Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards/A-D

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

The result of the debate was Keep, but alter. Reading the comments substantively, there appears to be a consensus that the content of these pages isn't entirely bad, and isn't worthy of outright deletion (some standards, even individual ones, do help folks become acquainted with RfA; and, at the very least, these pages have archival value); there also appears to be a consensus that the present form of these pages is inconvenient at best, and absolutely frightening in its complexity at worst. There is no real consensus about what action to take, but there is consensus that some sort of revision should be undertaken. Editors are encouraged to use the Standards talk page to discuss and devise a plan for refactoring these pages. Xoloz 19:23, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards/A-D, et al.

This is an absolutely unbelieveable example of instruction creep and astonishing self-indulgence. Who on earth is expected to read all this tripe? It's even long enough to have to have been split into sub-pages. Stop the madness. Earle Martin [t/c] 22:31, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Additional comment - if people really, absolutely must write this kind of stuff, they should keep it in userspace, on their page, not in WPspace. A vast collection of unmemorable personal opinions is useless and contributes nothing to the project. -- Earle Martin [t/c] 00:26, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Delete per nominator. This is just pathetic... Ral315 (talk) 22:50, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete. Promotes cookie-cutter standards regardless of no, editcoumtitis, edit summaryitis, etc. -- Chris chat edits essays 22:51, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete cannot believe it is still there. --Alex (Talk) 22:55, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep as of likely interest to some potential admin candidates and RfA !voters, and it's cross-referenced at the top of the RfA page. I do understand the nominator's concern, but the page doesn't purport to be official; I would bitterly oppose making these standards, or anything like them, a mandatory part of RfA, but getting a sense of what some of the regular RfA participants (or former participants) are looking for can be a useful data point. The disclaimer at the top of the page should be mandatory reading before anyone wades into the table, and perhaps there should be a column for the date as some of the individuals' standards have been superseded over time; but those kinds of concerns don't warrant deletion. (Note: Three edit conflicts with delete !voters as I've tried to post this, so I may be missing the boat here.) Newyorkbrad 22:56, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - I've found these interesting reading in the past, and it is useful to see how people's views on adminship vary. It is obvious they are not official. What is not clear is whether this is stuff copied from elsewhere, or whether this is the only place it exists. At the very least, some of the currently active RfA participants should be asked whether they want to salvage what they have there, before it potentially gets deleted. Especially given the number of people that have contributed to these pages. It would be nice to contact everyone listed there, but I'll restrict myself to people I know are active. Carcharoth 00:13, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Per Newyorkbrad and Carcharoth. JoshuaZ 00:14, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep (tripple keep edit conflicted) This page is helpful for a few reasons: It helps potential RFA candidates understand peoples !vote rouch guidelines; it documents a portion of this de facto community standard; it also self regulates itself from x-itits as some entries are (no requirements). — xaosflux Talk 00:15, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. It's not "instruction creep" as it is clearly not presented as instructions to be followed. It gives a central location for people to see how others evaluate candidates for admin. For that purpose alone its usefulness warrants a keep. —Doug Bell talk•contrib 00:27, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - Quote from Earle Martin - "who is expected to read all this tripe?" - maybe those whose RfA failed recently, or who are thinking of running in an RfA in the future? Seriously, if you think this material is better handled in a different way, why not discuss on the talk page and suggest ways to make admin standards clearer. That would be more productive than nominating for deletion something that has been around for 2 years, and which does give insight into people's views on adminship. Carcharoth 00:43, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. If these standards pages were deleted, it would do nothing to rid us of those standards, merely make it even more difficult and esoteric to find out what they were prior to running an RfA. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 00:50, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep but tag as historical. RFA reform is direly needed, and the fact that we've allowed this viper's pit of micropolicies to flourish is clear evidence why. To lose it only sweeps endemic problems under the rug. Phil Sandifer 01:00, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong keep per several of the above votes. Of immense use to editors wishing to apply for adminship, and also useful as a guide for new rfa voters. Cannot be considered instruction creep, since it is not an instruction. Cannot be considered as "cookiecutteritis" by anyone who has read the pages in question, since it's clear than many of the people commenting on this page have widely varying standards of what an admin candidate should exhibit. This in itself is a good reason why it's still needed - since having individual standards is just the reason why RFA currently is not in need of reform - removing this page will create, not reduce, the likelihood of a cookie-cutter approach. As for it being "even so long as to have been split into subpages", perhaps that's simply an indication of how many editors believe it was a good idea to have left their comments there - and by extension, how many editors think it's a worthwhile and useful page? Grutness...wha? 01:08, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong keep I've read this page before, and it helps a lot to see where you need to improe in order to have a successful RFA. It is also good to be kept for some clarification as to why some users voted oppose in the voting. These aren't official standards, either. Also see above reasons for keeping. This page is useful to a lot of users, including me, and it should stay. CattleGirl talk | e@ 01:46, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. If it's a bad policy or set of standards, make your case on the appropriate Talk page and tag the page as {{rejected}} or {{historical}}. That way we will 1) be able to make sense of all the old discussions which referenced it and 2) learn from it when making future such policy/standards pages. Deletion of the page is unnecessary and probably a bad idea. Rossami (talk) 03:14, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong keep. I've commented on this page elsewhere. Grutness says it particularly well. Do not delete; it is an essential part of a key community process. Do not tag "rejected"; it is not a policy of any kind but the inverse of policy: an archive of individual judgements and opinions. Do not tag "historical" until RfA is closed to the community; when will that happen? It is quite all right to add a column to the tables, indicating when each participant's comment was last edited. You are even welcome to cross-reference with actual RfA participation, showing when the editor behind each comment last participated in RfA. I'm sure a bot can do all this nicely.
I agree that something is wrong with the current adminship process; I don't know if it is RfA, RfDA, life terms, or something else. Deleting this page will not fix our problems; it will take us quickly to a rigid policy on community-wide adminship standards, after which there will be no need for anybody to participate in or even make an RfA. You just wait until the crat-bot promotes you. Please: Without individual editors, we have no community. John Reid 03:56, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom. Stop the madness. -- Ned Scott 06:41, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete I'm sure this started with the best of intentions, as a way to collate the standards of various RfA regulars for easy reference, and then everyone under the sun decided to chip in. Many of these standards are likely outdated, belong to users who are no longer active, or are plain vanity. Deleting this mess doesn't take away individuals' right to have their own standards, it just clears old cruft out of Wikipedia space. Opabinia regalis 07:26, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong keep. This is not only referenced at the beginning of the RFA page, but it's also a great reference for someone considering nomination for adminship. I do believe it would be good to add a column to it indicating when each standard was added (and perhaps even deleting each individual entry that is not updated after 6 months) - but the wholesale deletion of this page would be robbing potential nominees of a resource. Themindset 08:29, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
    And if it is deleted, this page will no longer be referenced at the beginning of the RFA page, so that's not any kind of reason to keep it. -- Earle Martin [t/c] 23:23, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete. Ban all the people listed on that page from voting in RFA votes too. --Delirium 11:06, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
    Sorry, but my assumtion of good faith for your reply above has just gone through the fourth wall. Have you actually READ all of the entries on those pages? You are really advocating barring RFA interaction from these editors, some of whom even have comments such as: "Past interactions do a world of good for me. If I've seen you around and like what I see, I'll most likely support. Edit counts and time mean nothing.", "Every candidate is a unique person, so I perform a unique analysis on each one.", and "I only support editors that I am reasonably confident will not abuse the tools. I oppose all editors who I have reasonable doubt over tool abuse."? This page does disclose many length of editing time and contirbution preferences, but also specifically states that some people have none of the classic -itis constraints. — xaosflux Talk 19:41, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
    Sense of humor failure alert. -- Earle Martin [t/c] 00:29, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Just tag as historical. Moving along. - Mailer Diablo 16:33, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure that "historical" would be correct. Some of them were posted within the past couple of weeks, though others are older. A stronger disclaimer at the top of the page might be the way to go, but that is talkpage fodder over there, not a reason for deletion, as I noted above. Newyorkbrad 17:55, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep, I don't see anything wrong with keeping it around. It is more than just need x months and xthousand edits. Potential candidates can look it up to see what the community thinks. -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk·Review Me!) 20:21, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - moderately useful - and provided a place for me to spell out my RFA criteria. Moreschi 21:40, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Gruesome but necessary. Keep - crz crztalk 22:30, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete or mark as deprecated. This page is misleading, outdated and encourages editcountitis. Something that is perceived as helpful but in fact incorrect can all too easily have harmful effects. A clear header should be added to clarify that voting on editcountitis or accountagitis should be discouraged. >Radiant< 22:34, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep and rewrite - My first instinct was for deletion, for the reason that a better way (IMO) to gauge what the community standards are for RfAs is to simply read the RfAs themselves. Then one can see the criteria put into action. But I do think that the idea of this is good, and could potentially be a more valuable resource than the current mess. That being said, I actually think this would be better served as an essay rather than a humongous table. It would be much more digestible and would get the same message across. --cholmes75 (chit chat) 23:49, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment. Read the past RfA's? While a good idea in theory, which of the 3,000+ subpages would you recommend reading? All of them? Just the most recent? (What if the most recent sample is not representative?) Reading the previous RfA's will not allow you to get as good an impression of what the frequent RfA voters base their opinions on as this Standards page does, and would take weeks. I tried reading the RfA talk archives once, and gave up after discovering I'd spent 6 hours and barely made a dent in the stack. This would be even worse. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 00:15, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Response - I'm not suggesting that someone slog through all the RfA archives. I think a better approach would be to simply hang out and scan ongoing RfAs. I think doing so for a few weeks would give someone a pretty good idea as to what the community is currently looking for from admin candidates. For someone who is serious about becoming an admin, this shouldn't be a chore. --cholmes75 (chit chat) 18:18, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Delete, this whole thing is an absolute joke. Individual user standards should be in userspace, not in Wikipedia space. That gives the false appearance of authority. Also, I tried to put my own standards up there but they were censored out by someone who apparently didn't like them. What a pathetic display all around. --Cyde Weys 01:35, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
I've said my piece above, but Cyde, I see a line entry for you right in the table (and I agree with what you had to say there, as well). If someone else deleted something else you wanted to say in the table, you should go ahead and restore it. Newyorkbrad 01:40, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Quote from Cyde "Also, I tried to put my own standards up there but they were censored out by someone who apparently didn't like them." Cyde (talk • contribs • blocks • protects • deletions • moves) should be desysoped, as he seems to be a hypocrit, once blocking someone (me) becuase he apparantly didn't like their comments in various RfAs. Wikipedia is not a battleground, we are not here to target other users becuase we don't agree with them, not even (in theory) if they disagree with the Cabal. Myrtone (☏) 23:48, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete alot of the entries are outdated and could possibly mislead candidates. T Rex | talk 05:45, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment That's easy to deal with. One could go through the list and move users who haven't edited in say a year to a not-active list. Or correspondingly add another column to note unactive users. This is not a reason for deletion. JoshuaZ 05:49, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
      • I doubt anyone would want to deal with it, and any other needless maintenance tasks such as this. If someone wants a copy of it in their user space, make your copies now. removing confusing and misleading clutter is a good thing. -- Ned Scott 05:59, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete or mark historical. I think my own standards there listed emphasise my feeling on the matter, although I'm filed under s, not b. Steve block Talk 18:10, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete or mark historical. It's of little to no use at its current size, encourages hoop-jumping and doesn't give an accurate/current idea of the standards used in RFA. Reconstituting a subpage for objective data about RFA ("X% of RFAs with 1000 or less edits succeeded in all of 2006", etc) might be useful (although it would be just as easy to link to No September and Durin's analyses), but this is too much. -- nae'blis 19:27, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per Nae'blis. --Quiddity 20:28, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Mark as rejected, preserve for historical reasons. CP/M comm |Wikipedia Neutrality Project| 20:54, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep per Themindset. Firsfron of Ronchester 21:50, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete, without preservation. Adminship is simply not supposed to be a big deal. Overblown, strict standards don't help anyone (Administratorship isn't supposed to be an exclusive club), but this page encourages it. Leaving it around as historical could still be potentially damaging. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 21:52, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Deleting something because it is "potentially damaging"? That's a new one. If the current WP:RFA makes clear what Adminship and the RfA process is about, then historical material will not be damaging. And historical material is relevant to the history of Wikipedia. If there is historical stuff that is genuinely not needed in Wikipedia, then move it to an off-wiki archive where ordinary users interested in the history of Wikipedia can access it, not just admins who can call up deleted pages and read them. Carcharoth 22:03, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete(edit conflict, of course) One, the pages are incredibly out of date - I dumped the editcountitis and timeitis listed under my entry back around August or early September, and I've noticed many other entries are also out of date, merely based on how people currently !vote in rfa's. Two, I bet that if these pages are simply deleted from Wikipedia, editcountitis and timeitis will cease to be major forces at rfa, because there will no longer be a wikipedia-space page to make them look official. Without this long, bureaucratic, standardized list, !voters will probably be more likely to make individual, case-by-case, contributions-based judgements, as opposed to one-measurement-fits-all fly-by votes. Picaroon9288 22:06, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per all of the deletes above, particularly nom, Cyde, and Ccool2ax. KillerChihuahua?!? 22:09, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. I see no evidence of the harm they are allegedly causing. Deleting would be the wrong solution to a problem that may be more perceived than real. These pages serve as a useful place to get a sense of what people are looking for in an admin absent any agreed mandatory standards, amongst many other resources. It appears RfA is pretty cyclical, and from the current trend of the last month or two it appears that pages like these really do not have any negative impact. Agent 86 02:38, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Userfy (preferred) or Delete - Userfy as in, place your own opinions on your own userpage people! Heck, it's only 3 or 4 lines that you have to have on your userspace! Besides, the pages seem useless as how many times does a prosepective admin need to read "3000 edits+ & 6 months+"? However, if it is too big a task to userfy, I'd like to see the pages deleted. Takes up too much room & as above, is too repetitive & useless after about the first half a page... Spawn Man 06:08, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Try scanning (not reading) the document to get an idea of how the entries differ. Scanning is an important skill for Wikipedia editors to have. Putting all the entries back in userspace makes it harder for people to read them. Would you go to lots of different pages to get an idea of people's attitudes to RfA? Or would you just read the latest RfAs? Which is preferable? Carcharoth 10:53, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per Cyde and Ccool2ax. However, I'm inclined to keep Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards and tag as rejected, per Carcharoth's note.--cj | talk 16:39, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - Keeping individuals' standards out in the open, affords the opportunity for them to compare and learn amongst each other, which should influence the standards to improve over time. I see this as a move away rather than toward copycatism on RfA nomination pages. The most intelligent (i.e., strongest) arguments would tend to influence new editors' standards. By reading the standards of others, a new editor can more effectively reason out what their standards should be. It's pretty hard to analyze the standards of others if they aren't posted anywhere. This makes the overall process more transparent, which is a good thing. It also shows candidates how fruitless it is to "game the system", which is also a good thing - this way they can just stop worrying about it.  The Transhumanist   02:21, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete or Userfy I've listed my standards here, but they've changed since I've developed some probing questions for RfAs. I now base most of my consideration on how the nominee answewrs the questions: general, mine, and other users'. These pages are difficult to edit so they become outdated as editor's opinions change. Also, user space is the place for expresssing personal opinions about the encyclopedia and explaining personal editing style. I agree with Cyde. —Malber (talk · contribs) 14:09, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong keep I am a big believer in adminship being no big deal, and I agree that many criteria are absurd. Still, these pages are an extremely userful resource for prospective admins who want to get an idea of what voters are looking for. This means less meaningless requests cluttering up RfA. I also see this as a good way for users to share their thoughts about adminship all in one place, so that users can compare and contrast what people are looking for. A prospective admin who happened to see an absurd criteria on somebody's userpage may decide not to run, when in reality they have a very good chance of passing. Deleting these pages makes absolutely no sense to me. - Mike | Talk 22:16, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete the A-Z pages, but keep the main standards page and tag it as historical.--TBCΦtalk? 04:58, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete -- RfAeditcountiscruft? Spare me. Outdated pages, impossible to maintain properly, and puts too much focus on running a gauntlet. WHY people want the mop continues to elude me, but if they do want it, they should earn it and not game it. At BEST, find the things everyone seems to agree on and put those on ONE page. Delete the rest. --Shrieking Harpy Talk|Count 06:40, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete, and userfy - opinions don't belong in the mainspace. Put them in a subpage. You can make a pretty little template to put it in and everything. At best, it's hard to maintain, and takes up way too much space. At worst, it's arrogance to put your own views up in project space. I don't have objections to people having standards (I have my own), but it's a misuse of project space. riana_dzasta 13:12, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. I don't understand what the big deal is. And the keep reasons stated by others are reasonable to me. --Fang Aili talk 14:17, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. Appropriate, relevant, and useful for AfD nominees, as well as those looking at changing the AfD process. Owen× ☎ 15:56, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: Radiant keeps overwriting Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards so that it does not direct to these pages. I find this inappropriate during the MfD. Themindset 19:26, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Why? The MFD is about the alphabetical standards list, and is unrelated to the statistics at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards. The header even says so. >Radiant< 09:22, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
    • What statistics? When I initiated this MfD, that page was a redirect. It was neglect on my part to not include it along with the various alphabetical subpages. -- Earle Martin [t/c] 11:48, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Apparently it's these statistics. I've never seen these before, and they certainly seem to have been in the wrong place. I would suggest moving them to Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Statistics, immediately. Themindset, Radiant! is right that they have nothing to do with this MfA, but they definitely are of interest and should be kept. -- Earle Martin [t/c] 14:08, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
      • They are the de facto standards, unlike these A-D pages that are rather disliked by some people. (Radiant) 14:47, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Sure; I'd just call those statistics. -- Earle Martin [t/c] 16:04, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Great minds think alike, I already moved them to Wikipedia:Requests for Adminship/Statistics weeks ago (and provided a link at the top of the standards page to them). My point was that Radiant!'s claim was that the actual page Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards is not part of this MfD, when it clearly is listed at the top - and as such remain in the same form (a redirect to the navbar A-D) for the duration of this MfD. Themindset 23:35, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong keep We'll never have official wikiwide minimum standards for admins, so it's a good idea to have some examples of personal standards so people get a feel for the general gist of how it usually goes. I think some newbies post RfAs when they're still very new, then get Strong Opposed into the stratosphere and leave the project with an overall bad feeling. By giving some sense that there are minimum standards (just not universal/offical ones), these pages help to avoid that. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 20:07, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: For those keeping track, and using only bare "votes" as a tally, it's currently 24 for keep, 22 for delete or userfy. Grutness...wha? 22:59, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Sounds like no consensus to me, then. But we already knew that. :) Newyorkbrad 23:03, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep tag as historical if rejected (which seems not unlikely). Eluchil404 09:16, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep as historical if nothing else. Rich Farmbrough, 10:29 11 November 2006 (GMT).
  • Delete with extreme prejudice. Failing that, mark as deprecated. [ælfəks] 11:12, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep but deprecate. Useless, but retain for historical interest. – Chacor 11:15, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete or mark as deprecated. This sort of thing is insane and counterproductive to getting people to write an encyclopedia - David Gerard 13:17, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - This is looking like it will result in no consensus. Just vote counting alone comes out to about 27 keep (including mark rejected/historical) and 24 delete (counting userfy as delete). Personally, in kept, I think it should get a rename from "standards", because that makes it sound like there are "official" standards, which there are not (I agree that "statistics" is the better place for the tables, etc discussed above). Maybe something like: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Wikipedian preferences, or something similar. - jc37 13:36, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
  • My own standards as described there are out of date, shame on me. So maybe it's less than perfectly useful. I think the idea has merit, and I think collecting things together is goodness. If this page is deleted I may well move my thinking on good candidates elsewhere, but why make it harder to find out what people think? Keep (rejected and historical miss the mark, this is a collection of individual thinking) ++Lar: t/c 14:40, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete, as per others. This kind of thing is insane. john k 16:33, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete what John Kenney just said: insane. Not so much scope creep as faster-than-light goalposts. Angus McLellan (Talk) 18:54, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete I think it's great when people go through areas of Wikipedia and produce summaries that help people understand the mountains of discussion that came before... but it's not helpful to simply aggregate up a mountain of data and brush it with an air of authority. .. and in any case, robots aren't supposed to participate in RFA, so any list of "standards" is bound to just cause confusion when our non-robot users show views which differ from their 'standards'. --Gmaxwell 19:10, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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