Memory Alpha talk:Nominations for administratorship

I would just like to remind our other members that not only present administrators or bureacrats are allowed a vote, but that all registered members are invited to add there comment and votes. That being said, I'm not exactly sure why no feedback is comming in concerning these nominations. I would expect there to be more then just 5 members participating in this discussion. -- Redge 01:04, 24 Jul 2004 (CEST)

Also, I hope to read Michael Warren's response to the reactions to his argument concerning Ottens. That would help get the discussion along. -- Redge 01:27, 24 Jul 2004 (CEST)


 * Could we please get this settled. It seems my nomination has been rejected with one of the admins opposing it. That's fine, but no one has objected Captain Mike's nomination. Is there a certain time limit, or do we have to wait for all admins to vote? Ottens 16:01, 10 Aug 2004 (CEST)


 * Like I said, all registered members can vote, and not just the admins. That being said, I don't understand why nobody will add their comments to this page. What's keeping you guys? -- Redge | Talk 02:11, 11 Aug 2004 (CEST)


 * I removed Ottens' nomination (unresolved after >14 days). Captain Mike's nomination is something Dan and/or Harry have to deal with, though... ;) -- Cid Highwind 22:51, 12 Aug 2004 (CEST)

SmokeDetector47

 * Can I get a second for this nomination, or at least some discussion? -- Dmsdbo 14:00, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
 * This has stood for 7 days. If you have support, you might as well voice it now! -- Dmsdbo 13:29, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Restrictions?
No offense to PRueda29, but we have restrictions concerning the ability to vote on the VfD (where I striked out his vote) and on the FAC page. Is this to apply here too? --Memory 23:21, 19 Dec 2005 (UTC)


 * AureliusKirk too. Roar 23:25, 19 Dec 2005 (UTC)


 * We don't have such restrictions for admin nominations, but while the VfD is some sort of majority vote, we need an unanimous result here, which means that sockpuppets and other ways to influence the result don't have any the same effect here.


 * On second thought, the result can be influenced, but only if a sockpuppet is the only supporting vote with no objections, or a sockpuppet is used to oppose. Both are probably unlikely, but should be thought about. -- Cid Highwind 23:48, 19 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Limits on admins
During Tim Thomason's nomination, Memory raised the question of whether more admin were necessary, and I thought it was worth discussing further. BTW, congrats to Tim on his adminship and sorry I forgot to vote in time. In the future I wonder though, because like featured articles, the question of adminship should be one of the candidate's qualifications and not whether it's the right time or too long or whatever else. To keep something like this from happening perhaps we need a cap on the number of active admin? And active is the key word there - I don't know though, I just want to see what other people think. --Vedek Dukat Talk 08:41, 9 Jan 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think we should limit ourselves on administrators. The policy states "For a wiki, the more administrators that participate in the system, the better," and I tend to agree. Memory Alpha has grown a bit since it started, and the number of administrators has grown as well. If a "cap" is put on the number of admins, we might have a disproportionate ratio someday, especially if some admins leave. I know you said "active admins," but supposedly AJHalliwell will return, and who knows maybe the great Bernd Schneider will show up again, the point is that sometime active admins come back, meaning the cap will be useless. Should another active admin lay low for awhile when an old one comes back? I know you're not suggesting that, it's just that the number of admins who are active or inactive has changed (Gvsualan left and came back and Harry Doddema came back for awhile).
 * Anyway, it should be that if someone is good enough, they should become an admin, regardless of how many there are. As long as the right people are chosen, there shouldn't be any problem if a few extra admins are onboard.--Tim Thomason 10:02, 9 Jan 2006 (UTC)


 * I, too, think that there should be no hard limit to the number of admins. If someone is able and willing, why not? There's work enough, and I guess it wouldn't really be a problem for any of the existing admins to share some of the low profile menial jobs everyone of us does. Of course, if there's no explicit need for another admin at the moment, one might raise the bar a little higher when voting for or against another candidate.
 * Speaking of admin jobs, from some of the recent votes I get the feeling that there's some confusion about what exactly is the job of an admin. In my opinion, it's not the job of an admin to be especially active in adding new content to the database - that's what every user can do. It's not his job to know every little detail about Star Trek - that's what the whole project is about. And although it may be part of the job, admins don't need to be the only ones who go vandal-hunting, be a welcome committee or cleanup subpar pages - again, apart from actually blocking vandals and deleting unwanted pages (after vandalism or moves/merges), every user can and should do that. On top of that, getting admin rights should never be seen as some sort of "reward" for having done any of the above.
 * I believe that all an admin needs is reliability, capacity for teamwork and a good understanding of the explicit (and perhaps even more important, the implicit) rules and guidelines that govern MA. That, of course, can only be judged if the nominee actually has done a good deal of edits over quite some time, but that's only to judge the overall quality of his work, not the quantity itself. -- Cid Highwind 13:04, 9 Jan 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok, imagine this is going on, then we might have 30 admins some day - but we don't have that much to delete and (fortunately) not so much vandal attacks that there is enough work to distribute it to such a number. So if we have enough for the (few) admin tasks, let them be users as they normally are. To become an admin seems to be something like a medal here, and that is not necessary. If someone made a lot of contributions, he can link it from his userpage. --Memory 22:26, 9 Jan 2006 (UTC)


 * Resurrecting this discussion, because the exact same problem still persists. Right now, I had to archive an admin nomination as "failed", because someone opposed the nomination by stating that contributions of the guy in question were "mindless" (apparently as in: grammar checks, formatting, links, template usage - basically a good part of the necessary editorial process), and that the guy did not create "enough" new articles.
 * As was correctly pointed out, nowhere in the admin "job description" does it state that an admin has to be the one running the show, so to speak, by creating at least X articles per week - and I believe it shouldn't state that, because it simply is not part of the admin job. As I already said above, admin rights should not be seen as a reward for "good" work (whatever "good" even means in this context) - instead they simply should be given out to those contributors that can be trusted with them. Since there hasn't been much discussion since my earlier comment, I'm going to move forward with a list of things that I think make someone a good admin. Comment below - after that, we should try to work that into the admin policy somehow...
 * When supporting or opposing an admin nomination, consider:
 * How long has the nominee been active? (Basically, the longer the better, because someone who has been around for quite a while can be expected to know the rules better than someone who just arrived. Most probably, someone who has been here for only a few months shouldn't even be nominated, except in special cases).
 * What did he contribute? (Of course his contributions are a factor to consider, although it shouldn't just be the quantity of it. Instead consider, were most of his contributions, even the minor ones, acceptable, or did they have to be reverted more often than not? This ties into...)
 * Does he know the rules? (There are many necessary rules around, from policies and guidelines to the MoS, or technical functions of MediaWiki. Can we assume that he will act according to these rules at least most of the time, or are there hints about him doing the opposite in his past contributions? Of course this one ties back into the above, because there needs to be a fair amount of contributions to be able to judge someone.)
 * Is he stable? (There are times where there's disagreement about content, guidelines, policies... How are those situations handled by the nominee? This can probably best be judged by his contributions to talk page discussions - we surely don't want someone who throws a hissy fit more often than not...)
 * Comments, further ideas? -- Cid Highwind 09:08, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I think those are all good and valid criteria. The "Is he stable?" consideration really boils down to "Does he play well with others?" This speaks to an overall attitude, I think: diplomatic vs. antagonistic, helpful vs. critical, friendly vs. rude (or terse, or hostile, or any other appropriate adjective), upbeat (or cheerful, or whatever) vs. angry (or negative)... and probably others. This doesn't mean that someone can't have an occasional off day, just that the overall attitute over time is a consistent, positive one. -- Renegade54 17:09, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Voting For Myself
People keep removing my vote for myself, with others changing it back (not me). Do we have a policy on this? Jaz 22:56, 15 Jan 2006 (UTC)


 * For the record, Cid removed it, Memory or Shran put it back, and I re-removed it. The only precedent we have is that Defiant voted for his self-nomination, but the final vote tally didn't include his vote. It's just one of the unwritten rules I guess, but like new users voting, it doesn't ultimately matter because of the unanimity policy. --Vedek Dukat Talk 22:58, 15 Jan 2006 (UTC)


 * Good question. And do we count the number of comments or only the votes called "neutral"? --Memory 23:00, 15 Jan 2006 (UTC)

I don't think any of those are actually votes, just comments, which don't get counted. Jaz 23:01, 15 Jan 2006 (UTC)


 * The precedent Vedek Dukat mentioned was what I had in mind. All other nominees did not vote for themselves. After checking all possible pages, it seems as if this has not been discussed (perhaps shortly via edit summaries). Sorry for creating the impression that it was. However, as mentioned above, it doesn't really matter either way as long as there are other votes, but seems to be an "unwritten rule". Regarding the third count, I don't really know why we do that at all. Counting support and oppose votes gives a good impression of how this nomination is received by the community. Maybe just count "neutral" votes, although I think that is relatively unimportant. -- Cid Highwind 13:56, 16 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Galaxy001 voted for himself too, maybe we should write it down somewhere. --Memory 20:57, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Everyone's vote should be recorded, including the nominee's vote. However, like Vedek Dukat said, it really doesn't matter in this case because it is a unanimous vote and the number of votes doesn't matter. Plus, on the chance that a person didn't want to be an admin, he could oppose himself. Also, a nomination is not technicaly a vote so the nominator still gets to vote. In Jaz's case where he nominated himself, he should still be allowed to record his support vote, even though it doesn't make a difference in the end. --Bp 16:58, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Policy Change
A user has opposed my nomination on the grounds of dissapproving of "my opinions on the war". I'm not really sure what war he's talking about, or what my opinion on it is. As Cid pointed out, we need a policy change. I suggest we change it from "14 days with unnanimous support" to "14 days without valid objections. Jaz talk |undefined 14:38, 2 May 2006 (UTC)


 * In which case we'd still need to define which objections are valid and which aren't. The most basic approach would be to state that "any objection without connection to this project is invalid by default". If someone wants to object with the reasoning that some nominee has a "wrong opinion about the war" (or anything), then it should be explained how exactly this relates to Memory Alpha. That, of course, would mean that any objection with connection would be valid, but I think we could clarify that later if a problem with it comes up.


 * While we're discussing, what is everyone's opinion on self nominations? I think we should avoid them in the future. -- Cid Highwind 14:53, 2 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Cid is right. If the policy changes to only valid objections, then we have to define what is valid. Do we vote on what is a valid objection? and then do we vote on what is a valid objection to an objection? It becomes rediculous. It would be better to change to majority instead of unanimous. I suggets something like "majority with at least 5 votes in favor". The only other option is to give someone the power to judge what is valid and what is not, and that is un-wiki. Personally, I think any objection for any reason should be allowed. On self nominations I am undecided. --Bp 15:07, 2 May 2006 (UTC)


 * A big problem with a non-unanimous vote are sockpuppets. In all other cases of voting, a sockpuppet user can only get an article featured, a single page deleted or similar. Here, one could use sockpuppets to become an admin, with the power to delete, block, etc. I'm absolutely against a non-unanimous vote in this case, didn't mean to suggest something like that in my earlier comment, and don't think that this is even necessary. -- Cid Highwind 15:21, 2 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Good point. Then I vote to keep the policy exactly the same. All opposition is valid. Jaz's nomination fails. Try again next month. --Bp 15:31, 2 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm of the opinion that 1. the policy should be reworded, for clarity, as Cid states, "any objection without connection to this project is invalid by default", 2. the objection to Jaz's nomination is invalid, no matter what the policy states (I oppose because it's Tuesday!) 3. we shouldn't allow self-nominations. -- Renegade54 15:40, 2 May 2006 (UTC)


 * When giving someone power, all opposition is valid. I think Ricimer is just being mischievous, but a objection based on conscience is a valid objection. Jaz can try again next month or he can resolve the issue and ask Ricimer to retract his objection. The rules should stay the same without any judgement on what is a valid objection. It doesn't hurt anything if Jaz does not become an admin this time. Don't try to change the rules to get yourself in. The policy should stay the same. --Bp 16:03, 2 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I disagree... not all opposition is valid. If it doesn't pertain to this project, it isn't (or shouldn't be) valid. As far as admins go, it's not anywhere near any kind of absolute power that's being granted, just an increase in privs. There should be objections that are invalid even if they do pertain to the project; for example, what if I objected because, say, English wasn't his native language, even though he's shown a grasp and proficiency far above most native speakers? Should that be a valid objection? It may be true (i.e. he's not a native speaker), but it has no bearing on the issue at hand (i.e. it doesn't hinder him in any way, shape, or form from doing an excellent job as an admin). I seriously doubt that the framers of the admin policy intended for this type of objection to become a roadblock. -- Renegade54 16:39, 2 May 2006 (UTC)


 * What about just oppose with no argument? Is this a valid vote? The policy does not say that votes are weighed differently on how good the argument is. It doesn't even say there needs to be an argument. The discussion is only to show view points, in the end it is just yes or no.


 * The facts Remain:
 * Jaz can try again next month.
 * Jaz can resolve the issue and ask Ricimer to retract his objection.
 * It doesn't hurt anything if Jaz does not become an admin this time.
 * Defining what is valid and what is not will only lead to future arguments and won't be constructive
 * In the end, it's strait YES or NO, the arguments only serve to help build consensus and explain opinions.
 * The policy should remain the same. Let's wait and see if this becomes a bigger problem before we consider changing a working policy.
 * --Bp 17:40, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I think it is ridiculous that this comment, that was left only to cause mayheim is causing so much disruption. It is not a valid argument, and I do not think I should wait a month simply because one user was trying to be funny. I have left a comment on his talk page, which he has not responded to. If a vandal opposed a nomination would you accept that too? Jaz talk |undefined 22:35, 2 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Here is a IRC chat on this topic with Jaz, Shran, and Bp for the record. --Bp 06:11, 3 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Could any new suggestions (if any) derived from that chat please be added as suggestions here by the contributors that suggested them? Thanks. -- Cid Highwind 07:36, 3 May 2006 (UTC)


 * In summary: Jaz and Shran both agreed that the comment is invalid. I argued that unless it should have been classified as vandalism and reverted, it is valid and should stay. Shran agreed that it is not vandalism. I reminded Shran of one of his own successful opposition arguments, "oppose but i cant explain why. i just feel that this isn't the right time." Jaz asked if a vandal saying "I oppose, I want less people who can block me?" was a valid opposition, and I said yes, I thought it was even more valid than the war one. I still maintain that the argument doesn't matter, only "oppose" by itself is enough, just like "support" by itself is enough. The votes are not weighed by how good the argument is. Shran and Jaz disagree. I also somewhat jokingly refered to Jaz as power hungry as he self nominated and now leads the campain to change the rules to get him in. The only real suggestion was to add a 20 edit qualification to voting. --Bp 14:18, 3 May 2006 (UTC)


 * So, what's up with people ignoring policy as they see fit? Of course, "because of the war" is a stupid reason to oppose, and I'm not even going to start talking about Jaf's comments, but that's why we are having this discussion - not to "get bogged down in politics", but to solve problems once and for all (by adding to the policy, so that next time some wisecrack remark appears in a nomination, we can just ignore it) instead of having to discuss each individual case while basically making a farce of the whole procedure. I'm reverting the recent change to strike those objections again - let us instead get some consensus here, first. -- Cid Highwind 13:16, 3 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree "because of the war" is a stupid reason, but my point is that the reason doesn't matter, oppose=oppose. There is nothing in the policy that says a vote must have an argument with it. The arguments are meaninless at the end count. If it wasn't vandalism, and not reverted, then its valid. And it isnt vandalism, its a silly reason but its well formed and complies with all policies. --Bp 14:18, 3 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it doesn't make any sense to bring up "the policy" in a discussion about possible changes to that policy. Of course it doesn't state that at the moment - that's why there is a discussion to add it, which would otherwise be unnecessary. I also think that it is much more important to read the actual reasons for any of the objections (and, of course, also for the support) than to just count the people that add a one-word comment ("Support"/"Oppose") to a vote. -- Cid Highwind 14:33, 3 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I think just an additional sentence stating that opposing (and supporting) votes should provide a rational explanation for the opposition (or support) in relation to the user's time and work on Memory Alpha, not their political stance or personal likes and dislikes or what-not. Reasons such as the archivist's experience and understanding of the policies, the amount of time they have been here (like my admittedly not-well-defined "too soon" comment), any prior disruptions (vandalism, trolling, harassment, personal attacks), number of edits, and, of course, their overall contribution (or lack thereof) to MA should be taken into account - anything beyond these points is irrelevent and any explanation relating to anything beyond these points is invalid, imho. --From Andoria with Love 14:34, 3 May 2006 (UTC)


 * As far as I am concerned voting should stay unanimous. Changing a policy so one could get rid off difficult oppose voters is not the way to go. As far as argumentation goes I personally believe that an oppose vote should be backed by arguments. This also implies that support votes should be backed, but I am not sure what the best way to go here is. On the other hand I acknowledge that there are times that an oppose might be based on nothing then a feeling. As it is now those are valid. I oppose against that an archivist needs x or y amounts of edits to earn the right to vote here, or anywhere else for that matter. The track-record of a nominee should speak for itself. I think the real issue here is how to deal with 'trolls' in a voting process. Who, as it is now, can block a nomination by simply adding oppose to the list. As far as I am concerned it is common curtesy to visit the nomination page when a vote is placed. In the event of doubtful oppose matters the voter should be formely asked to reply and explain his vote. If this does not happen in lets say 10 days, the vote could be revoked on the bases that the vote might be placed just to harass people. Again, this could be agreed on by several archivists before removal of the vote actually takes place. -- Q 18:42, 3 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I say we use this set up - http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/060502_bee_decision.html

Jaf 19:35, 3 May 2006 (UTC)Jaf


 * Here is my idea: Voting is still unanimous and open to anybody, but if someone objects to the validity of someone else's opposition, such as in this case, they claim how they feel. A vote of only Admins is then held as to whether or not the opposition is "invalid." If majority of the Admins finds it is invalid, then the vote does not count; if majority finds it is not invalid, then it stays. The only problem that I see with this is that it may take too much time--if anyone can object to anyone's opposition, many objections could come up. -Platypus Man | Talk 19:58, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
 * This is the same as an admin-only majority vote. If a vote can be overturned by the majority, then we might as well have a majority vote in the first place, because everyone who supported the nomination will vote to exclude the the vote of the lone objector. There is also the idea that this is a huge problem to deal with. It isn't!! There is no pattern of behavior here, it is a single incident that has become a controversy because the nominee has led a campaign to get the rules changed in his favor. --Bp 21:43, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Lets get this moving
Jaz's motion: I suggest we change it from "14 days with unnanimous support" to "14 days without valid objections."
 * oppose. Except for existing policies that define vandalism, any judgements about the quality of the arguemnt are irrelevent. The opinions only serve to create debate. --Bp 14:18, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I can't quite figure out why you have this stance? The rest of the community, except one trouble-maker all support my nomination, why is it that you side with the troll? This is senseless beuracracy.  "There is no justice so long as justice is absolute" -- Jean-Luc Picard, 2364. Jaz  talk |undefined 18:28, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Btw, support policy change. Jaz talk |undefined 18:34, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
 * gah. I'm not opposed to the nomination or "siding with the troll." (In a very dramatic voice:) I'm siding with THE LAW! I'm opposed to changing the policy. It is simple and working the way it is. You are supporting a short-sighted policy change that will affect all future nominations just so your own nomination, of yourself, will pass. Is that a valid reason to object? You "can't figure out why I have this stance?" I must be really bad at debate because I thought I expressed my position very thoroughly in the several paragarphs I have written. I don't know what to add, I've done the best I can, it wasn't enough. --Bp 21:43, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Self nominations
We discussed this in the past, without any real result. In a recent vote, this was brought up again: Should we continue to allow self-nominations for administratorship, or should we change the rules to disallow that? Discuss! ;) -- Cid Highwind 22:20, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
 * As much as I'd like to nominate myself, I'm against self-nominations personally. I'd say nay on those.  Admittedly, how would people know that you'd be interested though, but that's the way of the world.  Of course, potential to turn it more clique-ish, but whatever.  Just me though. -- Sulfur 03:04, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm not a fan of it. If someone really stands out in their contributions then they will be nominated for their own merit. Take Jorg, for example. --Alan del Beccio 03:21, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

MA-fr administrator needed (from North America)
MA-fr needs a new experienced administrator (speaking french or not) from North America to stop the translater bots. I've discussed about the problem here : IP users translates articles every 2-3 minutes word for word without any formatting. In most case, it is easy to format the article (that's why I didn't delete the whole new articles), but I can't hold a rythm of at least 50 new unformatted articles per day. Most articles are translated from MA-en, but as Kobi pointed out, there are also a few copyright violations from Wikipedia, Memory Beta and other french websites I've noticed (most of those are reverted).

I cannot stay 24 hours per day on my computer. The admin Rcog from Quebec did not show up for a while. And Kobi is european like me. And there is not actually a french active user that could deserve the admin rights (most of potential admin are not enough regular and others aren't enough experienced to take the job). I will probably format and finish all the new pages in a week (most of them are short articles), but those bots must be stopped rapidely, otherwise I couldn't finish these article. The good point is that MA-fr statistics will increase :). - Philoust123 19:16, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Storymaster
What happened to my admin thread?StoryMaster 17:54, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
 * It was archived. -- Renegade54 18:03, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Removing admin status after long inactivity
This seems to be the best place we have at the moment to bring this up.

What would you think of a rule about removing admin status after the contributor has been inactive for a while. Please understand, this is not meant to be a punishment - but with policies, guidelines and the community itself changing over time, I believe that someone who hasn't administrated actively for a while can't really be a good administrator anymore.

For that, please keep in mind that admin rights are not a reward of some kind, but are supposed to be given to active members of the community who can be trusted with them (=because they know how to handle them). "No activity" potentially means "not enough knowledge", or just no interest, to do exactly that.

We'd need to define "inactive" and "for a while", of course. To start the discussion, just some arbitrary suggestions (all values up for discussion):
 * 1) No edit in the last 4 weeks --> inactive, AND/OR
 * 2) Actively administrated at least once during the last 4 weeks --> active, AND/OR
 * 3) At least 50 edits in the last 8 weeks --> active

Opinions? --Cid Highwind 22:47, 22 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I like the idea. One other thing to note is admins that return.  I would suggest (as a kick off point):
 * A returning admin would have to request that the rights be re-added,
 * Demonstrate that they are active (to be determined what that is), and
 * Be approved by two current admins (assuming that there are at least two active admins at that time)


 * Thoughts? -- Sulfur 23:02, 22 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm mixed on this. I wonder if this is in fact not a solution seeking a problem. Have we ever had a returning admin cause problems? We have had returning admins in the past, such as Harry Doddema, and I don't recall any problems when that happened. There has been talk recently about MA having in fact too many rules and regulations, so I think we should be somewhat careful adding more regulations to what may not even be a problem. -- G O  R E D S O X  23:30, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

There are other "problems" than just the hypothetical one of an "old" admin returning and messing up. I'd see this suggestion more as a cleanup task (focussing on the "no interest" part of my initial post): if a past admin no longer has an interest in administrating, then for all intents and purposes, he already is no longer an admin, although we still list him as such. "De-listing" him in this case would help cleaning up the page, would show users what admins really should be contacted, would better show us whether we're in need of a new admin etc. The additional "bonus" of avoiding the unlikely but possible situation of an admin returning after a year to enforce outdated rules would be just that - a bonus that won't hurt anyone. I'm actually a fan of reducing general "instruction creep", but I'm not sure if a guideline as short and precise as this might be would really do more harm than good. We don't need to rush things, though... -- Cid Highwind 08:36, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I never noticed this before, so I guess I'll revive it now. In terms of a time limit, maybe longer than a month is preferred. In my case, I have left for a few months for personal reasons, or because I don't enjoy spending my springs or summers indoors, online, as much as others. I think in cases of users who have been inactive for more than 6 months, then we might have something more to discuss. Take User:Eloquence, User:MinutiaeMan, User:SmokeDetector47, or User:Kobi: they make up 20% of the current administrators/bureaucrats, and they have been inactive anywhere from 7 months to 3 years. Otherwise, an email would be a nice touch just to check in on someone after some time, even just to note a major change in a policy, etc. --Alan 04:01, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't really see the point of this. I have some pretty lengthy absences, usually caused by build-up of work, or very long trips where I don't have much access to internet (on that note, expect me to be gone May, June, and July), but I'd like to think I'm just as useful an admin when I return. --- Jaz 06:14, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe a better policy, would just to have absent admins marked as such when inactive. And in general, we should all try to tell the community when we're going to disappear for a while. --- Jaz 06:19, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Addition to nomination process
I was browsing wikipedia recently and came across a nomination for adminship, where I noticed users were given the chance to ask questions of the nominee to help them come to a decision. I was wondering what the feel is for doing such a thing here on Memory Alpha? --| TrekFan Open a channel 02:31, March 28, 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't think there is anything preventing that from happening now, and I don't think it needs to be specifically written down. Looking at my nomination, I offered to answer questions, but no one asked any.  I think it's less likely to happen here as we're a smaller community where the regular users(who are most likely to be nominated) know each other.--31dot 06:50, March 28, 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess you're right, MA is definately smaller. I does strike me as a good idea though, should a user not know the nominee or wish to ask what they would do after becoming an admin. But like you said, there's nothing stopping anyone from asking questions now, I guess :) --| TrekFan Open a channel 07:11, March 28, 2011 (UTC)

Nomination for Removal of Adminship: "Captainmike"
Believe me, I am not doing this lightly, but User:Captainmike should not be an admin. His attitude towards other users is terrible and he seems intent on making disruptive edits just to satisfy his own personal format. A recent example of this can be found here where he also insulted Cobra with some very harsh words. I apologised to him for removing an edit he made, but in the process of making that edit, he also changed around the coding for no apparent reason. I was polite to him, yet he returned my comments with "Don't blindly delete in the future, you'll do better here" as if he didn't even read what I wrote. I don't know much of his history here, but I believe he has done this in the past judging by some of the user comments on his and other user's talk pages. I don't think he takes his role seriously or acts responsibly on MA. --| TrekFan Open a channel 15:59, April 17, 2011 (UTC)

By the way, my nomination still stands even if Mike is willing to start afresh. If he is willing to put the work in, there is nothing stopping him from being voted to adminship again. --| TrekFan Open a channel 17:07, April 17, 2011 (UTC)


 * I think that continuing this discussion is a big stumbling block to allowing me to make that growth, however. I overreact when I get contradicted or flamed against, and am willing to work on that - but one part of other discussions going on is that to go forward, we need to abandon the baggage of trolling and flaming that has gone on before -- and using this discussion will only serve to dredge it up.


 * While I am nowhere near full-time on this site, I still do make beneficial edits on occasion and some sort of punitive discussion here would halt any beneficial editing on my part in the future, leading to a net loss for the site. There are inactive admins that edit much less often than me that have not been de-adminned for the absence, and there are everyday current admins that also face 'personal attack' style accusations about their attitude upsetting the community without this kind of de-admin focus being placed on them, so there would need to be some sort of decision of exactly what type of situation this punishment is being used against. Am I to be de-adminned for a bad attitude, but other bad attitudes will continue to admin? Or am I to be de-adminned for inactivity, but other inactives continue to retain the status? The double standards possible here could make this a really dismal topic.


 * I'd welcome a hiatus after which point this topic could be revisited if others thought it was necessary (i.e. if i do not improve) -- Captain MKB 18:25, April 17, 2011 (UTC)


 * This could be discussed on the actual page instead of here, even though it deals with the opposite purpose.--31dot 19:18, April 17, 2011 (UTC)