Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 201

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Query

Two things, without having bothered reading the way too long thread(s) above:

  1. We want more sysops, right?
  2. Can someone with toolserver access get a list of "stereotypical" RfA candidates?
    Stereotypical would probably be a user who's been registered for at least six months, has made at least 100 edits in the last month, has at least 10,000 edits, has at least two of these three userrights: accountcreator, rollbacker, reviewer, autopatrolled, has been blocked a maximum of one time.

I know it's crude and "promotes" stereotypes, but the idea a few months ago to get a list of potential candidates never really progressed. I'm just looking for a list to start with, and then maybe the community can nominate candidates they may not have thought of earlier? —fetch·comms 22:09, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to cut in above you Dank, but the problem with this is name recognition lacking for some potentials. Ahem *cough*. In response to Dank below, I absolutely agree and you'd have to look at those who would review it subjectively, without bias. Paralympiakos (talk) 23:52, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Not a bad idea to have "festivals" from time to time where we try to identify and encourage candidates, but before we do it, make sure we have people willing to review the contribs of potential candidates ... we didn't have enough last time. If we encourage people to run without noticing that it's going to blow up, they may not run again, and neither will some other potential candidates who are watching the mess. - Dank (push to talk) 23:49, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
I would volunteer - unless of course you only want admins doing the vetting. But I would suggest setting the criteria higher otherwise there will be thousands on the list.--Kudpung (talk) 01:21, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
  1. No. SOME people want quantity over quality, in their perniciously mistaken notion that promoting more marginal candidates is somehow better for the project. Jclemens (talk) 04:32, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I want quality, but I meant, we do want more admins in general (assuming they are all qualified), correct? I thought the whole point of the Signpost article was that the amount of active admins has been steadily decreasing of late? —fetch·comms 15:58, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
1. Yes provided they are suitable candidates with sufficient experience and good judgement. I would like to get RfA back to at least the levels of a year ago, though I'd be uncomfortable if we were back at one or two successes a day. However one major reason to change now is that if we don't act until the foundation has to step in and appoint enough admins to get EN wiki functioning, then the scrutiny and qualifying criteria for those admins will be very low indeed. ϢereSpielChequers 11:39, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
2. 10,000 edits is very high, I'd suggest going for 4,000 edits and no blocks in the last twelve months. Also its best to keep that sort of prospecting off wiki - people will come up with reasons why someone won't or shouldn't run, and that sort of thing should be off wiki unless people have agreed to it by consenting to an RFA or editor review. ϢereSpielChequers 11:39, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
My only issue with 4,000 (I did look at it earlier) is that the number of people listed would likely be doubled. In any case, I'd like to know if it's feasible to get this data in the first place. —fetch·comms 15:58, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree. It certainly can't hurt to generate the data. bd2412 T 16:08, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm happy if this is done by subdividing one list amongst several volunteers, each of whom then checks through some possibles and approaches those they would be willing to nominate. What I don't want is a repeat of previous such exercises with people being discussed on wiki in terms of why they won't or shouldn't run. Anyway I've asked one of my contacts if they can run of a list of possibles. I think it might also be worth not restricting this to people who are already two of rollbackers, autopatrolled and reviewers. One of the things that has maintained my enthusiasm for checking out possible RFA candidates, is that though I've only twice managed to successfully nominate someone at RFA, in the process of looking for RFA candidates I have set quite a few as Rollbackers or Autopatrolled. ϢereSpielChequers 20:30, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

My Conclusion

I've stepped back from this for a couple of days, but have now caught up (and it's gone the way of all previous discussions on this subject - ie it hasn't gotten anywhere). Still, I think I've been able to firm up a few assumptions, and my current opinion is...

  • There is a problem with a declining number of admins and with some backlogs
  • That is partly caused by the intimidating nature of RfA
  • The RfA bar is set very high partly because a number of !voters think there needs to be better admin recall
  • There won't be better admin recall, because there are more !voters who don't think it is necessary
  • The RfA bar will therefore not be lowered
  • People will continue to be intimidated by the RfA process
  • We will get nowhere with the problem

And this to me highlights the core problem with management-by-consensus - it only works for a while, and only in some circumstances, but if left to grow it inevitably ends up with all the cogs turning in different directions and the entire edifice grinding to a halt. The community cannot solve this - the only thing that's going to change anything is for the predicted crisis to actually arrive and for the Foundation to step in and force some kind of change. I do hope I'm wrong, but that is my fear. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:10, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I presume you mean RfA for the AfD's above.
I think that there are a handful of things above which do have a possibility, some tasks or parts of tasks can go to non-admins to help, maybe there is some possibility left or right to split of certain admin rights into usergroups, maybe the use of a cluestick will help some editors realise that their opposes are irrational. The only thing is, that many admins see their normal workground above, and in that normal workground, the issues are minimal, and hence, there is no problem. Others only realise it when one case they report is really slowly handled, but that does not show the pattern. Please, don't sit there and just wait until it crashes .. I think that are enough cases which could be added to the backlogs list above (WP:AIV comes to mind .. how long does it actually take between report and block .. my last experience on AIV took hours). --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:01, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Ah yes, mental XfY blockage there, thanks - fixed. I'm not saying that none of the initiatives suggested will bear fruit, and splitting some things into usergroups is definitely a possibility that I think could work (and if new usergroups are created, I'll probably try to help where I can). What I meant was that I think the "The number of admins is falling" problem is not going to be solved by the community, because it is the very nature of the community that is the cause of it. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:11, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
PS: Re: "maybe the use of a cluestick will help some editors realise that their opposes are irrational." Judging by the number of times irrational opposes have been challenged at RfA, I think there's little chance of that - questioning someone's rationality is more likely to get you jumped on with "People have a right to !vote for whatever reasons they wish, so leave them alone" arguments. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:30, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Re: P.S. I know .. maybe my earlier suggestion works better. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:36, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I think that there needs to be a bit more examination of the third bullet point, before we declare the either-or case of 'consensus is broken' or 'we must implement a new desysopping procedure'. Why are RfA standards so high, and which 'standards' are we talking about? Further up this page someone suggested an automated screen of all editors to identify a pool of potential admin candidates; the (very much off-the-cuff) criteria offered were 'ten thousand edits' and 'no more than one block'. While I'm sure that that bar was set deliberately high in order to cut down on the false positive rate, it implies some worrying assumptions about adminship, and about who might be considered a worthwhile candidate.
For one thing, the suggested edit count threshold is very high. Back when I became an admin (2005), there were only about a hundred editors with more than ten thousand edits. Automated tools were largely unavailable; edits were made entirely 'by hand'. Candidates were expected to have between fifteen hundred and two thousand edits to their names (and even this threshold was decried as 'editcountitis' by some), and anywhere from three to six months experience (a few hardliners demanded a year in the trenches). While it is true that each new edit a candidate makes provides the community with a little more information about the candidate, after the first few hundred substantial edits we get into a problem of diminishing returns. Now, it is virtually expected that any admin candidate will either make extensive use of automated/scripted tools to generate reams of minor edits, or perform thousands of manual, trivial edits to pad his edit count. The candidates who make a smaller number of well-thought-out edits are the ones who we should be promoting, and they are also the ones who are far easier to evaluate. Making regular insightful, civil, constructive contributions to process boards (like AN, AfD, etc.) and to policy/discussion areas (the Pump, policy talk pages, etc.) tells us far more about how a candidate thinks – their understanding of policy, their ability to interact with others, and their suitability for the responsibilities of adminship – than any enormous amount of automated AIV submission whack-a-mole. (This is not to say that editors who do use automated tools should be discriminated against, but edit count should be very nearly ignored as a criterion.)
The second issue I would have is where the suggested threshold may be too low: no more than one block? It is actually quite difficult to get blocked on Wikipedia, if you participate calmly, in good faith, with the purposes of the project in mind. Getting blocked takes deliberate acts of damage (vandalism), dishonesty (plagiarism or copyright violation), malice (recurring or egregious personal attacks, revealing others' personal information), or persistent dickishness (edit warring). You really have to get over the line of what most people consider reasonable adult interactions and behavior in order to draw a block. While I might be inclined to let a short block in the editor's first few weeks or first hundred or so edits go, depending on the circumstances, I'd consider the presence of any blocks on someone's record a far more informative flag than any arbitrary number of edits.
Now, getting back to the bullet point above — the purported problem is that "a number of !voters think there needs to be better admin recall". There are (at least) three ways to resolve this issue. The obvious one is to go ahead and assume that we need to implement a new desysopping procedure. That has failed, repeatedly, to gain traction with the community. Boing! has argued that this represents a failue of our consensus-building model, though I believe it could also indicate that such proposals are usually driven by a vocal minority which founders when it faces the wider community. A second option is to engage with the editors who think we need such a procedure, and to try to see if their concerns can be met in other ways. (The way that the problem is stated in the bullet is illuminating — a number of voters "think" a recall process is necessary.) In the community de-adminshp proposal this spring, I suggested a number of ways that existing Wikipedia processes can be used to desysop an unwanted admin, without requiring a whole new bureaucracy. I also discussed a recent example of an admin who was summarily desysopped (by ArbCom motion) in less than two weeks from the first complaint at AN/I. Significantly, the conduct which led to the desysopping in that case did not involve any use of the tools. A third option is to attempt to engage further with the community on the issue of adminship. Rightly or wrongly, the RfA process is often seen from the outside as an insular community with its own arcane practices and rituals; it has its 'regulars', and the rest of Wikipedia tries to stay away from the morass as much as possible. Bringing in fresh blood and fresh perspectives on adminship may lead to a loosening of some of the more rigid and unreasonable criteria that have accumulated. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:21, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
TenofAllTrades: Thank you for what you just said about "to engage with the editors who think we need such a procedure, and to try to see if their concerns can be met in other ways". I think that's exactly correct in terms of not just making this talk become the same old morass as before. You say you became an administrator in 2005 (and, I assume, were editing before that); I started editing in 2008. When I read your description of that time, it seems very different than what I have experienced myself. When I look back at CDA, it seems to me that, all too often, people were talking past one another instead of to one another, and, if I learned anything from that experience, it's that I want to get beyond that. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:46, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
(Reply to TenOfAllTrades): It's difficult to disagree with any of that really, at least in theory, but just a couple of points...
  • "The obvious one is to go ahead and assume that we need to implement a new desysopping procedure. That has failed, repeatedly, to gain traction with the community. Boing! has argued that this represents a failue of our consensus-building model..": It's actually the clash of viewpoints, the resulting stalemates, and the failure to address the "admin numbers falling" problem that I think represents a failure of the model, rather than specifically the failure to get a new desysop procedure - a new procedure really might not be needed.
  • "The way that the problem is stated in the bullet is illuminating — a number of voters "think" a recall process is necessary.": Precisely. When we have sizeable opposing opinions of "X AND Y" and "X AND NOT Y", where we can demonstrate that "Y -> X", and where we need a consensus to change, we're guaranteed to be stuck (X = "We don't have enough admins", Y = "We need a new desysop procedure", -> means "leads to").
-- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:50, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Hello..non-admin here but long time editor and part of the "Wikipedia Online Ambassadors program" - i would like to say as an editor that has seen this process grow over the passed 4 years or so -that one way to make the process a little friendly - would be the elimination of peoples self-pages they point to self made criteria s - that list the number of edits GA RFA etc.. needed to qualify. As many of this self made criteria pages are simply outrageous in there expectations and make editors think they have to wait 2 years or 10,000 edits before applying. I have no-need to point out the pages in question as i am sure over the past few years you know who they are,,,This editors simply state things like YOU dont meet my criteria and link to there private pages. This links to private pages are seem by potential admins and are taken literally as in THIS IS WHAT IS THE MINIMUM expectations for apply admins. Not only do i think the self made pages are frivolous and do not take into account what editors have to offer but simply are list of criteria that are not suited for the process of amidships - as each candidate should be judged on what they have to offer and not if they have done this or that. In conclusion i would recommend the dropping of this kind of lazy evaluations and this self made page of criteria s that potential admins are reading and taken literally. Moxy (talk) 14:47, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Sure, but using the management-by-consensus model, what chance do you think you have of outlawing private admin criteria pages (especially as some of them are actually quite thoughtful and open)? I'd say pretty close to none. And that's illustrative of my general point - the core problem is not that we don't have enough ideas of how to fix things, it's that we don't have a sufficiently competent management structure to do anything constructive with them. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:58, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Non admin too (but without a personal criteria page). I don't think that would help, because people would still !vote according to their own criteria; and, besides, I find those pages generally useful; for instance, if I wanted to run for adminship, I'd take a look at them to see what the various criteria are, checking which ones are the most common and then see if I could qualify.
In my opinion, even if you think the bar is too high, the real problem are the criteria themselves, not the pages listing them. Salvio Let's talk 'bout it! 15:02, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Indeed Moxy. I have earlier suggested that those lists are incomplete, and if those lists would be complete, NONE would pass anymore (if I would fairly extrapolate those criteria, the current re-admin RfA would not pass my criteria ..). Fact is, they are arbitrary, and contain rules which are over the top. But the same goes for a lot of oppose votes, which, in the way that they are used, are over the top. They may scratch a part of the truth, but that is not what they state. It is the clue-stick that I suggested, and of which Boing! said Zebedee already said that that is tried, but it does not work. --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:06, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

From my perspective: No one has convinced me that there is a pressing need for more admins. Therefore, a declining number of active admins may or may not be a concern, but that's yet to be shown. This question has been related to the question of admin recall, but again, it is yet to be shown whether this is of true relevance, or whether those who favor admin recall are just using it, any stick does to beat a dog, you know!. That being said, as there is unlikely to be a consensus for admin recall, and unlikely to be one for altering the criteria for adminship, how is this discussion going anywhere?--Wehwalt (talk) 15:29, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Wehwalt, with some constant backlogs there, and other fields which have relatively long waiting times for admin actions, what solutions would you see, if it is not a pressing need for more admins? --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:39, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Constant backlogs?--Wehwalt (talk) 15:52, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Oh, sorry, Administrative backlog. --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:57, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
"...those who favor admin recall are just using it, any stick does to beat a dog". Not me. Moratorium, anyone? --Tryptofish (talk) 18:46, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I think there have been too many well-respected editors voicing concern over the current admin-recall process, and making it clear that they set the RfA bar higher because of it, to consider dismissing it as mere dog-beating. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:34, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Indeed. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:37, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I also agree. I don't believe the continuing debate is fomented by disgruntled ax-bearers, but an expression of genuine concern. The article on this topic in the recent Wikipedia Signpost is a strong sign of ongoing observation and reflection. Jusdafax 19:45, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I also believe that there is a general problem with the current system (as do many others who have voiced there options here and allover). Not only is the criteria set to high or lets say to stringent (that is what people feel is a qualifying amount of edit/time GA - FA, RFA's, talkpage edits etc...). I believe because of this we have lost many many potential new good applicants who in the past would have been considered part-time admins - this type of admins were very usefull as in they were the one that did a-lot of back log stuff (because they were just interested in the management side of things and not RFA's etc..). With the current system we seem to only allow real full-timers who have a very broad editing habits. I for one believe that we should looked at what they have to offer (in there gereral field of expertise on wiki) and not have our was set in a criteria based on numbers. For Instance we use to have category based admins that dealt with just category based problems - with the current system we are discouraging someone who is an expert in categories on Wikipedia (that is they know all the guidelines etc.. when dealing with cats) - Y? because we are only encouraging editors who have WELL done everything! This specialized editors are being ignored. That begin said i do understand we need a broad based admin system, but i remember when we had lots of admins that just did grunt work ...this were the part timers who no-longer will apply for adminship becasue they feel they have not done enough GA or FA etc.. I have no solutions as i believe it is a wide spread problem that the admin family is getting tighter and tighter (soon you may need to take an oath or a blood test to be an admin..LOL). Moxy (talk) 20:12, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

My view...

(cross posting from the Signpost talk page)

I really disagree that there is a problem. Yes, numbers may be slightly dropping. So what? Is there any evidence that CSD's are taking longer? Users take longer to be blocked? Pages go longer unprotected? Until I see substantial evidence that any of these are happening, I don't think that there is a drought. We're in the age of editing tools now. There's less admins because there are more rollbackers. There's less admins because a few can do a lot more work than they did 3 years ago. I'm also convinced that always taking a negative view on this is unhealthy for Wikipedia and the RfA environment. (X! · talk)  · @216  ·  04:11, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree. The problem at RFA is that it's a mean-spirited poop-throwing contest, not that it's passing a lower number of requestors than it used to. You'll get more admins if you get more people to run, and you'll only do that by improving the blighted process and turning it into a straight vote with discussion / optional questions separately confined to the discussion page. (I know, it's a non-starter for the "voting is evil" crowd, but the current discussion-oriented process generates vitriol far out of proportion to its value.) Townlake (talk) 04:56, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
That hits it on the head. People are afraid to run because of the mudslinging and irrational "rationale" of participants. Triona (talk) 05:52, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
I would agree with that too.
At some point I would have liked to grab a mop and start cleaning up some vandalism, but I have little interest in going through a process where people say "Aha! I see you have years of experience mopping the floor, hoovering, and mowing the lawn; but you've never replaced any roof tiles. I can't support anybody who neglects the roof, no matter what their contributions elsewhere!". There are lots of different areas that admins can work in, and much of wikipedia's best work is done by people who focus on one field, so why reject people for showing only slight interest in some other area (out of dozens)? The editcountitis does annoy me too, not so much for the numbers per se (they do have value imho), as for the way in which some !voters seem to set an arbitrary threshold and then treat it as though it's one of the pillars of wikipedia. The tone of the discussion of some previous RFAs has disappointed me too. It would hardly be surprising if many good editors were put off this process.
bobrayner (talk) 02:13, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
This brings up a good point. Given that Wikipedia administrative work has been expanding (by how much?), is each administrator doing more work now than in the past, in terms of administrative actions per month? Has adminship indeed transformed from a "level up" and "no big deal" to an obligation to take up the mop and divert a serious amount of work from content creation into overhead tasks? I know that it has been exactly that in my case. Jclemens (talk) 05:55, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
I think what many believe to be a higher bar is one that is artificially set by nonense and/or deliberately tricky 'optional' questions. Many of the posers of those questions might not know what to do themselves.
I'll try to qualify my feeling on Townlake's post: Yes, it's definitely it's a mean-spirited poop-throwing contest; and yes, it's definitely a popularity contest. Many of the voters often seem to fall into one or the other of those two categories, and the handful of intelligent votes and comments by regular, serious, mature editors are overwhelmed by the uncommentated pile-on supports or opposes. I see no reason why totally uncommented supports should be given credence, where the opposers are dragged through the mire and suffer as much humiliation as the candidates. What is happening is that not only are fewer experienced editors running for office, but fewer experienced editors are motivated to even vote on the RfAs.
And that's why the system is broken. It's not a fair process. Candidates are not judged on the good work they do. If you've tagged someone in the past, they'll hold it against you and vote against you - those can ammount to hundreds. if you've made one single minor error of judgement in pasting a db template, you'll be dragged across a bed of nails for it - it doesn't matter that for every CSD you've issued, you've actually saved ten other pages from extinction by spending hours doing WP:BEFORE. The selection system for admins is the single, weakest feature of the entire en.Wikipedia. It needs a higher bar, but one that is objectively set, and a voting system of sysops in camera, and closure by a consensus of at least three crats. Do that, and remove the stigma of self nom, and we'll have a flood of new applicants. These are just my opinions and should of course be taken with a pinch of salt.--Kudpung (talk) 06:50, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
I'd have to agree that Rfa's often seem to feature a lot of over-the-top vituperation that discourages prospective candidates. Heck, I've been threatened before I have stood for a !vote! Jusdafax 08:54, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
The only feasible way to reduce the mean spirited negativity that infects RfA is to lower the passing threshold. Letting a single oppose counter 3 supporters favors the negative view. Negative comments are lent emotional force by the fact it so easy for opposers to block a RfA its because negative remarks are so easily coupled with what can feel like a formal community rejection that even mature and strong minded folk find failing an RFA harrowing.
Despite the excellent presentation by WSC and others, some seem to take the view that we need bullet proof that the declining admin Corps is hurting the project before we act. Fair enough, if a systems working the burden of proof is generally on those who want to change. In this case though, its those blocking a minor change in process who are taking the project into new and uncharted territory. Just because the rise in the number of opposers and the decline of active admins has been gradual, this doesnt mean it hasnt been a substantial change. The enlightened conservative approach to preserve the status quo would have been to scale down the threshold.
Rather than let skeptics frame the debate, they could perhaps be invited to provide evidence that relaxing the threshold would hurt the project. To my knowledge the few notable bad admins have mostly been elected by clear margins. Granted, bad admin actions can drive off good content writers, but this is no reason to oppose lowering the bar if theres no significant correlation between bad admins and passing by a narrow threshold. Intuitively, admin abuse is more likely to arise from a group thats over busy and where power is concentrated due to it being too small. Whether or not we get consensus on this page, I hope someone will soon start a Village Pump / Centralized discussion to see what the wider community thinks. FeydHuxtable (talk) 10:31, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
The point that has been missed is that there is no threshold. Any threshold is determined by the voters in each individual case. Take for example a (not so ) hypothetical case where a 14 year old is determined to become an admin. He/she canvasses all his/her classmates and rapidly you have a 80/20 consensus in favour of election. The closing crat is going to feel obliged to promote the candidate. The net result is that we do in fact have several extremely obnoxious teenage admins whose mop handle has gone totally to their heads, and causing mature , experience content writers to abandon ship.--Kudpung (talk) 11:24, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
That is hypothetical. In the extremely unlikely case that every person in the class has an account, you're also assuming that a) they're all active editors and b) they'd all vote for the candidate. SPAs are always noticed at RFA and their votes will be discounted appropriately.
As for "several extremely obnoxious teenage admins", I can't think of any examples. I can think of numerous adult admins with issues, but teenage admins generally do a good job. Aiken ♫ 13:17, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
(To Feyd, above) Absolutely not! Bad admins are net negative producers--they take up for more time and energy than the help they do, and they can be a HUGELY bad influence on the project, new contributors, content creation, etc. One of the things that you and a lot of other people are missing here is that the number of administrators tells us nothing in and of itself. We'd be much better off with fewer, dramaless, industrious admins than the same amount of self-important petty tyrants, right? What people aren't internalizing is that each drama queen admin reduces the overall ability of the collective body of administrators to run the site. Jclemens (talk) 15:29, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Some thoughts: Is today's RfA process as difficult as RfB was three years ago?

This old 'crat would like to tell you a story!

I'd like to take you all back in time just over three years ago, to July 2007. During this time, apart from a reconfirmation RfB from Cecropia, we'd not had anyone pass RfB for over a year (source). This wasn't due to a shortage of candidates, as over 15 people had unsuccessfully put themselves up for RfB since the last bureaucrat was promoted in June 2006, including myself (source). There was increasing discussion on this talk page about how RfB was impossible to pass, and that if we didn't do something about it, we could very easily find ourselves in a situation where we didn't have enough active bureaucrats. Sound familiar? Of course it does, because it's similar to the situation that some people believe we're in now, except this time it's a shortage of admins that some people are worried about.

Come June 2007, there was a flood of candidates for RfB, with seven people putting themselves up for RfB; see the relevant Wikipedia Signpost story for more information about that. I'd like to draw the attention to my nomination, Wikipedia:Requests for bureaucratship/Deskana 2. In particular, people may wish to read the oppose section. In particular, I was criticised for my civility by Durin, who cited a lot of cases where I'd come close to breaking the civility policy (or possibly even broken it) when dealing with users. JayHenry said


The reason I've brought my second RfB this up now is because it reminds me very strongly of Nev1's RfA. His RfA reads very similarly to my RfB. In my opinion, Nev1, who is an otherwise good editor, is drawing some opposition for a single incident that was over the line. And don't get me wrong, I do think it was over the line. But should that single incident stop me from supporting Nev1 for RfA? Bear in mind, here I'm comparing an Request for Adminship of today to an Request for Bureaucratship of three years ago.

There are many more similarities between RfAs today and RfBs of three years ago. These similarities have led me to ask the following question: Is today's RfA process is so hard to pass because it's actually become as hard as the "unpassable" RfB of three years ago? If it has, then perhaps it's time for people to begin to vastly rethink the criteria that they use to determine whether or not to support an RfA.

Some numbers: I have been an admin for over four years, a bureaucrat for over three years, and a checkuser for nearly three years. I have less than 20,000 edits, and at least a few thousand of these edits completely automated from the mass page moves that Special:Renameuser performs in userspace. When I was made an admin, I had just over 2000 edits. Hopefully we can agree that I've done a lot of good work (and some not so good work!) on Wikipedia with the admin tools. Would you have supported my RfA if it took place now rather than four years ago?

Just some food for thought from an old(ish) bureaucrat who has been reading the discussion on this page with interest.

--Deskana (talk) 20:03, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I read that with a great deal of interest; thanks for that. But I have a (rhetorical) question: is it correct to assume that the way things were before was better, and that the way things are now is worse? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:10, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
If the you of 2007 were running for RFB now, no; same as those who supported my RFA at about the same time wouldn't support a user with the same edit history I had then, now. Wikipedia 2010 may have evolved from Wikipedia 2007, but the two are qualitatively and quantitatively different. A freshly-resurrected Abe Lincoln would make a poor president of the modern United States. – iridescent 20:11, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Concur and great recap, Deskana. I think RFA standards are way too high. I know MANY people who would make great admins and simple won't accept a RFA nom because of ridiculous amount of petty BS that goes on in today's RFA. If I'd stayed a non-admin since I got an account in Nov 2005, I bet that even with my almost-20 each FAs, FLs, DYKs plus an FP and FT, I still wouldn't pass. @Trypt - yes better before, worse now. — Rlevse • Talk • 20:13, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
(ec) @Rlevse - [citation needed] :-) It's subjective. If one really believes that, there is the uncomfortable corollary that the Wikipedia model may not be working, that the idea of letting everyone who shows up and doesn't break policy participate on an equal footing has started to lead to the wrong people taking the project in the wrong direction. Could it be, perhaps, that the changing behavior at RfA reflects changed circumstances? Or that it represents a rational response to problems that haven't been fixed yet? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:27, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Iridescent, I agree with both your point and your analogy. However, bear in mind that my intent was to get people thinking, not necessarily provide answers. Tryptofish, RfA back then passed a lot more candidates than it did now. People who measure the success of RfA purely in those terms will think today's is less successful. My opinion is that the ever increasing edit counts that we look for in RfA candidates is more a modernisation than anything else, since people can make edits so easily. I don't think looking for more edits now than we did then is a bad thing. But overall, is RfA today worse than RfA of three years ago? My opinion is yes. It has improved in some ways, but got a lot in many others, as evidenced by the people afraid to run now, whereas that was less of a problem back then. --Deskana (talk) 20:23, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia 2007 was a lot closer to its "pioneer community" Nupedia roots back then, most of which have withered if not died now. Back then, it was possible to (vaguely) know every active editor, and prospective candidates generally had a good idea of who would turn up to support and oppose. Today, it's far less predictable. There's also a fair bit of survivor bias if one views 2006-07 as the Golden Age of RFA: the oppose section of WP:Requests for adminship/BrownHairedGirl, for instance, is practically a checklist of all the comments people think of as recent developments. ("Doesn't need the tools", "not enough userspace edits", "too many edits" (!), "too many admins"…) Or if you prefer, this exercise in foul-tempered back/forth sniping from 2007. – iridescent 20:33, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
(ec) @Deskana: Yes, I can appreciate that. At the same time, I think editors like me who came to the project more recently see a small number of administrators who were passed in those earlier days, a small and atypical minority, as people who would not pass today, and should not, and who create more trouble today than they are worth. But you and Rlevse are also correct that there are lots of excellent people who passed earlier, who wouldn't now or wouldn't try now. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:37, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Nowadays, it seems that perfection if demanded from an RfA, and any little slip from in the past will garner some opposition. Connormah 20:46, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
From some users, yes, definitely. But not necessarily from the majority. And, sometimes, criticisms over a serious concern will garner complaints that it is unfair because it was only a little slip, in the opinion of the supporters, but was serious in the opinion of the opposer. I'm not disagreeing with you, but just pointing out that it cuts both ways, and questioning the understandable human tendency to romanticize the good old days. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:42, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with this story, and I was interested about the flood of candidates for RFB all at one time. Although only two of them pass (including you), since you mentioned it, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a flood of candidates for RFA. Techman224Talk 21:14, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

While I have no idea if I'd have supported Deskana or not if he ran today, I think a similar analogy could be like trying to pass your driving test again, or passing exams at school. I was looking over my old school work just the other day and realised just how much of it I had completely forgotten. And yet, I passed the exams and have the qualifications. I suppose this is like adminship in a way. Deskana, at one time, proved he was capable of being an admin. Standards were different, and he keeps the status, much like how driving exams today are much stricter, as some university courses are more difficult. I don't think that the past matters, until he breaks something. Though I am very much in favour of confirming admins, I imagine most would be a shoe-in. Aiken ♫ 21:56, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

A very interesting read, Deskana. I did get me wondering about how the difficulty of RFB has changed over the years, so I took a quick peek through the archives.
  • 2010 (so far): 50% RFB success rate (3/6)
  • 2009: 36.4% success rate (4/11)
  • 2008: 22.7% success rate (5/22)
  • 2007: 17.4% success rate (4/23)
  • 2006: 19.0% success rate (4/21)
  • 2005: 21.4% success rate (3/14)
So, in answer to my own question, it appears, at face value to be easier to pass RFB. But, there is one caveat: There are far fewer candidates since January 2009, so it could also be true that: 1) candidates are better aware as to whether they will pass; or 2) there haven't been any usual spikes, such as the seven concurrent RFBs or Jtkiefer running five times. But this isn't wholly related to the topic at hand (and I wouldn't be sad if someone split this into a separate thread). 174.52.141.138Also 67.136.117.13222:52, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Also, with smaller numbers recently, there is the possibility that this is statistical fluctuation. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:53, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the comparison between RFA today and RFB three years ago is a completely true one, but one thing that they share in common, I find, is that people !voting in them tend to put way too much emphasis on the absolute worse-case scenarios, and not enough faith that the use of the tools (whatever they are) are pretty much guided by common sense. We are paranoid that people who move on to areas they have "little experience in" will cause this place to implode with their terrible mistakes should they be given the tools. We are satisfied with cookie-cutter answers and not satisfied enough with qualities like patience or the ability to adapt. These faults don't rectify themselves so easily, one finds after a while. bibliomaniac15 00:21, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

  • You guys realize, of course, that conversations like this about the inadequacy of opposes are a big part of why RFA sucks so hard right now. The constant demands thrown at voters to be sharper and better in the opposition section, while discussion is practically discouraged in the support section, are only serving to make RFA "discussions" uglier. Townlake (talk) 01:01, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
    • I'm personally am not asking for people to discuss their oppose votes more, nor leave better reasons. I am not asking that people be "sharper and better" in the opposition section. I am asking that people rethink the criteria that they use to cast their votes, which is a much more internal and personal thing. If they rethink their criteria and end up deciding they're fine, then that's fine too! If even one person re-reads their criteria and thinks "Oh, hey, I may have been a little bit too hard in the past, I'll try to fix that in future", then the time I spent writing my post was worth it. :-) --Deskana (talk) 14:32, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
      • I think it is worth noting that an Oppose !vote is effectively worth three Support !votes, and so if you Oppose then you should rightfully expect more scrutiny of your reasoning. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:41, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
        • I think it would be a good idea to lower the pass threshold, IF the bureaucrats nixed the commentary silliness and imaginary consensus that pretend-emerges from these non-conversations. In reality, RFA is a vote. RFA will not improve until we act like grown ups and start treating RFA like what it is. Townlake (talk) 14:55, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

A view from outside the box

What I find quite striking about much of the discussion on this talk page is how insular and close-minded it is. For instance, there's much wailing and gnashing of teeth by those who rail against "editcountitis", yet often those same people will complain that a candidate hasn't taken part in any AfDs, or CSDs, or whatever the flavour of the month happens to be. The point about probationary administrators also singularly misses the point, in its underlying assumption that non-administrators do not perform administrative functions when they clearly do; all they lack is the delete and block cudgels.

Anyone looking for admin hopefuls could do worse than to look at GA and FA reviewers, who need a far wider appreciation of wikipedia's policies on issues like copyright, image use and licensing, NPOV and so on than most administrators have. But of course that's far harder to check than whether or not an A7 tag is reasonable or not, so it doesn't get done. Having said all that, I sincerely hope that most GA and FA reviewers would have the good sense to stay well away from RfA anyway. Malleus Fatuorum 22:45, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Give me a smile and explain how you join up nine dots with four straight lines. Pedro :  Chat  22:54, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
How many dimensions are you allowing? Malleus Fatuorum 22:58, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
2D. Grid of 3 x 3 dots. Straight lines. Cummon! Pedro :  Chat  23:00, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, in two-dimensional space the only way is the start from a dot outside of the nine you want to connect, which I guess is your point. Malleus Fatuorum 23:04, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
Meh. Typically we have an article on it any way. I'll be getting my coat... Pedro :  Chat  23:06, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
I was completely lost until I Googled this problem. I joined up the dots with four lines in about two seconds without going outside any box. Keepscases (talk) 22:46, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Please do not move: medical assistance will be with you shortly. - Pointillist (talk) 22:50, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
It may not be as bad as it seems, maybe they weren't straight lines. Malleus Fatuorum 22:53, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Absolutely straight lines. It looked somewhat like an asterisk. Perfectly valid answer to the stated problem. Keepscases (talk) 22:59, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Eh? Oh. Ahh... AAAGH! Tag: Repeating characters Uurgh: you win! Pointillist (talk) 23:23, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
I think the important element Pedro was referring to was four straight lines without lifting your pen. If you did that without going outside of the box, that is quite the feat Keepscases ;) Calmer Waters 09:11, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
An eggtimer formation starting from any corner dot appears to work. Orderinchaos 16:51, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, not lifting your pen and making the lines continuous (ie not retracing your path). --Andrensath (talk | contribs) 09:30, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Point is, no one said I couldn't lift my pen. Keepscases (talk) 16:23, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Keepscases is perfectly correct: that's why I conceded - Pointillist (talk) 21:54, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Houston, we have a problem

Anyone wanting to be an admin or !voting in RFAs should read these: Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2010-08-09/Admin_stats and Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/2010-08-09/Admin_stats; and yes, also posted at WP:BN — Rlevse • Talk • 02:25, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, if anyone's looking to have exactly the same discussion as the above on a different page, your dreams are one click away. Townlake (talk) 03:25, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes, but the signpost report is much better organized and written. — Rlevse • Talk • 10:01, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
Excellent choice of colour! "Earth trembled in October 2005 as sixty-seven horsemen rode out as conquerors..." East of Borschov 04:25, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

I've been skimming these debates for a while, and while I've seen many statistics on the declining admin numbers, what I haven't seen is the decline in active admins in comparison with the overall decline/incline in active editors, or more interestingly, the number of admin actions vs. the number of edits. I mean, while standards in rfa have no doubt increased, is it not possible that the decline in active administrators is mostly just a result of an overall decline in wikipedia, and that focusing on rfa reform is fixing the symptom, not the disease? Rami R 10:30, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Ditto that. I tried to note my view here which is similar. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:03, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
There have been various discussions at Wikimania and elsewhere as to whether the community is stable or has started to decline slightly, and part of it depends on what you measure. The gap between each ten million undeleted edits has been stable at 7 weeks for some time, though it is somewhat below peak levels. These stats show that while the number of new editors is down, we still have over 9,000 new editors starting each month, but the ratio between new editors a year ago and new admins today is rising as a much smaller proportion of our new editors are going on to become admins. Also the number of editors who edit more than 100 times a month is falling, though not as rapidly as our number of active admins. Admin actions per month or active admin's actions per month would be useful if they were possible to calculate - but as various people have pointed out in the past it takes longer to decline a speedy and explain why than it does to delete an article, and only the easier choice counts as an admin action. ϢereSpielChequers 23:42, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
That raises a few other points though. For example, how has that ratio (of admins as to editors) changed over time? Also, I accept that the complexity/time cannot be calculated. But as for admin actions themselves, yes it is difficult to calculate on their own as they involve a decision and will not fully represent the issue, but for that reason, the number of admin discussions that called on an admin action should also be calculated (including block requests, protection requests, deletion "discussions", and what not). Ncmvocalist (talk) 07:15, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposal to rethink what it is we are asking in adminship discussions

Granting adminship is really shorthand for granting a specified set of abilities: to delete/undelete pages, to protect/unprotect pages, to block/unblock users, etc. I propose that a party opposing a candidate for adminship should be encouraged specify which of these abilities the candidate can not be trusted with and why they can not be trusted with those specific abilities. For example, an opposer might point to an instance of edit warring supported by commentary by the candidate indicating that, if he had the power to do so, he would impose a block, even though a block would not be appropriate under the circumstances. I would suggest that if an opposer is unable to articulate an example of a specific adminship ability with which the candidate should not be trusted, then that opposer's opinion should be weighted very lightly. This would provide some counter-weight to "doesn't meet my standards" oppositions that articulate no reason to distrust the candidate with the abilities granted concurrent with adminship. bd2412 T 19:19, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

  • Also, let me preemptively say that a candidate who has only had a few hundred edits over a short period of time would not thereby offer no basis for opposition, for it is highly unlikely that such a candidate would have engaged in interactions sufficient to show familiarity with the circumstances under which each of the tools might be used. A candidate who had never dealt with a deletion discussion, for example, could rightly be opposed on the grounds that his lack of familiarity makes him untrustorthy with the deletion tools. bd2412 T 19:23, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
You may disagree with peoples thought process, but that's basically what happens. Those that don't give such a reason get jumped all over.--Cube lurker (talk) 19:26, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • I don't want to see a lack of untrustworthiness, I want to see a commitment to the goals of the project. That is, I want to see content creation, not policy wonkery, not ANI drama-mongering, not edit warring, and not even vandal persecution. Nothing besides content creation demonstrates that an administrator candidate has bought into the project. It's hard to prove a negative ("won't be a problem") so I focus on affirming the positive ("has been a great contributor to the project so far"). Jclemens (talk) 20:14, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
    • We aren't giving admins special content-creation powers, we are giving them a specific set of tools which happen to most useful for fighting vandals and engaging in similar housekeeping. bd2412 T 20:19, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
      • You're missing the point. Anyone who wants to do adminny stuff and hasn't demonstrated that they actually support the goal of writing and polishing an encyclopedia should not be an admin, period. Vandal fighting is its own funny little game of whack-a-mole, but vandal fighting doesn't add content to the encyclopedia. Content creation is the demonstration of actually wanting to build an encyclopedia, vs. play a game defending the realm from hordes of orc... err, vandals. The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing, and Wikipedia's main thing must always remain content creation and improvement. Jclemens (talk) 21:07, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
        • Yes, but someone has to defend that very "main thing" from the vandals. I see it as this. If a vandal-fighter wants to be an admin, then let them be one. That takes some of the load of vandal-fighting off of everyone else who wants to "write and polish an encyclopedia." If there weren't admins who are dedicated to fending off the throng of vandals and trolls, and deleting the junk that ends up in Newpages, everybody else would have to deal with that junk, distracting them from writing and polishing an encyclopedia. The Thing // Talk // Contribs 03:28, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
    • Being worthy of trust is exactly what I think the community should be able to approve or disapprove. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:30, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
      • Playing devils advocate, what if Jclemens phrased it a different way. "Due to candidate x's lack of article writing I'm concerned that the candidate would not appropriately use the block tool in situations of Tendentious editing as opposed to a standard content dispute."?--Cube lurker (talk) 20:33, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
      • And how, precisely, do you want to verify trustworthiness? There's nothing in the current RfA process that does anything of the sort, nor have I seen anything even proposed which would suffice. Jclemens (talk) 21:08, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
In response to Cube lurker's question, I think that that would be one example of a perfectly valid issue to raise in an RfA. It's far from the only one. Content work can be an important measure of the ability to understand the kinds of content disputes that become conduct disputes. But there are also users who would do very good administrative work in areas where having FAs, GAs, DYKs, or pages started, are poor predictors of sysop ability. And I can think of users who have numerous FAs who are constant drama-mongers, and the project would be better off without them.
In response to Jclemens' question, I want to take special notice of your choice of the verb "to verify". To assess (not verify) trustworthiness, as at an RfA, I do it the same way that I do it in real life: subjectively. Does the user make good decisions? Are they civil? Do they communicate well? And sometimes that subjective evaluation proves wrong, and the community finds that out after the RfA is over. And that, in turn, is where verification comes into play. Which is why I wish we had a good way of removing administrators who lose the community's trust. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:32, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Fine, we can use your semantics, but they change nothing. There's still absolutely no way to assess trustworthiness. You can note an absence of bad edits, but that does nothing but assure that the admin candidate in question is biding his or her time. I want to see positive content creation, because that demonstrates that the candidate has spent time on the core mission of Wikipedia. Really, those who argue otherwise are trying to take us farther down the path where administrators are just some clique of mandarins enforcing obscure rules that get in the way of putting together an encyclopedia... but that's a different diatribe. Jclemens (talk) 04:31, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I wasn't arguing semantics. Rather, I was pointing out a distinction. And concluding that I agree with you that there is "still absolutely no way to assess trustworthiness". At least, not objectively. But people will try anyway. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:26, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
How does what bd2412 propose differ from the disregarding of unfounded opposes that crats do as a matter of course in determining consensus to promote?--Wehwalt (talk) 20:35, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Completely unfounded opposes are discounted when the result is in the "borderline" zone. What is being proposed here is that a particular kind of opposition that a particular user thinks is unfounded be discounted. The whole point of RFA is supposed to be a discussion to figure out if the candidate can be trusted with the tools. That means different things to different people. I don't happen to agree with Jclemens on this but he is as entitled to his view as I am to mine. To restrict the type of reasons a person can use as the basis of their opposition is not a solution to the perceived problems at RFA. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:42, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Beeblebrox. I respect Jclemens opinion (although disagree), but I feel that no reasons (unless they are a clear personal attack) should be disallowed. If a lot of respected users all same the same thing in opposition, it can't be a "stupid" reason (for lack of a better word off the top of my head!). A 'crat will ignore obviously spurious opposes (or supports) like Oppose - according to his user page, the editor doesn't like spinach Note: this is a made-up oppose, it's never been used to my knowledge! and will use his/her judgement on which reasons are to be ignored. As I said before, I think people have set the bar far too high for adminship, but everyone is entitled to their viewpoint -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 22:00, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Frankly, I think a reason which doesn't bear upon the utility of the tools offered by adminship is spurious. To prevent someone from getting what are predominately anti-vandalism tools because all they do is fight vandals is like saying someone shouldn't have extra tools for improving content (if we had such tools) because all they do is improve content. bd2412 T 03:34, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
My sentiments exactly. To quote what someone said about adminship (I forget who it was that said this, or the exact quote, but it's pretty close), "Adminship is the mop and bucket, not the pen and paper." The Thing // Talk // Contribs 03:46, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Then you do not understand the tools' downside. Of course they're good for blocking vandals, and if that's all they were usable for, your argument might have merit. Wikipedia is not about fighting vandalism--no two ways about it, and your argument is irrelevant. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and until and unless you understand how the tools can help, hinder, or bias that process, you really are just talking past me. Jclemens (talk) 04:28, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
We are all volunteers here. If someone wants to use the tools strictly to help fight vandalism, that's their choice. If they want to use the tools strictly to help with SPI-related stuff, that's their choice. If they are a large net positive in the area that they wish to work in, no matter how narrow an area, does their adminship hinder the encyclopedia? The Thing // Talk // Contribs 04:39, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Of course it hinders the encyclopedia! Without a personal track record of content creation, they become masters of what they neither understand nor empathize with. A person who "just wants to fight vandals" is perhaps the most pernicious and insidious threat to the encyclopedia, because in their well-meaning quest to Keep The Peace And Enforce Order they tend to impose rules not just on vandals, but on the content creators as well. IAR and BURO are designed for admins who take on the tools as a burden, who don't like doing the mop work. A class of admin who likes to exert control over others is exactly the sort of person most likely to drive away content creators. Jclemens (talk) 05:16, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I asked whether they hindered the encyclopedia if they were a net positive, not a net negative, which is pretty much what you just described... The Thing // Talk // Contribs 05:27, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
And I answered: if they are not content creators, they can NEVER be a net positive to Wikipedia because Wikipedia is about content creation. All the good and proper blocking, protecting, moving, merging, AfD closures, etc. are at best non-negative, because all admins can do without content creators is keep the encyclopedia at the state it was previously. Which, arguably, is actually moving backwards, because knowledge keeps increasing. Again, if you see administrative action as a net positive for the encyclopedia, you're just not Grokking my point. Jclemens (talk) 05:47, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I believe that we are transitioning into a maintenance phase. To me, the most important thing is not content creation. Why? Because for nearly 10 years, people have written about things from every corner of the globe on this website. A vast amount of information already exists. It's becoming harder to find things to write about. While knowledge may still be increasing, it's not increasing at the rate that it was before. The most important thing to me is maintaining what we already have in the first place. To keep our image from being tarnished by people who would sail through hell and high water to do such things. If an admin fails to prevent that, then it is a negative for this encyclopedia, because we will lose readers, who are our main users. Admin actions are a net positive, just in a different way. The Thing // Talk // Contribs 05:51, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I think your assumuption about a maintenance phase is way off the reality mark. We are just getting started. I would encourage all of us to be familar the the Wikimedia strategic goals for the next five years. Here.--Mike Cline (talk) 06:34, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Well the main point I was trying to express was that using the admin tools to preserve and improve the image of the Wiki is as much a net positive as contributing content. The Thing // Talk // Contribs 06:48, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Add up all the FA/FL/GA's we have, and you get just under 14,500 articles. Less than 15,000 articles that someone who didn't work on it has reviewed and approved. While it is getting harder to find anywhere to write a "new" article, there are tons of vast uncharted seas out there that need dramatic improvement. I think it is a false dichotomy between "maintenance" and "writing"; and we are still very much in need of both. Probably will be as long as any of us live. Don't believe me? Click random article 20 times, and count if you get a FA/FL/GA; or even a fairly well developed article. It took me 41 clicks to find anything even c-class. Courcelles 06:55, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
It took me 52 clicks. And half the stubs only had one sentence. Access Denied talk contribs editor review 15:52, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
The net creation of new articles has actually slowed a little, our total number of articles is not increasing as much as at peak, as of Jan this year we had 3.1 million of them, and today it is still only 3.4 million, so the percentage growth rate is less than half what it was when we had 1.7 million articles. However content creation is not just about creating new articles. As Courcelles has said most of our articles could do with expansion and many could do with improvement. The number of words in mainspace more than doubled between July 07 and Jan this year whilst the number of articles only increased by 80% as EN wiki grew from less than 7 gigabytes to 14 gigabytes in 30 months - see stats. Personally I think that referencing and category fixing to improve articles is worthwhile - but I'm conscious that even doubling the average size of our existing articles requires as much content creation as has been done so far.. As for the relevance of this to RFA, I expect candidates to have done something to improve mainspace content. I don't greatly care whether that is referencing, writing, copy editing or adding alt text to photographs - but Ill admit to being extra impressed by Featured contributions. ϢereSpielChequers 11:06, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
The minute we think we're done creating content and the 'pedia exists in a maintenance state, we are doomed. We then focus on Defending the One True Online Encyclopedia against all comers, and stagnation and infighting become the rule rather than the exception. WSC's point about featured content is absolutely well taken: featured content means doing something with a whole lot of nitpicky work (attention to detail) and working with other people (collaboration), which I consider to be the pinnacle of demonstrating both admin-suitability and contribution to the core mission of Wikipedia. I set a triple crown as my goal before even exploring adminship, hit it, had little problem in my RfA, and despite occasional missteps since then, remain committed to facilitating editors' content creation. Jclemens (talk) 14:16, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

(←) To answer the suggestions made before that dedicated vandal-fighters with little-to-no experience in anything else should be given the tools, I'll try to illustrate the problem with that. Administrators are given tools that encompass many areas of the encyclopedia, permitting article deletion and reviewing deleted edits as well as implementing, adjusting, and removing page protection and giving or removing specific tools from other editors (rollback and accountcreator)... Check out WP:NAS as a reminder. Every administrator gets all of those tools, and has permission to use any of them with their best judgment.

I'd say that we are in a maintenance state already - even though we are far from done with creating and expanding content, we are reaching a point where anything that is not actively watched "erodes" under vandalism and poor editing - totally a maintenance state. How many FA/GA have ended up getting "demoted" as a result of continued changes? Now, that's not really an admin job to police all of it, but admins do maintenance tasks, period. They block users that hurt the encyclopedia. They apply protection in the rare cases where it's needed. They delete articles that aren't fit for the encyclopedia. None of those tasks needs significant content experience - some helps to understand what you are looking at and what is and is not harmful, but in general you don't need to be able to turn every article you see into a FA. You do need to be able to understand what the community is telling you, and understand process and policy. You need to be able to tell the difference between CSD and AFD. Admins are janitors, not community leaders though, and maybe the title should reflect that so that we remember what we are asking for. Yes, they can leave someone a bad taste in their mouth about the project and chase someone away, but so can every other member of our community - most of the warning and disciplinary process of Wikipedia is carried out by the community. As for concerns about admins being empowered to WP:BITE, you really don't need adminship to scare off the newcomers, and I haven't really seen a serious proposal to take the warning templates away from non-admins... Triona (talk) 19:05, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

So let's say you have an admin with a ton of experience dealing with vandals, they've reverted/warned 100s of them. They know how to give escalating warnings and know when to report someone to AIV and rarely give improper or unnecessary reports. They've never created or expanded an article, or joined a policy discussion, or tagged an article for deletion, or joined an AfD discussion. They don't care about those things, they just want to bust the bad guys. So they run for adminship to get the tools to be able to fully help stop vandalism. A net positive for Wikipedia even if they aren't doing anything else, right? Maybe, maybe not.

One day they block someone adding a racial slur to an article. They revert the slur, but notice a lot of other problems on the page, in fact the whole thing is an attack page. Wanting to protect Wikipedia, they delete that page, because they can do so. (They fail to check the history of the page to see that 2 days earlier it was a well-sourced article describing the biography of a noted scientist.) With this new power, they continue to delete other articles, including stubs with very little information (who needs such useless things). Then they get a message on their talk page, asking the new admin to help with a vandal at an article who is adding hoax information. This admin checks and sees that the vandal has had repeated warnings, including a final warning, and blocks them. Then that original editor asks the admin to protect the article with his tools to stop other vandals, and after reviewing the instructions for doing so, indefinitely protects the page (and inadvertently "wins" a running dispute on the article for the editor who'd asked).

That might be a bit extreme, but shows the danger in giving tools to an editor who doesn't understand everything involved in the admin role. Just because they request the tools for a particular task, that doesn't guarantee they won't try anything else. I know that I've branched out into other areas that I hadn't planned on, but I did so cautiously and with foreknowledge because I knew enough to keep myself out of trouble. Not everyone will be able to do that if their experience is limited. This is all made worse by the fact that once an administrator is given the bit, it's really hard to take it away. -- Atama頭 18:53, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Excellent summary, Atama, and I wholeheartedly endorse it. Jclemens (talk) 19:03, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
In fact, I think it's excellent too. (Are you surprised?) On the other hand, I could point towards editors with tons of content experience who are, nonetheless, drama-mongers etc. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:10, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
This is definitely extreme and unrealistic. You're assuming that people who don't or can't write articles are stupid. I mean, how hard is it to look at an article's history? You're also assuming that people who don't or can't write are going to misuse their tools without bothering to read up on policy. All these assumptions are just that: assumptions.
What is being forgotten here, is that Wikipedia isn't your average encyclopedia. It's open to abuse, and anyone who helps it in a positive way should be thanked, not attacked as being bad. Vandal-fighting is like that. Wikipedia needs maintaining as well as writing. If no one did vandal fighting, all those barely watched, obscure articles could easily remain vandalised, because no one is interested in maintaining them - all they care about it getting the magic FA stars or whatever. Vandal fighters are very important, despite what those who don't know what they are talking about claim. Without them, Wikipedia would probably fall apart. Aiken ♫ 19:11, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
And I agree with that too! Which is why the community's subjective trust is, in the end, so important. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:14, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
It's not assuming that people who don't or can't write articles are stupid. It's just that they haven't demonstrated that they aren't stupid. Don't be fooled, there are stupid people in the world, and some are among us.--Cube lurker (talk) 19:17, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
A history of solid vandal-fighting isn't demonstrating anything? I mean, it's not pretty FA stars, but it's something. Aiken ♫ 19:27, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
A history of playing zap-em only demonstrates that they're good at zap-em. For me personally It doesn't need to be pure original article creation. But it needs more then proving that the 5th time someone types "Penis" in an article they go to AIV.--Cube lurker (talk) 19:43, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
And likewise, a history of playing article-writing only proves that they're good at that, but nothing else. I don't understand why you need more than what is actually required. Surely if someone knows how and when to block a vandal, it would be appropriate for them to just do it themselves, without having to get an admin to do it every time? Aiken ♫ 19:56, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict)I wholeheartedly agree with Aiken. And, besides, I'd naively assume that an admin would ask one of his more experience colleagues for advice, before venturing in an area they have no experience in... Salvio Let's talk 'bout it! 19:20, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I wholeheartedly agree that it would be naive to assume that.--Cube lurker (talk) 19:23, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
There's nothing naive about it. We have plenty of vandal-fighting admins among us who don't damage the encyclopedia in any way. One off the top of my head, J.delanoy, also a checkuser. How about that? Aiken ♫ 19:27, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
And we have others that stumble and bumble their way in areas that are over their heads. I'm a bit hampered. I could name names, however it would be bad form to dig up stale incidents regarding individuals who are uninvolved in this discussion.--Cube lurker (talk) 19:36, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
It wouldn't make any difference if they wrote articles or not, though. Article writing != suited for adminship. Aiken ♫ 19:40, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
To expand on my last point above, I'm not hung up on GA's/FA's. But I need to see more critical thinking than just huggling without big problems.--Cube lurker (talk) 19:46, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Then we are closer in agreement than I originally thought. This idea that vandal-fighter admins are somehow bad is what is completely preposterous and without any foundation in truth. No wonder so few people apply to be admins nowadays - I expect many are decent vandal fighters who would do well with a block button to get rid of vandals, but alas, they don't do "enough" writing. Aiken ♫ 19:56, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Speaking for myself I have nothing against dealing with vandalism. However I'm very aware that adminship covers far more than that one skill subset. That's why I need to see a variety of experiences. I do want to see knowledge of content building to a certain degree. Interaction with others beyond templates. Etc.--Cube lurker (talk) 20:02, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Hear, hear! I've got no shiny ITNs, GAs or FAs to my name. I've got one DYK that I can't really take much credit for (I just happened to be start an article about a little shake). 1 vs. 100 (Xbox 360) is probably the only article where I can say that I am the primary author. I'm unapologetic about all of this! I do what I can, when I can. Not everyone has the time to concentrate heavily on article writing, and not everyone is good at that. What's more - do we really want our best and brightest article writers worrying about the backend? No, we want them writing great articles. –xenotalk 19:33, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
My content contributions are probably no more than yours, xeno. Yet I got through RfA without anyone really questioning my lack of content building (to my surprise). I think my standards in that department are lower than some at RfA, really. My point wasn't that an admin has to be a stellar content contributor, or that they have to know every policy inside-and-out. My point was that we shouldn't promote myopic editors who are focused on only one thing to the exclusion of all else. We do get such candidates now and then, usually vandal-fighters, though luckily I don't recall seeing any such candidates getting promoted. J.delanoy was mentioned as an example, but if you look at his first RfA it actually failed for that very reason. He tried again 5 months later, being able to show experience in other areas and passed very well. I think that's how it should be. -- Atama頭 20:21, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I came aboard about 2 1/2 years ago primarily because I seen so many articles on the things I enjoy (like video games) that could be much better than how they were currently written. I started out improving the existing articles out there. I didn't (and probably still don't) have any ambition to create brand new articles when there are so many articles currently out there that needs proper research done, everything verifiable, and needing some serious tightening up on prose. Heck, the first "new article" I created was a little over a year after I came aboard (Rolando 2: Quest for the Golden Orchid). Personally, I have found more satisfaction in improving existing content than trying to create new content. I'm also certain that there are others about there who are the same way. As long as I see editors who are making efforts to improve the overall quality of the encyclopedia, then I see that as a plus.

That being said, with an encyclopedia this large and that popular and that open, you're guaranteed to have idiots come on and mess things up; that is nothing short of inevitable. I remember a user who thought Colonel Sanders is still alive and is using his "magic chicken" to help the U.S. Government fight aliens. You could not get a halfway-reasonable person to AGF on something like that; if we did that, the encyclopedia would be doomed and rendered impotent due to the massive effect created by the suicide pact. That's why, as with any website on the Internet, we have administration. The general public who read these articles as well as those who help edit the encyclopedia do not deserve to be harassed by these idiots. As with any online community or real-life community, we have certain norms and standards that should be followed, lest bad things happen. That's not to say we're no more special than any other online community, as we're certainly unique, but there are similarites.

As far as this discussion is concerned, I completely agree with WereSpielChequers and Aiken drum. I mean, I don't have any hard-and-fast RFA standards because different users bring different things to the table. (We've actually had similar arguments in the past about RFA nominees whose main contributions have been with using bots.) Personally, as long as the user has a fundamental understanding of what we as a community are trying to accomplish, has a certain level of cluefulness, and does not cause controversy every other step, they're fine in my book, provided nothing else comes up that raises any red flags. –MuZemike 19:34, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Backlogs

OK, my simple notion is, that administrative backlogs are almost by definition bad. People are waiting for a problem to be solved, and that problem needs administrative an action. Most editors here seem to be more of the 'so .. AIV is sometimes a bit backlogged .. so what' .. my intake is .. if a vandal is annoying editors, and it takes hours for that vandal to be blocked, then that is bad for the editors who have to cope with it .. they may get annoyed.[citation needed] If an innocent editor is autoblocked, and that editor has to wait for hours to get unblocked, that editor may get annoyed.[citation needed] If an editor tries to use a blacklisted link, and asks for whitelisting and has to wait for days for a response, then that editor may get annoyed.[citation needed] It is bad that editors get annoyed, editors may go away because of mismanagment.[citation needed]

Now, it is impossible for one admin to take up and get rid of all the backlogs .. that is something collaborative. But are there backlogs. Here one input from me .. others in other fields can maybe compile others. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:06, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

CAT:RFU

I am running unblockbot on IRC, who keeps interested admins informed about the current cases. I rewrote it a couple of days to have a bit of a statistics while it is running. Results now:

  1. accepted: 8 unblock requests; 1 hour, 26 minutes per case.
  2. declined: 34 unblock requests; 1 hour, 28 minutes per case.
  3. total: 42 requests, 1 hour 28 minute per case.

As with all statistics, these are screwed, of course. One only needs one really long one, and these numbers go up. Well, the last 6 with full info:

  1. 4 hours 50 minutes (accept - (2nd) autoblock)
  2. 3 hours 41 minutes (accept - (2nd) autoblock)
  3. 1 hour 47 minutes (declined)
  4. 26 minutes (declined)
  5. 8 minutes (declined)
  6. 17 minutes (declined)
  7. 3 hours 19 minutes (accept - autoblock with intermediate check after 1 hour and 19 minutes); note: this one was not recorded by the bot, it missed the decline (time) for some reason; it is hence also not in the above average).

So .. 3 of >3 hours for accept of an autoblock. I know, on others there may be discussion, or other reasons why it takes long .. I do think that it is pretty long for such formalities. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:06, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

--- bot upgraded, stats reset, will come with new ones ---

  1. 1 accepted (6576 seconds; 01 hour 49:36 minutes /case)
  2. 14 declined (35771 seconds; 42 minutes 35.07 seconds /case)
  3. total 15 (42347 seconds; 47 minutes 3.13 seconds /case).
  1. 18 minutes (declined)
  2. 13 minutes (delined)
  3. 1 hour 49 minutes (accepted; autblock after unblock of username block; discussed)
  4. 49 minutes (declined)
  5. 1 hour 13 minutes (declined)
  6. 47 minutes (declined)

Bit better stats, times are a bit shorter (but also the number of stats involved). Still recording. --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:05, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Spam blacklist

  1. first is a long discussion, started at 23 December 2009. Not resolved.
  2. 08:36, 3 June 2010 (UTC) - 19:25, 11 August 2010 (UTC) (added, no inbetween discussion)
  3. 20:15, 3 June 2010 (UTC) - 19:27, 11 August 2010 (UTC) (added, no inbetween discussion)
  4. 03:13, 4 June 2010 (UTC) - 19:29, 11 August 2010 (UTC) (added, no inbetween discussion)
  5. 01:19, 5 June 2010 (UTC) - 19:31, 11 August 2010 (UTC) (added, no inbetween discussion)
  6. 06:57, 5 June 2010 (UTC) - 19:43, 11 August 2010 (UTC) (added, no inbetween discussion)
  7. 16:26, 7 June 2010 (UTC) - 19:44, 11 August 2010 (UTC) (added, no inbetween discussion)
  8. 10:40, 10 June 2010 (UTC) - 19:45, 11 August 2010 (UTC) (added, no inbetween discussion)
  9. 04:51, 11 June 2010 (UTC) - 02:14, 12 August 2010 (UTC) (deferred to meta)
  10. 19:30, 14 June 2010 (UTC) - 12:38, 17 June 2010 (UTC) (next remark) - still open, last comment at 05:09, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
  11. 13:07, 15 June 2010 (UTC) - bumped at 12:22, 3 August 2010 (UTC) as still active, 19:46, 11 August 2010 (UTC) added without further discussion
  12. 09:28, 27 June 2010 (UTC) - declined at 02:26, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
  13. 20:36, 19 June 2010 (UTC) - discussion starting at 23:08, 3 July 2010 (UTC) - added at 02:35, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
  14. 12:28, 20 June 2010 (UTC) - report expanded and added 02:55, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
  15. ....

I could go on here. Simply, if it gets reported here, it annoyed someone .. if it gets added it probably either was really cruft, or it persisted. But most of this could go on for months (I am not saying it has .. some spammers do stop when the warnings appear on their talkpages; and some of this is added to XLinkBot to try and keep mainspace clean). Now I know that COIBot had some problems lately, and that may have stalled some additions as the reports were not available, but one can still go by the linksearches and contributions .. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:39, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I've removed the backlog tag from the spam blacklist .. it is finally cleared. Things get done, eventually.... --Dirk Beetstra T C 20:39, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Spam whitelist

  1. 05:56, 12 June 2010 (UTC) - first reply 11:57, 14 June 2010 (UTC) (not done in the end)
  2. 17:56, 18 April 2010 (UTC) - no reply
  3. 02:48, 21 May 2010 (UTC) - first reply 07:52, 21 May 2010 (UTC) - done in the end at 08:27, 12 August 2010 (UTC).
  4. 01:37, 30 May 2010 (UTC) - first reply 13:23, 2 June 2010 (UTC) - not done 08:29, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
  5. 22:39, 3 June 2010 (UTC) - first reply 08:37, 4 June 2010 (UTC) - not done 08:29, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
  6. 18:27, 9 June 2010 (UTC) - first reply 14:00, 10 June 2010 (UTC) - not done 08:29, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
  7. 20:44, 17 June 2010 (UTC) - first and last reply 08:30, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
  8. 23:14, 17 June 2010 (UTC) - first reply 23:58, 17 June 2010 (UTC) - not done 09:42, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
  9. 05:10, 20 June 2010 (UTC) - first reply 06:44, 20 June 2010 (UTC) - last reply 05:30, 21 June 2010 (UTC), open
  10. 01:09, 22 June 2010 (UTC) - decline 03:36, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
  11. 00:38, 22 June 2010 (UTC) - first and last reply 09:43, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
  12. 09:05, 24 June 2010 (UTC) - first reply 03:14, 25 June 2010 (UTC) for more info, reply 05:31, 29 June 2010 (UTC), no further response until 09:43, 12 August 2010 (UTC) - open
  13. 22:09, 24 June 2010 (UTC) - first and last reply 09:44, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
  14. 03:56, 25 June 2010 (UTC) - first and last reply 09:55, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
  15. 05:30, 26 June 2010 (UTC) - first and last reply 09:55, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
  16. ...

It is that one admin did a cleanup this morning of the backlog, commenting/adding/declining, otherwise a lot of these would simply be requested and not touched since they were opened. Some are clear-cut declines, others would be helped by some editors having a look, discussing it. It at the moment comes down to one admin who handles a request, while some really need input. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:58, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:AIV

Bit difficult to parse, but in the last 50 edits, I see:

  1. 4 minutes
  2. open since 13:02, 12 August 2010, commented upon (note: 27 minutes when I signed this post; closed after 43 minutes)
  3. 3 minutes
  4. 11 minutes
  5. 10 minutes
  6. 0 minutes
  7. 4 minutes
  8. 2 minutes
  9. 1:38 - moved to ani in the end, next two supposedly ipsocks - this clears the backlog (backlog existed for 41 minutes)
  10. 1:35 - see above
  11. 54 minutes - see two above
  12. 1:27 minutes
  13. 7 minutes
  14. 1 minute
    bot has noticed a backlog here
  15. 4 minutes
  16. 4 minutes
  17. 3 minutes
  18. 5 minutes
  19. 3 minutes
  20. 4 minutes

The 50 edits to WP:AIV spanned about a 4 hour period. --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:35, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

These are the ones I could easily see in the history. Most go quite fast. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:29, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Note: these are removal times, not blocking times that I looked at. Blocking may have gone slightly faster (though I presume the bot is fast with those). --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:38, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I don't think you're going to find a great deal of backlog at this time: it's when the Eastern seaboard editors/admins are starting up their daily cycle. –xenotalk 13:40, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, one can repeat the trick in 8 and 16 hours, so we have three lists .. I'm curious to see this, indeed. If I'm not around, can someone have a go at this? --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:57, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

History (up to 20:45)

  1. 20:43 opened, unknown close time (>2 minutes)
  2. 5 minutes (several times extended)
  3. 19:58 opened, unknown close time (>47 minutes)
  4. 6 minutes
  5. 7 minutes
  6. 1 minute (note, user was already blocked at time of reporting, is one of the reports below)
  7. 29 minutes
  8. 2 minutes
    noticeboard not backlogged
  9. unknown report time, removed at 19:05 (> 1 hour 15 minutes)
  10. 17 minutes
  11. 14 minutes
    noticeboard is backlogged
  12. 8 minutes
    noticeboard is not longer backlogged
  13. unknown report time, removed at 18:25 (> 35 minutes)
  14. unknown report time, removed at 18:24 (> 34 minutes)
  15. 10 minutes
  16. 2 minutes
  17. unknown report time, removed at 17:57
    noticeboard is backlogged

The first notice is at 17:50, the 'unknown report time'-difference for closed reports is based on that number, the 'unknown close time' is based on the last edit at 20:45. This is already more shocking. Several over 30 minutes, some even over an hour, and in approx. 3 hours 2 times backlogged. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:43, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

History up to 4:46

  1. unknown closing time, opened at 4:46 (>0 minutes)
  2. 9 minutes
  3. 2 minutes
  4. 15 minutes
    noticeboard backlogged
  5. unknown closing time, opened at 4:30 (>16 minutes)
  6. unknown closing time, opened at 4:22 (>24 minutes)
  7. 7 minutes
  8. unknown closing time, opened at 4:08 (>38 minutes)
  9. 19 minutes
  10. 1 minute
  11. 3 minutes
  12. 1 minute
  13. 5 minutes
  14. 1 minute
  15. opened at 2:36 (>2 hours and 10 minutes)
  16. 52 minutes (removed as stale, first comment after 18 minutes)
  17. unknown opening time, 2:24 removed as stale (> 1 hour 9 minutes, commented on)
  18. unknown opening time, 1:50 removed as stale (> 35 minutes, commented on)
  19. 3 minutes
  20. 1 minute
  21. 2 minutes

Pattern similar as above, first edit in these 50 is at 1:15. For the still open ones: the backlog was clear at 6:02. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:43, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

TfD

I understand that Templates for Discussion are discussed for 7 days. Today it is the 13th. So 13-7 is 6, we start with August 5:

Aug 5 - 5 - on the 13th (well, there is still some 13th left ..) 3 closed; still 2 there
Aug 4 - 6 - on the 12th 3 closed; still 2 there
Aug 3 - 12 - on the 11th 2 closed; all discussions now closed
Aug 2 - 14 - on the 10th 4 closed; all discussions now closed
Aug 1 - 3 - on the 9th 0 closed; all discussions now closed
Jul 31 - 8 - on the 5th (!) 2 closed; next edit on the 9th (+9 days!); at the end of the 9th 5 closed; all discussions now closed

These counts are at the end of the '8th' day. So for me, on Aug 5, I am looking at how many are closed in the last edit of the 13th of Aug. Now I realize, this is not exactly a case where one or two days more have a significant impact. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:58, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

I should note to this .. having more admins is maybe not the only solution here. Granting admin access to everyone is also not a solution. But I do think that we need one (or maybe 4) solution(s) here. But I do think that the size of the current admin core may not be sufficient .. and that it is in a steady decline (even if it is slow) is not going to help. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:08, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

And another note .. I don't know if the backlogs have grown in the last three years. But the point is, that (apparently) they are here now (as was suggested a number of times above). --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:27, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I wonder: one would assume that having more administrators would lead to shorter backlogs, but is there any empirical evidence that this is actually the case? Would it only be true if the new administrators were interested in certain backlogged areas of activity, or if they lived in certain time zones? --Tryptofish (talk) 18:31, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Even if more administrators only focused on certain backlogged areas of activity, that would still reduce backlogs. As the saying goes, "Many hands make light work." —MC10 (T•C•GB•L) 18:45, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes, that's intuitively obvious. But I was asking something more specific: what evidence we have for it, and whether it supports the hypothesis that what you said is automatically or always the case. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:02, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Does it matter if we have 'evidence' that it helps? The only evidence that there could be, is to increase the current admin corps, instantly, with, say, 20%, and see whether it helps. Timezone? The Spam black and whitelists have backlogs of months, there is no timezone dependence on it (spamming is, though. I've heard that some countries seem to be specific). AIV seems to be backlogged when certain timezones start editing .. although I do not have proof for it, I assume that also more admins will become active at that same moment .. (I would be very surprised if the admin-peak lives in timezone 'UTC+X', while the vandal peak lives in 'UTC+X+12'). Having more admins may not help, having more admins may not be the only solution (it may not even be the most effective solution), but a declining number of admins is certainly not going to help. They are the ones with the correct bit set to be able to actually do the actions. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:05, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Interesting. Stats? --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:05, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
I'll give it a try. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:58, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Weak opposes

Do opposes that are weak in their reasoning get counted the same as an oppose that clearly states why they are opposing? Let me clarify, do opposes that have a bad reason get counted as 1 full oppose all the same? Netalarmtalk 05:21, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

No, its not a vote... reasoning does matter. The 70-75% guideline is just that... but stronger/weaker arguments do factor in. If the 'crat comes along and sees fifty !votes saying "oppose, I view self nominations as prima facia evidence of power hunger" then the 'crat might pass despite a lower level.---Balloonman NO! I'm Spartacus! 05:47, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
So there is no need to strike unreasonable votes, as they have less weight anyway, correct? Netalarmtalk 05:53, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Disruptive !votes get struck, not unreasonable !votes. Only the closing 'crat should decide what is reasonable.--Mkativerata (talk) 05:59, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Do the 'crats have .. some form of guideline for that? I mean, is there some form of list or guide that says 'oppose and support votes of stating ... should be counted as weak' .. and that says how they 'recalculate' the percentage after looking at those votes? --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:10, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
No, since it would be impossible to do so. After all, what is "weak" or "strong" can be a matter of consensus as well. If 50 people oppose for a reason that you think is "weak", it's still a strong concern that the closing crat needs to assess just as having 2 people oppose for very "strong" reasons might be considered "weak" if they are overwhelmingly rejected by the rest of the community. Crats don't really check for percentages anyway, so that's not really a problem to solve. Regards SoWhy 08:45, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Re: "No, its not a vote... reasoning does matter. The 70-75% guideline is just that." - Can you show us a 69% that passed, or a 76% that failed? (Genuine question) -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:18, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
1, 2, 3 were all under 75% I believe. I don't know of any over 76% that didn't pass. Aiken ♫ 16:24, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
User:Dank/Admins#RfAs. - Dank (push to talk) 16:25, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I've never seen the point of the strong/weak thing. I mean, we all do it including me, but in the end, it's what your comments say that matter most. The bureaucrat isn't going to go "Ooh, they put strong, that must be good!". "Weak" votes amuse me particularly, because the weak tends to (unintentionally) mean weak reasoning. Aiken ♫ 16:27, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

What more, STRONGEST POSSIBLE OPPOSE actually can have a negative effect, as it gives the impression of being unnecessarily rude instead of offering a well reasoned oppose. (X! · talk)  · @935  ·  21:26, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
What else is RFA for, other than to be as brutally unpleasant and rude as possible when you don't like a candidate? Aiken ♫ 23:08, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
My impression is that references to "strong" or "weak" in the discussion above are references to the strength of the argument as perceived by the 'crat, not by the presence of the word "Strong" or "weak". One hopes there is a correlation, but I view the presence of the word as a note to oneself, and possibly to other readers, but are largely ignored by the 'crat. In contrast, a weak argument, even if accompanied by "Strong Oppose", will be partially discounted by the 'crat.--SPhilbrickT 17:03, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
WP:Requests for adminship/Davemeistermoab was the most recent one and passed with 67.6 and a lot of people including myself were very annoyed with this. Polargeo (talk) 16:30, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
One thing to consider too, IMHO determining what's a "weak oppose" needs to consider the overall discussion not just the eloquence of the opposer. If there are already 5 !votes full of diffs and explanations of errors of judgement the candidate has made, and a 6th persons just types "Oppose, dont trust him with tools". That's not a weak oppose, thats a person who didn't feel like cutting and pasting all the diffs already talked about. On the otherhand there are sometimes !votes that are clearly POINT driven or just plain nonsensical. That's where I feel crat discression is clearly appropriate.--Cube lurker (talk) 17:18, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Adding "strong or weak" only measures your conviction and/or enthusiasm in your vote, nothing more. It certainly doesn't add to one's argument, which is what bureaucrats should focus on in a close closure. NW (Talk) 19:11, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

For those interested, the essay Wikipedia:Adjectives in your votes discusses this issue both for XfDs and RfAs. CT Cooper · talk 21:48, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Volunteers needed at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jc3s5h

I'm looking for a couple of volunteers from the RfA regulars to review the edits of the old account of RfA candidate Jc3s5h. He previously edited under his real name and wishes to preserve that privacy but he's willing to disclose the old account to some trusted editors willing to summarize his activity. See Q5 in his RfA. Pichpich (talk) 17:09, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I can take a look. –xenotalk 17:11, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
So can I, if he trusts me. Salvio Let's talk 'bout it! 17:30, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Same here, if needed. Black Kite (t) (c) 17:34, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
While I haven't been as active here as I used to, I think I could muster a detailed review like I used to do.---Balloonman NO! I'm Spartacus! 17:44, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
FYI, the account was already revealed to me and I've posted an initial review.  Frank  |  talk  17:55, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I'd be curious to take a look. Toddst1 (talk) 05:24, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Clerking again

I totally understand that clerking (see WT:UAA; it looks like it's a go) is not going to attract a lot of discussion; apparently the only right it's going to confer is the right to put  Clerk note: in front of your comments ... on just one noticeboard. Whee. Still ... I'm gratified by the support and intrigued by the possibilities, and I'd like to hear if anyone has concerns. I know of two opposes (although I'm not clear what they're opposing yet), and I invited them here to discuss it. - Dank (push to talk) 01:18, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

It's not clear to me, and never has been, why anyone would want to be a clerk. Malleus Fatuorum 01:24, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
One would hope that it's for the same reason(s) they would want to be an admin. VernoWhitney (talk) 01:33, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
That's never been clear to me either as it happens, but you seem to be suggesting that clerking is a route to adminship? In what way? Malleus Fatuorum 01:38, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, I'm under the impression that this clerking system is only being introduced because of a need to let users gain experience so they can be better admin candidates. If you see the original post at UAA, this was one of the main reasons for introducing such a clerking system. First and foremost, UAA and the other noticeboards should be used to deal with what they're suppose to be dealing with, be it usernames, vandalism, conflict of interest, or what not. The need to train users so they can be more successful admin candidates should not be a valid reason to introduce a clerking system at UAA or CSD. Yes, I agree that the RfA process is not the best it can be and needs to be reformed, but we should target the problem at the root - the process itself, not at UAA or CSD. I do believe that admin coaching could be revived and revamped to provide a better training ground for potential admins. Regarding the clerking idea, I see no point in giving a select number of users the privilege of using the clerk template in discussions and the ability to move things around or what not. Sure it's said that clerks have no special responsibilities or authority, but when engaging in a discussion, the clerk template can give a different impression. Overall, if someone wants to help remove false UAA reports, talk to users about their usernames, or what not, they should not be limited because they are not a clerk. Netalarmtalk 03:41, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
The clerking idea is not about an alternative form of admin coaching, though I would hope that being a UAA or CSD clerk would be seen as a positive rather than negative at RfA, nor does it involve telling non-clerks that they can't fix errors at UAA or elsewhere. The increased clerking idea is one response to the declining number of active admins. UAA and all the other processes that rely on admins need to start thinking how they can reorganise to operate with fewer admins around, appointing people who have shown they can accurately handle errors at CSD or UAA as clerks for those boards is one suggested way to do this, it may even be a way to work better despite having fewer admins. If you don't like the idea of having clerks at those boards, how else do you suggest we change things in response to the longterm decline in the number of admins? ϢereSpielChequers 09:02, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Agreed word for word with WSC, but OTOH, Netalarm's point that you're asking for trouble when you create a class of super-user is right on the money, and my vote FWIW is that clerkship should never become a "thing". It looks like it's going to happen at UAA, and whenever we vote on clerk candidates, I'd like for everyone to feel welcome to vote (and if I felt otherwise, I certainly wouldn't say so :). Would you guys prefer I make a post here every time someone runs? If you don't need that, I've created WT:Clerking that you can watchlist, or just watchlist WT:UAA. - Dank (push to talk) 14:30, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Inserting: no response to this yet, I'm going to assume you don't want a notice at RFA unless someone says otherwise. - Dank (push to talk) 16:34, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
For sure it will give someone an excuse to create a nice new logo; it took very little time with reviewer. Perhaps the Wiki globe with a quill sticking out the top?--Wehwalt (talk) 14:36, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Hopefully people will think that's overkill, but if clerking becomes a "thing", yes that would be a great logo. - Dank (push to talk) 20:59, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Is voting for clerks really required? Why not just turn it around, and suggest anyone can clerk unless their contributions as a clerk become counter-productive (at which point they are asked to stop?) This is how it's done at WP:CHU/USURP (no one has ever been asked to stop). –xenotalk 14:40, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
It's a paradox that, sometimes, if you ask people not to do much and not to take it seriously that they don't do the little that you ask, but if ask for way too much, they do more than you're asking. That's certainly what we're getting currently at UAA. We've had a problem for years that, despite a lot of poking and prodding, we couldn't get non-admins interested in learning all the little judgment calls and helping out; now we can't beat them away with a stick. - Dank (push to talk) 14:48, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

(outdent)Do they really want to help, or are they just interested in the Junior Detective League card and plastic badge?--Wehwalt (talk) 14:50, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't know and don't care what's going on in people's heads, as long as the work's getting done, and it is. - Dank (push to talk) 14:52, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, sure, for purposes of UAA, but for adminship, candidates who just want to collect the bling are a problem.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:53, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes, exactly. That's what I'm "intrigued" by ... what would an RFA look like if it was centered at a noticeboard so that most of the voters were knowledgeable about and focused on the candidate's work? And if you weren't giving out any tools at all, so you didn't get all the "OMG he'll destroy the wiki!" votes? What if it was just about competence and trustworthiness? My god, if everyone knew what they were talking about and wasn't anxious one way or the other about the result, the wiki might implode. - Dank (push to talk) 15:13, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
I don't know how well it would translate to clerkships elsewhere, but the discussion (such as it was) when I became a WP:CCI clerk is located here. A little less drama than RFA... VernoWhitney (talk) 15:26, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
(to Dank) You mean as opposed to the Requests for Permissions page, where admins examine candidate for rollbacker and other user rights withe the minimum of drama?--Wehwalt (talk) 15:28, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
(to Verno and Wehwalt) It's looking like it's going to have fewer voters than RFA but more voters than PERM or CCI. The same, but different. - Dank (push to talk) 16:01, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Are we talking about creating a new usergroup or something? It seems that "clerkship" is sounding more serious than the original proposal. @WSC Yes, I totally agree with you that the declining number of active administrators is a problem, so let's target the problem at its root. What I'm saying is, if you have a toothache, you wouldn't go to the optometrist to get it fixed. You would go straight to your dentist so he can take a look at the problem from the root and work on it from there (unless your toothache somehow is related to your eye :p) . Targeting RfA problems from UAA or CSD is not the best solution to this problem IMO, since we're not dealing with the problem directly. For example, if there was a problem with CSD or UAA, we wouldn't be talking about it here - the discussions would go on the relevant talk pages. I think we can pick out a few RfAs in the past (or active ones) and really look into what's happening in them that's the problem. Is it opposes with no good reason? people voting without really looking? bad candidates to start with? a discouraging process that prevents people from nominating themselves? Once we get a complete list of everything that's wrong with RfA, then we can work on it. Clerking: I agree with xeno that people should just be allowed to come by and act as "clerks" on cases at UAA or CSD. Really, more people poking around will help more than restricting it to a particular class of users. Why can't people just drop by and help, like it's always been done? If someone wants a good "resume" to present at their RfA, they could always help at UAA, CSD, etc. on their own to show their understanding. On the other hand, if we start handing out these half permissions of "clerk" people might start collecting them. "Hello, I'm (insert username), and I'm a rollbacker, accountcreator, reviewer, and a clerk at #$@. That means I help out a lot." What I'm saying is, if someone is only helping out at UAA or CSD because they get to be a clerk, then we have to question that person ability to be a good administrator or even a good clerk. Netalarmtalk 23:17, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Netalarm, we are now 28 months into the drought at RFA. I and others have been pointing out some of the problems here for at least two years. I like to think that we've made some difference, and I am still trying to patch the process up. But I've come to the view that we need to start adapting Wikipedia to the era of admin scarcity. Getting change here is often difficult, and some of the things we discuss may not get consensus until active admin numbers have dropped another hundred or so. But in my experience of this place is that like most ossified organisations it takes two or three phases of discussion to flush out and resolve all objections before you can actually change anything. Having said that a formalised clerking process may not be the best or only way to go; Maybe as an alternative we could make it clearer in the instruction pages that anyone can correct incorrect tags and perhaps talk to some clueful regulars and point out that their involvement would be welcome in that way. ϢereSpielChequers 16:28, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm not saying there's no problem, but the way to go about solving this problem is not to target UAA / CSD. It's to target the process itself. Yes, we want more non-admin involvement in other places, so let's encourage it. There's no need to createa a formal process for people to help out. If someone wants to comment or help out at UAA, by all means, go ahead! The clerking system, as I've pointed out will cause more problems than it's worth. If someone is only helping out at UAA or CSD because they get to be a clerk, then we have to question that person ability to be a good administrator or even a good clerk. I agree with your last suggestion that we could encourage non-admins to help out more. Here's an example: If someone volunteers at their local food pantry just because they need the credit for something, it's a completely different story than if someone volunteers at the food pantry because they truly want to help. If the requirement to volunteer is removed, we're going to see a drop of volunteers at the food pantry if everyone is just there for the credit. The remaining ones are the ones that truly want to help out. The same logic also applies to clerking IMO. Netalarmtalk 21:10, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Opposing because "I can't fully analyse your edit count"

Surely this form of oppose (or neutral, in some cases) is a perfect example of the kind of weak reasoning for rejecting excellent candidates that needs some form of guideline against it? Somebody not creating a .js user page or other form of edit counter, or the downtime/disabling of such counters is a poor reason for opposition, bears no reflection on the candidate, and it just opposing for the sake of it. While this may be seen through, surely it is time to start disallowing certain reasons for opposition, such as this and the old favourite "too many admins"? Esteffect (talk) 20:46, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

  • Examples of this form of opposition, for those unsure as to what I'm referring to, can be seen here and here. Esteffect (talk) 20:52, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
  • To word this differently, perhaps it should become some form of protocol that comments that support, oppose or remain neutral for reasons unrelated to the applicant should be disallowed? It's not the fault of the candidate that an edit counter isn't active, or in the past that there's been "too many administrators". Even if such votes are discarded by bureaucrats, it's a ridiculous trend, and if articles for deletion has its protocol and so forth, I have no idea why it isn't the case here. Esteffect (talk) 21:04, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
    This would be worrying if people were opposing over it, but both your example are people in the neutral section, which seems reasonable enough, of course, it's a shame they can't be bothered to actually look through the candidates contributions themselves, rather than have the tool do it for them, but it's not like they are making it seem like it's the candidates fault. - Kingpin13 (talk) 21:15, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I disagree. The edit counter is a good way to check where a candidate's interests and skills lie and allows people to analyze the candidate faster than by manually checking all contributions. For example, if a candidate has only 20 edits to the Wikipedia: namespace, I might want to check those in greater detail than if they have 1000. Yes, it's not a good reason to oppose, but I see no harm if someone says that they are neutral because they lack a tool they think is important to analyze the candidate's editing and thus don't want to take a stance on the candidate. People often !vote neutral because they feel they cannot make a justified decision to support or oppose the candidate. This is just another possible reason why some people might feel so and imho it's fair to say so, so that the candidate knows they were willing to consider their request, even if they did not support them. Regards SoWhy 21:19, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
I am not disputing that edit counters are useful, but what does it have to do with the candidate? Even in the Neutral section, it is a poor reason; Also, for many editors, Neutral carries connotations of a half-oppose, or a legitimate reason for not supporting. It is, in essense, posting to make a point, and something that is very much wrong that the RFA system. If the lack of an edit counter does not allow you to take a stance on a candidate, then it is not required to make a post at all. Esteffect (talk) 21:30, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
Why should a neutral be a half-oppose and not a half-support then? It's surely not the !voter's fault what connotations others may or may not have. If someone feels they cannot evaluate a candidate fully to make a good decision is a legitimate reason imho to !vote neutral. It shows the candidate that the user was willing to consider their request and to participate in the discussion but felt unable to do so. Why they feel this way is only of secondary importance and while X! is correct that people should not judge solely based on edit counters alone, those tools are a good way to roughly assess a candidate's interests and skills. If the candidate says for example that they want to be active on WP:AIV, then it's much easier to have a tool check the amount of contributions to this page instead of having to check through thousands of edits. The contributions page is a valuable asset in assessing the candidate but even the most thorough !voter can only check a sample of the candidate's contributions manually. And if a !voter feels unable to make an informed decision based on that sample, they should be able to express this as a neutral !vote - to show the candidate that they are not ignoring that request. Imho you seem to interpret those !votes as "Meh...I can't be bothered to actually read the edits the candidate made" while I think they are more of a "I read a sample of the candidate's edits but I don't think I know enough yet to judge them properly". The way one interprets those !votes is essential to answer the question whether they are valid or not. I think WP:AGF compels us to interpret them like I do. Regards SoWhy 07:53, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Really. God forbid anyone bother to look at the contributions. Crossposting from the RfAs: "This disgust me. This is not why I disabled my edit counter. I disabled it so people would actually bother to look at the contributions (god forbid) instead of just making a snap decision with an edit counter. Actually making a decision based on the lack of an edit counter? What if the database was down? What if my account expired? You really cannot rely on this tool like this! There must be other ways, and I hope that you see the light before I reenable the tool next Tuesday." (X! · talk)  · @932  ·  21:22, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

(EC) I like those tools, in particular I find http://toolserver.org/~soxred93/pages/ really useful when checking potential Autopatrolled candidates. But I would agree they are not positive at RFA. I try to say in my RFA votes what I've checked, but I'm conscious that there are fewer and fewer diff based votes, and all sorts of other anomalies are happening. In the last few weeks I've seen a candidate opposed for excessive userspace edits when it was obvious they were writing articles in their sandbox before copying them into mainspace; another opposed for not notifying the authors when they tagged author blanked articles as {{G7}}, and a third for having over 75% of their edits in mainspace (though to be fair they also got some supports for that). My suspicion is that not only is RFA getting harder for good candidates to get through, but I fear it may be getting easier for bad candidates to game their way through. I wonder if we did a survey of RFA !voters how many spend even ten minutes actually looking at an unfamiliar candidates edits? ϢereSpielChequers 22:06, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
I would not be surprised if some voters simply look for a reason to oppose people that they don't know, rather than giving them the benefit of the doubt. RFA is one of the few places that seems to be immune to assume good faith. Esteffect (talk) 22:18, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
I couldn't agree more there. I generally go by the philosophy that if the candidate's done something genuinely dodgy, someone is likely to actually remember the incident and mention it. Multiple people digging through analysed contributions for individual small slip-ups to oppose over is both time-consuming and enormously contributes to the bad-faith atmosphere sometimes encountered at RfA. ~ mazca talk 22:41, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
As others have mentioned, this is simply another excuse for people to withhold support. X!, your action in disabling the counter was noble, but I really hope you bring it back up again - it's had an unfortunate effect of allowing lazy people an excuse to not support somebody because they can't be bothered doing a smidgen of research. Right now, we're lucky they're going neutral. Before long, you'll have somebody opposing, simply because there isn't an edit counter. It's that simple, and that sad. Aiken ♫ 23:07, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
But there is another edit counter, almost just as good, with pie chart etc. The only problem with it is that it takes a long time to search nd load the results, but it's perfectly adequate. The use of the edit counter is open to abuse, agreed, - especially by the children that run the RfAs - but to those of us who spend a reasonable amount of time weighng up a candidate, it's information if used correctly , is invaluable.--Kudpung (talk) 13:21, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
You know, Kudpung, it would probably help if you stopped mentioning "children" or "teenagers" in the same sentence as "RfA" quite so often. I agree with the rest of your point, but am prevented from according it the affirmation it is due because you have managed to somehow attach "young editors are a problem" to the issue of RfA yet again. Not that I vehemently disagree with that sentiment either, but I am sure that it's not helping your point or your reputation to keep repeating it. We know how you feel about minors running for admin, that is made abundantly clear. Tossing an unclear reference into a point about something somewhat irrelevant just muddies the point you are currently making and insults our younger editors/admins, some of whom I hold in very high esteem. With all due respect. sonia♫ 13:29, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
I'd hope 'crats would simply discount !votes of the form "I couldn't be arsed checking their contributions" (albeit phrased as "X!'s tool is down"). Just as I'd hope 'crats would discount any equivalently lazy !vote. TFOWR 13:28, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

While some people may disagree with the reasoning for opposes in RfAs, we can all recognise the difference between an oppose that comments on the candidate and one that does not. While I can't speak for other bureaucrats, I can assure you all that if someone opposes an RfA and gives a reason that has absolutely no bearing on the candidate's suitability to be an administrator, I will give it less substantial weight than comments that actually do comment on the candidate directly. --Deskana (talk) 13:42, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Right, this topic is somewhat aimed at me, so I guess I'll explain here too. The reasoning behind the neutral was that I was leaving it there, so as not to oppose. The reason for putting it was as an exploratory search for answers into X!s hissy fit questionable actions. By doing so, I was hoping for some sort of reasoning behind it other than the poor notice currently up on the counter. I understand the problem of "editcountitis", but frankly, experience in admin areas that are answered in question 1 HAVE to be analysed. We can't let every Tom, Dick and Harry get the role if they've no experience in the areas they claim they'll work in. As such, short of going to each page and looking at the history before manually counting through thousands and thousands of edits, X!s edit counter is the best we've got.
Frankly, I think it's wrong that he/she has taken the counter down. While it is their property I guess, if they're going to hold it to ransom, then it shouldn't be at the bottom of the page on our contribs lists. At that point, it becomes a part of wikipedia, as it's not like it's an ordinary link to an outside source. It's the function that most people have come to accept as part of wikipedia. As such, I make no apology for adding "NEUTRAL" ....it's not as though it affected the candidate in question and frankly, I've now become responsible for a discussion here that might have otherwise been buried had the RFA comment not been made first. Paralympiakos (talk) 14:14, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Could you come up with a less loaded phrase than "hissy fit"? Perhaps Reichstag-climbing might be more appropriate. –xenotalk 14:23, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Fair enough. Paralympiakos (talk) 14:28, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Much obliged. –xenotalk 14:30, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm going to add another comment to this too. I completely agree with SoWhy's comments. I hadn't read it before posting the comment above, but I think that user gets it bang on. I'll also point out something I forgot in my first comment above. X! moans that people don't review contribs manually. Well go to the RFA where I've voted neutral because of this matter......now go to the optional questions......Is that a question from me? Sure is. I complain about the edit counter being down, but also add a question based on manual checking, as I always do. I say that if X! can't provide the tool without having a tantrum and blocking the tool, that it be removed as a link from the bottom of contribs pages. No one person should hold the wiki to ransom. Paralympiakos (talk) 14:19, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree that if User:X! decides to disable the edit counter again, the link should be changed or removed in the contrib screen. Since it'll be re-enabled within 24 hours, there's probably no point to do it now. –xenotalk 14:21, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I would think that there are a lot of people like me in reviewing candidates. The edit counter is my first stop, followed by the candidate's talk page, followed by a perusal of the candidate's contribs and deleted contribs. I wouldn't oppose/neutral for not having the counter, but I'd spend a lot more time scrutinizing the contribs if I couldn't see the summary by the tool. It's simply a time saver. 67.136.117.132Also 174.52.141.13814:32, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Hm, Paralympiakos, it seems like what you described having done, weighing in on someone's RFA in order to spark discussion about an unrelated event that bothered you, is a textbook case of disrupting Wikipedia to make a point. delldot ∇. 14:35, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I see your point, but I'd disagree based on the fact that it was something very much related to the topic at hand. Removing the edit counter removed our ability to analyse administrative edits. As such, I made the point about it in a relevant area, in the hope of looking for answers as to why it was taken away. Paralympiakos (talk) 14:38, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
It doesn't remove the ability, just makes it a little harder. If you can make the effort to write a basically pointless neutral vote on the topic, you can probably spend the time analysing their edits. Use Excel or something, it's not really that hard. Aiken ♫ 14:43, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
Read up. You'll see that I quite clearly did. Paralympiakos (talk) 14:45, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
The issue at hand is not whether the disabling of the edit counter was a bad move, it's that you (and others) chose the entirely wrong avenue by which to make a point regarding it. You shouldn't take it out on candidates, and even though it's Neutral and not an Oppose, it somewhat still is. Even if you did leave a question or analyse their edits, any point should have been on a talk page, either here or at User talk:X!. That's the issue I and others (including X!) have with it, I suspect. Esteffect (talk) 19:29, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
This issue at hand is that you have decided to make a thinly veiled attack on people who have given good reasons for their position, rather than having the courage to take them up on it. I can't use the first half of the phrase I would like to use. The second half is "...and do something constructive." --WFC-- 19:37, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I resent it being called an attack. I just asked in a relevant place about the matter. The choices were at X!s talk page, which wouldn't provoke varied discussion about the matter, on here, which has a tendency to be buried, or at the venue I did. I maintain I made the correct decision. Constructive discussion is all I've been interested in and I didn't cause any problems since neutrals have no bearing on the final vote. In fact, as I've pointed out several times, I contributed positively to that RFA by manually researching and adding a question. Any criticism therefore is unwarranted.

Wrong Criteria

Looking through some of the administrator's talk pages, I am surprised by how many of them have been involved in countless controversies prior to their adminiship - including heated conversations where often the now admin has been completely inappropriate. This tells me that we need to be concentrating less on the number of edits, length of service and technical understanding, and more on the actual people. Operational stuff can be learnt, but being patient, a good people-person, and not taking things personally - these are the fundamental things we should be looking for. But it seems that, in some cases, someone who has written an amazing collection of articles and put may hours editing in, yet is aggressive in discussion, has been successful in their RfA. I think if we get the people right, the operational stuff will fall into place. IainUK talk 13:29, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

  • Unfortunately, with the current setup of RFA, opposers need to generate a raftload of personality issues for the bureaucrats to give such opposes any weight. A gut realization that someone is wrong for adminship is insufficient; to oppose someone must provide multiple diffs and cogent analysis, and will frequently be challenged on both by supporters. This is why the Oppose section turns into such a nasty battleground, and it continues to amaze me that the bureaucrats think this is a good system. Townlake (talk) 13:41, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
    • What makes you think the bureaucrats "think this is a good system"? Bureaucrats take direction from the community: they are not the gatekeepers of RFA, just the keymasters. –xenotalk 13:58, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
      • Yep, it's got nothing to do with the bureaucrats - they're just people who can do a handful of things that admins can't. Bureaucrats didn't create RfA in its current form, the community did. But on the topic of opposes, why shouldn't you be required to explain your opposition? Firstly, an Oppose has the same value of three Supports, so an opposer is privileged in the power stakes to start with. And secondly, surely a candidate at least deserves to know why you oppose them? -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:06, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
        • No, a candidate does not "deserve to know" this. That's not the point of RFA. The 3/1 argument is tired - it doesn't excuse the nastiness of the oppose challenge scheme. Xeno, while the 'crats didn't create this system, they do police it and give commentary at the end of discretionary-range closes. The commentary at the end of a couple recent RFAs has been clear that opposers need to oppose more strongly, and the bureaucrat community appears to tacitly agree. I'd dig up the diffs, but it hardly seems worth the time. Townlake (talk) 14:15, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
          • Well, the point of RFA is to determine whether a candidate is suited for adminship. If someone just says no but doesn't bother giving a reason, how do we know what their thoughts are? How does their single word help the discussion? They may have a very good reason for opposing, but no one else is going to know. Likewise, they may just be opposing because they don't like the candidate's name. What isn't excusable is opposing with often slanderous, offensive comments about a candidate's suitability. It seems RFA is the only place on Wikipedia where WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA do not apply, and opposers take that into advantage when they chuck their abusive remarks at a candidate. That is precisely why poorly thought out opposes need challenging. Aiken ♫ 14:20, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
          • (ec) We must disagree then. The overall aim of RfA, as I'm sure you will agree, is to increase our number of capable admins. And as we really should be looking at the long term, I see a core part of that being to explain to the community what is wrong with a candidate's nomination and to help guide them towards improving their chances next time, should they fail. Personally, I see an unexplained oppose as near worthless, and I would hope the closing crat would too. Also please note that I am not supporting "nastiness", nor am I using the 3/1 argument to support it - challenges to unexplained opposes should abide by WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL just as much as any other communication here. But any publicly voiced opinion here is open to challenge - that's the very nature of any community decision-making process. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:27, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
          • I agree with Townlake here - when voting to give someone extra powers, why should anyone be forced to give a reason? Either you think they ought to be successful, or you don't - whichever your vote you shouldn't have to justify it such that someone else can decide if it is valid or not. Sure, constructive feedback is always nice, but should not be compulsory. "Oppose" means "I do not believe this person should be an admin at this time" - and as an equal stakeholder in Wikipedia, that is all anyone should have to say. IainUK talk 16:38, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
            • There isn't any harm in providing feedback. And besides, if it was an interview, many employers will happily discuss why they didn't think a particular candidate was right for the job. It can only help people improve. Supporters don't really require such reasoning because they're supporting what's already there. Opposers are opposing because something's missing, or not quite right. Nobody knows what, and I don't see why it's such an issue for them to say why. Aiken ♫ 16:43, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
              • I see your point, but I do still think it should be optional - and the vote should carry the same weight whether it contains feedback or not. Sometimes you might think someone is just fundamentally not right to be an admin - what good is feedback in that case? IainUK talk 16:47, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
                • It's not meant to be a straight vote though. By the fact someone is at RFA, they will become an admin unless they garner enough opposition. Opposes are there to weed out bad candidates, so they ought to explain why/how they are bad. You might think someone is not right, but there must be something that suggests why. Even a "per X" vote is more acceptable than no comment at all. Lack of feedback just looks like not caring. (I know supports don't generally put feedback, but what would they say? They can only comment on what the candidate already knows about themself - if they didn't think they were ready they wouldn't have accepted a nomination. Opposers can point out things that might mean they aren't ready). Aiken ♫ 16:57, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

It is my view that the emphasis should be brought away from the candidate's technical ability and more to their interactions and how they deal with other users. Obviously there should be some minimum standard of understanding - but being patient and respecting others should come before a good technical ability or high number of operational tasks completed. I would like to see a significant change to the RfA process to include a much greater scrutiny of people skills and decision making. IainUK talk 16:21, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

As long as the issues are before the tools are granted, and don't continue, then we don't have a problem. Of course, if they are aggressive, impatient etc while an admin, we have a problem. Aiken ♫ 16:25, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
But by looking at issues from before the RfA, we can see how the user deals with other users and handles situations - this is stuff that varies greatly from person to person, and is not something operational that can be taught - such as how to make an edit, how to create a box etc. We need to be choosing people we can trust to act impartially, and who we can trust with an unprecedented situation. IainUK talk 16:31, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps the ideal solution for the proponents is to run RFA like the seven year old setting at Club Penguin: You can only oppose for certain specified reasons, and if the reason is inapplicable to the candidate, it doesn't count (or, mayhap, is converted to a support). That work for you all?--Wehwalt (talk) 19:38, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

If only that were possible without lots of RfA-goers rioting... Other than that, I would love that idea. The Thing // Talk // Contribs 19:45, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

BAG nomination

Hello everyone! I have been nominated for the bot approval group and would like to invite you all to participate in the discussion at Wikipedia:Bot Approvals Group/nominations/EdoDodo. Thanks. - EdoDodo talk 02:46, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

"Fixing" RFA

A lot of discussion has been happening here over the past few days about how the RFA process is broken and that we are losing active admins at an alarming rate because of users having almost impossible standards in the RFA process. I have heard several solutions like probationary adminship and having an easier way to remove administrators along with other solutions to help relieve users' fears about promoting admins that may go rouge. This RFC is to try to find a consensus on how we can fix this problem, or if there is a consensus that there is no problem. Techman224Talk 20:59, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, as I write this we have five "there is a problem" vs nine "there is not a problem". A tiny sample, but so far it looks like there's not a great deal to discuss. – iridescent 21:10, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
I disagree. There's plenty to discuss. It's just that the discussion won't actually shed any light or have any useful outcome... Pedro :  Chat  21:12, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, that's closer to what I meant. The "the sky is falling!" discussion has been going on as long as I've been on Wikipedia; since no change is actually happen unless the lights start going out, there's not a great deal to discuss. – iridescent 21:15, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
If anything, this RFCtag should be moved up to that 'vote'. The opening statement doesn't really give much to go on. –xenotalk 21:32, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
If you want to move the RFC tag to another similar discussion, I have no objection. Techman224Talk 21:35, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
I'll leave it, in the naive, optimistic hope that it will attract some brilliant soul who comes up with the answer to RFA, The Universe, and Everything. –xenotalk 21:54, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Sorry Xeno, you got me instead! As for whether we currently have too few administrators to get needed tasks done, it seems to me that things work reasonably well, but it's a matter of speculation whether more administrators would mean shorter backlogs. From what I see at RfAs, there are always a few people with what I regard as unfair reasons for opposing, but, whenever it gets to more than 20% oppose, there are some legitimate concerns there, whether or not one agrees with those concerns. And I guess I won't surprise anyone by suggesting that, if we could have a better way to remove administrators who turn out to lose the community's trust, those who participate in RfAs would be less likely to be sticklers, and RfAs might become less intimidating. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:45, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
  • What is needed is a better class of voter. If anyone has ever taken the trouble to analyse who the majority of the 'support' voters are, and who the ones are that ask all the stupid additional so called optional questions; they will realise that the average age is about 17 (with some only 11 or 12) and a great many of the voters have talk pages full of warnings, blocks, and CSD notices. It's like having a bunch of prison inmates on the jury of a high court trial. We don't need a set of higher or lower standards for adminship, what we need is a set of qualifications for voting on RfA., so that candidates can be sure of getting a fair trial. That said, generally those who should be promoted will be, and those who shouldn't will fail. But there are still too many borderline cases where the judges might make the wrong decisionL.--Kudpung (talk) 22:25, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
Can you give examples of these voters with warnings, blocks and CSD notices? I've not noticed inexperienced voters, mostly admins or admin hopefuls. How exactly would you have qualifiers anyway? Paralympiakos (talk) 22:33, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
It seems that you want to set an age when people can vote. That would be discrimination and I don't think the community (or even Jimbo Wales and the Wikimedia Foundation) would not allow it. Plus it will discourage young editors from Wikipedia. Judge them by their contributions, not their age. Techman224Talk 23:39, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
You can find out about the voters by running the same checks as I do: the same ones you would make when voting on an RfA; ie, maturity, longevity, quality of prose, editing accuracy, sense of judgement, etc.
I do not necessary make an issue of age, it's often a lack of maturity that concerns me most. if lack of maturity goes with low age, then I suppose some will insist that it is simply an unfortunate coincidence. However, a review of the RfAs this year will probably show a trend as to who passes and who fails, and who the regular voters are. Probably the first and most interesting execrcise is to analyse the Oppose votes on RfAs that are absolute clear passes, and the Support votes on RfAs that are quite obviously doomed to fail. --Kudpung (talk) 05:19, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
* We need a community process for either desysopping, or at least sanctioning administrators that is not subject to a popularity contest. Good administrators in controversial areas will be unpopular to someone - that's why the admin community tends to oppose proposals for Requests for Desysopping.
* We need a common standard for eligibility, even if that standard is a minimum - I really think that only issues of misconduct/questionable editing/incivility should have a chance to get aired in an RFA. I've watched this process transform over my almost 6 years on and off the project from "no big deal" to something on the order of senate confirmation for a supreme court post. That's serious policy creep.

I think those are the big concerns. Fix those and RFA will start working as it should (Add: If anything, the length of this debate - it's been going on for years now, demonstrates the utter lack of consensus. I don't think we can question anymore if there is something wrong - if there wasn't, this debate would have died off. The question is what's wrong.. Triona (talk) 23:50, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Your first bullet point includes some things I think are important: a "community process", and "not subject to a popularity contest". The "popularity contest" issue was a major factor in sinking CDA, not, I would now admit, without good reason. I tend to think now that ArbCom would have to have the decision-making authority, but we need to have a better "community process" to get the case placed before ArbCom. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:26, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I am looking at what the German Wikipedia does here. They do have a dispute process which is equivalent to our RFC for admin disputes. Now for serious abuse, they can temporary revoke the admin rights for up to three months after community discussion and then have another discussion for permanent de-admin if they abuse them again within 12 months. We should look at how the German Wikipedia handles this. Techman224Talk 01:52, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

There are two group on wikipedia that have a very high standard for confirmation, arguably higher than that for adminship - ArbCom and Bureaucrats. As such, these are likely the groups that are best suited to handle desysopping. I'd propose something like, a 'crat can certify a petition for desysopping based on the merits of the petition, rather than on the number of petitioners. Once certified, a panel of a given size of 'crats (selected somehow) reviews evidence, and makes a determination. as to whether desysopping is justified, with possibility to reprimand, temporarily desysop, or a full desysopping in exceptional cases. Sanctions of this type would be strictly for abuse of privileged functions - normal editor conduct rules and processes should apply to everything else. Desysopping actions would be subject to review and appeal to arbcom, and arbcom would retain the sole authority to create a disability from ever applying for adminship again. The right of appeal of permanent desyssopping by an admin so sanctioned would exist - and there would be a requirement for a full arbcom investigation if so demanded by that admin. Triona (talk) 01:58, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
This sounds like what ArbCom does right now. The problem is that they can take a month or more to reach a decision. If this would to have any chance of working, there must be a system in place that lets ArbCom or Bureaucrats (or whatever group) make a decision more quickly (like in a week), and then implement those decisions. You would also need to create policies that define what is allowed and not allowed in a petition, and prevent abuse of the system. They should also have already tried the dispute resolution process before using this as a last resort. Techman224Talk 02:17, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Our bureaucrats don't have a whole lot of responsibilities beyond permission requests. With a requirement that one of them deem the petition worthy of investigation, it's still going to have a high burden to even get the hearing, but if it's something that warrants one, I think we can trust that it will happen in reasonable timeframes. I'd also support emergency desysopping within such a policy once the petition has been "certified", for a reasonable duration to investigate if the activity in the complaint continues or if the abuse otherwise escalates. As for what can deserve such a sanction, verifiable patterns of abusive behavior that have defied dispute resolution or which are flagrant ongoing violations of policy Triona (talk) 03:12, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Ok. Here's a rough rough draft - User:Triona/Proposal for bureaucrat mediated administrator review Triona (talk) 04:04, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Let's solve some of these problems

Instead of rejecting the whole proposal, lets try to actually fix the problems. I'm going to copy the problems that Hammersoft is talking about, and I also copied Triona proposal to my page so I can make my own changes. I'm going to go through these problems one by one to correct them, or give an explanation if a problem is unfounded. This will take a while for me to do, I'll be doing it in batches. Techman224Talk 17:03, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

The Problems

  • This proposal would only be a last resort, after all other dispute resolution steps have been taken, and I put in if they agree to stop their actions, no action will be taken. However, I added if they continue to abuse their tools, the bureaucrat can reject it because that could cause administrators to continue to abuse their tools over and over again.
  • This proposal will only apply to Admins who misuse their tools and requires serious evidence that they did it and that dispute resolution steps have been taken and completed without results. It does seem confrontational because it involves removing rights, but it has to happen if we want to hold abusive admins accountable, just like at ArbCom.
  • I've added that petitions must be supported by two other editors who tried to solve the dispute but failed including the editor who brings it. Plus this is not a vote like CDA, and it's not like RFA, with support and oppose, as bureaucrats make their decision based on evidence.
  • This process would only look at the abuses the administrator makes as stated in the petition, not at other situations.
  • I've added that all discussion must be on the petition page so that all editors can review.
  • Of course this will be an exceptional occurrence. This would not be a vote, and since only evidence is reviewed by bureaucrats, the two parties will know exactly what to expect, without the hassle of voting. Techman224Talk 19:01, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • In a petition, the decision will not be made by consensus, but by a group of trusted bureaucrats, which eliminates the !vote and popularity contest. It is not the same as Uncle G proposal. Plus the policy is still in the creation process, so it can still be changed before we !vote to better reflect consensus. Techman224Talk 20:09, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • It would be useful to remove admins more quickly without going through ArbCom, and it would allow for a easier out, which may help lower the out of control standards at RFA. Techman224Talk 20:09, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

RFA and De-Adminship Survey

It looks like the discussion is heading towards a way on desysop admins who abuse their tools. I have a feeling that lots of people have high RFA standards because it is nearly impossible to remove them unless they do something very serious, and even that could take a long time (as we see in ArbCom). So I want to start a survey that may help decide what we should do next. For the people who constantly oppose because of high standards or if you find some mistakes (everyone makes mistakes sometimes), is this because your afraid because it is hard to remove admins that are already added, and that if we have a procedure to remove admins in a timely manor, would your standards for RFA become more relaxed? Techman224Talk 04:17, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes

  • Yes, they would. Access Denied talk contribs editor review 16:14, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Certainly, and I have made it clear on several occasions. I would never oppose without good cause, but I will only support when I am entirely confident that the candidate will be a big asset. Interestingly, despite this question being explicitly aimed at people who oppose more RfAs than they support, from my (brief) experience most of the people below do not fit into this category. If we take involved parties into account, perhaps 30% or 40% of people want admin recall. I readily admit that, and the (very) early stages of this poll suggest likewise. But knowing whether 30%, 40%, 70% or 80% of frequent opposers do so in part due to fear of removing problematic admins would be valuable information. It would help if staunch opposers of de-adminship were prepared to allow us to get this information. Apologies if I have made any incorrect assumptions, but that is my perception of this poll. --WFC-- 23:48, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Actually, I was thinking much of what you just said. I support much more frequently than I oppose, but on the rare occasions when I oppose or am neutral, I can think of some where I would have gone easier if it weren't "permanent". Also, I think that some of the present-day high standards come from looking at a few administrators who became administrators a long time ago, and seeing how the project would be better if they were administrators no longer, so this issue is more complicated than just the standards for RfA today. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:54, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
[3]. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:51, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes. My standards aren't too onerous now, but I'd be be prepared to take a bigger chance on an uncertain candidate if there was an easy way of reversing a mistaken appointment later. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:56, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

No

  • Oh God, we just went through this hell back in the Spring. If you're eager to see the community's response to this (or alternatively if you're having trouble sleeping), then read this. Please, spare us. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:17, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Yea, the previous six month long discussion that produced no results or changes of any kind started off with a similar sense of optimism before it went to hell. There seems to be broad agreement that there are problems with RFA, and no agreement at all on exactly what those problems are and how to fix them. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:34, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • I've no objection to people reading through past CDA proposals and trying to come up with something better than the current Arbcom based system, though I don't see the relevance of discussing CDA here at RFA. But please don't start another RFC on CDA unless you've got something that resolves enough of the previous objections to be both workable and unlikely to break the wiki. I'd also suggest separating the issue of why one desysops people from how one does so. If the community can identify particular admin behaviours that Arbcom should be more or less tolerant of, then its possible that Arbcom might take that on board; If they didn't then some of the opponents of CDA might see a reason to support CDA. It would also help if you could indicate how you would alter the desysopping rate of 1% per annum, which some of us consider worryingly high. ϢereSpielChequers 15:47, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • No. I actually prefer it the way it is right now. While I routinely disagree with Arbcom, I trust them to actually follow common sense and precedent, rather than making things up as they go along. Community reaction is fickle, often leading to disproportionate reactions that amount to a lynch-mob mentality. Jclemens (talk) 15:52, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
    • Arguably that's why we're in this mess. bibliomaniac15 16:16, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • I am not convinced that the higher standards at RFA are a result of the lack of a de-adminship process. Rather, I believe that enacting CDA would only exacerbate this problem as we will only accelerate the decline because people will not lower their standards. The answer, in my mind, to borderline RFAs is whether we are giving the crats enough leeway to make a judgment call. An oppose vote (and yes, it is just a vote) on grounds that is only tangental to the candidate's ability should be dismissed. Resolute 17:57, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • The current process for tool removal seems satisfactory. Generally I think that the calls for CDA arise not because people want to be able to relax RFA standards; they arise because people want to apply the new, higher standards to existing administrators. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:21, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Maybe

  • My standards are already relaxed, but I participate infrequently in RFA. 1) do they have decent rationale for wanting tools 2) is there evidence they will abuse them 3) do they have at least enough good edits and time on the project to outweigh the damage they could cause if the account proves to be a "submarine" vandal wanting tools for some nefarious purpose (balance of effort issue). If I like the answer to all 3, I'll support, otherwise, I'll oppose. Triona (talk) 05:15, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Important question

Before we go through another round of Requests for Desysop, it might be prudent to review the proposals (all failed) at Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship#Proposed processes. The most recent had a number of serious flaws (Wikipedia:Community de-adminship/RfC#Flaws in this process noted by TenOfAllTrades); while the criticisms I offered were aimed at that particular proposal, many of the points have a more general applicability. In particular, the last section of my comment notes a couple of ways in which we already have policy tools for desysopping admins, but we don't tend to use them. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:08, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposing a moratorium on de-adminship proposals proposal

Given that (1) we've had no less than 17 proposed processes for de-adminship over the last 7 years (a rate over two a year), (2) none of these proposals have ever succeeded, and (3) enough kilobytes has been spent debating the point to open a branch library, I propose the following: No more proposals for a de-adminship process may be put forth until August 11, 2012. This moratorium is effective immediately. To vacate this moratorium, the following conditions must be met:

  1. Only editors in good standing may propose ending the moratorium.
  2. Editors recommending ending the moratorium must have proposed it at WP:AN.
  3. A bureaucrat must be asked before posting the proposal for permission to post a proposal to end the moratorium on proposals.
  4. Three bureaucrats must subsequently certify the proposal on the end of moratorium proposal, else the proposal will be archived.
  5. In no case will bureaucrats be able to override the decision of ArbCom, even though ArbCom members usually become so with less community support than bureaucrats.
  6. Decisions made on ending the moratorium are subject to proposal appeal to ArbCom, if and only if five administrators certify grounds for appeal within an 11 day time span, beginning immediately after the proposal on ending the moratorium on proposals has been rejected.

All in favor? All together now... ---Hammersoft (talk) 14:03, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

  • Nope. Editors wishing to stem the tide of proposals should be more prudent in pointing out the failures of the past (WP:CDA and other discussions) rather than on censoring discussion itself. If you don't like what you see here, there are other things to do which don't involve this page. --Izno (talk) 14:55, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • This is very anti-wiki. What if someone finally comes up with The Answer? –xenotalk 14:58, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • ...depends on the question. –xenotalk 15:00, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • We're working on that. Wikipedia is the end phase. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:03, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Support common-sense proposal. Jclemens (talk) 15:54, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose I'm a CDA supporter but I don't think now's the time to run another round of this. However I strongly oppose this sort of bureaucratic mumbo jumbo.--Cube lurker (talk) 16:06, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose We need to be avoiding instruction creep. Access Denied talk contribs editor review 16:15, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Access Denied and Xeno. TFOWR 16:25, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose - like Cube lurker I think this is just far to bureaucratic. I am beginning to warm to the idea of structured way of removing the admin tools from admins who have abused them, I just don't have the answer on what the bar should be set at to trigger such a processes. Codf1977 (talk) 16:45, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose - Someone may come up with a good proposal someday. Also this will block discussion, which is what Wikipedia stands for. Techman224Talk 16:53, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Note: Before more editors chime in to 'oppose', they should probably pause to recalibrate their senses of humor. Hammersoft's post is a parody (barely) of some of the desysopping proposals that have been presented to the community in the past. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:12, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Beautiful plumage, though. - Pointillist (talk) 17:17, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
At the first one to officially oppose I plead guilty. Gotta remember to look at the OP's user page before replying.--Cube lurker (talk) 17:20, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
What, me calling it a "common sense" proposal wasn't hint enough? :-) Jclemens (talk) 17:26, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Should have been, on the other hand if people honestly believe something is common sense It's probably a really bad idea.--Cube lurker (talk) 17:33, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, it caught me out :-o I'm so angry I'm moving to support. TFOWR 17:36, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Well I'm glad at least SOME people got the humor :) --Hammersoft (talk) 17:37, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I should have twigged at the "...proposals proposal" title. Should have been a give-away... Anyway, shouldn't the sysops participating in this thread be desysopped? TFOWR 17:41, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • I was sprinkling variations of "proposal" all over it, hoping to not catch so many out :) But yes, the sysops are obviously biased so if they vote here they're incompetent and attempting to game the system. Rise up and stab at them with your plastic sporks! --Hammersoft (talk) 17:47, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
A moose once bit my sister... –xenotalk 17:51, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Conclusion: Following precedent, this proposal is now the least opposed proposal on the table. I am therefore implementing it. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:56, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

  • Wouldn't it be easier to just block me instead? This discussion is hilarious, I think. I show up here in response to an RfC, and people propose a moratorium on something that isn't happening anyway. By the way, to those of you who have made serious criticisms of the past CDA proposal, I've taken to heart what you said. Really. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:50, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • The tongue in cheek proposal was a moratorium on new de-adminship proposals. It wasn't a moratorium on de-adminship in general. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:01, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • I'd like to propose that we have a moratorium on proposals to have a moratorium on proposals. Etc. Now, everyone please go and contribute content. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:05, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Sweet Onions The fact that there have been 17 discussions in the last 7 years shows that the proposals always either go too far or get too complicated, and end up getting sunk accordingly. What we need is qualitative and quantitative evidence of the problem, qualitative and quantitiave evidence that possible solutions might work and community consensus on what evidence we accept to be true and/or truly representative. Only then can we hope to make any headway on easing RfA and/or desysopping requirements. The only other way change will come about is if something happens to truly bring the issue to the fore. I gave one example of a possible catalyst above, but the idea that Jimbo is competent enough to act as a bureaucrat appears to have been predominantly rejected. --WFC-- 03:31, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Violates WP:CCC on binding decisions. This is a motion to quash debate, and would therefore seem to violate WP:CCC. Granted, there have been a lot of proposals, but that would seem to demonstrate at least some segment of the community thinks there is a problem with the way desysopping is handled. Triona (talk) 18:47, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Please read more carefully, and turn on the humor detection center of your brain :) --Hammersoft (talk) 20:26, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

A different angle to consider

I haven't been actively improving the idea, but during the big CDA discussions a few months ago, I put together some thoughts on fixed terms of service for admins at User:B Fizz/Admin for X years. I encourage you to review the pseudo-proposal and the strengths and weaknesses it presents. I also tried to encourage participation in a simple survey regarding WP:NOBIGDEAL, found at User:B Fizz/Admin for X years/Survey 1, but for whatever reason didn't get responses. The survey remains open indefinitely for responses. ...comments? ~BFizz 18:34, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

New userspace article on opposition reasoning at User:Esteffect/RFA_Reason_Test

I've just written this brief, userspace article on the reasoning, and perhaps lack thereof in some opposition to Requests for Adminship. I'm open to comment and so on, but the general jist is that it is good to read the reason to yourself, and then ask, "Does this sentence make any sense?" The article can be read at User:Esteffect/RFA_Reason_Test. Thanks. Esteffect (talk) 21:54, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I took a look at it, and one issue occurred to me right away. The person actually making the !vote at RfA is always going to think that their reason makes good sense, even if you or I, applying the test you propose, would conclude the opposite. Thus, the test becomes one of "in the eye of the beholder". --Tryptofish (talk) 22:00, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
That's a good point, although sometimes I'm not sure that people even think their reasoning through, they just look for a reason and then oppose. I also perhaps think that, occasionally, opposers/neutrals don't really think through the fact that the point they are making is a statement that the person would not make a good administrator. Looking at it like that, I'm sure some would stand back and think, "Actually, their having not voted in more than X amount of AFDs is not going to make them bad with the tools", and they might therefore back down and judge a candidate on their merits, and not dubious and possibly non-existant flaws. In an ideal world, of course. Esteffect (talk) 22:08, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
Looking at many opposes, it's clear no thought went into them whatsoever. Opposes should be made carefully, with caution. Some oppose almost compulsively, as if there are no other options. Aiken ♫ 23:10, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
In fairness, I'm sure there are also users who habitually support without doing any serious research, just to follow the crowd. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:39, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
Opposes hold much greater weight than support though, which is why opposes always should give solid reasons, while for supports is it generally optional to. If any person makes an oppose, it is often a notification for others to join in too, rightly or wrongly, which is why it's so important for opposes to be made carefully. Aiken ♫ 23:41, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
Please understand, I'm not really arguing with you, because I think that your observation about some opposers is absolutely correct. I'm just saying that there can be low-quality input in either direction, so we need to be careful before taking this observation as evidence that RfA needs to be reformed in some way. And I would hope that all !voters would take what they do seriously. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:46, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
The difference between the two directions, however, appears to be that nobody will dig for a cheap reason to support, yet many editors will dig for a cheap reason to oppose. I'm sure that most editors skip straight to the oppose section to overview those reasons, too, sometimes not even overviewing the questions or the support reasons at all. It's unlikely that many are doing the same in jumping to the support section and following that crowd (except in the cases of emphatic, 100+ supported passes, where it's rather irrelevant anyway). Esteffect (talk) 00:02, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
I guess I'm not sold on the idea that the difference between the two directions is as big as that (although I agree that the difference trends in the direction that you describe). Supporters don't need to dig for a reason; they can just say "support" and leave it at that. It's human nature to want to feel good about something, especially when one can do it by joining a crowd. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:41, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Interesting read, althought I don't think many RfA candidates have been blocked for wheel-warring. --Mkativerata (talk) 22:06, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
Probably not, perhaps a more likely reason for a block could be used. Esteffect (talk) 22:08, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
Edit warring? --Mkativerata (talk) 22:09, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
Makes more sense. Esteffect (talk) 22:11, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
Another point I'd make about opposes is "please wait". I've seen a number of RfAs recently (not any of the current ones I don't think) with early opposes that weren't overly well-considered. These things go for seven days. There's no need to jump on a candidate within a few minutes of transclusion. --Mkativerata (talk) 23:39, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
That's a good point, and I've added it in a new section. Esteffect (talk) 00:12, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Unless you're looking to influence readers. (X! · talk)  · @103  ·  01:28, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Ah, the classic torpedoing of an RFA. 67.136.117.132Also 174.52.141.13814:45, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
  • That should be made policy - it would stop some of the nonsense sprouting up in most RFAs! :-) Aiken ♫ 13:51, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
If you want a policy, do it the right way.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:47, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in adminship discussions is a condescending piece of junk and it's never had any effect on the way RfA is run. What we really need is something that explains the importance of participating in RfA and explains how to do so responsibly. Pichpich (talk) 16:14, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
If you think some opposes are unwarranted and should be disregarded, go talk to the crats. Given that the reasons that are disliked here also seem to be widespread at RFA, I do not think you will get consensus for a policy change to abolish the ones you don't like.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:05, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Given the history of RFA, and the various tools to track voting statistics, there's no reason to believe that the 'crats treat RFA as anything other than a vote. There have been cases where they have swung a little bit between the high and low of what's historically promotable, but I think they are too afraid of backlash if they dealt with it entirely on weight of arguments to say, reject a candidate with over 80% support, or promote a candidate with less than 70% support, even if the majority of the opposes were completely unreasonable like "edit counter down". Clerking was mentioned above as a way to prepare people for adminship, but I'm actually wondering whether RFA itself needs a clerking process, to strike comments that go against community standards, whatever we determine those to mean, and therefore keep completely off the wall "The number of Portal talk edits isn't a prime number" oppose rationale out of the process. Alternately, admit it's a vote, and kill the commentary altogether in the interests of civility - some of the stuff that gets posted to RFA discussions would likely earn editors a block for personal attacks if posted anywhere else on the project. Triona (talk) 20:49, 15 August 2010 (UTC).
  • Erm, not really - While it does echo many of my sentiments, the core 'in a nutshell' bit of the page is more about the testing your reasoning, with the bits given as examples to demonstrate why some opposes are a little ridiculous. I'm also not wanting to get in to areas of legitimate contention, such as age, because that's really down to someone's opinion. Regarding policy, it's hard to disallow certain arguments, but I'm all for striking out opposes and neutrals that are there to make a point, like the recent "the edit counter is down, so I'm neutral" kind of thing. Esteffect (talk) 17:59, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Wow. How on earth do you strike out a neutral?--Wehwalt (talk) 21:52, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
The issue with Neutral is that it scarcely is. Neutral votes can be seen by some as "half-oppose", as in, there's a reason not to support that is a problem. Indeed, if somebody is neutral, it's often a case of them A) Not wanting to oppose, but having a problem;,or B) Making a point. I know that, several years ago, I looked at Neutral as having negative connotations. Esteffect (talk) 19:26, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
One particular current RfA has served once again to demonstrate how extremely flawed the entire admin selection system is, despite Wikipedia's decade-long existence. In some cases (note the plural) it's been turned into a discussion page about the voters with such totally inadmissible comments by admins such as 'I've lost my respect for you' when commenting on a perfectly legitimate, well documented vote. In my opinion, hardly any of the 'support' voters appear to do the slightest background research at all, and are often members of the candidate's fan club. The only serious voting appears to be done in the 'oppose' section, where the edit count, although not the main reason, must of course be taken into account along with the very important breakdown of the type of edits. It should also be noted that quite often, support votes are made quite openly and explicitly for no other reason than in pure defiance of, to counter-balance, and to vilify the opposers.
When voters turn an RfA into a general slanging match, it's bad enough, but when the ringleaders are admins, clearly it's time to to bring the system under some serious scrutiny, and exercise more conrtol over who we promote in the future,or more specifically, whom we allow to vote, and not less.--Kudpung (talk) 9:58 am, Today (UTC+7)
We also have other tools that provide exactly the same service and information (if not more in fact) as any that have been temporarily closed down, and it displays lack of experience if anyone suggests they cannot find them.--Kudpung (talk) 03:25, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
While WP:POINT votes and so forth are a problem, the last thing we need to do is scrutinise even more in RFAs. Any more and we won't promote another administrator for half a year. Esteffect (talk) 19:26, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
The amount of hypocrisy in that RfA left me gobsmacked especially because the WP:POINTy !votes and caustic comments were made by admins who wouldn't hesitate to warn or block a mere mortal for a like offense. Anyway, for those in this discussion who suggest the bar is set too high, that RfA has sucessfully demonstrated that opposite is already true, and being implemented. I am now expecting a crush at the admin admission door and I might even be in it myself ;) --Kudpung (talk) 13:32, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Read your page. Bottom line I disagree with your baseline question. IMHO an oppose vote is often not "You would not make a good administrator", rather "I can not conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that you would make a good administrator. A subtle, but very real difference.--Cube lurker (talk) 13:46, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
    • Not really, not unless you also accept that a support vote means "I can not conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that you would make a bad administrator", rather than "I think you would make a good administrator".
While I understand what you're saying I disagree. Afirmative action is needed to break the status quo. Prior to the RFA user-x is not an admin. A vote is either evidence has been provided to make the change, or for whatever reason there is not sufficient evidence to promote. I know for a fact that others view the process differently, but this is how I see it.--Cube lurker (talk) 14:00, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
I don't think your logic holds up; one might just as well argue that "affirmative action" is necessary to maintain the status quo. Quite clearly the overwhelming majority of support votes provide no evidence of anything whatsoever other than popularity. Malleus Fatuorum 14:05, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
On the first line, one might argue that, but I wouldn't. On the second line I don't disagree. However I'm commenting on this as an essay of 'how things should be done', not an analysis of how things are often done.--Cube lurker (talk) 14:39, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
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