Meta talk:Meta-Steward relationship/Rewrite

What's new in this version?

See the diff (although not very useful).

Please compare with WM:MSR for changes. Since the first MSR was created, Meta has changed and increased and I feel MSR no longer works with its current wording. As such I've spent some time trying to update and clarify this guide to make it usable. Relevant changes are:

• It draws a clear line between locally elected users and stewards, specially on CU/OS issues. Actually the Meta community has 7 CUs and 4 OSs to handle local CU/OS issues. It is rather reasonable to let those locally elected people to handle the local stuff while still allowing stewards to use those rights in emergencies or for cross-wiki checks/suppressions & staff/sysadmin people to use the tools for legal or technical reasons when needed.
• Reinforces the requirement for temporary administrators/other right requests to be community approved via the usual local procedure. We request to stop promoting people without following the procedures that this community spent time to desing; unless the promotions are official or legal actions, or mandated by the Board, etc.
• And, most important, it allows stewards to perform a specific set of tasks for which they do not need to apply for local adminship but can use their global access at meta without problems and without local administrator flag. This will allow stewards using their administrative access at meta for obvious countervandalism such as vandal blocking, vandalism deletion and so on; leaving other tasks such as RfH requests for blocks and bans, RfD closures, user renames and the like to regular meta administrators.

This talk page is now open for comments on the proposal. Instead of being extremely bold I'd like to request people to propose changes at this talk page for everybody to comment on those and if consensus is in favor of adding them, we can proceed.

Thanks in advance for your time & comments. —Marco Aurelio (Nihil Prius Fide) 23:09, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

• It's about time for these changes. The concept of forcing stewards to request local adminship here, rather than allowing them to take uncontroversial actions is a silly one, and this rewrite fixes that quite well. Ajraddatz (Talk) 23:29, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
• Nothing revolutionary in the changes, seems to be clarity and reflecting the general wishes of the community as expressed on various active pages. billinghurst sDrewth 13:01, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
• Recent additions of content before this was posted: [1], [2], [3]. I partially disagree with the last one. While it is obvious that stewards will assign permissions nobody else can do, what is an "usual practice"?. I think no user shall set user rights absent a clear policy or community consensus. I also would like that "global in nature" be clarified as it appears a all-in-one clause with potential bypass the locals. —Marco Aurelio (Nihil Prius Fide) 13:14, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
  • On flags, I agree and I have reverted. I'm not sure about the others, either, but the "global in nature" requirement at least makes sense, while local flags are definitely local and shouldn't be touched. Nemo 20:47, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
  • On CentralNotice: I think it shouldn't be allowed (nor explicitly forbidden). It's often controversial, and – albeit of possibly global interest – mostly local process in nature, not stewards' duty so far. Unless the policy on its management changes and we set up a new process, it's better to keep it clear that only local sysops can change it. Nemo 21:04, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
• Stewards are allowed to handle emergency removal of permissions if needed but should an emergency removal of permissions be performed, the action must be noted for further review. What is an emergency (vandalism by an admin account, or even a block in question but by policies), and IMO there are allways enough crats around here.--WizardOfOz ^talk 13:26, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
  • An emergency is one of the following: potentially compromised account (mass-blocking random users, vandalism, &c.), wheel warring, or anything else that is evidently causing disruption to the project. Stewards will always act if needed in these situations to prevent disruption; it is only common sense to act as quickly as possible, no matter how many users may be around. PeterSymonds (talk) 13:41, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
    • Just wondering that this isn´t done on other projects and that there was accepted that a sysop who misused the tools and was desysoped by a steward because of that was promoted in few hours again by an local crat without any comment by stewards. IMO there should be a clear statement in which cases this will happen. Such setence as now written, gives the stewards like you free hands to act in a local community if not specified. --WizardOfOz ^talk 13:51, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
      • That sentence is an obvious addition derived from the Stewards page. Even if not added I think it is common sense that if an administrator or any other user with rights is currently causing serious damage in the project (mass deletion of pages w/o justification; contiued wheel-warring after being asked to stop, etc.) should have their rights removed. In the event stewards do that they must inform at RFH and the action can be reviewed and reversed if needed. If a steward, in bad faith, went ahead and removed permissions from an account without being an absolute emergency I bet that steward will loose their rights in a blink of an eye. I do not think that sentence is giving them (us) a carte blanche to do whatever we want to. On bureaucrats: that we are able to remove rights always disturbed me so much. I'm unconfortable with it and Meta could very well live without that. Getting back on topic it's not very accurate that we always have bureaucrats avalaible. Quite contrary IMHO. What it's not difficult is to find a steward avalaible either at meta or IRC that could have a look at what's happening. Regarding your case of a desyop later undone: we simply can't do nothing, unless the resysopping 'crat is acting in blatant bad faith and his actions damaging the project. Despite having access to nearly all wiki functions, we are not supposed to step (even in this very project) without cause just because we technically can. Regards. —Marco Aurelio (Nihil Prius Fide) 14:22, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
        • Mass deletion of pages w/o justification; contiued wheel-warring after being asked to stop, etc. Agree with that. Why I am asking this, is because of two threats I´ve got before I removed my flags self. Dunno which kind of benefit will it be, if the sysop needs to think about stewards hand on a trigger if he makes mistake. Perhaps it is good to think twice before block, and it is surely, but I´m sure that such wording in the sentence will cause thoughts kind "o he is a friend of x, don´t block him or you will loose your flag". Only thing I mean is a clarification of cases where steward can act beside clear misuse in "emergency". And in the case I wrote above, I can´t see where the point is if a steward remove the flag because of misuse and a local ´crat give it back again. Is the local ´crat than also misusing his tools, or why was the flag removed at all? Think that there is more need to rewrite the Stewards policy than this one. I never had a problem with steward getting flag on meta, and I wrote it several times, but giving them right to desysop beside local ´crats and beside clear misuse is too much in my opinion even if in emergency when local ´crat is not available. About the posibillity of ´crats to remove rights, why not? It is a local matter and they are elected by the local community. About your bet... how much? :D --WizardOfOz ^talk 15:43, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
          • The sentence only allows stewards to remove rights in emergencies. A mistake —as you said above— is not an emergency. Please note that the sentence strictly requires the steward performing the action to justify it at the admin's board. They'd need a very good reason and if they do not have one I would consider it a possible abuse of their steward ops and would act accordingly. This proposed policy does not give stewards right to desysop beyond clear emergencies or self-requests, an already given prerrogative. Thanks. —Marco Aurelio (Nihil Prius Fide) 20:10, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

            I don't see the need to put that sentence here. Meta has 20 crats and they can desysop; it surely doesn't need stewards, not even for emergency deflags. The general rule about emergency deflags implies that the user can't be deflagged locally; it can apply also to wikis which can deflag, I suppose, but it's not obvious and shouldn't be stated here. I suggest to remove this part and frame it within a more general discussion about deflag. Nemo 20:44, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

            To clarify: I suggest to either restore the whole section, or drop it entirely: even the current policy is mostly useless, although it can make sense for temporary sysops, which other wikis normally don't have, and to prevent stewards from closing requests for access in case this happened in the past. Nemo 20:57, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• Nice work, this looks good. –SJ talk   09:37, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Just to note that the version from which I'm seeking comments and approval is this - I politelly ask to stop making changes on that page without consensus. Changing a proposed policy while on discussion is bad. If there's a change to make, propose it here. Thanks. —Marco Aurelio (Nihil Prius Fide) —Marco Aurelio (Nihil Prius Fide) 20:17, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

RFC

Requests for comment/Approval of the rewritten Meta-Steward relationship document as policy. Regards, -- MarcoAurelio (talk) 11:04, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi Marco. Could you clarify what you meant by "desing" in this post. I am guessing that it should be "design". Thanks, John Vandenberg (talk) 22:53, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Hello John. It's indeed a typo. I meant «design» although it'd probably be better «create». Thanks for your comments. Regards. -- MarcoAurelio (talk) 09:39, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Great. Thanks. I've corrected the typo on the RFC. John Vandenberg (talk) 14:41, 14 August 2012 (UTC)