Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship

[[:|WT:RFA]]

HolyRomanEmperor: He's back

User:HolyRomanEmperor is back online. And, I'm afraid, this doesn't clarify anything. If you check out his contributions, you will see a creation of a really wierd page in his userspace and some pro-albanian edits. And if you read through his RfA's, you will see some people stating he is a Serbian nationalist, and you will see some Albanians insulting him. And, another curious thing is this edit summary featuring a typo which is highly unlikely for HRE to make, and which was a common spelling error of problematic Albanian user User:Hipi Zhdripi, which has been known to attack HRE. What I'm 95% sure is that Hipi didn't hijack HRE's account since we already know that the person which is behind all of this had access to HRE's private computer. What I'm 100% sure is that I'm getting braindamaged by this situation and that it is time we get some explanations. I propose we request HRE to explain the situation throughly before doing any more edits. --Dijxtra 12:37, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm rather confused by the fact that one of HRE's last edits was "My Last Reply to You" to User talk:Emir Arven, who has been somewhat difficult with him. smurrayinchester^{(User), (Talk)} 13:06, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see no other alternative. --M e rovingian {T C @} 12:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, this certainly deserves an article in uncyclopedia :))). -- Ante P.

I think I know what is going on here! He is just the first one to be kidnaped by aliens, who made secret pact with the rest of the world against the Serbs. This is real, judging from all the things I've seen on TV Beograd in 1990's. In few days, Boris and some others will also begin to show pro-albanian sentiments. Just wait and see ;). --Ante Perkovic 13:59, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I urge you for an urgent block of... that... Duja 13:33, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think that this is now past ludicrous and even those isignificant traces of respect that I had for HRE are disappearing at an alarming rate. There is now a number of edits coming from HRE's account which would seem to indicate that his account has been hijacked by some semi-intelligent Albanian nationalist with broken English (who, my goodness, is the exact opposite of the "actual" HRE and quite conveniently correspond to the profile of Hipi-Zdipi or whatever). Of course, this semi-intellingent Albanian nationalist is now keen to convince us that he is in no way HRE (I mean, the best and the most logical way to harm HRE is to prove to the Wikipedia community that you are not HRE exactly at the moment when you have access to his account. THIS REALLY MAKES SENSE!!!). Of course, this idiotic Albanian nationalist is probably studying/teaching at the same University of Belgrade (again, perfectly sensible). Thirdly, everybody, but the actual HRE, seems to be able to contribute to Wikipedia. Should I stop or is it clear that someone is really desparate to provide us with a very lame excuse? 83.131.65.71 13:41, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what is wrong exactly, I guess none of us know, but this whole thing is just wrong. I've blocked the account until a satisfactory explanation of this whole series of events is given. --Joanne B 14:03, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'll support you on that block if anyone questions it. Best, --Alabamaboy 14:12, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As will I. I would've blocked him myself, but I was afraid that'd be a little too bold. --M e rovingian {T C @} 15:10, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Being that the WP:OFFICE got involved, maybe this should be run by Danny. -- Avi 14:15, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I did run it by Danny, on IRC. After I explained the situation to him, he agreed that a block would be the best thing to do. He suggested not only blocking but also rollbacking, which I did. --Joanne B 14:24, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How do you know WP:OFFICE is dealing with it?--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 14:21, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See above. pschemp | talk 14:32, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It may be possible that the person who compromised his account gave the password to Hipi, who then logged in. Can we get a second Checkuser? Ashibaka tock 16:14, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This still doesn't explain why HRE hasn't logged on as anonymous IP or created another account in order to explain the situation (particularly in view of the fact that it has been established that notes of HRE and Sad News have been coming from his computer (or the computer he normally uses). He has already informed us of his well-being on Serbian Wikipedia condeming the person who was behind this. The note, however, did not contain any reference to his account being hijacked (which is VERY strange because it would be the first thing I would mention). As for the Hipi Z. who is a very interesting account indeed, I can say that this is beginning to be very reminiscent of an almost schizophrenic IP User:87.116.154.180, who attracted much attention back in April after sending a death threat (in broken English of course!) to several Serbian (and other pro-Serbian editors) who edited controversial subjects related to the Kosovo region. Of course, the perceived Albanian version of Scarlet Pimpernel Hipi Z. was immediately blamed for the incident. There was, however, one thing that didn't fit and, unfortunately went unnoticed: the first and only contribution of [User:87.116.154.180] before sending the death threat 4 days later was to make a very pro-Serbian edit on the Cetina river in Croatia. This paradox is reminiscent of the change in editing pattern we have witnessed today with HRE's account. I am sorry, but someone here is playing a game trying to give an impression that the person controlling the account couldn't possibly be HRE. 83.131.72.175 18:24, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, could you please explain how you relate to this matter given your obvious keen interest? After all this is your first ever post. - Glen 00:05, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say that the above message was a registered user commenting anonymously.--digital_m e^{(TalkˑContribs)} 00:26, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I am attracted to this case because of my keen interest in near-cyber-death experiences and other paranormal phenomena. 83.131.19.212 08:00, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lying (on whoever's part) is hardly paranormal :) —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-07-06 09:10Z

Quarl, why are you being so sceptical? No reasonable person can deny the anomalous energy patterns emanating from HRE's account, electronic crop circles left on his discussion page, a mysterious and mischievous Albanian ghost (in dire need of English lessons!) that snatched away his password... 83.131.14.156 10:46, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Haha :) —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-07-06 20:26Z

I don't think this is Hipi. No one can beat Hipi's English, and this one's, while far from perfect, is far better than that. Apart from minor spelling mistakes, this is fairly acceptable English. Duja 08:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

May I suggest another option. Ahem....how about Ferick for starters? He is very lazy in making his edit summaries, ie. this one, with him saying "Kosovo.com is definitely not a reliable information source. I appreciate your affords to “add sources” though", another one here, then there's this really messed up one, here again to similir to what HRE's imposter, or HRE, are making. The two users in question have also had a recent history as is clear here on Ferick's talk page, and it seems Ferick was extremely agitated by HRE efforts to stop the spreading of POV. Ferick has also got a degree in computer science, and it could be that Ferick managed to hack into HRE personal computer, and make edits from there. (I've seen this done before, as kids in my school routinely manage to login into their home PC's to bypass internet filters, and actually shut down the entire system with very little hacking abilities). If Ferick (or anyone else) has any kind of hacking abilities, it wouldn't be to difficult for him to manage this. Again, this is just a thought, my sincere apologies to Ferick if he is pronounced innocent. However it is very good to hear that HRE is alive and okay, let's hope we can sort out the rest of this as quickly as possible. C-c-c-c 12:06, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

It seems like another, more comitted version of this, an admin in the process of an uncertain RFA making a dramatic exit. 24.94.192.247 20:11, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please, lets not start rumors about things like that. Jaranda is an admin, and would not, are far as I know, lie about things like that. Plus, he was just stating he was going to be inactive for a little while, not dead. — The King of Kings 01:34 July 08 '06

I agree, that is very different. This case is very odd, but it can be assumed that either for some reason or another HRE is unable to contact us, and someone else is using the HolyRomanEmperor account or (less likely) HRE is delibratly misleading everyone. Prodego ^talk 02:04, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Considering everything so far, I have to still have faith in him, even considering everything against him. I'm presently waiting for a response on the Serbian Wikipedia were I sent him a message, but no response has been made as of now. HRE did post there a little while back that his account here had been hacked, so assuming good faith, I have to believe him. I can't except that HRE would be dilibratly misleading us like this, its not like him. — The King of Kings 02:52 July 08 '06

If we disregard the HRE faking option, whoever is using the account is definitly not Holy Roman Emperor, the user did not know about the e-mail user function, and did not know his/her own username. [1] Prodego ^talk 18:06, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So, if we disregard the HRE faking option, we pretty much have to assume that the current holder of the account is a moron, haven't we? I mean, given her/his severly limited intellectual capacity - of which Prodego has furnished us with some evidence - it is a miracle of the awe inspiring kind that (s)he had succeeded in stealing HRE's account. Of course, things like this can happen and all this might well be a good material for Forrest Gump 2. Nonetheless, even if we assume that this obviously perfectly logical scenario is valid, we would still have to answer one question: why hasn't the HRE contacted us yet? He simply disappeared into thin air in the middle of his 4th, 5th(?) race for adminship leaving another of his heart-breaking and infallably melodramatic messages on his (by that time already doomed) adminship's talk page. Maybe the guy has said goodbye in a slightly akward manner and we should just leave him to lick his wounds and open up a new account? 83.131.8.79 12:24, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh my god. I'm sorry if I'm missing part of the story, but it's 1am and I don't have IRC and I can't really read Serbian, so did HRE's account get hijacked by someone, who created another to pose as his brother, to fake HRE's death and then hijack his account? God. Highway ^Batman! 00:10, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

All see User:HRE. Prodego ^talk 21:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just curious: Why is this on the talk page for WP:RfA, I don't see what it has to do with admin promotion. (confused shrug) MichaelBillington 09:08, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, i see. I just read Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/HolyRomanEmperor_4, so ignore me. MichaelBillington 09:15, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New admin nomination

Do I literaly put it just below the==Current nominations for administratorship== header separation or just above the {{Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Werdna648 2}} ?--Jondel 03:56, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think I'll just add just on top of the requests.(Horay forthe man who talks to himselfs!)--Jondel 04:03, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The nomination seems to be broken. Have you used the generator? -- ReyBrujo 04:44, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No I didn't but I 've already nominated him.--Jondel 00:01, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(Possibly just my own) problems with the way the RfA process is being carried out

Over the past six months or so, I've tried to keep an eye on the RfA process with the hopes of actually, y'know, contributing to it. I've only managed to do so a few times, because most of the time, it just sucks all the energy out of me. It is becoming increasingly obvious to me that it's not so much about picking people who make good admins as it is about getting people to jump through hoops. I realize that this is not intentional, but in effect, that what it seems to boil down to. It was only very recently that I actually noticed Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards, which I find absolutely ridiculous. We get, what, fifty sets of edit/time standards and various other standards that range from clear-cut "must not have been blocked for vandalism" to far more vague "any user that has contributed to the society so much that they are running out of things to do and are ready for some new privelages". Okaaaaay.

Guys. Seriously. We're talking about adminship, not conforming to some kind of a weird template that is composed of a kazillion little non-compatible pieces. It's supposed to be no big deal. Yes, I absolutely agree that there are standards that should be met. Someone who goes around adding the word "penis" to random articles or picking fights or constantly violating NPOV and whatnot is not good admin material, that much is dictated by common sense. Likewise, if it can be demonstrated that the user doesn't understand (or isn't willing to stick to) Wikipedia's policies, yes, by all means, oppose that nomination. That's only smart.

But all this "signature's too long/don't like his wording/don't support self-nominations/doesn't dedicate his life to fighting vandals/must have made a significant contribution to a featured article" crap -- I realize that most people don't think of it as elitism, but that's exactly what it is. The key question should be "is it likely that this user will abuse the admin tools?" If the answer is yes, by all means, oppose. If the answer is no, support. And, of course, if more information is needed to make a decision, asking is always good. But, for example, take this this weird unspoken requirement that anyone who becomes an admin must demonstrate a need for all of the admin tools all the time -- so closing AfDs isn't enough, you must also fight vandals, and vice versa. As if having an admin who just quietly takes care of the AfD backlog would do Wikipedia any harm.

And speaking of the questions that get asked from admin candidates, by the way... I'm sorry, but some of them are downright ridiculous. For example, "After you have blocked an inappropriate user name, will you check the Special:Ipblocklist to see if this block is creating massive collateral damage?" What, does anyone actually expect someone to answer "no, because I don't care about massive collateral damage" to this one? In fact, does it make any difference what someone answers to these questions, as long as he says something that pleases the person asking the question? Is anyone actually going to check and see if the new admin, once he's been approved, is going to keep his promises -- and more importantly, if the admin says, "well, I know I promised to be active in this area, but guess what, I changed my mind" or simply "I ain't doing anything admin related 'cause I don't wanna", so what? Is that going to get his adminship revoked? I find the question "In your view, do administrators hold a technical or political position?" particularly laughable, because it's blindingly obvious that in order to become an administrator, a certain amount of politicking is required. I realize that it's asked in good faith and it's not in any way a stupid question in itself, but in the context of the actual RfA process it's like asking a soldier driving a tank in a combat zone whether he considers a familiarity with his car or good knowledge of the rules of the road the most important quality of a good driver...

I'll probably piss people off with this one, and I apologize for that in advance. It's not my intention, and I may be overreacting. I just honestly find the actual process pretty far removed from "the community granting administrator status to trusted users who are familiar with Wikipedia policies". I don't know about you, but to me it feels demoralizing. -- Captain Disdain 16:52, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This fellow speaks the truth. A true and accurate summary. -Randall Brackett 16:59, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If the fellow could just condence his statement in 1/3 of the size above, would be much easier to read. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:43, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, what the hell, here goes: "Currently, the RfA process sucks, because too many people insist on making a big deal about stupid shit completely unrelated to the actual issue of whether a prospective admin can be trusted to not abuse the admin tools. Also, some of the questions are kinda dumb. It makes me sad. YMMV."

Frankly, I kinda prefer my original version. -- Captain Disdain 17:54, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

These problems aren't just your own and I'm happy someone has been forthright about them. I'm also glad you haven't seen the glass half-full / half-empty question; you would have cried.

People have every right to add questions to RfAs, but they should really think twice and ask themselves "Self, do I know what this person is going to answer already?" and "Self, is this really relevant to this RfA?" and "Self, why am I asking this person a question if I already voted support for him/her? It's not like the answer really matters and I'm just giving the candidate more work." And about the half-full/half-empty question, I don't have a severe aversion to it, because it's quite light-hearted and doesn't require a long response that could use up a considerable amount of the candidate's time. But there are other questions that do. Remember, the candidates have jobs or schoolwork, family and friends; their time is precious too. Asking numerous, useless questions (and I'm not suggesting that everyone, or even the majority, of questioners do) just puts unnecessary stress on the candidate. joturn e r 17:14, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I've seen the glass question, but at least that's an obvious joke. I don't have a problem with jokes. (And incidentally, the glass isn't half full or half empty -- it's too big.) -- Captain Disdain 17:23, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Spurious questions should be boldly removed. If more than one user wants to read the answer, they may not be so spurious. But trusting every editor to show good judgement about when to further questions shouldn't be valued over trusting other editors to show good judgement about what questions to edit out of an RfA. Jkelly 17:37, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Replying to the original poster (oh, we have an article about that!), I like to assume good faith. I have noticed that people sometimes put questions like "Do you like coffee?" (an example about the tone, not about the question), usually after a batch of questions. I see them as a way of getting the candidate relaxed. Nobody expects him to answer "Yes, I like the Colombian, as it is softer to my taste than the Brazilian one. However, I must admit Maragogype is fairly superior Bourbon, thus I like spending some more dollars getting it." but instead "Nah, I want to sleep from time to time. You know, that thing we used to do for 8 hours every day before joining Wikipedia. Or having a baby." Removing these kind of questions, which may be considered off-topic or ridiculous, would only enhance the "seriousness" of the RFA, which was one of the complains of the OP (It's supposed to be no big deal.).

As for the standard list, there is no policy about candidates in Wikipedia, thus each of us is allowed to set his own standards. Someone people vote oppose in some RFAs because they think there are "too many Administrators already" or because "there is no way to remove a bad admin" (which I have read before, and could source if you really want me to). Others support people who have written a Featured article, while others vote just because the user has never been blocked and has done some good contributions, even if they make only 50 or 60 edits per month. That Standard list is just a collection of thoughts by people. I wonder how many of them do really vote in every RFA, applying their written standards. -- ReyBrujo 21:37, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mm. In case it's not immediately obvious, my main point is not really the questions, and even when it comes to the questions, my concern is not the coffee/half-full/half-empty/what superpower do you want questions. As I said, I don't mind jokes. That's all kind of beside the point. -- Captain Disdain 23:01, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As a long-time editor who is currently being run through one of the more bizarre gauntlet experiences that the RfA has become, might I propose we do a rework of the rationale for who should and shouldn't be an administrator? I think there should be a single major consideration:

Is there evidence that the user would abuse administrator tools?

If the answer is yes, then the user shouldn't be given those tools so we can spare ourselves the wasted time of endless dispute resolutions.

Possible ways to show whether or not this has occurred would be: a) the user hasn't been around long enough to determine the answer to the question, b) the user doesn't know what the administartor tools are, c) the user has behaved in a way that may indicate she/he is likely to abuse administrator toos. In my RfA, there are a number of votes that seem to indicate an extreme laziness on the part of the users who are voting. A large number if not majority of those opposing my request are doing so because my responses to the questions were too short! This is not even a stated criteria for gaining the tools. I think that people who hang out here at RfA need to get a wake-up call. We need to make it clear that administrator tools are not given when users reach featured status. They are given to users who demonstrate a desire to use the tools, know what they are for, and show evidence they won't abuse them.

--ScienceApologist 21:12, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree. Some RfA voters seem to have created unnecessary criteria. Wikipedia would benefit if all sensible people were admins, sharing the workload. People who abuse their status will lose their extra privileges. Stephen B Streater 21:36, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You know, all I have to say is this:

In the last two weeks, I have noticed the following:

An average of two or three backlogs (50+ CSD) per day in CAT:CSD.

Orphaned fairuse deletions three-four days overdue

AfDs four-five days old still open

A significant drop in admin percentage from .1 to .05

A significant drop in RfA success rate and RfA NOMINATIONS in general, actually causing some users to lose interest in the site

Anyone noticing a pattern here? We need more people to help clear the backlogs, because it's timely and boring work for just one or two admins — heck, in that respect, perhaps it's best that we put people who like doing tedious things in the adminship group! And this "Wikipedia edit" nonsense — how does editing a policy prove that a person adheres to policy? Heck, if they're going off and modifying policies left and right, that means that they are liberal and don't want to follow the current policy ammendments. That could actually be a bad thing. RfA is not a 45-day workplace evaluation to determine a pay raise. Granted, admins should be part of the cream of the crop, and yes, I expect administrators to help people out and set the standard of behavior on the site, which is why I oppose based on past issues and lack of experience, not amount of edits (unless it's very low). — Deckill e r 21:46, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've done a little digging up as of early July 10 to see which of the new admins (post May 29) have been doing the deleting (the overwhelming number of admin tools) in File:Admin.sxc (OpenOffice) . Interesting to see some of the stats.Blnguyen | rant-line 01:46, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm in a fairly unique position to see both sides of the fence, having had my first (self-)nom turned down very soundly 3 months ago, and having been sysopped just this morning with only 1 oppose.[2] 3 months ago I would have agreed wholeheartedly with Captain Disdain's viewpoint (and wikilawyered like mad to advance it). I'm not condemning it now, but I do see things more fully than I used to. One thing that is very misleading is that the guidelines on requirements for adminship are completely out of step with the actual practice, and as that is a practice evolved through consensus, it is going to stay. Simply showing you won't abuse the tools isn't enough any more, even if it was once. To a certain extent it is about jumping through hoops, but not for the sake of it.

Editors looking at a RfA want to feel confident in a candidate, and that candidate has to positively demonstrate competence, commitment and starting to work on some of the things that s/he will do as an admin (e.g. AfD). It's not the case that a candidate has to pretend to be a potential super(wo)man. In fact some of the positive responses I received were because I was quite frank about where I saw my current limitations and how I addressed them. Candidates pretending to knowledge which is beyond them, undermine their position.

As far as the questions go, I think it is fair enough that if someone wants the powerful tools to block, protect and delete, they should be prepared for whatever is thrown at them during the RfA for the few days it is in progress. If you get a dumb question, then that is a test of how you cope with such things. I disagree that there are pat predictable answers to questions that will get the thumbs up. That can have a hollow ring to it. Far better is a genuine, thoughtful, resourceful and innovative answer to a question, that shows a candidate is aware of the implications and has thought it through properly.

Basically, the requirements for adminship are what the editors taking part in the process want to see, and a number have stated what that is. If you want their support, then you have to meet their requirements, or you have to demonstrate other strengths sufficient to cause them to bend their own rules, and this certainly does happen. Following my first RfA, I decided I would try out the requirements stated by different editors. It was a good training course. I went into areas I might not have done otherwise, and learnt a lot from it. If I'd been sysopped initially, I wouldn't have abused the tools, but the intervening experience has made me in a much stronger position to use them - and even so, I realise there's still a lot to learn.

A reasonably all-round experience of wiki is obviously now required. It doesn't mean every single area, but it does mean a balance between project space and main space, as well as talk and usually a good number of edits and certain length of time in wiki. It also means behaving to the right standard in these levels, with e.g. civility. These experiences give a sound basis for the step to adminship. Vandal-fighting can take different forms. I don't do RCP, but I have a considerable watch list I check each time I log on, and there are usually reverts necessary (with the attendant warnings left on user talk). If an editor doesn't fight vandals in some form, it calls into question their involvement with articles, which is, after all, the purpose of the exercise at the end of the day. If there isn't this involvement with articles, then participating in AfD becomes a questionable exercise. So the different areas link in with each other. As far as the FA requirement goes, this is only applied by one or two people (who sometimes give a neutral anyway), so it's not a decisive factor, but it is a good encouragement to take an interest in the FA process. This also applies to other more arcane requirements, so highlighting them is a red herring.

Tyrenius 22:13, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I didn't have a problem in my RfA, so I can't really say I've been on both sides of the fence — however, I nominated my friend Mipadi, and most of the oppose votes come from the fact that he has only 96 Wikipedia space edits. Which is quite interesting, since last time I checked, one doesn't have to write to be able to read, but that's just me (and that's why I prefer questions over edit counts in close cases). I like to see evidence of tedious work, for example, since most admin incompetence involves lack of work, not abusing the tools. — Deckill e r 22:27, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is not that users want less administrators, but rather that promoting a "bad" administrator usually ends up in some variety of spectacular fireworks, which alienate other editors. As a result, the base of users has become significantly more conservative as a means of self-defense. Titoxd^(?!?) 22:36, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Very true. Which, naturally, backfires in terms of backlogs and other things. I think the key is finding a balance (which I tried to do with my somewhat loose RfA criteria) to keep up with things. After all, if a store had a crazy janitor and doesn't hire any more, the place will stink and turn off more customers than, say, a crazy janitor would. — Deckill e r 22:38, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - But where do you find that balance? That's the reason behind the criteria. You want to promote someone who has proven competent for the job, yet not make it impossible for editors to pass in borderline cases. Titoxd^(?!?) 22:41, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    - I should perhaps also stress that I don't have a problem with picking people who are capable of handling the responsibility (and, conversely, turning away those who aren't). I'm all for it. Rather, my point is that very little of the posturing during the RfA process actually seems to be designed to ensure that the candidates have that capability. I realize that in theory, all is well. In practice, the process isn't doing what it is supposed to be doing, and I can't help thinking that a big reason for that is that a lot of editors love to set standards that they can -- often kind of smugly -- tout. I'm not saying that those standards are necessarily bad in themselves (hell, it's not like I don't have my own standards); I just think that the way they're paraded around is demoralizing and turns the entire process into a kind of a grotesque circus. I find the declarations about whether someone's 200 Wikipedia project space edits are good enough to qualify for adminship tedious and silly. We're not talking about rocket science here. We're not handing anyone the keys to the protective cover over the Big Red Button. On admin level, Wikipedia is not a terribly complicated structure, and the admin stuff is not particularly difficult (or, perhaps even more importantly, irreversible). Yes, it requires that the editor in question is a) careful when doing whatever he's doing, b) willing to take the time to read the policy and other relevant documentation on whatever he's doing before doing so and c) smart enough to not go and do random admin stuff without understanding the consequences of what he's doing. But honestly? Getting all that down is not complex stuff. And I'm not even saying that the standards should be lowered, I'm saying that the way the process is being conducted feels ugly. To me, at least. -- Captain Disdain 23:21, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Entirely reasonable. As RFA is a beauty contest rather than an assessment of ones capabilities then inevitably it's going to beocme a question of chasing a range of arbitrary objectives. And from the look of the link it ranges from marginal to unreasonable. Still, the real question is 'What are admins actually for' and tbh it looks like an internal backsslapping convention, there are few enough that actually get on with the legwork. There whould be plenty admins to actually crack on with admin work, but mos don't seem to. The question is not,, have we got enough admins, but have we got enough admins actually using the facilities which being an admin brings!ALR 23:19, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well said, which is why the current dillema is so great — we aren't promoting enough admins who are actually doing the jobs, perhaps because in the process of spending so much time tailoring their edits to meet criteria that they get burned out? Maybe; it could also be a lack of a decent promotion percentage, or a lack of nominations because of the lack of a decent promotion percentage. Or perhaps the lack of incentive? It could be any number (or a combination of) reasons. That's exactly why showing examples of tedious work is being implemented into my criteria. — Deckill e r 23:43, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is a real problem. Perhaps we should make Wikipedia:What adminship is not clearer and required reading for all voters. It's Wikipedia equivalent helps a lot when certain users try to impose external values in articles. A similar technique could be helpful in weeding out the "external values" that have begun to crop up in usual suspect votes on RfA. For example, in my RfA I was accused of both being too eager to get administrator tools and not eager enough. I understand that a user should accept nomination which makes the intention to use the tools clear (along with the nomination statement and the responses to questions), but "eagerness" is a quality that doesn't really get at the fundamental issue that should be associated with oppose votes: is this user likely to abuse the admin tools? I have added some prose to the RfA page and to the "Admin not" page to begin the ball rolling on this problem. --ScienceApologist 09:14, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To add one more thing, I was discussing these problems with one of the people who supported my RfA and suggested on this user's talkpage that we start an RfC regarding this issue. This caused another round of voting against my RfA on the grounds that I was being hostile (assuming, maybe, that I was going to start a User-RfC on each and every user who voted against me.... I mean, come on, where's the good faith?). It might be a good idea to push this issue elsewhere on Wikipedia since not every user (surprise, surprise) frequents the RfA pages. This area of Wikipedia is starting to feel more like an autonomous feifdom and less like a simple place where we, as a community, try to decide whether people should get a set of admin tools. --ScienceApologist 09:28, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If the community is being over cautious to stop bad admins getting in, we should desysop some bad admins. Stephen B Streater 09:36, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If the current crop of administrators had to go through RfA today, would the majority of them be made administrators? If the answer is "no" (and I believe it is) then there is something wrong with the system and we need to change it. --ScienceApologist 19:15, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ScienceApologist, I've just had a quick look through your RfA. I'm sure some of it was a bit of a shock, but I earnesty advise you to study it carefully and take on board the advice given. Tyrenius 01:08, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would love to see what your summary of the RfA is. If you want to let me know what specific advice I should take away from it, please let me know on my talkpage. --ScienceApologist 14:29, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And that response encapsulates why I don't support you, ScienceApologist. Rather than saying "Yeah, I will look into it, maybe there is stuff for me learn from!" You are basically saying "This is all BS, and I want you to point out to me how it isn't BS." Simply not the right attitude for an admin. Your pestering me on my talk page has gotten tiresome, using terms like "are you seriously" and telling me that i'm not allowed to find your attitude off-putting has basically pushed me over the edge. Please, step back, take a breath; stop automatically blaming everything - and everyone - else for this hicup on your road to adminship. Themindset 17:14, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe a taste of the medicine you are prescribing is in order? In the past I expressed a disagreement towards your opinions and a disapproval of some of your interpretations, but your strawman arguments regarding what I am "saying" seem really out-of-line. I really am not "blaming" anyone for anything. I am saying that I don't understand what you are trying to say and this last post in particular seems to lack a level of civility -- which is a bit ironic considering how our discussions began. While I do question your judgements, I'm not taking anything out on you or "everything -and everyone". --ScienceApologist 20:27, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think you should all check out Curps's RfA. I seriously doubt that the same result would occur today. Another thing that bugs me is people voting oppose because the editor has too few "substantial" edits <cough>1FA</cough>. An administrator does not receive a magic pen, so if they are mostly doing cleanup/maintenance to articles and fighting vandalism, does that not make them better prepared for adminship than an editor who only writes articles? ...Sorry, I just had to get that rant off my chest. --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 19:13, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think you should carefully study all the criticism/advice, put it into practice for 3 months and then you will be successful. Tyrenius 20:39, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, regardless of Mr. Lefty's own RfA, I think he's entirely correct here. Curps would never pass that RfA today -- not with a self-nomination that says, in its entirety, "I have been on Wikipedia since February 2004 and have a few thousand edits, and have a good understanding of how Wikipedia works." You'd get fifteen people piling on him and instantly accusing him of lack of interest in adminship or lack of experience with Wikipedia's policies or something along those lines.

Is replacing a pretty straightforward and bullshit-free process like Curps had with what we have now really something worthwhile? Is the quality of new admins now somehow considerably better than it was before? (Or, conversely, were there more abusive admins in the past than there are now?) -- Captain Disdain 03:41, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think there is an impressive, thorough and responsible assessment of candidates, and, furthermore, a level of feedback which will enable any unsuccessful candidate to gain all the direction they need for a subsequent successful return, if they are prepared to listen and put into practice what is said to them. That, at least, has been my experience. However, it can be quite a shock to the system at first, as a few illusions and delusions get shattered. Doubtless that is also good preparation. Tyrenius 04:44, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, well. Not that there isn't valuable feedback in there as well, but overall, it seems to get lost in the noise. Of course, if the idea is to prepare the candidates for accepting that, say, they can't work with the AfD backlog unless they spend time trying to make something into a featured article or that their signature has something to do with whether they can block vandals, yeah, I'd say it's pretty good preparation. Personally, I don't think of that as an ideal set of circumstances, but we've already estbalished that much. The horse is getting kinda dead here, so I should probably stop beating it. =) -- Captain Disdain 07:48, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Jumping through hoops to get access to parts of the Wikicode

Following my first RfA, I decided I would try out the requirements stated by different editors. It was a good training course. I went into areas I might not have done otherwise, and learnt a lot from it. If I'd been sysopped initially, I wouldn't have abused the tools, but the intervening experience has made me in a much stronger position to use them - and even so, I realise there's still a lot to learn. quoth :Tyrenius

Interesting issue. There definitely are people who are not familiar with various aspects of Wikipedia and would benefit from a walkthrough tour, of sorts. I don't think that making this a requirement for administrator tools makes sense though. This just strikes me as making more hoops for people to jump through and encourages a gaming of the system while people try to style their accounts to look like something that a "good admin candidate" would look like. That's really bordering on viewing adminship as a trophy, which is something adminship decidedly is not.

--ScienceApologist 14:31, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Widthdraw or fail?

I know my RFA wont succeed (ok, I still have hope =D) but I think it is better to "go down with the ship" than withdraw. I believe extremely strongly that I am a great candidate for admin.

However, what is the feeling here? Is is a bad thing to let your RfA fail? --mboverload @ 22:18, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My quick comment: no, it's not a bad thing to let your RfA fail. If you're upright enough to let it go full time and fail, good for you. Perhaps an oppose or support at the last minute will give you something to think about. Marskell 22:47, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tough to say. One the one hand, there's a sense among some users that withdrawl shows a lack of "commitment" on the part of the candidate; on the other hand, some users will wield a failed RfA like a sword of Damocles in later RfAs. But a tactical withdrawl can be useful if your RfA is being disrupted/trolled; otherwise I'd say let the process continue to completion, and take the lessons learned for a future attempt (I haven't read yours lately, so I don't know what's going on there or what your current % is). -- nae'blis _(talk) 22:54, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the advice. There are a few more oppose votes than support, however I think in a few months should a user nominate me again it will pass soundly.

I am utterly committed to this RfA and any future ones, but I don't want my steadfastness to be used against me even if it is a gross misrepresentation ex: "Doesn't know when to quit and back down" --mboverload @ 23:05, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Having looked at it now, I don't think 40% passing is something to be ashamed of. The ones I usually see get accused of obstinate tenacity are the 10% and less success stories... -- nae'blis _(talk) 23:08, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I am proud of my RfA and the support votes I have gotten =D --mboverload @ 23:12, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(many edit conflicts later) If not due a "technicisms" (where your nomination somehow messed up during generation), "real life" situations (where you will be unable to be around to answer questions, or must leave the project for some time) or "seconds thoughts" just after being nominated (in example, reminding your last RFA failed a month ago after someone nominated you), you should let the nomination end. Also, keep paying attention to your RFA: replying questions or fixing small format issues, updating tally if four or five "voted" and forgot to do it, etc. Remember, in the next RFA, the current one will be examined, and it never looks fine when you have stopped answering questions because it was already 1-9 three days after posting it. Finally, examining how people "vote" gives you hints about their behaviour, which may be useful when treating them in Wikipedia. -- ReyBrujo 23:14, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Either way you go is fine and will not reflect poorly on you. If you choose to withdraw, no problem. If you choose to stay, you should announce it here clearly, so any passing bureaucrats are more likely to leave it run its course. Of course if one chooses to close it, accept that decision without complaint. Feedback is good to receive especially once the pressure of succeeding is no longer upon you, take advantage of that.

It used to be one could wait one month before trying again, now it seems even a two month wait is too short for some (not for me though, it seems a silly measure). But do yourself a favor and don't rush to do RFA 2, wait three months to avoid the "too anxious to be an admin" label. I wonder what others think on this issue. NoSeptember 23:48, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

lol, is it too eager to be an admin if a different user wants to nominate me in 2 months? =D --mboverload @ 01:15, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I personally agree, but I have seen these comments and it takes so little to defeat a nominee. Most nominators will wait without withdrawing their offer to nominate you if you ask them to. The whole timing issue includes not accepting a nomination when you have been in a recent conflict in which you violated policy or got blocked and so forth. I'm talking in generalities of course. It depends on the candidate's situation, but if you fail the second time for whatever reason, it becomes harder to pass the third time, it is up to the candidate to only proceed when they are the most attractive as a potential admin. Declining a nomination or two can work wonders for you, look at CSCWEM and BD2412. NoSeptember 09:40, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I actually have feelings that are opposite most of the people here. One of the jobs of a admin is to be able to read consensus and act accordingly. I much prefer to see a candidate withdraw a failing RFA once the outcome has become obvious and the commentary associated with it has become stale. For me this is a sign of good judgment, maturity, and an interest in not wasting other people's time. I'm not saying that anyone needs to panic over an early negative response, but most failing RFAs are pretty well concluded by the fifth day or so. Dragons flight 23:51, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Usually, if the outcome (ie failing) is clear by the sixth or seventh day, we close the nomination. It is very rare (Durin can provide the stats) if not impossible to see a failing candidate (<70%) succeed on the final day. Another thing: The RFA is not a cumulation of support or oppose votes: Its a measure of aptitude, so leaving a badly failing candidature present for exactly 168 hrs is a waste of everybody's time and bandwidth. =Nichalp «Talk»= 07:02, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

~~I don't like the insinuation that my RfA is a waste of time and bandwidth =(~~ --mboverload @ 10:16, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that he was insinuating that *your* RfA specifically was a waste of time/bandwith, but rather, that in many cases, once the outcome is obvious, it would be better for everyone involved to take part in some other activity (stub sorting or something, I don't know) rather than continue to pile on to a candiate, possibly damaging thier association with Wikipedia beyond repair. I would say that in a case where an RfA had gone nearly full term, and there was still useful commentary taking place, it should be left open; if there is nothing but "Oppose per ...", then the candidate isn't gaining anything, and leaving it open only provides them more opportunity to be hurt. If the RfA has made it past the first few days and the candidate is gaining something from the RfA, it's probably best left open. If not, there isn't any reason to leave it open and risk hurting the person. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 12:41, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

~~Ah ok. If you want to close the RfA a couple days early that's ok with me (I don't think we're there yet =D).~~ --mboverload @ 12:50, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nope, while I agree that it may be useful in some situations to close early, barring some extraordinary circumstance that I've yet to consider and/or don't remember having experienced, I don't close anything with less than 75% oppose. I consider that a safe level at which to keep everyone happy, as not everyone agrees with closing RfAs early, and while I may disagree, thier opinions are certainly valid. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 12:55, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. My criteria for closing early is at least 75% oppose, with a decent number of votes (I consider 1 support and 10 oppose after several hours to be a decent number). I use that standard because it is a reversal of the commonly-held "promotion standard" of 75% support before considering promotion. (Though RfA is not a vote, it's a consensus discussion.™) Essjay (Talk • Connect) 08:13, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you can satisfy everyone here, you deserve to be an admin ;-) Stephen B Streater 08:05, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There's more evidence just posted that you should probably look at. I'm at 24-24 now =D --mboverload @ 05:28, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, I think this RfA was lost largely on the information presented in oppose comment 2. As I have noted in my comments, I think the opposing party was disingenous in his very selective presentation of evidence. The evidence I presented showing the manipulation underway came so late in the game that this RfA was doomed. I expect the same person might try to settle scores again in the future. --A. B. 04:08, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On Super-duper majority and voting for administrators

I have been studying closely the issues surrounding RFA and have determined that perhaps one of the problems is the requirement for a super-duper majority of support votes in order to obtain adminship (75% to 80%). If you compare this to other areas where community consensus is measured, this criteria looks like a slap in the face to those standards. In particular, since Wikipedia is not a democracy, it seems weird that in the RFA process suddenly we are requiring a super-duper majority of basically self-declared voting Wikipedians who can create their own arbitrary standards for voting and affect a decision in a manner that is easily abused by pile-ons. I have been a member of Wikipedia for some time, but I could not believe it when I was bitten by diehard RfA voters who didn't like the responses to the questions I made but made no attempt to explain what exactly they didn't like about them. Since every user can make up their own standards and RfA voters seem to move like a pack, there is really little in the way of protecting outsiders here in this peculiar corner of Wikipedia. I think if we removed the 75% to 80% statements in exchange for the normal statements about consensus this would be a lot better. Have the beuracrats exercise their arbitrary authority the way admins exercise their arbitrary authority at WP:AfD. If they can ascertain a consensus in favor, a consensus against, or no consensus, great. Maybe we can have them sift through some of the baloney that people have begun to insert in their personal standards that are not a part of the written prose regarding the RfA process. --ScienceApologist 18:26, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

More issues with explaining votes

Let's look at my own RfA for example. A full-fledged majority of the voters opposed to me relied on some very bizarre explanations regarding that they didn't "like" the responses to the questions that I submitted to RfA. Okay, that's a fine opinion, but what does that have to do with whether I'm capable of handling rollback on vandalism patrol? I much prefer those people who state that they have concerns about my neutrality or they think that I might abuse one of the tools. There, at least, I can understand the reasoning and people can decide for themselves whether it is flawed or not. But simply making an oppose vote based on a "poor nomination" is definitely against the spirit of Wikipedia of accomodating those people who may not be up on the Wikiculture standards that have organically evolved but have not been stated anywhere. What does a "poor nomination" entail? Can anyone point me to a bit of prose that explains what distinguishes between these types of nominations? Let's make things as transparent as possible. This process is bordering on ridiculous especially considering that this is a process for deciding who should be given a certain set of edit tools. --ScienceApologist 18:26, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just an opinion. Right now it is possible to rollback with two clicks from a diff. I think popups allows you to revert with a single click. You don't need administrator tools to revert, I myself revert between 10 to 30 changes per day without patrolling, just by keeping my watchlist reviewed. Your statement "will probably help" is not as strong as stating "I will help", thus converting your answer to "I will use the administrators tools to revert changes." which is not really a motive to have these tools (see VandalProof or popups for others you may use). -- ReyBrujo 18:38, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Rey, for this explanation, but I don't quite buy it. Of course, I could write external code to Wikipedia to do the equivalent of rollback, but this puts pressure on me when there is a tested, efficient, and time-saving Wikipedia code that does the job better without wasting more time for me to go through the task of dif-clicking, filling out edit summaries, etc which are handled in a single smooth move by rollback. As I stated in my nomination statement: I want to be efficient. This is fast going by the wayside for me. Unfortunately it looks like many of the people who inhabit RfA space aren't into efficiency but are interested instead in reading meaning into statements and lack of statements, if you get my drift. The syntactic differences between "I will help" and "Will probably help" is an honest distinction on my part. I could lie and state that I will join every Wikipedia project, welcome every new user, make every speedy deletion decision, and watch the noticeboard like a hawk, but that's simply not what I'm going to do. Instead, I anticipate doing exactly what I stated I will do. --ScienceApologist 19:10, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You don't need to write any external code - VandalProof and popups already exist, just use them. --Tango 20:07, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Believe me, I know all about VandalProof and popups with both their joys and drawbacks. They are excellent external codes and fairly easy to implement, but they aren't ideal for users who jump from location to location when editting like myself. Implementing Vandalproof was cumbersome and I never got it to work right in every browser I used. I eventually abandoned the idea. Popups were a bit more stable for me, but I have had to turn them off a few times because they were destroying my memory. Rollback doesn't have either of these drawbacks. I thought since I'd been around long enough an RFA wouldn't hurt. Boy was I wrong. --ScienceApologist 20:18, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Edits to front matter

Discussion now continued at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Front matter

I made some edits to the front matter of this page. You can see the differences here. I explain my edits below:

I'm trying to avoid more wikislang and in so-doing changed the word "admin" to "administrator".
The civility requirement for administrators should be up front and shouldn't be tied to the erroneous "official face" designation (which is actually not what an administrator is and Wikipedia has been blasted in the media recently for behaving in this fashion). Civility is important because lack of it is an instance of administrator abuse. That is to say, when an administrator uses a tool like deletion or blocking without also being civil, the administrator is disrupting Wikipedia. The power of the tools is not a statement of "officialdom"; it is a statement of the fact that certain editors can block, delete, etc. and others cannot.
As per this, I began to explain what the main criteria for Adminship is (per talk above). Consensus on the risk-assessment of Wikipedians is the primary goal of the RfA, is it not?
Reversibility and extra policy statements regarding seem superfluous to this page which is about "Requests for adminship". The "extra policies" really involve the unique character of the administrator tools and are summarized by the opening statements regarding civility and abuse.
I removed "you may nominate yourself" statement with its conflicting caveats. We may consider reinserting a statement that "you may nominate yourself" if we get queries into this, but I fail to see the utility in scaring people with "some people think this" and "some people think that" prose. What's more important anyway is that the nominator (either self- or otherwise) explains their rationale. This is one of the things that I was bitten on and I think it's more important than arguing over the relative merits of self-nominations.
Removed the offensive 75%-80% threshhold statement which encourages pile-ons in my opinion and replaced it with a statement about the rigors of consensus here at RfA. Consensus is at a higher threshhold, but tacking this number on in the directions is tacky even if it is the standard. It's the quality of the comments not the percentage of users that matter anyway, right?
Removed contradictory statements from the "who may comment" point. If users are allowed to comment on their own nominations, they're allowed to comment on their own nominations. What users are not allowed to do is have their votes of either support or oppose counted toward their own nominations. I moved that idea down to the "who may not vote" section where it makes considerably more sense.
Augmented the "explain your vote" section. This is something which I found to be the most frustrating thing about the whole RfA process was people posting comments that were simply mystifying to me, the unexperienced RFA nominee. I went to numerous userpages to try to figure out what people meant by their statements. The best explainers actually modified their statements when I asked for clarification (User:ragesoss). Others didn't seem to want to be bothered. This is something we should try to change.
Linked to civility in be respectful.

Please let me know what you think. --ScienceApologist 20:14, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Though I agree with the comment about FA, I don't know if it would be the best idea to have it up there. I'm guessing the RfA page should be somewhat neutral and maybe this could be rephrased without mentioning anything and just stating along the lines of, "An RfA should not be something that a user recieves as an award, but rather a motion to further participate in community tasks in a more responsible fashion." Just an idea, feel free to disregard. Yank sox 20:17, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I understand what you're saying -- the point may seem a bit contrived, but I think that featured articles are a more visible part of Wikipedia than Administrators especially to newcomers. Making a constrating syllogism then only strengthens the community's position when we are confronted with people who speak of the Wikihierarchy or the "official face" problems I removed from other parts of the front matter. Featured articles are demonstrably better by consensus than articles that aren't featured. Administrators are not demonstrably "better" users, though, even though there is a strong undercurrent insinuating this in the RfA process. Get my drift? --ScienceApologist 20:25, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the edit is fraught with problems and should be reverted. -lethe ^{talk +} 20:24, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, what are the problems with it? --ScienceApologist 20:25, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Lethe. Specifically:

I don't understand what "Please note: A request for administrator privileges is not the user-equivalent of a featured article candidate" means. Its unclear and confusing.

"It is preferable to include a critique that is actionable rather than dismissive. If possible, avoid simply voting "per another user"."" Voting "per another user" can in fact be entirely appropriate, I don't see any reason to discourage it.

I don't understand why you removed the comments about self-nominations.

Given that 75%-80% is used as the level of votes required for consensus to be reached in RfA, I don't see why you have replaced that inforamtion with something more vague. This is a disservice to future candidate.

Gwernol 20:33, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(Edit conflict)

Replaces a very standard turn of phrase "admin" with "administrator" in the interests of reducing jargon, then moments later uses "wikicode", which is not only not jargon, but as far as I know is not a word at all. Leastways, I've never used it.
Removing the threshold percentage is a terrible idea. The last time a bureaucrat violated this number, there was a huge stink. We're not creating policy with this page, we're describing it. This is a rather drastic change, and should have been discussed.
Superfluous wikilinking. We link to WP:NOT to show what adminship is not, but in fact, that page says nothing about what adminship is and is not.
Stilted writing: "Access [...] is granted when the consensus is shown to be that the user will not abuse" makes my head spin. And I'm not sure that's always the motivation driving the consensus.
Claim of "It is preferable to include a critique that is actionable rather than dismissive. If possible, avoid simply voting "per another user" is controversial and counter to existing practice. I make such input on RfAs all the time, and find it preferable to do so. Sometimes "per another user" is explanation enough. Let the bureaucrat decide what this means about consensus.

In fact, I find it hard to find any part of the edit that I like. Hence I think the whole thing ought to be reverted. -lethe ^{talk +} 20:38, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Without reading all the points listed above in this thread... Any attempt to define for everyone what the "correct" standards are or should be in RfA will not fly, we have too many opinions. RfA works on consensus with each person bringing their own rules to the table, and the overall community standards vary over time (right now we are very tough on nominees, a few months ago, we were not). We can debate it endlessly, but we will not agree on a set of standards that all must follow. NoSeptember 20:43, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

To Gwernol -- all good suggestions.

I'll remove the "A request for administrator privileges is not the user-equivalent of a featured article candidate." I think it is illustrative, but apparently it is too distracting.
While it is perfectly acceptable to vote per another user, I think it is much better to encourage people to explain their votes. The statement right now is a suggestion for how to help people who are applying for adminship. It isn't meant to be punative. Does it come across as such?
The comments about self-nominations in the previous version were contradictory. They said you could self-nominate and then said some people dislike it and other people like it. How does this help a potential nominee at all? We might want to include a statement declaring that self-nominations are allowed, but do we need all this stuff about how people may or may not perceive this? I will include the statement that self-nominations are allowed to accomodate a better sense of what a self-nomination entails.
I understand that 75%-80% is the level of votes usually required for consensus on RFA, but given that Wikipedia is not a democracy, it is very crass for us to make this statement. This encourages gaming the system if we codify this level of support. Making a statement that consensus is stronger at RfA than elsewhere is great, but I suggest that including the 75% to 80% statement here is not only unneccessary but causes problems. After all, a nominee cannot "make" 75%-80% of the votes swing in their direction. I hope you can understand my rationale for this. I think it is very important.

--ScienceApologist 20:49, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You are falling into the trap of trying to describe what (you think) RfA should be rather than what it is. RfA has a threshold, and whether you think it should or not, whether you think it violates the no democracy policy, is not particularly relevant. -lethe ^{talk +} 20:58, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not arguing that RfA should or shouldn't have a threshhold. I'm merely saying that either we are following consensus or we're not. I'm happy to entertain the idea that this is actually a place where consensus isn't addressed and instead voting occurs. Then we should be explicit in stating this. Does this sound good? --ScienceApologist 21:02, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On the 75%-80% issue. When there is a candidate for bureaucrat, this issue gets discussed, and we only approve new bureaucrats who agree to the (now) long standing standard. We could as a community change our mind if we wanted to, but I don't see a rush of people ready to do that. Whether it is technically a super-majority or a consensus is not that relevant. NoSeptember 21:05, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Excellent point. I think this should be added into the description then. --ScienceApologist 21:12, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but what exactly is it that you are saying should be added? "It is not relevant whether this is a consensus or a supermajority"? This seems like needless jargon to me, something I thought you were trying to fix. What purpose would this addition serve? -lethe ^{talk +} 21:19, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We should be clear that 75% is a strict requirement as per bureaucratic fiat. Right now we are weasly about it. I'm rewriting it for your consideration as we discuss.--ScienceApologist 22:15, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To Lethe

Admin is a shorthand, but why not allow for the actual position to be named? Wiki is nothing more than a computer code and access to parts of the code is all an administrator technically is. I really don't understand this "jargon" objection. It seems to be based not on helping the person going through the RfA but more on what you seem to be personally comfortable with.
I'm not suggesting that anybody violate the threshhold number. Instead, since this is a description of Requests for Adminship (not a description for how Adminship is granted) it should be handled with kid-gloves. I have no problem with the threshhold as a issue for who gets adminship. I do have an issue with the promotion of something that Wikipedia is most decidedly not.
There is no link to WP:NOT.
I'm sorry you consider my prose stilted, but the very definition of Administrators as per the descriptions is that they have certain tools that they can use. Consensus is built around the definition of administrator, it isn't built around vague feelings of comaraderie towards the nominee, you see what I'm saying?
Are you seriously arguing that encouraging people to explain their votes with more than ibids is controversial? We aren't saying that saying "per other" is not allowed, only that in light of common courtesy and not biting newcomers it is preferable to avoid uninspired explanations.

I also think that you have ignored many of the other issues I addressed with my attempt to describe the process better. I'm more than willing to collaborate, but I find your unilateral reversion and condescending tone to be a bit lacking in such a spirit.

--ScienceApologist 21:02, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Adminship has nothing to do with access to source code. I can't really understand what you're saying now.
I disagree with your kid-gloves idea. We should describe how the process works.
You are correct. That was a mistake on my part, for which I apologize.
You seem to be attempting to pigeonhole the reasons for promotion. This is probably impossible, so let's not try. Let's not say what the consensus is about other than the fact that some user ought to be promoted. In the mean time, you might want to practice writing shorter sentences.
Yes, I am seriously arguing that. Ibids are perfectly reasonable in a wide number of situations.

I am sorry you despair of the prospect of collaborating with me, but I do not think it's fair to call my revert unilateral, considering that the proposal to revert was seconded by another user, and that overall reaction to your edit has not been very enthusiastic. As for my condescending tone, I do apologize and I will try to keep that in check. -lethe ^{talk +} 21:10, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To lethe

Adminship does have to do with access to certain parts of the code that are not accessible to most users. In particular, most users do not have access to deletion and blocking parts of the code.
Alright, it's clear now that the major ideas behind WP:CON are handled differently here. I appreciate the input into this.
--
I don't want to pigeonhole the reasons for promotion, but we should describe why people get promoted. It's unfair to have a Request for Adminship without explaining who becomes administrators, isn't it?
Ibids may sometimes be reasonable, but is it really problematic to encourage users to explain their edits with more than ibid? If so, why?

I don't despair in the prospect of collobrating with you as long as you continue to dialogue with me on these matters.

--ScienceApologist 21:18, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Admins have access to certain features of the software and certain user interface elements. Your use of the word "code" and "wikicode" has mightily confused this issue for me. Perhaps in the spirit of unnecessary jargon (your original point) we can agree not to use these words, which don't really mean what you think they mean. It would be nice if we could describe who gets promoted, but the criteria are so varied that such a description would be impossible. So let's not have one. Yes, I consider the addition of encouragement not to use "per above user" votes problematic. This is unnecessary instruction creep. Why should we encourage users not to do something which in many cases they indeed ought to do? I'm happy to have a dialogue with you, though allegations of condescension have already cast their pall over my relations with you. And I will revert when I think it is necessary. -lethe ^{talk +} 21:26, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On not using wikicode --> I am amenable to this. Would you object to phrasing such as "While administrators are often perceived as the "official face" of Wikipedia" since they have access to more wiki functions.."?

on criteria for adminship --> I understand that the criteria are wide and varied. However, do you object to the statement that "Access to the administrator tools is granted when the consensus is shown to be that the user will not abuse the administrator functions." This appears to me to be a rather innocuous and accurate description of most people's summaries of their ideas behind who becomes administrators. I could be wrong. Let me know. We should be thinking of trying to balance the interests of people who come here wondering what kind of people become administrators and what the general consensus is on this subject. I could be wrong, but I do think there is an overarching consensus on good versus bad candidates. It isn't totally arbitrary.

on instruction creep --> Instruction creep is to be avoided and I totally support you on this. I don't however view a suggestion as being an instruction. I definitely think that well-explained votes are more valuable to the nominee than ibids. What is so controversial about stating this?

on assuming good faith --> If you don't take things personally I won't. I like to assume good faith whenever possible. I certainly have no problem with you reverting, but I will complain if I think it was inappropriate. Thanks for your help in this matter. --ScienceApologist 22:14, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not to enamored with the phrase "wiki functions" either. What about something mundane like "administrative features of the MediaWiki software"? About criteria: well, I'm not crazy about it, because that's not necessarily what consensus is meant to determine. Incorporating also a linguistic suggestion, let me suggest instead of "the consensus is shown to be that the user will not abuse...", how about "consensus is established that the user will employ administrative functions responsibly" or some variation thereof. And about the suggestion against ibid votes: it is helpful when the user explains their position, but there are reasons not to do so and suggestions have a way of becoming de facto rules. I might support a milder statement such as "consider that your input will carry more weight if it is accompanied by supporting evidence" or something. -lethe ^{talk +} 00:22, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent suggestions all. I will try to incorporate them into a new draft subject to your approval. Thanks so much for your help. --ScienceApologist 14:13, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NOT has nothing to do with adminship or trophies. Please stop linking to a page that contains no information relevant to the link! -Splash - tk 15:07, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NOT is not linked anywhere on that page. --ScienceApologist 17:26, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That is because I have removed twice, after you added it in twice. -Splash - tk 19:03, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just checked the history and we never linked to WP:NOT. You removed the link to Wikipedia:What adminship is not. --ScienceApologist 18:18, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies; I didn't read it carefully enough I suppose, owing to the nature of the linkage. -Splash - tk 19:03, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

hash it out first

I am increasingly concerned about the edits being made to front matter. Recently, we've included "consensus is 75 percent of the votes made in support of the nominee". This is inaccurate, in part because RfA is not a vote and in part because it ignores the role of bureaucrats in reviewing RfAs in determining consensus for fraudulent votes, repeat votes, etc. Rather than the rash of changes that are happening to front matter, can we please revert back to the original state and hash it out further here as to exactly what we want to say first before hand please? --Durin 18:53, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Durin; my only concern is whether the drafting belongs here or at Front matter's talk page. -- nae'blis _(talk) 19:20, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Are you suggesting we get rid of the redirect back to this page? --ScienceApologist 20:15, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, yes. We can probably copy most of the dialogue here to [front matter's talk page] and continue the discussion there, since that is the page that will ultimately be edited when we come to consensus. I'm interested in the edits you want to make/problems you see with the page, but I don't think throwing RfA's instructions into a state of flux while we work out the best version is healthy. I'll wait to hear from at least one or two more people before starting such an edit discussion there, though. -- nae'blis _(talk) 21:27, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I totally agree with the ideal that RfA instructions should not be in a state of flux. I'll wait along with you. --ScienceApologist 21:34, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Above you said you'd be "will try to incorporate them into a new draft" - did that ever go anywhere, or would you rather wait/star from scratch on the other talk page? I don't want to duplicate effort if you've got a subpage of your own that you're making notes on. -- nae'blis _(talk) 02:07, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I did not create a subpage, though I can see why you might think I did. All of the modifications were done at the conclusion of the discussions with the editors who made the helpful comments. Currently, the only misleading item included on the frontpage, in my opinion, is the parenthetical about the 75% threshhold. I'm of the opinion we should state this more plainly since it is a pretty strict criteria (it certainly isn't a "rough" approximation as the wording now puts it). I'm not sure, but I would say that this is the only bit that's left outstanding in the editting process. It may be that we don't need to create a proposal subpage since consensus may have been reached. Cross reference the edits to Front Matter with the comments on this page to see if you agree. --ScienceApologist 14:12, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The 75% metric is rough. Admins have been promoted below that threshold before, and some above 75% and below 80% have not been promoted. Furthermore, the over emphasis on 75% as being the magic bar depreciates the fact this this is a consensus building mechanism, not a vote. Bureaurcrats have discretion in discounting/emphasizing aspects of an RfA in the name of evaluating consensus, most especially when RfAs are close. There is no lock-step value that a bureaucrat must adhere to regardless of any other factors. If that were the case, we could just have a bot do promotions and we would not need bureaucrats. --Durin 16:13, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The 75% thing, whilst supported widely in the community and enough to sink an RfB, has not been announced by fiat by the bureaucrats, since they lack the authority so to pronounce. -Splash - tk 19:03, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I see your point. Might it be possible to make the wording a little less weasly than it is currently? We shouldn't lead people on into believing they'll pass an RfA with less than 75%, should we? --ScienceApologist 20:10, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rather than the rash of changes that are happening to front matter, can we please revert back to the original state and hash it out further here as to exactly what we want to say first before hand please? --> Right now, the front matter version is basically back to what it was before with regards to the 75% issue. I still would like to discuss more (see above), but are the other edits really so problematic as to inspire a complete trashing of the edits? Do we really want to reintroduce contradictory statements and misplaced discussion of whether the nominator votes count or not? --ScienceApologist 20:15, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion now continued at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Front matter

Extending an RfA duration?

I didn't see anything in the rules, but is there a precedent for extending the length of an RfA? I'm not requesting anything at the moment, just wondering. --mboverload @ 05:30, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure of any official policy or guideline, but there has been a case where the length has been extended slightly. It was hard for the bureaucrats to determine consensus, and so they wanted to extend the RfA to see if consensus could be more easily determined. See the case here. DarthVad e r 07:10, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If an RfA is rapidly changing, for example many users are changing to Oppose due to a civility related issue brought up then I think it is extended to see how many do go to oppose. Because if someone brought up a major problem regarding the user on the last hour of the RfA, users wouldn't get a chance to change to oppose.--Andeh 09:45, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If at the would-be closing time there is clear indication that the consensus-building process is very much underway (if some relevant piece of information has just been brought up, for instance), a Bureaucrat may extend the RfA so as to avoid cutting short the relevant process. The particular direction in which the RfA may be going (succeed or fail) is not decisive in this, but rather whether or not there is a relevant development that will determine wheather or not the community wants the candidate to be promoted that would be abruptly interrupted if the RfA were to be closed at the time originally designated. We only do that in special situations though, and notably when the outcome of a RfA might depend remarkably on the outcome of the developing situation. Anyone is welcome to call our attention to a situation where an extension could be necessary, but as a rule we do not extend RfAs on request. Redux 12:21, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

At one time, we experimented with extending close calls by a day to see if a clear consensus was reached, but this almost never produced a clear consensus. Warofdreams talk 12:37, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for explaining it Redux. --mboverload @ 18:43, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Protected.

Why can't I edit?

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Scarbor

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Bling-chav (2nd time) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.188.51.100 (talk • contribs) .

~~Why would an IP user want to edit the base RfA page?~~Why do you - as an IP user - wish to edit this page? --mboverload @ 11:56, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps to correct a typo, or grammatical error. Please assume good faith. -- nae'blis _(talk) 14:38, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that there was additional trolling attached to this IP's edit, which mboverload removed before he added the unsigned template. Trolling from some IPs hurts the legitimate efforts of other IPs. NoSeptember 14:46, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Regardless, the response could have been neutral and factual, instead of accusatory. -- nae'blis _(talk) 15:24, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we can assume that the reply was made with an accusatory tone. It can be read as a neutral question probing for the IP's motive, and we should AGF that it was. NoSeptember 16:30, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

All I asked was why an IP user would wish to edit a page like Request for adminship. I should have said: Why do you - as an IP user - wish to edit this page? Your point is valid Nae'blis, even though I may disagree with your interpretation. --mboverload @ 16:36, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, hope I didn't come off as overly bitchy. If it was me, I might have explained briefly the "technical" reasons they can't edit, and then asked what they wanted to change. But looking closer at the other edits NoSeptember mentions, I can see why you might have been suspicious of that particular IP (I came back here to say that they'd made good edits elsewhere, then realized that even the one I thought wasn't vandalism from 7/10, got reverted by another user as factually incorrect). Meh. -- nae'blis _(talk) 19:17, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Same reason anyone edits RFA. I do vaguely recall "anyone can edit" as a rule someplace? Kim Bruning 16:33, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you go back to the diff link by anon, s/he is actually referring to two closed RFAs. --WinHunter ^(talk) 16:36, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I removed them because I wasn't quite sure why he inluded them when it says right there on them to not modify it and why, and he's asking why he cant. --mboverload @ 16:39, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Most people edit RFA either to add their nom (IPs can't be admins, so it can't be that) or to remove noms (IPs can't be buros, so it can't be that). "Anyone can edit" is about the encyclopedia, not the behind the scenes stuff. There is no need for an IP to be able to edit the base RFA page, which is why it's semi-protected. Asking why he wanted to edit it was a perfectly legitimate question. --Tango 16:53, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What? "Anyone can edit" is about being a Wiki, which prefix turns up on every page I ever visited round here. Suggesting that we have ever had a philosophy of "most people can't edit because they don't have an account" in Wikipedia space is news to me. -Splash - tk 16:58, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't the place to argue about protection policy. What I meant was that all main space pages should be unprotected unless there is a specific reason to protect them (eg. vandalism), because it's important that everyone can edit the encyclopedia. Wikipedia space pages can be protected as long as there isn't a reason for people to need to edit them, and in this case, there is no reason for IP users to edit this page. --Tango 17:07, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I can't find a location where anyone has advocated such an interpretation of the guidelines. Perhaps I missed it. Could you explain where this has been stated? Kim Bruning 17:29, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't seen it in writing anywhere, but the simple fact that RFA is semi-protected would seem to suggest such an interpretation. I don't recall large amounts of vandalism here, so what reason is there to protect? The only reason I can see is that there isn't a reason not the protect. --Tango 19:01, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In general, page protection is considered harmful. Unless someone supplies a good reason, we can probably unprotect it. Kim Bruning 19:47, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is our returning Bling-chav/RfA troll who's latest incarnation I blocked this morning (WP:ANI). Let's not reward him by obsessing over his latest trolling. NoSeptember 16:47, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. --WinHunter ^(talk) 16:49, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Templates

I created a few templates we can use so we don't have to copy-and-paste the code for a successful and failed RFA ever agian.

You can add {{SuccessfulRFA}} for the top half of a successful RFA
You can add {{FailedRFA}} for the top half of a failed RFA
You can add {{RFA-discussion}} for the bottom half of all RFA's since they say the same thing

Enjoy! — The King of Kings 18:58 July 10 '06

Oh, and I was thinking about the creation of a category to place at the bottom of {{RFA-discussion}} so we can keep track of RFA's better. — The King of Kings 19:01 July 10 '06

Such templates already exist... look at the instructions to burocrats. --Tango 19:02, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To be precise: {{rfap}}, {{rfaf}} and {{rfab}}. --Tango 19:05, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

:-( Oh well, how about a category to keep all the RFA's in one place, does that exist already? — The King of Kings 19:10 July 10 '06

Uh, how about Wikipedia:Requests for adminship followed by a forward slash and the the editor's username?! -Splash - tk 19:27, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hey... cut him some slack Splash. Especially considering it's his first edit anniversary. joturn e r 19:50, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Conflict of interest - Front matter

Would it not be considered a conflict of interest for an editor to edit the Front matter while there is an RfA on said user in progress? Themindset 19:07, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would prefer it didn't happen, yes. Changing the rules while trying to follow them is one of the things I see users scream about most for rouge admins. -- nae'blis _(talk) 19:13, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly am not trying to change any rules and this page is supposed to be simply a description of the process which I have found to be extremely inaccurate from personal experience. --ScienceApologist 19:51, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Would it not be more appropriate to make such changes after your RfA is closed? Themindset 19:59, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why? I noticed some things wrong with the description of the RfA process and I tried to fix them. I'm not saying my edits were perfect, but I hope we have an improved description now after having a discussion and an interesting exchange over the vagueries of some of the finer points. If the consensus is that my edits are problematic, then the whole point of the wiki is that others will notice the problems and help to fix them. The spirit of Wikipedia is to be bold, after all, so I'm a bit uncomfortable with the accusation of a "conflict of interest". After all, the description of the RfA process has no bearing on whether my RfA passes or fails. The beauty of wiki is its transparency. If I was gaming the system, you should be able to articulate it. --ScienceApologist 20:07, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I made no mention of gaming the system. My point stands. Themindset 20:22, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not really sure why a conflict of interest would matter if not for concerns of gaming the system. Please explain. --ScienceApologist 20:30, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You know what, if you refuse to identify it as being somewhat inappropriate based on common sense, then you good for you. But perhaps you should recognize, at the very least, that it might appear distasteful to others. And if you can't recognize that, please don't ask me to explain it. Themindset 22:23, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to base my conclusions about the intent of editors at Wikipedia on the actual content of their edits and an assumption of good faith. --ScienceApologist 22:33, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why is it more inappropriate for ScienceApologist, a nom, to edit than for other users that are participating by leaving comments to achieve consensus? RFA is a community activity, right? FloNight ^talk 22:38, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Were the edits an improvement? :-) Kim Bruning 20:26, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Requests for adminship semiprotected?

I don't really see a reason for that right now. The default and preference is not to protect, right? Has that changed?

I haven't found any wording about that anyplace. I take it we can unprotect then?

Kim Bruning 19:58, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am personally in favour of (semi-)protecting, but since I have yet to see a consensus to protect, I decided to be bold and unprotected the article from editing. Protecting this page from being moved makes sense, though. I've seen a couple of times when this page was moved to various notes of profanity, and there's no need for this page to be moved anywhere for now. What do y'all think about the move-protection? I don't care if we remove all protection, but I think the move protection at least makes sense. --Deathphoenix ʕ 20:10, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Move protection seems good (I'm assuming on how this works, of course), as any changes to where this is located will come after considerable community deliberation and consensus. Semiprotection may be a good way to prevent drive-by vandalism and snowball's-chance RfAs for raw newbie users/sockpuppets, but it's worth a try at being unprotected. The "pages that stand a risk if they're left unprotected" seems to mainly encompass templates, which may not be watchlisted with the same frequency as the articles they're transcluded in. Obviously that's not the same situation as here. -- nae'blis _(talk) 21:21, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I see no reason not to protect, so why risk the possibility of preventable vandalism? --Tango 21:25, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The default is actually to not protect unless there's a strong overriding reason. Hence. Kim Bruning 10:24, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My issue at the time, and I forgot I even protected it since it was so long ago, was that moves were uneccessary and occasionally maliciously done, and IPs and very new users would randomly put of misformed RfA's either as some sort of test/joke/trolling. This page consist of A)two template inclusions that have the procedure text, located on the template pages, and B)the list of transluded RfAs. A new user should never be added/removing any, so there really is nothing to edit here. I suppose someone could always spend the time to revert that stuff, but whatever, I don't care much as long as it is move protected.Voice-of-All 01:01, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The only problem is when when IP's want to leave comments (a very rare case). Is there some way that the entire page be sprotected except for the comments section? --Srikeit ^{(Talk | Email)} 04:56, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't a problem because all nominations are on subpages that are not protected. EWS23 (Leave me a message!) 05:06, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm all in favour of defaulting to no protection (especially in article space, to a lesser degree in Wikipedia namespace), unless there is a good reason. In this case, I think there is a good reason to semi-protect. As has been pointed out above, I can't see any reason for an IP to edit the main RFA page (as opposed to the subpages), as only registered users can be nominated and sprotecting prevents invalid nominations and vandalism. If people can come up with any good reasons as to why IPs might need to edit the main RFA page then I'd be quite happy to say keep it unprotected unless there was a particular attack of vandalism (same as articles), otherwise I see no reason why it can't just be semi-permanently sprotected. Petros471 17:21, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's because you first made a box, and then put your brain inside it (thinking inside the box of your own making ;-) ). Just because can't quite see it doesn't mean it hasn't always been there. ;-) I can name 5 different reasons off the top of my head. Can you? (it's a challenge!)

Slightly offtopic... : Once upon a time it was my dream to make it to admin status without once logging in, just to spite RickK. (this was certainly possible at the time, I didn't make it because I started editing from univeristy, and all the different IPs got confusing). I'm sorry to see that RickKs ideas have caught on more than mine anyway, despite the fact that he's even left wikipedia! Kim Bruning 21:00, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I like challenges (though I admit I'm not the best at out-of-the-box thinking, self imposed or otherwise :) Well before posting the above I got as far as thinking 1) Correcting typo's in the small amount of text that is on that page. On thinking further I've got to 2) Adding inter-wiki language links. I also had thought about anons nominating someone else, but that doesn't count as nominations have to be made by a user (both practically in creating a new page and in policy "Any user in good standing may nominate any user." What are your 5 then? Petros471 21:43, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Succesful RfA's

If I wanted to read a user's RfA from the past, how would I find it? Are succesful RfA's stored and is there a list that I can't find cos I'm being really dumb? --Robdurbar 22:05, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your best chance is going to be to look at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Their user name - if you end up with a failed first attempt, then try http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=Requests+for+adminship%2F_______&namespace=4 but replacing the _____ with the first few characters of their username. -- nae'blis _(talk) 22:23, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're looking for Wikipedia:Recently created admins. It contains links to all the successful RfAs. For those that failed, see Wikipedia:Unsuccessful adminship candidacies. Ziggurat 00:06, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You can also look in the The NoSeptember Admin Project. --Srikeit ^{(Talk | Email)} 04:53, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you are looking for a specific person, Wikipedia:Unsuccessful adminship candidacies works fine for failed RfAs, but Wikipedia:Recently created admins is not alphabetical, but rather chronological, making it harder to look up. You can use List of Admins (with promotion date) to get the promotion date though. NoSeptember 05:19, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

"Ctrl + F" + username also works well on Recently created admins. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 08:37, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Horizontal rule

A very minor point, but should there be a horizontal rule (----) immediately after "", preceding the first nom on the page? I ask this because my bot will currently ignore the first nom if it is left out, and I was under the impression that it was a standard part of the formatting. It has been removed a number of times recently by people adding their noms, and I feel there should be some discussion about this. Personally, I think it looks more aesthetically pleasing with the horizontal rule, but any input would be appreciated. Cheers, Tangot a ngo 10:34, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was wondering why noms didn't appear immediately on your bot report page- I though there was some sort of lag (deliberate or otherwise)... Yes, there probably should be a hr, but maybe if it's an easy fix you should make your bot pick up the RFA even if there isn't one? Petros471 17:14, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is it just me...

Is it just me, or does the success of many RfA's depend primarily on name recognition? I ask this because my RfA did not reach consensus, as too many people felt I was too new (I'd been around since the end of January), but Kylu's current RfA is snowballing to success, and she's been around since April. I know she gets around more than I do, but still, I feel that many RfA's depend on popularity rather than how well they'd use the tools. Anyone else think so? --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 16:29, 11 July 2006 (UTC) (Not that I think Kylu would abuse the tools, nor do I think less of her, it's just an example.)[reply]

No, I wouldn't say primarily on name recognition. I'm sure it is a contributing factor though, and yes people who appear a lot in high visibility admin areas do tend to have a successful RFA earlier than otherwise. People are more likely to support if they recognise the name and see lots of good work associated with it. If you've less experience in the 'admin areas' then you are likely to be less recognised, but you will also have less edits in those areas for people to look at and judge you on- experience shouldn't be counted just on time around, or edit count- it's what you've done, how many different situations you've experienced. Also looking back at your rfa I see there were other reasons that it failed (like that page move incident). That make sense? Petros471 17:11, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it definitely does, in a big way - and in some cases has descended into a populatiry contest rather than a measure of potential to be a hard-working admin. To be honest, the difference between a person who passes 25-0 and another at 100-0 may be misleading, because I can think of some cases where the more supported admin did little admin work, whereas the other may have been gnoming around a lot. The same goes for barnstars. Having said that, any appropriate candidate will pass, although the percentage is important, not the raw number of votes. Anyway, Kylu had done less than Srikeit - see Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Srikeit, who got pummeled. Also compare Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/BrownHairedGirl to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Sam Vimes2. Blnguyen | rant-line 03:42, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I agree that the number of supports (and therefore how likely an RFA is going to reach WP:100) is very strongly related to name recognition. That's obviously very nice for those people being supported, but shouldn't be used as an indicator that they will make better admins. On the other hand I generally think that the right result (promote or not) is made in most cases, especially if you don't consider making someone wait a few more months if their first RFA is a bit on the early side to be a major problem. As with anything, there are exceptions... Petros471 09:30, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, very true - there is a massive block vote to be had at Esperanza as well as marketing yourself on IRC. I did create an Open Office spreadsheet to she which of the new admins did the work, and compared them to their "support" and there are massive disparities in the popularity stakes and actually doing work. File:Admin.sxc. This has basically lead to a glut of cosmetic admins, but also seems to have left guys like Sam Vimes and Christopher Sundita under a very harrowing process, whereas some others don't ever get questioned at all due to their popularity.Blnguyen | rant-line 01:43, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would go along with the fact that name recognition probably has more effect on how early a candidate will be promoted, rather than whether they will be promoted. Incidentally this is also why I believe requirements have been steadily rising. As the number of active editors increases so the mutual familiarity amongst these editors decreases, I am here assuming that people are more willing to cut some slack to people they know at some level than people they have never encountered - I am not questioning this practice, it is only natural. From personal experience, I think the major contributors were better known to each other in the past than they are now, therefore admin standards were lower then than they are now. This is also why regulars on IRC probably get in earlier than other editors - rather than being a cabal, it is just people supporting people they personally know aren't jerks. Having said all this, the cream will eventually rise to the top; just because the process is systemically flawed, it doesn't mean all those who are rejected are necessarily incapable, unwanted, or worse. Rje 00:29, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

At the risk of overwhelming the thread with entirely too topical examples, I would say that User:Wknight94, as a guy who edits relatively obscure articles and does a lot of maintenence, has very little name recognition (the dead giveaway is that no one has given a "thought you were already an admin" support yet). But he's currently unopposed anyway. So it's not purely "voting for people I've heard of", although you might say editcount is the other key factor. And so what, really? We tend to remember people's names if they either do something we really like, or really don't like. It's only natural that without name recognition, a "great" edit count, or a small number of really stand-out article edits, noms will struggle. --W.marsh 00:39, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also Edgar181 with his 140 chemistry articles - I was the first (of only two) person to give him a barnstar - and I randomly hunted around for unsung heroes. He's done a lot more procedural and article work than 95% of the people who are more popular than him. Some people seem to do 3000 small edits with only 3 or 4 articles and seem to get coronated very with much fanfare.Blnguyen | rant-line 01:43, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A question

The following was found hidden beneath the redirect line on Wikipedia talk:Requests for Adminship, which redirects to here: Russ Blau (talk) 01:57, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This just occurred to me today. It's not major or anything though. It concerns second, third (etc) RfA noms. The format is WP:RfA/Username 2 is it not? But what if a user's username was - say - Gregory 2? (Don't ask me why I chose Gregory...) Their first nom would look like their second. As *fD noms are listed as * (second nomination) wouldn't it make sense to list RfAs like that? Jm2p. — G a rykirk | ^talk! 18:09, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the second would have another 2... MichaelZ526 03:46, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the situation is hypothetical enough to not worry about it. Should Gregory 2 decide to run for adminship, the nomination could clearly state that this was Gregory's first nomination, the username would clarify that to the voters. I don't think voters ever base their vote on the title of the nomination itself, so it shouldn't be an issue. If we would 'fix' this now, that would definitely make searching for old second nominations more complicated (was this guy's second nomination listed under 'John Doe 2' or 'John Doe (second nomination)'?), which seems like a lot of hassle for a very hypothetical problem. --Joanne B 10:05, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/TPIRFanSteve

Hi folks. I just removed Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/TPIRFanSteve from the listings.

There appears to be no communication between the nominator and the nominated.
The nominator is a brand new user.
The nominated hasn't a snowball's chance.

Would a b'crat like to consider properly closing and deleting the page?

Thanks. ➨ ЯEDVERS 13:11, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

At the moment, it's not been accepted, so it's doing no harm, and hasn't really been "opened" in order for it to be "closed." If the user accepts and lists it, then we can reconsider the matter. Essjay (Talk) 14:02, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sensible. Cheers, Essjay. ➨ ЯEDVERS 15:13, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Clarifying what is meant by 75%

Thanks to everyone who helped me clean up some of the explanations of the process in front matter. I had one more change for your consideration: [3].

The rationale for this change is that it removes the parenthetical and the "rough" approximation which is unnecessary and misleading since it's pretty clear that someone getting less than 75% would not be granted adminship (as per the last time this happened people made a big stink) and it made it clear what the 75% support was refering to -- specifically votes in support of the nomination. Please tell me what you think of this edit.

--ScienceApologist 18:08, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This doesn't make it clear enough that at 80%, promotion is likely. In reality, between 75% and 80%, Bureaucrats have a lot of discretion. Outisde this range, they (importantly) still have discretion (for example, if new information comes to light near the end of the debate) but have to tread carefully. Depending on feedback, I'll put this in words on the page, but I don't want to leave it in its current form for long, because I think it is an undiscussed material change to current consensus. Stephen B Streater 18:21, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the promotion threshold can be made larger if bureaucrats have a good reason to promote or not promote outside the 75-80% range (e.g. a hypothetical HRE case had occured just prior to closure, and the nomination had an 85% or so support ratio). The actual numbers themselves are a sort of unspoken rule, although having them on the page could produce an appearance of official endorsement, which could be counterproductive. Tito xd^(?!?) 18:59, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am not a fan of "unspoken rules" being hidden because we should, as accomplished Wikipedia editors all, be able to explain how things happen so that there are no surprises. I think we can nuance this to let people know what the standards usually are but also inform them that in extreme circumstances there can be other things that happen. --ScienceApologist 19:04, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe a table would be appropriate for illustrating what happens in general?

Percentage of support votes	Nomination status
< 75%	Usually nomination fails
75% to 80%	Consensus determined by bureaucrat
> 80%	Usually nomination succeeds

--ScienceApologist 19:04, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ScienceApologist: You're looking at this the wrong way. RfAs are not about percentages, at the core. RfAs are about consensus, and that should be stated. A table is unnecesary, and it only creates confusion. Consensus is always determined by a beaurocrat, and while I can't provide an example (I'm too lazy to find one) of a nom where it failed at above 80%, I'm pretty sure one exists. You're trying to make something fluid into a hard and fast rule, instead of stating the general terms.--digital_m e^{(TalkˑContribs)} 19:08, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Believe me, I'm not trying to make the 75% threshold a rule, I'm trying to describe what generally happens at a RfA. While I understand your concern that this is really about consensus and not about "standards", we should be able to nuance our statement so that people who come to RfA know what to expect. Consensus building at RfA is considerably different than consensus building in other parts of Wikipedia. I just want to illustrate how it's different. I'm sure that there are RfAs that were successful that were below 75% and there were RfAs that were unsuccessful above 80%. That's not the point of this description. I think it's only fair to explain that this is a community-accepted standard that is subject to the discretion of the bureaucrats. Is there anything wrong with that? --ScienceApologist 19:12, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To save the trouble of new tables, why not use the existing one on BN, adequately coloured to indicate what the percentages mean.... Tyrenius 19:17, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I like this idea a lot! Having a table that the bureacrats actually use would improve the transparency of the description of RfA. --ScienceApologist 19:21, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

While you discuss how to get the table colours with Tawkerbot, you should remember that this is not a vote and so percentages are only approximate. The weak law of large numbers just means that generally strong and weak points can balance out between pro and con supporters, so percentages usually work. There is no clear percentage which guarantees success or failure as good arguments may all be one one side, and late events may invalidate earlier arguments. Stephen B Streater 20:05, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I agree with all of this. I just want to describe the process so it is clearer to people who come here for the first time is all. We can include in bold blinking letters if you want that the percentages are approximate and subject to the various meaningful consensus issues. I liked your wording about "discretion". --ScienceApologist 20:12, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't the process described accurately at WP:GRFA? I think that it is, and perhaps just linking more prominently to that page would solve the issue. Tito xd^(?!?) 20:17, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed it is buried at the bottom of this page, but what is a description of the process doing in the guide anyway? Shouldn't the process be described up-front? --ScienceApologist 20:29, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So I'm pretty confident that accurately describing RfA right now is summarized in part by the discussions we're having here. Is it okay to say that there is consensus that the parenthetical wording can be changed to accomodate a better description of what goes on? --ScienceApologist 01:48, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

75% threshold brings entire RfA into question?

75% is not consensus. That's majority. I think that a lot of people really do now just treat RfA as a vote. We may need to replace it soon. Could people who previously had proposals for replacement systems please step forward? Kim Bruning 20:23, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As long as big stinks are made whenever this treshold is violated and bureaucrat-status is dependent on accepting this "unspoken rule" it certainly feels like a voting system to me. --ScienceApologist 20:28, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the best way to get RfA to be more concensus based is to increase the range of descretion from 75-80% to 65-90%. It would be nice to remove the guidelines completely, but that will just cause people to use the 75-80% guideline unofficially, so it's better to have a firm guideline, just one that is closer to the desired system. I don't think RfA is broken enough to require a whole new system - that would be overkill. --Tango 20:32, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's still a majority based system. Could you propose a less "dangerous" system? Kim Bruning 21:02, 12 July 2006 (UTC) [1] The danger of majority voting systems is that they get imitated in the article namespace, where they're not supposed to be used. [reply]

As it exists today, RFA is not a simply vote or election. It is a consensus building activity with using the opinions expressed by participants to gauge consensus. Reality on the ground shows that very few RFA's are difficult interperate if you look at volume of comments, trends, as well as the number of participants voicing a particular opinion. FloNight ^talk 21:18, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As I said, I'd prefer it to be entirely at the beurocrat's descretion, but I don't think that would work - people would expect crats to continue using the 75-80% guideline, and when they decide against convention, there'd still be an outcry, as there is now. With a firm guideline, but one with enough leeway for crats to use their descretion in the vast majority of cases where there is any need to, the crats would actually be allowed to do their jobs. It's a compromise, basically. --Tango 21:40, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

/me takes large step forward. There have been a number of proposals, including my earlier suggestion for a sponsorship-driven system where prospective admins would be under the tutelage of a seasoned admin who would be responsible in part for their conduct. The core problem at RFA is not the percentages but rather the fact that good candidates get discouraged by the uncertainty and by the fact that even responsible involvement in conflict can be disqualifying. Less significant but still important is the fact that a handful of poor candidates are getting approved. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 21:49, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just to correct something said above, I don't think any RfA with 80% or more support (after accounting for socks) has ever failed, at least not since the days when there were 10-15 people commenting in the average RfA. So despite the vigerous insistance that 80% is not a rule..... it is a rule, and we're simply not going to see anyone with legitimately over 80% support fail. --W.marsh 22:10, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's why it's important to have bureacrats you can trust to make a good decision. As is, people with the right social connections can muster 50-60 support votes without making a substantial contribution to the project. In addition, many people tend to vote and walk away - people who switch their votes in response to the discussion are rare. If something really worrying came up late in the debate, I trust that most of the bureaucrats would hold off on promotion. Still, I would prefer something closer to the FAC idea, where you would promote someone after all the substantive criticisms were dealt with the the satisfaction of the people raising the complaints. It would take much more bureaucratic involvement, it would require that they make the (higly controversial) decision of which opposes to discount, but it would move the idea back towards consensus... Guettarda 04:18, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Discussions for adminship proposed a system of commentary/evidence first, 'voting' later, but got shot down earlier this year. -- nae'blis _(talk) 04:24, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think it should be more like a US Senate confirmation hearing. Seems like everybody gets turned inside out and then gets passed overwhelmingly that way. Nothing wrong with a thorough examination as long as people don't get vetoed for every little mistake.Blnguyen | rant-line 04:26, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflictx3)Why would someone that had over 80% support fail? That is strong community consensus. If 'crats saw an issue raised toward the end of customary timeframe, the best course of action would be to extend the RFA. The appropriate role for the 'crat should be guiding the process toward the best outcome for the community. FloNight ^talk 04:27, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I am just saying that I could forsee circumstances in which a 'crat might not promote someone who passes the 80% threshold. Guettarda 04:31, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You could get partisan "vote lobbying" by someone organizing a bakdoor campaign to get similar editors of similar ideology to contribute. Look at the ethnic splits on the Khoikhoi (Turkish bloc oppose) or Bormalagurski (Serbian supports). If there was an innappropriate majority (OK, it's highly unlikely that Bormalagurski could find 100 ultra-nationalists to vote for him) or a large gropu of friends they could just override the dodgy aspects brought up by serious contributors. Blnguyen | rant-line 04:31, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unless those people were already wikizens their votes would just be discounted. And if someone did have a stack of 100, it wouldn't be that hard to find 25 people who'll oppose on the grounds that stacking shows bad faith. And there are other appeal processes. But this is just speculation. Personally, I'm not convinced that there is a problem with the current system that needs fixing. Regards, Ben Aveling 08:10, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Current system is fine. I see no need for change. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:49, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt this type of behavior described above is effective. During my RFA, (last of April/early May) a newbie started a email campaign against me because of a content dispute with my nominator. He left a strong oppose comment that was not factually accurate. These tactics did not sway the community, I was promoted with 93% (another of the opposes in the count was someone 14th edit to Wikipedia.) I agree that the current process is good. The main problem is getting enough experienced Wikipedians to comment on a regular basis. FloNight ^talk 04:53, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So you don't disagree that the system works then. I frankly don't see any improvements which would not be burdensome and which would qualitatively improve things. My rant above is because I am getting tired of people wanting to change things. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:18, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, people *have* changed things, and moved away from consensus over time. So we need to get that fixed back to consensus yet again. I guess that if you can't handle constant change, wikipedia is probably not really the best place to hang out. Kim Bruning 12:39, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As to whether RFA is working? Apparently there's some bad apples in our current group of admins, because we currently have a Wikipedia:Oversight process, that is designed specifically to keep certain information away from admins. That's a pretty clear vote of no confidence in our en.wikipedia admins as a group by the wikimedia foundation. They saw the problem of admins misbehaving in particular circumstances, and apparently had to do something or risk getting sued(!).

That leaves us with new problems of course, (like who gets oversight over oversight), but that's a different story for a different time.

In the mean time, don't try to sell to me that Requests for adminship is still working, because it has so obviously failed in real life. RFA will probably never be perfect , but it doesn't have to be quite THAT bad, does it? Can we make it so that oversight can go unused, sometime in the near future? Kim Bruning 12:55, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not really, no. The two are designed to combat different problems. Administrator "abuse" comes in two broad types:

Self-serving abuse: this is the usual blocking users that piss you off/protecting pages to your own version/etc. issue. We can probably push RFA towards more reliably detecting people who are likely to do this based on their behavior in conflicts and so forth.
Malicious abuse: this is what oversight was designed to handle—people who aren't after particular results within the project, but are instead looking to actually harm the WMF and/or its projects from the outside. There's no way for RFA (inherently a social process) to detect something of this sort, because the actions taken here are generally not visible on the wiki itself. Hence, the need for technical measures. Kirill Lokshin 13:13, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, what Kirill said. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:32, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do need to give 1000 people access to the information that was removed? We should be operating on a need to know basis. I do not need to know the who, what, when, where and why of oversight. The same is true of many things on Wikipedia. Like checkuser and some issues with banned users. Everyone, even admins, do not need to know all the details. FloNight ^talk 20:12, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Even if Oversight is a good idea in general, the fact remains that there exist administrators who repost deleted content. It is not merely a preventive measure or to stem satisfaction of curiousity. —Centrx→talk • 20:19, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another problem could be that friendly users passingly acquainted with the nominee stop by, whip off of a "Support obviously, he is the greatest!" or, almost worse, "Support, great edit summary usage", and then never return to find problems, or, as mentioned (don't know if true) above about mboverload, come by and give an "Oppose, per comments by Bob" because of a first post by an opposer that turns out to be weak. I find this happens sometimes on AfD, but is not a problem because it is not used like a vote. Later comments clearly explain why the article should be kept or deleted, and the closing administrator can clearly see this is valid when compared to the first, unconsidered "Delete per nom" comments. This is also because AfDs have various users breezing through and commenting where necessary, without a hundred possibly little considered votes that are locked in with the user not returning. —Centrx→talk • 04:58, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The difference between RfA and AfD is that respect is that RfA has a default (to promote - the whole "no big deal" thing), whereas AfD doesn't. Any vote in AfD needs to give specific reasons, however there generally aren't any specific reasons to promote someone in RfA - you promote if there is no reason not to. If someone votes with no reason in an AfD, you can ignore it, you can't do that in an RfA, otherwise you'd be ignoring every support vote. --Tango 13:14, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In practice does anyone ever dismiss an oppose vote in RfA because of this? I had a number of people vote "oppose" on my RfA with little to no explanation yet nobody seemed to indicate that this was in conflict with the "no big deal" thing. --ScienceApologist 16:06, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think crats only take it into account if the result is in the 75-80% range. --Tango 16:48, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hardly any week passes without one-three threads that the current system is broken and needs fixing, will all kinds of proposals floating around. That made me curious. Do we really have a problem? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It would at the very least indicate that many candidates do not think they were considered fairly. Otherwise, I see no reason why many discussions of problems could be taken as evidence of a lack of a problem. —Centrx→talk • 20:12, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is better to keep it at that percent. It might look too restrictive, but that is the intention. Otherwise, some troll/vandal with working habits could get en.wiki into junk. Think, a vandal with his fellows + their sockpuppets and there you are. Just because the threshold was too low. A calm, fair and neutral person will mostly get over 75%, any doubtful person won't.
Or, as we know it "better (too much) safe than (even more) sorry". Kubura 14:29, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Very informal poll

The current Support/Oppose system is simple enough and works well in the absolute majority of cases.

Agree

Sure. RfA isn't perfect, but perfection is unrealistic. It works in the large majority of cases, and there's yet to be anything proposed that would work better. It seems like the main criticism of RfA is ultimately "This one person I really like didn't get chosen", and if that's the problem, then no consensus-based system is ever going to satisfy you. --W.marsh 17:23, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is not to say that tweaks and improvements over time aren't important. The whole reason the current system works is that it's developed naturally over time to deal with the various problems that have come up. Thus, we should start all reform by clearly stating the problem to be adressed, rather than just proposing all kinds of totally new systems. --W.marsh 20:10, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It would be good to know which arguments each person has read. Marginal votes (with a wider range) could result in a second round where only people who have assessed the totality of arguments from the first round express an opinion. I'm always a bit surprised at how few people take enough notice of the discussion to change their minds. Stephen B Streater 18:11, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What W.marsh said. --Tango 18:21, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Grue 19:18, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's a not a perfect system, but it has few false positives (qualified admins being rejected) and very few false negatives (unqualified admins being promoted). I would like to see fewer votes lacking any reason at all. Aren't I Obscure? 19:22, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Add me - Obvious. However, i'd have prefered this poll to be about shifting from universal suffrage to census suffrage. Admins are better fit to vote than non-admins (w/ all my respect to good abd very good contributors). -- Szvest 19:39, 13 July 2006 (UTC) ^{Wiki me up}[reply]
Perhaps - in most cases but 'crats should engage in judicial activism a bit more so to speak, especially as per what Cyde and Naeblis say. In any case, if there is new info, a person who tries to ask a drive-by to reconsider is often fears being threatened for "soliciting votes" - also some users are very reluctant to switch sides - perhaps they feel "weak" if they did so, which is a problem if new info is discovered and a swing begins to develop.Blnguyen | rant-line 03:43, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Agree - I waited to read the disagree opinions below before voting and quite frankly the alternatives offered to my mind are not any better than the current system. The current format does have problems, but, my fear with a comment based system is that the most vocal, agressive and users that write the longest comments will cause their opinion to have undue weight - which is unfair. At the end of the day it could quite easily become a free for all shouting match. One "vote" (note the ""s) per user is a better option to my mind (at least at this stage) - Glen 02:32, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support Generally, RfA does a good job. Anyone who thinks that the system is broken because of the rejection of X (or the "flawed" promotion of X) should consider that his/her individual judgment is at least as likely to be in error as is a community process. Xoloz 23:12, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support Am I too late? Did they close the RfA? ;) -- Avi 02:40, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree

Early votes are frequently "drive-by" and do not take into account either refutation of earlier claims of terrorism/vandalism/eating kittens, or false aggrandizements of skill and sainthood. Even a few days of discussion/research into the candidate before voting would be a nice incremental improvement. -- nae'blis _(talk) 18:34, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This recent RFA shows that we are already using RFA exactly how you describe it should be done. [4] I did not want to overwhelm the RFA with my comment too early so I purposely waited. Many users came back and changed from support to oppose. For that reason, I think RFA is working. We need to encourage both oppose and support commenters to to a better job explaining themselves. FloNight ^talk 20:00, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that in that instance what you did took into account the nature of RfA, but I'm not sure that demonstrates that the process is working in general. Why did you want to wait to comment, for example? I submit that it's because RfAs are presently frontloaded. That's why I'm in favor of a period of discussion/evidentiary findings before people start piling on the votes. -- nae'blis _(talk) 18:19, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I wholeheartedly disagree. I think there's too much subjectivity into what an admin should be, and I also think that if you're going to apply a standard, the standard needs to be applied uniformly across the board to all administrators, not just new administrators. I think that the current process pushes editcountitis and doesn't reinforce the policy aspects of administration. I think that if edit counts are going to be taken into consideration, then the quality of the edit counts needs to be taken into consideration as well. I think that if an editor can demonstrate that he or she can do the job, regardless of edit counts, they should be permitted to become an administrator. CQJ 22:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with nae'blis. I think a three day comment period followed by a seven day voting period would be better. The way it is now, a bunch of votes comes in before the candidate has responded to anything but the default questions. Oftentimes a lot of really insightful questions are asked, but combine the lag of the question asker finding out about the RFA and the candidate getting around to responding to them and you frequently have over half the votes coming in before the candidate has even responded to any questions specifically tailored to him (versus the general RFA questions). --Cyde↔Weys 00:18, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure I understand the logic in this system Cyde - after all, we are all welcome to change our votes pending new answers. In fact I can think of more than one RfA from just this past week where the decision totally turned about face when new info came to hand. - Glen 05:34, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why have a voting period at all? Why not just have a comment period? What purpose does voting serve? Can't we determine consensus without voting? --ScienceApologist 00:56, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Without a specific voting period, the comment period will turn into a vote, despite everyone's best intentions. In an ideal world, we wouldn't need to vote, but this is wikipedia, not an ideal world. --Tango 01:12, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What if we had people write only comments that were objections to the nomination? Those reading the nominations could join the conversation about the objections. The closing bureaucrat could then read through the discussions and give specific reasons why the nominations failed. Or would that devolve us into too much Usenet-ness? --ScienceApologist 01:46, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have a proposal floating around my mind which works along similar lines. Prehaps I'll write it up properly somewhere... --Tango
You have my full support. --ScienceApologist 18:29, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm with nae'blis and cyde. As soon as an rfa is posted, there is a rush to get votes in. A lot of the users that vote never come back to check the comments, making it impossible for them to have any effect. A 3 day waiting period for would completely solve this problem. Alphachimp ^talk 03:39, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have no clue how to fix this, but a voter who doesn't check back for further discussion isn't much of a voter. Real elections have serious debates with informal polls, but the only thing that matters is a few hours of real voting. --mboverload @ 07:10, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Let everyone vote twice, but your second vote must be at least 48 hours after your first vote. If you don't come back to vote the second time, your opinion will get only half the weight as those who do. I'd prefer this to prohibiting anyone from voting during a comment period because it is natural to state your support or opposition when you are making a comment. NoSeptember 12:56, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Double voting isn't logical or necessary. If people were more willing to go back and change/revisit their earlier vote, the quality of votes would improve, but while some wikipedians do, I don't believe they're in the majority. -- nae'blis _(talk) 18:19, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There's a very easy way of making RFA better, which is to require at least one relevant diff for every 'vote' made. Think the user is a good and sensible editor? Provide a diff to back it up. Think the user doesn't grasp policy? Provide a diff to support that claim. Don't know how to provide a diff? Then you shouldn't be involved in selecting Wikipedia administrators. Simple, to the point, requires people to either know what the nominee has done or do some research, and beter informs the whole process. Proto::type 13:57, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So hundred voters will have to find a hundred distinct diffs ? Tintin (talk) 14:03, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Why not? It sounds a lot less onerous if you say 'each editor will have to find a new diff'. If you can only find one diff that proves the editor is an terror that should never be let near the rollback and block buttons, then perhaps that line of thinking isn't completely correct. And there wouldn't be a hundred voters, as this would remove all those drive-by voters who only vote 'support' to every RFA so when they go for their RFA, they'll make it. You would actually have to have some kind of investment in the process to have a say. Proto::type 14:42, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The last thing you mentioned is why I don't really ever vote support on an RFA unless I know the guy or I've put a signficant amount of effort into evaluating the candidate (including asking questions). I'll be honest, I'm lazy, so there's a lot of RFAs that I just don't put the time into, and thus don't vote Support even if it's 75-0 and nobody's brought up a credible objection. On the other hand, I tend to oppose rather often, even when I find just a little something wrong. This is because of a combination of my high admin criteria and a desire to balance out all of the blind support votes. --Cyde↔Weys 18:17, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So if someone is a perfectly good Wikipedian except that he's replaced major pages with a penis image three separate times at large intervals, and ignored any attempt to get him to comment or apologize, he only needs to get a dozen supporters (which will get progressively easier as Wikipedia grows) to outvote everyone and become admin? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:04, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Errr, huh? Where did you get that from? Are you implying that 'diffs' wouldn't include Image upload logs? -- nae'blis _(talk) 18:19, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Simetrical is acting under the assumption that we will keep the 75-80% threshold requirement with this new system. (See how nefarious this voting thing is, once it is established, people don't want to give it up!) Simetrical is pointing out that there might be some admin candidate who unapologetically replaced an article with a penis image one time over the course of their career. In this case, there would be only one diff, but if said candidate could drum up 12 of his friends to vote for him AND we required everybody to provide a different diff to support their objections then it could be with this curious amalgamated system that awful admin candidate gets the nod. However, I think what we are suggesting here is getting rid of this outdated 75% threshold business all together and replacing it with a meaningful comment section that requires people to refer to the actions of the candidate. That way a real evaluation can be done instead of one that relies on the majority of the unwashed masses coming in and expressing unresearched opinions in the hope of swaying consensus. --ScienceApologist 18:26, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's what some of us are suggesting, yes, but I gather the only change Proto would make is to force each oppose to present a different diff. I'm saying that a single diff, or a few diffs, could potentially be a sufficiently good reason to oppose to merit the rejection of a candidate, which this proposal doesn't account for. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:38, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Aha, I hadn't caught that nuance. I would submit that the diffs showing a lack of response to objections to the candidate's penisification of the Wiki would be additional diffs that could be submitted under such an (admittedly baroque) system. It's also a bit of a straw man, however... -- nae'blis _(talk) 22:43, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think that this page almost more than any other is a slap-in-the-face to consensus which is, to my understanding, not based on a democratic sentiment but rather on something more like a meritocratic sentiment.^[1] But at RfA, there is little to no attempt to measure the merit of people's comments unless there are some users that take it upon themselves to point out problems with the explanations for the votes and, in fact, there are a number of editors who object to doing this and will vote against a nomination on principle if a nominee or a even another user tries to start discussions about the explanations (this happened to me). The support/oppose dichotomy which is set-up only serves to encourage people to treat the RfA discussion as if it is a popularity contest. I think that this system of having a "comment" section that's really a "voting" section where a super-duper majority of voters must commit for there to be a reasonable chance for an adminship to succeed is duplicitous. In principle, I have no problems with the system being this way, but it isn't described this way in the description of the RfA nor is it clearly stated that what is really going on in every RfA is an attempt to drum up support for one's nomination to the tune of 75 to 80% of the people voting for you. Can't anyone see how ridiculous this is? --ScienceApologist 18:49, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Let's have a comment-based system and leave the decision up to the bureaucrat. --Tony Sidaway 20:43, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think we should try that out for a few weeks. --mboverload @ 21:34, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Set some firmer criteria rather than letting everyone vote (and that is the correct term for what goes on today in RFA) however they feel like, allow people to comment on whether the candidate meets the criteria, and then let the bureaucrat decide. Which, yes, will give them much greater power than they currently have; in debatable cases they could confer and have a vote (which might seem to defeat the purpose of reform until you realize that they'd be voting on whether the candidate met sensible consensus requirements, not voting however they felt like). —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I Agree with Cyde that something needs to be done so that late objections don't go unnoticed. The "comment" period would need to be fairly structured ... almost like an RFC ... otherwise, it could have the same problems the current system has. I don't like the idea of restricting the voting process to administrators - for a very simple reason. If there are lots of people you can't get along with, sometimes, it isn't everyone else - it's you. I understand that active admins sometimes have users with a vendetta (even then, a lot of it can be brought upon themselves - if you taunt the trolls, don't be surprised when they respond), but we're not talking about people who are already administrators. If you can find 20 people to oppose someone for non-trivial reasons (ie, "there are too many admins already"), even if not a one of those opposing is themselves an administrator, there's probably something wrong somewhere. BigDT 17:51, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Implement an evidence/comment subpage and permit the bureaucrat to make the decision on said data. -Randall Brackett 14:42, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Notes

^ Some critics of Wikipedia have pointed out that certain articles have been deleted even though the majority of the people who commented on the articles wanted them to be kept. This is because consensus is not acheived simply by getting a glut of users to mimic each other and type similar points. I think this feature of consensus-building serves us well at AfD.

Comments

Neutral. First, I think that it's ironic that this poll question about the effectiveness of the "support/oppose" system uses the "support/oppose" system. ;) Irony aside, I have not been enolved enough in the RfA system to have a highly informed opinion. Based upon my limited experience here, however, I think that it works well enough. Then again, I would be open to suggestions. --AaronS 17:09, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral. On one hand, it does generally work - most people who should be admins get promoted. On the other hand, there at least isn't a perception that rationales are taken into consideration in the support/opposes, meaning that I could walk in and support or oppose anyone for any reason, regardless as to whether it were true or not, and have it hold the same weight as anyone else. So is the support/oppose a good judge of consensus? Only up to the point that the strict vote counting gives a good indicator, but not of what the actual consensus is in a number of cases. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:02, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Quadruple Edit-Conflicted, Beat-the-Nom, Strongest Ever, Cliché, Rattatatat Ding-Dong Neutral on Top of the Reichstag Yes, RfAs are generally okay, but I feel like this RfA is not a vote is just a thing we say rather than a thing we put into practice. If we were to put a bit more effort into keeping requests for adminship a discussion rather than a place where candidates are, in many cases, discouraged from responding to comments about them, we'd have more informed and less over-the-top !votes. That would make the requests for adminship process significantly better. -- joturn e r 19:57, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Very few false negatives": Sure there may not be many admins promoted who go around vandalizing, but unwise or impolite administrators may still be promoted. As pointed out above, also, there are bad administrators, which are the reason for the Oversight permission, and there are indeed administrators who block and protect over content disputes they are involved in. Also, if half the rejected administrator (not withdrawn) could have been approved with us still being able to say "Very few false negatives", that could indicate a failure in RfA. Another problem I see is that it does not scale up, where the sheer numbers become less and less an indication of suitability for adminship. These numerous "Support for awesomeness" do not all represent evaluations of administrative ability, and provide no reasons why the user should be administrator. One question is, one year from now when active users are maybe doubled, what happens when Voice-of-all, Crazyrussian, Yanksox, etc. are all voting one side, and on the other we have several registered users for a few months who make a few article edits every now and then but do not administrator functions? Certainly, the bureaucrats are doing their own research and making the decision, but insofar as that decision is not based on the RfA vote, the RfA vote is not meaningful. If the dozens of support votes with little or no justification do not strongly factor in, why not encourage reasonable discussion instead? —Centrx→talk • 19:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with support/oppose is that there's no set idea of what a person needs to be an admin. Drive-by votes of "looks okay" are harmful, but so are "has enough edits in all the right places". Admins do a lot more than what they are 'approved' to do, and while RC patrolling is good, RC patrollers should not all be admins. Admins need to negotiate with other admins and they need to agree with other admins and have a unified front. Accepting anyone who believes anything about the project because they've got enough edits will split the unified front which holds us together, a bad thing. RfA needs to be a discussion, in which all the participants continue to be involved for the entirety of it. I don't know how to do that, heh, but the vote-and-go, at best, needs to stop, somehow. --Keitei (talk) 20:11, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral. Undoubtedly some people don't check back on updates, and this isn't good, but I can't see what an alternative is. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 03:30, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The alternative is to have reasons. If a person bases his opinion on something that later turns out to be false or weak, it can be considered in that light. Currently, we don't know if a person's "Support" is because he is accepting what is described in the nomination straightforwardly—which could end up being exaggeration or somesuch, or whether it is based on his knowledge and a good examination of the user's contributions, or whether it is based solely on edit summary usage. It would also encourage returning because a user would not feel as though he has stuffed his vote in the ballot box and that is that, without bothering with or caring about discussion. —Centrx→talk • 06:43, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. And then we could set out some firmer criteria to stop all the people who think that someone who's made 1000 model edits over three months is suddenly going to turn around and start abusing tools. Okay, you've convinced me. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Having seen many of these discussions and polls on the same topic over the last 15 months or so, let me guess that absolutely nothing will come out of this poll. We will make the same few arguments back and forth. The discussions will go on for three or four days. There won't any consensus except for status quo, a couple of people will make suggestions which will be immediately shot down, and it will business as usual. Tintin (talk) 12:38, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- What is necessary is having a formal proposal, getting the bureaucrats to agree, and getting a significant number of administrators and editors to support them. The problem is that few people seem to be involved with this Talk page, even the dozens of people who regularly vote in RfAs. Saying that nothing will come of it because nothing has come of it before is a self-fulfilling argument, as people may ignore the discussion, thinking it moot, and there will never be any change to RfA, barring a major catastrophe. Even with a major problem, for example wheel warring, for some reason people didn't conclude that it indicated a problem in the way those administrators were selected in the first place. —Centrx→talk • 21:46, 15 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Things won't change because the current process is very simple and works very well. Significant changes will make the process much more burdensome (think WP:DfA) and it won't prevent bad admins better than the existing one. Wheel warring happens very seldom and so far has been dealt smoothly with via requests for arbitration. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:53, 15 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oleg is right. The beauty of the present system is its flexibility and adaptability. Change can happen by us, the participants, changing our standards, and this happens all the time. If every person who thought the process was broken committed to expressing their opinion on every editor who applied for adminship, they could easily move the standards of what is most important in selecting admins. If things aren't the way you like it, you are either not participating or your views are not in alignment with the community. NoSeptember 06:21, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Well put. If you think a simple vote is insufficient, make sure you comment on each candidate in detail. If people like it, they will join in. Admins are the "rule from below" part of Wikipedia, after all. Stephen B Streater 06:37, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think Support/Oppose is broken persay, but the criteria for selection of subject to drift indefinantly torwards unreasonableness. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 09:42, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Foo (wrong question)

Yes I've stopped beating my wife, wait I mean no! ... oh foo... I plead the fifth!.You're asking the wrong question and getting the wrong answer. RFA would be broken right now with or without support/oppose or what have you. It's irrelevant. Kim Bruning 19:48, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You failed to tell us what the right question is, a question that will lead us to do some sort of positive change. I want to know what you think it is. NoSeptember 20:15, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Here are some:

Can we trust our current admins?
Answer: No. Empirically no, the foundation does not trust our current admins, in certain situations (Oversight, Office).
Can we rule out RFA being part of the problem?
Answer: No, in fact current rfa standards and processes appear to be geared towards arbitrary requirements, with no discernable relationship with the responsibilites admins should have. (see above)
Does RFA promote people who know much about wikipedia?
Answer: No. How many recently promoted admins know the trifecta and foundation issues? Many are clearly confused about consensus too.

to be fair do foundation issues really mater than much?Geni 13:50, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

- How about this one: Does the foundation have any problem with a particular admin, or are they being cautious about giving extremely sensitive information to 1,000 people, some of which they don't know anything about? Titoxd^(?!?) 23:33, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - Anyone I actually nominate for admin... I actually do know a number of things about. Don't you? Kim Bruning 23:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    - What's your point? The foundation didn't nominate the 1000 admins, so why would they know about them? --Tango 00:26, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      - That's the problem. They do. They know that some are leaking information and causing legal difficulties. Kim Bruning 09:14, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - Oversight is not an indicator of a "broken system". There will always need to be a "higher level", per se. You cannot simply assume that oversight would not have been created if RfA worked perfectly or under another system. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:51, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    We already have a higher level an sich. Apparently the load was so high that an entire system was needed. A similar argument goes for the Office policy. Kim Bruning 23:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    - - Previously the removal of history from the database could only be done by developers; Brion and others simply didn't have the time to do so, focusing mainly on the many technical issues that they deal with to keep all of the projects running. Oversight simply transferred the priviledge to other just as trusted people with the time and responsibility to do so; the creation of the level cannot be interpreted strictly as either a lack of trust in the admins or a broken RfA system. In a similar fashion, Office actions were necessary to improve the overall editing structure; by efficiently dealing with poor articles, we are not only improving our quality but serving the Foundation's need to deal with such queries. It does not implicate or imply that we have a broken RfA system. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:03, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        It should be so rare that Brion doesn't need to hand it off. Office is specifically there to fix problems when we have just made a spectacular error (think siegenthaler). Definately a vote of no confidence. Kim Bruning 00:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        All that media publicity about WP is bringing in the people and companies that have articles here, and more of them are expecting to fix their articles the way they like them without understanding the WP way. This is not a surprise to me, the demand for Office and oversight will grow like crazy, and would do so even if every admin were top notch. How can we expect to be a top 15 visited site and not get that sort of attention from the lovers and haters of the subjects of articles? NoSeptember 00:20, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
        Our community should be able to handle problems internally. If it cannot, then the community should take steps to change that, or admit that it is incapable of operating autonomously. Kim Bruning 09:14, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        We can handle it internally. New programs like Office and oversight have been set up by Jimbo and the developers because it is new, just as the original ArbCom was completely appointed by Jimbo, and the original bureaucrats were selected not elected. Nothing prevents us from taking over this role, why not propose a good procedure for us. ArbCom is charged with selecting new checkusers and oversight people, so the community already has control going forward since we select ArbCom. While Jimbo and the foundation will have a veto, there is no reason we can't run our own selection processes. Brand new processes always seem to be top-down, but they don't need to stay that way. NoSeptember 12:29, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
        
        "It should be so rare that Brion doesn't need to hand it off." - were you asking him on a daily basis to remove damaging edits from the history of pages? No, you weren't. The oversight permission was created because if admins tried to do the regular "delete and selectively restore" method, the database would lock and the site would crash. The WP:OFFICE rule was created because Jimbo did not have the time to handle all the requests the Foundation Office needed to deal with directly (in cases, deal with immediately), so he devolved powers that were originally with him towards a few he knew already well. It doesn't sound to me as a vote of no confidence. Tito xd^(?!?) 00:41, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        As above: the en.wikipedia community should be the one to handle those requests autonomously. It currently does not and can not. Kim Bruning 09:14, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some good questions. I think the lack of knowledge of issues could be addressed even by a minority of people who are willing to press candidates to prove their bonafides. On the sensitive information issues, it is a bit too late to deal with the 1000 admins that already exist, many of whom are fairly unknown and thus untrusted by the foundation. The problem seems to have been solved with the new oversight and office functions, is there some way you want to make those functions work better? And how will changing RfA improve these issues? Reform of RfA doesn't quite seem to be the solution to solve the sensitive information issue. NoSeptember 23:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, those functions are a constant reminder of our failure to look after ourselves. No other wiki has them (yet). It's quite embarrasing. I propose we make them obsolete. Kim Bruning 00:05, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

English WP is just getting too big to maintain that personal touch it once had. The other WPs will have the same problems when they get to this stage. Some of them already have their share of problems. Do you think these problems could have been avoided at any project that grows to this size? NoSeptember 00:14, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

That's a pretty bizarre way of looking at it. As I said above RFA was not designed to pick people who could be trusted to carry out the Foundation's business, only those who could be trusted not to screw up too much with shiny admin buttons. It's fundamentally impossible to have a selection process that relies entirely (or primarily) on on-wiki activity while at the same time filtering out the people whose malicious actions are done entirely off-wiki (and usually under a different name).

(Which is not to say, however, that we don't need some way of ferreting out the second group; but it is something that would need to be done primarily off-wiki as well, or through the use of more sophisticated technical measures. In neither case would a change to the RFA process be effective.) Kirill Lokshin 00:55, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My admin requirement is the traditional "can be trusted not to blow up the wiki". Admins don't need to conduct the foundations business, but they shouldn't actively do things that could end wikipedia and/or require foundation intervention either, right? Apparently in (some? limited? [1]) situations, the foundation thinks that admins as a group no longer fit even that criterium.

Forget things like 1 featured article, vandalism patrol, and 3 months, 1500 edits. We're failing on the fundamentals here! Kim Bruning 09:27, 14 July 2006 (UTC) [1] I'm hoping it's only limited. It probably is, but I'd prefer to start taking corrective action early. :-)[reply]

I don't really disagree with you; my point is that while the theoretical requirement might be "can be trusted not to blow up the wiki", we cannot generally do any better than "has not shown any signs that he cannot be trusted not to blow up the wiki" in practice. Some people will inevitably manage to game this (see sleeper agent), and any changes to our process shouldn't be motivated by trying to stop them—because we simply can't without doing highly invasive background checks on every candidate. Kirill Lokshin 12:57, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I don't think that it's that we can't trust our admins. Can we trust all 1000 of our admins (give or take) to adhere to the set guidelines, which most of them see as unbendable policy in my experience (which is probably a good thing...), on how they should use their admin tools under pain of ArbCom? Sure we can. The checks and balances are there; it's extremely bureaucratic and uniform, with little left to good judgement; it works.
However, can we trust all our admins to effectively run the community, as they will end up doing? No, I don't think we can. It's self-deceptive to say that admins are not viewed as higher than normal users. They are high-profile and people go to them with questions and for advice. Many of them are also more aware of what is going on with the community and Wikipedia in general and are contributing to how policy will play out. Is this bad? No, this is good. The people who spend the most time doing stuff will understand it best, and admins are promoted because they have spent that amount of time, and a good many continue to be very active. However, they are also promoted for very stupid reasons, and not promoted for equally stupid ones. The evidence shows that admins do not get along with each other (wheel warring, etc). Other admins are viewed as just any other editor, which divides the community. People tend to make their little groups, which is inevitable, but the admins should be a group also. It shouldn't be Christianity related-editor admins vs admins who edit or identify with other religions, or anything of the sort. Wikipedia doesn't have room or time for partisan politics.
Anyhow, it's my personal belief that one's ability to work with others to the good of the encyclopedia, finding and helping in the finding of compromises for major issues, and working with others to resolve things should be the main criteria for admins. The idea is not that we vote against each other and battle for things; it's that we resolve our differing opinions in a way favorable to everyone. Also, it doesn't take any special skills to 'fight vandals', and quality control is everyone's business, not just admin candidates. --Keitei (talk) 09:04, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Trust is not a Boolean attribute. Sure admins are trusted, but that doesn't mean they're allowed root access to Wikimedia servers. Admins are just trusted more than most users. If you pick out 853 people that you think meet the highest standards of trust, at least one is going to actually be untrustworthy. That's just a fact of life. And then there's the issue of accounts being hacked; it hasn't happened yet to an admin, to my knowledge, but some of our admins must have weak passwords, and so it's an open possibility. So give admins any tools that are somewhat dangerous in the wrong hands, but useful for a reasonably large percentage of editors to have; don't give them tools that are very dangerous in the wrong hands, or tools that only a couple of people really need to have. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:15, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Poll to determine that polls are evil is evil

Ideal, no, good enough until a better replacement has been worked out, yes. And if the system is broke, start to change it with new ideas, not with the supposed broke ideas to show that it has been broke.-- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 19:49, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
People are opposed to fixing it, because they claim it ain't broke! Kim Bruning 00:10, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
How is it broken? We are promoting ample admins that are basically doing a good job, right? So how is the system broken? FloNight ^talk 01:37, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a bit of an odd man out, because I tend to work through other people, rather than doing things myself. (That's also why I handed in my own admin bit, to remove the temptation to micromanage). But I'm having more and more trouble finding people who are willing to do a good job. Often I find people who will help me in spite of RFA rather than thanks to it. I've hardly ever managed to recruit people off of rfa to do useful work. I've also seen RFA turn down people who are known to be useful. So for me, RFA is not doing much useful work.

That's ok. It's always nice to have fun and interesting clubs like Esperanza or RFA, who don't do anything useful per-se, but who chat with each other and provide a friendly environment, and make their members feel important. Of course, if they actually become harmful to wikipedia, they should be shut down and/or replaced. Kim Bruning 11:30, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've suggested in the past that we have a list of a half dozen frequently backlogged processes and we ask each admin candidate to promise to adopt one of them to learn it and do work on it once an admin, as a condition of us promoting them. NoSeptember 13:17, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
That sounds like an excellent optional question, although it could be a rephrasement of Q1. -- nae'blis _(talk) 20:32, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is a volunteer project. Noone is required to do anything, and noone can be forced to keep a promise they make. -Splash - tk 14:37, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I never suggested we force anything, getting a promise to do a specific task will work with those who keep their promises. With the others, well we learned what they are willing to do to get promoted ;) (useful information). NoSeptember 15:02, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Polls to determine that polls are evil is evil are evil

Tony Sidaway 20:40, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
digital_m e^{(TalkˑContribs)} 20:43, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What in heaven's good name is this section of this talk page trying to talk about? If it's just an opportunity to say "yeah" or "no" I do/do not like RfA, then we heard it all a hundred times. Last week, probably. As it is, this section meanders randomly in all directions at once, and in no direction at all. -Splash - tk 14:05, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Poll to determine whether the mind-numbing nature if this discussion is sufficient to drive a user to spouse-beating, assuming he/she has one

— Jul. 18, '06 [23:46] <freak|talk>

Poll to determine whether or not this poll has gotten way too frickin' long and should be truncated before someone other than Freakofnurture beats their spouse in frustration over the confusion

In the end, crats can choose to discount the driveby votes anyway.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 02:13, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:The Mad Bomber the first RfA candidate blocked during candidcay period?

Just for the record, I have blocked this user for wind-ups...for lack of the T word....on his own RfA. He had been making racist attacks in June, when I gave him a onoe month block, and has since made a few more dubious antics between then and now. Is this OK? It not, then unblock. Blnguyen | rant-line 08:28, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent. How has he been allowed to get away with this name anyway??? Tyrenius 08:51, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Request semi-protection for an RfA

Hi. Would someone semi-protect Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Grendelkhan? It's been vandalised ~~twice~~ three times in the past few hours by an imposter forging a vote - first from a new imposter account,[5] then as an IP,[6], and again as a different IP.[7] In this circumstance, I feel a semi-protection will adequately prevent future disruption to this RfA. I'd do it myself, but as the nominator in this case feel it would present a conflict of interest. After all, I'm too involved to be sure I'm not blowing this out of proportion. Cheers! bd2412 T 02:57, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

done,.Blnguyen | rant-line 03:43, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Cheers! bd2412 T 03:49, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Too Far-Gone Conclusions

I'm a bit worried about my comments on Sean Black's RfA and JD_UK's RfA, due to their lengths. I'm not trying to stab them with my opposition rationale, but I fear I'm inadvertently doing just that, especially since long opposition comments sometimes draw potential !voters to a side even if they don't particularly agree with them. In all honesty, have I gone against my own principle that this is an RfA, not an FBI investigation, and climbed on top of the Reichstag wearing a Spider-man suit with my oppose !votes in hand? Should I cut down the comments (or at least cut down comments in the future) or is the detail okay (this isn't a vote, after all)? Comments would be appreciated, and this doesn't just have to be about the length of my comments specifically. And, yes, I know that's not the correct usage of "far-gone". -- joturn e r 14:24, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, the length of your comments is fine. I cannot imagine a reason for wanting to provide less rationale. People complain all the time about !vote or vote (even though nearly every single opposer gives a reason in nearly every RfA) and writing proper comments just proves that this is, in fact a discussion! not a !vote. -Splash - tk 14:36, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, please don't stop. As long as you're not piling-on (which I've never seen you do), there's nothing wrong with giving thorough explanations. I, for one, greatly appreciate them. ×Meegs 17:48, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Alright; thank you both for the feedback. -- joturn e r 22:38, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you think they are long on the page, move them to the rfa/nom talk page, then link to them from the rfa/nom page. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:18, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The more thoughtful the reasoning, the better. Length in itself shouldn't reflect badly on a comment. There was one small thing I noticed though in your comment on Sean Black's nom, Jo: "Okay, okay, perhaps I over-reacted on some of those..." If you feel you may be over-reacting, than perhaps reconsider whether the diffs are really all that egregious. Marskell 12:15, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see what you meant by that. It was only an "oppose" with my comment (as I wanted to see if what I said really was an over-reaction), but I changed it to "strong oppose" after seeing what others - namely BigDT - had to say. -- joturn e r 12:54, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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. Highway ^Batman! 22:42, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

[1] Some critics of Wikipedia have pointed out that certain articles have been deleted even though the majority of the people who commented on the articles wanted them to be kept. This is because consensus is not acheived simply by getting a glut of users to mimic each other and type similar points. I think this feature of consensus-building serves us well at AfD.

[1]

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