[WikiEN-l] someone after non-active admin accounts

[Thomas Dalton]

2009/5/21 Carcharoth <carcharothwp at googlemail.com>:
> On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 3:07 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 2009/5/21 Jay Litwyn <brewhaha at freenet.edmonton.ab.ca>:
>>> Nothing is to do here. Adminships, last time I checked, are already subject
>>> to a time-out under admins open to recall. I do not think it matters whether
>>> it's three months, twelve, or fifty months. If that's the length of your
>>> term, then it does not matter if you go into a coma due to a bad batch of
>>> homebrew: You're still an admin. The subject is whether it is ever proper to
>>> hand over accounts. Maybe it's proper to hand an account over to your wife
>>> or secretary; probably common practice. I think there are some
>>> organizational accounts around; they're clearly identified as such. I saw
>>> one that had a specific scope in botanical medicine.
>>
>> The English Wikipedia has never had a policy of desysopping inactive
>> admins whether they are open to recall or not (which far from all
>> admins are). Adminship is for life unless the account is compromised,
>> you do something seriously wrong or you resign. I don't know if there
>> is a specific written policy against handing over account, but I doubt
>> the community would accept such an action, especially for an admin
>> account. It certainly isn't common practice. Role accounts are usually
>> banned on sight. They used to be allowed for certain things, but went
>> out of fashion years ago.
>
> Not strictly true, but they are very limited in what they are used
> for. Mainly for contact purposes.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_contact_role_accounts

I did say "usually". Also, not that that page says all those accounts
should be indefinitely blocked. You aren't allowed to actually *use* a
role account, but they are allowed to exist to make contacting a group
easier in some cases.