Commons:Administrators/De-adminship

Shortcuts: COM:DEADMIN • COM:DESYSOP

This page is considered an official policy on Wikimedia Commons.

It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that everyone must follow. Except for minor edits (such as fixing typos, or bringing information up to date), please make use of the discussion page to propose changes to this policy.

Activity

The implementation of this part of the policy is dealt with at Commons:Administrators/Inactivity section.

As with the policy for administrator access on Meta, inactive Commons administrators (including those holding bureaucrat, checkuser and oversighter privileges) will have their rights removed. An "inactive admin" is one who has made fewer than 5 admin actions on Commons in the past 6 months. An "admin action" for this purpose is an action requiring use of the admin tools and which is logged as such according to the adminstats tool.

However if an admin places a message on the administrators' noticeboard stating that they will be away for a period of not more than 12 months and giving an intended return date, then no action should be taken over inactivity until two months after that date.

De-adminship process as a result of inactivity

1. A notice must be placed on the inactive admin's talk page linking to this policy and explaining that admin rights may be lost. An email should also be sent. If the admin has indicated by means of a Babel box that they cannot understand English, the message and email should be in a language the admin does understand.
2. If there is no response from the admin requesting retention of rights as required by the notice within 30 days, the rights will be removed.
3. If the admin responds to the notice as required but then fails to make five admin actions within the period of six months starting at the time of the notice, the rights will be removed without further notice.

Administrators who have lost admin rights through inactivity but who expect to become active again may re-apply through the regular process.

De-adminship process as a result of abuse of power

In the rare case that the community feels that an administrator is acting against policy and routinely abusing their status, it may seek de-adminship in the same way as adminship is sought. Please note this process should only be used for serious offenses in which there seems to be some consensus for removal; for individual grievances, please use Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems. De-adminship requests that are opened without prior discussion leading to some consensus for removal may be closed by a bureaucrat as inadmissible. Previous cases may provide some guidance.

Although the process is not a vote, normal standards for determining consensus in an RfA do not apply. Instead, "majority consensus" should be used, whereby any consensus to demote of higher than about 50% is sufficient to remove the admin.

Removal of rights

Where an admin loses rights under this policy, that should be effected by means of a request to a bureaucrat at Bureaucrats' noticeboard. If the admin holds additional advanced rights (bureaucrat, checkuser, oversight), these will also be removed, that should be effected by means of a request to a steward at Meta (local bureaucrats do not have the power, themselves, to remove another user's crat/checkuser/oversight rights). The ex-admin should be notified by a talk page message.

See also

• Successful requests for de-adminship
• Unsuccessful requests for de-adminship