User:Hammersoft/Recall

These are my standards, oaths, criteria, and comments regarding recall:

Philosophy

1. I will respect and adhere to WP:ADMINCOND and WP:ADMINACCT in all respects regarding the community. Together, these portions of the Administrator Policy form the backbone of a conduct covenant administrators commit to for the community.
2. Administrators work on behalf of the community. As I've noted at my Principle #1, administrators are not above editors. Becoming an administrator is not a promotion. It is only an agreement to do additional work for the project on behalf of the community. It is not a special status that elevates someone above editors, nor does it grant more status in any discussions or decisions.
3. No administrator should ever find themselves at ArbCom over a decision they made as an administrator. Administrators are experienced editors and should realize beforehand when an action will be a mistake. Administrators are of course human, and will make mistakes from time to time. If they find they did make a mistake, they should rapidly fix it.
4. If an administrator has violated this philosophy to such an extent that they have lost the trust of the community, it should be readily apparent to them long before any situation is elevated to the point of an accepted, open case before ArbCom. Any administrator in such a situation should voluntarily step down, regardless of whatever criteria they may have for recall.

Oaths

I will adhere to WP:ADMIN in all respects with regards to the community. I will never use administrator tools...

1. to support any position I take,
2. to unblock myself if I should ever be blocked,
3. to wheel war,
4. to violate someone's privacy,

...nor in any way that would cause harm or disrepute to the project.

Change

It has become painfully apparent that the current situation on the project is that an administrator need but make one mistake and their time as an administrator is over. The arbitration committee has become complicit in this situation in that any case regarding administrator conduct that is brought to them results in the administrator in question having their privileges removed.

There are some realities to consider in this;

• My recall criteria was used once with regards to me, and the escalation of the process was very, very swift. I was also attacked and bludgeoned with my own criteria. I judged poorly in developing the criteria, and was even warned beforehand that it was likely to be abused. While I think criteria could be written to allow a recall process that has some measure of process and logical progression to it, it has become very apparent to me that the process I have written is easily abused.
• ArbCom and its processes are horribly abusive. I fought for years to produce a number of reforms, gaining little traction in doing so. It wasn't without success, but what little traction I was able to gain has resulted in no significant change. If ArbCom were thought of as an editor, they would have been banned from the project a long time ago for routinely ignoring and violating policy and guideline at the expense of a great many editors on the project, both past and present. Violating policy is just the tip of the iceberg of the abuses ArbCom has inflicted on the community.
• As noted in a section below, the idea of recall is a failed one. While theoretically nice on paper, it has been such a nebulous idea since conception that applying it is fraught with difficulties,whether I write the criteria or various other administrators write their own criteria. It doesn't work, isn't working, and isn't going to work.
• I became an administrator because I saw the continuing decline in adminship and I felt it wrong for me to sit on the sidelines when I felt I could do the work. I thought I could benefit the project more, given the experience I had, in becoming an administrator. I was very, very well aware that becoming an administrator meant I was putting a bright target on my back. I've been an administrator now for 3.5 years. In that time the tenor of the society here on Wikipedia has changed, and it is no longer enough to be acting in good faith, to be trying to do the best you can with the knowledge and experience you have. Now, you have to be perfect in thought, word, deed, and even more perfect in your response to even the slightest hint of accusation about your work or it will be used against you by the community and ArbCom. This problem isn't getting better. It's getting worse.

I am therefore;

• Withdrawing my prior recall criteria. I have come to this conclusion after more than a year of consideration as to what to do and how to do it. I don't have any good answers. The answer I have with regards to my prior criteria is to not use them. With recognition of what I said above that this is a very far from perfect move, if someone wants to raise a big enough issue with me withdrawing my prior criteria and finds enough support in the community to demonize me for it, then I'll resign.
• Refusing to participate in any ArbCom case brought against me regarding my privileges as an administrator. Yes, this is a direct violation of WP:ADMINACCT. It is clear from recent behavior of ArbCom that participating in such cases will do nothing but make things worse, and such cases result in admin privileges being removed anyway. Thus, participation is a moot point. I refuse to recognize ArbCom having any authority over my time that I volunteer any more than I can force them to spend their time in any particular way. They do have authority to remove my admin privileges, but I do not have to consent to their abuse nor lend credence to their abusive processes by participating in it. Under the current paradigm, anyone bringing an administrator misconduct case to ArbCom has their case accepted and the case always concludes with the admin privileges being removed. Though I do not recognize ArbCom's authority over my time, I do recognize the colossal waste of time such cases represent for the editors who are involved. Out of respect for their time, if someone files a case against me that appears to have traction (not based on arbitrators voting to accept the case, but based on comments of the community), I'll resign. I remain utterly committed to adhering to all aspects of WP:ADMINACCT outside of ArbCom. If someone wants to raise a big enough issue with me refusing to comply with the ArbCom aspect of WP:ADMINACCT and finds enough support in the community to demonize me for it, I'll resign. I will say though that such a protest against me would be highly ironic given that ArbCom routinely violates WP:ADMINCOND.
• Continuing to respect the community. I acknowledge and accept that in acting as an administrator, I do so at the will of the community as expressed at my RfA. I don't have any special powers. I have some privileges to do things entirely granted by the community. The authority to do so rests entirely with the community. I will, acting in good faith, resign if I think the community has lost trust in me to act on their behalf in using administrator privileges. I am not and never will be above the community. I am part of it.

With the above in mind, it should be clear that there are criteria involved here, and I will continue to act at the behest of the community as I have always done, and in particular with regards to using the admin tool set.

Former criteria

These criteria should not be necessary, as a self evaluation should make it clear to a person when they have lost the trust of the community. If for some reason that is not the case, I commit to the following criteria:

1. Communication is key; if you feel that I have acted inappropriately, discuss the issue with me first. As with all things, I will be responsive.
2. If that does not resolve the issue, elevate the issue to WP:AN/I. I will participate in the discussion.
3. If during that discussion it becomes apparent that I have acted inappropriately and violated the community's trust in using the tools, I will likely voluntarily step down without further action.
4. If in the unlikely scenario that I have violated the community's trust, haven't stepped down, and five or more editors in good standing (see note below) agree that I acted inappropriately and violated the community's trust, I will step down.
5. If after all that (we're in six sigma territory here) I don't step down, and a case is accepted to ArbCom regarding my administrative conduct, I will step down. However, this is extreme. I would be heartily embarrassed to find myself before ArbCom somehow believing I was in the right when it is so apparent I was in the wrong. I would step down long before it ever came to that.

Note: Definition of "in good standing": extended confirmed, not blocked in the last six months and never blocked by me), with at least two of those five being administrators.

Comments

WP:RECALL is a curious thing. using data from this list, it has been around since 2006. There have been 26 requests, but only eight of them have been successful. There have been no successful requests in 10 years, and no requests at all in three years. Of the last 27 successful RfAs (as of January, 2022) the question about whether a nominee would be open to recall has been asked 17 times (63%). Whenever the question is asked, all nominees have agreed to it. In practice, not all such nominees added themselves to the recall category, and of those 17 only five created a recall page akin to this one that lays out the criteria. Of course, creating a criteria page is not required.

There is no requirement to be open to recall, though not agreeing to it if asked would likely be seen in a very negative light (and rightfully so). There is no established procedure that everyone should follow, though there is a sample process. There are no direct repercussions to not following the process if someone agrees to it and it is used. There is no negative impact to not creating a criteria page such as this one, and no negative impact to not adding oneself to the recall category. So why do we have it? Recall seems to be like a stop sign that is old, rusted, half falling over, riddled with holes, and situated on a disused off ramp that hasn't seen a car pass by it in eight years.