On 23 June 2014 09:48, Steffen Prößdorf steffen.proessdorf@wikimedia.de wrote:
I am absolutely agree with that (also as my personal opinion).
The government allows the very free use of it, the WMF legal staff and the BOT don't think the URAA should be used to delete photos on Commons without office action, but the Commons admins do so. This is a big frustration for all who spend stuff to Commons and their work and time for our projects.
As one of the more experienced Commons contributors, I'm going to spell out a hint. I attempted to highlight this in a more subtle way, before this email discussion went off on various tangents, I guess I was being too British.
FACTS
A. The April 2014 RFC[2] was closed with the firm statement "URAA cannot be used as the sole reason for deletion. Deleted files can be restored after a discussion in COM:UDR."
B. An RFC does not overrule policy, however the RFC does provide a specific community consensus as to the preferred process that must be followed to comply with policy.
C. Admins do not have free reign on Commons to delete whatever they fancy, they can *easily and speedily* (compared to other Wikimedia projects) be de-sysopped if they fail to follow policy or the community (not just other admins) feel they are abusing their powers.[1] Desysop requests can be raised by anyone, anyone can vote in them and a *majority consensus* rules, so "about 50% is sufficient to remove the admin". A preliminary discussion before creating the de-sysop request should be created at AN/U - which gives the admin fingered for disruption an opportunity to walk away or explain how they intent to comply with policy or offer a more harmonious approach.[3]
CONCLUSION
If substantial numbers of Commons community members feel that admins are failing to implement the RFC as stated, possibly by ignoring successful undeletion requests (a community consensus process) and ignoring the specific process agreed in the April RFC, then a single member of the same community (both admins and non-admins, and most readers of this email) can start the de-sysop process for any administrator on the grounds that they are abusing their powers.
Now, rather than moaning on this list, you can stick you head out of the window and start shouting,[4] or you can go to Commons and contribute to this great project.
Links 1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators/De-adminship 2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Massive_restoration_of_deleted_im... 3. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Use... 4. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Network_%28film%29
PS Nobody can de-sysop me, just you try to create a de-sysop request and see what happens. :-)
Fae