Board Thread:Site Discussions/@comment-26409147-20151010155157/@comment-1392727-20151010194301

A 'demotion' on the Sonic News Network:Requests for User Rights page is a proposal made by a user to remove the rights of someone else but that can only passed under consensus.

A renewal gives the community an opportunity to re-consider granting a user rights, but such a discussion can only be made by the user in question.

A demotion would end with "I propose the removal of this user's rights." instead of "What does the community think?". How different would these two be if a renewal can be made by any user? I think, barely. Both still raise doubts about the user in question and both are discussions made for the community to re-consider. I think a demotion is "less safe", harsher and more likely to create conflict because it's written by someone else. So, you're changing what makes renewals safer.