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Do you have any further reading for the limit on the scope of the community's action you mentioned? –xeno^talk 02:00, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I did not keep track of the discussion I recall. (I didn't plan on ever having to refer to it.) In my memory, the community discussed if it could ban an administrator from using administrative tools. The consensus was that it would be equivalent to removing administrative privileges entirely, and so lay within the scope of the administrators policy pertaining to removing administrative privileges and the arbitration policy. From a practical perspective, I feel the sentiment was that the community shouldn't try to backdoor a desysopping procedure, but explicitly enact one. After all, if a sanctioned admin decided the procedure was invalid, a case request would end up in front of the arbitration committee anyway to resolve.

I won't discount the possibility I'm misremembering the arguments expressed. I suspect I would have remembered if a different conclusion was reached, but again, I could be wrong. isaacl (talk) 02:27, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You may well be right, I was just curious to read it. –xeno^talk 03:07, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I found these discussions that touched on banning an administrator from one particular administrative action. Voices were expressed on both sides; below is a highly selective list (just names that caught my eye). The latter two discussions were regarding specific events and so of course untangling the reasons for supporting/not supporting is more difficult.

• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive251 § Is the community free to restrict an admin's use of some but not all admin tools? — supporters included NewYorkBrad, Salvio Giuliano, and Risker (some by reference to links in other discussions), Dennis Brown (but see later discussion), VanIsaac, the editor currently known as Lepricavark. Against included NuclearWarfare, BeyondMyKen, Apteva. GiantSnowman and Kudpung felt if there was an issue warranting banning one action, then the validity of holding the entire toolset should be examined.
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive821 § Jclemens restriction — several supports; these are just a few opposes based on the general principle
  • Bbb23: Except in the case of an emergency, only ArbCom can desysop someone. A community restriction on the use of an administrator's tools is an end run around the rule.
  • Cas Liber: ... I can't imagine a restriction like this being compatible with holding adminship. The arbitration committee is the place for review of tool use, which is where this should go.
  • Black Kite: Wrong venue, and far too messy and vague. Needs to go to ArbCom...
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive276 § Ban Ritchie333 from unblocking — again several supports; some dissents based on principle:
  • Beeblebrox: The other reason is that I am opposed to the very idea of banning an admin from using one particular tool while retaining all the others. Either we trust a user to be an admin, or we do not. If you can prove a pattern of tool misuse, take it to arbcom.
  • Dennis Brown: I would note that Arb has been given the authority to issue sanction for admin abuse, not the community, and it has always been reserved for them. No admin has ever had their tools limited by Arb, at least that I'm aware of. ie: If you want to remove some of his tools, you have to remove all of them, and Arb is where you file. We tried to pass admin sanction policies before (I wrote one of them, WP:RAS) but the community has soundly rejected the idea in the past. So my take is, even if it were to pass here, it has no authority because the community has already rejecting giving itself that authority in the past, many times. So, vote your hearts out, but it isn't enforceable until it goes to Arb.

← Thanks, these are good reading (you might also be interested in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/RHaworth/Proposed decision#RHaworth prohibited from performing deletions, where Beeblebrox stays true to the 2015 remark above!). It shows that the issue is far from settled, and it doesn't look like it's been taken up by the community otherwise since admins became unable to unblock themselves. I'm still trying to recall admin blocks that happened even further prior to 2013; any where an administrator was blocked for "overall" reasons, not specific to a particular tool or form of use: an indefinitely blocked administrator is desysopped in all but name. Maybe it never happened? Absent that, Lourdes I think you're right in that: it's never been done per se. –xeno^talk 19:16, 2 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

All of these deal with banning from a particular action and not the entire toolset. I think if the community ever attempted to ban use of all administrative privileges, the administrators policy would get modified at the same time, and the community would have to accept or reject both together, as policy is supposed to be descriptive of practice. isaacl (talk) 19:31, 2 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks xeno, would be good if you write this also on the desysop proposal page for other readers' benefit. Thanks, Lourdes 03:45, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Lourdes: I still want to research "admins being blocked as admins" (from earlier than these) and see if any of those led to users being compelled to shed the tools, as that is the form I am thinking about (not a case of trying to restrict specific tools in the set). After that I can update the thread with the precedent (or lack, if I’ve misremembered this ever happening). –xeno^talk 13:00, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

WP:ADMINBOTs had to come out of the shadows instead of being a semi-open secret. Also brings to mind the curious case of the admin who stopped communicating one day, yet kept on reverting and blocking (sometimes inappropriately). Although they were removed by arbcom motion, the community could have also ended the non-communicative spree via blocking. (I always wondered if they would have unblocked themselves for fear of falling asleep) –xeno^talk 03:13, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply

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For the record, I don't think No admin has ever had their tools limited by Arb is true. See here re David Gerard's use of admin tools. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:26, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Another counter-example was given below Dennis's statement; I chose not to edit that portion out of his comments as it's tangential to the issue of the community issuing a ban on a specific type of administrative action (which in turn is a step away from a ban on all admin actions, which is the original topic of this thread). isaacl (talk) 15:45, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]