Wikivoyage:User rights nominations

If you believe a Wikivoyager – including yourself – should have administrative status or any other higher user right, then add that person's username to the nominations section below.

If nominated for permanent administrator, the Wikivoyager should meet the guidelines for becoming an administrator. Generally speaking, they should:

  • Have been a contributor for at least a few months
  • Have an extensive knowledge of our policies
  • Have a history of article contribution, janitorial work, cleaning up articles, contributing to policy discussions, and combating vandalism/spam
  • Have a demonstrated ability to work with the community

Nominations must include a short statement outlining the nominee's eligibility in terms of these requirements.

When responding to a nomination, most people choose to express their opinion with a bolded word or phrase, most often Support or Not yet, followed by an explanation of the opinion. After 14 days, a bureaucrat will close the discussion and, if there is a consensus that the nominee would make a good administrator, grant the administrator flag using Special:UserRights.

Bureaucrats, interface admins and checkusers should also be nominated here.

Users running for interface administrator must also confirm that they have 2FA enabled before they are promoted as per WMF policy. If this is not done, the request will be closed as unsuccessful.

Temporary permissions

Most requests on this page will go for 14 days and all will have a nomination period of 14 days, with the exception of temporary permissions, which may be granted no earlier than 7 days after the nomination was made if there are no outstanding questions or objections. An objection or question raised on the sixth day would automatically keep the nomination open (without temporary permission) for the full 14 days unless the matter was resolved before then. The nomination would always be open for 14 days so in some cases editors could comment after they have seen a couple of days of use of the temporary permission.

Nominations

[edit source]

Koavf (sysop)

[edit source]

Hello, everyone!

At a time where we seem to have ever-increasingly fewer active admins, the need for more admins who have a core fundamental understanding of the project is critical. Koavf, for one, is well versed and accustomed to this site's policies and practices. They've been an admin on various editions of Wikitravel (though it seems they're no longer an admin there due to IB doing IB stuff), an admin and checkuser on Wikispecies, in addition to being an admin on enwiktionary, mulwikisource, enwikiversity, Wikitech and Wikimedia Outreach. They're also a global rollbacker for added measure.

They've already accepted the nomination on their talk page. //shb (t | c | m) 02:29, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support as nominator. //shb (t | c | m) 02:29, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi, Koavf, and thanks for being willing to grab a broom and dustpan. I can't find the discussions right away, and forgive me if my memory is mistaken, but I believe we've had disagreements about userbans or at least deletion of material added by banned users or socks of same before, notably including users banned for racism and bigotry. Is my memory correct? If so, I would have to oppose this nomination, because having admins who don't believe in enforcing bans on users banned for bigotry adding more material would be corrosive to the site. My other concern would be for you to address your current attitude toward Wikitravel and IB. Are you no longer an admin there because they desysopped you, or did you decide at any point that IB is not a good-faith actor and you should therefore not have continued to associate yourself with them? By the way, how long after the fork did you continue to participate on Wikitravel? All of this is important because admins need to be clearly established not to be potential security risks. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:34, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    The dispute was a little more subtle than that. You and I agree that 1.) bigots have no place here and 2.) blocked users should not edit here until/unless being unblocked. Where we disagreed was that an editor who was blocked for some gross racism came back via an IP and made some innocuous edits and was then discovered and blocked. You argued that we should revert all of those edits and I argued that undoing them does not help the traveler, so we should leave them (they were of the sort "Cafe X closes opens at 8:00 on Thursdays"). If you think that is disqualifying as an admin, then you are, of course, entitled to think that, but it definitely wasn't that I was giving cover for bigots to be here or for any blocked users to keep on editing surreptitiously. I agree that either of those is disqualifying. As for Wikitravel, I mostly deleted spam (probably on the order of a thousand pages) and reverted vandalism for a while until Internet Brands just decided that the only users who could be admins were their employees but also some users who weren't? I think I was the only person de-sysopped and they never told me why. Certainly seems bad faith to me. As for how long after the fork, I just continued occasionally editing there as I had for years. I have made many more actual contributions to this site since it was adopted by the WMF. For the time when I was an admin there, I presented myself as a kind of unofficial liaison to this community, which is where I'm more invested and motivated to do work. I hope that helps. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:13, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I think we should look at relevant threads. Do you remember which articles were nominated for deletion for being added or edited by socks of a banned user or where the discussion was? Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:07, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Also, yes, I think that opposing the deletion of all edits by socks of users after they have been banned for bigotry is disqualifying, because that means that you believe banned users should actually be permitted to effectively not be banned. I'll listen to arguments, but my opening position, at least, is to oppose this nomination. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:11, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Sure. I understand your position and don't want to relitigate it or bicker with you about your vote, but since you solicited the thread, etc. it was Fügen, which was keptdeleted and later created by someone else who is not a banned user and a bunch of poor quality guides that were deleted. To sum up my view at the time, which has not changed:
    I am not arguing in favor of someone being allowed to get around a ban: he's banned and banned with good reason. Ikan Kekek, how are travelers to Fügen helped by us deleting this usable guide? Who would come here looking for information about this destination, find that we had information about it that we deleted, and think, "Wow, I'm definitely being helped"? I am not proposing any change to policy. If someone robs a bank and then gives the money to a children's hospital, you don't take medicine from the children, but you do stop that person from robbing the bank in the future. I can't believe that I have to clarify this, but no one here is advocating that anti-Semitism is okay or that anti-Semites who otherwise make good content should be allowed to have some edits be okay, but just the bigoted ones not be: users who spread vile hate should be blocked. But if they have already contributed useful information to the travel guide and said information does not include their hateful prejudice, then it doesn't help anyone to remove it. If a user here who has been constructive for several years all of the sudden goes on some vile rant about a minority group, we wouldn't retroactively get rid of the good things that person added to free knowledge and culture.
For those who don't want to re-read the entirety of the thread, the added bold was basically the core of my point: removing constructive edits does not help the traveler and the core of our mission is ttcf. I can see how a reasonable person would disagree and I definitely agree in principle that bigots and Nazis should all stay off the Internet and follow their dear leader in the bunker. I just don't see how removing valid, useful material that is objectively true and has nothing to do with hate speech gives this travel guide more utility for travelers. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:07, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
And people who read the discussion will note that you advocated keeping an article started by a sock of a banned user. We have to "relitigate" the case because you are being nominated to be an admin, and admins have to uphold policy and not engage in corrosive arguments that damage the site. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:18, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
By "relitigate" I simply meant that I didn't want to argue with your rationale: you are entitled to it and you have every right to air whatever concerns you have. I am happy to answer questions, etc. and don't want to be defensive or try to cut off criticism at the pass. I am in favor of our current policy and do not propose any change to it. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:22, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
There was nothing retroactive about this. It concerned an article started by a sock of a banned user well after they were banned. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:27, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
By "retroactive", I mean that the article existed and had useful information. Taking that useful information out of the travel guide once it was discovered that the IP address was actually a banned user is not helpful for travelers. The sock didn't start out by announcing that he's a sockpuppet, so it was only after it was discovered that someone proposed deleting useful information due to the personality of who added it. Again, my question stands: if we find out that someone is a sockpuppet after 20 years, do you propose that we go back and remove tens of thousands of useful edits on principle? ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 09:45, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
That's site policy, not merely a proposal. Banned means banned. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:13, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
We have 88 policies. Which of those obliges us to delete material made by banned users? Wikivoyage:Office actions and Wikivoyage:Oversight are about certain kinds of deletion, but not related to banned users. Wikivoyage:Topic bans says nothing about deletion. Wikivoyage:Deletion policy says nothing about banned users. The most appropriate policy page would be Wikivoyage:How to handle unwanted edits and nothing there obliges us to delete all material added by sockpuppets of banned users. Which policy page am I missing or misunderstanding here? ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:28, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The one that was reaffirmed by the thread we've been discussing. Don't try to make this into a personal proposal by me. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:41, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not suggesting that. I'm asking you to link to which of the 88 policy pages we have that obliges us to delete pages created by banned users. I'm a fallible person, I can certainly be ignorant or miss things or not understand things. You wrote that the site's policy is to delete pages created by banned users and I'm asking you which of our policies that is. I have no other agenda. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:52, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Do you recognize that some policies are determined and reaffirmed in discussions on policy pages such as Votes for deletion? Not all settled matters of policy or practice are spelled out otherwise. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:26, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
A general way of doing things can spontaneously emerge and the decision to make a single action like deleting a page can be determined ad hoc by a discussion. Formalizing a policy is done by making a guideline, refining it with consensus, and then finalizing it and adding it to Wikivoyage:Policies. Yes, it is true that due to the consensus at that discussion, admins were obliged to delete that page. Were I am admin, I would delete a page that there was consensus to delete, even if I personally didn't think it should be deleted. There is not a site-wide policy to delete pages created by banned users and that discussion did not make a policy to do so, even if it could be used as precedent for future policy. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 11:31, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
And if such a formal policy were proposed, we would get the same kind of arguments from a few dissenters and damage the site again...nevertheless, much as common law exists that is not spelled out in constitutions, the consensus, reaffirmed several times, is as shown in that thread, and I don't look forward to any possibility of reading rationalizations from a minority of long-term users including an additional admin for why we should let users banned for gross bigotry get around bans in the future. I don't think we'll get a commitment from you not to repeat the arguments you've stated in this thread that you still hold, so why in the world would I as a self-respecting Jew who also takes umbrage at attacks on Africans, Arabs and Muslims support your nomination? Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:46, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I can't answer that for you, but I commit to abiding by, and if given the opportunity, enforcing the site's policies as best as I can and understand them. I remain of the opinion that banned users should not be allowed to get around bans and had a very long conversation about exactly this on en.wikt that got escalated all the way to stewards ultimately intervening because I continued to block a banned user. I do not support banned users contributing directly or by proxy to any wiki where they are blocked. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 11:54, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
But you believe that after some unspecified amount of time, the edits of socks of banned users should be allowed to stand. So just how long a time is that? Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:26, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a matter of time, but utility. If someone adds useful information, I would not be in favor of removing that useful information if I found out that it was added by a banned user. You disagree. I think your perspective is perfectly reasonable and I can understand why someone would have it, particularly in the case of some gross bigot. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 12:28, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Koavf has explained their rationale on the Fügen issue. I do not think that that issue alone is sufficient for denying Wikivoyage the benefit of having another experienced and capable administrator. Sometimes we disagree, and we can talk through these disagreements. Ground Zero (talk) 00:38, 22 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - what's most important is whether Koavf will apply Wikivoyage's existing rules and policies correctly and fairly, which I trust him to do so. I don't see his opinions on an ethical grey area, i.e. should constructive edits made by a banned or bigoted user which benefit the traveller but can be seen as acquiescence to the bigotry be removed in totality, as particularly relevant to how he will perform as an admin. I'm sure he will respect consensus on the issue. Gizza (roam) 02:51, 22 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I agree with GZ and Gizza that differences of opinion are absolutely fine for an admin and that respecting consensus is what's important. Everything I remember of Justin's long edit history on Wikivoyage is that he always respects consensus. Giving him the admin tools will not enable him to change the policy he disagreed with, but it will help Wikivoyage in many other ways. As someone who isn't around as much as I should be, I welcome Justin's willingness to take on some extra responsibilities.
@Koavf: One thing I want to ask you about is your siteban on English Wikipedia (since July 2024). What is your understanding of the reason for your ban, do you agree, and has your mindset changed since then? To my recollection, there have never been similar questions about you on Wikivoyage, and I hope you don't think it unfair of me to bring it up, but I still think it warrants addressing before the community gives you the keys to the big toolbox.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 01:53, 31 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I would characterize the reason as being generally uncivil and difficult (i.e. it was not a matter of the edits as such, but the interactions), I generally agree with the ban and do not think that it's invalid or unjustified, and I would say that my demeanor is more civil now, but that's up to others to validate or contradict. If anyone wants to see the discussion, etc., see here. I don't think it's unfair and if anyone has concerns or questions re: that, I am fine with addressing them. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:22, 31 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your reply and patience while I considered my response. You seem to have good insight. I've been looking at some of your edits on wikis where you're already a sysop, and have seen nothing to be alarmed by. In fact, you'd be a valuable addition to the admin team here.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 04:03, 2 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Support per everyone else. ~2026-33106-46 (talk) 00:42, 4 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Ikan Kekek, ThunderingTyphoons!: Today marks 14 days from the start of the nomination: based on the current discussion, I would consider it a very weak consensus leaning in favor of promotion (5S, 1O, but that 1 oppose was a significant comment). Thoughts on promotion? //shb (t | c | m) 09:47, 4 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
It probably depends how strongly IK feels in opposition. Or have you changed your mind at all based on subsequent comments from Justin and other users? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 02:44, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I have not. I think both their position on articles started by socks of banned users and their functioning as an admin on Wikitravel until IB removed them as such are problematic. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:30, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

See also

[edit source]