User blog comment:Mira Laime/How to Deal With a Bad Bureaucrat/@comment-26239911-20160301200936/@comment-5558012-20160310135555

Personally, any rule that says someone, or some group, can't be demoted is a bad one. It's important to note that user tools are privileges, not natural rights, and are meant to service the community. Inactive users (I'm talking primarily those 6+ months inactive) no longer serve the community or can't serve it efficiently (lose track of policy changes and actions of users so discussion making becomes compromised). Sure, there's a small chance they could return, but the majority of the long inactive I've ever seen don't come back or edit very rarely. Not demoting inactive users creates the perception that the wiki supports inactivity and top positions become lazy now that they've secured the wiki's highest "rank." In some policies I'm familiar with users actually automatically (without discussion) lose their tools if they've been inactive for x months creating the incentive to stay active helping the community (there's a vote after a Bureaucrat's been inactive for more than six months).

Twelve (or fifteen?) Bureaucrats is a ridiculous number unless the wiki has a very large active community. There are other ways to remember important users. For example, I have custom UserTags that I give to all former Admin that also contain the number of years they edited actively. They also appear in the wiki's history section on the About page.

Just because they've moved on doesn't mean they're bad; the average wiki user isn't a permanent editor so it goes to show they shouldn't retain a position permanently.

As a community member, I'd suggest you create a discussion about the rule specifically and whether it should be removed or changed to a specific time (as stated in the blog Staff will demote them after twelve months of no activity without a discussion). After that, then talk about specific users.