Forum:Revising Chat Moderator and IRC Operator requests

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It's been nearly a month since the last discussion about revising the Chat Moderator selection process was ended. For that period, requests for Chat moderator have remained closed, and the issues that led to its closure have not been resolved. The purpose of this thread is to finally lay those questions to rest.

Let's start with where most people agree, and go from there. Based on prior discussions, it is generally agreed that the RfCM process should be more open to user input on an applicant/nominee, and should be structured less like a formal vote.

In the previous thread, Lost Labyrinth suggested implementing a form of the system we use to select admins and bureaucrats, wherein there is an open discussion period, followed by a vote if a consensus isn't reached. Various methods could be used to make the process less formalized, including waiving the "one request at a time" requirement, or the process of holding requests on separate pages. Beds also suggested adding a "cooldown" period between successful requests, though the nature of this suggestion would be tied to whether or not multiple requests could be heard simultaneously.

For sake of neutrality in the intro, I'll give my personal opinion in the discussion section below. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk ~ blog} 04:33, October 16, 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

I see an implementation of the RfA-style discussion process as being probably our best bet at the present time, with a couple suggested modifications. Where presently RfAs are required to sit in discussion for at least 5 days (and possibly up to 10), I would like to suggest that we loosen this requirement for RfCMs, especially if a consensus is clearly forming after several users have weighed in. I would also support eliminating the one-at-a-time rule, and support having all the requests managed on a single page rather than on separate pages.

On a final note, I think it might be worth re-considering the chat moderator ruleset we have in place, especially in regards to the specific membership and activity requirements. I think the rules as they're currently written may be too restrictive and could be interpreted more strictly than perhaps they should be. This is just a personal concern of mine, and does not affect my support for a general overhaul of the request process itself. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk ~ blog} 04:33, October 16, 2013 (UTC)

Pretty much this. As far as activity requirements go...determining activity on something like Chat is often tricky as we don't actually have any way of knowing that somebody has joined Chat unless we just happen to be in the right place at the right time. I don't think it needs to be as strict as the 4 month requirement to apply to be a chatmod but seeing as we have a number of users on Chat who rarely, if at all, edit the wiki itself. Something like "Regularly active on Chat" might be something we could put down but even then it's kind of broad, I don't know. Lost Labyrinth • (c) • (b) 11:17, October 16, 2013 (UTC)

Alright, so let's get this discussion back on board. After some thought, I guess the current chatmod requirements are a little bit restrictive (coming from the person who came up with the idea of new requirements). As for the way RfCM's are going to be dealt with, I agree with the RfA style discussion based style, but maybe we should go with a shorter discussion period i.e I was thinking about 3-5 days, or maybe just 3 days altogether. As for the cooldown period, I still think we should do this for my reasons stated in the previous thread. Beds ^{(parlare - da leggere)} 11:37, October 16, 2013 (UTC)

I might not talking a bit of sense about this but since admins/sysops can also grant and revoke chat mod rights to other users, should they be also involved in reviewing (granting/denying) the requests? --Frostwalker ^{Talk to me!} 15:11, October 21, 2013 (UTC)

Frostwalker raises a very interesting point and thinking about it, what reason is there not to allow sysops to give out/revoke that right when the need arises? As long as the rule of consensus in these requests is followed then I can't see any problems. Obviously this is up for debate but I'm just speaking my mind here. Lost Labyrinth • (c) • (b) 19:21, October 21, 2013 (UTC)

I agree, I see no reason to limit it to Bureaucrats only. On another subject, would we be rolling out these (eventual) changes to IRC ops requests as well? -- LostInRiverview ^{talk ~ blog} 20:30, October 21, 2013 (UTC)

It would make sense imo to extend whatever changes we make here to IRC op requests for the sake of consistency. One major difference however is that only bureaucrats can hand out user flags on IRC. I don't know what everybody's stance is on extending that ability to administrators but that's probably worthy of a separate discussion in itself. Lost Labyrinth • (c) • (b) 20:58, October 21, 2013 (UTC)

Focus

Ok, this discussion has been silent for a week. It seems that everyone so far has agreed that RfCMs and RfIRCOPs should be treated like RfAs and RfBs; there remain to be some differences on the specifics, so we should discuss those. One - what should the length of the discussion be? Should it be a minimum of five days, as with RfA/RfB, a minimum of 3-5 as Beds suggested, or something else? Should there be a cooldown period after the conclusion of a successful request and, if so, how long should it last? Should we allow sysops to hand out these flags too, and would we also extend that ability to administrators on the IRC Channel? Let's talk specifics, and hopefully also get some more of the regular IRC and Chat users involved in this discussion. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk ~ blog} 01:30, October 29, 2013 (UTC)

On another note; I've renamed this discussion to encompass both Chat Moderator and IRC Operator requests, since it seems we've reached the conclusion that the bulk of these changes should take effect on both processes. Should we go ahead and temporarily close down RFIRCOP as well? -- LostInRiverview ^{talk ~ blog} 01:32, October 29, 2013 (UTC)

I guess it's worth closing RfIRCOP too for the sake of consistency. As for the matter at hand, I'd opt for a 5 day discussion period. I wouldn't mind compromising at 3 days but we need to consider the fact that we should allow enough time for a discussion to be fully fleshed out and such. I don't see the need for a cooldown period and I don't really see one request being made shortly after another was concluded to be a big deal. Finally, I'm okay with admins handing out the chatmod right. I'd personally advocate for the admins being able to add the right provided they may not remove it but a) that's not exactly an easy thing to enforce and b) I strongly doubt Wikia will change the user groups just for this. I'm on the fence with extending this to IRC given its more complex nature but I'd like to know how others feel about this first. Lost Labyrinth • (c) • (b) 00:23, October 31, 2013 (UTC)

I agree with what you've said Lab, except... I wonder if the discussion of admins removing chat mod/op rights isn't a bit of a moot point. To my knowledge, a bureaucrat on the wiki has never removed another user's rights unilaterally (B'crats have demoted admins, but always for a specific policy reason, i.e. inactive administrator, or the admin didn't choose a project). The point I'm coming around to raising is... if you or I, as bureaucrats, chose to demote a Chat Moderator, would we be "allowed" to do this? Certainly we are capable of doing it, all it takes is a click of a button. But there is no rule or even a precedent in place to govern when or how this would happen, or what the outcome would be.

But what I've said is a largely philosophical deviation from the conversation. In other words - I don't think it matters much. -- LostInRiverview ^{talk ~ blog} 01:27, October 31, 2013 (UTC)

The process of removing one's rights is something that is a very serious undertaking and should only really be carried out as an absolute last resort. I think the reason it's never been discussed is because we've never had to go through that on the grounds of rights abuse or something along those lines (god forbid we ever actually have to go through such a display of class-A wiki drama). Given the nature of RfA/RfB, and probably RfCM/RfIRCOp too, somebody wishing to pursue the removal of somebody's high-level user rights probably should propose that in the form of a community discussion (a proposal of which consists a very strong argument) and then it just goes from there. Rollback is probably a different story given that handing it out is more discretion-based but I won't go into that now. Removing a user right out of the blue, unless in dire circumstances (like a mass blocking spree as a random example), would go down as rights abuse in itself.

Given that the chat moderator right has the ability to alter a user's access to Chat, I would prefer that admins can't remove the right based on the weight it carries. However, I believe if we can trust admins with their current toolset and to determine consensus in handing out chatmod rights, there's probably no doubt they wouldn't do the right thing should the need to revoke the chatmod rights ever arise. As such, I wouldn't mind if admins were able to remove the right and am generally in support of this. Lost Labyrinth • (c) • (b) 18:52, October 31, 2013 (UTC)

Bump. Let's try and get this discussion back on track so we can reach a solution soon. I'd strongly appreciate if regulars on both Chat and IRC would pitch in as it would speed up the discussion process and we will be able to draw a consensus. I have closed and locked RfIRCOPs while we discuss this, so we can rollout changes to both requests pages at once, but right now we really need to get this discussion rolling. Lost Labyrinth • (c) • (b)

I don't mind allowing admins to remove the right of chat mod from one who has this right. I am also staying put on my thoughts of the discussion period on a nomination lasting 3-5 days. As for a cooldown period, well, I have been thinking about this for some quite time and I guess, after some deep thought and confliction, there is no need for a cooldown period as request pages like Chat Mod and whatnot are expected to have high activity, even after a request has been dealt with. Beds ^{(parlare - da leggere)} 13:11, November 12, 2013 (UTC)

Okay, so, since this section was put up we've had very little development with this discussion. I was going to try and draw a consensus based on what the four users who actually bothered to get involved with this thread weighed in. However there are a few things we're yet to agree on properly before such a closure can be undertaken. This is what I've drawn up so far:

• Consensus for a discussion-style system to be put in place is favourable.
• Loosening the requirements for activity - still needs to be properly discussed.
• Shortening the discussion period to 3-5 days seems favourable. I'd recommend something like "a minimum of 3 days" and should there be no consensus on a request, 5 days. I think this is a fair compromise.
• Consensus for allowing admins to grant and revoke the right as necessary on Chat is favourable.
• Consensus for a cooldown period is unfavourable.
• Also applying these changes to RfIRCOp is favourable.
• No consensus on allowing admins to hand out the op right on IRC.

From here on, we should discuss activity requirements to get involved with the discussion, the proposed 3-5 days compromise and whether admins on IRC should be able to hand out the right. Hopefully within the next few days we can draw this long-standing issue to a close. Lost Labyrinth • (c) • (b) 16:51, November 15, 2013 (UTC)

Conclusion

It's time to put this matter to bed. Lab has pretty much summed up the outcomes of this discussion, and with only a couple minor questions left unanswered, I don't have any hesitation about implementing what has been agreed to so far, namely:

• Op and Mod promotions will be discussion based, just as RfA and RfB are.
• Promotion discussions will last at least three days. In keeping with the pattern set by RfA/RfB, I'll set the "deadline" for discussion to six days (RfA/RfB have a 5 minimum - 10 maximum rule). I don't imagine this to be a major sticking point as it's really only a day, but we can discuss it if necessary.
• Administrators will be able to promote users to Chat moderator.

We also decided against a cooldown period on requests. As well, we did not find one way or the other regarding whether admins would be able to promote/demote IRC operators, but in the spirit of wrapping this thread up (at long last), I'm going to call that discussion dead and just take what we have so far. If any of the above-mentioned points needs further discussion, it can be done in another thread.

As the discussion here has long since ceased and the points have been resolved, I'll be implementing the changes and re-opening the requests pages at once.

-- LostInRiverview ^{talk ~ blog} 07:35, December 7, 2013 (UTC)