Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 64

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Time to counter the drift in standards?

I've observed over the past few years that this process has drifted towards increasingly higher (sometimes unreasonably and unrealisticly high) expectations of prospective admins, and that worries me. In particular, those participating in these discussions are often fixated on edit count, rather than other more important factors like an user's trustworthyness and ability to work with others. We are far from the the original intent of granting adminship except where there's a reason not to, and while that isn't entirely bad, I think that the standards should be set only as high as necessary to protect the project from blatent abuse of admin powers - they were never intended to be an "elite" class of users. - - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 09:38, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

In particular, I think the questions that we need to answer are:

How tough do the standards need to be to protect Wikipedia from malicious admins?
Do the current level of informal standards make enough of a difference in preventing abuse that they are justifiable?
Are current informal standards reasonable or unreasonable given the goals of the project and WP:AGF ?
Would we be better served with formal qualifications so that the standards for adminship can remain consistant?
- Should edit counts factor into those qualifications?
- Should time as a contributor factor into those qualifications?
- What other factors are involved? History of relations with other users? History of conflicts?

Also, I think we need to be asking ourself different questions regarding adminship candidates:

If promoted, will the user use their admin powers to pursue their own POV or to influence edit conflicts they are involved in?
If promoted, will the user intentionally harm Wikipedia?
If promoted, will the user be capable of exercising restraint and neutrality?
Does the user have a history of conflicts that calls into question their ability to work with others?
Does the user have a history of abusive editing that calls into question their motives?
Has the user been around for enough time to demonstrate their commitment to the project?

Really it boils down to one question: is the user likely to abuse the tools? bd2412 T 09:42, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I think the only reason we need any consderation af all on time or edit count is to make sure that they have put enough effort into the project that we have a reasonable idea of who their are and their level of commitment - basically, look at it this way - it only needs to be enough to make sure that the amount of time and effort the candidate has put into the project outweighs the time and effort that would have to be spent cleaning up after them should they turn out to be a problem as an admin. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 10:16, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I prefer "misuse" to "abuse" - that way it includes unintentional damage an admin can cause simply by not knowing what they're doing. Abuse is always in bad faith. --Tango 11:45, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I see what you are saying... I did actually consider wording it "misuse", but realisticly, to do serious damage generally requires intent. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 12:04, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps time to think about something in the line of adminship on probation? (I don't know if this has come up before). And there already is this. Lectonar 10:31, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Mboverload has a great essay in their userspace called "Zero Featured Article" that states that people should not use standard metrics for measuring the worth of the user. The page then goes on to list standards for admins, putting more and more emphasis on certain points. —this is messedrocker (talk) 10:32, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I like that. I can agree with that essay. Unfortunately, I think that we do need some form of arbitrary standard if only to keep from having 50 million different arbitrary standards. What we are trying to determine by a RFA is whether giving someone adminship is more likely to help Wikipedia or harm it. Thats it. No Roman Inquisition required. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 10:40, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

It all comes down to trust right? Do you trust the user, regardless of your personal feelings, to use the tools responsibly and for the good of the community? If so then they deserve a vote... -- Errant^talk(formerly tmorton166) 11:06, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Just for comparision an early version of RFA. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 11:31, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Somehow, I prefer the plain and simple days when RfA was like this. No indication of silly metrics there. :) Kimchi.sg 16:56, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Another thought. If we are concerned about bad admins, maybe we should make it easier to remove them too. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 12:56, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

It is very true that people sometimes use silly reasons for supporting and especially for opposing. One can always write under such a vote challenging the voter for as to why he/she voted that way, but I guess that's as far as one could go. I think it would be a bad idea to discount frivolous votes, or to institute a policy of criteria people can and cannot vote upon.

In short, while we can all invariably complain on this talk page about unhealthy trends, I guess the best one can do is let people vote however they feel and hope that due to the large number of voting people frivolous votes would cancel each other or become insignificant to the ultimate promote/not promote decision. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:23, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

If one perceives that another editor's standards are not as good as they might be, one should make a comment in the RfA of one's own using one's own, assumedly better, standards. One should not seek to impose those standards on everyone. Doing that would be a surefire way to break RfA. The reason it so rarely promotes bad people and so rarely fails to promote good people (no system can ever be perfect, remember, and someone else's grass is always greener) is that people have an almost completely free hand to guide a given RfA according to the detail of the circumstance of the particular candidate. -Splash - tk 16:44, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, well said. --Cactus.man ✍ 19:05, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I could care less about the standards for supporting an RFA - I do find problematic the percieved standards for opposing one. I think opposition should be limited to demonstrating that it would be harmful to Wikipedia and its goals to give someone adminship - if you can't show that someone is likely to use the mop and broom to do harm, then theres no reason why they shouldn't be an admin. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 00:20, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

The older version of RfA, here, looks much more welcoming and less over the top. It is driven into the head of candidates that ADMINSHIP IS NO BIG DEAL!!!, but there is an utter rigmarole, (odd word ;), you have to file a huge application, cross reference your credentials, and sell yourself in the intro. And then 100-so people you've never even heard make a snap judgement of you, and pile it on. RfA shouldn't be a vote, it should be a discussion. The whole system is screwed in the head, personally I'd much prefer the above option. Obviously it's not applicable since Wikipedia is bursting at the seams with user haters, but I think we should aspire to that. But it isn't going to happen, so why complain. H ig hway ^Batman! 22:42, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Well RfA still is no big deal...all the technical actions can be reversed, so in the technical aplication it isn't. However, lack of diplomacy and incivility cannot be undone as it can damage trust, etc. so this is one of the big points in RfA. It would be the main point why your RfA failed, not because people think that your writing skills are bad or whatever....I haven't written any FAs....I think it would be better for you to not assume that people hate you.... Secondly, I feel that it is important to take RfA seriously as admins need to be good role models, and it doesn't take more than 20min to prepare a standard RfA, although for me it is more like three hours....Blnguyen | rant-line 00:43, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh no no no. While Adminship may not be a big deal, getting it (RfA) most certainly is. In this climate, candidates are expected to just through hoops to become Admins, but if they succeed, there's very little to actually being an Admin. -- Ec5618 21:57, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Nah, I have a hate crowd. I actually know better about Pokémon grammar. Which makes me a prime target. People don't check a user, or read an RfA. They look at the first oppose and see if it is worthy to oppose. And generally it's who opposes, not what they say. Numph. H ig hway ^{Return to Oz...} 13:07, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Thats true to an extent, alot of people do look at the opposes (or supports) that are there and base opinions on that; but to be honest that will happen anyway. I think there are enough regular or semi-regular voters around to ensure that a hate (for want of a better word) doesn't undermine an RFA! --Errant Tmorton166^(Talk)(Review me) 13:17, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Adminship is, in essence, a security guard and a custodian blended into one job. Why do so many wikipedians think that becoming an administrator is the answer to getting power and becoming popular on wikipedia? Perhaps it is because so many administrators are influential and heavily involved—yet a normal user is not prevented from participating in discussions or requesting a block, protect, or delete, or helping change a policy (and as a side note, there are a decent amount of admins, even crats, who don't participate a lot in the community). We have processes so non-admins can work easily and get things done. Cabals do not control the system, a cabal is only created by one's lack of civility, communication, and/or knowledge of process and policy. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 14:49, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

No offence Ikiroid, but what 'pedia are you on? New users who disagree with me on policy often have a go at me, until they find out I'm not an admin, and then it turns into, "you aren't qualified to tell me if I'm doing something wrong!" I also have a harder time at things like FAC, but that may be because I'm not popular, but when we're being frank, is why most people aren't admins. H ig hway ^{Return to Oz...} 23:43, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

My view is that we should grant admin status to anybody who wants it, unless there is a good reason NOT to, not that we should grant admin status to anybody only when there is a reason to. In a way, much like the old system which is efficiently linked to above. Seivad 16:43, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

apparent contradiction

The first entry under Commenting and expressing opinions" says "Who may comment: Any Wikipedian with an account is welcome to express their opinion, including the nominator." This would seem to indicate that anonymous (IP) comments are stricken. The last entry says "Threaded discussions are held in the Comments section. Long discussions are held on the discussion page of the individual nomination. Anyone may comment or discuss, including anonymous editors." This indicates that IP comments are welcome (even though they have to have an account to vote).

Which one of these is correct? The incorrect one needs to be fixed. - CheNuevara 15:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

This looks like another result of the infamous "votes to comments" conversion. Back when it wasn't taboo to use the word "vote", RFA had a suffrage against anonymous users making votes but were still allowed to make comments (ie, in the "Comments" section). Therefore, it used to be that any Wikipedian with an account is welcome to vote, but anyone may comment, including anonymous editors. Since I doubt "!vote" will be used in "official" documentation, I think "express their opinion" should be changed to something like "support or oppose" (which doesn't cover neutral, but is the best in terms of minimalistic text), or "leave a support, oppose, or neutral comment" (which is unwieldy, but is technically the most accurate). Of course, this wouldn't be a problem if we just used the damn "vote" or "!vote". ;-) --Deathphoenix ʕ 15:48, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

We should just use the term "vote" anyway unless we change RfA to a pure discussion. Kusma (討論) 16:14, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Anons can comment, they just can't comment. Heh. --W.marsh 16:40, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

How about "You need an account to state a formal opinion, however anonymous users may make other comments." (Basically !vote becomes "formal opinion") --Tango 16:54, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

How about we post a picture of someone bending over backwards alongside this language... --W.marsh 17:26, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

How about bending over forwards? Bending over backwards may be offensive to some. --Deathphoenix ʕ 18:50, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

How about just Image:pretzel.jpg? Oh wait, that'll be offensive to those with wheat allergies... -- nae'blis _(talk) 19:42, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps "Anyone is welcome to express thier opinion on any candidate. Commments by non-logged-in users are restricted to the "Comments" section, as they are intended to aid others in the formation of thier comments, and are not utilized in determining promotion." That says, in an addmittedly much longer form than before, that anons can bring stuff up, but thier opinion on promotion isn't counted towards the standard for promotion (the minimum 75% support one nobody wants to admit exists but won't stand for anyone "violating"). Essjay (Talk) 21:16, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I think we'd be better off just calling the thing a vote. Playing semantic games or writing things out in long and complicated language, just serves to confuse people. For what? Some little bit of moral comfort that we aren't really voting as long as we all agree not to call it a vote? That's just silly. If you want RFA to not involve voting, then work to change RFA, but don't just obfusticate the language and declare mission accomplished. It strikes me that this is Wikipedia's own special little version of political correctness run amok. Dragons flight 21:29, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

You're saying what most of us are thinking, I'd wager, or perhaps what we're already saying in our own, twisted, humourous ways. --Deathphoenix ʕ 21:42, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. Twisted humour. I agree with you both. -- Ec5618 21:51, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that the moment it officially becomes a vote, is the moment some people are going to swoop in and kill the process as being totally out of control. That's why people who want to make it into a vote are twisting themselves into more and more impossible positions to try and prevent the waiting sentinals from officially catching on. I'm watching this with wry amusement. Not long now. <slow... menacing... grin> Kim Bruning 12:51, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps bureaucrats should only count reasoned opinions. As WP expands, people know each other less, and giving WP over to drive-by voters would be a undesirable. Stephen B Streater 13:02, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

RFA isn't really suited to reasoned opinions- either you trust someone or you don't. In any case, either you would need an inventive new reason from every supporter/opposer, or you would end up with 50 'per Mr X's. Henry ^Flower 13:41, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I only half agree - there are no real reasons to support, but every oppose should be for a specific reason (or combination of specific reasons). However, most people do give a reason - the problem is in deciding if it's a good reason. That can't be a crat's job, as that would give them power to decide for themselves, rather than just determine concensus. --Tango 14:28, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

It's been a vote for a long time, whether we've called it that or not. It's not 2003 anymore. And no one's stopped it. --W.marsh 13:50, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

It's not really a vote, it only appears to be so because of the volume of people involved in each decision nowadays. Counting heads does get you to a general idea of consensus, and then contemplating the nature of comments gets you the rest of the way. I would point out that AfD is a lot less predictable because the judgment of the closing admin makes a huge difference, and admins have quite a variety of ways that they interpret consensus. I think RfA works better than AfD. NoSeptember 14:35, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Well this argument has been had before, but as long as you always pass by getting 80% and always fail at under 75%, regardless of the quality of arguments... it's a vote, even if we choose not to call it that. No one's ever going to get "contemplated" out of adminship when they have an 81% showing on one of the vote counters after 7 or 8 days, so I find it hard to believe that the discussion is more important than the head count at that point. We wouldn't even want people with 81% failing, anyway. And frankly, that's what works best now with 50-100 people commenting in every RfA. --W.marsh 14:54, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

If you look at the topic immediately below here, you'll see someone being promoted with less than 75%... although, to be fair, going by the closing b'crat's statements there they were influenced as much by the unique situation as by the comments. --Aquillion 18:27, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

That's only the second time someone outside of the 75%/80% range hasn't gotten the default decision in the past few hundred RfAs. And to be honest, the B'crat who closed it enjoys much more discretion than any other b'crat - that's just how it is. --W.marsh 18:43, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

That could be because he is a Steward. Stephen B Streater 18:55, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Danny is both a steward and a bureaucrat, and he went through an RfB and was promoted by community consensus. NoSeptember 19:14, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

URL not working

The "vote here" icon in my RFA is not showing up as a link, and I don't know why.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 15:49, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. They have nowiki tags around it by default, I can't say I know why (someone who's familiar with {{rfa}} might be able to answer that one}}. Good luck with it, hope it doesn't end up being a too stressful experience :) Petros471 15:54, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Don't worry, I'm not too worried either way....after all, adminship is no big deal ;).--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 15:59, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah right. I'm off to oppose his RfA... "Malformed RfA! Clearly not admin material." (it would be funny if stuff like that actually hadn't been done in seriousness) --W.marsh 00:51, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, if he doesn't even provide a working "vote here" link, then he clearly doesn't us voting to support and therefore lacks enthusiasm and committment. :P RandyWang (^raves/_{review me!}) 05:43, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

The technical guy comes to answer questions! The reason for the nowikis is there, in their absence, the link to the pagename would subst: in the template to Template:RfA, and , as it's subst'ed, would not change. fetofs ^Hello! 01:04, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Haha, well, I'd just give a person an FYI for a restart on their talkpage if they had built a corrupt one. Better to help someone improve then slap them on the wrist w/o any advice. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 01:10, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Sean Black 2

It appears that Sean Black was promoted with (159/63/6) which is a 71.62% support votes. I believe this goes against the consensus of 75%. Also, with due respect to Danny, this is not the first time he does such controversal actions.

Add to that the debacle at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:Kelly_Martin.2FB related to this RfA, and I am becoming worried that Wikipedia as an open, consensus-driven community is in danger. Sad to see. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:27, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

RFA is not a vote. It's a discussion for establishing who can be trusted with the administrator tools. Sean Black can obviously be trusted. --Cyde↔Weys 17:30, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

That's your opinion. Apparently at least 60 users disagree. Grue 18:00, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Not a single oppose vote was able to demonstrate an abuse of the admin tools by Sean Black. It was all just grasping at straws ... "Ooooh look, he said fuck once in an edit summary! Very Strong Oppose!" --Cyde↔Weys 18:02, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm as sure as the next man that he will not abuse his restored Admin status. My oppose (#40) was based mostly on lack of willingness to communicate and make himself accountable for his actions, not abuse of admin tools. This is the responsibility of any editor, but particularly so for an Admin when new users may not understand the rules. I hope he takes this on board as a constructive criticism. It's good to see flexibility in the counting too - I never supported the idea of strict percentages. Stephen B Streater 18:36, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Unbelieveable. Cyde, you totally miss the point again and again. Read the oppose votes for comprehension and try and realise that people disagree with you. I don't care if you diagree with me, I do care when you warp my arguments to suit your agenda. David D. (Talk) 22:34, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Just thinking, answering to Oleg, if he (or someone else) has done that before, there are precedents. -- ReyBrujo 17:35, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it strikes me that hewing strictly to a percentage is far more dangerous to the idea of consensus. Mackensen (talk) 17:38, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think it is ludicrous that we have taken trust down to measuring it in percentage points, or rather 1/100th of a percentage point (71.62). For a community that prides itself on "community," there seems to be a lot of mistrust and latent anger here. Danny

The number 71.62 has four digits as this is how MATLAB outputs things. By the way, there is no hidden anger, as you suggest.

I don't doubt your intentions. But it was bad judgement on your part to do this promotion, and that for two reasons:

The consensus is 75%. At the very least, you should have consulted with other bureaucrats on what to do before promoting.

You voted support in this RfA which makes you a biased party.

Add to that the fact that you are a very powerful person working for Jimbo in the office, and what we see is a person using one's weight to push one's positions. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:36, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I didn't realize Danny voted in the RfA. Bureaucrats who vote in particular RfAs really should not close them unless the consensus is clearly for promotion; if what Danny did was so correct, he should have left closing it to one of the other bureaucrats who didn't comment in the RfA. I hope the bureaucrats discussed this decision before making it, especially considering how much Essjay was fried in his request for bureaucratship when he mentioned the number seventy. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 21:45, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

- Well, I could be wrong, but judging from the totals, the people who actually voted support only added up to 69.74%. (I didn't vote, but I watched from the sidelines).--Firsfron of Ronchester 18:28, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
  - (And, yes, I'm aware it's not a "vote" in a strict sense) :) --Firsfron of Ronchester 18:31, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
  - When the percentage is worked out, the votes included are only the support and oppose votes. The neutral "votes" are not included in the percentage. So there were 159 support votes out of a total of 222 support or oppose votes, which is 71.62%. DarthVad e r 05:03, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- Which of course you have admirably smooted over. I thought it was funny the way you mused "I wonder how many other admins would be elected again if they were to do the same thing", when the answer clearly, is that, with you around, just about all of them would be. -Splash - tk 18:33, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Danny's statement on this RfA closure. NoSeptember 18:08, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

When people keep enemy lists based, in large part, on who opposed or supported an RfA, it certainly kills trust. Jonathunder 18:23, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Enemy lists? That's horrible! Can you provide an example? Misza 13 ^{T C} 18:31, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

It is also funny how Cyde and Mackensen have misunderstood "not a vote" and "consensus" respectively to mean "outcome is arbitrary depending on whether Danny closes it or not and/or wrong if it does not align with my opinion". -Splash - tk 18:33, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Danny mentions "community" but has completely dismissed that community by promoting when there was clearly no consensus (by generally accepted standards) to do so. If he had disregarded certain votes, that would be one thing but his statement above shows that he has instead decided to simply change the percentage himself. By using emotional language such as "ludicrous", focusing on the issue of the % precision and accusing people of being motivated by "mistrust and latent anger" he is avoiding the actual issue - why he promoted with a level of consensus that is clearly outside of generally accepted standards. Such use of emotional language and diverting the discussion to irrelevant points, does not seem to be a unique response to questioning of his decisions. TigerShark 18:42, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Danny's usual response is just to desysop (and/or indefinitely block) anyone who gets under his skin, so do tread carefully. -Splash - tk 18:53, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

That's absolutely outrageous!!!, I don't live anywhere near a Walmart and it didn't even rain last Friday! TigerShark 19:10, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Wow. Just wow. Wrong side of the bed this morning? Mackensen (talk) 19:14, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Have you actually got a counter argument to what I have said, or any comments other than "wow" or asking me whether I got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning? I expressed an opinion and backed it up with reasoning, perhaps you'd like to provide a reasoned response. TigerShark 19:25, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I was responding to Splash, actually, regarding his rampant incivility. Regarding your comment, I'd say that given the number of established users in favor of Sean regaining adminship, and given the lack of evidence that he had abused the tools previously or would do so again, I'd say Danny was well within bureaucratic discertion to close as he did. Best, Mackensen (talk) 19:30, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, sorry for misunderstanding - I was judging by the identing of your comment. I don't personally see how Danny acted within any established bounds of discretion, but the current, vaguely defined, concept of AfD discretion means that it can be used to justify pretty much any decision. Cheers TigerShark 19:40, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Good call by Danny in this case, balance of comments clearly weighed in favor of returning Sean's adminship. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:00, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't see the fuss. He won't abuse the tools. NO BIG DEAL! --Lord Deskana (talk) 19:17, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that's right. We'll never ever be able to solve the "it's not a numerical vote, it's a consensus judgement" vs "it's clearly not consensus when such a large number of editors oppose" riddle. The best we can do here is to try and predict how someone will use the tools. In this case it seems pretty clear that there will be no abuse. Rx StrangeLove 19:22, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, and this probably won't be popular, is that it should be a vote - with the only discretion being to discount votes (and even that should have clear criteria). If we need to give further discretion, the question should be "why do we need that discretion?" The "consensus" and "discretion" concepts basically provide an excuse for a bureaucrat to promote those that they think should be admins. Other discussion, such as AfD, need to be discussions rather than votes because they are debating objective critera that have been pre-defined (e.g. notability), but RfA is down to whether individuals believe that an candidate is right for the role. We should bring in binding objective criteria that can be debated, or this should be a vote. Cheers TigerShark 19:52, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

This is too simplistic for me. An oppose because someone only has 98% minor edit summaries is completely different qualitatively from an oppose because someone is a persistent vandal. But quantitatively, it is the same. If anything, the bureaucrats should be able to take more account of the strength of support/opposition. Stephen B Streater 20:50, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

RFA is community-based decision-making because we assume that this community of people writing an encyclopedia can make good decisions. And we do - people don't support persistent vandals and people don't oppose because of 98% use of edit summaries for minor edits. Now, you can argue that hierarchical decision making is superior - one such hierarchical model would be "Jimbo's deputy decides on the merits of the case after listening to community input". You can make a perfectly valid case that this is better than community-based decision-making. The perceived problem here is that some people feel that we are getting the latter but pretending that it is the former. Haukur 00:49, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

OK

I think we've gone into this enough, I'd just like to throw in 2c before this becomes a "we don't trust anyone" type argument. Sean Black's RFA was a unique case (and before someone screams bias, yes, I did support) - are we here to write articles or are we here to freak out about every little policy decisions. If Sean screws up, ArbCom can take care of it. If I screw up, I'm sure ArbCom is going to take care of it. It's not exactly the hardest thing in the world to de-sysop, so I say let's let this one rest and move on to bigger and more important things (like breakfast for me for one) -- Tawker 06:56, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

It seems Danny and others have misunderstood the reasons given for the opposes. I don't think that anyone is suggesting Sean's actions might warrant ArbCom. Stephen B Streater 08:09, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I guess I will ramble a bit :). Sean's RFA got me thinking about the process, and comments about contributers even more. Much like AFD, these RFAs often have one or two (sometimes relatively minor) points raised and then often having people latch on these; both the candidates and even the people who oppose them often get HAMMERED. In addition, many of the comments make character judgements about people. Much of this was prevalent in Sean's RFA - when I read it, I was overwhelmed - over 100 opinions on the page; some claiming gross incivility and others claiming much the opposite. I guess you could say I was "looking for a good reason to oppose" since my opinion was somewhat biased towards the negative side from the little I thought I knew from various WP:ANI posts and such from when I was A7ing pages and other routine activities. Originally, I was more convinced of this after reading some of the good points raised by the opposition; had my "vote" written up and everything (something like "incivility and claims of not following process are troubling"). It wasn't until I started doing comparisons to myself that I started to invest even more time and even more contributions - nothing appeared to be particularily systematic either way to me; which made me realize even more how hard it is to determine whether particular groups of edits are evidence of systematic editing or just an attempt to paint a broad brush, as it were. I thought about the fleeting nature of editors in general - about how I could be responsible for possibly denying a possibly good administrator based on general feeling and a few random edits while deleting pages (in particular the run on meta with David Gerard and others). The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was more confused about how much personal opinion I wanted to interject - on AFD it is much easier because there are rather concrete policies (WP:V etc.). I suppose one idea would be for comments about contributers themselves were not allowed and instead comments were directly specified for particular edits, and more emphasis was made on improvement; less on "renomination time." Also, as per Voice of All's comment below the policy for renomination gets even more interesting with former admins and more longer-time contributers because of the greater chance of the latching-on; keeping it in perspective is difficult for any process I suppose. RN 09:33, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

What should "consensus" be in a re-RfA?

Well since Sean asked to have his tools taken away voluntarily and then re-applied, I think that only a consensus to NOT promote should be what makes his RfA possibly fail; so when I look at it that way, I don't see anything wrong. There was a consensus to promote him the first time, he gave it up after some issues, and asked for it again; we then tested to see if there was a consensus to overturn the first consensus and confirm that he should not be an admin. That did not happen, as he still has majority support.Voice-of-All 19:30, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Dmcdevit had a proposal in which these standards were discussed. NoSeptember 19:46, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Yep, that makes sense to me. Thanks. --Cyde↔Weys 21:06, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it would depend on the "issues" that cause someone to resign. They don't seem to have been problematic this case, and if someone just resigns because of general stress then I have no problems with it just being a temporary thing... but if an admin 'voluntarily' gives up the tools as part of an agreement in an ongoing ArbCom settlement or something similar, they shouldn't get any special treatment if they decide to try and get them back. When someone resigns in a situation like that (or decides to 'fall on their sword' rather than go through de-adminship), there's an understanding that they're not just going to turn around and regain the position next week. I would hope, in any case, that the closing b'crat would be able to take all this into account without needing pages of detailed rules and guideline percentages... --Aquillion 21:41, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree that doing a "Nixon" resign should not give them the respect of "voluntarily" resigning. On the other hand, if it was that bad, I'd image that consensus would swing the other way.Voice-of-All 22:04, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

A little off point I know, but this request made me wonder how RickK would have done if he went through a similar process during his heyday - he was far more controversial than Sean, but also a fantastic admin - I very much doubt he would have got anywhere close to 70% of the "vote" in the current climate. Personally I feel that if an admin gives up the keys of their own free will they should get them back on request: I see no real difference between this and a normal editor going on a "Wikibreak". All "re-RfAs", like all RfAs, should be decided at the discretion of the closing bureaucrat; given the nature of RFA, I see the relative percentages of votes cast as totally meaningless in relation to the reasoning behind them. An irrelevant point becomes no more pertinent when it is shouted loudly, nor does a damning argument become any less serious if it is not hitched onto a bandwagon. Rje 01:59, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

If so, we should call it something else - not RfA - or change the rules, rather than bend/break the rules and conventions of RfA when it is convenient. We already have some proposals in that direction. Tintin (talk) 04:42, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

As I understand it these are the rules now, we would have no need for bureaucrats or admins if a simple supermajority was enough in our Rf*s (a bot could close all debates in such a situation). Any number we choose as a limit for supermajority is by definition arbitrary, the 75%/80% numbers that are often mentioned serve as indicators of consensus rather than its minimum bounds. It is worth pointing out that the use of these numbers is not policy, it just kind of developed over time. Rje 18:32, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps naively, I always saw the 75-80% "threshold" as an example of what most passing RfAs recieve, and not necessarily the absolute must-reach number. Thus, in a case like Sean's, a 70% could pass and perhaps an 82% could fail if the arguments went heavily in one direction. Perhaps calling it a "threshold" is part of the problem? --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:52, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree with the idea of forcing administrators in good standing who voluntarily gave up their op bit to go through RFA again, but if it must be done, I would say the "threshold percentage" should be 50% or so. This builds in some leeway for all of the associated trolls and malcontents who are pissed off at the admin for past necessary actions taken, but if the admin really is a bad apple, he won't meet the 50%. --Cyde↔Weys 18:56, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

While I have no problem with crats making exceptions to the 75% rule if they think the %age isn't representative of concensus, I do have a problem with a crat closing an RFA that they've voted in - without even removing the vote first. I'm not sure if there is strictly a rule against it, but it's certainly a very bad idea if you're closing below 75%, as it's obviously going to be contraversial. --Tango 19:20, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Tango. With no comments about this particular case, bureaucrats should generally steer clear of closing RfAs in which they have voted, unless the consensus is very clear, just as admins should avoid closing AfDs that they started or have voted in. EWS23 (Leave me a message!) 19:54, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

It is my understanding that someone who voluntarily resigns their adminship (with no accompanying cloud of problems) and later wishes to get it back does not need an RFA, but to simply ask a bureacrat. Raul654 19:22, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps, but Sean chose to take the WP:RFA route. His choice. --Durin 20:15, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I just hope Sean appreciated all the advice which we spent so much time crafting. I think it is good practice to suspend Adminship before a long Wikibreak to reduce risk of hacking. Suspended accounts should be restarted without an RfA. This is different from someone resigning, when they lose the automatic right to re-promotion. As others have also said, the re-RfA percentage should be lower: it can be quicker to make enemies who will oppose than friends who will support, as most support is tacit. Stephen B Streater 20:41, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

A brute-force password attack is so easy with this software that there's really no point in going through the hassle of desysopping and resysopping every time an admin wants to go on vacation. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 22:27, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

We shouldn't encourage people to resign every time they feel like it. We should point to how close this RfA was to failing for minor issues. And Silsor got some heat for the act of leaving adminship behind too. Readminship should not be automatic, or at least there should be a time limit of say a month, so if someone leaves in a huff, they have a bit of time to reconsider, but not forever. NoSeptember 05:47, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Semiprotection request

Some IP editors have been creating a lot of trouble in Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Eluchil404. A semi-prot would help. Tintin (talk) 11:54, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Done. I've also struck the faked Supports, rather than deleted them, as its useful to see a record of this sort of attack. Gwernol 12:26, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

'Crats please look at this oppose opinion in current RFA

Copied from Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jersey Devil

Oppose For the same reasons I have given on other nominations recently, namely Misza13, Grendelkhan, and others. That is: The unusual support, both in numbers, and in the cliquiness involved. Although the number of supporters is not as large at this rfa as in the others that I opposed, the support editors are basically the same. The same or many of the same editors are supporting all of the nominations as of late. I still find this questionable and highly suspicious. I will continue to oppose these cliquey rfa's as a matter of principle. If however one of these rfa candidates shows me a reason to change my vote, I will change it. Shannonduck talk 01:51, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Could the 'crats please look at this oppose opinion? I feel that it does not speak to the nom's ability to use admin tools and should be struck. Sorry, do not mean to be troublesome. FloNight ^talk 00:55, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

The best course of action is to ignore the user. We've had routine oppose voters with questionable justifications in the past, they will eventually go away. NoSeptember 05:39, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Appears she's struck out that opinion. Alphachimp ^talk 05:46, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

It's pretty symptomatic of the issues others have noted about the whole process. The process becomes a beauty contest so at least appears if not becomes an effort in establishing oneself in the in crowd.ALR 18:36, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Nonetheless, if the reasons for support are similar, that attests to the user's abilities and reputation. All we can assume is that people are voting on a basis of merit as opposed to coming along and voting along with the majority group. To oppose because of others' reasons for supporting is nonsensical. Michael 22:45, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Name of Process

I apologize if this has already been brought up in the archives, but since I didn't find anything:

Is "Requests for adminship" the most appropriate name for this process? At the time of writing, ten candidates are under consideration for adminship. Only two are self-noms-they can legitimately claim to have "requested" adminship. The other eight, however, were nominated by others. Judging by this, and the broader pattern of nominations from other users, I feel like "Nominations for Adminship" would be a more relevant name. Comments are apprectiated.--Lkjhgfdsa 15:55, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

But you still have to accept a nomination, so it is still a request by the candidate. At one time, the page was divided into two sections, one for self-noms and one for nominations, but we did away with that. NoSeptember 16:47, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, the proper name is obviously Wikipedia:Flexible process not involving voting for the approval of the granting of certain additional technical abilities to trusted editors. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 17:01, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

It's a request if the person self-nominates or consents to the nomination, thus expressing support and interest. Michael 22:46, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was speedy BJAODN. Tito xd^(?!?) 01:47, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

How about AFD — Adminships for discussion. --Cyde↔Weys 18:00, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Keep, yup, that's got to be the name ;). NoSeptember 18:16, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Delete, no published sources, fails google test. Kirill Lokshin 18:18, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Userfy. Eh? --Lord Deskana (talk) 18:53, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Transwiki, processcruft ;-) Eluchil404 19:03, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Speedy delete, CSD A7. Even many of the page's strongest supporters admit that it's "no big deal." Besides, it's inherently POV and WP:NOT a battlefield, an experiment in democracy, or an experiment in rule making. EWS23 (Leave me a message!) 19:18, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Merge what are we ~~voting~~ on again? (Oops, now I'm going to WP:HELL for saying the v-word...) -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 19:29, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
User... Misza 13 ^{T C} 19:53, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Merge and Delete per Goldom and Kirill. --Gmaxwell 19:56, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
please contact an administrator for verification purposes, as described on this page. —freak(talk) 20:00, Jul. 25, 2006 (UTC)
Comment How about "Adminship for Review"? "Discussion" is usually used a euphemism for "argument" or "fight," and "review" is more specific. It also would prevent it from being misunderstood as Articles for Deletion. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 20:01, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
- Fights over adminship, then? -Splash - tk 21:41, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
- Comment I think that was Cyde's attempt at humor.--Lkjhgfdsa 22:20, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
{{openproxy}} Naconkantari 21:35, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I thought this already was an admin. --Lord Deskana (talk) 21:54, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

Replying to oppose and neutral votes

Is it in bad taste to tell a user on their talkpage that you responded to their concerns? I see wikipedians raise valid points on my RfA, then I reply, then I get no answer. I get the feeling they forgot about it. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 17:24, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't really think that's in bad taste, provided you don't end up badgering them about it. Go for it, methinks. :) RandyWang 17:53, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

It's probably very polite to do so, as long as you remain civil and the other party is cooperative. If things get heavy, disengage. --Tony Sidaway 17:58, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, so long as you avoid being pushy, I doubt anyone will regard it as a problem. Kirill Lokshin 18:20, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

OK. Thank you. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 18:20, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

One more comment I tried to post from my phone... I watchlist the RfAs I take part in, so I'd know if you responded there. The talk pages are the official way of contacting someone, so they shouldn't take offence, but I'd rather have the entire discussion on the RfA so everyone can see it. Stephen B Streater 18:29, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I was about to ask the same question. Cool.--Firsfron of Ronchester 18:39, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it's probably even ok to be pushy, because RFA is a consensus gathering process. If someone is unwilling to take the effort explain or discuss their opinion or work towards compromise, then why should we take the effort of taking that opinion into account? (note that this is not a recommendation to be pushy, but rather it establishes the outer limit of what's ok. Preferably you should be polite and non-confrontational, of course. :-) ) Kim Bruning 18:56, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's a problem as long as it's not just to argue, but I do often see others then opposing "per the user being confrontational", so don't overdo it, I'd answer only if there's something that really needs to be addressed. -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 19:27, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that it is quite polite to do so. --S iva1979^{Talk to me} 20:12, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

As long as someone politley points that you have responded on the rfa that's fine, and often helpful. However be careful not to move dissucsion off rfa and on to user talk pages. Benon 00:10, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. Reply on the RfA itself, then tell the user on his/her talk page that you've replied to the concerns brought up. Tito xd^(?!?) 01:49, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I think there are times when it is inappropriate to reply to neutral and oppose voters, an example being an "oppose per Foo" where the RfA candidate or supporter then responds with - "please see my response to Foo" which appears to assume that the second opposer has not understood the response and so seems incivil to me. MLA 06:36, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you with one exception. If the "response to Foo" was written after the "oppose per Foo" then Bar wouldn't have had an opportunity to read much less understand the response. This is one of those times where reading the time signatures becomes important so that you don't make false assumptions. —WAvegetarian•(talk) 06:40, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I understand that position and it's more appropriate than when editors simply repeat the same comment multiple times or tell many other editors to see above/elsewhere - yours was within the scope of reasonability in my opinion though it was on a very small sample of possible comments for commenting on. I'd suggest that a reply encompassing different responses might be more effective than a reminder to editors to see elsewhere as I for one don't like to be told that I haven't read or understood something though I'll concede there may be times when that's an appropriate comment. For instance, I did read the time stamps in WAVegetarian's RfA and took that into consideration. This does link with the voting issue as if it's just a vote then there may be a feeling that each voter needs to be persuaded. My stance is based on my belief that RfA is a discussion with a set of independent recommendations then rather than a pure tally so a continued refutation of each similar response shouldn't be necessary. MLA 08:58, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Another monthly decline

For those keeping track, we've promoted 21 admins so far this month (with 8 RfAs still open, 6 of which are currently above 75%). So it looks like yet another monthly decline in our promotion rate (admin stats), and the second month with under 1 promotion per day average (previously, for 10 straight months we promoted at or above the 1 per day rate, often well above). Draw your own conclusions. NoSeptember 10:19, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

People don't edit as much in the summer (at least for those of us in the norther hemisphere), since there are better things to do. David D. (Talk) 10:28, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

And yet last year, we were trending strongly in the other direction during these same summer months. NoSeptember 10:32, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The great tragedy of Wikipedia–the slaying of a beautiful POV by an ugly fact. With apologies to Thomas Henry Huxley David D. (Talk) 10:42, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

If I wasn't an admin already, I would not apply for adminship now, it just looks too combative (I don't even comment on other RFAs any more). I am sure that is the reason less people want to go for it, which is a shame, because these are the kind of people who would make good admins. Martin 10:48, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you regarding the high combativity, Martin. The RFA process is now a headache, and I have to wonder if I would even be able to re-qualify for adminship considering the rigid standards of many users. --tomf688 (talk - email) 11:05, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The biggest problem isn't the standards. If the community feels there should be higher standards to promote admins so be it. Now you could also argue that too high of standards means we're not promoting enough admins and that's a problem given how much backlog we have in things like handling copyright violations. But I still feel the bigger problem is that so many voters don't even look into the candidates at all or make any effort to judge the intangibles. Instead they vote based on edit counts, edit count distribution, and other nonsense. - Taxman ^Talk 11:55, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

We put too much statistical data on RfAs, and too many people expect candidates to fit into some sort of ideal statistical profile. Maybe we should vote in a new way. Is this person likely to misuse the tools? Yes, No, Too early to tell. NoSeptember 12:04, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

One of the most annoying things, "you don't sound like you need the tools". Granted, they have some points, but the more admins we have the more people who may feel inclined to help. DYK is now a minefield, with new admins too scared to do it, because only admins could do it, and with the high sdtandards, things are getting worse. Much worse, H ig hway ^{Return to Oz...} 12:09, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I would agree completely with a system like this. It is exactly how I "vote" on RfAs currently. Most people are likely to use the tools in the correct manner, so they get my support, and I generally am neutral (occasionally I oppose) for users which have not made enough contributions to tell if they will abuse the tools or not (around 1000 edits is generally a good enough indicator). I oppose the occasional few that are incivil and extreme POV-pushers who perhaps could abuse the tools. Adminship in my opinion is not a big deal, and there are only three issues which really matter (in my opinion again): will they abuse the tools, will they be helpful and courteous to other users and are they experienced enough (with policy) to use the tools in the correct manner. I would much prefer to see this system suggested by NoSeptember instead of the current RfA system. DarthVad e r 12:25, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind that system as long as it was misuse (as you specified) instead of abuse. If I believe that the tools won't be used properly due to inexperience or lack of familiarity with policy, I'm going to oppose. I may be 100% confident that the candidate won't willfully abuse the tools, but I'll still oppose if I believe the tools will be misused. Aren't I Obscure? 12:35, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that there may be a problem with the way in which standards are currently applied. However, I don't think that any of the suggestions here will rectify that situation. In the case of is this person likely to misuse the tools then standards can equally be applied and nothing will have changed. Editors who believe in a certain minimum of edit count or experience will have no reason to change those standards as they can equally be applied in this case. It appears to me that standards are applied because the project is too large for editors to get to all of the potential candidates so there will not be any shared history or trust built up. The standards are proxies for history and trust but have taken on their own significance to the point where they almost appear to be badges of honour in my view. MLA 14:45, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The idea is not to force people to vote with a different standard, but to encourage them to vote on relevant issues. Often you get people new to RfA voting, the quicker you clue them in to what matters in adminship, the quicker they will make good voting decisions, all voluntarily. NoSeptember 18:42, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

"backlog.....in things like handling copyright violations" Do administrators really need to be heavily involved in cleaning up copyright violations? If there is a backlog in getting rid of copyright violations maybe we should put an article about this problem on the main page and let the whole community pitch in to fix the problem. Is there a list of objective criteria by which we can judge if there are enough administrators? --JWSchmidt 15:19, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Well yes but what about all of the copyvio's that need deleting? To be honest I think we can never have enough admins --Errant Tmorton166^(Talk)(Review me) 19:53, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Anyone can remove material from Wikipedia...I suspect that if we Avoid Copyright Paranoia then there are very few copyvios that require admin action. If there really is a shortage of administrators, why not start using a bot to find more candidates? Establish some basic criteria such as 500 edits, 6 months of editing and no past blocks or other obvious problems. Let the bot send all such candidates an email asking if they want to be an adminstrator. If they say yes, then they automatically go to requests for adminship. Also, Wikipedia is large enough that we could have many parallel rfa channels. The bot could assign each candidate to one of the rfa channels: Arts, Biography, Geography, History, Mathematics, Science, Society, Technology, etc according to the kinds of articles that each candidate has edited. We could also have a list of existing administrators willing to serve as mentors for new administrators. The bot could automatically assign each new administrator to an existing administrator who is on the mentor list. --JWSchmidt 22:53, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

You want to create a bot paired versoin of Admin Coaching, but with the pupils already having the tools? *hides under desk at destruction waiting to happen* H ig hway ^{Return to Oz...} 22:57, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

How about me just give 'crats the power to appoint admins if they truely believe in them? This wouldn't be a common thing, but it would pass the RfA shithole for people who really deserve it. --mboverload @ 22:59, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

It would potentially seem reasonable, but it breaches the idea that admins/'crats have extra tools but no extra authority (thence various processes by which the opinions of non-admins are solicited, or else rigidly-defined rules like CSD). Not everyone fully agrees with that principle, of course, but there are enough who do that it would be unlikely to attain consensus. I can't think of any way to allow consensus-building on RFAs without the stress levels we have now, though, unfortunately. Any other suggestions? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 23:25, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

One possibility to consider is that Wikipedia, as a project and a community, may simply be maturing. The semi-exponential growth in traffic that Wikipedia had been experiencing turned into more of a plateau earlier this year. That may simply mean that fewer people have been joining the community since then and as a result there may be fewer potential candidates for adminship now that it is several months later. Unfortunately, the official internal statistics haven't been updated since February (technical difficulties), so it is hard to know how the number of active Wikipedians has actually evolved. Dragons flight 23:51, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Is it possible that the administrative burden is growing, requiring “super-administrators?” All one needs do is page back a year or two on most any WikiProject page & you see growth in administrative requirements and detail. As requirements and expectations grow, it becomes harder to do as a part time activity; folks must specialize (at least a bit) to do it well. When new folks are recruited to an admin role, they must pass a litmus test that they intend to be at least semi-dedicated administrators. And as more administrators pass through that qualification, having passed it, they may think it must be the appropriate test so they continue to apply a rising standard of adequacy. The more administrators must be specialists, the more you’re looking for a different type of person than your typical dedicated contributor. Williamborg 00:56, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Admin canidates with less than 1000 edits used to be the commonplace, no? The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 00:59, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course they were. There were admins before anyone had 1000 edits, and there were admins when 1000 edits were a rarity. Now that so many voters have exceeded that threshold, 1000 edits is suddenly too low. Fact is, though, anyone who's made 1000 edits has shown enough commitment to the project that they aren't going to go crazy when given extra tools, and if you're worried the candidate will be ignorant of policy, grill them on policy — knowledge of policy is only weakly correlated with edit count. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 00:42, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

It's all those damn RFA standards. Gahhhh. --Cyde↔Weys 01:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd say we already have too many admins, not too few. Kelly put some statistics up on the mailing list a few weeks ago showing that the bulk of the work is done by quite a small number, so I actually wonder why we're continuing to promote people. The sensible thing would be to promote people as others drop out, either by choice or by failing to use the admin tools regularly. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:09, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

An inactive admin is not an admin. --mboverload @ 01:16, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Those are true stats, but your conclusion is a non sequitur. The bulk of editing is done by relatively few people, but that doesn't mean we don't need more talented editors. - Taxman ^Talk 02:57, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Some people don't meet RFA criteria until the setting sun of their career on wikipedia, maybe this is why so many admins are inactive. You see some really active users become really inactive admins after a small amount of time. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 01:11, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, they finally levelled up! And then there's nothing left to achieve in the Wikipedia RPG. If b'cratship was more attainable, I think we'd whip a bunch of admins into working harder. --W.marsh 01:22, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree that an inactive admin's not an admin, mboverload. They still have access to the tools and are therefore able to cause problems. For example, I've seen very troublesome blocked users unblocked by a semi-active admin, because the blocked user e-mailed them, and when you check their block log you see they have no experience and corresponding poor judgment. There are hundreds of such admins around, and every week we create more. I can't see the point of it, except to store up trouble for the future. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:25, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

All I can say is that I just got through the adminship process, and on a self-nom. The thing I found: moost of the people who opposed me were other admins! All of my oppose votes were because I didn't have enough experience. At the time I ran for adminship, I had been regitered for 18 months, active for five, had over 2,200 edits (2,500 by the end of my candidacy), had translated, a job no one seems to want to do and which has a huge backlog, twenty articles, written twenty-five additional articles, voted in FAC regularly for over a year, and never had any official actions taken against me, including any angry messages in my talk page, etc. You get the point! Admin standards, of late, are absolutely ridiculous. RyanG e rbil10(The people rejoice!) 01:31, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, but most things in the world that are evil or ridiculous are built on logic and/or good intentions. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 01:34, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

And you passed with 83% support. If good candidates are being promoted and inadequate ones are being rejected, is the system really that broken? Aren't I Obscure? 01:37, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but unfortunately, some people felt I wouldn't be a good admin. The defintion of a bad admin, at least in the past, was someone who causes damge to the encyclopedia. Unfortunately, after my contributions, 17% of people still felt I might damage the encyclopedia. RyanG e rbil10(The people rejoice!) 01:40, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

They didn't think you'd sabotage wikipedia, they thought you'd make mistakes because of your lack of experience, and they would be harmful mistakes. Few opposes are because of suspected ulterior motives. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 02:28, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Aaargh! We'll never solve the debate over admin standards. I was criticized on my RFA for not participating in discussions, and I'm not going to continue here. No offense to anyone, but I'm going to stand back, watch everyone reach no consensus, and then start the debate again. I'm going to go close AfDs :) . RyanG e rbil10(The people rejoice!) 02:41, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

90% of admin actions performed by 170 admins

I found Kelly's figures. Apparently, 50% of admin actions in March 2006 were performed by 29 out of nearly 900 admins; 90% of admin actions were performed by 170. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:56, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

If 90% of edits were made by 20% of users... would that be a good reason to not let any new accounts be created? --W.marsh 03:02, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure the two are comparable. Inexperienced admins can do a lot of harm, and people who don't use their tools much are going to remain inexperienced. It's almost certainly the case that most of the ones we're currently promoting won't use their tools a lot, just as the ones already promoted don't, so all we're doing is creating a large pool of people who don't know how to do what they've been promoted to do. I've lost count of how often I've found admins who don't understand the content policies, don't understand 3RR, haven't read the blocking or protection policies, and so on. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:51, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Would you mind linking to that thread? Dragons flight 03:41, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

The post is here. Kelly wrote that we could probably lose 500 admins without having an effect on our administrative actions. I think she was being conversative. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:51, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Even if 90% of admin activities are being handled by the top 170 admins, that is still a large number of actions being performed by other admins. Furthermore, the occasions where admins do in fact do anything damaging are rare, and wheel wars when they occur seem to involved often the most involved admins. I therefore see nothing wrong with having many admins. JoshuaZ 04:02, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Again it's a non sequitur. For one, it's confusing hindsight with foresight. No one could have properly predicted which would do the 90% of the work. (And I dispute that 90% figure is correctly measuring the real work that needs to get done). For another, it's easy to demonstrate that a lot of tasks go undone for too long. Unless you've found a way to motivate people or give them more time to work on admin tasks, the only solution is to promote more admins (or reduce the need for the work). - Taxman ^Talk 04:10, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I was kinda hoping to learn how much activity was required for the top 90%, but I guess it's not there. I know I don't use the admin bit nearly as much as some, but I certainly wouldn't consider myself inexperienced or a liability, so I guess I am curious what degree of inactivity we are really talking about. Dragons flight 04:25, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Durin had done some studies but I can find only this one for January 2006. Tintin (talk) 04:11, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

There seem to be hundreds of people who want to be admins (see Category:Wikipedia administrator hopefuls). Perhaps an initiative should be created to scan through that category for minimum requirements (# of edits, relatively active, no recent history of being blocked/warned for disruption, etc.), and then we just pick 5 or 10 a week and start nominating them? We could even perhaps do something interesting with subcategories, like Category:Admin hopeful with more than 1000 edits, or Category:Admin hopeful who has edited several times per week for the last 90 days, or Category:Admin hopeful with a record of civility for the last 90 days, etc., and then we look for whoever's name is in all of the appropriate subcategories, and nominate them. :) Granted, some of these subcategories are a bit on the facetious side and might be difficult to nail down in terms of guidelines, but it's a potential way to move forward. We could also make subcategories like Category:Admin hopeful who wants to help with Vandal patrol, Category:Admin hopeful who wants to help with RM, etc., and then when needs in a particular category of adminship are identified, it makes it easier to find interested candidates, and push them through the RfA process. :) --Elonka 04:39, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I find SlimVirgin's arguments that we have plenty (or more than enough) admins to be rather unconvincing. So what if sometimes admins can be clueless about a thing or two? Teach them. :) That any reasonably calm and knowledgeable user can in due time get access to more tools is a long Wikipedia tradition which has worked admirably well for the project. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:33, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Is there an explanation somewhere of how these numbers were determined or what data set was used? Interesting stuff- I'm sure more people would like to do their own analysis. Friday (talk) 04:42, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

You can find Kelly Martin's March list here. It's deceptive to say 170 admins do 90% of all actions. It is just a snapshot of current activity, you can identify a lot of knowledgable admins who had little activity that month, just look at the semiactive and inactive lists on WP:LA for starters. Should I have considered myself twice as experienced as Kelly Martin because I did twice as many actions as she did that month (even though that was only my second full month as admin)? Jimbo doesn't make the 170 most active list, so obviously I'm much more experienced than him ;). I also see several admins on that list that have hundreds or even thousands of deletions, but not a single block, specialist admins may be inexperienced outside of their specialty. No, admincountitis is just not a valid measure, and if it were, then a bot (Curpsbot) would be more experienced than all of us. NoSeptember 05:04, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Note: a reformatted version of the same data, plus derived statistics, can be found here. —freak(talk) 13:51, Jul. 27, 2006 (UTC)

Nope, I'm not on the list. Oh well. Dragons flight 05:14, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Kelly Martin only just made the list. The trick is to make your own list ;-) Stephen B Streater 08:19, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Is a list available for the activity for other months ? If the % of very active admins is relatively stable at 20%, it is a strong case for promoting more people. Tintin (talk) 05:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I had thought so, but User:Freakofnurture/Stats is also for March. NoSeptember 05:12, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

The issue with that is that the people willing to do the job keep getting not promoted due to a lack of consensus (see posts above on the varying standards on voting). Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 05:13, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

No-one's advocating admincountitis, NoSeptember. My argument is that lots of people become admins and then do little or nothing with the tools, so it's not clear why they were given them in the first place, or why they're allowed to hang onto them. It's a strawman argument to say that this observation necessarily leads to judging admins solely on the basis of how many admin actions they carry out, but a failure to carry out more than a perfunctory number necessarily means the admin is inexperienced. My point is that we have hundreds of admins who don't do much now, while we promote hundreds more who won't do much in the future, which seems fruitless at best, and potentially troublesome. Taxman's point is a good one, of course — that we can't predict in advance which of the 90 per cent we promote won't do much — but we could perhaps try to. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:19, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

My argument is that lots of people become admins and then do little or nothing with the tools, so it's not clear why they were given them in the first place, or why they're allowed to hang onto them.

Because being an admin is supposed to be "no big deal". That's obviously not true anymore, if it ever was, but that's why. SchmuckyTheCat 05:29, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. I don't think it was ever true, nor should it be. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:34, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Then we should focus on those specific actions that have potential for harm (causing disagreements and frustration), such as unblocking not knowing the full circumstances or previous discussion. The answer is making new admins aware of key policies so they don't make these mistakes. Other admins actions can just be reversed without a big deal when a mistake is made. You focused on statistics at the start of this thread, so I pointed out that that focus is not the issue. It's not inactivity that does the harm, it's a bad decision that does harm, and bad decisions can be made by both active and inactive admins. NoSeptember 05:37, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree, but how do we do it? We promote users who, in some cases, don't have a clue (about editing or adminning) and they often continue that way unabated. How do we get admins to read the key policies, and how do we check that they've understood them? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:48, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

The same way we educate any editor who makes a mistake, we leave a note explaining their mistake and pointing to the relevant aolicy. Sometimes when people say admin A is not following policy, however, it is more a matter of a disagreement about interpretation of policy than one of the admins not understanding it. We should not lump those cases into the discussion about inexperienced admins making mistakes, and we have WP:ANI to resolve it. Honest mistakes of inexperience can be solved by a bit of helpful instruction. We should not slam the brakes on promoting new admins because of mistakes, everyone was new and inexperienced at some point. NoSeptember 06:32, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't vote for people unless I see evidence that they've understood the key policies. I have to wonder why someone would stand for adminship without having read them, and why anyone would vote for people who haven't, but I see it happening all the time. I agree with you about education, but people have to want to be educated, and if they wanted to read the policies, all they have to do is, you know, read them. But they don't. :-) SlimVirgin ^(talk) 06:40, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Some have used the optional questions as a way to tell if someone understands policy. Understanding policy is part of what matters when I ask the question Is this person likely to misuse the tools?, the key question I ask myself when considering an RfA. NoSeptember 06:47, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

One thing to consider is also the scope of articles an admin is covering. Does 90 of the vandalism take place in 20% of the articles, and are the most active admins found there? If someone is an admin, but covers a area that is not in many watchlists, and performs less frequent admin tasks there, it is till usefull to have someone with admin right who know what to do in those area's. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 05:23, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

And it's not as if we have only a finite supply of adminships to go around. Maurreen 05:53, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

You've obviously never tried to contact an admin for immediate help. Many admins are too afraid to even do page protection. --mboverload @ 06:01, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

If you have difficulty getting a page protected, there's probably a reason it would be better not to protect it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 06:05, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

No, as in they won't even look at it. "I only do unblocking or unprotection" --mboverload @ 06:44, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Then find another admin. Maybe it's a good thing that an admin that is unsure about making mistakes declines doing something that may be a mistake. Having specialist admins is a good thing, we shouldn't force them to be generalists against their will. NoSeptember 07:02, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll keep that in mind when I run through the only 3 admins on IRC. --mboverload @ 07:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Why limit yourself to IRC? We can't have perfection. Not all admins are expert in all areas, it is a voluntary project, and if they make a mistake they get hammered. Not all admins are actively seeking to become rouge admins ;). NoSeptember 07:17, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

How the hell else are you supposed to find admins to do something within 15 seconds? If you're an admin not on IRC, you don't exist. >=| --mboverload @ 08:51, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course, now it all makes perfect sense... that's the reason I don't do enough to make the list. ;-) Dragons flight 08:54, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

For the purposes of these stats, admin actions are only delete/undelete, block/unblock, protect/unprotect. For the most part, these things have relatively little to do with one's editting interests and more to do with willingness to RC patrol, close *fDs, etc. Dragons flight 06:00, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's true. I very rarely do RC patrol, and I never close AfDs, but I'm still on the list. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 06:04, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Did you also get to #16 in protections without going out of your way? I'm not being critical, as I assume they were beneficial, but protection almost never comes up in normal editting for me. Dragons flight 06:09, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Hear hear. Deletions related to page history merges are more significant than a routine speedy. A block in a complicated 3RR is more significant than a routine username block, and so on. The raw number count tells us little about what an admin's value to the project is. You've got to analyse their actions to know that. NoSeptember 06:43, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Take a look at how many of the top 40 admins are no longer active or no longer around at all. Obviously, we need to keep finding more replacements for these people ;). NoSeptember 07:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Or maybe we need to encourage some people to enjoy editing more and get less caught up in admin matters. I suspect that the wiki world might be a happier place if we spread the burden around a little more. Dragons flight 07:47, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I assume you folks here are talking about [1]. This table laks edits of protected pages. Of which for example are MediaWiki:Common.css or high profile templates. And don't forget that wearing a big stick doesn't mean you actually have to use it. So admin bean counting may be as silly as edit counting. --Ligulem 08:41, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

If you're not going to use your stick why did we even admin them at all? --mboverload @ 08:52, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Do you count actions of police officers by how many times they shoot? Would you take away guns from police officers because they never shoot? :) --Ligulem 08:56, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. I don't block 50 vandals every day, nor do I delete 50 pages. Does that mean the admin actions I do perform are any less important? I'm certainly not as productive as the admins on Kelly's list, but I totally reject the idea that that means I don't do useful work. Raven4x4x 11:34, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

This attitude is exactly why I haven't stood for adminship yet. I don't use automated tools or do RC/NP Patrol, and mainly would continue working on pages in my watchlist which are purposefully not in the main cadre of articles (those have enough eyes, whereas something like Domestic goat can have vandalism for days), so I'm sure I'll get opposes that I "don't need the tools". Except that having the ability to see deleted edits/pages, rollback vandalism, and continue to help clear out CAT:CSD would help me be a better "trusted editor". I don't necessary want to administrate the whole wiki, but there's nothing between the two levels. -- nae'blis _(talk) 15:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok so only 20% of admins are highly active, that doesn't have an effect on promoting more people surely - we obviously need more active admins, there are still backlogs regardless. What we really need to work out is how to make the inactive admins active again or how to desysop them, surely only when we have 80 odd percent of admins working can we discuss whether we need any more!! --Errant Tmorton166^(Talk)(Review me) 09:39, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd be more interested in quality than quantity. 100 admins each making one excellent action a day is much better than one overworked admin making 100 dubious actions a day. I see no need to de sysop regular but low level admins. Stephen B Streater 11:53, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Re: the general point of "If you're not going to use your admin abilities, why be an admin?". There are multiple views with regards to one's role as an admin. Some are highly active admins, frequently involved in deletions, blocks, and protections. Some are only interested in editing the main page. Others view it as being granted a fire extinguisher for their particular knowledge areas to be used only on the odd occasion when it is needed. There is no one-size-fits-all role of adminship. The criteria here should not be how active an admin will be in using admin tools. --Durin 13:14, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, the old adage of "adminship is no big deal" certainly applies to admins who don't use the adminship tools but are still editing, I think. --Deathphoenix ʕ 14:21, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

The apparently low usage average of the "hot" admin tools (block/protect/delete) is a sign to me that we actually do have different kinds of admins. There have been proposals to split the admin features. But as we all know that has not gained consensus in the past. I believe the first level of trust would be to give entry level admins the right to edit fully protected pages and to do rollback. Blocking users/IP's isn't done by the average admin. --Ligulem 16:47, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll note that the stats don't include use of rollback. I suspect that a lot of admins make regular use of the one-click rollback, particularly if they do RC patrol. (They may make few blocks doing RC patrol, as most vandals are one-off tests and stop after – or even without – a warning.) It's nice to be able to rollback without having to use one of the hacks. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:13, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Rollback is one of the most annoying things imaginable. Admins often use it to revert your edits, which are often style problems, while the tool is meant for only simple vandalism. It also beats me to the post of reverting vandalism every time, which I am sick of. There is no point trying to revert unless it's on a dea page at 1am. H ig hway ^{Return to Oz...} 16:30, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

"Openness and inclusiveness are ..... our radical means to our radical ends."
In my view, it is a dark day for Wikipedia when existing administrators start trying to make a big deal out of adminship and they start playing the game of deciding which Wikipedians are important and they suggest that inclusiveness (more administrators) might be bad for the project. I'll be blunt: I think administrators that play such games might need to take a break and try to regain personal perspective on what a wiki is. I'd be willing to see Wikipedia carry out an experiment. Let's first make a list of existing administrators who are willing to be "admin mentors". Then let's randomly select an equal number of Wikipedians who have never been blocked from editing and who have 1,000 or more edits during the past year and make them administrators. Match each new administrator to a mentor. Then we can watch and see how much damage is done to the project. --JWSchmidt 16:33, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm in favor of the general sentiment that adminship should be no big deal. This is a wiki; the entire idea is that the more the merrier, and nothing admins do is irreversible. There's no reason we need backlogs in things like CAT:CSD or any similar category. But losing adminship must be no big deal too if adminship is going to be no big deal, since the abilities are certainly abusable. Either set some criteria for immediate desysopping by a steward or maybe bureaucrat (e.g., blocking a user one is in a personal dispute with) in addition to ArbCom ruling, or have the ArbCom be more aggressive in desysopping admins who ignore policies other than wheel-warring and outright caprice. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 00:42, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Statistics:

If we cut our number of admins by 500 by selecting 500 people at random, we would get exactly the same percentages.
If we promote twice as many admins, then we would STILL get exactly the same percentages (ie the number of most active admins by the same criteria as now would also double)
I am unsure if the current admin criteria or changing those criteria would change much. It would be interesting to see who the most active people are per year promoted.

Kim Bruning 08:37, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Unless I'm missing something here, these statistics would mean that we need many, many more admins than we might think. Since apparently only about 20% of our candidates are going to be especially active as admins, we need to promote five times as many people as our gut instinct would tell us is necessary in order to keep the admin pool growing apace with Wikipedia's user base. --Aquillion 23:08, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Quality verse quantity. --Masssiveego 08:16, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Discuss or vote

Does anyone know why we are being invited to "Vote here" on current RfAs for Ikiroid, Firsfron, ERcheck, Wickethewok, Pegasus1138, and "Discuss here" for WAvegetarian, Yanksox, CheNuevara? Tyrenius 03:35, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Probably someone changed the wording on the template from discuss to vote. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 03:37, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

The template was changed.....there's a big debate about it (see above on this talkpage). Basically, you should choose a side and give a variety of good reasons. But supports are often one-word posts because theoretically one should assume good faith unless there is a good reason. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 03:40, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Specifically this is the diff where the change was made. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 03:41, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

So W.marsh has decided we're officially voting instead of discussing? Do we have a reason for this, let alone a consensus? Tyrenius 03:53, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I still think we should use "!vote" officially. :-) --Deathphoenix ʕ 05:02, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Just because all the cool admin candidates are doing it....I rather like "opine" as the verb describing the giving of one's opinion. This is what mine used to say.—WAvegetarian•(talk) 06:17, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I can't see why everyone wants to call everything votes on wikipedia - to me it's always been providing a recommendation not a vote. MLA 06:38, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I prefer discuss to vote. Alternatively Express your opinion. Stephen B Streater 11:57, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Anons may not vote in RfAs, but they may discuss and are welcome to express their opinions. It is hard to formulate this distinction if we use the same word for everything. Kusma (討論) 12:34, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Using words like "discuss" or "express your opinion" has led to confusion in the RfA headers and instructions before. While I am against political correctness in general, I do like the "suggest" or "recommend" words, similar to what's currently being used at AfD. This has the additional benefit that suggest or recommend is a clear action, differentiating it from "comment". This lead to confusion in various versions of the RfA headers stating that all users (including anonymous users) are allowed to comment, while only registered users are allowed to discuss/express your opinion/comment. Voting, !voting, suggesting, or recommending are clearly different verbs to commenting. --Deathphoenix ʕ 14:26, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Why don't we just say Build Consensus or something, since that's what RfA is about, last I checked.--digital_m e^{(Talk•Contribs)} 17:59, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

So we click on a link to "Build consensus", and all users are allowed to comment, while only registered users are allowed to build consensus? Sounds confusing. --Deathphoenix ʕ 18:13, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Meh. "Discuss here" seemed to be fine..."Express your opinion here" is slightly wordier, but more permissive. -- nae'blis 18:48, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

(unindent) It is the practice to strike IP comments anyway. Tyrenius 20:51, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I darn well hope not! Kim Bruning 11:21, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Spirit of RFA

I'll admit that I'm somewhat biased after going through so many RFA's but I honestly believe that people have lost track of the spirit of RFA which is to give adminship to those who would be trusted with the tools, it has now become nothing but a political contest mixed with drive by voting from people who don't give a damn about the candidate's merits and only vote on the previous votes. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 18:41, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm waiting for the first "Oppose too few portal talk edits". :-) — Deckill e r 18:48, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

There's already been an "Oppose too few help space edits".--Firsfron of Ronchester 18:55, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Laugh if you want but I'm dead serious, we already have a bunch of admins who won't do the job as shown by the stats presented in the above threads and by the time anyone gets admin nowadays due to people's high standards they're at the end of their Wiki-work and are about to leave the project anyway. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 18:50, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. RfA candidates spend months tailoring their edits that by the time they get the tools, they are burnt out. Furthermore, the process alone turns the new admins off, since they're afraid to even bother doing admin work due to the "high expectations". Expectations should be reasonable, attainable, and good enough to prove that the user is professional and trusted enough with the tools. — Deckill e r 18:53, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Not everyone votes the same way. Most of the criteria I use have nothing to do with "who can be trusted with the tools" mentality. I like to see good knowledge of the workings of wikipedia. I like to see someone who has proven they can interact contructively with other editors to help reach a consensus. I like to see users who are constantly improving content as well as house keeping type roles. I have to say i really do not like to see people popping up again and again in RfA without any real lapse of time to deal with previous criticism. If admin ship really is no big deal then just give everyone with 3000 edits the tools and remove them if disruptive behaviour becomes a problem. Until that day people will always vote based on their check list of many criteria. David D. (Talk) 18:52, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

The issue nowadays is people aren't even checking against their criteria, they're just looking for 5 seconds at the RFA, they see a single oppose vote for whatever reason and they oppose then the floodgates are opened. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 19:02, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

A well worded defense, that is not too defensive, would probably make people switch votes, if there really were no merit to their oppose votes. I know I have often switched votes based on discussions in the RfA itself. But this is usually when the candidate does a great job of representing their case to their critics. An example of a less than impressive response would be when an opposer suggests that the candidate has come back too soon since the end of the last RfA in June (let's assume it ended in early June) and the defense is along the lines of actually my last RfA started in April. David D. (Talk) 19:16, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

The only real good thing that can come out of this is that new users look up to admins. Admins should take advantage of this by guiding new users along the right path, and by acting professional and civil. That's how I see it. — Deckill e r 19:07, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
- And then non-admins get treated like crud. When a "vandal" finds out I'm not an admin, it turns from "I know better than you!", to "You don't have the right to warn me!". Yeah, fab. Highway ^{Return to Oz...} 19:44, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
  - Our dealing with vandals and trolls is a big problem here. When an admin deals appropriately sternly with a troll, the troll puts on a full court press to defame the admin and too many in the community go along with the phony accusations. Good admins and good users need to work together, admins can't protect good users if they know they will be hung out to dry. But wait, what does that have to do with RfA.... a lot actually. NoSeptember 20:24, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
    - Adminship is just horrid. I really want to go up, but everyone is smart enough to not nominate me, and I can't even answer the questions in "the right tone". I wantto update DYK, and help the community, but it isn't going to happen. H ig hway ^{Return to Oz...} 20:29, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Back to the title - spirit of RfA. Wikipedia works best when we work as a team. As I see it, all good editors who want to are are capable of working on this team should be Admins. RfA is the rite of passage. Many of the statistics quoted in RfAs are not good indictation of Admin potential. One exception might be edit summaries, as edit summaries are an ultruistic way of helping other editors. Some candidates who have demonstrated team ability are still excluded because of current "low" edit counts. This just delays their Admin experience. Stephen B Streater 23:01, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

It only takes one bad admin to cause serious trouble. RFA in my opinion is the best way to weed out trouble before it happens. --Masssiveego 08:14, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Pegasus1138

Pegasus1138 (talk · contribs) appears to be leaving Wikipedia (deleted userpage, deleted talk page, etc, etc). I originally removed the nomination for the user, but reverted as I didn't want to step on the bureaucrats toes (after all, we all though HolyRomanEmperor was dead, but left it there for several hours). What should be done? -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 19:31, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Remove it, burn it, be done with it, smite it I don't really give a flying fuck atm what you do with it. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 19:36, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

To be quite blunt, you're really only proving the point that RfA usually does work. Having a temper tantrum when your RfA is going poorly isn't a sign of a good admin candidate. Aren't I Obscure? 19:41, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

See what i wrote below. Seriously, you could easily have got promoted with strong arguments. Instead we get this? David D. (Talk) 19:43, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

There is a chance s/he may come back so I would do nothing and let it run its course. Problem now is that such behaviour will torpedo any chance the RfA may have had. It's a shame, since with well reasoned arguments and diffs i suspect s/he could have changed turned the tide. David D. (Talk) 19:40, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I have withdrawn my nom so people won't even have a chance to jump on this, I am also going to be unsetting my email address. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 19:45, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Don't you think this reaction is a little extreme considering that non of the criticim in your RfA was particularly harsh? If you decide to come back, and i hope you do, consider that people respond well to reasoned arguments. Your actions here, on the other hand could turn people off for a long time. David D. (Talk) 19:49, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I can definitely sympathise that getting opposed can cause stress, but the oppose votes here were fairly benign, and in my opinion, your responses to them were polite and commendable. It seemed that either you could have gotten the opposers to turn around, could have gotten enough supporters to overcome the opposers, or would have gotten adminship in a fifth nomination if it's not too soon after the fourth. Please reconsider your actions, it's okay to be hurt because of your RfA, but leaving when you're hurt isn't the best way of dealing with it. --Deathphoenix ʕ 20:21, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Getting opposed in your RfA is extremely stressful. Lets be understanding here. He was a good editor, he can start out from the beginning and I hope to see his contributions in the future, from whatever name he chooses. --mboverload @ 20:37, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

In this situation, "from whatever name he chooses" is the best we can hope for. --Deathphoenix ʕ 20:39, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

So peg, it was nice knowing you. I'm sure I'll come across you again =D --mboverload @ 20:52, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

My failed RFA

I nominated myself for adminship and withdrew after several Opposes. Can someone helpful here give me an idea of what I need to accomplish here to succeed an RFA? Thanks, JPotter 21:03, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Standards vary and are often disputed, but generally most voters/discussers (see above) look for >1000 edits (as a bare minimum), significant WP space involvement (shows knowledge of policy), and a good record (e.g. no blocks). It helps to have been involved heavily within the past several months and to involve yourself in the community.

Don't get disheartened though. Look at this as an opportunity to receive some constructive criticism and suggestions. αChimp ^laudare 21:14, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

My general advice is as follows. Bear in mind this is just my personal opinion and doesn't reflect what anyone else thinks:

Get a solid number of edits under your belt, say at least 2500, preferably twice that. This allows editors to see you react to a wide range of situations
You should be active for at least 4 months before you apply for your RfA. Some editors like to see a longer timespan. Again, as you spend more time here you see more of the kinds of situations an admin will have to face, making it easier for us to decide if you will handle the tools well in the future
Get involved with Recent Changes Patrolling. This will give you lots of opportunity to learn policy and demonstrate that you know how it applies
Read, think about and comment on article for deletion debates. Don't be afraid to express contrary opinions where appropriate and where you can back your opinions up with policy. Again this gives you good practice in the sorts of work an admin will do.
Read, think about and comment on other RfA debates. Similar to the above, plus it gives you an idea of what editors are looking for and what they don't want to see in a good RfA candidate
Communicate with other editors (admins and non-admins) on article and user talk pages. Demonstrate that you can remain calm and civil even when faced with people who are not. This is an important quality for a future admin.
Keep adding to Wikipedia articles in big ways and small, because ultimately we are here to build an encyclopedia

These things allow you to learn policy, learn how to apply it and demonstrate to others that you can be trusted with more responsibility. Good luck, Gwernol 21:20, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

The above is very sound advice. Speaking for myself, I'd be looking for all these things, but moreover, I'd be more likely to support someone's adminship if I had seen them around. I'll be looking out for you from now on. Deb 21:42, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Asking for 5000 edits (double of 2500) is an overkill I would think. Everything else sounds as good advice. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:56, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Its just my opinion. I'd originally started considering an RfA when I passed 2500 edits. I'm glad I waited (I had around 7500 when I finally accepted a nom, I think). I learnt a lot about policy and good interactions in between. I know I'm a better admin now than I would have been at 2500 edits. I certainly wouldn't oppose a candidate with 2500 edits but it comes down to this: do you want adminship at the earliest possible opportunity, or do you want to be a good admin? Those are very different things. Gwernol 22:11, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

And it'll build up in no time, I racked up 5000 edits since my last RfA. Which shocked me. Just keep doing the good deed and you'll be ready. H ig hway ^{Return to Oz...} 22:13, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

According to Durin's charts, the general "magic number" of edits for adminship is around 2000. Above that, the success rate of candidates levels off, and actually starts going down slowly once you get above around 7000. (Presumably, this is because a small percentage of high-edit-count candidates are people who have some issue that's kept them from adminship in the past.) I suspect that while there are some people who might draw a line somewhere above 2000 in order to support, there is virtually nobody who will oppose solely over edit counts once that general number has been reached and, as a result, raw edit counts cease to be a major factor in RfAs at a little over 2000 edits. From 1000 to 2000, you get about a fifty percent success rate, and below there you can usually forget it. --Aquillion 01:30, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Polls are evil

Someone cited m:Polls are evil today, and in re-reading that essay, it occurs to me that it describes the RfA of today. People are complaining that there's too much groupthink, that it encourages a raw count over consensus, or the opinions of the person who closes it over consensus, and even this gem:

When the vote is strongly unbalanced, those on the "losing" side feel marginalized, and those on the "winning" side will sometimes feel as though the results of the poll give them license to do as they wish without taking into account the views of the minority, though nothing has been resolved.

It just occurs to me that this essay is talking about RfA as we have it set up today. And contrary to apparently popular belief, changing the word "vote" to "discuss" doesn't improve anything. In fact it makes it even more confusing to newcomers. In general, the idea that we can just fix RfA by making the wording politically correct is counterproductive. --W.marsh 02:26, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree with what you say, but I take it in a different direction. Encouraging the vote aspect while at the same time disagreeing with it strays close to WP:POINT, in that you are trying to push the discussions so far that way in order for it to break down to illustrate your own view. It's akin to allowing unliscensed, non-seasonal hunts in order to show why there should be wildlife management. I've once again changed vote to discuss, and hope we can work out something here. -M^ask

05:49, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

No, this is not WP:POINT... I am not like that. Like I've said, simply calling it a discussion to be politically correct and still treating it like a vote/poll is much worse than simply calling it a poll. There's this attitude that if we bury our head in the sand that there won't be a problem, and I admit that if I was just trying to rub the problem in everyone's face, it would be WP:POINT. But like I've said elsewhere on this page, with 100+ people commenting, any reading of consensus that ignores the raw numbers is going to be hopelessly subjective, and people who get their opinion ignored are going to feel marginalized. I really see this "it's not a vote, but it is" doublespeak as being at the root of a lot of the frustrations with RfA.

Polls may have been evil when we had 5 people commenting in every RfA... but we don't have that luxury any more. And changing the wording around doesn't make it 2003 again, it makes it 2006 with a system that denies what it is, and frustrates a lot of people because of that. Also I point out that we had the "vote" wording for a long time, and though other factors were at play, it seems like those days are the ones people point to as when RfA wasn't nearly as venemous as it is now. --W.marsh 13:26, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

It's not a vote, period. Simply by drawing a couple of people into discussion you can often shift consensus around a bit. I wasn't even doing anything at the CheNuevra RFA, just requesting further information from certain people. Can you imagine what would happen if people actually try to ... hold a discussion? ;-) (And yes, it's entirely permitted, it's not rude, and have fun with it! :-) Kim Bruning 13:56, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

RfA is a discussion, we should never lose sight of that, but it's also closed basically with a head count. We can emphasize the discussion elements, having a 2-3 day discussion period before the vote seems like a good way to discourage the "herd mentality" we see so often in RfA, for example, and also prevents stubborn early voters from locking themselves into a vote they don't end up agreeing with, or checking back to see. But this attitude that we're just interpreting consensus, and no voting at all is going on... that's patronizing to people who fail. They failed because they didn't get enough votes... which is probably a consequence of the quality of debate, but not always. --W.marsh 14:02, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually that just shows that RfA has gotten screwed up, because people haven't been paying attention. It's supposed to be a hybrid discussion / poll. Once roughly everyone agrees (called rough consensus? ;-) ) to promote, the bureaucrat proceeds to do so. Hence the odd percentages that people observed and then somehow thought was a rule.Kim Bruning 16:40, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

The issue of polls is tricky and contentious. My view on it is this: the outcome of an RFA (or AFD, or whatever) is not supposed to represent what the closer thinks is common-sense, reasonable, etc. It is supposed to reflect what the community thinks, because bureaucrats (and admins) are supposed to have no additional authority, only additional power. To gauge what the community thinks, we'd ideally want a real poll, with only a random cross-section of Wikipedians (skewed if you like, perhaps by picking registered-user edits off RC at random) "voting". As we have it now, the system is very susceptible to vote-stacking — a while back I observed an RFA where I basically had proof positive that someone waged an e-mail campaign to influence the outcome, and quite possibly succeeded.

So anyway. I would say that ideally the closing bureaucrat should, based on the poll, estimate the level of community support (not just voter support) for the adminship, and close it accordingly. Given the difficulty of distinguishing between the community and the voters under the present system, the current rules used by bureaucrats are sound. Votes should absolutely not be discounted just because they "don't present a valid reason" or the like — the closer may not agree with the reason, but that doesn't make it invalid.

Of course, none of this is meant to dis discussion. I think a few days of pre-vote discussion are a good idea. But the final say should rest with the community, not the bureaucrat. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 04:33, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean by the last sentence, that the bureaucrat cannot apply discretion and must instead count !votes made by the community, that any member of the community can decide whether the candidate becomes an admin, or something else? --Deathphoenix ʕ 04:53, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

That the bureaucrat should basically just count votes, not use discretion (the conventional system of discretion in the narrow band between 75 and 80% is fine). The community is what should have discretion, not the individual bureaucrat who happens to close the vote. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:09, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Section Breaks

I know it has been practice to not have section headings in RfA nomination subpages for some time. However with the very high volume of traffic on User:Phaedriel's RfA (including at least two enthusiastic and unauthorised co nominations) I decided to put section breaks in... this of course unbalanced the table of contents in the main WP:RFA page, which User:Hoopydink and I discussed. We decided to change all of the current RfAs to see how they look with section headings in. If this change is acceptable the template that is used to generate a new nom can be changed, and if not, well, it's a wiki. The pages look cleaner (I chose level 5 section heads for no particular reason other than to keep them well below any page level stuff) and I think it really does cut down on edit conflicts... the downside is that the WP:RFA table of contents is massive unless something else is done to suppress it. Comments? ++Lar: t/c 06:17, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

To echo what Lar mentioned, the section breaks allow for less edit conflicts and are quite useful. We thought it best to add section breaks into all of the current RfA's so as not to skew the contents section. Again, the section breaks do make the table of contents at least seven times larger, so I can see how that might be an issue. I suppose we'll just have to determine which is the lesser of two evils; edit conflicts or a ginormous table of contents. hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 06:24, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Note I think there are templates that can limit a TOC to just the first two levels but I don't offhand recall which ones... that's a possible fix I think. Unless I'm misremembering. And thanks again H for your help! ++Lar: t/c 06:27, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Just a note: if you were to cast your opinion in an RfA using section editing, two edits would be required -- one under the appropriate section and one to touch the tally. ~ PseudoSudo 06:39, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I noticed that - kind of annoying, and easy to forget to do. I'm sure time will fix that. As for the change in principle, I don't like how it displays, but that might be a small price to pay for the improvements. The advantage is exactly what is set out above (it was much easier to find the last entry on the list!), but the TOC box is way too long. Again, time to get used to it may be all that is necessary. It may need some test driving, but looks like a good idea in principle. Agent 86 07:28, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Well you killed the RfA Bot which is also on the B's noticeboard. Now the B's can't view the support percentage of any that need to be closed.--Andeh 07:53, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I am sure that the owners of the bots will be able to program their bots to recognise the new format (hopefully with not too much work). DarthVad e r 08:03, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it might be because of the format of this discussion, but I didn't kill the bot - I wasn't the one who made the change. I was just commenting with my initial reaction to the change. That said, I noticed afterwards that the change killed the bots (or maybe it was Sarah Connor). I was willing to test the practicality of the change and try not to be resistant to change, but when I noticed this side affect my opinion was swayed. Moot point now that the change has been un-done. Agent 86 17:17, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I definitely prefer the old format; the TOC looks terrible. And to be honest, if I have to make an additional edit to update the tally, then I'd rather just leave it and let someone else update it. — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:12, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree, just from a reader's perspective the TOC is very hard to read now and it's a chore to scroll down through each nom, also even though I haven't added a vote/opinion since the change I imagine per the comments above that it wouldn't be much easier. Thygard - Talk - Contribs - Email ---- 08:23, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I prefer the new format as downloading and uploading entire RfAs on my phone to edit takes ages. However, I think the bot people should have been consulted before the change. PS Perhaps the bots could put the totals in automatically, and then we wouldn't need loads of "update tally"edits. Stephen B Streater 08:25, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, on Phaedriel's RFA, you request people not remove the section headings to avoid edit conflicts and such. I cannot see how this will have a significant impact on edit conflicts, given that she has 68 or so supports and no neutrals or opposes. Furthermore, is it necessary for each nomination to have a separate heading? That seems to bloat the TOC further without purpose. And this is just sad. Please change it back until you can develop methods to overcome these difficulties (bloated table of contents, breaking bot summaries, etc.). — Knowledge Seeker দ 09:18, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Seconded. I don't see it make much difference in the amount of edit conflicts, and I don't think having to scroll to look at a table of contents is a good idea. I appreciate that it might be easier to navigate on a phone this way, but to be honest, I think the amount of people using a phone to vote on RFAs is too small to be of a large concern for the layout :) --Joanne B 09:37, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Now we know why ;-) Stephen B Streater 09:59, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

The new section breaks are long overdue. Thanks to Lar for doing it. At least please let's give it a try for some time now (two weeks at least). --Ligulem 09:44, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I know we have WP:BOLD and everything, but I would have preferred if we (Dragons flight, possibly Oleg Alexandrov, and I) were notified before this change. There have been several instances of this kind of thing happening over the past few months, and it isn't very nice to open my e-mail client and discover several error messages waiting in my inbox. It would be courteous if people contemplating changes could provide a test case so that we can calibrate our bots before the actual changeover. (P.S.: Tangobot and the toolserver tool now support the new format - or rather, formats, as some RfAs seem to use ====, others =====). Cheers, Tangot a ngo 09:56, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

This apparently was just suddenly decided and the urgent reason for it is some "high volume" of support and co-nominations, neither of which are affected by this change: edit conflicts in the support subsection aren't resolved by this, and co-nominations are rather static, if a change to facilitate 6 of them would be needed anyway. This is a null justification. —Centrx→talk • 10:32, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to hear a few more opinions but it seems that the consensus so far seems to be tending towards this not being a good idea... I introduced the problem so I'll change it back if it becomes clear, just not right this second. ++Lar: t/c 10:43, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

It's a bad idea. As someone else mentioned, this doesn't affect Phaedriel's RfA since it's nearly unanimous right now. Instead it just makes the table of contents longer, messes up some of the RfA counters, and allows people to easily forget to manually update the counter. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 10:46, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Tariqabjotu. This sort of change should have been discussed before it was made. While WP:BOLD is great and all, the fact that a number of widely-used tools and bots are now broken and that tally updating is harder alone are enough to have warranted a discussion beforehand. Gwernol 10:49, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Eh...well...hrm...nuts... I didn't even think of the bot issues and as such, didn't take any measures to alert them of any possible changes or updates. Apologies all around. I thought the only issue would be edit conflicts against a big table of contents. As I'm fairly certain Lar is asleep at the moment, I'll go ahead and revert the format back to the "original" version for now and perhaps we can continue discussion on a possible format change. I imagine the bots aren't really broken and will be interpreting the information correctly as soon as the section breaks are removed. I'll just have to chalk this up to being a bit too bold on my (and potentially Lar's) part (It is a wiki, after all!). Again, I apologise for any harm our addition of section breaks may have caused hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 11:15, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Request, will the users whom added the additional headings please revert it back. Not only will the Bureaucrats want their bot working again to review the current noms, but making such drastic changes to the entire RfA page without discussing it on the talk page is quite out of the ordinary. Yes, Phaedrial may be a special user, but did we really have to edit the entire RfA page to suit her RfA needs?.. --Andeh 11:29, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Looks like someone did it whilst I was writing that.--Andeh 11:30, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Hoopydink and I changed it back (mostly Hoopydink, he's fast!) I'd like to continue discussion though, I think the idea has merit...++Lar: t/c 11:33, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Lets see if the bot updates properly and the percentages return.--Andeh 11:36, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Yep it's fixed.--Andeh 11:36, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Quite ironically, I was just edit conflicted! :) Here is my message:

Yep, Lar and I started reverting ourselves just after I posted. Again, we hadn't anticipated any bot problems and didn't think what we were doing was at all drastic. We simply thought it would be a helpful formatting tweak. We now know that any tweaking with the RfA template could send the bots off-kilter. We did anticipate the table of contents issue and perhaps at some point we can minimize that. The issue wasn't really with Phaedriel as a user per se, just to point out. The issue was with a high-volume nomination. Other nominations have been quite high volume as well, but Phaedriel's case is what brought the issue to Lar's attention and then to mine. If you'll look at the edit history, I actually reverted Lar due to the inconsistency in the table of contents. We then discussed the matter and felt that section breaks were a good idea (and obviously if one nomination had a certain formatting, we would have to implement uniformity across the board). I hope this clears things up, and all of the nominations are back to "normal". Once again, apologies to anyone who was put out as a result of our adding section breaks (I do hope to revisit this idea if we can get the bot and table of contents issues correct first). hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 11:46, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

A noble effort at improvement, but perhaps too hasty without prior discussion. Thanks for reverting. I use the output from Dragons flight RfA summary bot, so it's nice to get that back working again. Section breaks are a good idea in principle, but I think the pro's are heavily outweighed by the con's. The bot issue can obviously be worked around, and the edit window is more compact because of the sections. However, the reduced risk of an edit conflict as a result of the section breaks is minimal IMHO. The massive increase in the TOC length is horrendous, and an extra edit is required to update the tally unless not editing within sections (in which case the small benifit has already been lost). --Cactus.man ✍ 12:11, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, it seemed the thing to do at the time! (hey, I think it was 2:30 in the morning for me, what can I say). Note of course that as soon as it became clear there wasn't consensus we cheerfully and speedily changed it back, no long drawn out warfare about it, or making other people clean up the mess we made. I think that there is a way to fix the ToC bloat problem, I just have to do research on it. The extra edit to fix the tally doesn't strike me as a problem, actually... a small edit gets done faster and with less conflict than a bigger one. Those seem like the major two objections (other than Bot changes... Tango says his already can handle both versions) ++Lar: t/c 13:37, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, so now what?

My RFA ended at no consensus......I am confused about........

Spamming. It's good manners to do so, but it's technically against policy and the RFA failed, so there isn't much to celebrate. Still, I appreciate everyone who took the time to support/oppose, I just don't want to be chastised for sending thank-you notes. I am in a conflict about what to do here. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 22:11, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Reapplying. I don't plan to re-apply until I have at least 1500 article edits, but other than that, how long should I wait? Two months? Three? Four? Pegasus1138 was criticized for having an RFA about 6 weeks after their last failed one, so I'd like some input. Does it make a difference that the RFA was "no consensus" instead of "fail"? The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 22:11, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

As far as my personal opinion goes, I would thank people by "spamming" and wait about 2-3 months before applying for adminship again. Most people (myself included) think that users are too anxious to become an admin if they try again sooner. —Mets501 (talk) 22:18, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Here's my 2 cents, worth nothing more. I haven't seen anyone get chastized for leaving thank you comments after failed or successful RfAs, but it is indeed against policy. I would avoid doing it. As for re-applying, I would wait 3 months and continue the good work you've been doing. I'd also consider getting another 2500 edits; don't forget more is better. Three months will pass sooner than you expect and its not hard to rack up 2500 edits in that time. Adminship is definitely a mixed blessing, so enjoy this time before you become one. All RfAs end as "Consensus" or "No consensus" (unless withdrawn early) but yours had a lot of support and most of the opposes were asking for more experience. to edit articles, comment on AfDs and RfAs and I expect you'll do well next time. Good luck, Gwernol 22:27, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

And here are my 2 cents... if you leave a rubberstamp templatised thank you with the same thing in every one, more people will be annoyed than if you paste in markup and put some thought into what you say to each commenter... in my collection of comments you can tell who templatised and who didn't because a lot of them say "dear Lar/RFA 1" Don't do that. ++Lar: t/c 22:32, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

As Lar/RFA 1 says, personalization is the best way to go, especially to those who actually gave you advice or reasons for their votes. NoSeptember 22:47, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

(to original poster, edit conflict)Aside the from already solid base you've outlined above, consider finding a respected user who is active in the RfA process and ask them to mentor you. Once you've met your personal goals you've outlined above, visit someone like Durin who has demonstrated both high standards and who has publicly announced that they will provide guidance. I use Durin as an example because you will find his stringent standards extensively documented (versus those who simply announce their standards piecemeal, usually while opposing an RfA). There are, of course, other editors who have done this as well. The more of a 'hardass' they are, the better your chances of being accepted become after you meet their approval.

This aside, you may also wish to examine your motivations. Adminship is not a status symbol, it's a license to work. Much of what an admin does is unthanked and unnoticed by all. You do not need to be an admin to do 99.9% of what makes WP great. Know what you're getting into. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 22:37, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I realize adminship is not anything of influence and status--there are easier ways to attain that on wikipedia. Normal users can participate in things like ANI and AFDs where a lot of influence is thrown around. My reason for applying for adminship was to basically say, "Hey, adminship is no big deal, I wanna clean some backlogs and help out, but I don't want it to affect my character." For instance, deleting an unlikely redirect after an article has been moved, removing obvious speedy deletion canidates from Special:Newpages......perhaps I won't be an uberadmin, but at least I'll help (considering the various long lists of admins who haven't done anything in the realm of deletes, blocks, and protects). But I want the community to be comfortable with me before I recieve a mop. There is no malicious power trip hidden in the depths of my soul, as there seems to be in certain RFA canidates. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 22:51, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry too much about thanking people - it says not to in the RfA instructions, but almost everyone seems to, and I've never heard of anyone getting in trouble over it. (I looked, actually, a while ago, and that part about not leaving thank-you notes was added by a single user, and never discussed that I could find, so I wouldn't really call it against policy. -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 23:01, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
- If it was only added by one user and reflects neither actual practice nor general consensus, perhaps it should be removed, or at least worded down a little bit? --Aquillion 01:06, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Random question

Who may vote: Any Wikipedian with an account is welcome to vote, including the nominator. Who may not vote: Editors who do not have an account and/or are not logged in ("anons"). Votes of very new editors may be discounted if there is suspicion of fraud such as sockpuppetry. Voting on one's own nomination is not allowed and will not be counted by the closing bureaucrat.

Shouldn't RfAs be sprotected, then? — Deckill e r 00:02, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe anons and new users are allowed to participate in the discussion even if they can't !vote. -- Steel 00:06, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

No, anons may not participate, but new users can, although their recommendations "may be discounted if there is suspicion of fraud..." (emphasis mine). Semi-protecting by default would run counter to this since it would bar both anon IPs and new users. It might be worth discussing changing that, but until we have, semi-protecttion should not be applied by default. Gwernol 00:10, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea to encourage at least somewhat established editors, and not new users. I mean, let's face it. This is a request for adminship; community consensus and all. New users do not understand the concepts and the necessities (and, if they do, then they are sockpuppets). It's obvious that most cases of this are bad faith; a large enough of a majority to afford changing this rule to conform to sprotect. But that's a discussion for a different heading :) — Deckill e r 00:12, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Surely if the anon raises some valuable points (like a diff to where the candidate moved a page to "... on wheels"), you can't ask people to ignore that on the basis that it was an anon who brought it up? -- Steel 00:14, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Anonymous users, like everyone else, are allowed to comment in the appropriate section; for this reason sprotect is not an option. Rje 00:15, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Leaving all these issues apart, semi-protection is not done because it is against the very spirit of Wikipedia. Semi-protection is only done to stop further damages to any page because of repetetive vandalism/trolling. It is a "last resort", not a pre-emptive measure. See the policy page for details. — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 16:08, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Phaedriel's RfA not parsing correctly in report

I think it may be because the neutral section was not bolded, so I fixed that, but I won't know if that solved it for another 15 minutes, and my 2nd guess is that there's a whole "nominations" section that the bot isn't expecting. Someone who knows how it works may want to make sure it'll be ok for the next update. -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 01:48, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it is the strange formatting caused by the "co-nom"s? Jkelly 01:58, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, no one else changed any formatting since my neutral bolding, and it's working now, so I guess that was it. -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 02:36, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Indeed... Michael 06:41, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

One of the best times

For a first time visitor to the RfA page, it would look like the process is very easy. As of now, there are five candidates, all above 90% support. Also, apart from User:Wickethewok, the others have 97%+ support. This would look like a good time for aspirants to join in and "make hay while the sun shines". Ever since the summary creation started, I don't remember seeing such a good scenario. — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 16:14, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Either it's the self-correction of standards mentioned above, or these five candidates are that much better than recent groupings. I'm inclined to think the former, with no offense intended toward our current crop of nominees. :) -- nae'blis 17:47, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

...and you get to discuss here, vote here, and voice your opinion! all on one page. This truly is a historic moment. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 20:18, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

It seems like RfA's are now falling into two distinct groups: a) the ridiculously qualified and b) the ridiculously unqualified. The latter group is simply getting removed, whether on their own or by beurocrat (sp). That's probably a large reason behind the huge percentages on this page. alphaChimp ^laudare 20:29, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps the recent high qualification levels mean only the most experienced and innocent will risk the gauntlet. Stephen B Streater 22:20, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Indeed...And if such is the case, it is likely that people would be more critical of those who may not be as experienced as some other users. Michael 01:21, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, several people have withdrawn their nominations lately, so on further reflection it may not be that we've recalibrated our standards for approval, just our standards for letting your RfA run to completion. I'm not sure that's such a good thing... -- nae'blis 01:26, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that could prove problematic. In that case, one could re-submit him or herself a great number of times, withdrawing if the votes do not go in his or her favor, and then, he or she has the right to re-submit without the burden of having been rejected once or twice in the past. Michael 01:29, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I can immediately think of a few recent attempts where the candidate was neither highly qualified nor highly unqualified. One is me, one is Werdna648. Another is Badlydrawnjeff, still another is Sean Black. All but the last closed with supermajorities insufficient to promote, the last also closed a bit under the usual standard but was promoted. At this precise moment we do happen to mostly have landslides open, certainly.

It would be interesting to see how the distribution varied with time: how many clear winners, how many clear losers, how many with really no consensus. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:49, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

New RfA template makes parsing think supports are opposes

Not much else to say. Sorry if I'm missing discussion on this somewhere else. -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 00:45, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

There was no discussion. Michael 04:12, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

That's not entirely true. It was discussed a month ago: Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 60#Moving around stuff in RfA. Dragons flight 05:51, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, if you refer to the below discussion, not many people saw this. Michael 08:44, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I did indeed see that discussion, but wasn't expecting sudden implementation a month later. Anyway, my bot is fixed. Cheers, Tangot a ngo 09:30, 31 July 2006 (UTC)