Wikipedia talk:Administrative action review

RFC text

From Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2021 review/Proposals:

Create a new process, Wikipedia:Administrative action review (XRV), that will determine whether an editor's specific use of an advanced permission, including the admin tools, is consistent with policy. XRV will use a structured discussion format, open to all editors and closed by an uninvolved administrator, to reach a consensus on whether an action or set of actions is endorsed or not endorsed. Acting on this consensus, if necessary, is deferred to existing processes.

• The goal of XRV is to provide a focused and constructive venue in which admins and other advanced permissions users can be held accountable to the community.
• Any action, or set or related actions, requiring an advanced permission and not already covered by an existing process (e.g. WP:DRV for deletions), may be referred to XRV.
• A structured discussion format, closed by an uninvolved administrator, will be used to reach a consensus on whether the action should be endorsed or not endorsed.
• Participation in XRV is open to all editors.
• The purpose of XRV is solely to reach a consensus on whether the use of the permission was appropriate, not to remove permissions. Acting on that consensus is deferred to existing processes:
  • Individual actions that are not endorsed can be reversed by any editor or administrator;
  • Permissions granted at WP:PERM may be revoked by an administrator if XRV finds them to be misused;
  • Repeated or egregious misuse of permissions may form the basis of an WP:AN, WP:ANI, or WP:RFARB report, as appropriate.

References

Bolded !vote by OP

XMcan, the point of boldface on Endorse or Do not endorse is mainly to make the closer's life a little easier. You've already expressed your overall view in your opening statement, and it'll be counted. You are welcome to elaborate later, but it's misleading to add another bolded statement of your preference. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 20:26, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

OK, FFF. I'm not going to argue about this. I thought my follow-up statement after the 'vote' was pretty clear: "Additional input from an involved editor (also the OP)." Hopefully, the XRV closer is a human being who understands the subtlety of the English language. (Don't outsource this job to AI ;)) XMcan (talk) 20:37, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

If you won't argue, I won't either! Happy editing. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 20:40, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, and by the way, FFF, you have had prior interactions with both me and the editor in question. May I ask why you haven't 'voted' or said anything? (Of course, feel free to ignore this inquiry ;) ) XMcan (talk) 20:54, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I've been following, but I don't have anything to say that hasn't already been said. I do anticipate participating in a follow-up policy/guideline discussion about talk pages of blocked editors. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 20:56, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Archiving of unclosed threads

From the beginning it was decided that all XRV reviews should be formally closed (even if it's just "nothing to do here") and therefore that they should not be archived before being closed. This hasn't come up until now because threads have always been closed before the bot was triggered, but it happened with Wikipedia:Administrative_action_review/Archive_2#Draft:Gumn. Can anyone think of an elegant way to prevent this? – Joe (talk) 08:32, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Could the bot be configured to only archive threads with archive top? 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 08:34, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

User:ClueBot III/ArchiveThis could probably handle that (see WP:REREQ and WP:CR for comparable examples). Extraordinary Writ (talk) 08:43, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

To be more specific: the bot can archive when a template like Archive top is added, but it'll do so immediately (within a day or so) rather than after a waiting period. It's a trade-off: do we want discussions archived after x days of inactivity (meaning unclosed discussions may end up archived) or immediately after the closure template is added (meaning people may not see the closure before it's archived)? Extraordinary Writ (talk) 02:55, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

There seems to be enough people who watch this page (and so few discussions) that I wonder if we could just not have automatic archiving at all and instead just archive threads manually when it feels appropriate to do so. That's how it's done at pages like ARCA where discussions have to be closed before they are archived. In this case you wouldn't have to be a clerk to do so. Maybe we could set a ground rule like "If a thread has been closed for x days, any editor may archive it". Pinguinn 🐧 05:53, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I think something like Pinguinn's idea (my suggestion would be 7 days) is good, perhaps with a note than an admin uninvolved with the actions(s) being discussed can archive sooner if there is some specific reason for doing so. Thryduulf (talk) 23:24, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree this makes the most sense. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 23:38, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

CurryTime7-24

The following discussion 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.

---

CurryTime7-24 is engaging in forms of disruptive editing regarding the Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Farm Colony and Mainland Japan articles solely to suit his personal opinions and ignoring the counterevidence that debunks his claims by obfuscating historical accounts and dismissing a source I provided. See User talk:DaRealPrinceZuko#July 2024 DaRealPrinceZuko (talk) 01:06, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Sigh... other user is talking about this edit; they added Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Farm Colony to a list of territories legally defined by the Empire of Japan as gaichi (constituent external colonies and territories). According to this Kotobank entry, the term specifically referred to territories that were under Japan's legal control prior to its defeat in 1945. The meaning of this term is very narrow. This study on Japanese colonialism by Kan Kimura discusses the 1920 and 1943 laws that legally defined what the naichi ("Japan proper") and gaichi were: this farm is never mentioned. Neither any of the cited sources in the Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Farm Colony article nor elsewhere I checked in a quick web search turned up anything that confirmed the other user's assertion, which seems to be based on their misunderstanding of the term "colony". According to Webster's Dictionary, a "colony" is defined as "an area over which a foreign nation or state extends or maintains control", as well as a "a group of people who settle together in a new place". All evidence makes clear that the latter usage was certainly intended in the naming of this colony.

To be clear, I'd have no problem with this user's edit if they simply provided evidence to prove their assertion that this farm in central California was a legal constituent territory of the Empire of Japan. I'd gladly retract my objections if they did. —CurryTime7-24 (talk) 01:43, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Just realized that the source the other user says I dismissed is this one from the website of Walk the Farm, a Nisei farming organization established in 2011 to assist farmers affected by natural disasters. They do not run the Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Farm Colony (that would be California State Parks). Even if they did, the cited link states that the Japanese immigrants that founded Wakamatsu did so in order to pursue "[their] unique version of the American dream". Nowhere does it say that these settlers sought to establish a gaichi colony for the Empire of Japan, which according to other cited sources in the article they were fleeing because they ended up on the losing side of the Boshin War. CurryTime7-24 (talk) 02:33, 20 July 2024 (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.

Long, multi-section threads, author upfront.

Long, multi-section threads can be hard work to get into. They shouldn’t be discouraged, per se, as they reflect the complainant trying to be organised in their presentation, but it is a problem that they begin anonymously. It takes too much effort to work out who is writing this complaint. I suggest that the start of a new complaint should being with {{User13}} links for the complainant. SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:44, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Having both the complainant and the relevant admin linked right at the top would be beneficial imo. -- asilvering (talk) 15:50, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes. I'm still not a fan of this being split out from the admin noticeboards, but if it is going to exist, it should follow suggested practices from there. WP:AN suggests using Template:Userlinks and Template:Pagelinks. - jc37 07:03, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

I went ahead and copied Template:You should notify any user that you discuss to the page's editing notice, from WP:AN's. It provides all of that. - jc37 07:08, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

I’m a fan of this page. It makes it really easy to complain about admin abuse, and it provides long running proof of its rarity. SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:32, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

I see it as more of an educational tool to foster growth than looking to "place blame." -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 08:36, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

I see DRV and MRV as forums with a large element of continuing education. SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:22, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

@Jc37: User links for the person being complained about have been part of the XRV report template from the beginning and therefore are used more consistently here than at AN. The suggestion here is to add user links for the person who makes the report, which is not something AN does. – Joe (talk) 09:32, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Well, not everyone may use the button on the page to make a report, and besides, that button lists things in comments, without helpful links to explain anything. Looking at other discussions, where's a suggestion to add a link for the admin in question? Again, this should follow the suggested practices from WP:AN, if this is going to be split from it. This is about user behaviour, not content, so it's really not comparable to DRV or MRV in that sense. - jc37 15:03, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

I encourage you to review the (quite extensive) prior discussions that have arrived at the process we have now. This is not a new process, it has existed for three years, it is not split from AN, and it is explicitly modelled on DRV and similar processes per consensus at a well-attended RfC. The template is the only way to start a review given in the instructions and automatically invokes {{User3}} for the user being complained about (which again, is not what SmokeyJoe suggested here).

Looking back through the archived reports, the vast majority have used this template and therefore include user links at the top of the report, so while I don't object to the edit notice it does appear to be a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist and the suggestion that we need to "follow AN" in this regard is somewhat backwards, since the majority of AN/I reports do not include userlinks, even though it is encouraged. – Joe (talk) 17:03, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

I did at the time. And 3 years is a relatively new process on Wikipedia.

And yes, this was split from WP:AN. If this page did not exist, that is where such discussions would be (and still are, for that matter). This is an optional process that some people thought would be an interesting (optional) way to cut down on such discussions there.

Anyway, I don't care that much, as this is an optional process, where pretty much everything here is under the frame of "encouraged".

I'll merely say that yes, it would be nice if editors were encouraged to add editor links at the top. The current template is quite less than adequate in being explanatory, and requires technical experience that a poster here might not have. Expecting someone can fill out a template block, without pretty clear examples and explanations, on a page like this, seems kinda foolish actually. - jc37 17:42, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Long, multi-section threads can be hard work to get into. They shouldn’t be discouraged – I wouldn't rule that out, actually. ArbCom gets along fine with a 500 word limit on case requests and it deals with much more complex matters. 200-300 words should really be more than enough to explain what you think is wrong with a single action. – Joe (talk) 09:49, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Good point, yes. SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:24, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Standardise report headings

I've noticed that a fairly frequent problem with XRV reports is that initiators use long, emotive headings, which runs counter to how we otherwise try to keeps non-judgemental and non-rhetorical via the standardised template. Other structured processes use standardised headings, e.g. the name of the page in a WP:DRV or WP:MRV, the name of the user in an WP:SPI, the name of the original decision in an WP:ARCA. Perhaps we should do the same? Something along the lines of "<Date of action> <type of action> by <performer>"? So, using the last three reports as examples:

• Bbb23's block, revocation of TPA of, and aspersions about Isonomia01 → December 2024 block by Bbb23
• Abuse of authority → November 2024 block by Elli
• Page Mover, out-of-process technical move → October 2024 page move by Maliner

We could generate this from the template with the addition of parameters for date and type of action – which would also have the benefit of reinforcing that only specific types of actions can be reviewed here. – Joe (talk) 11:41, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

I like the idea of the identification of the admin action by date, not by a characterisation of it. Leading with the date seems to lead to a non emotive phrase. SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:28, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree. I think this would be a good idea. - jc37 15:05, 30 December 2024 (UTC)