It looks like there were six closed on the same day, exactly twelve years ago, February 28th, 2008. I don't know how many were necessarily active at once though. The Moose11:46, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
Do we know when the last time an above average number of RfXs were live and someone didn't come to this page and ask how long it's been since the last time? Sam Walton (talk) 12:34, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
@Steel1943:I think we should all know that Steward is a Global Wikipedia position, and not an exclusive en wikipedia thing. The elections for Stewardship finished yesterday. Also, request for foundership is up to Jimbo Wales if he decideds to turn wikipedia into american-style democracy. Yes I get it, it's a joke. Can I Log In (talk) 01:16, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
As comments have slowed to a trickle, and there haven't been any new comments in a day or two, I'll go ahead and close this discussion. The result is unsuccessful—there is no consensus to limit the RFA watchlist notice to extended confirmed users. The main argument is that since we are not limiting who can vote in RfAs, we should not limit to whom we advertise the RfAs, especially based upon edit count and account age. Respectfully, Mz7 (talk) 09:06, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
Support: An excellent idea. 500 edits is not much, but it's clearly seen as sufficient to file a RfA so this would ensure that a candidate is beng ajudged by his peers. ——SN5412913:56, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Oppose this unnecessary proliferation of XCP restrictions/limitations. Do we have actual evidence that non-XCP users seeing the notice is a problem? I think this tendency of imposing XCP/autoconfirmed/etc. restrictions with little or no evidence of a problem is a problem. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 14:16, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Oppose If you are going to limit the watchlist notice to XCP, you will also need to limit who can !vote in RfAs to XCP. Treating who gets a notice differently than who can !vote is flat wrong. Recommend closing this discussion and instead having a discussion about who can !vote on an RfA, if XCP is the direction you want to go. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:24, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Oppose per Hammersoft. The issue that prompted this was regarding whether certain users should be eligible to !vote in an RfA based on experience and understanding of Wikipedia. Watchlist restrictions seem immaterial to that issue, and by themselves an unnecessary added step of bureaucracy.--WaltCip (talk) 14:50, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
@WaltCip: To the contrary, I think every logged in user should be allowed to vote. I just think they aren't be prepared for the experience properly and what kind of negative experience awaits newbies who say the wrong thing. –MJL‐Talk‐☖00:13, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
Your logic makes sense. I just wonder how much of an impact that this restriction will actually have. In other words, is the implementation more trouble than it's worth?--WaltCip (talk) 01:34, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
Oppose The requirement to see a watchlist notice is that you be a logged-in user. The requirements to participate in an RfA are also that you be a logged-in user. RfA participation also requires that you not be blocked, not be subject to a relevant topic ban, are not a sockpuppet, etc. so unless watchlist notices can be configured to detect blocks and topic bans, it's not fair to withhold a notice from somebody who may have every right to participate. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:02, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Oppose - "Admin peers" are editors. No more. No less. Someone with 200 edits could definitely have something worth contributing to discussion, and as such it would be bonkers to wilfully hinder them being made aware of it. Nosebagbear (talk) 15:05, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Leaky caldron, you literally, in the thread above this, just discouraged a new user from taking too much interest in RFA. But at the same time, you want to advertise RFAs to this same new user, who you think should not be taking an interest in it. How is this not a HUGE contradiction? Levivich (talk) 18:35, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Levivich. Thanks. I won't use semantics to respond to this. My concern above relates to that particular user who, not limited to taking an interest in the mechanics of RfA, has had his fingers burnt putting questions in a current RfB. He is one of those new editors who seize on the prospect of becoming a "site administrator". I've seen it all before - I'm sure you have too. But the general population? no reason not to allow then to be aware and contribute - they are not typically disruptive as some diehards would wish us to believe. Leaky caldron (talk) 18:52, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Oppose, we don't limit voters, so we shouldn't limit the watchlist notice. I'm also not a fan of limiting RfA contributions to extended confirmed accounts, but if we were to turn RfA into a vote, it would make sense to have some restrictions on who is allowed to vote. —Kusma (t·c) 15:20, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Oppose RFA is not a vote. If there are inexperienced users leaving poor quality comments, then I'm sure our bureaucrats are more than qualified to consider the weight of each comment when deciding consensus. ~~ Alex Noble- talk15:33, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Support limiting the watchlist notice and restricting voting to EC. I see a problem with letting non-EC editors vote. For one, the actual socks, such as Edgar’s and Corbett’s. For two, new editors voting get harassed anyway, even if they’re not socks. For three, I doubt anyone with less than a month on wiki and 500 edits has anything valuable to contribute to RFA. Not enough experience. The community doesn’t accept new editors participating in RfA anyway, so let’s just make it official and save everyone some time and trouble. Levivich (talk) 15:34, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Levivich, I am always annoyed that I am not allowed to vote at the German Wikipedia (I have only 362 edits in the last 14 years there) although I do have some other experience (40k+ global). Not having 500 edits on one wiki does not make you a "new" user if you have substantial experience on sister projects. —Kusma (t·c) 15:41, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Kusma, I disagree because I think each project is different, and it should be the regular, dedicated members of a project (and not just any Wikimedian) who !vote in that project's RFAs. I wouldn't want you to !vote at the German Wikipedia, because I don't think your 362 edits gives you enough experience at the German Wikipedia to be able to contribute meaningfully to a discussion about who should and shouldn't be an admin at the German Wikipedia, despite the fact that you have a ton of global experience. Similarly, I wouldn't want someone who has 362 edits here but 40k edits at the German Wikipedia to be !voting in an English Wikipedia RFAs, because despite their experience at the German WP, they wouldn't have enough experience in our community. I don't see one month/500 edits as being a very high bar to get a vote in who gets to "run" the place. Levivich (talk) 18:42, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Support restricting watchlist, oppose restricting !voting. Most editors < EC are not going to have something to contribute, but some might. We shouldn't bombard them with notices, but on the other hand if they do have something to add they should feel free to do so. Certainly confirmed editors should not be restricted from commenting. I don't think sockpuppets are particularly problematic for RfA's because usually when they're close it's because of good faith disagreement between highly established editors and strong reasons both for support and oppose. buidhe19:05, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
supportoppose Kusma raises valid, and interesting point here. But we are not limiting participation in RfA. If a non-extended confirmed user is aware of RfA, and experienced enough to participate in it, then they would certainly know how to keep track of new RfAs. We also have User:Cyberpower678/RfX Report being displayed/transcluded on many many pages. In last two or three years, there was an RfA, a sort of new/inexperinced user commented there somewhere along the lines "I dont know much about this process, is it mandatory to vote from the three options". I am not sure if it was an RfC or a discussion, but the eligibility criteria for running for RfA was discussed in it. In that discussion, confused/pile on votes by inexperienced editors were also discussed. In short: any user who is experienced enough to vote in RfA, would also know how to keep track of RfA without the watchlist notice. We are not limiting the participation, but we are trying not to confuse inexperienced users. If we decide to keep watchlist notice then we should at least change the wording so that it would be clear, and non-confusing for new/inexperienced users. We can deal with trolls, LTAs, and similars on case-by-case basis. —usernamekiran (talk)19:10, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
on the second thoughts, RedRose64 is right. And there are valid points presented by few others. However, I strongly recommend changing the wording of the watchlist notice. —usernamekiran (talk)19:15, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Oppose Why exclude those users from the vote (which is what reducing notifications will do, whether intentionally or not.) Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:10, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Oppose Trolls are gonna troll. They don't need the watchlist link to find RFA. If new good faith users are routinely being accused of sockpuppetry for "knowing too much" then we have a deeper problem than can be solved by the removal of a watchlist notice. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:18, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Oppose Advertising widely how we operate can only serve us well. Whilst I wouldn't want to actively encourage a brand new editor to !vote at RfA until they had had a chance to better understand how things work, I see absolutely no reason for not highlighting the processes we have here, and let them see what goes on. A few off-kilter newbie !votes isn't going to sway an RfA full of experienced editors wielding pitchforks or Kleenex. Obviously, were it possible to only advertise RfAs to white middle-aged, middle-class, misogynistic males, I'd be all for selective advertising. But until that time, let's keep our processes transparent and visible to all, shall we? Nick Moyes (talk) 22:33, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Support Although I think the opposers here are rightfully sensitive to anything that might be perceived as limiting the democratic aspects of RfAs, I struggle to think of an instance in which having fewer inexperienced editors voting at an RfA would swing the result. There are always plenty of votes at an RfA, so it's not as though the process needs the maximum amount of promotion. More to the point, even I as an experienced editor often feel unqualified to vote in many RfAs, and I'd guess many inexperienced editors are simply ignoring them, so we are doing them a favor by decluttering their watchlist, as Buidhe said. Sdkb (talk) 00:54, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
Oppose I think that it is helpful for all users to understand what is going on "behind the scenes." I am sure there are lots of users who click the link out of curiosity and have become more engaged. Also, I am skeptical that one line clutters up a watchlist. --Enos733 (talk) 01:03, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
Oppose . It's a brilliant idea. I opposed it in the original December 2015 RfC that proposed several reforms (others of which I supported). I don't think that having doubled the number of voters has doubled the effectiveness of RfA as a process or encouraged more candidates to come forward. Indeed, if anything, it's doubled the drama. The proposal here is not going to fly however, and as others have pointed out, while no minimums are required from candidates, it's hardly appropriate to set limits for voters. What could possibly be looked at is more effective clerking, and perhaps to the extent that the clerks at least examine the histories of drive-by voters just to be sure that there is no socking or pure vengeance. Just ideas - nothing to get wound up about. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:26, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
Oppose - the watchlist notice should be available to everyone who can vote. Changing what the notice says might serve newbies better, but I don't support selectively restricting who does and does not receives a watchlist notice. Clovermoss(talk)02:45, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
Oppose - I find it in appropriate to prohibit notification (a community-mandated RfA reform) to an entire subset of eligible voters simply based on tenure, which does not otherwise play a role in RfA voting eligibility. ~Swarm~{sting}05:41, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
Oppose Edit count is not a good measure of judgement. A more appropriate limitation would be to restrict the franchise to bureaucrats – those editors who are specifically empowered to grant admin rights. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:43, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
Support. There is a learning curve in becoming a Wikipedian, and it makes sense to let newbies find their feet before encouraging them to !vote in RFAs. So I'm happy to support not spamming newbies with invitations to !vote in RFAs - not allowing newbies to !vote in RFAs would be a very different proposal. By the time someone is extended confirmed i think that an RFA notice would be more likely to be of interest, and less likely to be thought of as watchlist spam. ϢereSpielChequers13:07, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
Partial oppose (to my own surprise). This strikes me as a too-simple technical fix to a complex social problem. As I see it, this is trying to address two issues - trolls/sockpuppets disrupting RfA and inexperienced users jumping into the metaphorical deep end. For the first, I agree with Kudpung above (again, to my own surprise) that improving clerking of RfA would be a better way to handle it. For the second, I think we need to communicate better to inexperienced users how and when to appropriately participate. Perhaps instead of hiding the watchlist entry from < extended-confirmed users, we could have a different message for them, or maybe have a special editnotice? For an editnotice, I imagine something like "You seem to be a newer editor, so here's an overview of how RfA works, here are the expectations for !voters, and here have some useful links for further reading." creffpublica creffett franchise (talk to the boss) 13:26, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
Oppose This is a solution in search of a problem, and completely unnecessary. RFAs are already closely monitored for suspicious activity, especially in regards to oppose voters. This will be more disruptive than helpful. ZettaComposer (talk) 13:59, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
Support Mostly to protect newbies from getting scared off from the project by the harsh reception they'll likely see if they vote at RfA, but partially to remove a plasuible excuse for socks to use (given MJL's analysis below that shows how many socks participated in the last RfA). I absolutely do not support restricting !voting to extended confirmed users at this time. --Ahecht (TALK PAGE) 14:10, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
Oppose as inappropriate for an open project. I would agree with directing less experienced users through a primer, and would not onject if that made it necessary for everyone to click through it to get to the RfA/RfB. · · · Peter Southwood(talk): 17:10, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
@MJL: Hi. I apologise for opposing the proposal. My mind was changed a little while I read all the arguments presented (s/o), and it changed completely when I thought about it the second time. Sorry. However, I do feel that we should change the wording of the notice. —usernamekiran (talk)19:18, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
How dare you change your mind after reading the arguments presented by your colleagues?! That is not how we do things on Wikipedia! You're supposed to stake out a position and then dig your heels in and defend it to the death, until the closing admin declares one side right and sanctions the other side. How will we ever reach consensus if everyone keeps changing their minds?! Please immediately cease your disruptive listening to others and thinking deeply about things. Levivich (talk) 19:23, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Comment. Quite frankly, it is slightly amazing how diverse the opinions among the opposition are for the proposal. I'm troubled to find a single comment here that says substantially the same thing as another. That's pretty cool if you ask me. Alright, so I probably should state affirmatively that I am in no way looking to suppress newbie participation in RFA. However, I am trying to safeguard them from one of the more emotionally charged areas of the project (though folks have said to me that it used to be worse). If I felt that new users were going to be treated the same as anyone else, then I would never have proposed this. I just know that it isn't the case. In general, Wikipedia editors are awfully suspicious of any editor whose earliest contributions are to projectspace (for obvious reasons). I shall not say more on that particular subtopic though per WP:BEANS. In any particular event, if anyone was curious about what the net effect of my proposal would be on the most recent closed RFA, I have compiled that data for you below. I will leave with the reminder that this proposal does not prevent a non-extended confirmed user from voting; all it does is remove the notice. –MJL‐Talk‐☖05:27, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
I hear you, MJL, and you have my total empathy, but as you can see, the community is not going to let this fly. So one does what I did above: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:11, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
@Kudpung and MJL: What do you think of Creffett's idea above of having a differently-worded notice for non-EC than EC editors? Seems like a best-of-both-worlds solution. Is that technically possible? Levivich (talk) 16:34, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
If the numbers from the RfA below hold true generally, I don't think any changes are needed. If there are very few non extended-confirmed editors participating, then there doesn't seem to be a problem. isaacl (talk) 17:11, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
Since the main proposal seems unlikely to pass, I'm throwing my support behind having some alternate notification phrasing, edit warning, or better composed structure at WP:RFA. This could hopefully be done in conjunction with the proposal above to avoid having two links. Sdkb (talk) 08:31, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
currently, the notice says "A request for adminship and two requests for bureaucratship are open for discussion." The wikilinks lead to WP:RFA, and WP:RFB respectively. I think we should add Wikipedia:Advice for RfA voters in the first para of "About RfA and its process" section. —usernamekiran (talk)03:33, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
As noted elsewhere just today, non-autoconfirmed editors are free to !vote, and both them and IP editors are welcome to comment. Preventing sockpuppets is separate from from limiting engagement by newish editors. ~ Amory(u • t • c)17:26, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Yes. Bureaucrats possess greater powers than administrators and require a higher proportion of support for passing. RfB discussions should at least be advertised as much as RfA discussions are. feminist (talk) 07:13, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Suggested minor change to Watchlist announcement
Can we change the Watchlist notice that goes out when there are RfAs so that it only has one link to the main RfA page? I'm always tempted to click the "open for discussion" link by mistake, which brings me to a subpage. Sdkb (talk) 18:24, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
The bolded link is the "call to action", which brings you right to the top of the RFA page. If we want to unlink the link to the description of why it is a discussion that seems OK. — xaosfluxTalk18:54, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Yes, agree with this too, support unlinking the second link. I think in general many of our templates have too many links, when in general there's only one you want to follow. Like the deletion template, This user page was previously nominated for deletion. The result of the discussion was keep. I quite often click the first link by mistake and end up at the deletion policy page when I just want to go to the AFD. — Amakuru (talk) 08:48, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
In last three years, there were many inexperienced editors who thought they had to participate in RfA (borderline mandatory?), there were other similar issues. I think we should keep only one link in the notice, but that link should direct the reader to a brief "about RfA process". —usernamekiran (talk)10:10, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
The change I would like to see to the watchlist notice is to only advertise RFAs to editors who have made over 100 edits. ϢereSpielChequers13:26, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
Conversation on whether to limit watchlist notice to more experienced editors
Indeed - or any number up to say 1,000, or even more. Given what most of our first edits are like, do people with 101 edits really know enough to judge an Rfa? Also, a higher limit would be a better deterrent to returning banned editors, who will know how to rustle up 100 in 20 minutes. Are these limits possible technically? Johnbod (talk) 16:11, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
Possible, yes of course. Already an option? I doubt it. There would be likely be some development needed, and I suspect that that would be easier if it was linked in to userrights. If so extended confirmed would probably be about the right level to invite people to get more involved by !voting in RFAs. ϢereSpielChequers16:30, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
Yes, it has been discussed generally, but not necessarily in terms of extended confirmed users. Wikipedia:2015 administrator election reform/Phase I/RfC § L: Minimum requirements for voters is I believe the most recent formal RfC on enacting minimum requirements on voters, which predated the creation of the extended confirmed user right. My out-of-the-blue wild guess about the current community consensus is that the extended confirmed threshold would be viewed as too high for commenters at requests for administrative privileges, but I could be wrong. isaacl (talk) 17:05, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
Targeting the ads to a more relevant audience is a very different thing to saying to someone who wants to vote that they can't. I really don't expect anyone to complain at not receiving such ads until they were extended confirmed. ϢereSpielChequers20:34, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
The motivation for the watchlist addition came from Wikipedia:2015 administrator election reform/Phase I/RfC § D: More participants, which sought "Different !voters, rather than constantly the same ones, ... [to have]... a wider and fresher range of opinions." I'm certain there are editors who would support only notifying a subset; I'm just guessing that a greater consensus of editors would feel this would be unduly biasing the notifications, reducing the desired effect. We can open up a request for comments and see. isaacl (talk) 21:02, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
72 hours into this RfA, and it is 123/2/1, almost 100% even though the 3 non-supports are literally nothing and weak in my opinion. I'm just wondering, when was the last time there was a unanimous support in an RfA? And if not, what was the highest one? To reply, copy and paste this: {{replyto|Can I Log In}}(Talk)06:48, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
No. Let's not encourage history-digging to find examples of inexperience and play that off as "unsuitable for adminship". --qedk (t心c)20:41, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Can we take them off the watchlist?
Now that the annual worst day to be on Wikipedia has started, can we take down the watchlist notice until 2 April? These actually impact people who don’t know a minority of our editor population thinks this is funny and could cause them to waste time and be confused. I think we took it down last year. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:04, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
RIP to anyone who decided today was a good to genuinely run (although, you could argue the lack of foresight is enough for an oppose anyway.) I agree we shouldn't push a site wide notification for a joke. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski(talk • contribs)11:49, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
A far better idea would be to ban joke RfAs altogether, rather than change the watchlist notices for them. Joke RfAs lost their hilarity ten years ago; now they're just an unfunny yearly retread, along with joke AfDs. Acalamari14:02, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
I think we just need rules to make sure they aren't classified as real RfXs. Like XfDs, you are required to remove the template which would normally trigger a bot to put the actual deletion notice on the page. We just need to make it not transcluded on the the actual RfA page for RfX jokes. When transcluded, then bombs happen. {{SUBST:replyto|Can I Log In}}PLEASE copy and paste the code to reply(Talk)21:30, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
No promotions last month
April 2020 was the first month without a successful RFA since June 2019. The 9 month streak was our best since the 23 month streak from October 2012 to August 2014 according to WP:RBM. — Wug·a·po·des01:41, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
I suspect that has something to do with "IRL issues" more than anything; it's certainly thrown me off my usual routines. Primefac (talk) 14:24, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
That was also my guess; I doubt many people would want to add the stress of an RfA onto their other concerns. I meant this more as a congrats to nominators for putting together the longest streak by month in 6 years. Hopefully when things calm down, we'll see another. — Wug·a·po·des19:25, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
According to WP:RBM, there were 7 applications in the first 4 months of 2020, and there were only 4 in the first 4 months of 2019. I wouldn't be so pessimistic. Regards, Comte0 (talk) 06:03, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
Overall activity is stable, if anything it may be slightly up. I would have thought that some of our self isolating or furloughed editors would have the time to run an RFA. After all, an RFA is a socially distanced event, I don't see why those editors who are in a position to run would feel it necessary to postpone. Though I appreciate that with most of our editing community in the US, UK, Canada and Ireland we must have a higher proportion of editors for whom this is a truly terrible time than in some other language Wikipedias. ϢereSpielChequers07:50, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
Time may well be an even more precious commodity under the present circumstances, as people who are working from home don't always presently have a clearly defined start and end to their working day, and even those who aren't may be having to deal with a myriad of family issues. But I'd argue that actually the more important factor would be the brainspace and inclination to go for RfA or anything similar at the moment: irrespective of any health effects that the ongoing situation is having on editors or their friends and family, for a lot of people it's adding a great deal of stress and worry. Whilst editing activity as a whole may be up, RfA is I can only imagine from having read a fair few a great deal more stressful than the average edit activity - as I'm sure you'll know! - and might well not be something people want to take on with all the other stresses in their lives right now. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 11:05, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
Those who are concerned can always encourage those who think would make good sysops to run - perhaps by contacting someone on the list of editors willing to nominate. I can tell you that I make some effort to find candidates. In doing so, there is frequent rejection and even when someone is interested is generally one that needs to start months ahead of a potential RfA (e.g. I have had someone since April who I think would make a great sysop today but to give them the best chance of passing are waiting several months on and that's not dissimilar from the two previous editors I've nominated). What I'm saying is that for people who see this as a problem everyone can play a part in trying to bring forward good candidates. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:20, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
RfA VennSurely there are but many of them would not pass RfA. The trick is that it must be an editor who wants to be a sysop, who is willing to run for RfA, and who the community agrees should be a sysop. The intersection of these three groups are how we get new sysops but finding them is not easy. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:44, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
Not to put too fine a point on it but the you in those sentences could literally be you Drmies. No need for you, Drmies, to wait for some other amorphous you to actually talk to those people. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:01, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure a public location such as this is the best location to ping people about running. Generally discussions about running are done via email, or at least at the disgression of the user. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski(talk • contribs)18:09, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
Geekpotato24 There are many editors who would make great admins and would likely pass an RfA but don't want to be an admin. Some think their time is better spent improving articles than doing administrator tasks, while others have their own reasons. If a user says they don't want to be an admin even if you think they'll pass an RfA, it's best to respect their decision. - ZLEAT\C21:36, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
It's also a bad idea to discuss a candidates chances unless they instigate it. This is a sensitive subject, not everyone wants the tools, and not everyone wants to be linked with the role. I was publically pinged before my RfA about running, which I also didn't appreciate. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski(talk • contribs)09:29, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
Re Lee Vilenski's comment at the start of this thread "Generally it's 6 months to a year of deciding to run" My experience as a nominator is that well qualified candidates can go through RFA in much less time than that. Yes the community expects more than three thousand manual edits, over a year of activity, some reliably sourced content, at least a year without a block and a reason for the tools; and I wouldn't suggest running immediately if you were at the minima of more than one of those five. But I have known people be persuaded to run, file an RFA within days and pass with little or no opposition. ϢereSpielChequers11:09, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
I should comment that it's not that people can't run within days of deciding to - but if you were anything like me, you'd want to plan it out a bit longer than that. I think the moral of this discussion is that if you see someone worth nominating, send them an email and discuss the idea! Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski(talk • contribs)11:46, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
FWIW, and this was just my own experience, having someone bring it up on my talk and others speak up with support made me feel more confident about considering it. I do get that there are many people who would not want it to be done that way, but I wouldn't have realized such a thing would be unwelcome until pretty recently. I wouldn't ask someone publicly now, and I almost feel like if someone highly experienced doesn't have email configured, they might be sending a message. —valereee (talk) 16:32, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
Sure. I think it's only natural to want to discuss it on a userpage. It is just safer to send a mail. Although a talk page asking is also better than tagging someone in a high watched page such as this one.Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski(talk • contribs)16:50, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
Cogitating on it, instead of acting on it, are two different things. Action is what is needed, as we are short of the necessary. Everybody who is interesting in it, needs to drink their milk, get back on their horses, and find another 6 candidates, so we keep the pipeline filled. Lets do it. I want to see six candidates by the end of the week. scope_creepTalk14:12, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
@Geekpotato24: How are you? I read something a couple of days that say that the number of editors is increasing, which is both heartening and surprising. So put your will to it. scope_creepTalk15:47, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
I agree, more editors means more backlogs, which requires more admins to keep up. Many good admins resigned over WP:FRAMGATE, and there is a shortage of admins as it is. - ZLEAT\C15:58, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
We did lose 25 admins over the Fram situation. However, 17 of them have since returned to being an admin, thus a net loss of 8. We're losing more admins via other sources. On June 9, 2019 (1 day before Framgate began) we had 236 active administrators [2]. As of the same date this year, we had 508, a reduction of 28. Framgate is responsible for only ~29% of that. Just some food for thought. --Hammersoft (talk) 23:54, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
I've had a pretty hard look around myself, in this last year; and in doing so often find that Ritchie333 pre-empted me, because I suspect he's put in more effort into finding candidates than most others. Off the top of my head, I've looked through the contributions of at least 50 likely-looking editors, asked nearly two dozen to run, and had my offer of a nomination declined in all but five cases. I can't help but conclude that very many of our qualified candidates are being turned off either by the reputation of RFA, or by the perceived responsibilities of the toolkit. I don't see a silver-bullet solution here. Vanamonde (Talk)22:15, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
<hat type="still the most recent successful RfA">I would be hesitant to casually recommend someone go through RfA, and I for one do not plan to sit through it again. It is not a fun experience. But if scope_creep feels so strongly about us getting more candidates, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Scope_creep is right over there.</hat> GeneralNotability (talk) 00:16, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
I don't intend to be admin, nor never intended. I've worked in IT for decades and well understand their function, having previously recruited a number. Content is my bag. What I'm trying do is keep things moving, instead of the endless circular conversations. Action is what is needed. scope_creepTalk09:29, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
Scope creep, how, given your personal experience, have you come to the conclusion that it's a lack of action keeping us from having more RfAs? My personal experience is that finding admins is difficult because many tell me things like Content is my bag. Vanamonde is expressed thier own experience where again lack of action is not what is holding us back. So I am interested given your thinking about yourself and the thinking of others, including in this very chain, how your conclusion is that there's a lack of action? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 13:09, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
Scope creep, fwiw, content is my bag, too. I basically perform a single task that requires admin privileges, and it's highly content-related. When I'm spending especially large amounts of time on content, I step away from even that. Not trying to talk you into anything you don't want to do, just FYI :) —valereee (talk) 17:16, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
My 2p (and that's probably all it's worth!) on this - having been through the RFA process myself, I remember the experience being pretty intense and draining, not just the RfA itself but also the lead-up to it - and that sense of failure I had when I withdrew wasn't pleasant. I'm not sure the process is broken - it's right that prospective mop-holders are peer-reviewed prior to acceptance - but I think a large number of prospective RFA candidates will look up previous RFAs first, and think they're not cut out for that intensity of process. As for a way forward, I wonder if a 'What to expect at RfA, and why it's important you don't take criticism to heart, seeing it constructively instead' essay (I know WP:NOBIGDEAL covers bits of it too) might be helpful (though perhaps with a snappier title!). It might encourage more suitable candidates to run once they realise that they needn't take comments personally. OcarinaOfTime (talk) 09:57, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
I think it close to impossible not to take it personally. General Notability has written about this and he passed with relative ease. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 12:58, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
So I'll expand a little on my experience. First, consider that the expectation of an RfA candidate: sit there, smile, answer the questions I'm asked, and not respond to !votes. A handful of the oppose !votes in my RfA, in any other context, would be personal attacks and I would have been justified in challenging them, but in this context I'm expected to leave them alone and hope someone supporting me challenges them or asks me a question related to them. Meanwhile, I'm under the microscope from a couple hundred people for a solid week as they go through my entire contribution history. That's not an experience I would want to put someone I liked through. Also, this may be because I'm a little neurotic, but by the halfway point I actually had to unwatchlist my RfA page and only check it on a schedule. I was constantly reading the !votes (and yes, every !oppose did sting, even when they were completely reasonable grounds to oppose) and running the numbers on how many more !opposes would put me into the top and bottom of the discretionary ranges, and it was getting downright unhealthy. And remember, I passed (by a reasonable margin, too) - I can only imagine how it would have felt to tank the RfA. GeneralNotability (talk) 13:13, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
Yes, that's a very good summary GeneralNotability - I too was checking in on it perhaps a little too regularly! (and hindsight being a wonderful thing, I still sometimes wonder whether if I hadn't pulled the plug, it would have passed (at the time I withdrew, it was very touch and go as to the percentages). Anyway I digress slightly, to go back to the original query re: no current RfAs, I agree it's a tricky one to solve and I'm not sure there is perhaps even a solution needed at this point - I do wonder if the heightened stress levels caused by the current world situation are playing a part too and that it'll recover as the world normalises. OcarinaOfTime (talk) 13:38, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
Time is a factor too. Just the process of running requires one to have hours of free time to respond quickly to waves of questions, often with diffs and other supporting detail that can take much time to find. Delaying an answer can draw criticism so speed is important. Based on my personal experience of this some years ago, I'd really struggle to fit the time in while trying to hold down a job... okay, that's an exaggeration, but the reward (being an admin) has to exceed the perceived effort, and I suspect it doesn't for many people. QuiteUnusual (talk) 12:41, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
What you want, scope_creep, and what will happen are two very different things. I trust, however, you're going to self-nominate yourself first. Nick (talk) 13:24, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
Just whilst I'm reading through all of the comments, and still shaking my head at scope_creep's audacious demand, do we have any statistics readily available to show how many of our unsuccessful administrator candidates have retired/stopped editing, and for those still editing, how their number of edits have changed (up/down) post an unsuccessful RfA ? Nick (talk) 13:47, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
I don't have stats, but many years ago I did a big trawl through unsuccessful RFAs looking for potential candidates, and it was clear that a lot had gone after, or soon after, their unsuccessful RFA. By contrast, admins do tend to stick around (or go and come back), hence we still have over 500 active admins, roughly as many as we have appointed in the last twelve years. Since then we have gone through a number of attempts to deter hopeless candidates from running. If that has worked, and I think we may have overdone it, recent unsuccessful candidates may be a different bag to those of long ago. That said, as someone who passed on my second attempt, I am conscious that second runs can be very uncontentious, provided you can show that you have dealt with some of the major reasons for the previous RFA failing. ϢereSpielChequers14:11, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
Just yesterday I chanced upon a comment WSC made post-RfA about how So far this year we have only appointed 96 admins. The last 96 admins takes us back to June 2015. Barkeep49 (talk) 14:49, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
So along with it being an unpleasant experience (certainly true, disputes over how/whether to change that aside); candidates not wanting to act heavily as an Admin but focus on content; a number I've talked to (all beneficial editors) are concerned about passing it. Often for what I might call one-off "moderate" actions usually at least a year in the past. My experience was that RfA was actually fairly forgiving to conceded errors generally, let along a reasonable time in the past. I wonder if we can do more to push that adminship (by no means) obligates prior perfection. I was interested by @OcarinaOfTime: saying the prep was exhausting, or at least heavily time-using. While I used a reasonable amount of time, that was mainly because I enjoyed reading how RfAs had changed over time (after the first 5, I wouldn't say they aided my run). My actual necessary prep would have been between 5-10 hours spaced over 6 weeks, plus an hour practising transcluding to actually put the application in. Nosebagbear (talk) 17:03, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the ping Nosebagbear - yes, to clarify, my preparation time was self inflicted - like you, I went back over multiple previous RfAs out of interest, and also was looking back over my own edits trying to work out what might come up (and that self reflection is primarily what I was referring to about being a little bit stressful in the lead-up) - it's true to say that RfA doesn't need much preparation time in advance from prospective candidates, but I think, particularly for those running for the first time, that sense of the unknown will always mean prospective candidates will do some preparation (though it's true the amount will depend on the candidate). Nominators play a role here too - I had two nominators (sadly it doesn't look like either is actively involved with the project currently - though I hope they'll return someday!) who were very supportive and happy to answer questions about the process, whereas anyone who decides to just run as a self-nomination (which probably isn't recommended for most first time RfA-ers!) doesn't have that extra layer of support. OcarinaOfTime (talk) 21:29, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
Replying to Nick and everybody else. I'm not going to do it. My gig is content and will remain so. The idea of pushing the whole thing as a kind of action, is a worthwhile thing. It is the thing to do. Certainly its an unpleasant experience undergoing RFA and certainly some attempt should made to improve it incrementally over time. The clerking for instance, was a decent and successful attempt, that has made some difference. But the language used and emotion that comes with it, that needs to be addressed, to get suitably quality people to apply, assuming they are ideal. It lies in understanding how responsibility and fulfilment are linked. That kind of idea. A large majority of folk out here, want to do the right thing, they came here to do it and the right application of the language can push them in that direction. They want to be responsible. It might sound a bit fascistic, but 83% of people on here have degrees, so they understand the need for it. It may sound a bit mad but that kind of more nuanced approach is what's needed. scope_creepTalk18:03, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
There's copyvio backlogs every day during EU daytime, AIV is somewhat frequently backlogged too, as well as various other noticeboards, especially in certain timezones. I don't really have any suggestions of people, but there's probably folks here who know people in the community better than I do. Some headhunting is probably in order. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:48, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
You'd have to be a massive glutton for punishment to put yourself through a week-long character assassination just for a couple of extra buttons to press. ReykYO!11:15, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
I don't particularly adhere to the "we must look for new admins NOW!" mentality, as it's not the goal of the project. The only issues is when we require further administrators to do some tasks. In my eyes, those who continually mention "we haven't had an RfA in X days" are just looking for an additional thing to comment on. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski(talk • contribs)11:44, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
@CAPTAIN MEDUSA: From my own experience, if you know you're pretty competent across a number of broad areas of Wikipedia, and if you know you've not messed up badly here in the recent past, then you're ready for an RfA (I'm pretty sure you are). It is, to be frank still a 'bit' of a deal, in that you do spend weeks or months beforehand thinking about when is the right time to put yourself forward, and the hours before making that fateful submission are a bit tense. But, no, it's not really that big a deal - it's actually quite exciting, and a massive egotrip that is over all too soon. For one week here you become the centre of everyone's attention and critiquing, and that's quite rare here - unless you become a guest at WP:ANI - and it can be a bit of a disappointment when all the interesting questions stop coming half way through the week. For me, the 'big deal' has actually come afterwards. Internally, I feel I am now expected to know everything about how Wikipedia operates (and I really don't!), and I worry with every single challenging interaction, question or block that I have to administer whether I'm upholding the values and policies of Wikipedia, or going off piste. (I also wonder who might be quietly judging my competence, or lack of it, and I hope they'll come forward sooner rather than later with a quick nudge of advice.) But I cannot begin to tell you how immensely proud I am that, after a week's assessment, a shed load of editors here felt I was trustworthy enough to be given the bit. And, six months later, I still can't get over seeing my signature highlighted cyan, along with all the other administrators here who I've long respected for their knowledge and understanding (not to mention those brilliant editors who are not administrators, yet who still know far, far more than I do). I think the 'big deal' actually comes in upholding everyone's trust, and in doing what's right for the Project from hereon in. Admins are servants of the Wikipedia community - that is the real 'big deal'. I'd say to you and to anyone else: "go for it when you honestly feel you're ready. We need you." Nick Moyes (talk) 23:34, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
The future of RFA
As a lockdown era editor, I wonder what the future of RFA will bring, especially considering that the number of users running is declining, especially considering the fact that the level of users is starting to go up.
I personally see it going two ways: either continuing the downward trend, until RFA is almost totally obscure, or seeing an uptick in RFAs during the next few years (lockdown era people like me won’t start running until at least 1 year from the start of the lockdown). It currently seems to heading towards the former, although that could all change within a few months. Eternal ShadowTalk02:17, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
We’ve had the same number of successful candidates in 6 months than we had all of 2018, and were roughly on track to meet last year. We had a month without one. That’s not really out of the ordinary, nor is it much of a trend. I’d agree we probably have higher standards now than we did for much of 2019, but the community raises and lowers them cyclically, and within the next 12 months at some point it’ll likely return to lighter level of scrutiny. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:23, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
While it isn't a trend, it could still be a bad sign (especially in the coming years, when older administrators begin leaving (I have a feeling some of the ones from the 2000's may begin leaving in several years)), especially considering the fact that 10-20 new admins a year may not be enough. Also to be taken into consideration should be the recent increases in wiki activity (I still think we're fine for the time being but I still think we should prepare for the future.) I guess only time will tell though. Eternal ShadowTalk03:00, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
Tony might be right, but the numbers who have dropped off in the last year surely are not outnumbered by the new arrivals ? It would be interesting to see a specific table of loss and gain somewhere... maybe I havent looked hard enough JarrahTree05:17, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
Another useful representation of the decline of RfA can be seen at WP:RBM. RfA has been dying for at least 10 years. Out of curiosity, I looked at WT:RFA from 10 years ago, and guess what I found? Concern that RfA was dying and there weren't enough new admins (see discussion). As of today, there are 517 active admins. One year ago, there were 512 active admins. This, despite losing a net ~30-35 admins since one year ago (WP:DBM). Ten years ago, I doubt there would have been many of us who would have said we'd have enough admins today. Yet, we appear to have enough to keep things running. I don't know what it will look like ten years from now, nor do I think we can accurately predict. There will come a day when there will not be enough administrators to run the project. Nobody really has any idea when that might be. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:00, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
@ZLEA: A combination of unbundling certain permissions that reduced the need for people to request adminship (e.g. rollback in 2008, account creator in 2010, file mover in 2011, template editor in 2013, page mover in 2016, etc.), and increased de-facto standards for promotion that dissuaded people from running (back in 2008, it wasn't uncommon for people with 4-digit edit counts to pass RfA with only a couple of questions past the standard 3 and less than 50 !votes total). In addition, automated tools like cluebot and the various edit filters, and semi-automated tools like Twinkle, Huggle, and AWB have allowed a smaller number of admins to deal with a much larger workload. --Ahecht (TALK PAGE) 22:10, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
Spot on in almost every respect, except edit count and referenced content. We have had RFAs in the modern era pass with 4 figure edit counts. I think 3,500 manual edits is probably the current minimum requirement for a pass. Since Rollback was unbundled in early 2008 the de facto requirements have extended to creating contet as well as protecting it. In 2007 people were passing on the basis of being "good vandalfighters" today you really need some content that you have cited to reliable sources. ϢereSpielChequers16:27, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
Personally, I've considered it for a while but the problem is that I fear personal opinions come into it. For example when Cwmhiraeth got her adminship, I noticed the people opposed to it !voted against just on the grounds that they personally disagreed with hooks that she promoted, even though those were approved and checked in accordance with DYK rules. The thing is I wrote the majority of those hooks that they objected to (so people should have been having a go at me if they personally disagreed not at her) but it is pretty clear that if I ever ran for admin, the fact I edit in controversial areas and write what some might call articles on sensitive topics I know would get held against me. Even if all those articles are written neutrally and within policy. I'd like to run but I wouldn't feel comfortable unless those fears I have can be allayed. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk)16:47, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
Well, over the last eight years we've been losing active administrators (not total administrators; active) at a rate of about 4% per year. Example; beginning of 2019 we had 517 active admins [3]. Beginning of 2020, we had 499 [4], or a 3.5% loss. We're not going to run out of admins any time soon. If the decline held, then 10 years from now we'd have around 295-300 active administrators. Sounds grim, but it very likely wouldn't be so. Many admins simply don't do very much. That doesn't make them bad of course, just that losing such an administrator from the active ranks doesn't have much impact. Consider; over the last 20,000 deletions (June 27 to July 10), 86.3% of the deletions were done by just 50 administrators. Only 2730 deletions (13.7%) were done by the remaining 219 administrators that were active in deletions. 42 administrators made just one deletion in that time period. Even losing a highly active administrator is something we overcame. Consider; at User:JamesR/AdminStats, we can see the administrators most active in deletions. Out of the top ten non-bot administrators, four of those are no longer administrators. They collectively accounted for 1.7 million deletions. Yet, we got past their not being administrators anymore. There isn't going to be a moment when it becomes painfully obvious we no longer have enough administrators. As was mentioned in the discussion I noted from 2010, it's a slowly boiling frog. 10 years ago we thought we were near that point. We routinely have threads here that echo that sentiment. Over the next ten years we'll continue to have such threads. Such threads aren't a problem of course, but they likely won't be able to accurately assess whether we have reached a breaking point or if a breaking point is near. We'll just have to wait and see. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:13, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
Interesting figures. I wonder how the decline in the number of active administrators compares over time against the number of active editors, or against the number of actual edits being made? If I have one long-term fear over any gradual decline, it's that Wikipedia might increasingly become the target for organised bad actors, wanting to infiltrate the admin corps via RfA for their own geo-political ends. Nick Moyes (talk) 23:21, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
Nick Moyes, I’m concerned about bad actors too, but what do you mean about “geo-political ends”? We’ve never seen admins abusing over these issues before. I mean, we’ve seen a couple dozen socking admins, and we’ve even seen possible trolls climb the ranks more recently (such as good hand bad hand accounts) but to this extent... I don’t really know. Eternal ShadowTalk18:13, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia:List of administrators states that we are currently back up to 515 active administrators—"active" being defined as 30 or more edits during the last two months. Reviewing the history of the page, the trend seems to me like the number of active administrators has been stabilizing at around the current number for at least the past couple years. Indeed, on July 11, 2018 we had 527 active administrators, well within what could be attributed to simple variance. Mz7 (talk) 18:49, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
Three Cs
This month, there are three RfA candidates beginning with the letter "C": CaptainEek, Cwmhiraeth, and Creffett. Were there any other months in the past with three (successful or unsuccessful) RfA candidates that all begin with the same letter or digit? GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 16:57, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
In October 2019 we had Girth Summit, Greenman and GermanJoe – Kees08 and Nosebagbear spoilt things by also running in that month however. Fascinatingly when Cwmhiraeth ran the first time in May 2017 we also had Clpo13 and CookieMonster755 in the same month.-- P-K3 (talk) 17:21, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
This isn't exactly a groundbreaking feat in Wikipedia's history, considering that back in 2007 we'd have 60+ RFAs a month. bibliomaniac1517:33, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
It sure shows Bibliomaniac15's and my wiki-ages when the era we became admins in is referred to as "back that far". :o Feels like yesterday it all happened! Acalamari18:22, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
Though I registered in 2008, I can still attest to being active in a time when adminship was explicitly referred to as "no big deal". A complete absence of active RfAs was an infrequent anomaly, rather than the norm. Kurtis(talk)16:39, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
Two months without a single RFA...
Where Is Thy God Now.But in any case, this is being discussed to death in multiple arenas: there's no need for another handwringing fest. Cheers! Stay Safe In These Tempestuous, RfA-free Times! :) ——Serial14:25, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I have a proposal. Each year an election would be conducted for new admins, say eight or ten. This would be of an identical format to those for ArBcom.
The election would be in addition to the regular RfA process, and would not replace it. Anyone would still be free to pursue the RfA route.
Questions could still be asked of the candidates as is usual for an ArbCom election.
The idea is that this would less confrontational than the regular RfA process, and therefore that it would attract editors who are currently deterred by the current process.
I'm not sure if this would be less confrontational. There are no limits to the number of questions in an arbitration committee election. All the same discussion about the editor's suitability for administrative privileges would still ensue. isaacl (talk) 04:20, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
I don't think we need to run them like Arbitration Committee elections, but I'm actually quite sympathetic to the idea that we could have set times of the year where we run a bunch of candidates in batch in the standard RfA format. Knowing that you won't be the only candidate subject to the sometimes intense scrutiny of RfA might be more comforting to some candidates. Mz7 (talk) 04:39, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
Coordinating multiple RFAs should be possible right now already if you find sufficient candidates (and has already happened in the past). I think the lack of candidates is more of a problem here than the timing. Regards SoWhy08:55, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
I don't really see what we would gain from doing this. Our issue isn't that we require a different passing route, it is that potential candidates are turned away by the stress and judgement that comes from an RfA. A better use of our time would be to make the RfA platform less toxic.
When I ran, most of the worry was self asserted - and I had little negative responses. I don't see how doing an election relieves this stress. I promote more rules on RfAs cutting out personal attacks, and generally making the criteria lower, as it is higher than ever, but we have less nominations than ever. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski(talk • contribs)07:03, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
Concerns I have with this proposal are: 1) What if fewer candidates are fielded than places are available - do they all get elected? That doesn't seem sensible. 2) Might this system be used by people who have failed RfA and who think it might be an easier way to becoming an admin, either due to the lack of strong competition in any single election's candidate field, or simply a paucity of candidates (related to point 1)? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 07:31, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
In Arbitration Committee elections, if there are fewer candidates than seats available, the candidates must still reach a minimum support threshold (currently 50%+1 I believe) in order to obtain the seat. Mz7 (talk) 14:29, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
I've always found it curious that the threshold to be an arbitrator is lower than RFA. Over the last 5 years, 7 arbs have been elected below the 65% threshold that RfA has. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:02, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
Different formats, different criteria. With only a fixed number of places I often vote against people who I think would be OK as Arbs but who aren't among the best candidates for that bunch of seats. But there are no limits on the number of available mops, so when I !vote for or against in an RFA I am simply saying whether I think the candidate is ready and suitable for adminship. ϢereSpielChequers16:12, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
I assume that the same consensus criteria would be used as for any other RFA, as no alternative has been specified. If this is correct, what is the actual benefit to the candidate and to the community? I think this would be a fairly large and concentrated load on the crats when the time was up, which might be an issue. I also don't see an immediately obvious format which would not be simply running a group of RFAs in parallel. There is nothing stopping a group of RFAs starting at the same time by accident or design, and overlap is reasonably common already. Are there any stats on whether this makes any discernible difference to anything? · · · Peter Southwood(talk): 08:44, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
Don't worry about us Crats. If the RFAs are uncontentious it is likely to be less than one closure per crat. RFAs so tight that they result in cratchats are rare, so rare that I think you are unlikely to see more than two in the same election, and two cratchats at the same time is only double minimal activity when something significant happens that requires multiple crats. ϢereSpielChequers16:18, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
I like the notion of advertising flights better. I didn't know one was leaving the station just before my RFA until I was in the situation that I knew I would be too busy to join that one directly. A "hey, we do groups of RFAs once every 3 months" kind of thing might be cool. --Izno (talk) 15:35, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
Just to be clear, I don't really support baking this into a process. Let's see if the informal flights idea that's been baking for a year or two can, er, take off. --Izno (talk) 15:10, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
Our format has been the same for a long time, and it's worth trying something new. Even if it's a disaster, we'll still learn what didn't work and how we can make further improvements. Even the simple idea of coordinating nominations into flights is something that would be interesting to try. — Wug·a·po·des19:52, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
Support but I would like the following question answered:
How would this be an improvement in terms of RFA inflation? The criteria is ridiculous right now and certainly needs to be lowered due to a lack of new admins; the most suitable ones don’t want to do it because of the stress of RFA.
I’m assuming this would still have the 75% de facto minimum. If so, I have no real objection. If we’re talking it being a 50%+1 type thing... that’s a bad idea. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:36, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
I'm against the proposal, as changing the effective minimum criteria depending on who else is running doesn't make sense to me when we are adding to a pool that doesn't have either a maximum or minimum number of positions to be filled. I'm pro a flight-push. I've no complaints about semi-formalisation - either quarterly, or just when a nominator is in a position to state a likely run date (as below). So long as we push, firmly, against any questions that challenge a "lone-runner" candidate on why they didn't wait for the next flight. Nosebagbear (talk) 22:29, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
If you think standing for ArbCom is less confrontation than standing for adminship ... you and I have had very different experiences of the two. WilyD07:25, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
This has been discussed before but nothing came of it. One aspect which would be good is that the voting process for a batch of candidates would tend to be similar to that used for arbcom elections and that's a secret ballot. That's a reason for setting the threshold lower at 50% because you're much likely to get opposing !votes when they are secret and there's less risk of reprisal. Arbcom candidates typically get hundreds of opposes. Andrew🐉(talk) 14:00, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
A practical process would be to do them in batches so that the voting form and mechanisms would resemble the arbcom one, with a selection of candidates. If this were done monthly, or quarterly, then there would be a regular cycle and process which might encourage people to come forward. My impression of the current process is that the business of preparing nomination statements is quite intimidating because each one is isolated. If candidates were grouped in bundles then you'd get economies of scale and safety in numbers. The assessment process might also be fairer as candidates would be compared with each other rather than being judged against an idealised, abstract standard. — User:Andrew Davidson 14:18, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
I can understand grouping RfAs into batches, but I don't see why that has to be done as an election. There are a limited number of places on ArbCom and if we have more good ArbCom candidates than places then we can afford to pick the best ones. There is no limit to the number of admins, and if we get more than 8-10 qualified candidates then we presumably want them all to become admins and not just the best 8-10. Conversely if we get fewer than 8 qualified candidates then we don't want to have to appoint 8 admins from them. ArbCom elections also feature far less discussion and reasoning than RfA, which I'm not sure would be a good thing. Hut 8.517:51, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
Excellent summary by Hut - that's why the initial proposal seems a no-go but the flights are a positive (or, at a very bare minimum, worth trying out and not a negative). Nosebagbear (talk) 12:18, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
We are losing Admins and thanks to the hard work of 250 to 300 most active admins we have no crisis at this point.But majority of the Admins are editors from pre 2010 era.They are leaving or becoming less active over time.We had only had only 14 RFA at mid July out of which 10 got through the real issue is the lack of candidates.Here we can give this a try even make that those who are elected through Arbcom style have a limited term say 2 years as we selected them at 50% further only the top 10 get elected to be admins do feel more candidates will come out in the arbcom sytled RFA.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 19:26, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
Hate to rain on anyone's parade, but I think both of these ideas -- the "election" idea and the "flight" idea are very very bad, and I oppose both of them strongly. Putting up batches of wannabe admins at the same time simply means that people will not spend as much time on any one of them as they would if they were posted singly, and that means that the level of scrutiny needed will not be achieved. To me, that's formula for churning out bad admins.I, for one, am not convinced -- and have not been convinced for the years that people have been saying it -- that we're in the midst of some sort of admin crisis which needs extraordinary measures to be taken to churn out more admins. I just don't see the signs of this purported crisis.How do other large Wikis, like the German and the French, manage to get by with many fewer admins then we have? How about we spend some time and energy working to figure out if their systems are better than ours, instead of kludging ours up with proposals such as these? I see little opposition here, so it's likely that I'm a voice in the wilderness on this, but, frankly, "I've got a bad feeling about this." Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:59, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
The French and German wikipedias are not so big as the English. If you look at the number of active users per admin then, currently it's
117 : English
121 : French
101 : German
Of the major Wikipedias, the Japanese seem to have fewest admins with 363 active users per admin. But how do we know whether these other languages are managing to get by or whether they have a crisis? Some comparative studies would be good. Do they exist already? Andrew🐉(talk) 09:02, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
I know that Japanese has an unusually high proportion of IP edits, but I don't know if the other Wikipedias have done as much or even more unbundling of the admin tools as EN has. ϢereSpielChequers11:35, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
So we and the French are essentially the same per capita, and the German is less. So... where's the crisis? What we've got is on the high end of normal. Beyond My Ken (talk) 12:45, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
Good data. A question though, could a an admin be counted as an admin but not qualify as an active user? Depending on inactivity policies it seems like only active users and admins active by the same standard should form the ratio. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 13:09, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
Not sure we can directly compare different wikipedias. Different cultures could affect admin needs on Japanese vs. German vs. French vs. English wikipedias. We could have different levels of vandalism or requests for protection. We could have different project-specific admin needs. —valereee (talk) 13:59, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
Those wikis seem to have a greater proportion of active admins than us. We have 364 who made at least one logged admin action per week over the last year (on average). We currently have 1,137 admins, so that's about 32%. frwiki has 100 who meet that standard out of 155 total, or 65%. dewiki has 126 who meet that activity standard out of 191 total, which is about the same as frwiki. This means that enwiki must have a much higher ratio of active users per active admin. Possibly those wikis have stricter admin inactivity standards than us. Hut 8.517:34, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
One other factor may be the rule set governing the activity of admins. E.g., if a project allows indef blocking without warning for first vandalism, or routinely uses higher levels of page protection, or has more aggressive edit filters, then the amount of admin work may be significantly lower allowing the projects to get by with less admins. QuiteUnusual (talk) 08:57, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
Mid-September Flight
I am planning to nominate a candidate in mid-September RfA. If you, or a candidate you are nominating, are interested in joining a flight at that time reach out. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:16, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
If anyone wants any impartial, helpful and honest response to chances at RfA and a potential nom, please feel free to email me. I think we should make this easier if we want multiple noms. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski(talk • contribs)20:26, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
@Barkeep49:, I'm talking to a couple of possibles, but any objection to me dropping this on AN (with a couple of other lines like the RRFA link)? While many of those most interested in looking for potential candidates watchlist this page, I imagine many of the potential candidates themselves don't, but might be interested. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:54, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
I've had a couple people message me, thankfully, but no one specifically for September. If it gets added to AN, note I'm happy to have any emails pinged my way Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski(talk • contribs)14:54, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
I don't think this proposal is going to help people with that level of profile. I hope instead it would be something of interest to the people who have been quietly going about the business of writing great content and otherwise creating the encyclopedia who'd make great sysops but for whom a week in the spotlight is enough of a deterrent to make them shy away. I've talked to a couple of such people about RfA recently so I know they exist, I just don't know if this would be attractive for them. Since finding out doesn't cost me much of anything I figure it can't hurt to see. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:57, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
@Lee Vilenski:@Barkeep49:. I hope you are doing well and being the great wikipedians you are. I just wanted to add my two-cents. I believe the ongoing pandemic and recession is responsible for the decreased activity on pages like this. Around 1 year ago, I ran for RfA and it was a rewarding, stressful, but very eye opening experience. I promised to improve and become a better person after the unsuccessful verdict of the request. The pandemic really messed up my job and made me have to do a lot of reorganizing and planning. I ended up getting the virus (probably from working in NY). I still get lingering symptoms. As you can tell, my activity has been very reduced, but I promise that I will be back at my potential. I am using my account as an example as for what could be going on with users. RFA requires a lot of preparation and dedication. This pandemic can throw curveballs that offset both of those.
I promise AA will be back. Probably once the pandemic finally starts to be under-control and things begin to normalize. I really try my hardest to do Wikipedia work. I am not going anywhere. It is just that the working and planning online really adds stress and time consumption. Hope to talk to you all soon. AA will be back. AmericanAir88(talk)21:28, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
People have been regularly discussing the alleged admin crisis ever since I first joined here about 13 years ago. But I see the sky is still up there, blocks and protections are still happening, and backlogs don't seem to be getting ever longer. I'll hold off worrying about fixing it until I see some evidence that it's actually broken. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:37, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
why is it a big deal? there are still TONS of admins and bureaus left from when there were alot of RFXs. i get that the site is growing but. so is the userbase who wont vandalize and wont be "jerks". i say we let it be. Clone commando sev (talk) 01:34, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
Less than 50% of alltime admins are currently active. In other words, since the founding of this project, we've lost more than half of our admins. Less than 10% of these users have been promoted since 2011. In other words, somewhere around 90% of the admin corps were promoted a decade or longer ago. Wikipedia was founded 19 years ago. So, we can deduce that over 19 years, 90% of the admin corps was established in the first decade, and 10% was established in the second decade, and that's not factoring in any second-decade admins who went inactive somewhere along the way. That's just a broad generalization. So, if that's not a big deal in your mind, I guess you aren't really qualified to interpret statistics to begin with. ~Swarm~{sting}04:18, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
–MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 05:52, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
—usernamekiran (talk) 00:00, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
