Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 126

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List of Administrators

Since this seems to relate to several ongoing topics might I suggest that someone with the appropriate level of access take a look at this page and revoke or at least suspend the administrative rights for users who have not been active in say the last year. There are several administrators who have not been active since 2003 and 2004 and I doubt they are coming back. Even if they do they likely don't remember the things needed to perfomr admin functions after that length of time.--Kumioko (talk) 22:12, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

My perception is that a significant number of editors stop contributing after having achieved their goal of becoming an administrator, so I think this proposal makes sense. In any case, very many editors are opposed at RfA on the grounds that they don't appear to need the tools, so why keep administrators who clearly don't need the tools? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
This has certainly been talked about ad nauseum, perhaps even in this current page and not even archived yet. But it keeps coming up again and again, so maybe there's something here? How about as a compromise (between those, like me, that say admin tools don't rust, age, or expire), and those that believe that an admin can disappear into oblivion to the point of being obsolete and therefore have their userrights adjusted to remove the toolbelt (and probably likely to make mistakes because of the changed environment after being gone so long that they should be reconfirmed anyway) The hangup, correct me if I'm wrong, is the time that would elapse before "de-adminship". What if it is made into something outrageous, similar to what Kumioko said above? What if an admin, after going a full calendar year (and on the internet, we all know that is an age + an eon) without a single edit, regardless of whether it was an admin related action or simple edit, is autmatically bot-desysopped? I would agree to that, as it is highly unlikely that editor is returning if they even remember their password. Heck, they might even be dead. Or married. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 22:34, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
(ec) That would certainly be a start. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:43, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
What, getting married?  ;-) Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 23:00, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree with desysopping inactive admins. They serve absolutely no purpose to us whatsoever, and cause the need for unnecessary pages like the one mentioned. I have yet to see one good argument for keeping inactive admins, and how they are a net benefit to the project. The same goes for bureaucrats, especially ones who are active but refuse to use the tools. Majorly (talk) 22:38, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

We are not paying those administrators. The tools are not being leased. Is there some issue I am unaware of concerning admins coming back after an absentee period and wrecking shop? The answer is to add new administrators, not prune the bush of old ones. Wikipedia is growing, and RfA criteria is becoming more and more strict - now if you are too prepared you get !voted off the island. Admin coaching? "Factory manufactured". Any sort of personality? "Uncivil". Great answers to questions? "Too scripted". As I said above, I'm waiting for the time when someone opposes for a candidates having too many edits - I predict in the next three months.
My point here is that we should not be concerned about taking the tools out of the hands of inactive users if there is no problem. We should be addressing the actual problems facing Wikipedia - bloated AN/I pages, increasing concerns about off-Wiki canvassing and factions, etc. Nothing at all personal towards anyone, just my opinion. I also EC'd with Keeper and Majorly (that gets frustrating, doesn't it :-), so some of my comments might be redundant. Tan | 39 22:41, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I disagree here, to me even if an editor is relateively inexperienced at least they are editing and therby learning by proxy, if you have been gone for 2 years, how much has changed. What if a sysop that has been gone for 3 years comes back and starts making edits immediately based on the policy established then, how many things have changed? To me the chance of a rusty administrator doing damage is greater than a boot editor doing harm.--Kumioko (talk) 22:49, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
"I'm waiting for the time when someone opposes for a candidates having too many edits - I predict in the next three months." It's happened. Majorly (talk) 22:45, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
It might be me next year who knows. This time next year I should have around 70,000 edits--Kumioko (talk) 22:50, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
My faith in Wikipedia as the future of online information dissemination is waning rapidly. Tan | 39 22:46, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

(after ec)We have had problems in the past with compromised accounts running amok before emergency desysopping, so an account with admin functions that is not being used is a hand grenade with a pin just waiting to be pulled. As long as these sysops can be re-granted the tools without going through RfA again, there is absolutely no net loss to the project, and it gives a clearer idea of how many admins are actually still with the project. I suspect it is lower than many realize. Horologium (talk) 22:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

(ZOMG EC)My main concern with inactive admin-enabled accounts is that they, if hijacked, are unlikely to be spotted before serious damage can be done to the project. The chances of such accounts being hijacked are the same as with my account (or yours, or anybody's), but the account's owner isn't around to notice odd edits or shenanigans. Picture a sleeper sock that is actually a long-time admin with 10,000+ edits who decided to walk away. Problematic. Is removing the tools a solution in search of a problem? Possibly. But setting up such removal would serve some purpose, if only a minor one. UltraExactZZ Claims ~ Evidence 22:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Think about it. If something like this isn't done, there will come a time when wikipedia has more administrators than there are humans on the planet. ;-) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:50, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Unlikely, There are 6,942,941 registered user accounts, of which 1,536 have administrative tools (including the above mentioned). ;)--Hu12 (talk) 22:55, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I wasn't talking about registered user accounts, I was talking about humans on the planet. The number of humans, unlike the number of administators doesn't always and inevitably increase. The number of administrators, on the other hand, is presently without limit, and in time will include many generations of long-dead editors. I'm picturing a future SignPost with the headline "WikiPedia reaches it's 5 millionth administrator, with a subheading that 4,999,015 of the others are actually dead. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 23:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Don't worry. My will speculates that the mop will be inherited by my eldest son, which will pass to his son, and so on. Expect to see Bibliomaniac18, third admin from the line of bibliomaniac15, followed by my coat of arms. By the way, my plan also involves marriages with other administrators. From the fifth generation on, none of my descendants are allowed to sully the bloodline with any one with less than three administrative quarterings. bibliomaniac15 23:52, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm still single, if you know any good-looking female admins with a good sense of humor, let me know. Useight (talk) 23:55, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
:o Oppose people passing on their accounts to their children!!! Enigma message Review 23:56, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
To me this simply is good housekeeping, everyonce in a while you have to dump the trash.--Kumioko (talk) 22:54, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm actually supporting this, but not because I think accounts are gonna get hijacked and do "serious damage". That's really just silly, and rather paranoid, IMHO. I really just think there is validity for the simple reason that the editor that has been sysopped is no longer an editor, plain and simple. "Inactive" is a very fancy word for denial. They're gone. Again, plain and simple. It's a matter of unchecking a box on userrights. A bot could do it, and should. Nothing to do with "compromised accounts". No hand grenades. Just editors that have left us. Uncheck the box. No drama, no !voting, no recall, no de-RfA. Just uncheck the box of an editor that has left. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 22:54, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
(Double Edit Conflict) I doubt it. The ratio of admins to users is like 6,000 to 1. Anyway, when somone opposes on RfA saying the candidate doesn't need the tools, everyone always says "But if they do at least one good thing with the tools, it's worth it." So why doesn't that apply here? If there's an in-active admin and they decide to come back one Saturday while their friends are out of town, and they happen to do one good thing that they couldn't do as a non sysop, isn't it worth it?--KojiDude (Contributions) 22:57, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the BOT idea, plus if the admin wants their priveleges back (which most likely they won't come back anyway) all they have to do is ask. This just removes that small chance of something going wrong and allows better management of the RFA's that are out there working.--Kumioko (talk) 23:00, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
KojiDude, why would they suddenly come back after 3 years? It's so unlikely. And if they did come back, they can simply ask a bureaucrat to set the right back. No harm done. Majorly (talk) 23:01, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Also to Koji, if they do come back, at least once per year, the bot won't remove the bit. If they come back after being gone +1 year (which is highly unlikely), what are the chances that they need the admin bit anyway? "I've been gone 3 years, I don't know WTF is going on with Wikipedia anymore....hmmm...I think I'll close some AFDs today...." Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 23:03, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Er yeah, that's if they even know what AfD is... Majorly (talk) 23:08, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Admin rights are not really rights. They are priveleges. You get priveleges for doing stuff, not for doing nothing. It's only reasonable to expect that if you stop volunteering for a project, you will lose these priveleges. I honestly think we're too kind to even allow them to have them back without an RfA. I mean, some users passed RfA back in 2004 with 7 people supporting. Hardly representative of the community is it? Majorly (talk) 23:06, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
(ec)As I stated in the above discussion, I fully support desysopping inactive admins. I also said above that to allay concerns, we can be lenient and make it a full year without any activity. Some of the inactive admins are dead, and most of them cannot be reached (talking about the ones that haven't been active for a year or more). I actually tried. I was able to get a response from Clifford Adams, who said he wasn't aware he had a Wikipedia account. 85 admins have not edited in over a year. I think they should all be desysopped. And per what Keeper said, this can be automated so as not to add another task for stewards (even a ridiculously minor one). Enigma message Review 23:07, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Lol did I read that right ... he didn't even know he has an account? And we trust this guy (no offence intended at all here, but it's so silly) more than many people who actually make edits here? Majorly (talk) 23:10, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I think I will never understand this desperate desire that so many seem to have for administrator tools, and to hold on to them no matter what. Isn't it supposed to be "no big deal"? So it's no big deal that an administrator that hasn't edited in a year isn't an administrator any more? Right? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 23:08, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

It's no big deal to get the tools (or supposed to be). It should be no big deal to remove them. Majorly (talk) 23:14, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I thought it was no big deal either, the brutal and tragic demise of my RFA showed me the error of my ways.lol--Kumioko (talk) 23:18, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Adminship is a big deal. RFA torture proves it. Which is exactly why there should be an automatic (bot) desysop for inactive accounts. If/when an editor does come back (and remembers they have an account, lol), deal with that then. Don't think that's happened yet. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 23:24, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
(ec) It is sort of a joke that adminship (or the tools, making the distinction is also silly) is not a big deal. Look at the RfA process. My god, it's a huge deal. Majorly opposed Wisdom89 based off some deletion trust issue - not that I have any problem with that, but don't claim adminship isn't a big deal if we can oppose such a clearly dedicated editor based off that. If adminship was truly no big deal, we should all go "Eh, looks fine" to 99% of applicants. This whole "not a big deal" thing should be discarded, as it's only said and never actually followed. It's a platform for hypocrisy, at the moment. Of course its not a big deal to editors who are already admins - they can dismiss aspiring admins with a brush of the hand, claiming the whole time adminship isn't a big deal. It's patronizing and condescending. Tan | 39 23:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Now if you knew me a little better, you'd see I rarely oppose RfAs. I opposed because speedy deletion is something that is a great contributor to driving off potential editors. When done incorrectly, it drives the user off the site, never to return. Who knows, it may have been the next Newyorkbrad, Phaedriel or whoever. I am well aware how dedicated he is. It's not like I was the only oppose. With improvement on speedy tagging, and less semi-automated tools (I see too much Twinkle and Friendly being used) I'd love to support him. I only opposed because I believe his errors would drive away good faith editors. Majorly (talk) 23:37, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I do see you around, Majorly, and I didn't mean to dismiss your oppose !vote. I used you as a quick example, and if it was in bad faith, I apologize. My point is that claiming adminship is no big deal, and then opposing the RfA of an editor who has put in thousands of hours, tens of thousands of edits, and has worked very hard on many articles, is essentially telling that editor "You don't even rate as "no big deal". You are less than no big deal." To tell an editor that they don't meet the standards of "no big deal" is harsh indeed. Tan | 39 23:41, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I would also now like to state my support of Kumioko's idea. There is simply no need for inactive and dormant people to retain unused accesses. The fact is that people in need here on en.wp often turn to the list of admins to find someone who can provide help, both editorially and administratively. If so many of them aren't around to provide that administrative assistance... then they shouldn't be counted among the list of administrators. -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 23:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I bet Jimbo is sitting at his desk reading this and grinding his teeth as we speak.lol--Kumioko (talk) 23:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
WP:NBD is outdated, and wholly inaccurate. Wikipedia is too big, at the very least, it's way bigger than when Jimbo uttered those words that created that essay. Anyone wanna MfD that essay, or archive it as obsolete (because it is) ? Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 23:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
(ec)Oh, and Jimbo is way smarter than that. He long ago decided that WT:RFA is ridiculous. I'll bet he hasn't read this page in ages. :-) and if you're reading this Jimbo, please accept my apology for assuming you were smarter than this, and please add a smiley face or silly picture to prove it. Or add your two cents. Either way, pleased to meet you, we haven't conversed as of yet. My talkpage is open! :-) Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 23:35, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Makes sense to me, I think that we can all agree that its simply been overcome by events. I guess they were right you don't need to be an admin to help change policy, but it does help if you want to clean up the mess after the policy has been made!!--Kumioko (talk) 23:33, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I also support desysopping admin accounts that have been inactive for a year. But I think we're in the minority. Useight (talk) 23:32, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't see one user here against this. I suggest we make a straw poll lol. Majorly (talk) 23:39, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Everyone who managed to change something was once in the minority. ;-) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 23:41, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Also, many of our English and Australian editors are fast asleep, several of which I can think of off hand that would perhaps be opposed to an automated desysop after one year, based on prior opposition to ideas of this ilk. But, WTH, start a poll Majorly! Do it! do it! Us wide awake Americans should get to decide everything of importance anyway! Wooot!!!! (zOMG, I'm so freekin joking...please don't blast my talkpage with tripe.... Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 23:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Straw poll

The straw poll has been closed and archived as no consensus. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 20:06, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Section break 2

Ok, I have to say I agree with the closer of the poll - this is not something that should be voted on. At the same time, it's not something which should be killed. I fully support the proposal to desysop admins who have not made any edits or actions on wiki in the past year (I support the same limit for all rights, including bot and bureaucrat), although the user-rights log should indicate that the deflagging was due to inactivity, and if the user returns they should (subject to them proving their identity) be reflagged without needing a new RfA. However, I pity the poor sod who tries to get a bot through RfB - that's not so much a snowball's chance in hell as a snowball's chance in the centre of the sun. What do we think is the best way to take this discussion forward? Happy‑melon 09:27, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Write a proposal. Advertise it a lot at VPP, Cent Discussions, Admin noticeboards and the mailing lists. Stand well back and watch the explosion on the article talk page. Once a consensus has developed it will then need to be brought back to the community for endorsement. Mechanism ??? Spartaz Humbug! 09:45, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I can only hope this proposal wasn't serious. On Wikipedia, we assume good faith. Imagine returning after two years and getting a message reading "Hi. We appreciate your work. We trust you to be an admin, but we don't trust you to have the tools. So we've taken them. If you're not completely pissed off that we did such a thing without so much as notifying you, click here to ask for them back. Be warned; drama will ensue as your past enemies pile on in calling your leaving controversial. This is an automated message; have a nice day, {{BASEPAGENAME}}."
dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 10:26, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

DHMO, did you even read what was being discussed? There would be several levels of notification. To an editor that has left. And probably won't come back. But if they do, they get there bit back by asking for it back. ("removed for inactivity of over one year"). And if they are pissed off about it, I wouldn't want them to have a block button anyway. The good ones that have left, and there are several - the vast majority even, would understand why the bit was gone. Or log in once a year and fix a spelling error. Or go to BN. No drama. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 15:26, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Could someone explain to me why an open discussion, even if guised in a supposedly horrible straw poll, was archived by one admin who disagreed with it? (I assume this is what happened, but I'm not sure). I am aware of the essay that states the horrors of voting, but I hardly consider that enough reasoning to archive the discussion. I often have my little amusements with personal perceived errors in wikipedia red tape, but ignore them as I believe the project works overall. When I sign in in the morning and see a shaded box with red letters telling me not to edit a discussion of a straw poll, well, I get more than a little perturbed. I'm not intending to instigate, perhaps I'd just like a solid explanation if anyone can offer one up. Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 12:53, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

What Gwynand said. I'm puzzled by the closure of the poll, it looked like a good way of showing that there currently isn't a real consensus on the issue either way to me. What's so bad about that? --Conti|✉ 13:12, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I commented on Spartaz's talk page. He told me "voting is evil" was his reason. Needless to say, I disagree strongly with the closing of the straw poll. The very definition of straw poll tells you it isn't binding. Enigma message Review 13:27, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Some might be tempted to say that it is just one of the many means by which mindguards (see point 8) can operate to remove any steps that aim to make minor adjustments to the powers of admins who are not active, and so no longer have any need for the "no big deal" tools. It can make use of many different tactics, such as the stating of "rules" that take on the airs of being some kind of "holy writ" or by referring uncritically to the statements of some guru. 8-)  DDStretch  (talk) 13:34, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I think that we're very fortunate in having administrators like Spartaz, keeping all these kinds of heretical notions at bay. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 14:01, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Stop being such a dick Malleus. Spartaz Humbug! 14:19, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Let's all remain civil. Majoreditor (talk) 16:19, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for your thoughtful and well-considered contribution Spartaz. Just remind me though, what does my being a dick have to do with the issue being discussed here? Or is everyone who believes that you acted in an unjustified and high-handed way automatically a dick? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 16:32, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Your welcome and no. And what constructive aim was your comment supposed to achieve? Spartaz Humbug! 18:01, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps to make you think about who the real dick is here. ;-) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 18:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Actually, we have a process for making policy that involves the whole community when its a major change or do you honestly think that a straw poll after only an hour or two of discussion is the right way to change a fundamental aspect of the way this project works. Sheesh. Spartaz Humbug! 14:19, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
As I've been trying to explain, we were just intending to see where people stand. Please look at the definition of straw poll. No one thought this was a "binding vote". Enigma message Review 14:21, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
(e/c)You may be right, in fact you are probably right, that a straw poll is not the best way to do anything. However, there is no policy anywhere that would suggest an admin swoop in and shut down an open non-binding discussion. Even reading the essay on voting doesn't recommend such a tactic anywhere. If anything, you should have voiced your opinion on how much you disagree with the straw poll, but closing it? I'm just not seeing this as a sound practice. There is no policy that actually advocates in any way an admin--or anyone--closing a discussion like you did, citing an essay that warns of the negatives of voting was very misleading. Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 14:24, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Hmm I wasn't aware that closing a discussion was an admin action. In fact since I wasn't acting as an admin and as admins have exactly the same rights in a discussion as anyone else my archiving of the discussion could have been reversed at any time by anyone. Interesting. Spartaz Humbug! 18:01, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I am extremely disappointed in the unilateral actions of Spartaz, who ironically has acted unilaterally because he assumedly was disappointed that others were acting without "involving the whole community" Very poor form. I disagree with this, so I'll shut it down? That's how we roll now? I've made my rant on your talkpage Spartaz, I'm leaving this thread now. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 15:22, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for assuming bad faith. I appreciate the insight into your approach to disagreement. Spartaz Humbug! 16:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I wasn't assuming anything. It was bad faith. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 16:56, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
So telling us all "shame on you" for having a straw poll on a talk page (have you looked up "straw poll" yet?) wasn't bad faith? This is insane. Tan | 39 16:31, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Keeper. The straw poll was a useful supplement to the discussion. It should not have been shut down, and certainly not unilaterally. Majoreditor (talk) 16:18, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
"...only then will a straw poll be valid"? What? The whole point of a "straw poll" is just to get an idea of community mood without having anything official. Tan | 39 16:22, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Wow, the response to the opposers on that poll was worse than any RFA I've ever seen. What happened to people being entitled to their opinion?! The Rambling Man (talk) 16:24, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Of course, they are entitled to their opinions, and so was everyone else—up to the unilateral closure of the straw poll, that is. But given that we are on a talk page, where discussion of matters is to be expected, people should not expect that their opinions are immune from being challenged, and so on. If you think the challenges were a little too one-sided, then perhaps this was because the arguments on the other side were much stronger and could only be stemmed by, for example, a unilateral closure of the straw poll.  DDStretch  (talk) 16:44, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Please could the editors who supported or opposed the straw poll put those words in bold when they reply - all this discussion is hard to read. Thanks, Dan Beale-Cocks 16:48, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Enoughs enough

Ok, everyone lets just take a deep breath here. I think we should just agree to disagree for the sake of this discussion. I agree that he shouldn't have taken unilateral action but the damage is done now. I suggest we create a project page as he suggests and get the ball rolling. If we keeping going on like this the discussion is going to hit critical mass and we won't be able to open it anymore.--Kumioko (talk) 16:42, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Agree. Where do we want to put it? Should we do a quick straw poll to determine a proper location?  :-) Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 16:58, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Create a new page for it. Majorly (talk) 17:02, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Poll restored, moved to subpage

I don't see how a unilateral action to close a poll is more respective of consensus on Wikipedia than the poll itself. I've restored the poll, and moved it to the subpage indicated above. Avruch T 17:13, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:PEREN anyone?

This is already covered by Wikipedia:PEREN#Demote_inactive_admins. I wonder what the record is for the most number of proposals for an idea? --Hammersoft (talk) 20:29, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

As someone who has quite often quoted PEREN myself, I agree that this topic is probably a record breaker of some sort, and certainly deserving of it's place on "the list". However, at some point, if the same topic comes up again and again and again, by different editors, at different times, for different (but similar) reasons, perhaps there is some merit to it? Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 15:30, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Although it perhaps might get rejected again, I wouldn't exactly call it "soundly" this time. Lots of support. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 15:50, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Yes, it's perennial for a good reason, as stated earlier on this page. However, I do find many of the arguments against it to be very weak. Some are opposing because they want an even more stringent policy. Then some are opposing for "unnecessary work". Enigma message Review 16:23, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
  • All a matter of viewpoint. Just as many are supporting for weak reasons. "Mostly just because I think it's a good housekeeping procedure", "No harm because they can just get it back from a crat if they become active again", etc. etc. etc. What you think is weak, others think otherwise and vice versa. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:21, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
  • You find the assertion that it is "unnecessary work" to be a weak reason? Why is unnecessary work not a bad thing? Do you honestly think, that with all of the backlogs that never go away, that we don't have enough work to do and that proposals that generate extra work yet accomplish nothing that the person opposing feels warrants the effort should not opposed on that basis? We do not have unlimited man hours to devote to tasks of questionable importance, especially when it comes to tasks that must be performed by users of which we have an extremely limited number and who are already assigned a large number of far more pressing tasks (stewards/bureaucrats). I would also note that none of the people dismissing the extra work aspect of this would be doing any of the work in question.--Dycedarg ж 08:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Another face on adminship

There are some administrator tools that can cause serious harm, even though every administrator action can be reversed. That reversal may come too late to appease the grievance felt by an editor who feels that (s)he was unjustifiably blocked though, and to that extent not all admin actions can be reverted.

Learning from the experience of handing out the rollback tool to non-administrators though, which I believe has not resulted in the predicted widespread mayhem, maybe there are other admin functions that could be granted in the same lightweight way? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:02, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

zOMG, Malleus, why are you starting a new thread when the one above (finally) has some steam? Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 00:06, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree him, in fact I think that it would be very beneficial if WP were modularized like Mr. Potato Head style in that you have admins with a given toolset but each of the tools could be granted individually like the rollback is. For instance if you ony deal with vandals then you don't need to be able to block accounts necessarily, just to Speedy delete a page. Just an example. I will say that I do like the way that WP is allowing scripts to be easily used and deployed from the perferences. Maybe something like that could be in order here.--Kumioko (talk) 00:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I disagree. There aren't that many tools that an admin has, and I don't see a problem with having them all at once. Useight (talk) 00:10, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, let's add even more complication, chaos, and confusion to the admin-tool-granting process ;-) Tan | 39 00:11, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Atomizing user rights sounds halfway appealing until I consider that we'd be forcing users to suffer through reams upon reams of new process to navigate a confusing system for... what benefit? – Luna Santin (talk) 00:31, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Admins have 26 tools, technically. But not all of them are frequently used (API high limits, suppressing redirects on moves, uploading images by URL, unwatched pages, etc.) GracenotesT § 00:55, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

(e/c) ( to kumioko) :::I don't necessarily disagree with this, just too much change at once. I'm about to wet my pants at the idea of two hugely discussed admin/tools related controversies being discussed at once.. :-)Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 00:12, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Last time people demanded and tried too much change at once, we ended up with this. bibliomaniac15 00:14, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Not even to mention the '60's...whew what a time that was.--Kumioko (talk) 00:19, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Funny, I was just thinking, not two hours ago (really), about how one of these days, RfA will be no more. All of the admin tools, rollback, IP account creation limit exemption, blocking, protection, deletion, edit-through-hard-block, edit fully protected pages, etc. are all granted individually. What are the odds? WODUP 00:16, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Odds? About a bazillion to one. But hey, we're saying there's a chance. (My apoligies if you don't get the movie reference...:-) Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 00:21, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
(ec - Malleus, I was actually asking about the odds that this would be discussed a couple hours after I thought about it) I think that's about right, and I do think I remember that part of the movie. :) I'd be interested to see how this would work, but I fear for the candidates having to make 5-15 26 (thanks, Gracenotes WODUP 01:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC)) separate requests to have all of the tools; making one is tough enough. WODUP 00:37, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

The odds of changing anything on wikipedia seem very close to zero, so trying to change two things at once doesn't seem to be that much of a risk. ;-) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:25, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Unless it tanks both of them....Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 00:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps my cycnicism just got the better of me. But you and I both know that nothing will change anyway. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:41, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I know thats right, I just got the word that after fighting a brutal and bloody battle against a superior and hostile enemy force my RFA was closed and savagely defeated (tapps plays in background). I think I'll logoff now and lick my wounds. --Kumioko (talk) 00:32, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
If I may say so, that's not the right way to deal with the inevitable hurt after a failed RfA. It's a brutal process, and it's crap, but you now have to try and rise above it. ;-) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
(ec)Considering the controversy and excessive wikidrama that rollback caused, I'd strongly recommend against this, although I do agree in principle. Enigma message Review 00:43, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
So it's a good idea, but because it's controversial it ought to be dropped? Perhaps one day I'll be able to buy a dictionary of wikipedia Newspeak, and then I'll know what you're all talking about. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 01:03, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Not dropped Malleus. Tabled. Timing is everything. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 01:05, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
As my mother has often said to me, "Life's too short to b****r about", so we'll probably have to agree to disagree. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 01:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Agree with Keeper. In fact, tabled was actually the word I had in mind. Enigma message Review 02:16, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
The trick wouldn't be to offer up all of the tools at once---but to target the next tool to be given on demand. The one that jumps out at me is the need to edit protected pages. I've got a candidate who has a strong need for the ability to edit protected pages. Technically, he doesn't have the usual background I'd look for in an admin candidate, but his definite need outweighs my normal expectations. And I've supported two other candidates who have shown similar needs, but lacked the experience I would look for elsewhere.Balloonman (talk) 06:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
This is a very interesting discussion - if a user worked slowly enough though, and cautiously, would they be able to get all of the major tools after a significant period of time, bypassing the common RfA process? I trust you understand my point. Wisdom89 (T / C) 06:04, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Editing protected pages would be one of the last tools I would give out, because it would completely remove the effectiveness of page protection. Edit wars happen way too often, and even established users and admins get involved sometimes. A user would have to really prove he can be trusted to use it correctly first. - Revolving Bugbear 06:14, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok. Then why doesn't someone create a new proposal for this? I can see this as being a good thing. It greatly simplifies the process in my opinion. The candidates would be requesting one tool at a time, and are judged on knowledge of one tool usage/applicability as opposed to all. Trust with each new request sounds good. SynergeticMaggot (talk) 06:51, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Malleus' first paragraph, but not with the proposal generally. As he points out, while admin actions are technically reversible in a matter of seconds, some of them (mainly the block and delete tools) can, if used too hastily, drive new users away for good. Thus, I am not happy for anyone to have access to the block or delete buttons unless they have gone through the stringent process of RfA and gained the community's trust. As to page protection, I wouldn't object to having that granted separately, but some kind of formal process would still be needed (for the reasons which Revolving Bugbear raises above). WaltonOne 10:04, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Delete and block would, IMHO, be the only two "powers" reserved for admins. I can see every other tool, including editing protected pages, being granted piecemeal. (Again, you would have to show a need... and the place I see the need for editing protecting pages are for people who specialize in templates or other areas that are protected.)Balloonman (talk) 14:22, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I presume you mean Delete (and it's related abilities, such as viewing deleted material) and Block/Unblock (and it's related abilities)?
I've said (often) that I'd like to see block/unblock be separate rights from the admin "Package". Or perhaps the other way to look at it, I'd like to see (at least most of) the rest of the admin package put together as a package for editors who don't have the wish to be community blockers. I think we'd be surprised at how many nominations for such a package would be successful and uncontroversial. - jc37 18:48, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I've always felt the block and unblock would be the last tools that the sensible new admin would choose to use. They're certainly the most drastic in their effect. Content can always be restored, but editors, once left, cannot be brought back. SHEFFIELDSTEELTALK 19:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
And yet, I suspect that if you look at most new admins, they are probably the tools used the most during the first month of adminship! Especially by people whose primary interest is anti-vandalism.Balloonman (talk) 15:10, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
There's a very good example of a candidate who clearly doesn't need the complete armoury of admin tools on the project page right now. I really can't see any rational reason not to further unbundle the admin "package"; as I said earlier, granting rollback didn't result in the predicted bloodbath. I'm also sure that Jc37 is quite right, in that many editors whose primary interest is in content building would be quite happy never to be given the block/unblock tools. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 14:58, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
This sounds like a fascinating new category of user, called a "content admin". Able to move pages, edit protected pages, edit templates. Able to close XfDs and delete. Able to use rollback. However, unable to block/unblock users (which would be ill advised to use anyway against another editor in an article that he/she is heavily involved in). This is fascinating! Have an RfCA (Request for content adminship) to determine the merits of the editor's content contributions only and whether a modified tool set might be useful and used well. I'm liking this. Poke holes in this, I'm not seeing any just yet...Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 15:35, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I would keep Delete and it's related abilities out of the hands of people... it and block are IMHO the two areas of tools which can be abused the most and cause the most harm in wikipedia.Balloonman (talk) 15:39, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
How elitist of you :-) "out of the hands of people". I know what you mean though, I added it in there to see if there was a reaction. A "content admin" likely wouldn't find much use from the delete button, other than cleaning up sandboxes/subpages/workspaces. It would however potentially reduce the amounts of CSD:U1's though. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 15:49, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
"Hey, congrats on your RfA! You're an Admin Level 1 now! Maybe in a few months you can try out for Admin Level 2 RfA, then you can Delete stuff." Seems like a bleak future to me.--KojiDude (Contributions) 15:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
(e/c)You're looking at this differently than I am. I'm not seeing two levels, one being some sort of predecessor to the other. I'm seeing to different needs being met. I've seen some terrific and talented content writers, who have no interest in blocking, fail a traditional rfa because they might block someone inappropriately. If someone wants the whole tool set, the go through RfA. If someone really just wants to be able to edit protected templates (for example), could care less about Xfds and indef blocking of "teh vandullz", they would submit for a RfCA. Not two levels. Two different things. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 16:04, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Having a different process for content admins (RfCA) sounds to me like a duplicate version of RfA. Even though it'll be designed to be an easier process, people will develop criteria, which over time will become more strict, just like RfA has become. And as that happens, RfA criteria will naturally need to keep up pace. I can see a point where passing an RfA will be as hard as it is to pass an RfB today. Might as well not change the process at all. I like the idea of breaking up the toolset, but it seems like any solution is more trouble than it's worth. --Kbdank71 16:01, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I wouldn't call it any type of adminship, I would either grant the tools piecemeal like we do currently for rollback or have a new class of 'trusted user.'Balloonman (talk) 16:06, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Maybe we could have ranks, like in the Military. That'd be pretty cool to see a userbox that says "This user is a Staff Sergeant in the Wikipedia Army Military Cabal Spec Ops Gonga Line Air Force Legion 22nd SAS Regiment Army."--KojiDude (Contributions) 16:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't see this as anything to do with "ranks"; administrators are in no way superior to regular editors, or vice versa. They're just doing different jobs. Unbundling the admin tools would make the jobs of both easier. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 16:36, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

(undent) There are already service awards. Malinaccier Public (talk) 16:41, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

What has awards got to do with this discussion? I'm not suggesting that, for instance, an editor is given the right to edit protected pages as some kind of award. The essence of this discussion is allowing those editors that have diferent interests and motivations to contribute as productively as they can. Have you never seen, for instance, a candidate for administrator desperately trying to pump up their contributions to mainspace in the build-up to their RfA, and pretty much abandon all content-building thereafter? Why don't we recognise that we're all here for different reasons, and let those of us who are here to build content have the tools to make that job easier? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 16:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps one of wikipedia's biggest problems is that it hasn't yet learnt from what Dr Johnson said over 200 years ago: "Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome". Courage, mon braves! :-) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 19:44, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm with you, Malleus. The fact that there are 26 admin tools makes nonsense of the claim that "we don't have enough admins". What we don't have enough of is certain specific tools in the hands of enough people. Surely we have enough people with the right to set the bot flag? Philip Trueman (talk) 11:13, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
I'd support a proposal for that. RFR has worked well enough. Malinaccier Public (talk) 12:15, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
The reason behind that is that developers just keep tacking on new features to the basic "admin package" (delete/undelete, block/unblock, protect/unprotect), under the assumption that admins are trusted users, and if a new feature requires trust, it can be safely given to admins. However, there are non-admins who are trusted as well, but these features are not added to the general user group because not everyone there is assumed to be trusted. Hence, admins are used as least-common denominators for things like editing Special:Mypage/monobook.css and such. If anything, splitting the core admin tools from the rest of the cruft would entail providing a new least common denominator, a "trusted" user group if you will. IMO, the six basic tools should not be separated, though. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 19:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
All in all, admins ARE mainly trusted editors. Some people add a lot of meanings to the mop, but essencially and down to the ground, an admin is somebody who can be trusted with some additional tasks, mainly editorial (deleting) and communal (blocking). Sure, some admins can be very technical, but the nature of this role relies on trust from the community, that a given user can be given full editorial privileges. I think a lot of problems and misunderstandings come from the symbolic name. Pundit|utter 20:57, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

BAG requests process

Note: This discussion has been moved to Wikipedia talk:Requests for checkusership. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:59, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Broken

Ok, somethings broken cause recent RFAs are ending up in Category:Requests_for_adminship. Could someone who knows why fix it? MBisanz talk 08:58, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Not sure...I'm not seeing any recent changes in any of the RfA templates (RfA, Rfaf, Rfap, Rfab) that would cause this to happen differently to how it used to... dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 09:59, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
<noinclude> [[Category:Requests for adminship]] </noinclude> is being added to the pages, at least when you go through the button on /nominate. Obviously, the <noinclude> doesn't work to keep it from getting included :P delldot on a public computer talk 10:46, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
To clarify, it's outside of the template, not within it. delldot on a public computer talk 10:48, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The issue seems to be with Template:RfAsubst. Not sure why the <noinclude> aren't keeping the category out of pages the template is used to create... WjBscribe 10:58, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Could this have anything to do with the 11,958,956 job (representing 5,979,478,000 actions) queue backlog? MBisanz talk 11:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
There's your problem. Now trying to fix. Thanks delldot and Will for pointing it out (there's always an extra RfA template! :) dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 11:04, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Update; no progress. Not sure why it's working the way it is...the code seems fine, and old RfAs don't have the uncat template. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 11:11, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Apparently the inputbox at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/nominate (and probably anywhere else) doesn't understand noinclude. It's a bug in mediawiki, nothing you can do except report it. - Bobet 14:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
This isn't going to be fixed by the job queue. If the template has been subst'ed, and from what I saw it was, the category will need to be removed manually from the RFA's. Might want to remove it from the template until the bug is fixed. --Kbdank71 14:33, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Ok, removed for the time being. Going to fix the closed RFAs MBisanz talk 14:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Per this discussion, I removed it from the latest disastrous RfA. Apologies if I misread this. Enigma message 21:09, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Radical proposal mania

Can we put a moratorium on radical proposals at RfA? With RfCheck and RfBag and all the other proposals about random elements of RfA having come up recently, I think we could all appreciate a little slower pace here. Policy change doesn't need to happen at top speed, there is nothing to say that any of these things we want to fix are so utterly broken that a solution must immediately be found. Keep in mind, too, that there are active major proposals at WT:BLP and WT:Governance_reform among other places. If you want to accomplish anything that will have the imprimatur of consensus on it, you need to do it when the attention of the community isn't split 10 ways on policy issues alone. Avruch T 15:34, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Policy change does need to happen at top speed. Otherwise we'll have a massive circular discussion with everyone disagreeing, a vast and inconclusive strawpoll, and nothing will get done. I view WP:RFR as a massive success story; rather than going round and round in circles discussing it, its proponents just went ahead and did it, and it now works well and is tacitly accepted by most of the community. We need to adopt that approach to RfA reform; being WP:BOLD, starting processes and seeing whether they work or not in practice. So no, I oppose this radical proposal to put a moratorium on radical proposals. :-) WaltonOne 17:24, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I personally would like to see a straw poll formulated to see whether there are too many radical proposals happening right now. I would !vote no, as I find them all rather enjoyable if not sheerly for there inherent entertainment value. Keeper loves distraction. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 17:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Actually I think most of the community just ignores RfR. I know I do, partly because I think its a pointless waste of time and partly because once I got rollback I had no reason to... go back :-P I don't think the argument that discussing a major change causes too much discussion is really rational, and I really don't see how just ramming something through is at all better. Don't you imagine there is a middle way somewhere? Avruch T 18:42, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I'd love to believe that such a middle way exists. But in effect, it is impossible to build consensus on controversial policy issues when we have a discussion involving hundreds or even thousands of users. We always end up having a strawpoll, which always ends as no consensus, and nothing gets done. The only way to get people to accept a change is to show them that the new system works. WaltonOne 21:40, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Walton, are you among those who get a little upset when someone tells you that Wikipedia is not a democracy? Have you made comments about how Jimbo shouldn't be able to do things by fiat, that decisions should be made by the community? Because what you are saying sounds a lot like "The will of the people is too damn slow, I know what is good for them even if they don't." Is that really the way you think change should be made around here? Force it on people, and hope too many don't complain? Avruch T 00:43, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
No, not at all; sorry if I wasn't clear. I think the problem is that there are many, many policy changes which are supported by the majority, but opposed by a vocal minority. Under the current consensus-based system, this makes it impossible to hammer out any practical policy changes where we have a massive discussion with thousands of participants; the minority can derail the will of the majority. Hence why I do, expressly, support democracy on Wikipedia; I think we should go over to a voting-based system. But since that isn't going to happen, those of us who recognise the need for radical change to the current processes - i.e. the majority of Wikipedians - need to be bold in implementing it. WaltonOne 17:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Is there clear evidence that the majority of Wikipedia editors see a need for radical change? RxS (talk) 17:57, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
It is clear that some wikipedia editors would like to see radical change. :-) Change is good. :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 18:21, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Some changes are good, some changes are bad. Change in general can be either. Some Wikipedians would like radical change, on the other hand some would like to see it shut down. We don't make change according to a vague concept like "some wikipedians"....which is why I'm asking for evidence that a majority of Wikipedia editors would like to see radical change. RxS (talk) 18:37, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I made some comments about policy inertia at the VPP, but I think it's been already sufficiently ignored and archived. — Werdna talk 05:02, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/SimpsonsFan08 2

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
Resolved
Nothing to see here folks. Move along, there's plenty of other zOMGs in this thread wihtout this one...Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 21:09, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Somebody please close this nonsense. This is really insulting. Wisdom89 (T / C) 20:42, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, sigh, I've never see that happen before, and my tenure here is fairly long. Wisdom89 (T / C) 20:48, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
For those keeping score, the candidate accepted an RfA nom one day after withdrawing a self-nom due to a lack of time to properly be an admin. That's two in two days. Unusual, indeed. UltraExactZZ Claims ~ Evidence 20:50, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I suppose he just really wants to become an administrator - I'm sure to help, but that's definitely not the way to go about it. That's going to creep up again in the future I'm sure. Wisdom89 (T / C) 20:51, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Very troubling sequence of events. I closed the RfA. I'm not really sure what happened here, and I don't want to make any assumptions, but it looks black for SimpsonsFan08. Enigma message 20:55, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't think this needs to be a thread any longer. Enthusiasm =/= Vandalism. (Not that you were implying vandalism Wisdom). This should get archived and put behind us, for the benefit of Simpsonsfan who most likely meant no harm. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 20:58, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, that's fine - I just wanted to alert the RfA crew that it should be closed. I was in no way implying that this was vandalism. Ill-conceived, but not vandalism. We can move on now. Wisdom89 (T / C) 21:02, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Just appending a note for the record: The user in question, SumpsonsFan08, was later blocked for sockpuppetry, the nom of this Rfa (MrWP) being one of the socks. Discussion of the block may be found here. UltraExactZZ Claims ~ Evidence 12:45, 28 April 2008 (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.

Supporters vs Opposes

Forgive me if this is an age old conversation that has cropped up before, but, I'm noticing another ill-advised/disconcerting trend at RfA. This is partially linked to the above discussion regarding personalizing RfA !votes. The difference is that many supporters (and sometimes opposers) become critical of one another. I find it wholly inappropriate for a supporter to give their vote and reasoning behind it, and then make a snarky comment regarding the oppose votes, whether they are horrendous or made in good faith. It's really irrelevant either way. It becomes tiresome to deal with constant attacks on the opposition when they are accused of WP:EDITCOUNTITIS, when in reality it's more geared toward experience in relevant areas that candidates explicitly state they wish to work in. Listen, it's a rationale, and certainly shared by more than a single editor. Is there a way that people can 1.) Stop making snarky comments against the opposers and 2.)Stop trying to change people's minds? Am I alone in noticing this? Wisdom89 (T / C) 21:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

While I am that snarkyness should be avoided, I think that healthy debates and challenges to each others opinion only leads to better decisions. (1 == 2)Until 21:04, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
"Stop trying to change people's minds" - I thought we were meant to be having discussions? -- Naerii 21:05, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Having discussions doesn't mean automatically "changing someone's mind", Naerii. The only time (at least recently, dear GOD, don't go digging for diffs), that I've questioned an oppose is if I've felt it was unclear, needing clarification. Not changing a mind, just trying to understand a mind. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 21:11, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Exactly - there's nothing wrong with having a discussion, but more often than not I'm noticing a challenge of the stance, not clarification as Keeper puts it. Clarification is fine, discussion is fine, learning about a stance is fine. But accusing people of bad faith is not, whether it's done explicitly or tacitly. That's really my point Naerii. Wisdom89 (T / C) 21:23, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Not all challenges consist in allegations of bad faith, or other personal attacks. Challenges can be made in quite civil, non-personalized ways. It would be a mistake to think the two are necessarily linked.  DDStretch  (talk) 22:31, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
On the other hand, I think that challenging each other's ideas usually improves things. -- Naerii 22:46, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
There's not much point having a discussion if you're not trying to change someone's mind - they key thing is that you have to be open to the possibility that you'll be that someone. Civility is non-negotiable, of course. --Tango (talk) 22:34, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
If you don't mind, I'll disagree with this Tango. There's lots of reasons why we discuss things, without the hidden purpose of trying to "change one's mind". While that is often the case, it is very possible, and I submit even probable, that "discussing" in some instances really just means "I need clarification". (did I change your mind? :-) Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 22:37, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
RFA is a decision making process, if your actions aren't intended to affect that decision, what's the point? --Tango (talk) 22:46, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I find the statement that "not much point having a discussion if you're not trying to change someone's mind" to be quite astonishing. I discuss things to explore questions, the result of which may that my mind is changed, not the person's I'm discussing with. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 23:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Didn't he just state that in the second part of that sentence? - Bobet 23:46, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Strong positions will only become stronger when challenged. Weak positions, on the other hand, may crumble. Win-win either way, from my perspective. -Chunky Rice (talk) 23:49, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't see any large increase in incivility. These generate strong discussions. In fact, I recall one RfA where a poor chap was accused of pedophilia. Nothing can be that bad. Bearian (talk) 18:25, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, I wasn't trying to say that there are constant violations of WP:CIVIL, although snarky comments can be interpreted as such. The point I was trying to make was supporters and opposers tend to be at odds with one another (and I suppose that's inevitable since they share a different perspective on the candidate's abilities), but one faction scoffs the other. I myself have been guilty of this before, and I've noticed an escalation is said behavior, where a co-nominator, supporter etc..etc.. will challenge multiple opposes, insinuating that the person is either making a bad faith assumption or their !vote is essentially crap. Or it's done more insidiously where multiple supporters will criticize the oppose section repeatedly. I suppose this is just observational, there's no real action that can be taken against this. It's just what happens when you have two large groups who disagree with one another on an issue, in this case, the qualifications of an RfA applicant. Wisdom89 (T / C) 19:15, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I make some poor decisions at RfA, and I welcome people letting me know about stuff that I've missed or whatnot. Since RfA isn't a vote and is a discussion I guess the RfA place is right. But I dunno, it does sometimes feel like RfAs get derailed. Dan Beale-Cocks 21:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

It is hard enough to keep from pressing anyone who uses the word "!vote", so when you get oppose votes from people because a candidate has too many primary colors in their sig, or because they have revealed their ethnic background through the use of a userbox, or because they have not made 2456 postings to AIV, then it becomes challenging to remain silent. That said, to view this in the light of being/not being civil, any time I have called out someone's vote it is not because I am making a direct swipe at the editor who made the comment, but rather to let the nom know "hey, this may sink your RfA, but don't get the impression everyone here is on board with this line of reasoning". My overall impression over the years is that the primary complaints against this type of discussion come from those editors who make the same standard oppose votes across a large number of candidates who pose no threat to the project. The reason for this is such voters are the individuals most likely to receive grief for their voting habits. If you oppose one person for any particular mundane reason, that's one thing. But when you oppose many people for the same reason, it gives the impression that you are not giving much thought to the overall candidate you vote against. Rather than !vote, it should be considered !spam, because to those who do it, it is not spam, but to anyone else on the street, it clearly is.Hiberniantears (talk) 13:41, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm no fan of snarky comments but I think that wikipedia is the better when there are a multiplicity of views and when there is discussion. A project such as this one can succeed only if there is a general acceptance that it will muddle its way through forward with some thought given to every viewpoint (otherwise we might as well shell out the dollars for a received encyclopedia and be done with it). Which means that every view has some degree of legitimacy (though, of course, consensus views, views backed up with logic, will be more legitimate) and editors need to keep their minds open to seeing the other point of view. In a sense, wikipedia is the embodiment of Post-Modernism and criticism, discussion, retraction, and ambiguity are a part and parcel of being an editor on it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RegentsPark (talk • contribs) 20:29, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

To elaborate on 'muddling' through, and with apologies to User:Horologium, looking at the current list of candidates for admin and paying no attention to their histories, ideally User:Lady Aleena should be promoted to admin while User:Horologium should not. With 80 supporting votes and no dissenting votes, horologium is obviously well trained in the current ethos of wikipedia and it is hard to see what will be different when he/she becomes an admin. Lady Aleena, on the other hand, has a 64/35 support/oppose vote count and will more likely to do at least some things differently. In a purely evolutionary sense, Lady Aleena is a better bet than Horologium!--RegentsPark (talk) 20:40, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
That's making a huge assumption that they are both screwing up and need to do things differently. Where's the good faith? --Kbdank71 20:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
You misunderstand my point. I'm not saying that either of them is screwing up, nor that either of them needs to do things differently. From a purely evolutionary perspective, it is probably better to add diversity rather than uniformity and a 100% vote indicates uniformity while a 64% vote indicates diversity. The argument is purely in the abstract, and it comes complete with a ceteris paribus assumption, which is why I apologized in advance to User:Horologium for using him/her in a hypothetical example. For the record, I haven't even looked at his/her admin case so this has nothing to do with either Lady Aleena or Horologium. --RegentsPark (talk) 21:07, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
But I support people even if I think I would do things differently. Now the only reason I oppose is if I think they'll break too much stuff.

RBAG - Flagging bots

There was a suggestion at WT:BOT that members of the bag would be able to flag bots. I think this is a great idea as currently all the b'crats do is flag what the bag tell them to flag. It would also give a reason for having all the extra bureaucracy etc of RBAG. Just though I'd post here so we can get some wider community input --Chris 10:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

This would make RBAG almost worthwhile IMO. Malinaccier (talk) 13:57, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Simple enough. Why not? Monobi (talk) 14:48, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
This would make RBAG useful, actually. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 03:35, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Kind of obvious (since I think I'm the one who proposed this), but I support this. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:59, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
I support this as well. I believe Werdna was drawing up a proposal to this effect somewhere. -- Cobi(t|c|b) 04:21, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
I support this. Great idea. Soxred93 (u t c m l )

Indeed, if anybody cares enough, I'll track it down on my personal wiki and copy it over. — Werdna talk 04:59, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

This seems like a terrible idea. BAG is unable to control bots as it is (see deleted contributions of User:MelonBot and User:Pageview bot). If anything, BAG needs less power, not more. Perhaps bureaucrats should be more given more leeway when deciding whether or not to +bot an account, but allowing BAG to have free reign is certainly not a good solution to BAG's issues. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:02, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Personally I too would prefer leaving things in the bureaucrats' hands. BAG should be limited to the the decision-making; it's best to have an impartial observer, i.e. the 'crat, doing the actual flagging. krimpet✽ 05:08, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
(e/c)Yes, I was initially going to support this, until I remembered how poor a job BAG did with approving Pageview bot's trial (which for those who can't see deleted contribs consisted of creating about 15000 user subpages) and considered approving it do a task that is redundant to this site and could have potentially created 2 million pages every month. I'm not even sure if I trust the current BAG to approve bots. Mr.Z-man 05:12, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
It's called: a mistake. Somethings which humans, including admins, 'crats and yes, even BAG members, are wont to do on occasion. — Coren (talk) 05:15, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
The problem was that 3 BAG members reviewed and apparently found nothing wrong with the task, and given the MelonBot incident, these mistakes are happening far too often. Mr.Z-man 05:28, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
I say this without a hint of sarcasm: you obviously caught that one where other missed it, why not join the BAG yourself where you can make a difference? — Coren (talk) 14:19, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
(outdent)I haven't been as active as of late, but wouldn't this require a new user group to assign this granting permission too, a historically undesirable technical hurdle. — xaosflux Talk 05:11, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Not nearly as bad as it used to be, since we now have the generic Special:UserRights interface. In the past, setting up a new user group also involved writing a whole new special page (typically as a MediaWiki extension) for managing it, if you wanted anyone but stewards and developers to be able to grant the permission. Now all you need to do is edit a few lines in a config file. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 05:48, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

As I detailed in my BRFA, Pageview bot stated that it would create a subpage only for pages tagged with a certain template. My estimation was that only four or five pages incluced this template, and this is about the number which I saw tagged. The issue here, as I understand it, was Pageview bot moving beyond its proposed operational parameters. — Werdna talk 12:56, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Some help?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

User:Tangotango/RfA_Analysis/Report. The BAG page started getting picked up by the bot today, because the title of the page is as if BAG is running for RfA. Someone want to move the page to a more appropriate location? Enigma message 19:41, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I tried wrapping the transclusion in <noinclude></noinclude> tags. Let's see if that works. —  scetoaux (T|C) 19:48, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
That did the trick. Enigma message 20:54, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Well done; much better than manually deleting it from the report, as I attempted. Thanks! UltraExactZZ Claims ~ Evidence 12:19, 29 April 2008 (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.

Proposal

I've posted a minor proposal to change the wording of a sentence in RfA boilerplate prose on the RfA template's talk page.

The Transhumanist 07:44, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Low level of participation

I often see people referring to admins that have passed their RfAs as having "community support". But is this really true? We currently have seven million registered accounts, of which 1,538 are administrators and 989 active administrators.. the number of active users is probably ten times that, and yet somehow we only manage 40-60 comments on each RfA. Am I the only one who thinks this is a bit odd? -- Naerii 01:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

As the process takes place in semi-secrecy, probably not so odd. In fact, it's my belief that one of the main perceived benefits of admin coaching is that it is one of the few permissible ways of advertising an upcoming RfA. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 01:44, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
To be honest, not odd at all. Most people don't hang round XfD, AN/I and the rest of the alphabet soup enough to have any opinion on the people involved, and even those that do don't necessarily want to waste their time reviewing a complete stranger's contrib history. Even in real life today's London election is unlikely to have a turnout above 20%, and that's for control of a £5000million ($10billion) budget, not additional limited edit powers on a website. I suspect our ratio compares favourably to the percentage of shareholders who bother to vote at a major corporation's AGM, for example. — iridescent 01:46, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
No one truly has community support because the community is so large. Most of the community has no interest in !voting on XfDs, RfAs, RfBs, or anything else. This is the best we can do, I suppose. And yes, the fact that one may not CANVASS obviously helps prevent a lot of people from even knowing that a certain candidate is up for RfA. At least the "community" is more involved now than it was a few years ago. By the way, following up on what Iridescent said, why do you think WP:Editor Review is so in need of reviewers? People don't want to sit around analyzing someone they don't know, unless they have something vested in the individual. Enigma message 01:52, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
I think that RFAs do get pretty good representation. Not of the entire community, but of the relatively few very active editors. In fact, I've been recently trying to compile a list of "highly active editors" that serves the purpose of providing a list of editors who are likely to respond quickly in case of questions or concerns. It can be found at User:Useight/Highly Active. It is not nearly complete and if you'd like to add to it, please do. Useight (talk) 05:52, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Wow. I made your list! Anyway, I think there are scores of pretty active editors here on basically a daily basis, who simply refuse to get involved in these things. Are the RfA regulars a representative sample of the active editors? Impossible to say, really. Also, I presume you meant "get pretty good representation", not that the representation is pretty. Enigma message 06:00, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that's what I meant, oops. I fixed that. My list is horribly incomplete, I am converting the list into a table and I will then sift through names I find at XFD to add. I want to eventually have the list sorted by timezone instead of alphabetically. Useight (talk) 06:03, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Any suggestions or additions are welcome, if you can think of anything. Useight (talk) 06:04, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

You are quite wrong, Naerii, about there being "ten times as many active editors". There's just not. I couldn't give you a statistic, but I'm fairly sure there aren't 10 thousand users active enough to come and comment regularly at RFA. -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 12:52, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Some of the controversial RfAs get plenty of participation...the more run of the mill ones, not so much. It's a no big deal thing, in a sense. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 12:54, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. Even the more Big Deal items, such as Arbcom Elections, top out at 500+. Even with thousands of active users, only a small percentage will take the time for something like that, and fewer for the usual RfAs in the pipeline. I don't think it's a major problem. UltraExactZZ Claims ~ Evidence 13:45, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
And Arbcom Elections are posted on everybody's computer screen.Balloonman (talk) 14:36, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

As an aside, there is a legal way to "advertise" an RfA/B: {{Rfa-notice}} and {{Rfb-notice}}. Secondly, most voter turnouts in the real world are significantly below the 50% suffrage level. This does mean that RfA and RfB participants have a disproportional voice vis-a-vis the universe of registered editors, but that is no different than the real world. While these discussions are referenced in the Signpost, perhaps more exposure would be helpful. Lastly, Useight, what am I, chopped liver? -- Avi (talk) 13:46, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

  • It also seems that once there are 40-50 !votes the consensus is fairly obvious in most cases and I would guess most casual editors just pass by those discussions and move to a newer one. It would be an interesting experiment if there was a minimum comment number of say... 200 before and RFA could close. I am not suggesting it... just saying it would be interesting. GtstrickyTalk or C 14:02, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
  • In the US, the voter turn out for off year elections and generally primaries is much lower than this. (This year's primaries are an abnormality). Plus, I think a good point was made above, most people don't vote for the trustees or other board members of companies where they own stock because they figure somebody else knows better. In places that elect judges, how many people actually research the judges they vote for? Or Corner? Many people don't take the time to investigate candidates in the real world, let alone here.Balloonman (talk) 14:36, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

In my case, i generally only participate for users I'm familiar with. Wizardman 14:59, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. Higher profile users are likely to be familiar for more people. The number of such people is not high, hence, often, only people who know a user will bother commenting at an RFA. -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 15:04, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
I kinda like the fact that I don't know anything about the person I'm voting for (I've had almost no interaction with any of the candidates I've voted for or against). Looking through their edit histories and looking at the reasons given for support/oppose/neutral votes is very instructive about the culture of wikipedia. Perhaps advertising the RfA page in the welcome note would be a useful way to culturalize new users and to get them to vote down the road.--RegentsPark (talk) 16:30, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
I too tend to chime in on pretty much every RfA that passes through, whether I recognize the name or not. I find that it encourages me to sharpen my editor review skills, and it's a great way to provide feedback to the candidate. (when RfA isn't being a bitch that is : ) ). With regards to Regents's comment about the usefulness of reading over the support, oppose and neutral votes, I find that, more often than not, a passer by tends to focus more on the oppose section (because it's usually more verbose and likely "revealing"), thus tipping the scales unfavorably. But that's just me. There are plenty of..errr..unthoughtful support votes too, but I view support as a default WP:AGF. Wisdom89 (T / C) 17:09, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree that the oppose votes tend to be more detailed (I guess we feel a greater need to justify opposition than support) but these votes also reveal more about the culture of wikipedia. From a practical standpoint, if new users stop by the RfA page (hopefully, if they choose to vote, bureaucrats will underweight that vote) they'll quickly learn which behaviors are acceptable and which ones aren't. The ambitious ones will (hopefully) not make the cultural mistakes that I see sinking so many, otherwise fine, RfA candidates. (Contumacious editors like me will never learn!) --RegentsPark (talk) 17:50, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Apologies, Anonymous dissident. There seem to be at least 4000 users with over 5000 edits. The current rate of around ~50 comments per RfA makes that a 1.25% turnout. People are trying to tell me that real elections get a lower turnout than this? :/ -- Naerii 20:30, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
OK Naerii. You've identified a problem (real or perceived is immaterial ATM). Do you have a solution? Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 20:34, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Just as an aside, using the March 11 data dump, not all of the top 4000 has edited with any regularity in the past month:

Greater than x edits in 30 days Count
0 3215
30 2615
150 1984
300 1535
600 963
1200 452
3000 88

Still a low turnout, but having 50 respondents is around 5% of those who average 20 edits a day for a month. -- Avi (talk) 20:48, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Avraham, I was going to ask that exact same question. Then if you get rid of the people who are primarily vandal fighters and use bots to get up there, I think the number will be much much lower. Then you have to factor in all of the various places where "administrative" type tasks occur (here, XfD, DRV, ANI, Helpdesk, FAC/FAR, GAC/GAR, the various projects, Village Pump, various policies/guidelines, etc.) There are only so many areas where people can devote their VOLUNTEER time.Balloonman (talk) 21:18, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Clarification, is that analysis based upon the people who have at least 5000 edits or of everybody?Balloonman (talk) 21:19, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Also, since the list only has 3215, does that indicate that 785 of the top 4000 have zero edits in the past 30 days?Balloonman (talk) 21:22, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Not of everybody. It's of the top 4000 users in terms of edit count. I assure you there are many, many more than 3,215 editors who have had more than 30 edits in the 30 day period. Enigma message 21:27, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Also, the table doesn't make sense. As Balloonman sort of alluded to, the top category is at least zero edits in 30 days. That would include all the top 4000. I think those numbers may be flawed. Enigma message 21:29, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
At least zero edits in 30 days would include everyone, wouldn't it? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:38, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, it's Greater than X edits… And yes, there are 780+ people per the March data that have >5000 edits but have been quiet this past month. -- Avi (talk) 21:41, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Which is not surprising; as the disclaimer at the top of that list makes clear, the list includes fine specimens such as Jon Awbrey, Kelly Martin, Runcorn et al who are unlikely to be gracing us with their presence again any time soon. — iridescent 22:09, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
There are also several who are on the list twice or more, as they have changed usernames somewhere along the line; the ones I spotted had zero edits under their old names. YMMV. Risker (talk) 22:18, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

(<-)All of the above supporting the point that the participation here is more representative than may seem. -- Avi (talk) 00:20, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

We needn't guess how many editors are "active" in a month. A little over 5,000 editors make 140 edits or more a month. There are several regular RFA participants with an edit count that low or lower, so this can be a reasonable threshold for "active editors". Even the most active RFAs only see participation from 3-4 percent of the active community of editors. A more important statistic, however, would be what percentage looks in at RFA and might participate in a week or month. It's not as if it's the same 50 editors commenting on your average RFA, and there are certainly editors who check in here every so often to make sure problem editors aren't getting through or great editors struggling, but otherwise don't participate so aren't reflected. In other words, I'm not sure the 3-4 percent statistic matters. --JayHenry (talk) 03:56, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
In agreeance with JayHenry, but from another track. In recent times I believe only one admin has gone right of the rails after passing RFA. The rest haven't. So wether there are 30,50,100 or 200 comments on an RFA seems to be academic - sufficent scrutiny is being applied as evidenced by a noticeable lack of desysopping or great OMG drama at WP:ANI over new admins actions. I also agree as mentioned above that when an RFA clearly has consensus editors often then don't bother commenting. Particularly with RFA's hovering at 40-60% where to add an oppose may be viewed as "pile-on" Pedro :  Chat  08:45, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
The electoral turnout in my union's recent election was ~3% ... but seriously, few RFAs need more than ~40 votes. If they need them, they get them. But there's no point is just voting in them all on principle. WilyD 14:37, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Did someone say stats?

I can't remember the formula (any statisticians around?) but given the size of the population and the votes you can calculate the margin of error of the result. The significant number is how many RfAs are within their margin of error of 75-80% - ie. how often do we have RfAs that could have ended up with the wrong result due to insufficient turnout? I imagine it's quite low, but I'd be interested in the actual numbers if anyone knows how to calculate them. (Of course, it's necessary to assume RfA voters are representative of all active contributors, which probably isn't the case, but it's probably close enough to give us some vaguely meaningful numbers.) --Tango (talk) 15:26, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

PS Also, I'm assuming RfA is just a straight vote. I maintain that, these days, that's a decent assumption. --Tango (talk) 15:28, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Can you clarify what you mean by "within their margin of error of 75-80%," Tango? If we take 70% as the low end, even the smallest error on the upside results in the promotion of someone with <70%, and vica versa, even the smallest error on the downside results in the non-promotion of someone with the 70% consensus, which is why we have b'crats :) However, assuming a true random sampling, which RfA may not be, and assuming a 75% mean, as per Margin of error#Calculations assuming random sampling, to have the sample error less than 5%, at the 95% confidence level, (so it does not fall out of that range) you would need such that or 288 people. The closer to 70% you get, the larger n is. At 80% for example, the standard error would have to be 10% (of course, assuming a normal distribution of the population and all those other assumptions people make that in truth may not really apply) so n would have to be (at the 95% confidence level) or people. Which means that most of these RfA's with percentages over 80% are pretty accurate representations (assuming our assumptions are correct :). -- Avi (talk) 16:03, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
My brain just died a little. ViridaeTalk 17:00, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
The margin of error viewpoint gives an interesting perspective, but I'm not sure I agree with your conclusions. A quick back of the envelope calculation (ignoring the probable non-random nature of the sample of voters) seems to show that a sample of 50, which has been suggested as a reasonable number, from the population of 5,000 active editors gives a margin of error of almost 14%. In other words, a result that comes out at 75% could be somewhere in the range 61-89% for the population at large, a pretty big difference. Perhaps the real question is what would be an acceptable margin of error? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 17:05, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Ideally, the margin of error should be low enough that it wouldn't change the result. So, if 75% is the cutoff, and someone gets 70% you would want to have enough voters that the margin of error is less than 5%. If your numbers are correct (and I have no reason to doubt them), then my expectation is probably wrong and there are probably quite a few RfAs that could have gone the wrong way due to bad luck (or good luck, depending on your perspective!). --Tango (talk) 18:08, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Even to get the margin of error down to 10% would need almost 100 voters. 5% would need more like 350. These figures are all calculated for 95% confidence though. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 18:24, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Malleus, I believe you are making the calculation assuming a "p" of .5, or the maximum standard error. The further away from 50% (or true randomness) you go, the less likely you are to have made a mistake. In my calculations, I am taking the resultant vote (be it the 75% or 80% ratio) as p, which is why fewer respondents are needed for the same confidence level and same percentage chance of going wrong. -- Avi (talk) 18:33, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I am, yes. I thought that was reasonable given the non-random nature of the sample. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 18:39, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

<outdent>I think we've found the perfect way to reduce the number of posts on WT:RFA. Add stats. This page has gone quiet for the first time in weeks. Thanks Tango and Avi! Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 18:25, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't tempt me to start breaking out the graphs -- Avi (talk) 18:28, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Interestingly, both of the promotions made in May look "safe" from a statistical point of view. One with 86% (margin of error 11.8%), the other with 100% (margin of error 9.7%). --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 18:32, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Given p, the percentage of supports, or sample mean, and assuming that the distribution of the sampled respondents is normal, and that the sample size is small with respect to the population size, the following table lists the number of people, n, needed so that at the 95% confidence level, the margin of error is less-than-or-equal-to the difference between the support percentage and 70%. Obviously, n must be 0 at 100% and n is infinite at 70%:

p n p n
70% Infinite 85% 21.7690667
71% 7909.8544 86% 18.067525
72% 1936.1664 87% 15.0340817
73% 841.3104 88% 12.5207704
74% 461.9524 89% 10.4180787
75% 288.12 90% 8.6436
76% 194.6410667 91% 7.1344
77% 138.8464 92% 5.8417719
78% 103.0029 93% 4.7275645
79% 78.6816593 94% 3.7615667
80% 61.4656 95% 2.919616
81% 48.8613421 96% 2.1822107
82% 39.3764 97% 1.5334782
83% 32.0739503 98% 0.9604
84% 26.3424 99% 0.4522216
100% 0

-- Avi (talk) 18:48, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Note: As Malleus described above, this is not the maximum standard error. The maximum standard error is larger, as it is calculated assuming that the true distribution of support vs. oppose os 50/50. I'm uncertain if we need that here, but I'm not a population statastician :). Technically, we also need the finite population correction, but assuming that there is a population of around 4000 potential RfA/B voters around, even 100 respondents only amounts to 2.5% of the total and would apply a reduction of slightly less than 2.5%, not 2.5 percentage points. -- Avi (talk) 18:57, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Either I'm misreading that table, or it's absurd. Either is perfectly possible, of course. :-) A single vote is sufficient to give 95% confidence? I'd suggest that your assumption that it is safe to move away from the maximum error has skewed your results. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 19:05, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Concurred. The table seems invalid at the extremes, though much more believable between the 80-90% range. Antelantalk 19:28, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Margin of error is a +/- estimator. What you really want is a little more subtle since you only care about the probability in one direction, i.e. given 75% support what was the probability that the population truly only had 70% support or less. This can be constructed exactly by using:
For a threshold of 70% to pass. One can calculate a table giving the probability that for a certain observed support % and number of voters that the actual population support was less than 70%
Number of Voters Support %
72.5% 75% 77.5% 80% 82.5% 85%
30 42.6 31.4 21.5 13.53 7.76 4.00
45 39.2 26.0 15.4 8.00 3.59 1.36
60 36.6 22.1 11.4 4.90 1.73 0.48
75 34.5 18.9 8.5 3.06 0.85 0.18
90 32.6 16.4 6.48 1.94 0.42 0.065
105 30.9 14.3 4.96 1.24 0.21 0.024
120 29.5 12.5 3.82 0.80 0.11 0.0092
135 28.1 11.0 2.96 0.52 0.056 0.0035
150 26.9 9.7 2.30 0.34 0.029 0.0013
200 23.4 6.48 1.01 0.083 0.0032 0.0001
250 20.6 4.41 0.46 0.021 0.0004 0.0000
300 18.2 3.04 0.21 0.0053 0.0000 0.0000
So a 75% support threshold with 150 voters gives a 9.7% chance that the actual population has less than 70% support. Dragons flight (talk) 19:02, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
That's what the table says, yep. If the entire population of 5,000 voted there is a 9.7% chance of the result coming to less than 70%, with a confidence of 95%. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 19:24, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
BLAM!!!11!eleven!1!111!!! (that was the sound of my head exploding). Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer
+1 for "!11!eleven". Antelantalk 19:13, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
If what Dragons flight says is true (he said carefully) then we can use this as a guide for when an RfA can safely be closed as successful, i.e. the probability of an incorrect result is below a tolerable margin. Would this mean getting rid of the 'crats? Of course not; they would be needed to "scale" !votes based on their rationales. SHEFFIELDSTEELTALK 19:20, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
No, it can't tell you when to close an RfA - otherwise you'd potentially be biasing the sample - but it can suggest how reliable the result of the voting should be considered to be. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 19:32, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
One can also calculate the number of voters needed to establish an predefined level of confidence in a result given an observed support % (again assuming a pass threshold of 70%).
Support % Confidence Level Desired
80% 90% 95% 99%
72.5 262 577 935 1264
75 70 147 234 456
77.5 34 67 105 201
80 20 39 60 113
82.5 14 26 39 72
85 11 19 28 50
87.5 8 14 21 37
90 7 11 16 28
Dragons flight (talk) 19:28, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Dragons Flight, I think I failed Bayesian estimation in college :D. Yes, although it seems somewhat absurd at the extremes, and that may be a failure on my part to account for something, the overall indication is completely intuitive that the higher the percentage, the smaller a sample is needed to be certain. -- Avi (talk) 19:38, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

That is not only counter-intuitive, it is also wrong. Certainty is not based on the percentage, but on the sample size. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 19:56, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I left out an important part of the sentence, sorry. I meant "…the higher the observed percentage is above a threshold, the smaller a sample is needed to be certain that the observed answer is not randomly above that threshold. That's what comes from trying to do three different things at once, sorry. -- Avi (talk) 20:11, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I thought that you probably meant something along those lines, I was just being pedantic. :-) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 20:29, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

General comment: this is all very interesting, but speaking for myself, I generally check out the RfA's at least twice a week, sometimes more. I've been doing this for a while, and a lot of times I check out a candidate or two. Whether I !vote or not depends on a lot of factors (timing, agreement with projected outcome, etc.). I imagine a lot of other editors do the same thing. For example during my own RfA, there were approximately (from memory here, the tool doesn't seem to be working right now) 300-350 page "hits", but only about 22 voted, same for day 2. So the results may be more representative than we think (OTOH, some editors may not !vote because, if their opinion goes against the consensus -why bother?) 2 cents, for what it's worth. R. Baley (talk) 19:51, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


I won't speak for others, as this topic seems to be strewn with a few exploded heads, but I for one have found it a refreshing change. Wikipedia being what it is, I doubt these few facts will change anything, but big thanks to everyone nevertheless, for shining a new, rational, light on the RfA process. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 20:29, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

If Malleus my friend feels even a little bit better about RfA, then it was worth having my head explode earlier.  :-) Looking forward to your next Rfa Malleus. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 20:31, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
lol. I haven't seen the news today yet. Did Hell freeze over? ;-) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 20:39, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Hell already froze over about 2 weeks ago. --barneca (talk) 21:50, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
It is supposed to snow tomorrow where I live, which makes me consider my "choice" of home to be rather hellish. So, to answer your question, yes. Hell hath frozeneth overeth. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 20:50, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Malleus, this + this = this. Basic climate theory. :) Pedro :  Chat  20:58, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, it's been a beautiful warm Spring day where I live, loads of sunshine, almost perfect. It's late evening now, I've got a nice cold beer by my side, and life has definitely looked worse. I'm almost feeling chilled. The Bank Holiday weather can do whatever it likes. :-) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:04, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Well that's knackered the "It's Grim Up North" Theory. It's as cold as your beer down here !! Pedro :  Chat  21:09, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I had the idea, God knows where I got it from, that you lived in some Gulf state. Anyway, I'm on my second beer now, so if you see me do anything silly later, please feel free to block me for my own protection. :-) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:17, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Given the temperature outside I wish I did live in the Gulf! And don't worry, I'm on my third glass of plonk so I'm avoiding any contentious editing!! Pedro :  Chat  21:20, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

<outdent>You Brits and your vernacular. "Plonk?" never heard that term before, but hey, I'm just a lowly Americano...Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 21:23, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Gee, you ex-colonies! See the header of our article on Plonk. (Mind you this is a decent(ish) bottle I'm drinking!) Pedro :  Chat  21:25, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Something else with us Brits is that we have a tendency to understatement. Pedro's idea of "plonk" might well be my idea of a pretty decent bottle of wine. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:34, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Tempranillo 2005. "Description : An easy drinking full bodied wine that goes well with both meat and fish. Can be enjoyed with a meal, on its own, or whilst making pointless input to Wikipedia talk pages". Well, the label sort of says that.... Pedro :  Chat  21:50, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
While some editors are trying to discuss what could be the most important WT thread since Jimbo had Larry assassinated, you guys are joking about alcoholic beverages? How shameful.--KojiDude (Contributions) 21:43, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
My apologies. I blew up their brains. Now all they are good for is drinking and talking about the weather. Dragons flight (talk) 21:47, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Is this Malleus I see, in WT:RFA? And indeed, I have read everything you've posted here. I might go so far as to say that I've completely changed my mind about you. —  scetoaux (T|C) 21:31, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
It is indeed me. As I said during the RfC that you initiated against me, I don't hold the process in any high regard, and I don't intend to take an active part in it. I think that I've voted on one RfA since our incident, and I haven't commented on any. I don't believe that I've changed since then; I still get into scrapes with other editors [1], and to be perfectly honest I have no intention of ever changing. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:48, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Is this were I get to say "I told you so, Scetoaux", or do I have to wait for more evidence?  :-) Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 21:55, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
"Burp". Well, 15 beers later I think ... Oh bugger, I've forgotten what I think, it was on the tip of my tongue. Ah yes, that's it, I think I should be blocked for my own protection ... Or was I thinking of someone else ... --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:01, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I apologise unconditionally for all the exploded heads and will be using my mop to clean up the mess. I should know better than to ask a stats question on Wikipedia - there was far too great a risk of it being answered! (On a [slightly] more serious note, thank you to Avi and Dragons flight - those are some very interesting numbers. I agree that Avi's are clearly flawed in the 2 extremes. The low extreme is due to the assumption of infinite population - obviously if the actual population is 5000 then 5000 votes is enough! Any number greater than 5000 is therefore complete nonsense! I have no idea what's going on at the top end, though.) --Tango (talk) 23:28, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

While I hate to rain on the parade of an empirical discussion there's absolutely no way in which the participants at RFA are a random sample of Wikipedians. The statistics above are all conditional upon random sampling. RFA participants are self-selecting. To my knowledge, in no area of statistics is a self-selecting group of participants also considered random. In this case, the very act of participating in RFA is an extremely non-random thing for a Wikipedian to do--if nothing else it is extremely correlated with what we term "metapedianism". To suggest that the 600-1500 at most Metapedians is a representative sample of the 7,000,000 user accounts or even the 5,000 or so most active accounts is a fundamentally flawed assumption. We can safely assume that the vast majority of Wikipedians are profoundly uninterested in the bureaucracy. --JayHenry (talk) 01:39, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
You can indeed argue whatever you have evidence for. It's obviously true that the sample of voters at RfA is not chosen randomly, but what is interesting from this analysis is that with a sample of 100 it makes very little difference to the margin of error whether the population size is 5,000 or 7,000,000 (9.7 vs 9.8, given a standard error of 0.5). --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 02:57, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm just observing that the statistics used above to calculate margins of error don't apply to non-random samples, and we are dealing with non-random samples at RFA (as we all agree). Thus, I was simply making the (non-controversial) reminder that, while interesting in a general sense, margins of error don't apply to RFA. --JayHenry (talk) 04:05, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Rather than those silly AGF questions, we should throw some of these statistics into RfAs. Then we can see candidates back away slowly! dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 01:44, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Most would back away quickly! Malinaccier (talk) 01:55, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm sure Avi could produce a derivative for the backing away speed with respect to the difficulty of Q4. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 02:05, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
If you want a question that will turn users off of adminship, make a mandatory question asking why my microsoft word tells me that supercalafragilisticexpialidosious is a word, and corrects me when I spell it wrong. Top that.--KojiDude (Contributions) 03:04, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
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