Board Thread:Site Discussions/@comment-1272757-20131112003859/@comment-1272757-20131120024059

Shelly's sudden demotion is what spurred me to come up with this suggestion, but it wasn't the sole contributing factor. It was also my personal experiences with the current system and the suggestion on SFW, which I linked. The suggestion was taken very quickly and besides the userlist/sysop matter, there is virtually no downside. Unless I'm mistaken the userlist does indeed show how long it's been since a user edited, so a User smart enough to find that list will also be smart enough to check their activity. Pretty much all of the current admins and the ones demoted through this system are people who would never, EVER abuse their rights. I don't think I was even aware of that discussion; while I am active somewhat regularly there are periods where I miss out.

Also, there are some actual issues with the current system. As I said before, there's the issue of how it feels like a punishment, as I can speak from personal experience. Also, we're forgetting about how people who haven't been on in quite some time would have absolutely no idea about any changes or progressions on the site. The current system is also lacking clarification, as is proven by the fact that people can simply ask for their admin rights to be returned after becoming more active was not well-known among even the active community. If that's the case, how can you expect someone who's been away from the wiki for quite some time to be aware of that? By demoting them, it removes most of their responsibility, which itself gives incentive to return to the wiki. It more or less encourages them to continue being inactive, or just retire completely. I know at least two people who seriously thought about doing just that after being demoted. It may not actually BE punishment, but I'm sure we have all experienced incidents where something did indeed FEEL like we were being punished.