Wikinews:Inactive Policy

This is a proposed policy. You can choose to follow it. If it is followed by all, and has wide community support, it may become an official policy. Please comment on the collaboration page of the policy on any changes you would like to make, or just edit the page directly. References or links to this page should not describe it as "policy".

This policy is to address edit priviledges extended to once active, and now inactive, Accredited Reporters, Administrators, Bureaucrats, Stewards, Checkuser and Oversite members. The purpose of the policy is to remove edit priviledges that were once extended to active community contributors.

A contributor who has been inactive for 9 months will be referred to as a "pensioner". Pensioners may lose edit priviledges through a nomination for their removal in a voting process that would also address abuse.

Wikinews recognizes that reasonable arguments may exist both for, and against, the removal of pensioners, and that each case will have its own character. There should be no taboo against nominating a pensioner for removal due to inactivity.

1. A user requesting removal of a pensioner is obligated to make some effort to contact the pensioner, both through their talk page on some wikimedia project where they are more active, if any, and via wikinews' email facility.
2. A removal vote for a pensioner's will last at least one month because a pensioner may take some time to respond and other users with low activity may have opinions.

All users are asked to accept that :

1. A user who nominates a pensioner for loss of editing privileges is acting in good faith.
2. Users who vote either for or against such a proposal are also acting in good faith, based upon numerous possible arguments either for or against removal of pensioner.
3. Removal or retention by a pensioner is not likely to have a major impact upon the project.
4. An ex-pensioner's past inactivity should not count against them if they rejoin the project.