from the bottom up, by seeking the agreement of individual administrators, rather than using an RfC to impose a single solution on the entire admin corps.

It is very important to note; this is not a policy, procedure or guideline. It is a voluntary editing restriction which is enforceable by the community. The community may decide, via RfC, to take over the management of a community recall procedure. Until there is a community consensus to enforce a community recall procedure this procedure relied on a novel use of a voluntarily accepted indefinite editing restriction with a built in indefinite block, to insure a no confidence results either 'voluntary' removal of the sysop bit or total loss of editing privileges.

An administrator who is willing to submit to this voluntary binding recall procedure is making an agreement between themselves and the Wikipedia community. This procedure uses the idea presented in WP:RECALL that administrators may voluntarily specify conditions when they will relinquish their sysop privileges short of being desysoped by WP:ARBCOM. This procedure differs from the one in RECALL in that once an administrator agrees to it they must always allow the recall to proceed; must accept the outcome, which is enforced as an editing restriction; and may only withdraw from the agreement in limited circumstances.

Recall procedure
Before initiating a recall there must have been a good faith attempt to resolve matters with the administrator. If attempts to resolve things fail the next step is to open a "No confidence" thread at the Administrators' noticeboard.

Opening the thread
Only editors whose accounts are at least thirty days old and have made at lease five-hundred edits i.e. are extended confirmed may open a recall thread. This is to lessen the possibility of SOCKS and users who do not have a reasonable grasp of Wikipedia's policies from opening harassing or inappropriate cases.

When starting a recall thread the OP must say they are invoking these recall procedures; must clearly and concisely state, with supporting evidence, why the community should no longer have confidence in the administrator; and must link to where they have attempted to resolve the issues with the administrator. I the OP fails to do these things or is not extended confirmed the thread may be closed by any administrator.

!Votes
Editors should !vote either No confidence or Support. Each !vote of No confidence must articulate reasons for loss of confidence although a reason of 'per whomever' is acceptable. 'Pile-on' !votes which give no reason will be struck by the one of the closing editors.

Closing the thread
Thread must be open for minimum of three days (72 hours) and have a minimum of fifteen (15) !voting participants before it may be closed as No-confidence. Thread will be closed by 3 editors (1 admin, 1 experienced non-admin editor, 1 editor/admin selected by challenged admin) If these editors unanimously find, or if before closers are selected there is a strong consensus (i.e. WP:SNOW), that the recall is vexatious or unfounded it may be closed as Unfounded. If three uninvolved closers can not be found within five days or the minimum participation level is not reached within the same period, the recall thread may be closed by a single uninvolved administrator as No consensus. In that case the evidence presented shall not be considered as becoming 'stale' and may be re-presented should another recall be initiated at a later date.

If consensus of the recall thread is "No confidence" recalled admin must resign 'under a cloud' and, if they want, resubmit to RfA

Enforcement
This agreement is enforced via the application of this voluntary community editing restriction:

Administrators who agree to be subject to this recall procedure after their RfA may withdraw at any time except when another editor has begun the recall process. For this purpose 'beginning the process' is when an editor who is permitted to open a recall thread (i.e. is extended confirmed) has definitively begun a good faith attempt to resolve an issue with view to recall should the attempt fail. In other words if they have made clear that if the matter is not resolved they will proceed with a recall request. The best way to 'make it clear' is to say "if this is not resolved I will call for your desysop" or words to that effect.

Administrators who agree to these procedures as part of their RfA may not withdraw from them. It is considered that the community, at least in part, relied on their agreement to be subject to a binding community recall when they decided to support the candidate becoming an administrator.

Changes and amendments
This is a new idea and there are bound to be kinks to be worked out and this is, after all Wikipedia, so this procedure will be subject to revision at times. In order to be fair to those administrators who have agreed to being eligible for community recall this procedure may only be changed with consensus among those administrators subject to it  or via a community wide RfC.

Agreed after RfA

 * 1) Example admin

Agreed at RfA

 * 1) Example new admin