Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 244

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Striking !votes

Is there a guideline regarding when RFA !votes (or comments posted anywhere else where discussion is supposed to take place, e.g. talk pages) should be struck? I ask because I noticed the controversy regarding whether the only oppose at AustralianRupert's current RFA should be struck and the back-and-forth edits that changed it from being struck to unstruck and back again. Everymorning (talk) 14:48, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

WP RFAV Voting Oppose If you want your vote to be taken seriously by the rest of the community and counted by the closing Bureaucrat, you should qualify your reasons by including diffs of evidence you present. Don't take the candidate's previous actions or comments elsewhere out of context, and do be sure of your facts. If a vote does not make sense, all it will do is make the voter look silly. In some cases, entirely inappropriate votes or comments might be indented or even removed by other editors in good standing - they will certainly be discounted by the closer. — Maile (talk) 15:55, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
That is an essay. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 17:52, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
I would advise against it. It isn't going to matter to the outcome, individual statistics are irrelevant, and you only create a martyr.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:30, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
On the other hand, leaving this kind of "vote" on gives the impression that a) such behaviour is OK and b) that RfA is a free-for-all hellhole. Perceptions matter, after all.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:53, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
That's an abstraction. We already know that striking the vote causes sufficient drama today. If someone had simply responded to that oppose with something like "well, that seems irrelevant and childish" and we moved on, would someone else have said "Oppose per AustralianRupert"? If so, then I'd suggest the two or more should both be struck but leaving the one alone may, in retrospect, have been moved things along instead. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 17:59, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
Expanding on this, leave it alone. I think the continuing AustralianRupert RFA drama is showing that doing anything just encourages more antics and creates an drain of commentary that isn't needed. It's bad enough people are opposed for what they do, now we're seeing oppose for what they don't do. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:52, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Leave them alone Can we please just leave oppose !votes alone? When you see something on this project that you don't like, don't inflate the drama by arguing and striking it out. Just ignore it and move on. There is no reason anyone should be getting upset here. 'Crats aren't stupid. We do not need to react so aggressively with each perceived slight. I get that we want RfA to be a friendlier place to the candidates and our current mindset is that hollow oppose !votes contribute to the hostility there. But let me throw another idea out there: the reaction to oppose !votes also contributes to the hostility. When you see it, have your frustrated feelings but then do an Elsa and let it go.--v/r - TP 01:40, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
  • WP:DENY is mightier than the strike. Leave it for bureaucrats to strike or ignore, or for uninvolved admins to block. Esquivalience t 01:46, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Leave them alone They carry no weight. It is not a huge problem at RfA. We get one or two here and there. If leaving them encourages others and we get swamped with these, we should deal with that then. Silencing disagreeable viewpoints is a slippery slope and there should be a very important reason to do so. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 02:02, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Leave them alone - Crats are smart enough to separate the wheat from the chaff. If they are trolling, you are just feeding them, and getting into a revert fest is more disruptive than just leaving them alone. If they are full of lies or intentionally misleading, you can always post at WP:BN and ask them to remove it. And telling someone they should explain more when they are obviously trolling is truly feeding the trolls. As an aside, it does make it look like you are badgering opposing votes when you fight over them, which isn't good and has been legitimately complained about before. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 02:40, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Leave them alone. I think the only !votes that need to be removed are those of IPs, of socks and those that are so obviously disruptive as to be immediately blockable. All the others are better left in place, even if they are completely boneheaded and WP:DICK-ish, as the original oppose by Engleham was. Such opposes carry no weight will be disregarded by the closing 'crats, and they do not generate follow-up opposes. As noted above, removing them only results in creating martyrs and can in fact produce the kind of drama where there will some RfA participants who take out their frustration on the candidate. That's basically what's happened in AustralianRupert's RfA with the opposes by Basement12 and Quixotic Potato. It is unlikely that these opposes would have ever materialized if the original oppose by Engleham was allowed to stand, but its discussion was moved to the RfA's talkpage. Nsk92 (talk) 03:41, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Leave Echoing many above - unless blatantly disruptive (which should also be redacted), or lacking suffrage (e.g. socks, anons) - there is little to be gained by this. Extended threaded discussions on if a vote is disruptive or a sock should be moved to the talk page as well. — xaosflux Talk 04:06, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Leave them alone crats know enough, that's what they were elected for. Omni Flames let's talk about it 09:41, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Leave them alone, per all the good comments here: 'crats will know what is a valid oppose and what isn't. No comments on the back-and-forth on this particular situation, but not too many of those involved are coming out of it well. AR was wise enough not to get dragged down into it. - SchroCat (talk) 09:49, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Leave them alone and trout those that do the striking. If there is an urge to say something about the oppose, then have a threaded talk or take it to the talk page. Some of this was discussed at a reform AFC. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:00, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
    • I will add that most of the votes that have been struck or redacted really are quite harmless. They are obviously silly, and reasoning weak. However because of their obviousness they can stay, other votors will not be swayed, and the crats can sort out the issue and lack of strength at closing. If there are really offensive or personal attack remarks, they should be redacted, not merely struck off. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 13:16, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment: I disagree very strongly with most of the comments above and find them inconsistent with prior discussions on related issues. There are times when grossly inappropriate votes and comments should indeed be struck out of the tally. One example occurred last month (see Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Maile66#Georgie1995's oppose) in which a one-day-old account opposed an RfA that was passing by a wide margin on the ground of "Because I felt like being different...." I concluded that this was trollish on its face and struck it and no one expressed disagreement with me. Yesterday, an editor cast an oppose !vote whose rationale was so unreasonable and frivolous ("Universal adulation always suggests there's bodies rotting somewhere, and with a vote count that Kim Jong-il might envy, I'll vote nay just to tip a cold bucket of reality over the bedazzled mob, and keep Rupert on his toes. I shan't believe the dingo did it") that I joined with several other editors in striking it out as well. When asked for an explanation, the editor's subsequent comments were even less acceptable, as I've explained to him here. In this sort of extreme situation (and only then), I consider it appropriate and in fact imperative to disallow and discourage this sort of damaging, counterproductive participation in what is already sometimes a difficult and negative-laden process. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:29, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
    @Newyorkbrad: The drama that unfolded as a result of striking this vote added 10x more toxicity to that discussion than the original oppose !vote. I'm not opposed to striking !votes 100% of the time, but I think when it's obvious that it's going to ignite more arguments, that we need to step away. Is not the whole point to remove the toxic element from RfA? Are we not working against ourselves by getting into an edit war over it? Sometimes it's better to just let things be.--v/r - TP 21:00, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
    I would say reverting the striking was the source of the continuing drama. Trolls are reverted and ignored often, the drama comes when someone decides to feed them. HighInBC 21:03, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
    (edit conflict) I have a very serious problem with the idea of leaving the sorts of comments at issue in this instance on an active RfA page. If people know that such comments won't be entertained, the goal is that they won't make them. And the people who fought so hard to keep the transparently insincere oppose vote in place contributed more to the problem than those who sought to keep the RfA page as a place where candidates are treated respectfully. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:07, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
    Then the topic of "But you didn't strike uncommented support votes" comes up. A non-commented vote is the least of our worries. We all know it will get thrown out. That is the very type of vote people need to just leave alone because it IS trolling, and striking or reverting striking, (rinse, repeat) is just feeding the trolls. There is nothing automatically disruptive in a blank vote except the reaction to it. There isn't anything of value in it either, but we have selected Crats to decide those issues. Going vigilante on blank voters is asking for drama when it is so easy to ignore. Blank votes just aren't a good hill to die on. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 21:38, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
    Blank !votes are a different issues from !votes with palpably absurd rationales. A strict parallelism between supports and opposes is also not apt (as a trivial example of this, for awhile I attempted to lighten the mood at RfA by casting all of my support !votes in rhyme, and people seem to have enjoyed it, but if I'd written opposes that way I would have been roundly criticized and rightly so). I am becoming very sad that people seem so willing to leave the RfA experiences of our future administrator colleagues sullied with the kinds of comments that have been struck out in the past but which some of you would be willing to see remain in the future. The two examples I've cited on this page are hardly the worst examples of such things, either, believe me. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:48, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
    @Newyorkbrad: I'd appreciate it if you didn't paint those opposing your position as uncaring. That's a broad stroke of the brush you've just made and I feel like it is intended to silence the rest of us. Just because you hold a different idea of the solution doesn't mean that we don't all know what the problem is.

    In my opinion, there is more harm, stress, and toxicity added to the candidate's plate by the edit waring and the constant back and forth than there would be had the comments been ignored. You can put the blame for that wherever you want, but it doesn't change the outcome. In my opinion, those capable of taking the higher road should take the higher road.--v/r - TP 21:53, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

  • Leaving !votes alone: is both good policy and would have resulted in 99% less drama. Assuming that the vote was indeed trolling, it makes no sense to strike it and thus feed the troll. If it was not trolling, then of course it should not have been stricken. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 17:52, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Be bold but not reckless I agree with Newyorkbrad, sometimes it's useful and can be useful. Sometimes it's not and can be disruptive. Like everything, it can be abused or cause trouble. I don't really understand why this is becoming such a big deal. We shouldn't tie hands as if things are black and white all the time. We have enough experienced users watching these pages to make reasonable decisions most of the time this would be an issue (current circumstances not withstanding). Wugapodes [thɔk] [kantʃɻɪbz] 19:46, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Let uninvolved people decide Clearly I am in the minority on this. Frankly I think this whole thing is due to our past permissiveness of disruption here. This recent issue probably would have gone over better if the striking/reverting was not done by people involved in the debate. HighInBC 21:04, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
  • I would prefer if such votes were kept throughout the RfA, but then discounted in the final tally by the closing crat(s) if they have absolutely no bearing on the candidate's suitability for adminship. I agree with TParis above, that the discussions over those votes caused far more drama than the votes themselves. Ajraddatz (talk) 21:28, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Leave them alone - I to a point think they should be struck however as noted above the crats aren't stupid - They know what's legit & trolling etc so striking & edit warring is pointless, Anywho leave them alone. –Davey2010Talk 21:42, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment. I thought the original question posed by Everymorning was not what should have been done in the Rupert drama, but are there any guidelines generally. I think the answer to that is no, but I could be wrong as I don't participate in many of these discussions. I've always wondered, though, why the 'crats don't take a more active role in enforcing some semblance of order at RfAs. Instead, at the risk of giving offense, they seem to remain aloof and above it all as if to maintain their neutrality, the only thing they can do is decide the outcome.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:16, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Clerking This was widely discussed at WP:RFA2015. I don't believe the issue here is whether the crats are smart enough to know which !votes to weight. The issue here is that some !votes clearly need to be removed not for the purposes of the tally, but because they are disruptive and invite further drama. Mkdwtalk 23:17, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Leave them alone. The drama that striking entails is more disruptive than the absurd oppose itself. It lengthens and complicates following the RfA unnecessarily; that is, increases noise over signal. People (and bureaucrats in particular) are able to spot ridiculous opposes and weigh them as such. This is why it's called a !vote: it's the strength of arguments that count. Having an open process means allowing a wide-range of opinions from the good to the bad. So unless the oppose is really really offensive and disruptive and breaks our behavioral guidelines, just leave it as is. Jason Quinn (talk) 05:55, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Leave them alone as per the excellent comments of Dennis Brown. CassiantoTalk 08:04, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Unless you are a crat, vetted, in part, for the purpose of discounting some RFA votes, do not strike or hat; simply add your own comment to the thread if you must. I would not be against the early hatting of a vote if it is done by a crat; requests can be made at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats'_noticeboard if particularly egregious but leave the redacting to them.--John Cline (talk) 08:51, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
  • I'm keen that the occasional personal attack votes are simply removed. But clearly that needs to be done with due discretion. ϢereSpielChequers 11:39, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
    • "The occasional personal attack votes" are one issue but another, as reflected in the two examples I gave above, are ridiculous comments that are labeled as oppose !votes but that don't really express meaningful opposition to the candidate at all (e.g. "oppose because everyone else is supporting and I feel like being different, even though the candidate is actually great"). This sort of trolling is not a serious contribution to the RfA process and those comments do not belong in the "oppose !votes" section of an RfA because they are not actually oppose !votes. The bottom is line is that when I removed them both they stayed removed (the first instance with no controversy at all) and that was entirely the proper outcome. I am concerned that this thread is going to be cited as a precedent for allowing any and every sort of stray piece of idiocy to remain on the section of the RfA pages meant for sincere opposes to candidates' becoming administrators, and I am wondering if there is a place we can take this discussion for broader input because I do not believe that is an outcome we can live with. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:31, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
      • Newyorkbrad, They stayed removed because you are an ex-Arb and people are less likely to revert you, don't fool yourself into thinking you are Mr. Ordinary in that respect; you aren't. Comparing your ability to make an action stick versus a non-admin or admin is foolish and misleading. If an experienced non-admin had done that, the likelihood of it turning into a revert-fest would have been much higher. This is why I have consistently said that Crats need to be the ones that remove votes. They have been granted by the community the power to be the sole determiners of what is and isn't "a vote" at RFA, outside of vandalism or some other clear policy violation that requires administrative interference. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 15:55, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
        • I haven't wanted to say it, because we're all volunteers and we all have busy lives and other things to do ... but the 'crats have been conspicuously not around this discussion, either on the RfA or here. Worth pinging BN and asking some to chime in? Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:58, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
          • Sure. For a while, they were policing RFA, not sure why they stopped. In general, Crats are rather reclusive creatures, not prone to get involved unless they have to. Generally, this is a good thing, but the question remains "how involved should they be at RFA?". This was part of my point about authority, any removal must be done with enough authority that it will stick unless there is a very good reason it shouldn't. Most generic admin lack that authority at RFA, where it could be seen as "protecting our own". Dennis Brown - 2¢ 16:09, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Restore. If another editor in good standing deems it appropriate for an oppose vote to count, it probably is a valid opinion. This is a discussion-vote, not an article. Edit-warring is pointless and simply enhances the legitimacy of the original concern. Deryck C. 11:48, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
  • More comment. I agree conceptually with Newyorkbrad, but, as I tried to state earlier, I have trouble with how a removal is decided. Should we have a policy on the issue? A guideline? How would it be enforced? What if editors disagree with the interpretation? This is why I think it should be the 'crats' responsibility to remove votes. I'm not talking about what weight to give the votes. I'm talking about removal. If a 'crat doesn't remove a vote, any editor can request it outside the RfA. Then, if the 'crats don't remove the vote, like it or not, it stays. This, of course, doesn't apply to sock votes or blatant vandalism.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:47, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Leave them alone: echoing entirely Dennis Brown. Just let sleeping dogs lie. Sheesh. Fylbecatulous talk 15:35, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
    • So, as the actual most recent example, if someone posts an oppose !vote like the one we saw earlier this week—"Universal adulation always suggests there's bodies rotting somewhere, and with a vote count that Kim Jong-il might envy, I'll vote nay just to tip a cold bucket of reality over the bedazzled mob, and keep [the candidate] on his toes. I shan't believe the dingo did it", we should just leave it there for the next 100 visitors to the RfA page to have to encounter as they review the page? And as I said earlier, that's far from the worst such comment that I've seen quite properly removed from an RfA page. The outcome some are advocating here—that nothing called a !vote should ever be struck or removed—is not fair to the candidate, it's not fair to the other readers of the page, and it's not fair to the process. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:44, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
      I agree with HighInBC's comment that "reverting the striking was the source of the continuing drama." Indeed I would credit that act with the 10 fold increase in drama too. Our only recourse when the post doesn't qualify for revision deletion or suppression is to IAR and remove it; Ive done it myself in the past. The problem is that when a colleague restores the removal, the comment is treated as sacrosanct and no recourse is in place to reinstate the removal. That's where we should be able to request a bureaucrat to reinstate the removal and I don't see why we couldn't do this right now. In my opinion, a huge contributing factor is that any visible comment present at an RFA's close will almost certainly remain visible all the way unto the archiving of the page; whether counted or not by the crat. I think the closing crat's need to take action before archiving an RFA, and actually redact certain comments given no weight, and or identify comments given reduced weight with rationale; so we not only know it can happen but also that we can see examples where it has. In my opinion the damage an aspersion can do when left to view for 7 days is much, much less than the damage that aspersion can do as a permanent part of the archive. I believe far too many comments that should have been discounted and removed remain visible in the archive and that really needs to stop happening; if nothing else improves, crats should see to fixing this; I believe. Aside this, I think you would be an excellent candidate for RfB and I'd love a chance to support you for such a position.--John Cline (talk) 17:14, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
  • In my opinion, such drivel and troll votes should be removed or struck and the author immediately topic banned from further participation in RfA. To allow such nonsense to stand makes a mockery of all the efforts that have been made over the years to get RfA finally cleaned up in an attempt to make the debate for adminship a more pleasant venue for the potential candidates of the right calibre who are not coming forward for that very reason. How many more times do I have to utter my worn out mantra 'fix the voters and RfA will fix itself' before the penny drops?Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:07, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Leave them alone per WP:AGF and WP:RFA which states, "Always be respectful towards others..." Andrew D. (talk) 17:08, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Leave them alone per DennisBrown and Andrew Davidson above per WP:AGF and WP:RFA .Unless it violated WP:NPA or WP:OUTING it need be removed by anyone.But if there any other issue it can be raised to the Crats and feel only a Crat should remove if all one needs to be removed.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 18:09, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
  • We've empowered the crats to clerk RfA, right? IMO this falls entirely under clerking, so it should be left to the crats; if none are around send a ping to WP:BN or the user talk pages of the more active ones maybe. That said, I agree firmly with Kudpung that these nonsense votes were unacceptable, they created ridiculous drama and generated other opposes based on that drama, even when it had nothing to do with the candidate. What does that say about the process? ansh666 18:16, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
  •  Bureaucrat note: (commenting per request) Seems to me that consensus is very clearly "Leave it alone". Sounds good to me. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 01:09, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
  • @Nihonjoe: I'd appreciate if you and other 'crats could address some of the specific points I've made above, because I think people are seriously underrating the disastrous situation that will ensue if "nothing on an RfA that begins with a numeral (signifying a !vote) can ever be touched" becomes policy. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:32, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
    • @Newyorkbrad: Please summarize your points down here. It will make it easier to address them. Thanks. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 01:39, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
      • Well, rather than repeat everything I've already said, maybe we should start by clarifying the consensus you think has emerged. Is it that "nothing calling itself an RfA !vote can ever be removed or stricken"? That can't be right, and if need be, tomorrow I can round up some examples of comments from real RfA's that I doubt anyone would actually want to have left in place. Or is it "removing or striking votes can create ill-feelings if done without good cause, so we have to be careful"? That would lead to potentially a much more sensible discussion of how we draw the line, and specifically, whether mock-oppose !votes that aren't really opposes (e.g., "oppose just because I feel like being different today", as in the two recent examples I've cited above) cross it, especially in the context of the efforts to make RfA a less negative and fraught process. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:04, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
        • I lean toward the "removing or striking votes can create ill-feelings if done without good cause, so we have to be careful" interpretation. That seems to be my impression from reading the above. I also agree with Wizardman, in that we don't have a lot on our plates lately, so it may be better to leave a note on WP:BN and let us review it in cases where it's not blatant. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 02:20, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
  • If a vote is clearly trolling and disruptive, then per the above, as a bureaucrat yes i'm going to strike it. If thre's a semblance of good faith, then this entire topic is moot anyway and not applicable as of course it would stay up. Keeping it intact is what feeds the trolls, not the other way around. What causes most of the drama isn't the striking act itself, it's people jumping in and adding fuel to the fire on both sides. The crats have virtually nothing on our plate, we can keep an eye on RFAs. Wizardman 02:12, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
  • I don't think any !vote should be struck/redacted, except
(1) per explicit overriding policy (Wikipedia:Banning policy, Wikipedia:No personal attacks or Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons etc);
(2) by the editor who posted it
(3) By a bureaucrat qualified to close the RfA, however
bureaucrats should refrain from striking or placing other close-impacting annotation until the RfA is being closed.
--SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:17, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
  • RfA is not a special place that is subject to special rules. Nor should it be. It operates subject to the usual Wikipedia norms. Comments made in bad faith should be struck/removed by any uninvolved admin. If someone objects to such an action, don't repeat your action - have a discussion and try to reach a consensus. If you can't, ask a crat to step in or leave it for one to sort it out when they close the discussion. Most of the issues being discussed here apply to any post anywhere on the project that you regard to be trolling - feel free to take action in obvious cases, but you may inadvertently throw fuel on the fire by doing so, so sometimes it pays to just ignore it and move on. WJBscribe (talk) 12:44, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
I agree with much of what you said, especially as to the merits of leaving things alone, but when it comes to the status of RfA, I disagree. That might be the situation if the community had not had a Request for Comment on this topic, but it did, and it said crats are empowered to clerk RfAs. It did not empower anyone else to do so. As we lawyers say, expressio unius est exclusion alterius (the inclusion of one means the exclusion of the other), that is, the community, by choosing bureaucrats to clerk, decided that that non-bureaucrats should not clerk (excepting the overriding exceptions mentioned above). Thus, administrators and other editors should not strike or threaten to personally strike !votes, questions, answers, comments, and other matters, but should, if they it necessary, post at WP:BN as the proper course of action. But before that, a private email, especially when an established editor is involved, might be a lot smarter in defusing a situation before it starts, and avoiding lasting hard feelings. Just my two cents.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:15, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
That follows if you see striking/removing bad faith comments as "clerking". I don't. Striking/removing trolling is a response to a user conduct issue. Generally - although we can deal with user conduct because we are all admins - bureaucrats have no special role when it comes to user conduct. WJBscribe (talk) 13:32, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
Removal of comments deemed disruptive seems well within the ambit of what people wanted clerks to do at the RFC. Might be the bulk of what they did actually, deal with comments that caused a fuss.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:16, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Take consensus on this page before striking out any non-vandal/sock/attack !vote on an active RfA I believe that if consensus is believed to be the prominent guiding force, then no RfA !vote (except of course, clear vandalism and similar cases), however silly, should be struck arbitrarily by any editor, leave alone an administrator or bureaucrat, unless there is consensus on this page to do so. I don't know if such a policy/guideline exists already. If it doesn't, there should perhaps be a best practice guideline where this point may be added if others agree. Xender Lourdes (talk) 15:47, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
    • That proposed approach would maximize the disruption caused by trolling and the attention given to it, and with due respect, is certainly not tenable. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:49, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
      • And on the other hand, it would allow editors to not take it unto their own hands to decide whether an oppose is trolling or not. I am not referring to you, as you are one of the most supportive editors around who at the very least ensures that editors applying for administration are protected. I am referring to editors who might cut out oppose votes simply because they don't like it. A restriction of taking consensus would ensure that only those editors who really feel strongly about an oppose would reach out to the community here to take consensus. Thanks. Xender Lourdes (talk) 15:55, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
        • Xender, in theory I understand the concern you are raising and it is a reasonable one. But in practice, I can't believe that the problem you are suggesting—people arbitrarily redacting or removing things from RfA pages without a legitimate reason—has ever actually occurred. Certainly I can't think of many, or any, examples, which is partly because when these situations arise, someone clueful steps in and addresses it. This week's situation was unusual and typically these things are handled without a lot of fuss; this may be one of those issues on which the last thing we need are more rules. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:02, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
          • I understand what you are saying. I've seen that this is an evolving project. Instances like this provide clarity on certain issues which can be quite disheartening to contributing editors who have spent considerable effort on bettering Wikipedia. I am new on the RFA page and my oppose was the first one based on my understanding of Rupert's contributions. I would believe that even if I had disagreed with AustralianRupert's answers, given the trend in this Rfa, someone might have struck out my oppose, claiming the answers are correct. I reiterate my opinion, which I feel seems to thankfully be the opinion of a majority of editors here, that one should leave them alone (the opposes) even if they are silly (except the attack and vandal opposes I mentioned) unless there is consensus here or on the Rfa talk page to do otherwise. At the same time, I do agree with all that you're saying because each case can be so different. Xender Lourdes (talk) 01:19, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
            • I will say again that we are not talking about opposition to the candidate based on any sort of stated, non-trollish reason relating to his or her Wikipedia editing or experience. In the case of the last two !votes I struck (and which I emphasize again stayed struck), the "opposes" candidly stated that there was no reason for opposing at all, in fact that the !voters weren't actually opposed to the candidate's gaining adminship, but were just playing games. If I spend a year or two or more editing Wikipedia and then volunteer for adminship, and to subject myself to the weeklong RfA process in which I am subject to all sorts of criticism (some fair and some unfair), I think the very least I would expect is that people not be listed as opposing my adminship who don't even actually oppose it. We are not talking about mere disagreement with a vote, we are talking about obvious trolling and game-playing. (In the case of your initial opposition to AustralianRupert, no one would treat your doubting the candidate's familiarity with policy as an illegitimate reason for opposing. Personally, I think it would be better practice to ask the candidate your question and then !vote based on the answer, rather than cast an oppose !vote "but I'll change to support if the answer is good", only because the way you did it clutters up the page. But that is just an individual suggestion and has nothing to do with deprecating votes.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:45, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
  • What about addressing the issue of trolls by semi-protecting RFAs? With regard to the issue of striking, I suspect that reverting inappropriate/pointy edits to RFAs is better than striking them out, as in that case the disruptive edit is no longer visible on the page. Everymorning (talk) 19:36, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
  • There would need to be high minimum requirements for RfA votes if we were to stop all trolls. A better solution would be to simply hand out blocks to editors who think that RfA is an unsupervised virtual playground. Trolling is vandalism and should be handled as such; it is peculiar that trolling and disruption by editors with one-page block logs is tolerated. Esquivalience t 01:10, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Leave it, with the intention that bureaucrats will do exactly what they were selected for and weigh votes appropriately. ~ RobTalk 01:23, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
    • The issue is not the weighing of votes, or the outcome of an RfA. I can't remember an RfA that was actually closed the wrong way' due to the sort of trolling we are discussing, in the history of the project. The issue is whether blatantly trollish, or offensive, or bigoted, or just entirely inane and distracting comments must necessarily remain on the RfA page for the full week of the RfA, thereby damaging the candidate's experience and the RfA process. It is absurd for 200 people who come to an RfA page and scan the votes that have come before them to have to read through an oppose !vote reading, for example, "Oppose. Universal adulation always suggests there's bodies rotting somewhere, and with a vote count that Kim Jong-il might envy, I'll vote nay just to tip a cold bucket of reality over the bedazzled mob, and keep [the candidate] on his toes. I shan't believe the dingo did it"' (taken verbatim, including the bizarrely gratuitous link to an article about the violent death of a baby, from the vote I struck in a current RfA), or an oppose from a one-day-old account explained as "Because I felt like being different...pretty poor reason I know, but so be it..." (from a !vote I struck, with no disagreement, in another RfA three weeks ago). I realize that I am starting to repeat myself here but I do not recall having ever felt more strongly about anything (other than some BLP issues) in my ten years' tenure on this project. I am entirely convinced that if a rule develops that anything goes on the RfA page and nothing can be removed if it starts with a numeral and calls itself a vote, the results are going to be totally disastrous. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:45, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
      • @Newyorkbrad: I'm convinced that this is not your finest hour. Give it a rest. No one is making a rule, precedent, or any sort of policy about this. What happened on AusRup's RfA was pure disruption on both sides. It was an attempt to amputate an arm because of a mosquito bite.--v/r - TP 03:40, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
      • I largely agree with everything you're saying, but in this case, the cure is more painful than the original ill. What's more damaging to the reputation of RfA – a few inane opposes that are drowned out by supporters or a series of arguments over whether to strike an oppose, including edit-warring, a discussion on what the criteria for striking should be, a discussion on whether the oppose vote meets those criteria, etc.? Clearly the latter is more disruptive. I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to allowing bureaucrats to take a more active clerking role and do ArbCom "clerk action"-esque strikes with zero discussion, but having the community do it is very obviously not a reasonable solution. It's akin to giving someone chemotherapy for the common cold. I mean, you've seen what it did to the ongoing RfA. ~ RobTalk 04:09, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Leave it, bureaucrats were elected for their judgement and they are able to disregard obviously disruptive votes, which they have done since RFA was created. There is no difference now, and I would expect bureaucrats to disregard any low-quality votes, positive or negative, without having said votes stricken by the community. Please let the bureaucrats do the job that they were elected to perform. This pre-striking is against any RFA procedure that I've seen on the project. Poor-quality contributions will be removed, as they have always been, when reviewed by the bcrats. Nakon 03:46, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
Just a nit-picky semantic clarification: bureaucrats are not elected and they don't have a 'job' to do. Jason Quinn (talk) 10:24, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Redact unambiguously unhelpful !votes. HighInBC is absolutely correct that the recent drama would not have occurred had appropriate redaction not been reverted. Ambiguous cases should be left to the crats, but anyone should feel free to redact the sort of blatantly unconstructive nonsense NewYorkBrad has been quoting to stop it toxifying the atmosphere at RfA. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 11:30, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Leave them alone. The reason why the standards at RfB are so high is because we expect bureaucrats to be wise and experienced enough to be able to separate the reasonable opposes from the ridiculous ones. Gizza (t)(c) 02:52, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Newyorkbrad is RIGHT, showing some consideration for the people behind the editor ID is desirable, and removing / striking grossly objectionable is both reasonable and appropriate. It is not about whether bureaucrats will be swayed, the sense required to discount such things is pretty small and so being concerned about influencing bureaucrats is a red herring. It is about being respectful to RfA candidates by removing gratuitous material. It is about a community behaving collectively as a community and saying that RfA is not a free-for-all brawl. RfA has enough problems without sanctioning more ways to throw shit at people. EdChem (talk) 07:26, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for stating this so clearly, EdChem. I'm amazed so many commenters above still think this is about the vote tally. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 14:00, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
But there was no brawl until the vote was struck, unstruck, and on and on. We can say that not much sense is required to redact votes, but experience hasn't demonstrated that, where every struck vote results in a threaded argument about whether the strike was appropriate. It's very easy for an RfA candidate to mentally dismiss an oppose for silly reasons like "just to be different". If we really think an RfA candidate can't blow off something as minor as that, then that candidate should be opposed. The struck votes that spawned this argument were, collectively: (a) two blank votes, (b) two votes saying the candidate should have stepped in to stop the other votes from being struck. Any brawl here was the result of striking two blank votes. Wouldn't the problem at that RfA gone away if those two blank votes were left alone? In that alternative scenario, how is that an "all out brawl"? ~ RobTalk 14:15, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
BU Rob13, the !votes that have been mentioned as examples weren't originally blank; they were as I quoted them. And normally, removing such things has historically not produced controversy in most instances; this week's events were unusual. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:23, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
@Newyorkbrad: Thanks for the correction. I dug through the diffs. NewYorkActuary was originally blank (and he later expanded on it). Engleham's was non-blank and absurd, but it was devoid of content. It was essentially "oppose to be different", and I would expect an RfA candidate to see that, shake his or her head a bit at the absurdity, and move on. Maybe even feel good about themselves that "to be different" was the only thing someone could find to oppose them based on. How does that contribute to a negative environment at RfA more than the clusterfuck that was striking? Even if this week's events were unusual (and I'm not a regular voter at RfA, so I'm not familiar), what is the net positive that justifies the sometimes-huge-sometimes-nonexistent negative? You've called these comments "damaging", but what is the damage a reasonably well-prepared RfA candidate would incur? ~ RobTalk 15:47, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the question. Actually, no one suggested striking NewYorkActuary's vote or comment, because as ill-reasoned as it was (IMHO), it did present a fact-based, rational reason for opposing the candidate. As for Engleham's vote and comments, if you think it's reasonable for the process to include faux-oppositions with references to Kim Jong-il and violent death, then we're going to disagree about that one. The disaster I referenced will occur if and when (as reflected in my question to Nihonjoe) the consensus in this discussion is interpreted not as "think carefully before removing or striking anything from an RfA" but as "nothing should be removed or struck ever" as the material in question this time or last time is far from the worst we've seen. There is a suggestion above that it won't be interpreted that way and I'm overreacting, but I've seen that sort of overreading of a discussion happen several times before. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:06, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
I agree that the aim should be to minimize disruption. As soon as it was clear that striking the vote did not have near-unanimous support (and thus someone would raise a fuss about it), it is best to not feed the trolls and let it be. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 18:41, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
That is exactly the goal. If the vote is calling them a nazi, of course you revert it out and take admin action if needed, just as you would in any other place on Wikipedia. RFA isn't an exception. But if the reason is blank, or mildly stupid, or if the count is obvious and they are simply mistaken (AGF), go to their talk page if you must, or ping them on the RFA talk page, but keep the threading to a minimum. The key is to minimize drama. That benefits the candidate more than a perfect vote count. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 23:00, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Discuss first I think striking votes isn't necessarily bad, but in any case where the vote isn't a violation of policy (such as blatant personal attacks etc, which should be deleted), the vote should be responded to to give the voter a chance to justify their reasoning. If this is not satisfactory, the vote should be struck: not for the bureaucrat's sake, but for the sake of other reading the page so they can clearly see that a particular vote is not appropriate. —  crh 23  (Talk) 15:12, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Make a damn decision If it's just stupid, ignore it per WP:DNFTT. If it's blatant trolling, just remove it it (e.g. [1],[2]). Ya'll create more drama by visibly striking (or hatting) stuff, which attracts more attention to it than simply WP:AGFing the closing bureaucrat will know "stupid" when they see it without your help. Plus the subsequent bickering over striking it. NE Ent 11:05, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience. Whatever action avoids arguing with an idiot is the right thing to do. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:07, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
  • Leave them alone Per Dennis Brown and others. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 12:03, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
  • Leave them alone. I agree with the excellent comments of NE Ent, Anna Frodesiak, Jason Quinn that frivolous or unexplained rationales will be treated appropriately—that is, given little or no weight—by the bureaucrats, that therefore striking weakly explained/inappropriate/unhelpful votes is unnecessary at best, and causes pointless community consternation and drama at worst. Now, if the comment is a blatant personal attack in violation of the policy against personal attacks (as opposed to a merely a bad rationale), that is another matter altogether—such attacks can be struck. Neutralitytalk 23:35, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
  • Result of RfC was that bureaucrats should do the clerking. And I don't see much above which persuades me otherwise. So, essentially: leave them alone. If there is a genuine concern or disruption, just drop a note at WP:BN (per 日本穣, et al). - jc37 10:15, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
  • Leave them alone - votes should not be striked out because that's against human rights like freedom of speech. Everyone should be able to say whatever they want without having their opinions striked out which is a sign of disrespect. - TheMagnificentist 09:21, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Attrition

43 desysoppings for inactivity during 1st half of 2016 for 6 successful candidacies so far this year. Still not yet critical but it looks as if WereSpielChequers' table is going to finish the year with the worst result ever, demonstrating a still alarming downward trend. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:25, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Inactivity desysoppings and new admins are just two datapoints, you also need to include other desysoppings and crucially resyoppings. There are also likely to be seasonal fluctuations. My preferred metric for the size of the admin cadre is the number of active admins now compared to a year ago. Not ideal, not least because you can be an "active admin" even if you never use the tools, but it is a stat that has been continually and consistently collected over a long period of time. Currently we are down 50, dropping from 590 t0 540 year on year. This is beyond critical for those like me who believe that all longstanding clueful active Wikipedians should be admins when and if they are ready, and should be worrying even to those who think that adminship should become a bigger and bigger deal. I suppose there may be some extreme inclusionists out there who see WP:Pure_wiki deletion_system as the logical response to admin shortages, but I'm not keen. ϢereSpielChequers 20:53, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
I assume you mean "down to 590"?... As to both yours and Kudpung's points, I consider the resyopping numbers so far this year to be particularly abysmal. So it's not just that we're not getting new Admins – we're also not getting back experienced Admins "returning to the fold" like we used to. Suffice it to say, we can't continue going on like this, but I think it will take an actual "crisis" before it'll shake most out of their current stupor. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 21:46, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
My view of "crisis" would be a pedia more difficult to use, or less reliable. Possibly I've spent too much time at concerts, but my question about such matters is "how does it look from front of house"?--Wehwalt (talk) 01:51, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
@IJBall. No I meant down 50. But I've added ", dropping from 590 t0 540 year on year." ϢereSpielChequers 07:30, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

More data: looking at this, and with half a year of data in, it looks like desysoppings for inactivity will be up roughly about 10% this year over last, while standard Admin resignations are roughly on the same pace. (The only good news is that "desysoppings for cause" look to be way down this year – maybe all the old time-y "bad" admins have already been mostly worked through the system?...) On the other hand, while everyone knows that RfA's are on pace to be off about 40% from last year, resysoppings are off by 50%. That's not good... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 04:11, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

6 new Admins (expected to be active) is more productive than a 100 non-productive admins desysopped (is that actually a word) for inactivity. The comparison is meaningless since - by definition - one side of the comparison are permanently inactive. Admin productivity should be measured on a demand and supply basis. How many actions are needed. Queues would be an obvious indication. Get over number of RfA approved people - if they do no work they are unproductive. Leaky Caldron 08:11, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
Permanently? Are you sure? ;)
IJBall, where did you find 10 desysoppings last year? Wikipedia:Former_administrators/reason/for_cause makes it look like 6. And yeah, two of those might not have happened this year, but one could easily have happened a day later. And only one was an "old time-y" admin. Beware of statistics of small numbers ;) Opabinia regalis (talk) 00:34, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
@Opabinia regalis: Only 8 of those desysoppings "took" – 2 were quick desysops/resysops after 2 Admins' accounts passwords were hacked (but for the purposes of how I maintain my list, I have to include them in the count – still the two in question can be found via List of resysopped users). Six other desysoppings were "standard for cause(s)", and one more involved an actual Arbcom indef block. I'll admit, that means I'm missing the tenth (and am not sure about my listings for the desysoppings in Feb. & March 2015)... I'll look into this later this evening, and see if I can remember what is up with that. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 02:05, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
Ah, thanks, I forgot all about that! In any case, I meant to say that these are such small numbers that not much can be learned from year-on-year changes. Opabinia regalis (talk) 05:59, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
OK, it looks like the tenth was Wifone, who technically resigned, but who I'm pretty sure I counted as a "desysop" as it was resignation under a cloud. (That also explains the Feb. 2015 entry.) So I think I've got 2015 all figured out... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 08:19, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
@IJBall, Opabinia regalis, WereSpielChequers, Wehwalt, and Kudpung: Hi, I just found THIS, which is a great log of sysop numbers in the last 5 years. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 22:02, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
But a lot of the work that admins do doesn't change the reader experience very much, done or undone. That is why I do not worry about numbers. The function of administration (including ArbCom, oversight, other functionary) is as an auxiliary to content production, the only thing we make that exits the factory. Administration that doesn't enable that shouldn't be. Thus, to me anyway, unless it is shown that that the number of administrators, of itself, has caused content production or quality to drop, I don't get very excited about it.--Wehwalt (talk) 03:13, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
Re "content production, the only thing" - what about protection of existing content from vandals, POVvers, spammers etc? DexDor (talk) 05:51, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
Protection of content from having it made worse is obviously a goal. No point in building what gets torn down. I said administration needs to be auxiliary to content, I did not say that "writing is the only important thing" which would not be true because writing is nothing without a place to put it where it can be cherished and protected. Plainly anti-vandalism is part of that. But such things as closing AfD, certain queues that are said to be backlogged, do not significantly affect the view from front of house, which I consider a major metric.--Wehwalt (talk) 06:16, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
Wifione s indeff blocked and banned by Arbcom. I guess that technically counts as desysping 'for cause' Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:20, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Moderator proposal

A Request for Comment on a proposal to create a new user group with an abbreviated set of administrator user-rights, as an option for editors to request instead of requesting the entire sysop user-right package. I welcome everyone's thoughts on this. - jc37 21:14, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

  • From PEREN: "There should be some kind of 'partial admin' that gets certain admin powers, but not all of them"
  • From your proposal: "(a) package ... designed primarily to allow editors the option to help with content-related admin tasks ... if they wish to not have the rest of the sysop package of user-rights"
  • I fail to see the difference. Both describe a subset of the entire administrator privileges package. Regardless, I'm not trying to paint anything here, even if there is a strong similarity. My point is that if your proposal is to pass (and right now it's badly failing), you need to address the concerns that have been repeatedly raised before when very similar proposals have been made. The arguments in opposition to the PEREN proposals track with the arguments being used to oppose your proposal. It would be a good idea to suspend the failing RfC, and focus on fixing your proposal to address those concerns. Several of the oppose votes are raising issues with your proposal that are issues noted at PEREN. I'm not trying to shoot you down here. Rather, you need to rethink this some. The RfC is a little over a day old and already it's at least 26 votes in the hole. There's reasons for that. --Hammersoft (talk) 01:08, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
  • Jc, you say you're assuming that the Foundation's position on the subject hasn't changed in 4 years, without checking. That turns out to be wrong; this is their current position (a permalink to the current version of WP:VPR). - Dank (push to talk) 15:06, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

OLD RFAs

Now I am not opposing the Oppose votes who always complain that, "the candidate is not ready", "The candidate has only one year old account", "the candidate is not active in fighting vandalism", "the candidate has not done enough content creation", "the candidate has never voted in AFDs" . Actually I support these comments.

But if we look at the edit count of some of our Administrators as KaisaL which stands at 7,571 which is much lower than BuRob13, Anarchyte, Thine Antique Pen, Oshwah, MontanaBw, APerson.

A former administrator Pepsidrinka has only 5,844 edits. Just imagine how many edits he had when he passed RFA. Yes he was a sysop

These administrators had easy RFAs:

19 support votes Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Utcursch

See how easily they became administrator

182.66.9.177 (talk) 13:40, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

@182.66.9.177: that was Then. This is Now. VegasCasinoKid (talk) 07:02, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
It is a well known fact that there has been a constant inflation of adminship minimum requirements over the years. Is there a point you're trying to make besides that?--Atlan (talk) 14:00, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
I think this demonstrates that selecting people without a huge amount of edits/time served is not going to cause the sky to fall. Many of our current admins got their bit with a lot less of a gauntlet and it turned out fine. I don't think we actually need 2 years and 40k+ edits to evaluate if a person has a good temperament and an understanding of policy. HighInBC Need help? {{ping|HighInBC}} 14:28, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
  • I concur. There's no correlation that I'm aware of that shows a link between the number of edits or tenure someone has and their ability to be an administrator. Yet, standards keep rising, and people keep on layering in insane requirements that have no correlative basis in reality. We've had seven successful RfAs this year. The average edit count of six of those (removing Widr as an outlier; ~200k at time of RfA) candidates at the time of their RfA is right about 40k edits. The average tenure in the same set is seven years.
  • Running some rough numbers; assuming 10k edits as a bottom for a potential RfA candidate, there are 7,329 editors with at least 10k edits. Of those, approximately 58% are active, leaving 4,250 candidates. Of those, approximately 1,075 are already administrators, leaving 3,175 potential candidates. This number may include a significant number of former administrators. So, there's somewhere around 3,000 potential candidates. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:32, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
There are no 'present day' standards. The small but influential core of regular voters have been using their same criteria for years. What you have is this transient set of hundreds of one-off voters, especially now that the community decided to advertise RfA very widely, who think it's cool to ask for ridiculous standards that they just apply willy-nilly without any clue of what RfA is all about, and newbies who ask racist and disingenuous questions, and editors who suffer from systemic bias trying to trip he candidate up over over LGBT, Gender Gap, or oher socio-political issues. Like I keep saying, fix the voters and RfA will fix itself. And just illustrate a point: this vote by a blatant troll.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:07, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
Plus, RFA is also fair game to go yell and criticize people for voting against them in whatever thing they wanted to. A decade ago, tools didn't exist so it would be difficult to check interactions between yourself and the candidate. Now, people first check if they interacted with that person (fair point) and then if there was any chance of a disagreement, it's simple to oppose and cry about things that could go wrong. No one can see the lost opportunity cost of someone not becoming an admin at that time (a lot of the opposes now are "do it again later"). Even then, I doubt anyone could point to the worst of the worst admins having any long-term impact here that basically doesn't wash off over a year or so. Other than the people who rant about admin abuse because their COI get deleted or they are told to watch policies and get blocked, there's no single admin running around doing enough to cause that kind of damage people freak out about. It's not even like there's admin willy nilly being abusive with AFD closings which was the real concern at the start of the project, DRV is pretty thorough and any admin can restore it for a draft. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:44, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
The one long-lasting effect an admin can have on Wikipedia is to make other productive editors lose interest in the project and then either edit less or retire completely. Apart from that, most damage is short-term. Gizza (t)(c) 04:37, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
Agreed but it's rarely the actual admin tools that cause that nowadays to me. Well, I admit blocks are obvious but you can see ANI right now and rarely does it actually involve admins or in particular admin tools, generally just editors who have been around for a while and know what to do, regardless of their technical status. The excessively murky set of "policies and guidelines" we've developed are intimidating to new editors. - Ricky81682 (talk) 06:36, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
You'r partly right Ricky81682, but actually the real reason for 'rarely does it actually involve admins or in particular admin tools, generally just editors who have been around for a while and know what to do', is because admins are sick and tired of the threats and abuse they get from just doing their job there. Being a front-line admin is no picnic. It's a shame, because not all those non-admins know what they are doing, and there is often too much background noise from the peanut gallery; you can see this from the speed at which an ANI gets turned into a support/oppose poll for someone's (non-admit) proposal for a block. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:45, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
Yes, and those kinds of Admins are rarely desysopped at Arbcom, or anywhere else. Quite the opposite in fact – it's pretty clear that there is no "upside" to complaining about that kind of abuse: nothing will happen to the Admin in question, and it's likely that the complainant will be driven off the project instead. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 20:29, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
That's correct, and it is the underlying reason for the reluctance to elevate users and the general difficulties associated with the process. Coretheapple (talk) 22:45, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

missing request needs to be deleted or closed

There is a request for adminship which has not made it onto the page: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/ZigZagoon99. I'm not sure if it's because it was malformed or if it just wasn't done properly. We should either delete is as vandalism or put it on the request page so we can snow close it. Meters (talk) 05:56, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

It appears to already be deleted. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 17:18, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

What if there are no more RFA's ever?

Could it happen? Will Wikipedia die? Lazytag (talk) 03:45, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia will still operate well. We always do :-) ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 03:48, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
No, but it would force the lazy admins to get off their arse and start working hard or lose their rights for inactivity ;)--Stemoc 03:49, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
No?!! Are you disagreeing with me, boiii?!! Stemoc, that's it, Wikifight! :-P ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 03:56, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
Can't forget about the nice little push we'd have to get those reforms and alternative processes to RFA that everyone keeps clamoring about! ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 04:02, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
It's been less than a month without an RFA... It seems this is brought up every time we go through a dry spell though I wouldn't necessarily say it's been long enough to qualify yet. As was brought up the last time someone posted about RFA dying, Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 241#Another dry spell, it would be helpful if there was a purpose to these messages than simply being doom and gloom. Mkdwtalk 04:37, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
To be fair, I can appreciate the "gloom and doom" sentiment. We're on track for less than 40 RfAs total (lowest value ever) and less than 14 successful RfAs (again, lowest value ever, a full one-third reduction over last year). ~ Rob13Talk 07:09, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
No, Wikipedia won't die. What will happen though is that we'll slowly start running out of admins, until, in say, 5 years or so, we'll have nowhere near enough to maintain the encyclopedia, and we won't be able to get any more because RFA will be even more broken by then. Then we'll probably end up applying some kind-of band aid solution to the problem, like quickly promoting hundreds of admins without a formal RFA. Omni Flames (talk) 07:25, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
My sense is that if such a thing happens, we may see some kind of heavy-handed WMF or perhaps ArbCom action to "fix" the problem, such as banning a number of people or something along these lines.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 08:12, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
We're on track to be a little behind or roughly at last year's numbers. We've had 46 RFAs total in the last 7 months. Last year there was 106 total RFAs with November and December historically always being peak months. Where we are behind is successful RFAs. About a third behind last year and half the year before. Nearly 25% of successful RFAs occurred in November and December last two years. However, I would suggest that WP:ORCP has had a lot to do with the change in statistics. It has likely discouraged people who have undergone that process from running lowering the total numbers. Additionally, I suspect there are people who would likely pass RFA who have undergone the poll but have chosen not to because it's very difficult to gauge if you receive 7/10s if that would indicate a likely successful candidacy. We also know that the number of active editors is decreasing along with the number of articles being edited and created. RFA is a not a great process, but if you're using "activity" as the only metric, it's not an RFA problem, it's a Wikipedia problem. Mkdwtalk 16:02, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Trying to nail down where we are in terms of the number of administrators we have vs. need is really an exercise in futility. The latter number is effectively impossible to ascertain. That said, there are two sets of figures that can shed some light. First, there's the editing history at Wikipedia:List of administrators. If you look at the data from the last 500 edits by the bot there, you can see that the number of active administrators bubbled along around the 580-600 level since at least as far back as May of 2014. I.e., effectively static. That is, until somewhat recently where it dropped from that level to a seemingly stable 540-550. Cause for concern? Unknown. The other set of figures of interest are at User:EsquivalienceBot/Backlog. There's older history there in the edit history dating back to mid April of this year. So far, the backlogs from an abstract level seem to be more or less stable. Just food for thought. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:24, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
  • As an AfD regular, the backlog there these couple weeks are pretty alarming. Lots of easy deletes gone untouched (and a lot of the other easy ones NAC'd). Of course this doesn't have that much to do with RfA, but if even AfD is backlogged... ansh666 18:51, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
  • I don't know what the figures at AfD are, but I have noticed some non-unanimous AfDs that keep on getting relisted by people. I know of one that's been relisted 3 times and dates back to June. It's ridiculous. I've no facts to base this on, just impression, but AfD feels like it's failing in part because people trying to close decisions are not willing to decide, but are quite happy to punt forward. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:57, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
  • I do think that's part of the problem at AfD. An AfD with zero responses (or only delete responses) often gets relisted instead of treated like a PROD, and I'm not at all a fan of that. There are other more serious issues outside of the "main" admin stuff, though. CfD is horrendously backlogged now even though it was completely cleared a short while ago. That is largely due to the fact that I eased off my contributions there for a while due to general fatigue from my RfA. When a single editor getting busy/taking a vacation/getting a bit burnt out results in an entire deletion process falling to shit, we don't have a very robust supply of volunteers. ~ Rob13Talk 19:32, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
  • The relisting mania is a bit crazy nowadays, I will admit - but it's not so much that people aren't willing to close but more because well-meaning non-admins who can't deal with close decisions per NAC are relisting instead of letting discussions that have obviously run their course sit for an admin to clean up. But, this is probably a better discussion for AfD talk than RfA talk. ansh666 20:08, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
  • No one even questioned whether the OP was a troll? I mean, the question itself, and the only edit from a new account. I suppose it shows how eager we are to discuss anything about RfAs, no matter how silly. Back to your blend of existentialism and statistics.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:11, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Your threshold of validity must be much lower than mine. I like the idea that Hammersoft didn't realize they had. We should have a new category of editors: Existentialists. We could then talk about RfEs. Your candidacy is successful if no one shows up. Bureaucrats aren't involved unless they're certified in philosophy. Existentialists would have no tools, but they would have enormous hidden powers. Instead of Wikimania and meet-ups, we could start having special retreats where people muse in absolute silence. A new ENI (not what it is now) would be a haven for all those frustrated editors to refresh themselves.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:40, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
  • The OP was a troll, probably the bad hand of someone we all know, but only Bbb23 knows the facts and he's not obligedt o disclose them. Let's just hope that he indeffed all other accounts using Lazytag's IP.
The backlog at AfD is due purely to the fact that the AfD system is so flawed that when everyone and his dog has voted or commented, the dross is so long that even an experienced admin (me included) is not prepared to wade through it and then take the possible flak for making what the inexperienced community would inevitably claim to be a wrong decision. And let's face it, we have better things to do than risk our bits on the whim of a peanut gallery and paid editors. This is just part of the reality of an admin's daily work and one of the reasons why the number of persons interested in being sysops is dwindling: they see the crude and ridiculous environment at RfA, and they see the harsh critcisms, PA, and outings admins get for just doing their job.
The sooner every one realises however, that the only thing that is wrong with the RfA process itself is that it continues to be allowed to be the one venue on Wikipedia where everyone, IPs included; is allowed to behave in a thoroughly disgusting manner with absolute impunity, the sooner something concrete can be done about it. It amazes me that the community constantly buries its head in the sand and prefers to think up solutions to problems that are unrelated. Sufficient time has now elapsed since the last round of RfA 'reforms' to evaluate whether or not they had any positive (or in fact, adverse) impact on the situation. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:55, 4 August 2016 (UTC)


  • Re MKDW's point about November and December. November is historically our best month for RFA and February our worst. But the differences are not huge and in February's case it is at least partially down to it being a short month. That said the current pattern is dire, we are becoming more and more dependent on a dwindling number of admins. But we are far from a last RFA situation. Qualified candidates who run usually aren't just scraping in, when we get new admins they are often near unanimous. I hope that the rally in editing numbers will eventually feed through into an increase in RFAs, however if that increase is from recruitment of new editors there is bound to be a timelag between new editors starting and those new editors becoming admins. User:WereSpielChequers/RFA by month now has a column for monthly totals, but I'm not sure the pattern is sufficiently worthwhile to justify retaining it. ϢereSpielChequers 09:02, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
  • I've long held that any attempts at reversing the downward spiral of Wikipedia are futile. There are a number of reasons for this. For example, with over 5,000,000 articles now, editors have less to write about. Less editing, less participation. You can't reverse this. The Foundation is devoted to a development model for the project that worked fine 10 years ago, but now is woefully out of date. We can continue that model, but we must build upon it to develop a continuing resource. Organizational life cycles are real. The Foundation buries their head in the sand and hopes it isn't real. But, it is. Have a look at this article, and read the comments in the image. It's a bit blurry, but readable. Here's what the "danger zone" is typified by: Aging leadership, bureaucratic decisions, people have to fit,...sound familiar? You know what the next step is? Death. Meanwhile, the Foundation is in leadership chaos. Back to the original part of this thread; RfA won't be fixed because it is a symptom of the overall problem. You might be able to reduce the impact of the symptom, but you can't fix it without fixing the problem. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:04, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
  • "with over 5,000,000 articles now, editors have less to write about." You might have a point if about 4,700,000 of those articles weren't woefully inadequate, which doesn't much matter for several million of them, but leaves a very large number where it does matter. Johnbod (talk) 04:49, 5 August 2016 (UTC)
At a rough guess (a search of cats would provide the stats), possibly up to 20% of them are perma-tagged for glaring issues, but that's not the fault of the admins, it's the fault of the Foundation for refusing to develop a proper landing page. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:38, 5 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Well, not really - adding content is adding content, and we have millions of very short stubs that can be greatly expanded, many with high viewing figures. But (far too) many of our editors seem to think it is different, and only create new articles, no matter how minute the subject, and how few people will ever look at it. That is one of our biggest problems, imo. Johnbod (talk) 14:04, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Also "less to write about" is fairly incorrect - see Incapillo and Cerro Guacha for new articles on mostly uncovered topics. Or all the companies which could have good (not spammy) articles. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 13:36, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

  • I've noted before that Wikipedia has great coverage in some areas, and other areas hardly at all. To change that, you have to change the demographics of the editors who come here. Doing that is next to impossible. Wikipedia will always be grossly lacking in some areas. That such areas exist doesn't prove we have plenty of work for people to be interested in to contribute. Where most of the demographic wants to contribute there is already plenty of coverage. As two case examples, Magic: The Gathering; 112 references, 95k of article, talk page has 6 archives. Contrast; PulteGroup, a Fortune 500 company, one of the most notable corporations in the world; 4 references, 2.6k of article (1/36th of the Magic article), no talk page archives and only 18 edits to the talk page ever. Sure there's lots of opportunity to write, but you have to find editors who want to do that, and few have any interest in improving the PulteGroup article. That's the problem facing Wikipedia; the sexy work has been done already. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:55, 5 August 2016 (UTC)
    I can see that this makes wikilife limiting for editors interested in topics that are already well covered. But it doesn't drive away editors in topics that we want but we cover poorly. If anything the biases are self correcting, as editors interested in subjects that we only have stubs for will find more opportunities to contribute than editors who find we already have densely written copiously referenced and often watchlist protected articles. Perhaps this contributes to the post 2014 growth in editor numbers. That's the great thing about Wikipedians, we have such very different ideas as to what is "sexy". ϢereSpielChequers 15:41, 5 August 2016 (UTC)
  • This would work if the demographics were evenly split across all subject areas. But, they are very far from that. If you have 1000 new editors come to the project, and 990 of them find the project already has good coverage on their areas of interest, you're left with 10 new editors engaging. Contrast 10 years ago, the 990 number would be far, far less. The demographics haven't changed much, and it's highly unlikely they ever will. So, while we might be slightly increasing our number of engaged editors in bad coverage areas, it's not even a drop in the bucket. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:04, 5 August 2016 (UTC)
  • I don't think this requires an even split across all subject areas, rather the reverse, some areas are popular and we have a glut of editors, others are less well served but when people do arrive they aren't deterred by their subject area already being complete. I suspect that the ratio between people finding we are too complete and finding their subject is stubby is much more even than your 990-10 ratio, but I'm not convinced either of us know and I'd suggest that research would be useful here. I don't agree with your drop in a bucket fears, though I do worry that some subjects may be much harder to attract volunteers for than others. Yes our raw editing figures are down nearly 10% on ten years ago, and more like 30% on the 2007 peak. But much has changed since then, in particular the edit filters have reduced a lot of the vandalism and vandalism reversion. Figures for the last 18 months have been on the rise and are back to circa 2011 levels. As for the demographics, I think they have changed radically, especially re age; Do you remember when we had lots of teenagers on the site? We no longer have vandalfighting as our entry level activity, and to the smartphone generation Wikipedia is a broadcast media not an interactive one. An editor survey is well overdue, but I suspect it will confirm the theory of the greying of the pedia. ϢereSpielChequers 21:40, 6 August 2016 (UTC)
Let's not give the WMF yet another excuse to spend a lot of money on research into topics where the research results can't / won't change anything. It's a shame, but the Foundation acts like a typical NGO: lots of research, lots of reports, little positive action - especially in areas which are already identified as being in need of attention. As I said above, a lot of the admin backlogs are the fault of the Foundation for refusing to develop a proper landing page telling new users what kind of articles are acceptable and which are not - and that's why we have a monumental backlog again at NPP, which at the current cadence will take 123 days to clear. As WereSpielChequers knows, I lobbied hard 5 years ago to get Page Curation developed and rolled out; all we need now are enough people to use it, and use it intelligently.
If we can get a user right established for NPP, at a high enough set of criteria, it might just attract enough hat cllectors of the right calibre to the task. Then, we might, only might, be able to consider a very limited unbundling of te deletion tool for totally blatant spam, attack, vandalism, and nonsense pages. For the doubting Thomases out ther, we currently have examples of brand new users whose very first edits are to patrol new pages and mass create AfDs. Warning and reverting such people and constantly having to monitor the NPP process makes a lot of work for admins and it doesn't show in our edit counts or admin logs, but that's what we have to do.
To quote WSC, some areas are popular and we have a glut of editor, others are less well served; well, the same is true for adminship: we can't force our admins to do all the admin jobs - some admins prefer to stay in the background with the low hanging fruit (that's necessary too), some of us are not afraid to to stick our necks up in the trenches and risk getting our heads shot off by the peanut gallery who run the stuff admins are reluctant to do, or heckled and harassed by the anti admin brigade, or being told on this page by non-adminswhat we ought or ought not to be doing. Everyone knows what the problem is with RfA that needs fixing, but too many users are afraid of losing their pet battleground if it is.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:10, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
The problem isn't really NPP – it's that we allow noob editors to create articles. That really needs to change – a significant amount of the crap BLP articles I come across were created by drive-by or low activity editors. We need to change this – this project is no longer in need of massive article expansion: we're in the "maintenance" phase now where we need editors who know how to create higher quality "start" articles. Noobs simply don't know how to do it right, or what our "notability" policies are, 99 times out of 100. Article creation needs to be restricted to more experienced editors who know what they're doing. Everyone else should be forced through AfC (or just be SOL in terms of creating article until they've put some time into the project, or perhaps require a "second" from an experienced editor before being allowed to "create"). --IJBall (contribs • talk) 07:03, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
Where we have people acting on incorrect/outdated assumptions or huge variances in people's assumptions then research can be not just useful but the only way to resolve a logjam. We see this at NPP where some believe in the importance of communicating with new editors before they leave, and others think it is that same "communication" that makes them leave. In terms of community relations the current dysfunctionality is of a bunch of twenty somethings at the WMF talking to a bunch of greybeards in the community as if we were a bunch of adolescents. Research would doubtless show that not all WMF staffers were in their 20s and perhaps we still have some teenagers editing (though no longer in the admin corps). But I'd be willing to bet at least a pint that we now have more greybeards than one would expect from extrapolating the past editor surveys. I'm intrigued at the rising level of editors saving >100 edits in mainspace each month. I don't know if it is the same three thousand or so editors month in month out or whether there is a core of people who are always in that group and tens of thousands who regularly edit but only pass the 100 edits a month figure one a year. If it is the same three thousand or so regulars I don't know whether the increase has come from newbies or long established editors just getting a bit more active. Either way there are important repercussions for RFA. A bit of research could tell us if we have a large and growing group of editors out there who could mostly pass RFA if they ran; or a large group of newbies working their way through the system who will soon be experienced enough to pass RFA; or if our de facto standards are simply out of reach for the typical one evening a month editor. ϢereSpielChequers 09:13, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
The problem with adminship isn't NPP, and I never inferred it was. The analogy I was making was that the bulk of our admin work is dealing with issues that are directly or indirectly related to NPP. We do all the deletions of every kind, we have to facilitate and/or close the discussions on notability where patrollers can't figure it out. We have to block those who create the inadmissible content that gets let through. The trouble with the Foundation at the moment is that it's like a farmyard with a bunch of chickens running around with their heads chopped off. The new line up is young and keen (perhaps too young) and rather than listen to the old greybeards like me, they either think they know it all already, or they will deliberately spend time and money on research that's already been done and they will not listen to us. The absolute reality is that there really are very, very few of them who know what it is like down here on the factory floor. I know, because I spent a week in Esino talking to them. And there is their little huddle on MediaWiki right now that doesn't bode too well... Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:08, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

The RfA navbox

Template:RfA Navigation is a bit of a mess. How about subgroups? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 21:05, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

 Done: Also did some typographical stuff to make it more aesthetically pleasing. — Esquivalience (talk) 00:12, 10 August 2016 (UTC)
Looks good,[User:Esquivalience|Esquivalience]]! Definitely cleaner. One thing, should there be a grouping of pages related to past RfAs? Right now, the first bit is about about current RfAs and current discussions then mixed with past stuff. That first bit excludes "Requests for adminship by year" which is in the second bit. How about subgroups:
  • Current RfAs and discussions
  • Past RfAs
  • Something or other
Anna Frodesiak (talk) 09:31, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Adminship candidacies by year

As you know, we have these:

I know we have "July 2016 – 2 successful and 2 unsuccessful candidacies" in those, but I've always wanted to see them both at the same time so I started this:

Is this useful? Should I delete it? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 19:29, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

I like it, there's no harm in keeping it. Good work! JMHamo (talk) 19:55, 5 August 2016 (UTC)
Good input and thanks! Shall I leave it in your capable hands? All the best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 10:02, 6 August 2016 (UTC)
I assume this is just being extracted from Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Recent? Mkdwtalk 18:34, 8 August 2016 (UTC)
Hi Mkdw. Yes, and the two links at the top of this post. I never understood why the info is presented that way. Getting an overview of the whole years seems better than splitting it all up.
It is odd how the successfuls and unsuccessfuls cluster like that. I wonder if it's like that every year. Maybe I'll do 2015. Thoughts? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 19:16, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Okay, thanks to User:KSFT and User:Chickadee46, 2015 is now also done. It is still in my sandbox. Shall we decide on the right names and places and such and then do moves and add links to the navbox? Cheers. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 07:07, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Some naming suggestions:

Okay, I'm losing it. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:03, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Also, there is this unnecessary column called "RfA" that I do not know how to get rid of. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 09:34, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

The column headed "Type" is there to distinguish RfAs from RfBs - not many RfBs but there was one just last month. The column can only be removed by using an adapted version of the template {{Recent RfX}} in your table: Noyster (talk), 10:33, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
I like Wikipedia:2016 requests for adminship myself, but the first four on your list are also good. Enterprisey (talk!) (formerly APerson) 16:08, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
I like this one. Mkdwtalk 16:11, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
Me too. That makes three of us. I'll boldly do the moves. We can change it later of others disagree. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 18:20, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
If not too much trouble, you might make the table sortable, use a date format that is sortable (2016-01-18), and calculate the percentage. Glrx (talk) 17:14, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
I've added sortability (does not require making the date format ISO-compliant). Calculating a percentage would also require a different row template (as with Noyster's comment). --Izno (talk) 17:37, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
Thanks Izno! That sortability is really nice for such a table! Anna Frodesiak (talk) 18:42, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Now both at:

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 18:25, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Should there be a Wikipedia:2014 requests for adminship? I'd be willing to help put it together.

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 18:42, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Well, I turned it blue. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 18:55, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
Don't we need somewhere to list all of them if we plan to make this a major project? I could put together a list similar to this. Chickadee46 talk 19:02, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
I've started the above list here. Chickadee46 talk 19:06, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
If you're doing 2016, they've already done it at Wikipedia:2016 requests for adminship. Mkdwtalk 19:09, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
I know. The list was based on this, and 2016 is transcluded so the new page could be transcluded each year. Chickadee46 talk 19:13, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
(edit conflict) There should be a landing page that lists all the years. That landing page can be added to Template:RfA Navigation. Mkdwtalk 19:07, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
Actually, that's what I had in mind with my list, but the navbox ({{Requests for adminship by year}}) and Wikipedia:Requests for adminship by year was probably the best way to go. Chickadee46 talk 19:46, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
Approved and unapproved requests for adminship? Mkdwtalk 19:35, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
That's always bugged me too. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 19:57, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

I created {{Requests for adminship by year}} and added it to 2016, 2015, and 2014 years. I also created Wikipedia:Requests for adminship by year, transcluding the existing years into it. Feel free to improve. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:43, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Splendid! Thank you. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 19:58, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

So, I can make a few more if you think it's a good idea. I have a system so it doesn't take long. But how far back? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 19:57, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Definitely not back to when there were zillions of RfAs. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 20:05, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

And what about Template:RfA Navigation? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 20:05, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Nice. Thank you. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 21:04, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Percentage

If people want, I can add the percentage computation to {{Recent RfX}} as an additional column. It involves adding an additional line before the noinclude: 

| style="text-align: center;" | {{{7}}}<noinclude>

The line can test for divide by zero and produce a zero (or an — but zero makes sense for 0/0 here). Should be something like: 

| style="text-align: center;" | {{{7}}}
| style="text-align: right;"  | {{#ifeq: {{#expr: {{{5|0}}}+{{{6|0}}} }} | 0 | 0.0 | {{#expr:100*{{{5}}}/({{{5}}}+{{{6}}}) round 1}}}}<noinclude>

That adds another column to all invocations of {{Recent RfX}}, but the tables should still display reasonably. Column headers can be updated to add the new column / fourth tally. Glrx (talk) 21:00, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Assuming this is only for RfA's - you can ditch the "type" column as it only will contain RFA. — xaosflux Talk 21:05, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
That's not the case. {{Recent RfX}} is used in many places -- including the tables at the top of this page. The proposed change would extend all tables using the template to include a percentage. Glrx (talk) 21:12, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, I meant for the reports in the prior section, but if they only want rfa's then that column may be able to be paramaterized for display yes/no. — xaosflux Talk 21:59, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

I started User:Anna Frodesiak/Blue sandbox for 2012. I'll do it if nobody else does. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 10:03, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Done, thanks to Glrx and Chickadee46. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 02:29, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Proposal to extend rollback right

Given prior discussions of how to lighten admin workload, here is a proposal that I believe hasn't been made before, to extend rollback rights in a very small but potentially useful way. I thought that given previous discussions here about unbundling, it might be of interest. Background is that I had to clean up after a page creation vandal today and found that there was no rollback button available and rather, pages had to be deleted individually. As a side effect of the proposal, ideally admins should get a rollback button to remedy page creation in the simple scenario of a page consisting of just one edit, or, (let's call this version B of the proposal) where the page has only one editor. Please comment at the proposal thread on village pump, thank you. Samsara 19:20, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Where's the notice?

I discovered, by accident, that we have a live RFA going on. What happened to the notice that we were putting at the top of general pages this year? I had come to rely on it. --MelanieN (talk) 17:40, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

It's not a general site notice at the top of every page; it's a watchlist notice. I'm fairly confident it has always been thus. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:41, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
I think it is a watchlist notice also, but it didn't show up on themy watchlist. -- GB fan 17:44, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
Weird; it showed up on mine. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:44, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
And mine. Chickadee46 talk 17:45, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
It's showing up on my watchlist, but it is extremely sluggish to pop up. (Ditto with other notices that are up there.) That might have something to do with it. ~Cheers, TenTonParasol 17:46, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
  • I looked for a couple of minutes to see when it was added to the watchlist notice, but we've switched to a system of transcluding a template that calls another template that (I think) checks a page in user space that is updated by a bot.... seems like there are plenty of opportunities to get some kind of weird caching error. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:51, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
This edit on 22 August by User:Amalthea (bot) changed User:Amalthea/RfX/RfA count which turns on a switch at Template:RfA watchlist notice, which is permanently displayed on MediaWiki:Watchlist-details. It worked for me. i wonder if it has to do with the cookie=257 on MediaWiki:Watchlist-details? Seems like after all that template wizardry and automation, the cookie number still needs to be updated by hand? As a result, I suspect if you dismissed an early notice that first used that cookie number, MediWiki thinks you don't want to see this notice either. I think if the cookie number is updated, it should work for everyone. But it will also re-display for people who already dismissed the nomination, which I assume would annoy them. I'm unconfident enough that I won't do this myself, but User:Xaosflux edits that page frequently, so maybe he'll know. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:01, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
Yes, the watchlist page is what I meant. Thanks for the comments. Checking several browsers, I find that it turns up immediately on my cell phone, and after considerable delay on Safari and Chrome. I guess I just need to be more patient. (Also it is sort of drowned out by two other notices at the top of that page.) --MelanieN (talk) 18:13, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
Hi All - there are multiple places where caching may be in place, which is overall "OK" because watchlist notices are designed to be up for a a while at a time. While the RFA details are maintained by those other templates, making them actually appear on the watchlist is still generated by the watchlist cookie-id (which I just right now updated). This is purposeful, and it is still necessary for an administrator to increment the cookie to make the new notice appear and to be able to be dismissed by editors. This also gives a short period of time to ensure that obvious SNOW type RfA's don't bother everyone looking at a watchlist. — xaosflux Talk 18:46, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
Note, if a reasonable amount of time has gone by and a non-snow RfA is open, anyone can drop an edit request over at MediaWiki talk:Watchlist-details to nudge more admins. — xaosflux Talk 18:48, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
That makes sense. Thanks, Xaosflux. 99% of WP is knowing who to ping! --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:00, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Cyber Warrior

Cyber Warrior (talk · contribs) has just created Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Cyber Warrior. I believe that they are not a confirmed user, and so cannot add their nomination to the table as instructed. (The main RfA page is currently semi-protected.) I would add it myself but I suspect that it will be immediately closed as NOTNOW. Could someone with more experience in these matters please handle this one? —Psychonaut (talk) 14:35, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

I think we got consensus that very obvious NOTNOWs can be deleted per WP:CSD#G6, so I've done that. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:42, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/ZN3ukct

I had a query. Why should we list Rfas like Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/ZN3ukct which have been made apparently very clearly for gaining attention only. Should we not deny such a stature to truant Rfas where the said editor has been blocked? I don't mean to request deletion of the page, but only that we remove it from the unsuccessful list. Lourdes 09:56, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Per my comment on the user's talk, I felt the nomination was made in good faith as the user had made a number of mainspace contributions, though it was a clear WP:SNOW close. I don't see any reason for the block. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:19, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
Note: editor now blocked as a sock. Muffled Pocketed 10:23, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
Honestly, why do we still allow self-noms for RfAs? I can't imagine a single situation in which a self-nomination would result in success but the candidate would be unable to find a nominator if they poked around. ~ Rob13Talk 11:17, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
Because people may have some distaste for the idea of going and seeking a nominator, maybe. I'm just guessing, I didn't run until I was approached to.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:27, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
n+1 nominations are frequently self-nominations, but just last year there were successful first time self nominations: 1, 2. For long-term editors, especially ones that have declined a nomination in the past I don't see any reason for them to go ask someone to nominate them. — xaosflux Talk 18:55, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

This was a troll RfA from a sockpuppet. I think we should delete it and remove it from the RfA history listing and other archives - per WP:DENY. As long as that RfA is displayed on the main RfA page, the troll wins. --MelanieN (talk) 22:19, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Correct, but bureaucracy has a lot of inertia. Someone please cut through (and delete this section). Johnuniq (talk) 23:42, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
 Done: Noyster (talk), 08:44, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
  • Other question: what can be done about 26 September still be listed as "No RfXs since 15:28, 26 September 2016 (UTC)"? Perhaps let Snow closes not be entered there? 2 September would be closer to reality today. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:46, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
I tried changing the date in User:Cyberpower678/RfX Report but the bot reverted the change: Noyster (talk), 08:44, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
I think we'll just await a fresh Rfa and that should resolve it (that is, if we get another Rfa.... or is this it?). Lourdes 10:44, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

RFA has turned a corner

I haven't been super active lately, but I still pay attention, and it seems to me that RfA has really turned a corner. A whole lot of new admins this year with lots of good noms. From my perspective, it's the watchlist notices that have gotten my attention, and I think that this deserves most of the credit. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 04:10, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

The biggest change I've seen has been the number of participants in each RFA. Certainly listing the current RFAs at WP:CENT has contributed to that. I don't know if we can really talk about a comparison on the "quality" of the candidates; I look through Wikipedia:Successful requests for adminship/2015 and see a lot of good names on there. In terms of numbers of RFAs, it's 50% behind last year's numbers at this point according to User:WereSpielChequers/RFA stats: 15 successful candidates by October 2015, against 10 successful candidates this year. October isn't over and unless something dramatic occurred at Rehman's RFA it'll be 11. Mkdwtalk 04:21, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
I do feel somewhat like the mentality at RfA has gotten a little more forgiving. I don't see as many editors quoting a single snide remark from three years ago at RfAs, although there are some who will always do that, I'm sure. Now we just need more RfA candidates to take advantage of the slightly more understanding approach to vetting. ~ Rob13Talk 04:26, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Nominating for admin

Please could you tell me exactly how this is done - and the steps and stages you have to go through. I just wondered. Thanks! Myosotis Scorpioides 16:41, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

@Myosotis Scorpioides: It's mentioned in the third sentence of the RFA page: Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship. Mkdwtalk 17:00, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Many thanks Mkdw - I'll go and have a good read. Myosotis Scorpioides 17:07, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Rehman 4

Hello. If it's alright, I'd like to a few minutes to thank everyone who participated in my RFA. I have thoroughly understood every comment, and I'd like say that all points are well noted. For those who raised genuine concerns against my RFA, I'd like to assure you that the tools are in safe hands. Wikipedia was the first internet account that I had created, so it is very close to my heart.

One key point which I'd like to highlight is that, there was a lot of kind comments on my RFA page which really meant a lot to me. As one editor already pointed out, after the wreck on my older RFA about half a decade ago, I disappeared for a while, only to slowly return with half the motivation. But the comments there really upped my spirits and recharged my understanding of the great people that run this project. To me, it is a really good example of the importance of always being nice. It may not seem much, but to some, it means a lot.

With the vast ocean of great editors doing what they are good at, your support just made what I do a bit easier for me.

I'd also like to thank User:Fastily for going the extra mile to nominate me, even though this was my 4th (!) RFA. Also, sincere thanks to User:WereSpielChequers and User:Kudpung, for your really humble off-wiki and on-wiki guidance and support.

Happy editing! :-)

Yours truly, Rehman 16:02, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Please don't harass the new RFA candidates with difficult questions

Wikipedians are really bad at ignoring trolling. Sad! --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:37, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Administrator A Train has made only 5600 edits in 10 years.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:CentralAuth/A_Train

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/A_Train&dir=prev&target=A+Train

If one editor ask a question to a RFA candidate, others just show their own importance start asking questions as if this is a PHD examination test.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.39.38.9 (talk) 04:47, 20 October 2016

Do you have a specific example? Without context this appears to be anonymous harassment.--☾Loriendrew☽ ☏(ring-ring) 11:19, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
Admins can get worse harassment than useless questions. Perhaps some questions should be left unanswered, or politely rejected. Other questions may ask what would you do when zzz. In real life an admin will probably leave it for someone else to look after. We could inflict actual questions posed to admins from people. Such as why did you delete X? Is my new article any good? Can you undelete Y?Graeme Bartlett (talk) 13:14, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
When I ask a question, it's because I can't easily see evidence that will make me decide to support or oppose, and want to see their thought processes in action to help. I would never ask a question with a "right" or "wrong" answer; indeed, I usually frame something with the idea of having multiple acceptable solutions. I'm more interested in how they answer and what things they think about than anything else. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:23, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
Um, what has A Train's editing history to do with RfA questions? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:06, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
Assuming bad faith, the IP looks like a Wikipedian overcome by cowardice and unable to express their useless rage under their own name. I've long said IPs shouldn't be allowed to edit and this is one reason why. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:31, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

New adminbot request - AWB access management

There is a new adminbot request open at WP:BRFA. Please see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/MusikBot II for details. — xaosflux Talk 04:22, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Invisible RFA

The recently added RFA is not showing up in the "Current nominations for adminship" for me. I have tried purging the cache but it still says there are no current nominations. This is despite the box at the top of the page saying there is one in progress. AtHomeIn神戸 (talk) 01:29, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

@Athomeinkobe: Fixed. KrakatoaKatie accidentally inserted the template within the commented out example. ~ Rob13Talk 01:53, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
I knew I'd screw it up somehow! Thanks, Rob! :-) Katietalk 01:55, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
For this sort of challenge, I would expect an admin candidate to be able to get this right eventually. Anyway since it is fixed we can't say if it was a failure on the part of the candidate. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:42, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
But the nominator was the one who messed it up... ansh666 04:11, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Newly created RFA

See Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Finngall. Not sure what's going on here; I just informed Finngall himself of this RFA. Advice is requested as to what to do about this. Everymorning (talk) 23:25, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

I requested speedy deletion, and Ritchie333 was kind enough to grant it. --Finngall talk 23:35, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

prank RfA

Deleted page, just a case of newbie indiscretion. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:05, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Please close Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/UNSC Luke 1021. I considered CSD but I think this editor shouldn't escape scrutiny. Chris Troutman (talk) 20:46, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Relax, discussing with him now. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:47, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should we be moving discussion to the talk page?

For a long time, editors have moved discussion from the main RfA page to the talk page. However, this splits up what is meant to be a discussion and makes it likely that new participants to the RfA will not read the entire discussion before !voting. If we're going to keep calling this a discussion, we really ought to be keeping the discussion in one place instead of separating it between the !votes and a talk page few will read. Thoughts? ~ Rob13Talk 14:09, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Actually, not so long a time. This started within the past year or three because the threads were sometimes (or even, more often than not) toxic. Sometimes, of course, they're completely off-topic to evaluation of the candidate. --Izno (talk) 14:19, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
I'm perfectly happy moving off-topic threads, but entirely on-topic threads discussing a !vote? (And 1-3 years is a long time relative to my tenure on the site, of course.) ~ Rob13Talk 14:29, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
  • These 'discussions' are a completely new trend - a nonsense one. A quick look over the last few hundred RfA will bear that out. New rules/RfC consensus have not improved the climate at RfA one iota - in fact in many respects it's now worse than it was before. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:17, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Arguing about opposes (and then arguing about the arguing) is approximately as new as sliced bread. Dig through the WT:RFA archives for complaints about "badgering" ([3]). Moving them to the talk page is newish, but I think with fewer RfAs each one's associated argument gets longer. (Call it the conservation of natter.) But isn't the point of the move to implicitly say "this isn't all that important"? I sure don't read the long threads that grow out of our serial opposers' votes on every RfA. In fact I'm starting to come around to the idea that votes should be weighted by the success of the voter at predicting RfA outcomes, because we have a strong negative correlation at the moment between volume of text and empirically demonstrated predictive success. Opabinia regalis (talk) 22:03, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Also, on a mostly functional/aesthetic note, long blocks of talk-page-style discussion between supports/opposes makes it harder to visually parse and edit those sections, especially if you want to take part in, say the middle of three long discussions. Splitting it out to the talk page keeps the main page visually clean, while making it easier to take part in the discussion (if that's even what we want). ansh666 01:52, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
  • An alternative could of course be hatting each and every discussion thread on the main Rfa page giving independence to editors to continue commenting inside the thread if they wish. Lourdes 02:11, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
    Hatting is difficult to get right while observing WP:LISTGAP which is how the bot counts the number of !votes. --Izno (talk) 02:32, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
  • the idea that votes should be weighted by the success of the voter at predicting RfA outcomes, because we have a strong negative correlation at the moment between volume of text and empirically demonstrated predictive success (Opabinia regalis), sounds good, but just like getting a high score in the AfD tool, users only need to wait until the outcome is clear before voting. Clearly identifiable serial opposers who mostly remain as the lone oppose amidst an overwhelming number of supports should eventually be sserved with a warning for disruptive editing. Their participation, even if their votes are discounted, simply adds to he poor climate at RfA that is driving potential candidates away. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:07, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
    • Agree, particularly with the latter bit. It might be worth running through the last year's successful noms to identify a short list of serial opposers. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:24, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
    • I think this notion could be one of our more effective solutions to degradation of the RFA process. RFA has been a safe haven for incivility, disruption, and soapbox. RFA is a specialized process to grant editors a certain set of tools; no more and no less. Using this venue for other means disingenuously is a form of disruption and should be prevented especially for long term abuse. Mkdwtalk 18:46, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
      As long as using our new-found ability to move oppose vote reasoning disrupive commentary to this rarely-used page isn't used to castrate critical commentary in the RfA itself :) that should be fine then. Muffled Pocketed 19:04, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
      You may have to change Although the community currently endorses the right of every Wikipedian with an account to participate to accomplish that; irrespective of the merits I feel that that creates a sense of entitlement which encourages people to abuse the process. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:11, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
    • However, I would not want to see these ideas spill over into disallowing or discounting legitimate oppose comments. There are also, after all, some editors who are serial canned-supporters. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:52, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
    • I also agree with those last two sentences. I also think Peacemaker67's proposal is a very good idea (and I'd be willing to help with any data analysis tasks that may arise from that). Enterprisey (talk!) 04:03, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
      • Would be interesting to see the data, since I think most of us know who they have in mind :) Funny thing is that plenty of people who just can't see to stop soapboxing here are perfectly reasonable editors elsewhere on-wiki. (I'm half convinced the problem is the one-RfA-at-a-time thing. When there were more at once, the effect would be diluted, and the place to soapbox effectively was here on WT:RFA. Now that each individual RfA is a high-profile event, they're more attractive places to post.)

        I don't know about "warnings" though - sounds too much like escalation, when we're talking about a problem half created by the fact that nobody can ever seem to stop responding to the soapbox posts. Maybe the size of the font of your vote is reduced in proportion to the number of past RfAs whose results you mispredicted? ;) Opabinia regalis (talk) 04:10, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

  • My experience at my RfA last year was definitely that some commenters fell into the "toxic" category (worth noting in the history how much stuff was ultimately revdeled or in some cases, oversighted). In most cases, the base content of the !vote -- in either direction -- was contained within the first 100 words or less. Most verbiage and debate beyond that usually degenerated. From the RfAs of other people I have observed since then, the same holds, and frankly, the debates that become tl;dr contain nothing that really helps the person who is going on and on and on... (NOTE this is the 100 word point of this reply. Did I make the basic point? LOL!) Montanabw(talk) 20:11, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
  • So, based on the above model of a 100-word answer, my suggestion and one neutral to all viewpoints, would be to simply set and enforce a character or word limit for !vote rationales; anything beyond that (and I recommend maybe a 150-200 word limit), the person can create and post to a link on the talk page, titled something like "Further discussion of the comments by User:Foo". That way, those who care can go there and have expansive discussion, without a risk of "poisoning the well" or undue weight. If needed, any discussions becoming particularly toxic can be hatted at the talk page. The rule could be that if a person changes their !vote, they may strike their previous comments, and get another 50-100 new words or so to explain why they changed. Montanabw(talk) 20:11, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
I think a limit to the number of words is probably the best suggestion I have heard. Ever. Thank you Montanabw. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:40, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
I agree, this sounds like a good suggestion. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 23:06, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
I'm not so sure. While a lot of people !vote support with a rationale of "yes please" / "why not" / "I thought you were an admin", I tend to give longer support rationales because I don't just want to support the candidate, I want other people to agree with me and support as well. I'd feel a bit chafed with a word limit. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:52, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
I'd feel better about a word limit total per person on the discussion page, set high enough that those who like to supply evidence in their !votes can do so. I like the idea of preventing one editor from dominating the discussion all over the page. Something like a 400–500 word limit would definitely work. It definitely wouldn't constrain actual !votes, but it would constrain editors who comment on every single oppose or get overly wordy in their replies. Perhaps with a solution like this, we could allow discussion threads on the main page because they wouldn't get so long. Ritchie333, would such a longer word limit for the entirety of your comments at an RfA still allow you to write the types of !votes you prefer? ~ Rob13Talk 12:10, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, those mega discussions at RfA pages are a new phenomenon - one that newer users or those who are relatively new to regularly following RfA (even recently promoted admins) may not have realised; they may be under the impression that it is the norm which it clearly never was. The situation is exacerbated by the new rules allowing the increased publicity that has augmented the participation at RfA twofold, and with it the potential for all the other undesirable elements of RfA in direct proportion.

Someone mentioned recently that these kinds of discussions may also be contributing to the reasons why users of the right calibre are reluctant to go through the process. It further reinforces a couple of comments I have made that the December 2015 reforms may possibly not be having the intended impact. According to WereSpielChequers' table, this year's figure for successful passes clearly once more demonstrates an alarming and continuing downward trend. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:39, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

I have not been active here, except for my own RFA and minor contributions. So, zero experience on whatever went before. I believe I have noticed that the ivote on RFA is open to anyone. Am I correct that it used to be somewhat limited? I mention that, because a lot of those editors have little real clue of what an admin does. So do they know what they're voting on? But in regards to the discussions, I rather like process for arbcom elections. — Maile (talk) 02:05, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
Do you mean vote that way? An interesting idea.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:29, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
That's exactly what I mean. If I understand that process, the results are not known until the end. It's human to jump on the band wagon and kick in with a Support if you see others you know doing the same thing. Or to give a Support or Oppose just because you see a trend happening. What if nobody knew how the ivote was going and had to make up their own mind? — Maile (talk) 02:34, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
I could see myself supporting a proposal with that as a basis. Perhaps have several days discussion, and then the vote. The crats could act as scrutineers.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:40, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
We have CUs already. 'Crats do not need the right to see all of our IPs if we participate in a RfA, nor do I think they should. As for doing it through the securepoll, that has been brought up before. A few times. I would not like this as it quashes the idea that RfA is supposed to be a discussion, through the entire process. I have seen things come to light in the final few days of an RfA that ends up resulting in a "No Consensus". --Majora (talk) 02:43, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
I think it would make the system worse if it became more of a vote. The Arbcom elections are electing a limited number of people, and part of your criteria will be subjective things as to why someone isn't one of the six you want to serve as Arbs. RFA is very different in that we have no limit on the number of mops - people aren't competing against each other, they are competing against what one hopes are rational and consistent criteria, at least with each voter being consistent in what they are looking for. There are advantages in requiring oppose !votes at RFA to give some sort of rationale. The silliest rationale's can be ignored by the crats, the merely mistaken ones can be challenged, and the worthwhile and meaningful ones get traction and can derail an RFA. With the current system an unsuccessful candidate should at least know why they didn't make it and therefore hey have a chance of passing next time. If it was just a vote the unsuccessful candidates might not know why. ϢereSpielChequers 20:11, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
I'm inclined to agree that having the support, oppose, and neutral opinions publicly visible provides a considerable amount of information to the RFA process. I can certainly say there are some candidates that I would have likely support had it not been for some of the opposes and the information that was brought forward. Mkdwtalk 20:18, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Adopt new Usercheck?

A while back I made Template:Usercheck-Super, which holds a lot more tools, like pending changes log, abusefilter log, RM log, XFD, and pages created (The name super meaning to imply that it was "above" full in the amount and tools it contained). Due to the scrutiny involved in the process of RFA, should it be used instead to allow users easy access to their history in these areas? Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 00:25, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Basically I think it's a good idea, but there may be several checks that might not be necessary. Cutting those out might make the list a little less overwhelming, based on the premise that if you offer people too much to do they will end up doing nothing. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:27, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
If technically possible, a good way to go about that might be to hide the more "fringe" options in a collapsed section. ~ Rob13Talk 00:58, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
@BU Rob13: Hm, then it would have to be decided which of them were more important, UtHx and UtE can be hidden, all of the admin ones can be taken off for obvious reasons, which takes out protects and deletions. Those are the obvious ones, I'll look for more than can be cut down. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 01:38, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
I like that this template does not put undue weight on edit counters. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 10:26, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
@Jo-Jo Eumerus, BU Rob 13, and Kudpung: I can make a new Usercheck-RFA that cuts out the ones that aren't necessary. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 14:32, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
Fixing your @BU Rob13: ping, Iazyges. — Gestrid (talk) 01:03, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
I happened to see this ping even before it was fixed due to the ongoing Godsy RfA, but I don't have all that much to add. I don't know that yet another Usercheck template is all that useful. ~ Rob13Talk 01:56, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Giving reasons or not

A discussion has developed at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Godsy/Bureaucrat chat#Convenience break over how bureaucrats assess !votes with and without rationale, and what advice should therefore be given to !voters. Samsara 08:37, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

The advice page at WP:RFAV is mainly aimed at younger users and newbies but it would probably serve as a reminder to others. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:13, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for keeping that up to date - I assume it reflects the RfC that Avraham kept referring to? I'm actually not sure what to think of the section that says in recent times it has become a general discussion on RfA matters or adminship. These comments do not affect the closing bureaucrat's decision. If someone were to say simply, "oppose" in the oppose section, but then write in the comment section "I always oppose self-nominations", would bureaucrats entirely ignore the comment, even after (say) their attention had been drawn to it? The current wording suggests it, but is that how things would play out in reality? Samsara 17:17, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
Let's remember the vast majority of the time RfA is decided on the numerical outcome; it seldom goes to crat chat. You therefore really don't have to provide a rationale. When the bureaucrats do get involved it becomes an XfD-like !vote situation. They have to find the consensus arguments and poor arguments (in the bureaucrats' minds) get discounted. I don't like this outcome because unlike AfD, we don't have RfA criterion expressed in policies and guidelines so it's really up to individual editors. It's unfair in that regard for bureaucrats to discount personal opinions when that's all this is based upon, however I don't see a better alternative. I think if the votes push the candidate into the discretionary range, maybe the 'crats ought to supervote rather than try to weigh arguments. Maybe that would be horrible, too. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:19, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
That numerical vote is hugely influenced by the arguments put in the discussion. In particular a well researched and coherently argued oppose vote can flip an RFA from looking like a success to failing or being withdrawn. As for crats weighing arguments, if someone gives an example and someone else points out why that was very different to the way that the person giving the example had thought then the crats are surely entitled to take note of that. Equally if someone opposes people for being self noms and others argue against that then the crats may have the role of judging that sub consensus within the whole debate. Sometimes that will be easy, other times less so. As for supervoting, I'd rather a crat who wants to !vote just !vote and leave the other crats to close. ϢereSpielChequers 21:16, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
The advice page at WP:RFAV, which incidentally uses graded language, (additionally further simplified by Esquivalience) is aimed at impressing on the need for responsible voting. It deliberately avoids mentioning any actual criteria or 'how to vote'. AFAIK, when I wrote it a few years ago, it didn't cite any RFC. 'Previously intended to be a place for pointing out technicalities concerning the debate itself, in recent times it has become a general discussion on RfA matters or adminship' should betaken in its full context while pointing out that users who have not participated on dozens of RfA over the years will not have noticed that this is indeed a recent trend. It catches on without one realising it, just like fashions and music do. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:19, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

In the wake of reform

Nearly a year has passed since the December 2015 reforms and we've probably seen all the RfA for this this year although perhaps one or two more may take place before the year is out.

What was the intention of the reforms? Was it to make it easier for candidates to pass? Was it it an attempt to clean up the behaviour on the RfA page?

The answer to the second question is probably 'yes', but it might of course also make it easier for the wrong kind of candidate to be promoted - every good project has at least some downsides. It's certainly almost doubled the participation in the 'support' section, but are those voters all aware of what RfA and adminship is all about? Have they done a proper investigation before voting? The number of oppose vote participants by contrast has remained relatively static, making it harder for genuine concerns to gain traction. Nevertheless, there have in fact been one or two RfA which even under the new conditions were possibly borderline passes.

The answer to the third question is a clear, uncontroversial 'no'. The hitherto little used comments section has become a free for all mess of long threaded discussions, many of which are strictly off topic and belong here at RfA talk. Moving these threads to the RfA talk page is only a compromise, and even leaves the mover open to suspicion and criticism. . Has the number of user questions decreased? No, in fact due to the increase in participation we are now seeing monumental lists of questions which the candidate is expected to answer, and the quality of the questions is still very much what was reported several years ago in WP:RFA2011.Has other clerking improved? No, it hasn't, and if anything, there even seems to be less of it. Have the reforms encouraged more candidates of the right calibre to come forward? Absolutely not, in fact the number of RfA is down again on previous years.

Has Anna Frodesiak's WP:OCRP contributed positively? Yes, almost certainly except that most of those with high potential have still declined to come forward. There are a lot of time wasters who post there too, but better they troll there than waste the community's time at RfA.

Thoughts?

Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:58, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Having made use of OCRP before putting my hand up, I think it was certainly a positive for me. There will always be those that have high potential as admins who will refuse to come forward regardless of OCRP or reforms. OCRP significantly underestimated the result of my RFA, as I didn't get an overwhelming sense that I would be successful, but it is still a good filter for time-wasters and a yardstick, and I'd like to belatedly thank Anna Frodesiak for her initiative. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 04:50, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
Well thank you Peacemaker67 for making use of the poll. And I am very pleased to hear such positive feedback, and from you too Kudpung กุดผึ้ง. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 04:56, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
When you launched this discussion in April, went wrong, and why the reforms aren't working after only 4 months it suggested that you were critical of the 2015 changes introduced. It is therefore encouraging to see that you now acknowledge that it was "a good project". The estimate for 2016 for 8 successful applications quoted turns out to be at least 50% 100% on the low side (12 13 14 15 16 this year) and beyond a reasonable margin for error, although if the aim was to increase the annual number of successful candidates it has failed in that objective. Unless evidenced to the contrary, there is nothing to suggest that it is "easier for the wrong kind of candidate to be promoted" and adding "every good project has at least some downsides" in the same sentence does comes across as a barb aimed at one or more of the 12 successful 2016 candidates. If RfA history tells us anything it is that bad admins (whatever that means) often do not turn up for many years, not so much a case of being bad when selected, just becoming bad over time. The wider community participation via watchlist is to be welcomed per policy WP:EP. Leaky Caldron 10:34, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
Interesting, very interesting. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:40, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
Is Leaky not allowed a personal opinion? My user page loudly asserts that Trump is a troll and Farage is a berk, but I've had no complaints. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:37, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
Unlike some, I do not maintain my User page (last update 3.5 years ago) and that box has been there since August 2009, over 7 years ago. And it might still be true in my opinion - which is of no interest to anyone - least of all Kudpung. What is far more interesting is that this thread has received next to no interest in the week it has been active. I think the community (those who come here) are, finally, sick and tired of the subject being raised 4 times a year. Leaky Caldron 12:56, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
Ritchie333, no one is suggesting that users are not entitled to a personal opinion, unless of course it is so outragous that it conflicts with Wikipedia policies, common decency and the norms of developed, civilised society. One should respect WP:POLEMIC too, and no one should be condemned for being curious of users who say one thing in one place and might infer something different or the opposite in another. Consistency is always a respected, if not necessarily a valued trait.
No one is denigrating Biblioworm's initiative. This This comment that was made without any prompting from me by Esquivalience is close to what I also perceive to be the reality of the effect of the initiative, and is a conclusion that I support; there is indeed increasing reason to believe that some refinements to the 'reforms' could be made. I want it to be absolutely clear that at no time have I ever discouraged any initiatives for improvements to RfA or suggestions for alternative systems. I laud and applaud any such suggestions being made whether I criticise them or support them - someone has to make them - and whether the work or not. Most of the Major RfC I have launched gain consensus - if they don't, I go back to he drawing board, but I don't throw around with PA at those who opposed or who later pointed out genuine flaws after implementation.
In that same thread, Biblioworm mistakenly and repeatedly insists that his reforms have introduced clerking (a feature I wholly and vociferously support), whereas they did not. They simply suggested that Bureaucrats can do clerking, which like anyone else they have always been able to do, without mentioning that other users have always been free to clerk an RfA in any formal or informal capacity and of course are still perfectly at liberty to do so, and where they sometimes (but all too rarely) step in.
Any reference to WP:EP is off topic here. That policy is exclusively concerned with the editing of articles and policies and has no mention related to the publicising of discussions. From WP:TPG: There is reasonable allowance for speculation, suggestion, and personal knowledge on talk pages, with a view to prompting further investigation, but it is usually a misuse of a talk page to continue to argue any point that has not met policy requirements.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:18, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
  • I believe that the reforms have a negative impact on RfA due to the extra participation. I recently had to report a blatant troll to ANI, that would probably otherwise stay out of RfA borders if it weren't for the watchlist notice. Esquivalience (talk) 05:33, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
    • You could use the same logic to advocate for closing down any process on Wikipedia to experienced editors only. That you had to report one troll out of the extra hundred or so voters we get per RfA is hardly a reason for hiding the fact that an RfA is happening. Unless we fundamentally don't trust editors of the encyclopedia to determine a trustworthy candidate then I don't see how increasing the number of voters is anything but an improvement. Sam Walton (talk) 11:39, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
If you look around, Sam, you'll see that en.Wiki is now the only biggie not to have rolled out some requiremts for being authorised and sufficiently trusted to vote on RfA. Can you at least make some suggestions for improvement to our system? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:16, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
@Kudpung: Then propose that we implement a minimum activity requirement for RfA votes. My point was that complaining about increased participation isn't useful if that's not the actual problem. Sam Walton (talk) 16:04, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
@Samwalton9:, why me? Why not you? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:12, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
What? You shifted the goal posts from 'extra participation is bad' to 'participation by inexperienced users is bad', which isn't what I was arguing against, so I suggested that you might want to propose a remedy if that is indeed the issue. Sam Walton (talk) 17:28, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

On the first question, the ultimate goal seems to have been to promote more administrators; second to and in support of that, to clean up the problems which discourage quality candidates from putting themselves forward. The reforms have accomplished neither of those goals, I'd say, as the downward trend continues. When we talk about whether or not reforms were successful, it helps to have some stats to talk about, otherwise we're all just giving our opinions on what worked and what didn't. So I compiled some. (These stats count Samtar's just-closed RfA but not including Godsy's open-as-of-this-edit RfA, unless specified otherwise):

Year Total RfAs Total not closed early
(WP:SNOW, WP:NOTNOW) 		Successful Unsuccessful
(no consensus or
withdrawn by candidate)
2016 28 19 13 (68%) of 19 6 (32%) of 19
2015 58 39 21 (54%) of 39 18 (46%) of 39

Of the candidates who were discussed in a fulsome RfA (not closed early per WP:SNOW etc.) there were both fewer RfAs and fewer promotions, though the proportion of those that resulted in promotions was somewhat higher. The reforms have failed to attract more candidates, and have likewise failed to promote more admins, although it does seem to have made RfA more likely to succeed for those candidates who did apply. (EDIT: Although it's as likely that the candidates who did run were simply better qualified.) It's also worth noting that the proportion of RfAs that were not "closed early" (i.e. were seriously considered by the community) is exactly the same. Regarding participation:

Year Mean RfA
participants 		Mean successful Mean unsuccessful Mean succ/unsucc
excluding withdrawn 		Mean unsuccessful
excluding withdrawn
2016 175 189 144 198 255
2015 118 147 84 150 160

These numbers also discount the "closed early" RfAs as clearly participation in those is significantly lower. For the rest, participation is certainly up. I don't have any statistics on the quality of RfA contributions; my very casual observation is that there has been no change. Just one more table, about the discretionary range: the 2015 reforms opened up the discretionary range from 70-75% to 65-75%.

Year Total RfAs closed in
2015 range (70-75%) 		# successful Total RfAs closed in
2016 range (65-75%) 		# successful Lowest pass Highest fail
2016 1 1 4 1 75% 67%
2015 2 1 7 1 74% 75%

Changing the discretionary range has had no effect at all. The same number of RfAs would have passed regardless of which year's range was applied, and no RfAs passed which were in the expanded range of 65-70%.

It's been suggested that the effect of the reforms would make it easier to pass RfA (which does seem to be true) and that that would allow less-suitable candidates to pass (follows logically). But has that been a serious problem? There have been 12 promotions this year (excluding Samtar) and of those 12 none have been de-sysopped, so there doesn't seem to be a problem with allowing unsuitable candidates to get the mop. Granted, that could be a problem that develops down the road, but I see no reason to believe so at this point. For 2015, none of the 21 successful candidates were desysopped, though one gave up the bit and failed reconfirmation, and two have since apparently retired (but still have the bit). Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 19:15, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

  • I'm glad to see the pass mark slightly lowered, but realistic enough to know it won't often have effect - I don't think it has yet given us an extra admin. I think the extra publicity is good, it would be interesting to know if the extra voters are more or less likely to support, but I'd hope in the long term some of them will take an interest and run an RFA themselves. I still think that to encourage more participation it would be better to have some clear written criteria both to !vote and to stand "anyone who has contributed >100 edits is welcome to vote" and "you may only self nominate if you have over 3,500 edits" would in my view be improvements and would reassure newbies that their votes were welcome or would be with just a few more contributions on their part. The biggest change we got last year was the launch of Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Optional_RfA_candidate_poll, this has had quite a bit of success in attracting people to express an interest. But, and here it reminds me of AFC, it has rapidly developed a set of de facto standards that in my opinion mean that it is deterring candidates from running even in those cases where they could easily pass. I'm not sure whether the solution is to get a few candidates there to run and hope that some of the harsher commenters then reassess their criteria, or simply to scrap it. But my fear is that it is dissuading some good candidates from running. ϢereSpielChequers 22:28, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
  • As stated very clearly by WereSpielChequers about the reforms: ...it has rapidly developed a set of de facto standards that in my opinion mean that it is deterring candidates from running even in those cases where they could easily pass. [...] But my fear is that it is dissuading some good candidates from running.
    An interesting discussion, with stats an' all, which really belongs here at WT:RfA, is taking place here. There may be some openings there for anyone who would like to come up with a truly workable voting system, but WP:RFA2011 and the tens of thousands of words of discussion since have tended to continue to demonstrate that the community is reluctant to lose its one playground where PA and disingenuous votes and comments can be bandied with total impunity. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:51, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
  • For anyone who might be interested, I compiled this data for more past years and have posted it to User:Ivanvector/RFA statistics with some commentary. I will post the data itself when I get my Dropbox working again and/or if I find a better hosting solution. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:42, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
Bit of a red herring, but Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Yash! "failed" on 83% - I don't know what that does to the claim "no candidacies have failed with more than 75% support". Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:22, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
Ritchie333 - my personal view is that a withdrawn nomination shouldn't be seen as 'failed' per se for statistical purposes. Let's just assume it had carried on for another 48 hours and it dropped below 75% (not that I necessarily think it would have), then Yash withdrew. I don't see how that should have any additional statistical weighting to withdrawing at 83%. (and vice versa) Mike1901 (talk) 16:29, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
After Lourdes Oppose there were 8 opposes and six supports before Yash! withdrew. It would be reasonable to assume that this was one of those RFAs where the direction was more important than the percentage. ϢereSpielChequers 18:06, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
At one point I tried to fiddle around with weighting them in proportion to time spent open, but it was overly complicated without much information value. I do think for purposes of counting candidacies, withdrawals have to be included. I've generally counted them as a subcategory of 'unsuccessful', but when I first started looking at this stuff last year, one of the things I expected to find was a change in the proportion of RfAs started but withdrawn early. It was actually very stable, as outcome proportions in general have been since at least 2008. Opabinia regalis (talk) 22:23, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
I've added more commentary about my methodology on the subpage I linked above. Basically, in terms of determining whether or not there was consensus to promote, the candidacies that were withdrawn with less than 10 support votes were counted as NOTNOW. 10 was chosen a bit arbitrarily. There were several such candidacies which "failed" on 100%, technically, but those were really not useful to calculating statistics regarding the pass/fail rate of crat chat-eligible candidacies. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:39, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
That's great, Ivanvector. Might as well point out here that 2016 (to date - there's still time to squeeze in a few more RfAs! ;) has an overall success rate, including early closes, of 42% - which is the second-best annual performance in the post-rollback era. (2013 was 46%.) If participation is up (a lot) and the pass rate is up (a little) and the proportion of NOTNOW/SNOW candidates is the same (as it always has been) and the decline in total candidacies is consistent with past trends, then overall the reforms have been a qualified success. They may not have (yet?) had any effect on deterring poor candidates or reversing the decline overall, but nothing else that's been tried since 2008 has done those things either. It's too early to know if the pass rate is a blip or a trend, but inviting broader participation hasn't made it harder and has increased interest in the RfA process. Opabinia regalis (talk) 22:23, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
  • There's an assumption that patterns in the last year or so are "in the wake of reform". There are other patterns and other things that today's RFA is also in the wake of. In particular the off wiki canvassing that targeted two female candidates in the summer of 2015, and that contributed to making those two RFAs two of the least pleasant for years. We've had about twenty successful RFAs since then, and several of those twenty new admins have not disclosed their gender, but as far as I'm aware we haven't had an openly female new admin since those incidents. I appreciate we have such a gender skew in the community that this could just possibly be a fluky random fluctuation. But it is beginning to look to me like a troubling pattern. If there are any women out there thinking of breaking that run then in my view now is a good time to run, and I'm not the only experienced nominator who'd be happy to get an email from a woman who was considering running. ϢereSpielChequers 15:53, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
    • Well, the increase in participation is almost certainly the result of the watchlist notices, and no other effects are robust enough to call them a trend regardless of what wake they're in ;) But you have a very good point about women candidates. Unfortunately relatively few people set their gender in their user preferences, so it's hard to get aggregate data. FWIW, of all historical successful RfAs since 2003 (give or take a few) the preference distribution is 3% female, 32% male, 65% unknown. Opabinia regalis (talk) 00:53, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
      • I agree that the increased number of voters this year is almost certainly down to the watchlist notice. I'm hoping that some of those additional !voters go on to run for admin and I'm sanguine about there being a time lag between starting to !vote at RFA and becoming a candidate. Participation in my view also means being a candidate, and while !voting has increased the number of candidates and more to the point the number of successful candidates has taken a tumble. I suspect that this is partly down to reviewers at Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Optional_RfA_candidate_poll being stricter than the actual RFA crowd, thereby deterring some people from running. As for the 3% female, 32% male that's based on preferences hence 65% are unknown. On these figures no known females in the last twenty admins is broadly on trend. I actually looked at RFAs and userpages. If the nominator refers to a candidates as he then I'm assuming male, and on this basis we have a lot more blokes than unknowns, and I consider that it something of an anomaly not to have had a new female admin in nearly 18 months. ϢereSpielChequers 15:03, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
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