Rich Holton wrote:
It's important to de-sysop (without prejudice) the inactive. Otherwise we're deceiving ourselves about how many sysops we have.
I agree with this, but I don't agree to having sysops re-voted-on and re-elected every 6 months. It should be possible by software to determine inactive sysops and de-sysop them without inconveniencing active sysops so much.
If indeed being a sysop is "no big deal" as it says on [[wikipedia:Administrators]] ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators]), then being voted out as one should also be "no big deal", right?
That page only says it to reduce the amount of hard feelings and resulting flaming a little. In practice, however, it *is* a big deal in the sense that sysop status is seen as an elevated status or a position of authority, consciously or not. I'm sure many sysops also feel slightly more powerful or influential than they did before they were sysopped, even though few will admit it. De-sysopping for such a frivolous reason is thus likely to cause hard feelings for the ex-sysop in question.
If we are short on good sysops, let's make sure that it is understood that being a sysop is a service to the community, not a power trip.
We are trying to, but I don't think that's really possible. We cannot deny that sysops have additional privileges (that's the whole point). This, almost by definition, triggers what I have outlined above.
Timwi