Board Thread:Site Discussions/@comment-1272757-20131112003859/@comment-3416945-20131112012157

Kagimizu wrote: Bullet Francisco wrote: They can get the rights back if and when they return to activity, as it is clearly stated. They are demoted to remove them from Special:Listusers/sysop, not to threaten them to be active or to punish them for being inactive.

While it may not be the intent, that's basically how it happens. If they're inactive then no matter what good they've done, they fall under risk of being demoted and are forced to re-earn their privileges. This is even if the only thing they've done wrong is not being active on the site. Regardless of the intent, when you boil it down it very much does sound like a threat for punishment if an admin or crat aren't active enough.

And if the matter is to remove them from the Listusers/sysop, then the matter of marking them as Inactive should more or less suffice. People immediately go to their userpage/usertalk and see that the admin/crat is at the moment uninvolved with the site, and that they need to go to someone else if they need advice or help.

The simple fact is, these people can be inactive for any number of reasons. School could be taking up all of their time. Their could be issues or even tragedy among the family. They may not be able to access the internet. All of these can give a reasonable explanation for a person's inactivity. And that's not even taken into account what the User may have accomplished or done for the site as an admin or 'crat. Because of that, I believe that this alternative accomplishes largely the same goals while remaining respectful to the User, their accomplishments, and whatever situations may be preventing their activity. Once they return, their competency can be examined and/or questioned, and if need be THEN they can be demoted.

How does it sound like a threat? They don't even need to re-earn their rights. When they begin editing and confirm that they plan on editing long-term, they will be re-granted their rights. Marking them inactive does not suffice because userpages are separate from the Listusers page. We give the users in question two weeks to respond, we promise them that if they return they will be re-granted their rights, and we thank them for their service.