Forum:Removing old user rights

We now have new administrators for this wiki. As part of the recovery from the vandalism by the former administrators, we should verify that the people who were given rights prior to 2011 are still interested in using those rights and will do so in a responsible manner. Some of those people have gone over to the other wiki and some have just drifted away.

You can read the timeline of the vandalism to get an idea of what happened and to see why we're discussing removing user rights. We are going through the process of using a forum for the following reasons:


 * Wikia will need a compelling reason to remove bureaucrat rights and this forum will show them why.
 * One of the accusations against Wikia by the former admins is that Wikia acted unjustly. So, we are going to do this honestly and in the open, so the people who are affected by this cannot say the same about us and we will know we acted properly.
 * Since most of the people below have not actively attacked this wiki, it is fair to notify them and give them a chance to respond.

This is not something that I am proposing casually. I have thought carefully about this for about over two months now and we need to know that our admin staff are trustworthy. —RRabbit42 ( leave a message ) 04:49, December 7, 2011 (UTC)

Definitions

 * Rollback: can undo several edits in a row by the same person.
 * Admin: can block other users, change some user rights, protect pages and delete pages.
 * Bureaucrat: an admin who can change all user rights. (Once bureaucrat rights are added, only Wikia can remove them.)
 * Conflict of interest: the person has been editing on the other wiki. If they have admin rights on the other wiki, it is especially a conflict of interest and not in the best interests of either wiki for them to keep their rights here.
 * Inactivity (less than a year): has edited here sometime during the last 12 months and may not have any malicious intent, but they all have been editing on the new wiki as well.
 * Inactivity (more than a year): they have either lost interest in this wiki or have abandoned their Wikia account altogether. In either case, they may not be interested in keeping their rights, watching over this wiki and helping it grow.
 * Vandalism: actively participated in trying to hurt this wiki.

Another way to think about the conflict of interest is as if they were a player on a sports team. Now, if they were a player for a basketball team and a football team, there might not be a problem because those teams are not directly related and have play during different seasons. A user with special rights on two wikis about the same subject is like being on two football teams at the same time.

However, if a user has admin or bureaucrat rights, that's more along the lines of being a coach. Again, if it was for different types of sports teams that have different seasons, it might not be a proble. But, we have two wikis about the same subject, The Simpsons, and that makes it more akin to a person being the head coach for the New York Jets and the New York Giants football teams at the same time. Even if the owners permitted it, that person wouldn't be able to give either their full effort and there would be the question which one is taking priority.

List of accounts
Important note: except on the accounts specified, none of the people listed participated in the vandalism and some of them actually helped to clean it up while it was happening.

Procedure
Each of the accounts above, with the exception of Ldude893 and SolarBot, will be notified of the intention of removing their user rights. They will be given a chance to make a case why they should keep those rights or to relinquish them. For the accounts that have a conflict of interest, they will have to present a compelling reason why they should be allowed to keep their rights, since dividing their time between two wikis about the same TV show does not benefit them or us.

They will be given until December 31, 2011 to respond. If they log into any Wikia wiki during this time, they will be alerted that there is a message waiting for them here. If they choose not to respond to that message, it will be interpreted as a signal to proceed with removing their rights.

Restoring user rights
If a person has had their user rights removed and they later wish to get them back, they may submit a request to have those rights restored. If the rights were removed due to inactivity and they have not been editing on the other wiki, an administrator may choose to immediately grant the previous rights again.

For users who have had rights removed due to conflict of interest, requests will be considered on a case by case basis. For example, removal of user rights on the other wiki would eliminate the conflict of interest that led to the user rights being recinded here and would weigh in favor of granting those rights again.

Retaining rights
Users who wish to keep their rights should list their reasons here and sign the message.

Surrendering the rigths
Users who decide to give up their rollback, admin and/or bureaucrat rights should enter their request here and sign their name.