Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 73

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Reform Plan?

I'd just like to present the ideas discussed above as a unified proposal to discuss together:

Proposed changes

An RfA starts with a 3-day "interview and discussion phase." Any editor is free to ask questions to the nominee, who is advised to answer as many as he/she feels comfortable doing.
After 3 days, a 4-day "opinion phase" will allow editors to give a final opinion on whether the nominee should be granted tools.

Benefits

Increased emphasis on discussion of important topics related to adminship between nominee and community.
More information is provided on a nominee's attitude and knowledgeability, helping more editors make sober, informed decisions.
The importance/impact of voting trends is significantly reduced to a level where there could emerge a consensus-building process, which is a suitable balance between discussion and voting.
Allows a nominee to address any misunderstandings, generalizations or complicated issues without the pressure of an on-going vote.
Does not create complicated by-processes, criteria or restrictions.
Does not elongate the overall duration beyond the usual 7 days.
If the process starts with discussions and delays the voting, it may discourage editors who are not interested in the nomination from just plunking down a vote without thinking.
Reduces the hype and tension of the first hour, in which an RfA will build a mountain of supports or crippling objects.
In a condensed 4-day voting period, the bureaucrats can keep a more efficient watch over potential abuses and violations by editors.
Gives bureaucrats more information and 2 independent stages to keep an RfA smoothly running, make a consensus call and keep out malicious elements.

Possible problems

Interview phase might be trying for the nominee.
Editors may ask trick questions, questions not associated to adminship or on controversial topics to jeopardize the nomination.
Nominee may feel pressure to answer every question, including those not pertinent to adminship.
May impede the closure of nominations that would usually fail and be closed under WP:SNOW.

Suitable adjustments

Bureaucrats will be required to pay closer attention to individual RfAs to make sure that the discussion phase is civil and productive, and to expose/stop anyone from placing questions that are unsuitable as judged by WP:CIVIL, WP:POINT and WP:NPOV — the latter may help protect the independent opinions of the nominee and other editors on sensitive topics.
Bureaucrats will be free to extend the discussion phase by 1 day if requested by nominee, an editor with a question and/or the nominator.
This 2-stage process can be optional - if nominee/nominator choose to, they can fill in a RfA nomination page that is customized for 2-stages.

Rama's arrow 04:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

I'd like to say that we should discuss WP:NPOV as a way to protect the integrity of Wikipedia processes and those who serve it. I'm just throwing this concept up for discussion - dunno how good it is. Rama's arrow 04:39, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Btw, its fine with me if someone wants to take a straw poll on this. I don't know if we're there yet, but its quite a straightforward plan. Rama's arrow 04:44, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

While a 3-day discussion phase is fine, a 4-day opinion period is too short. Why not keep the second phase at 7 days (5-7 is fine) and lengthen RfA to 10 days or around (8-10)? --²¹⁰physicq (c) 04:46, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

That is also an option. However, bear in mind that many RfAs today are kinda "set" within 2-3 days. Rama's arrow 04:48, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

It's an interesting (and much more professional) concept, and it gives b-crats more of a sense of empowerment, which we need them to have. — Deckill e r 04:51, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Since RFA is trying, I would not want to make the process longer. I have no objection to a discussion period first, but you have to think of what to do about people who ignore this and vote on the first day anyway (that's what happened the last couple of times someone tried a DFA rather than an RFA). >Radiant< 09:19, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
- We should make that grounds for blocking :-) — Deckill e r 11:41, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
  - Just like sarcasm is now a blockable offense? >Radiant< 11:55, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
- My personal preference is that we keep the process at 7 days and not elongate it (except by bureaucrat's discretion, which is already justified and often used). And yes, no user should be permitted to vote in the first 3 days. Rama's arrow 11:54, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
  - Often used? When, exactly? I've seen it used only two or three times and at least one of those elongations was very controversial. >Radiant< 11:55, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I know the intentions here are good, but I can't help but think this conversation has gone "Let's revive DFA." followed by, "No, let's not". Then, "Ok, let's identify what's wrong with RfA". Lastly, "Ok, DFA solves that". I don't think we're going to solve the problems of RfA through a couple of days worth of discussion. This is going to take a lot more work than that. --Durin 11:59, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

An interesting idea, but not without its problems. Its probably a better idea to just keep the voting at 7 days and change RfA to 10 days: there is really no disadvantage to that. If it doesn't usually take 7 days to reach consensus, that doesn't really matter: it'll just be another few days of waiting anyways. — Dark Shikari ^talk/_contribs 12:50, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

This notion is the failed DFA proposal. Why that isn't any good has been gone through at length. yet another section on this talk page with yet another presumptive title does not a) a consensu make b)a new idea create nor c)RfA improve. Think of something original, then try again. Also see further up where hardly anyone actually wants massive overhaul of RfA. You're swimming against the wrong tide wearing armbands that have already been deflated. -Splash - tk 12:57, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you Splash, for putting it so well. As I said at greater length above, this is a terrible set of ideas. Discussion already takes place at great enough length that RfA participants feel they have enough information to make a decision. If greater clarification is needed, additional questions have always been optional. I've added them, Joshuaz has added them, others have as well. (I still remember my surprise the time a candidate's answer to my question influenced a number of participants to !vote oppose.) Due diligence already requires a !voter to do homework checking a nom's contribs and then checking the RfA page to see if something new has come up. RfA does the necessary job with minimum effort. We do not need more WP:CREEP in RfA for no real benefit. Leave be.Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 13:22, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Although I strongly disagree with Splash and Dlohcierekim, I think Durin has a very valid point (very consistent) - we aren't pin-pointing the exact problem, so maybe a general re-ordering of the process will not be effective. This is hardly an overhaul (and I certainly don't see any WP:CREEP effect), but its true that its effectivity is debatable. Rama's arrow 13:37, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, telling people "you must not vote during the first three days, discuss only" is problematic. This is a complication of the RfA system we could well do without. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 14:52, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Then will someone please start that discussion on what the perceived/consensus problems are with RFA?? We've been asked for months, if not years, to identify them, and I tried above but got no traction. I don't know where to go from here, but the question of how to "fix" RfA isn't going to go away without empirical evidence that it's been fixed/wasn't broken to begin with. -- nae'blis 15:47, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

There was a discussion a couple of weeks ago, which was split to Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Defining the problems. It may be worth continuing it. --ais523 16:09, 18 October 2006 (U T C)

Unfortunately, splitting it off seems to have killed that discussion. I'm loathe to have it here, because it swamps the talk page, but I can't think of another centrally-located spot to do it, short of starting a new page and linking to it extensively from VP, etc. If the Wikipedia:WikiProject on Adminship had more traction, I'd consider starting a /Problems page there... -- nae'blis 14:27, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Whilst a continuing consideration of possible 'things' about RfA is useful, and a more rigorous approach then yet-another-diving-right-in-with-a-proposal section, I wonder perhaps if the reason for a lack of traction is eloquently expressed in the not-so-evil poll up top? -Splash - tk 19:55, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, all I can glean from the poll at the top is that people who visit WT:RFA don't think RFA is perfect. Surely that's not the perspective you were trying to point out; note that I've never been one of the scrap-it-all-and-start-over howling mob. The largest sections by far are "could stand improvement" and "does not always get the answer right (but neither might anything else)". Where does that lead you to believe people don't want to talk about change? Unless you're citing the silent majority.... -- nae'blis 20:06, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I mean that the two most popular sections are those that don't advocate a great deal of dissatisfaction with RfA. If there's not much dissatisfaction beyond "not perfect, not going to be" and "works ok, could stand improvement" (particularly note that reading the comments is insightful), then there's unlikely to be much effort put into convergence on perfection. There's not enough actual dissatisfaction to propel us toward any serious change, despite the regularly appearing sections here. Those sections just tend to appear when someone/someone's nominee's RfA is going in a way they'd prefer it not. So the other kind of silent majority, I guess: those who participate but do not generally complain about the process much. -Splash - tk 20:11, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Mmmmm. I can see what you mean, but disagree with the interpretation (which is okay, of course) of the posted results... also, see the Admin Accountability Poll for further discussion on the topic. It's almost like one of those perennial proposals you see on the Village Pump, and I'd like to find a way to cut the knot, but I'm probably just dreaming. I think WP has in some ways gotten too big for its systems, and the Wikipedia definition of "consensus" makes my teeth itch from time to time... don't mind me. :) -- nae'blis 21:27, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Qualified Adminship Voting

I've tried to come up with an RFA reform idea that does not:

Drown us in process
Make genuine opposition impossible
Make RFA intolerably long

The result was the rather badly named 'qualified adminship voting'. Basically, RFA would be a vote with a 70% threshold, but all the less meritous stuff (e.g. editcountitis, editsummaryitis, namespaceitis, timeitis) and accusations of misconduct without a supporting diff would be automatically discounted. That solves (what I think is) the main objection to having RFA as a vote - that a Support vote on the basis that the candidate had written 3 featured articles would be given 1/4 of the weight that a 'Only 99.5% edit summary usage' oppose votes gets. I'm not sure if anyone else thinks this is a good idea, so I haven't put it in WPspace yet - it's available at my sandbox and I'll move it to WPspace if people think it's worth discussing. Cynical 11:09, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

The fundamental problem with this approach is that it evaluates some people's metrics for adminship as being improper while ignoring others. Slippery slope; where do we stop adding in new, additional metrics that won't count as votes if people use them? Further, for every category of vote that you state as being improperly based, people will come up with another way of saying the same thing that circumvents the improperly based vote ban. For example, if you won't let John Doe vote on on the basis of editcountitis, namespaceitis, timeitis, editsummaryitis...John Doe could just as well say "Oppose: Not enough experience yet." You can't insist a diff be provided to support that; it's too inspecific. If you block the vote based on being too inspecific, you've just added another reason to the list of reasons to ban votes. Where do you stop? --Durin 12:52, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
- Not enough experience would come under timeitis, wouldn't it? I think I specifically mention 'length of time...' in the text anyway. I don't think there is much risk of a 'slippery slope' here as all of the 'excluded' vote types under this would be numeric-type votes. In other words, anything which is along the lines of 'this user only has X number of [measurement A] and my criteria say X+1' would be excluded, but anything else would be fine even if some or many people might question its relevance (e.g. lack of participation in a particular Patrol).Cynical 14:37, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
  - - What it sounds like you're saying is that inexperience is not a reason to oppose someone for adminship? Am I correct in interpreting you? --Durin 15:10, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
  - (edit conflict) There may be a worse problem with supressing votes of types you don't like. Clearly 'only has 9000 edits, too new' should be disregarded, but 'only has 50 edits, too new' is usually a reason to prevent a user becoming an admin (I remember two recent cases where a user with less than 500 edits has had over 50% support for a reasonable length of time; one was an admin on another project (I can't remember who it was) and the other was TawkerbotTorA, who had a good excuse). For very new users who haven't done anything wrong, it's hard to find grounds other than inexperience to oppose, but many people would consider the inexperience to be valid opposition grounds. --ais523 14:44, 19 October 2006 (U T C)

- - - Just FYI, you're probably thinking of either Walter or Amgine, though Walter was the one with less than 500 edits here on the English Wikipedia at the time of his RfA. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 03:07, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

A problem with that is that people with editcountitic tendencies might still vote in the way that they do, but not tell us (just go "oppose per <someone else>" instead of "oppose - lack of template edits"). You cannot objectively determine who has or has not a valid reason to support. >Radiant< 14:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Forgot to mention, the proposal does have basic editcount and length of time requirements built in - it would require candidates to have 1000 edits and 3 months experience prior to applying. This avoids the stupid requirements we have now, but without the sort of problems suggested by Durin. Note: I've moved this to namespace to give it a better opportunity for discussion. You can find the actual text of the proposal at Wikipedia:Qualified adminship voting or WP:QAV. Cynical 18:35, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
- What is stupid about the requirements we have now? Durin's "...in review" pages suggested that edit count 'requirements' had not substantially risen; even if they have gone up slightly over time this is likely merely a function of the proliferation of tools that reduce the "effot per edit" quotient. Since it is effectively total "effort" people are seeking to evaluate in some way by editcountiting, this is an entirely benign phenomenon.
- But you do fall into Durin's trap: you consider them to be "stupid". This does not make them so, and nor does carving them on forbidden stone.
- This proposal, most importantly, is in the "we all hate the opposers" category. It ups the ante against those who would oppose an RfA while allowing supporters to continue with "zOMGBBQ he isn't one since bananas were square?" type !votes which, frankly, should receive significantly less weight than 0.25 of an oppose that says "has too few edits to demonstrate depth of knowledge". -Splash - tk 19:51, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I would reiterate my perenial rant: some votes may indeed be "stupid", but but restricting how people vote is a bad idea and will create many more problems than it will solve. Besides, the threshold for promotion which is now 75%, allows an ample margin of error for "stupid" votes (both oppose and support). Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:09, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

- I tend towards opposition in RFAs so I don't hate opposers as such. I just think that (given the shortage of admins) some of the requirements (did I hear 4000 edits the other day? cant remember whose RFA it was) are getting over the top, and we ought to get rid of them so that legitimate concerns over a person's suitability for adminship (e.g. civility, newbie biting, lack of contribution to community projects) can be given more prominence than they currently get. Perhaps something like this would get more support if we had a two-pronged approach: bring in the restrictions of the sort that are in QAV, but also make adminship easier to lose (one thing that I thought about yesterday was the possibility of putting all new admins on administrative 1RR for 3 months) so that the odd bad candidate promoted in this way would be swiftly deadminned Cynical 08:26, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Opposing per a low edit count, like 300, is not like calling the sky pink. You don't discount votes that at least make an effort to make sense or don't seem obviously contradricted (ie "oppose, 9000 edits too low") by the current situation. This proposal is incredibly subjective, and not feasible by any means. Aside from that, people can always just go "oppose per X" when they really mean "9000 edits too low". Votes are not really that bad either, its idiots and irrational people that pollute them. No governments let people vote on every issue, thats why we have parliaments/houses and committees usually. Letting any random user, new or not, experienced or not, vote on RfA is half the problem. The other half is that people don't agree on what an admin is, and sometimes people get opposed for things they would not expect or that do not relate to adminship. Both of these are tough cookies to fix. Mote Bureuacrat discretion could help the former, and a referendum discussion on what and "admin" is and is required of one should be had.Voice-of-All 15:19, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

What we're all forgetting about is chimpanzees and dartboards. Put the two together and we have an easy solution to all of our RfA worries. Marskell 11:52, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

IAR and SNOW

Why are questions about the candidate's interpretation of WP:IAR and WP:SNOW being asked at so many current and recent RfA's?--Grand Slam 7 13:07, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Because it's something that is invoked quite often by alot of admins, and it's nice to see how current candidates intrepret them. Yanksox 13:18, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Also you wouldn't want someone misusing them, going against policy is good in the right situation, but if an admin doesn't know when it's the right situation you can see the problems that might follow. My real belief is that it's just the question that all the cool kids are asking at the moment ;) James086^{Talk | Contribs} 13:23, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Because abuse had been rather rampant, and many current and former admins had proven they had no clue how to properly use it, if there is a proper use at all. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:27, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

It's a question that will greaty differ in answer from person to person, but I think we should contemplate adding it to the list of pre-set questions

†he Bread 00:25, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

1000 edits to vote in RfA?

I missed this coming out, I think. Seems a bit stringent.Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 14:25, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

There should be no restrictions on who can and cannot vote in an RfA, nor should there be any restrictions on how often it can be done. I am actually for allowing anons to vote in RfAs as well. Just look at User talk:68.39.174.238 for an example of a comitted anon. And there are many others out there, they just don't have fixed IPs. - Mike | Talk 14:28, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree that there should be no "opinion" floor on RfA; but as with IP editors, there is a simple solution--register. Then it matters not if the IP is fixed or dynamic. -- Avi 14:31, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

It's a measure to prevent carpet bagger voting. —Malber (talk • contribs) 15:18, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I can't see where this is? Where am I forgetting to look? -Splash - tk 23:23, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes - I've seen "1000 edits" cited in two RfAs now as if it is actual policy now ... Did that actually happen without discussion here? I didn't/don't think that can happen. Confused per Splash. Newyorkbrad 11:34, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I thought myself somehow to have missed the surrounding discussion, and I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who is perplexed; I rather assume that no such standard has been implemented. In any event, though, if RfA is not principally a vote, ought we really to be concerned about carpet bagging or sock puppeteering at RfA? Whilst a closing bureaucrat might find reviewing the edit count/history of every participant in a given RfA with whom he should be unfamiliar, there are surely many RfA participants who would serve (and already, where appropriate, do) identify those !votes about which uncertainty might exist (a less-than-substantive !vote is likely to be accorded little weight irrespective of the edit history of the !voter). I suppose we might suggest that, whilst anyone may partake of an RfA discussion (in, for example, the comments section), only those editors with at least xx edits may edit any of the support, oppose, or neutral sections, but such a suggestion seems unnecessarily complex. Joe 21:24, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

1,000? Shouldn't it be 100 at most, like in the deletion processes? Not that you can't vote in an AfD with under 100 edits, but if you have that many we assume you aren't a sock/SPA. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 21:43, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Somebody, at least, thinks there is/was a new rule [1]. See partic. the edit summary. I was just wondering where the editor had seen that. Someone else (maybe the same editor) also used it in another debate that is no longer on the project page. There are no rules like this that I'm aware of. -Splash - tk 21:47, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Don't you mean can !vote? Anyway, I only had 330 edits or so when I first participated in RfA. This is foolish. Grand master ka 21:51, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

No, I mean "Not that you can't !vote". An individual with under 100 edits can vote in AfD, they just run a higher risk of being SPA flagged or otherwise discounted. See WP:SOCK#When questions arise. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 22:04, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Whoops, I missed the "not that you" part. I'm aware of sockpuppet policy, thanks. Grand master ka 22:07, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

L.O.L. I saw a comment about how a candidate lacked sufficient edits to vote, let alone run. I thought I'd missed something! I'm pleased to know this is not an official policy. It sounds like just too much to me!Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim

I think Esperanza membership regulations are good: 2 weeks of being a Wikipedian, and 150 edits. bibliomaniac15 03:20, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Seems a bit low maybe double? 300 edits, 4 weeks experience?

†he Bread 04:05, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Reform proposal

In the followings I would like to present you my reform proposal which is very simple but very effective:

If a user was blocked for 3RR can't be elected Admin
Admins are elected for only one year

I'm interested in your support for this simple and effective plan for reforming RfA. Wissahickon Creek ^msg 15:48, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Oppose The past is the past. If a user shows that they have reformed their ways, then there is know reason that they should be denied equal oppurtunity for adminship because they were blocked for 3RR in March of '05. The re-election thing is an interesting idea, but I don't think that there is any problem with giving them permenant admin status. Admins lost their powers if they abuse them. - Mike | Talk 15:51, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) First proposal is not realistic (a silly mistake when you were green damns you forever).

Second proposal came up many times before. It would be a logistical nightmare, and it is not worth it as out of 1000 current admins there are usually conduct issues with around 5 admins per year, that's 99% good admins we are talking about. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:52, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, we can reformulate them in order to reform the RfA process.-- Wissahickon Creek ^msg 16:02, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Strong Oppose both

If a user was blocked for 3RR can't be elected Admin

Many heavy editors who get in heaty discussions can accidentally revert too much, this could be from 5 years ago or 5 months ago. This will surely block many potential admins. You'll find there are quite a few current admins with 3rr on their block log.

Admins are elected for only one year

I'm taking this means users can only be nominated once a year? Ridiculous, a user can fix their problems in a non-successful rfa with 6 months easily, whether it's the experience or just the amount of time they've been here.

I'd do believe we need more admins, blocking potential ones for 3rr and delaying their chance until next year isn't the way forward.--Andeh 16:14, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, you said I'd do believe we need more admins so, if we do need more Admins how can we make that happen? Any suggestion to reform our system?-- Wissahickon Creek ^msg 16:39, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I was just saying that I strongly disagree with your suggestions. Do you see where I was coming from with my strong oppose?--Andeh 17:07, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Strong Oppose both 1) Admins are human and make mistakes like anyone else. The community feels that their judgement, methodology, and abilities dealing with editors are such that they can be trusted with some wiki chores. 2) Likewise, Admins are judged on their judgement; you would be turning this into a political election with constituencies et al, and admins would not be able to make the decisions they were entrusted to make (for the most part) b/c someone, somewhere, is bound to get PO'd. We have ArbCom to prevent massive sysop abuse -- we should not make admins become whores (pardon my French) to the wiki-consituency. If you do not feel someone exhibits good judgement and should not be trusted, it is actually your responsibility to make your opinion known in the RfA. At least that is my opinion. -- Avi 16:36, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
With all due respect to insightful newbies, this proposal was Wissahickon Creek's 6th edit as a logged-in user. Did you have a particular reason for feeling that there was a need for reform? And how does your proposal solve those problems? -- nae'blis 16:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I know that my first proposal is a little bit radical, in the sense that from now on only the clean editors can be admitted as sysops but I think it's exactly what we should focus on: reform of RfA process. As for them we can reformulate in order to modernize them and improve the overall RfA process. --Wissahickon Creek ^talk 17:30, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I think the question is how you know what "RfA" even is, let alone have ideas for reforming it, 20 minutes and 5 edits after your first edit on Wikipedia. --W.marsh 17:40, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm a smart guy I guess :) You don't have to be rich to have ideas, you don't have to be brilliant to be a reformer, it's something natural born I guess. --Wissahickon Creek ^talk 17:41, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Oppose
- 1) Suppose someone figured out how to revert but hadn't heard of 3RR when they had been here a week, got scalded for 3RR and changed. Then a year down the track they put in an RfA it means they can't succeed? A bit stringent.
- 2) That would make this page very clogged with "Support" per nom. every day there would be 3 new admins needing review aswell as the people wanting to become an admin. I think that admins are fine in staying admins forever (or until they abuse it). It is unlikely that any abuse will be stopped by that process. James086^{Talk | Contribs} 00:05, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Oppose I'm cool with how RFA works now †he Bread 00:13, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Strong Oppose per reasons listed in the discussion thus far. Cbrown1023 00:17, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Increasing vandalism?

How can we deal with the increasing vandalism? Having more Admins I guess. --Wissahickon Creek ^talk 13:17, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

More RC patrollers will also help; you don't need to be an admin to revert most ordinary vandalism (see Help:Revert if you don't know how). --ais523 13:26, 23 October 2006 (U T C)

When I was a gung-ho RCPatroller, I thought the answer was more admins blocking more quickly for longer periods. I now see that most vandals stop after a few warnings and that most stop before an admin can block them. Some stop before we get around to reporting to AIV. Yes, it's annoying to revert 25 renditions of, "Oh, cool. Wikipedia, the encyclopedia any moron can make a mess of." But I haven't seen those vandals to be in the majority. Some of us forget that blocks are to be protective, not punitive. Blocking the vandal after he's stopped is rather like an old cliche about cows and barn doors. The only real point to blocking vandals is to stop them long enough to catch up on reverting the vandalism. One not be an admin to quickly revert or roll back vandalism. I use VandalProof-- it's a lot better than doing it all by hand. So again, the need is for more Patrollers with tools already available.Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 14:46, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

It's also important that you post warnings to the users' talk pages. I'm often doing RC patrol and now, as an admin, if I see vandalism I try to always make a point of viewing the vandal's talk page; if the appropriate warnings have already been posted, I can issue a block right then and there without any need to go through the WP:AIV process. And yes, I've often found that:

Some brand-new ~~vandals~~ experimenters knock it off the moment they discover they can be "caught" by the rest of us, and

Short blocks can be effective if only because the school class period ends and the vandals are forced away from the computer until later; meanwhile, the short block prevents further damage from that vandal until the period ends.

Atlant 16:50, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Good point... from the IP traces that have been done on repeat IP vandals, it seems that almost all of them are posting from schools (and therefore are most likely bored students).--Caliga10 16:57, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Some thoughts on RfA reform

I know that a bunch of editors (including me) have gotten too carried away with notions of reforming the RfA process. Most efforts at brainstorming are well-meaning and harmless, but going round in circles. After some reflection I've realized that the problems of RfA are not obvious, so it would be wise to give up notions of a sweeping reform. I'd like to ask some questions that might help:

The principles and system guidelines of RfA are very clear. Editors are given many opportunities and resources to make informed decisions. So what can we do to live up to them?
At the moment, several users have launched private efforts to figure out the problems of RfA and ways to change. Instead of disjointed efforts, should we organize a "month-long, central workshop" to (a) research and study the process, (b) identify any problem based on analysis and (c) fix the problem, if there is one?
Which are the RfA cases that people identify as having exposed problems in RfA? Are there statistical/technical patterns, common features in those "problem RfAs?" Where does the "politicization" element come from? Are the cited problems in reality just frustration?
Should there be an independent "Admin accountability" process to relieve the pressure on RfAs?

Jimbo Wales was pretty clear that changing the process without in-depth analysis can mean creating more problems. Just a few thoughts to chew over. I would certainly discourage myself and others from presenting reform proposals without in-depth analysis and a joint effort with other editors. The problem is subtle and cannot be rooted out without considerable digging. Rama's arrow 16:02, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

This is a very well thought-out approach to the question. (We can call it question rather than a problem, now at least!) To get you started, and help avoid circularity:

2. Have you seen Wikipedia:WikiProject on Adminship (and subpages thereof)?

4. Have you seen Wikipedia:Admin accountability poll?

-Splash - tk 19:11, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

It seems I haven't left the eternal merry-go-round! I know about the first but not the second. And in both cases I don't see much prior research or conclusive initiatives - I mean, polls in mid-Sept. and we're still having a cascade of reform proposals? I would like to participate in a workshop with a large group of concerned editors with tools to conduct some solid, technical research (leaving out polls, which are useless in terms of identifying a problem). We should then take up often-raised concerns and analyze to see if/where the problem is. Perhaps what I'm talking about is like a think tank.

To emphasis, a large group of responsible editors should try to answer 3 questions: (a) Is there a problem with RfA? (b) If so what is it and what can we do about it? (c) If there is no technical problem, then what keeps causing all this relentless hullabaloo? Rama's arrow 20:16, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd like a group of us to sit down and like Durin, collect data and indicators from past RfAs. Making charts and tables, we can perhaps work out what is causing this ruckus. Rama's arrow 20:17, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

One big problem is the huge vandalism, partly due to the exponential increasing of the articles. Solutions? --Wissahickon Creek ^talk 20:22, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I must agree with above-listed comments that fighting vandalism can be done primarily through WP:RCP and WP:CVU - we can fight that problem by expanding the number of RC patrollers. Adminship involves a lot more in terms of having authority to delete articles/images and block users. In any case, vandalism does not come into "Requests for adminship." We're just concerned about how to improve the process of identifying users who will be good admins. Rama's arrow 20:29, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

New kind of semi-Admins: the Revert Users (RU-Users)

A new category of users can be invented with partial Admin capabilities, they will have the possibility to revert much easier, but not to block editors. Blocking the editors will be done as today. What do you say? Wissahickon Creek ^talk 20:39, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Ever seen WP:RFR? --Lord Deskana (talk) 20:42, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

This can currently be done by normal users, using a code in their monobooks, as I have. --Alex (Talk) 20:46, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

(Edit Conflict) I, personally, don't see the point in that. Non-admins can just use Vandal Proof or Vandal Sniper.--Koji Dude ^{(Contributions)} 20:49, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Holding any sort of discussion on this is pointless as a vastly similar proposal was rejected by the community, as seen by WP:RFR. --Lord Deskana (talk) 20:55, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Vandal Proof is hopelessly slow for me, so I stopped using it. Also, my rollback tool is much quicker and more accurate. --Alex (Talk) 21:00, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how others feel, but you're starting to bug me. How many new sections have you started in the last couple of days, either on long-dead proposals or aimless questions? -Splash - tk 21:20, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I share your concern Splash, but he's just inexperienced - I've advised him to study policy and process more and gain some experience. Rama's arrow 21:22, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

This is the thing: he's not inexperienced in the least. -Splash - tk 21:25, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

The account was created yesterday, and he has little over 100 edits. I'd say that qualifies as inexperienced.--Koji Dude ^{(Contributions)} 21:33, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

It would ordinarily, yes. But the thing is, the owner of the account is not a new editor, is my quite distinct feeling. When owners of such accounts do this kind of thing, it annoys me greatly. -Splash - tk 21:35, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

“

I know millions of things that won't work. I've certainly learnt a lot.

”

- Thomas Edison. Rama's arrow 21:31, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Those of us with Vandalproof have all the rollback power one could ask for. Rather than creating a new level of admin, I think it would be better to lighten up a little when a nom expresses a desire to use the tools in an area they feel competent in. The very-model-of-a-modern-wikiepdian ideal may be a bit too unattainable for some who could help out within a limited scope.Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 00:27, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

The very model of a modern Wikipedian? Would that be someone who understands the history of Wikipedia perfectly, is an expert in esoteric template markup, and can vote "delete, non-notable" but not write articles? Or someone who is actually good? In other words, are you using the phrase in its original, satirical connotation, or in the literal sense? --tjstrf Now on editor review! 03:17, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

He was probably refering to Wikipedia:Song/The_RfA_Candidate's_Song. --Tango 10:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't bother with admin rollback for vandal fighters, rollback scripts are good enough for me, even though I'm on a slow connection. You just have to put up with the additional bandwidth usage for about four months, then apply for adminship. MER-C 08:37, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Generic questions

I've noticed that Malber and Imoeng ask (almost) each and every candidate the same question. Now I don't have an opinion on those questions (or rather I do, but I prefer not to share my opinion at this moment so as not to influence the discussion), but these questions have de facto become generic questions.

This addresses the following questions: Will sysop tools likely reduce your mainspace editing? (asked by Imoeng) What do the policy of WP:IAR and the essay WP:SNOW mean to you and how would you apply them? (asked by Malber) Is there ever a case where a punitive block should be applied? (asked by Malber) How important is it for an administrator to keep a sense of humor? (asked by Malber)

I would like to hear other editor's comments on whether these questions should be included in the generic questions. If not, what, if any, action should be taken concerning these questions? Errabee 11:07, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

With questions generally, they are fine. This cannot be simultaneously insist on being a discussion notavote and then not like discussion when it occurs. -Splash - tk 11:09, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I was asked to speak more clearly :). I mean that it is often repeated that RfA is not a vote, but a discussion. It cannot viably be discussion, or at least more discussion than vote, if when discussion-related things are used, such as questions, we start trying to take them out. There are exceptions: the final of the examples in Errabee's list is not particularly useful to anyone, imo. -Splash - tk 13:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I strongly agree with Splash. At the same time, all nominees have the right not to answer, to exercise personal discretion. When the questions are obviously disconnected with adminship, where is the obligation? So (1) anybody can ask questions, but (2) only adminship-related questions are relevant to the process, (3) the nominee has discretion and right to not answer and (4) the closing bureaucrat must take into account who asked the unrelated questions, and if they voted based on unrelated factors. Rama's arrow 12:59, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Its entirely the nominee's choice whether to answer a question or not. Even if the nominee answers a question, the risk that the questioning editor will oppose the nomination does not really mitigate. Rama's arrow 13:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Copy and paste questions I find are irratating to candidates. Sometimes users add questions about admin activities the candidate hasn't actually said they'll take part in, which is basically pointless. And Rama's arrow, if the candidate doesn't answer an "optional" question then this shows there may be a problem with a candidate and users may be oppose for this. So questions aren't optional.--Andeh 14:49, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Certianly the questions are optional, but if a nominee chose not to answer, don't you think that would show a lack of willingness to engage in discussion? However, I would excuse a nominee from answering completely frivilous or personal questions like "What is your shoe size?" or "If you could be any tree, what would it be?" (BTW: I've removed the "sense of humor" question from my template.) —Malber (talk • contribs) 20:27, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

IMO the generic questions do a good job of gauging if an administrator understands the functions and responsibilities of an administrator, what the nominee feels their encyclopedic contributions have been, and how the nominee views that disputes should be handled. But they don't do much to display the nominee's understanding of policy and process or even if they bother to read the policy pages. This is why I ask the IAR/SNOW question because I feel how a nominee answers this displays whether or not they understand the spirit of policy/process. —Malber (talk • contribs) 20:44, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

The current standard questions are all about the candidate. The questions mentioned above are about the candidates views of adminship. That's a very big difference. Someone else's answers to the standard questions wouldn't help me much, as they're about someone else, not me. Someone else's answers to these questions could be very helpful. If these questions are asked on every RfA, then very soon people will be able to just look through the past successful noms and basically copy their answers, making the questions completely useless. If you're going to ask someone these kinds of questions, they need to be different for each nom, or asked in private (or on IRC would work well). --Tango 21:07, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

People who judge nominations have a responsibility towards nominees. Everyone knows that RfAs, despite being "no big deal(s)" are stressful. It is not good if your questions spill into general editing issues. Stick to adminship, process and policy issues and avoid trick questions or contentious issues. There must be respect between both sides of an RfA. Rama's arrow 22:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that we need at least 2-3 more generic questions, and the ones above would make good editions.Voice-of-All 00:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The questions are no probelm at all, however, I do think that votes should keep in mind that they are OPTIONAL and that they should not think less of the candidate that choses not to answer them. I have seen many neutral votes that would normally be support votes had the questions not been inserted. - Mike | Trick or Treat 01:07, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

It strikes me that cutting-and-pasting the same "optional" questions into every RfA verges on WP:POINT. By doing so, it is a defacto expansion of the existing questions that are in the RfA by consensus. By repeating the same stock question to every candidate, the "optional" questions are becoming part of the RfA template, so to speak, and circumventint consensus as to whether or not they ought to be standard questions. The pressure to answer these "optional" questions re-inforces their defacto nature as "standard" questions. 209.17.182.217 19:02, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps all "options" questions should be placed on the AfD's talk page? The only questions I feel should go on the main RfA page are those which have been agreed to through concensus. If they are on the talk page it is much more obvious that the quesions are one person asking the candidate rather than quesions which a lack of answers to will reflect badly on the candidate. --StuffOfInterest 19:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

"Optional questions" doesn't make that clear enough? Saying that not answering the questions will not influence your RfA is wrong, because many users may not be willing to support a candidate if they don't know the answers. -Amarkov ^babble 00:48, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Hamedog's 21 question fiasco

On a related note, I think I would feel kinda pissed off if I was being badgered by seven times as many questions as are included in the RfA. People should feel free to ask extra questions, but I feel it's turning into a form of harrassment too often lately. So, everyone: Think about whether your questions will really benefit the situation at hand, and the fact that I think a candidate would feel compelled to answer all of them. (Candidates could also put more meat into the standard three questions to cover any concerns that might be raised in addition.) Thanks. Grand master ka 04:33, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

21 questions? Unless they are about specific items of concern regarding that user's conduct that's just ridiculous. JoshuaZ 04:39, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

It looked like sharks in a freakin' feeding frenzy. I think Hamedog unwittingly triggered some of that with his responses-- he lost his composure and was perceived as defensive and argumentative. (They smell fear, you kmow.) Sad thing is, he'd probably be a good admin with a little more seasoning and a thicker skin. Hopefully, he'll lick his wounds, heed the constructive feedback, and try again. BTW, JoshuaZ, the set of questios used by you and others is a much better tool for evaluating nom's than what's been happening lately.Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim

Some of the questions were just stupid. "Is this an AfD or RfA?" was one such question. A lot of it came about from me criticising the ending of an AfD related question. Thanks to everyone who supported me.--Hamedog_Talk|^@ 14:54, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree that, in general, 21 questions is probably excessive for an RfA. However, in this specific case, there were genuine concerns about the candidate's knowledge of policy and procedure as well as his ability to handle confrontation. Also, many of the answers seemed rather vague and/or confusing, which likely led to follow-up questions. My advice is similar to that of Dlohcierekim: get some more experience, don't take things personally and try back in a few months. SuperMachine 16:41, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Cheers--Hamedog_Talk|^@ 14:13, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

3 and 4

What happened to and with the discussion suggesting 3 days of questions and 4 of voting? (The comments above, seem to continue to reiterate the point that that proposal would be rather useful.) - jc37 19:03, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

It's been debated multiple times before, and there was never consensus to implement it. --Durin 00:30, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Well it seemed to have a growing "fan base", and no consensus doesn't necessarily equal oppose...
That aside, what would be lost if we enact it? Most RfA voting happens in the first 4 days of voting anyway, it provides a better way for editors to get to know the cantidate before expressing their opinion/voting. It doesn't extend RfA, and it gets the bureaicrats more involved. (I thought Rama's Arrow et al 's last several quantitative posts on the matter were rather well thought out.) Ignoring the question of whether the idea has consensus, for the moment, how, in your opinion, would this be detrimental to RfA? - jc37 00:37, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Instruction creep is bad. Borisblue 03:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't call this instruction creep, we would be changing one process to a different process, not adding new rules/processes. I would support something like this, altough I think it should be 4/3 or 5/2. Grand master ka 04:58, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree that this isn't "instruction creep". It's merely identifying a facet of the RfA that already exists, and deals with the "overlap" that sometimes occurs (which can be detrimental to a cantidacy), and allow time for the cantidate to actually respond to questions, and answer "follow-up" responses. I prefer 3 of Q&A and 4 of voting, because: a.) most voting is done in about 4 days, or at least most RfAs are determined by then; and b.) the Q&A period should be shorter, since technically it can continue through the whole of the 7 days. 2 and 5 might not be bad, except if an RfA is a "slow-starter", and doesn't get going until the second day. 3 and 4 seem to deal with these issues fairly. - jc37 23:14, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Lots of ideas have been put forth on how to reform RfA. Not a one of them has completed analysis on how the reform idea addresses the shortcomings of RfA. This is in part because very few of them (I think 1 over the last year) have done work to determine what the shortcomings of RfA are. This idea is no different. Sounds nice. Might be nice. Who knows? I don't. Neither does anyone else right now, because this work has not been done. ...and I'll keep playing this tune over and over again until the work is done :-) --Durin 11:08, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

First, a change doesn't have to address a named problem to be made (though I believe this one does). We see that all over Wikipedia. Be Bold is an direct example of that. However, As important as this process is (it potentially gives someone "something" for life), I think we should have at least a semi-thorough discussion about it. - jc37 23:14, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Second, I think this adresses several concerns. See the list above, for a quick breakdown. The main concern I see is the question of whether a nominee should have to answer a specific question, or whether not answering would seem to have a negative effect on the nomination's success. This is a current concern, even if no change is made to RfA. And honestly, making this change would help solve that problem as well. (By making an "official" Q&A period, the community is likely to get more involved in the Q&A phase, including looking over the questions that others may pose.) - jc37 23:14, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I just thought of another way to look at this: This change changes abosolutely nothing about RfA, except that you have to wait to vote until until the beginning of the fourth day. You still can comment, you still can pose questions, you can basically communicate. All this is suggesting is to defer the voting period a couple days in order to make discussion easier. In a society built on consensus by discussion, I would think that this would be considered an awesomely good thing. : ) - jc37 23:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

It would help me to not feel so sheepish having to change my opinion when some new evidence comes forward of good work/extreme incivility/another RfA changing factor. It would help RfAs like this one, where all the opposes came near the end, by identifying possible issues before most of the participants have !voted. In short, all it would do would be to separate the voting factor from the discussion factor, which in my mind is a Good Thing™. I usually share the same cynicism as Durin, but I think this particular change would work, and wouldn't drastically change our current system. Grand master ka 08:33, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, we have several people who feel this should be done, and a few who have concerns about reasons for such a change, and I suppose a couple who have concerns about change of any kind. What's the next step? - jc37 07:45, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Non-implementation. This has been discussed multiple times with no consensus emerging. --Durin 14:01, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting immediate implementation, I was asking what the next step is based on the current state of the discussion. Just because something has not developed consensus, doesn't mean that it's a bad idea, or doesn't need further discussion. As I mentioned above, it's a suggestion that fosters discussion and leans more closely to consensus building, so in the end, I think this is something that will be good for wikipedia. - jc37 11:09, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

As previously noted, the proposal fails to address what the problems with RfA are because nobody has done the appropriate homework to address the problems of RfA and the intended goals of RfA. This proposal may or may not be any good. Nobody knows because nobody has done that homework. Result; it's a shot in the dark. The system we have now works pretty well, enough that replacing it with a shot in the dark is probably more likely to cause harm than not. --Durin 13:43, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Suggestions for general qualifications

How about instead of mandatory standards, we have suggested qualifications to consider for a nominee. Somewhat like a job listing basic qualificataions. This could be based on historically the qualities a successful ~~candidate~~ nominee has had and be suggested for consideration before someone is nominated. Example text could be:

Before nominating an editor or self-nominating, please consider the following factors that have historically been considered for a successful nomination for adminship:

Editor has had experience with the project for a reasonable amount of time. (Not sure on wording, may not want to be too specific, but it should be obvious that a newbie shouldn't be nominated.)
Editor displays a good understanding of policy and process.
Editor displays an understanding of the abilities, duties, and responsibilities of being an administrator.
Editor has a good balance of vandal fighting, article creation, article editing, and participation in article and policy discussion.
Editor displays skill in dealing with tendentious editors and resolving disputes.

These should be suggestions, not standards. I think if a nominator (or self-nominee) keeps these things in mind before proceeding, it could prevent some potentially snowball opposes and contentious debates.

—Malber (talk · contribs) 16:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

This is already covered under "nomination standards" on the main RfA page. --Durin 22:17, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, it states no less than 2 months (not a bad number, one I would generally use) and no less than 1500 edits, a rather arbitrary number that could lead to editcountitis. But RfAs of late have been opposed for many of the reasons I've listed, which is why I think the suggested qualifications should be expanded. —Malber (talk · contribs) 12:47, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
  - Perhaps, yes...but where do we stop with adding suggested qualifications? What counts as a legitimate oppose and not a legitimate oppose? --Durin 13:01, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Nomination standards have been the subject of a short edit war

I copied this exchange from Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Front matter so that the discussion could get a wider exposure. User:Durin and User:Marskell criticize the edit that I made to the Front Matter as "lacking consensus". There was discussion on the topic but no formal consensus determination. Please read the discussion below and express your opinion if any.

Durin deleted the following statement which I had inserted a month or more ago:

In particular, candidates should be aware that it is highly unlikely that an editor with less than 2 months and 1500 edits will be granted adminship.

Durin's edit summary was "Removing arbitrary, no consensus 2 month/1500 edit slipper slope standard. Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Archive_69#Down_with_editcountitis.21"

Centrx reverted Durin's deletion with the following edit summary "It is not arbitrary, there was agreement on it, and it helps to stop newcomers from posting failing RfAs the inevitable result of which is the person being dishearted by the heavy opposition."

I figured I had best explain why I put the sentence there and also defend its continued inclusion in the section.

Actually, despite what Centx said, I don't think there was a formal agreement in the sense of a straw poll. However, I will comment that I deliberately put the numbers way below what I think are the real lower bounds as observed in recent RFAs. What I mean by this is that most people who care about edit counts set the limit in the range of 2000-3000 edits. Also 3 months is the usual lower bound cited by people who care about time elapsed since joining Wikipedia.

I inserted the text in question after a few very new editors submitted RFAs with very few edits and often very little time elapsed since joining Wikipedia. These editors were getting their RFAs turned down quite quickly but it seemed to me to be a big waste of everybody's time. Why not just tell people what to expect and suggest that they wait until they had at least some chance?

I deliberately worded the sentence so that it wouldn't be a statement of policy but simply a statement of fact. Does anybody challenge the truth of the statement "It is highly unlikely..."? If so, can you name an admin in the recent past who has been promoted with less than 2 months and 1500 edits? Frankly, even 3 months and 3000 edits only just barely passes the experience/edit-count Mafia. Some still look for 6 months or 5000 edits but they are not usually numerous enough to kill an RFA on those grounds alone. By comparison, someone with less than 3 months and 3000 edits will almost certainly get at least 10-15 votes against on those grounds alone. And 10-15 votes in opposition is enough to kill most RFAs (with the exception of unusual circumstances such as Carnildo, of course).

Recently, we've seen people like User:Hamedog get turned down with 1 year's experience and 5000 edits. So, we all agree that it's not just raw edit count and time elapsed. However, if a candidate has less than 3 months and 3000 edits, they don't even get the level of scrutiny that Hamedog got.

So, remember, the purpose of the sentence is to discourage those that have no chance of passing an RFA in the current climate.

If you disagree with time-since-joining-itis and edit-countitis, then please find another way to challenge this sentiment among the "RFA-junkies". I'm just trying to document the current climate in RFA-land. If the climate changes, I'd be happy to remove or change the sentence accordingly.

--Richard 01:22, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify; above you stated that I criticized your edit. That's technically accurate but does not convey the intended meaning. "criticize" has such a negative connotation. I disagree with the edit. :) yeah yeah, semantics shemantics :-) --Durin 20:18, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

There are serious issues with this statement, not the least of which is that it is a slipper slope situation. As soon as you start to state standards like this, they will creep and creep and creep up. Two years from now that sentence, if left, will read "6 months and 5000 edits". Where does it stop? Where? Stating standards like this doesn't work to undermine the editcountitis types in ANY respect. No, it actually works to SUPPORT editcountitis by clearly stating a standard that people must be above. By adding this sentence you lend credence to the editcountitis types who now can say, "Aha! See? There really IS a standard!" We have been fighting long and hard against editcountitis. Putting this sentence in undermines that effort.
Worse, it's unlikely it's had any effect in the way that was intended. The intent was to get people who are making RfA requests with less than that standard to stop applying and wasting RfA watcher's time. I don't have the time to run the stats right now, but I would venture to guess that since this sentence was added on September 18th, there's been no change in the number of RfAs for candidates below this standard. If that be the case, not only is it feeding the editcountitis trolls, it's also not doing what it was intended to do.
I strongly disagree with Centrx's edit summary that there was consensus to include this. There clearly wasn't, and even the person who added the sentence said in their edit summary "Being bold..."
I would also like to point out that there have been some RfAs where the candidates have been very upset their RfA failed because they did read the standards and thought if they had >1000 edits they'd be ok and found they were raked over the coals for having just 1800 edits. They are rightfully mad. This provides strong impetus to keep tinkering with the standard until such complaints are not heard as often. Result; the standard will keep rising and rising and rising and rising.
This is bad medicine, for the wrong disease, without giving a cure, in the wrong hospital. If you must include it, then get some consensus at WT:RFA. --Durin 11:26, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Durin, particularly on the last point. The major problem with this is not that it suggests people below the threshold will fail, but rather that people above it will pass. Candidates with 2 mos + 1 day and 1501 edits are still ripe for failing with the current crowd. And, of course, choosing any number invites the "this, why not that?" problem. Marskell 17:37, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

My general feeling is that we should have text which discourages those who are highly unlikely to get promoted. Above 1000 edits and 2 months, editors who apply for RFA should be encouraged and then shown the door if they fall below the "real" standard of 3000 edits and 3 months. Below 1000 edits and 2 months, I would really rather they just didn't bother applying at all.

--Richard 18:06, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

The solution would be to do away with arbitrary numbers and rely on general qualifications. Look at my suggestions above. Anyone who has been with the project for a reasonable amount of time and can display broad participation in many areas of the project and have engaged in many discussions have the appropriate participation time and edit counts for people who care about those specifics. And again, these should not be standards they should be general suggested qualifications. —Malber (talk · contribs) 18:39, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I think we all understand that a person who has 30 edits and 1 month since joining is just clueless. However, someone who has several hundred edits and 2-3 months probably believes that he/she has plenty of experience. We need a way to get across the nature of the current climate which sets a much higher standard. Moreover, in the case Hamedog, it wasn't time or edit counts, it was lack of experience in Wikipedia space.

I'm fine with staying away from specifying a threshold as if going over that threshold somehow "qualified" you to be an admin. In this regard, I agree with you and Marskell. I'm just looking for a way to communicate the approximate nature of the promotion criteria so that only people with a reasonable chance of passing will apply.

Let's not just let this wither on the vine. I would like to see some proposed text that addresses this issue inserted into the Front Matter. My basic objection to your text above is that it is too long compared to mine but perhaps it needs to be that long. Let's work on putting together a version that is agreeable to everybody.

--Richard 18:52, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

No, we don't "need a way to get across ...". If people don't at least minimally follow RfA, and take a bit of time looking through past successful noms and unsuccessful ones, then perhaps they aren't suitable candidates. That's fine, not everyone is ready yet. We want demonstration of trust. How can we trust that someone will read the policies if they don't read the minimum amount to get an idea of the standards? They don't need to know it by heart, but some checking of the standards is reasonable. Agree with Durin here, and extra points for the wit. - Taxman ^Talk 02:19, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Some disorganized and random rants over RfA

It is sad to see what the Wikipedian RfA has become. It has become a wreck, and I don't think it is because of the system. The system works fine, perhaps the RfA as RfC system works better, but the current one has its own pros, it's perfectly fine.

It is the voters who are getting out of hand. In their eyes, the RfA is no longer a Request for Adminship, but a Request for Saintship, for Godship, or a Request for a-user-who-can-statisfy-all-the-contradictory,-non-admin-related,-and-insane-requests. A user no longer becomes admin because he can make good use of the good tools. Instead, they become admins because they pile up edits for editcount by making changes a-word-an-edit, thus making ten edits instead of one, or by writing 10 featured articles from scratch per day. As if the purpose of all the admin tools are writing featured articles. Avid Vandal-fighters are turned down because "as an administrator, you must edit articles more, make more images, stop making spelling mistakes, and do more of the stuff that any none-admin can do easily". Come-on, all the admin features, rollback, blocking, protecting pages, all are made for image uploaders and article editors. That's logical. Plato would have reasoned like that.

More rants coming up... stay tuned...

¿¡Exir Kamalabadi?!^{Join Esperanza!} 11:46, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree, the conditions for adminship that some people set are ludicrous. I only just qualify to vote for some people (I have just under 1200 edits). Admins are people, they should be allowed to make mistakes and do people honestly think that someone who hasn't bumped an articled to FA will be unable to ban and delete articles? Many candidates want to be able to ban and rollback vandals being RC patrollers but they get oppose votes because they don't tag enough articles for speedy deletion or something, an admin doesn't need to use all their tools. I think people need to think about whether the editor would use the tools available to them correctly as opposed to simply seeing if they fit the ever harder criteria. James086^{Talk | Contribs|Currently up for Editor Review!} 17:09, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to go ahead and agree with the comments above. If I were to run today for admin, I'd fail miserably. I can count on two hands the amount of non-CFD related edits I've made to articles. Does that make me a poor editor? You bet it does. Do I need to be a great editor to close a discussion at CFD and delete the category? Not on your life. Do I need to have an FA under my belt to be able to rollback vandalism? If I were such a great editor, I wouldn't need the tools because I'd be too busy editing. How about we decide if they will misuse the tools rather than how many national anthems they know [2]? --Kbdank71 19:04, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd just like to point out 2 things - (1) You cannot circumvent or redefine human nature. People's political and competitive instincts will kick-in in almost every situation in life - especially in this situation, where they are free to "play" politics on a pastime-like activity. (2) What is the point in getting frustrated? There are some things that just cannot be fixed without DNA alterations. You can rant all you like, but its a waste of your precious energy and time (and that of others) - let's just focus on building an encyclopedia. Rama's arrow 23:16, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

And I think I am focusing on building an encyclopedia. How are we gonna make a good encyclopedia if people who edit articles has the admin tools, and people who don't have the admin tools do maintainence stuff instead? Editors have access to all the admin tools, while people who do admin stuff are treated as editors. Don't you think it should be the other way around? --¿¡Exir Kamalabadi?!^{Join Esperanza!} 00:46, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I totally agree. I've even seen oppose votes based on use of edit summaries (!) and silly editcount requirements. I like users to have a good amount of experience in building articles because that's the primary focus of Wikipedia, but I'm usually not concerned with spelling errors or the fact that they never brought an article to feautured status. That has absolutely nothing to do with admin tools. - Mike | Trick or Treat 23:22, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Rant continued

What I dislike the most is the questions. Adminship has become a stressful thing instead of no big deal because of them. Some of them are good, but too much of it makes the candidate exhausted. 21 questions is out-of-boundaries. Especially when a lot of the questions are tails-I-win, heads-you-lose. You just can't answer them without getting criticism. Like the IAR question. Don't awnser, you're dead. Oppose. This user is too lazy to awnser questions. --Clueless User. You say we should follow it and ignore rules, you're dead. Oppose. This user might abuse his tools and use IAR as an excuse. --Clueless User. You say we should stick to rules as much as we can, you're dead. Oppose. This user does not know the true purpose of rules --Clueless User. Another example: Is the role of Admin political or technical? Answer political, voters say you value adminship as a badge of honor, as a level of power. Answer technical, they say that you undermine how much more important effects on the community an admin's every action has than other users.

The questions that voters ask, in another sense, shows how nitpicky voters are. 吹毛求疵, we call it in Chinese. Sometimes, what a user does in their first 50 edits on their first week becomes a reason for opposition. Even if they no longer do such stuff, and are here for two years. Even spelling errors and 97% edit summary use becomes reasons for oppose that means if a user forgot to use ONE edit summary in 150 edits, their dead. Take a look at the torture of hamedog. He made a mistake, saying this AfD, which was an unfortunate mistake, because he meant the AfD that I just mentioned, and people thought he didn't know the difference between an RfA and AfD. Even when he explained, people still say, I'm still gonna oppose, because you aren't so good at communication. Nitpicky to the extreme. --¿¡Exir Kamalabadi?!^{Join Esperanza!} 00:46, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

In reply to Rama's arrow, I hope some people read this section and think more about the reasons that they are opposing and whether it is really a legitimate concern or just a silly condition they have made. It is important to look into their history and see what they have done but RfA isn't here to pick up everything the nominee has ever done wrong in the past, it's to decide on whether they will act properly with more power in the future. There could be a whole bunch of good admins right now (there are but I mean the bunch who had RfA denied) but they are out trying to bump up their edit count, tag more articles and write a FA. Now I admit, many people shouldn't be admins (like me, I'm just not ready) but a lot of the oppose votes I see are not for good reasons like my inexperience, they are saying people with 3000 edits are inexperienced. James086^{Talk | Contribs|Currently up for Editor Review!} 01:46, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Ignoring edit summary for the moment (since I believe it lends to communication, transparency, and ease of reference, among other things), I would like an essay started talking about this. (Perhaps call it Wikipedia:Voting criteria for adminship?) Anyone up for starting it? - jc37 02:00, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I understand and respect the motivations of James and Exir in expressing their feelings. But my take is that they are getting a bit too emotional about it. "Adminship is no big deal" - admins only protect the flanks of editors who are working to grow the encyclopedia. And its not the end of the world if a good editor (who is already doing some housework) is rejected in RfA. That person must not be discouraged and should improve themselves. The thing that thwarts the perfection of the RfA process is human nature. As people ascribe too much importance to being administrators, an RfA nominee will also become political and defensive. This leads to feelings of rejection.

Can you blame people for creating standards that lead to rejection of good nominees? I don't think so. We are a voluntary organization. We don't get paid to do anything, so we are not interviewed for the job nor required to possess degrees to edit articles, as is done in Britannica, Encarta, etc. People who work here are emotional, passionate about Wikipedia - they get protective and have their own visions of its growth. With more than 1 million editors in over 50-100 different countries, how do we judge who is capable of protecting Wikipedia's mission?

And once an editor gets the tools, it is very, very difficult to take those tools away. You can't just fire an employee as Britannica can. This means that the pressure on RfAs increases - it really is not up to the RfA process to hold admins accountable, which is what most voters worry about. Passing/Failing an RfA is the mostly the last chance of most editors to complain or influence the nominee's ability to administer.

The RfA is working well (I say this after laying out numerous ideas promoting its overhaul...). Each week there are 5-10 people added to the ranks of admins. This helps reduce backlogs, address problems at a slow, but steady pace. Sure there should be reform for its obvious failures, but these will be incremental and delicate, not overhauls. As Jimbo Wales said, an overhaul is likely to create more problems that we can't necessarily foresee or guard against. Rama's arrow 02:18, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

We must not, try to over-control the RfA. It is far more advisable to create a process of admin accountability if you want to reduce the pressues and failings of RfAs. Rama's arrow 02:20, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

You make lot’s of good points here, I think people should start dialing back the rhetoric aimed at opposes. The nature of the Wiki and assumption of good faith means that we all get to make our opinion heard here. Calling unnamed editors clueless doesn't help, and the sweeping generalizations misrepresent how much of an issue it is. I doubt if these comments are relevant in more than 3 or 4 RFA’s a month (relevant in the sense that poorly thought out opposes actually effect an RFA's outcome). Rx StrangeLove 03:02, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

And sometimes it's worthwhile to cast an "Oppose" vote just to make a point as I did with Jusjih's RFA. It was obvious that his RFA would pass and that he would probably be an OK admin but his use of Chinese law to justify censorship of a username really needed to be highlighted and subjected to some opprobrium so as to ensure that it would not happen on the English Wiki. For those who weren't involved in that RFA, he made an argument along the lines of "I would block user's with usernames that criticized a Chinese public official because it is against Chinese law". Made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. --Richard 05:38, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Well I would actually think that was a serious issue that needed some clarification and discussion. Rama's arrow 13:01, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I thought so too but my efforts to raise the issue didn't seem to inspire anybody else to chime in on the discussion. In the end, Jusjih pledged to ignore Chinese law so I changed my vote to Neutral but I still think he and one of his supporters who is currently up for RFA just don't get it. I doubt that this "failure of imagination" will cause any serious problems with Jusjih or GeeJo but I don't think this sort of thing should be allowed to just slide by without comment. --Richard 16:35, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Quick question about accepting a nomination

The third instruction to nominees who want to accept a nomination at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/nominate is "Change the time on your RfA page to indicate the current time." I can't figure out what this is referring to, though. I see an "End time", but no current time that I might change. Looking over other nominations' edit histories hasn't helped, and I can't find any other reference to this in the Guide or other pages. Am I missing something obvious? — Saxifrage ✎ 05:19, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

The time of ending of the RFA should be the time of listing the page on WP:RFA. List the nom on the main page, check the UTC time in the history, and change the ending time accordingly. – Ch acor 05:20, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

That makes sense to me if I think of "time" as being only the clock time portion apart from the date. (I tend to think of "time" at Wikipedia meaning "timestamp", which includes the date.) If I'm understanding right, then if a nomination is accepted, say, three days after the nominator created it, the end-date should be increased by three days as well? — Saxifrage ✎ 05:28, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Technically it should be from the time of listing on the main WP:RFA page, actually, AFAIK. – Ch acor 05:29, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I think we're saying the same thing, but I'm not sure. From what I understand, the Ending time and date should reflect when the nomination was listed rather than when it was created. Since the date on the nomination right now reflects when it was created, I would expect that it needs updating. Since changing the date isn't mentioned anywhere though, I'm doubting that line of reasoning. (Sorry, this is ending up being less quick than I hoped.) — Saxifrage ✎ 05:44, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Basically, all RFAs run for a minimum of seven days on the main page. Therefore, it's time of listing + one week. – Ch acor 05:59, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes. It is NOT seven days from when the RfA is created. It is seven days after it is listed on the main page. That's what "change the time on your RfA page to indicate the current time" means. Grand master ka 06:05, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Right then, those answer my questions! Thank you both for your help. — Saxifrage ✎ 06:09, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Optional Questions

Are candidates allowed to add optional questions given to other users into their own nomination? --Daniel Olsen 01:58, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why not; if a candidate chooses to ask himself questions and feels that it will be beneficial to the discussion, there's nothing preventing him/her from doing so. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 02:41, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Change in RfA procedure without comment

Once again we've had a change in RfA procedure without any opportunity for comment here on WT:RFA. This one is somewhat minor, but it still should have been brought up here before the change was made. Chacor, who said this was the way things are supposed to be from now on? Why do we have to have this more exclusionary instruction creep? Strikes me as just another reason for people to yank RfAs off the main RfA page because someone didn't follow procedure exactly perfectly. We should have looser, easier to not screw up processes not ones that induce more "gotcha!" factors. --Durin 13:47, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Cross-posted: I think you misunderstood my change. Currently, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, that only fully-completed nominations can be listed. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that a nominator would list a nomination for the nominee. My change was only meant to reflect that nominees should be the ones listing their own RFAs when they've completed answering the standard questions and accepted it, as is current practice, and not the nominators. – Ch acor 14:04, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

RfA nominations can and are posted by nominators, rather than nominees. This is not really surprising; some nominees are not denizens of RfA and would rather not mess up putting the RfA up and instead rely on the people nominating them to do so. --Durin 14:07, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

This is probably a rarer occurrence compared to nominees listing their own RFAs. I quote,
Finally, once the nomination has been accepted and the questions answered, the nominee should transclude it on the RfA page when they are ready for the RfA to begin. Alternatively, the candidate may ask the nominator to do so. This is done by following the "edit this page" link in the appropriate section below and adding the template provided at the bottom of this page (with the nominee's name substituted for USERNAME) to the RfA page. Ideally, the nominee should do this when they are satisfied with their answers to the questions.
(emphasis mine, taken from Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/nominate). It does say "alternatively, the candidate may ask the nominator to do so", but recently, how many -- what percentage -- have realistically asked the nominators to list it? – Ch acor 14:11, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Forgive me.. but does it make a great deal how an RfA is listed? If a nominator wishes to list it.. then thats upto them. User:MatthewFenton 14:13, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, and I don't see any reason why we should prevent nominators from listing a correctly completed RfA. --Durin 14:17, 30 October 2006 (UTC)