Wikinews:Permission expiry policy

This is an official policy on English Wikinews. It has wide acceptance and is considered a standard for all users to follow. Changes to this page must reflect consensus. If in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

Shortcut: WN:PeP

Policies and Guidelines

Neutral point of view Content guide Style guide

Ignore all rules

Administrators

For Wikipedians

Accreditation Archive conventions Avoid weasel words Blocking Bots CheckUsers Cite sources Conflict of interest Copyright Dispute resolution Deletion Speedy deletion Don't disrupt Wikinews to illustrate a point Fair use Global permissions Image use Naming conventions Newsworthiness Oversight Original reporting Permission expiry Page protection Reviewing Three reverts Username

Etiquette

The permission expiry policy allows some advanced permissions to be removed due to inactivity/lack of use.

Introduction

Any wiki project changes over time. The community's consensus moves; rules and policies evolve, and methods of carrying out tasks change. Thus any individual entrusted with advanced permissions who becomes inactive, or does not use a permission over a prolonged period of time, ceases to be familiar with current practice.

Unused advanced accounts also pose a security risk through an increased attack surface. Good security practice dictates such accounts should have unused permissions removed.

A similar policy has been enacted for most Wikimedia projects, although this policy takes precedence for English Wikinews.

Application of the policy

The following table summarises the policy's rules governing permission removal.

Permission	Status	action to be taken
Bureaucrat	No edits in past 2 years	Request steward to downgrade to admin[1]
Administrator	No edits in past 2 years	Downgrade to 'normal' user
Either of the above	No use of either permission in past 2 years	Downgrade, or permission removed[1]
Reviewer	No reviewer actions in past 2 years[2]	Reviewer permission removed
Accredited	No edits in past 2 years	Moved to inactive list

1. Once a bureaucrat is downgraded to administrator, the clock starts for inactivity as an administrator.
2. A not-ready review via the Easy Peer Review tool is a reviewer action, although it does not appear in Special:Log/review.
3. Users in the CheckUser and Oversight groups are covered by relevant global policies.

Notifying affected users

To avoid conflict, a note should be left on the talk page of any user who loses permissions under the policy. This should explain the permission has been revoked due to lack of use; not as a reflection of, or comment on, the user's standing in the community. See: {{PeP applied}}; feel free to add a personalised encouragement for people to re-involve themselves when using this template.

Regaining permissions

Reasonable re-granting of permissions revoked due to lack of use should be less-onerous than initially obtaining the permission. A period of re-acclimation with the project, being active, becoming familiar with current policies and observing current use of said permissions may be followed with fast-tracked request for the rights to be reinstated.

• To qualify for fast-track reinstatement, the user must be in good standing; the permission in question must have been removed only for inactivity/lack of use per this policy; and the user must have actually used the permission before its removal.
• If at least two users currently trusted with similar or greater permissions support reinstating the permission, and the request has been open for a couple of days with no doubts expressed nor expected, there's understood to be no need to keep it open longer.