Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 38

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Dual nominations

Is there any point to dual nominations? There was even a recent nom that had three conominators. Why not just one, and everybody votes? When are too many co-noms too many? Why not 10 co-noms? 20? Always concerned about scalability, --Durin 19:36, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I think it's slightly silly but harmless. I hope that editors will try to mostly limit themselves to the standard "I was going to nominate him myself!", or make their positive remarks in the comments section. I don't foresee it becoming a major problem; there's only so many laudatory things that can be said about any candidate, so potential nominators will eventually run out of new things to say. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:56, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
What Ten said. I don't think it hurts anything; should a particular case become a problem we can deal with it individually. (It's not as though having multiple nominators affects the process itself; it's just unnecessary. And perhaps a bit embarrassing, for the candidate being gushed over!) Mindspillage (spill yours?) 20:15, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Come to think of it, are there any good reasons why we need any nominators? Why not have everyone self-nominate? I did - it never did me any harm... It helps those users who don't regularly come into contact with any particular other users to be nominated without suffering the increased social hazard that self-nomination brings. The only reason I can think of for having nominations is to let users recommend unknown users to the community. I don't, however, find that a desperately useful thing. [[Sam Korn]] 20:21, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
One good reason is modesty - some people feel uncomfortable telling others what great people they are. Failure to self-promote should not be a reason not to become an admin. Guettarda 20:32, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Im a supporter of co-nominations (I just did a co-nom with FireFox RFA) but I some how agree with the above. There should be a limit for only one nom and maybe one co-nom but no more cause if lets say User:Faa is such a excellent user that everyone want to nominate him for admin and when the request for admin comes he gets 10 co-nom than that will be ridiculos. Its harmless to co-nom but it could go way to far to control so a limit should be into 2 noms --JAranda | watz sup 01:54, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

If there's to be a limit, why any limit higher than one? Once you open the door to co-nomination, escalation seems almost inevitable, and capping it at any further point, arbitrary. Procedurally, anything after a single nomination seems redundant, unless there's to be some requirement for multiple proposers (which might not be a bad idea as such). Nominated is nominated, anything further is "seconding", or just plain "voting". But I agree it doesn't do any harm, other than the possible appearance of silliness/gush, as has been said.

Here's a thought for your collective idle consideration though: why not bar nominators from voting? Doing both is somewhat redundant, after all, as the nomination is required, and support is implied thereby. This might act as a (mild, marginal) deterrent against multi-noms, and as a (mild, marginal) encouragement to self-nom, which people seem often reluctant to do (perhaps understandably, given the occasionally fraught nature of the process). If those are desirable... Though presumably due weight would still be given to the gravitas (or whatever else) of the nominator, as at present. Alai 19:48, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

  • There's been past discussion about making RfA self-nom only. For what it's worth, I recently took a look at the success of self-nom vs. nom for nominations of candidates with more than 2,000 edits since June of this year. What I found was that 83% of non-self noms were successful. 68% of self-noms were successful. That's a 15% difference. The difference might be explained by other causal factors, but the difference is interesting nonetheless. Personally, I'd prefer to see the process remain open to people nominating others. --Durin 19:59, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
    • ... but I'm not suggesting making it 'not open' to that. People would still be free to nominate others, just not to nominate and to vote. Alai 20:23, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Silsor and adminship reaffirmation

I think that Silsor makes an interesting case on his RFA, and it's unfortunate that some people immediately discount it as disruption. The issue seems to be the perennial question of adminship reaffirmation.

  • Basically, the question is if adminship should be a lifetime position, or subject to review once per year. The latter system is used on Meta, and on several other language wikis such as the Dutch one.
  • Review would simply mean to publically ask if there are any objections to the admin. If there are none, as would usually be the case, he remains an admin. If there are, a RFA-like vote is used.
  • This is very different from RFDA, because an RFDA could be filed at any arbitrary time, such as whenever a dispute occurs; whereas revision only occurs once per year, around the admin's "anniversary". This makes revision far more even-handed.

What problem is this trying to solve? Basically, it's a matter of administrator accountability. Admins are said to have the trust of the community, and said to be held to very high standards. However, that isn't true in practice. Admins are subject to peer review but can choose to ignore it, and losing community trust has no effect whatsoever on their status, except if their behavior is so extreme that the already-overworked ArbCom has to deal with it.

Additionally, some admins have been around for years and have been promoted for different reasons than we use now. People change, and standards change, and people should not be in a position of authority merely for having been around longer.

This has been debated before, of course, but I've seen only two real objections. First, some people think that the sheer amount of admins here makes it impractical, but that's not actually true: for the vast majority of admins, reaffirmation would be automatic since nobody objects to them. If necessary, two or three objections could be required before the matter is put to a vote.

And second, it seems that some people oppose because they're afraid that they, or their friends, might lose their privileges. That hardly sounds like a good reason. There are a small number of controversial admins, and the thought that they should keep community trust may well serve as an incentive to behave less controversially.

Food for thought? Oh yes, and see meatball:DevolvePower and meatball:VestedContributor. Radiant_>|< 12:33, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Let an affirmation vote stand 48 hours. If three objections are raised it triggers a full re-vote and the admin will need the usual 70-80% plus to retain adminship. And I'll take a stab at something raised earlier: if an admin hasn't been active in a year they are automatically de-sysopped. Marskell 13:15, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Any admin who after a year of adminship hasn't pissed 3 people off hasn't been very active. Throw in those who will use this to try an impose insanely high standards and 3 votes per admin is pretty much garenteed.Geni 14:53, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
This proposal would virtually guarantee that anyone on ArbCom will have to face frequent affirmations; all of us (except maybe Mindspillage) have at least three people out there who don't like us enough to demand our adminships yanked. We'd all probably survive such attempts, but why waste our time and everyone else's? We have enough trouble convincing people to serve on ArbCom as it is. Kelly Martin (talk) 18:40, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps only allow admins to oppose on the first level, then push it to a full community vote if three objections occur. This would prevent someone who was blocked, had their feeling hurt, sockpuppets, etc... from voting against someone just for spite. --Holderca1 20:31, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
I've blocked at least 3 people who are currently admins.Geni 02:49, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
A yearly AdministrativePower review wouldn't be a bad idea. Admins who fail to show up for the review, voluntarily ask to be de-sysopped, or are criticised and respond inadequately to criticism, would be de-sysopped. Other admins would be kept. — JIP | Talk 13:20, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
I'll point out that, on a purely semantic level, you've misinterpreted Silsor's request. He has not, in fact, asked to be reaffirmed as an admin — instead, he has requested, technically, that his admin status be removed (and, by stressing that his request is no different from any other on RFA, seems to be suggesting that one can nominate someone else to be "promoted to usership").
And another objection you didn't mention: since this has never been tried before, nobody is quite certain of the potential scope of such a policy. There is, indeed, a "small number of controversial admins" (who, for better or worse, tend to be among the most active) who could be quite certain of being forced into a confirmation vote. There is a much greater number of admins for whom the the level of opposition is less clear — they have likely made some enemies, but nobody knows how many. Losing a few active admins may be unfortunate, but losing a hundred would be rather more traumatic for the project as a whole; thus, since no-one is certain of just how many admins would lose their positions, supporting such a policy seems rather ill-advised. Kirill Lokshin 13:26, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
I don't think Silsor's request was misunderstood. I think the idea here is let's take the implication of his request and try to create a more plausible framework. Also, I very much doubt we'll lose anywhere near a hundred and, of course, bureaucrats would still have their discretion if they feel "enemies" have suddenly materialized out of nowhere. Marskell 13:36, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Kirill, while I'm sure that a few admins would be "forced into confirmation", that by no means implies that we will lose all, or even most, of them. In fact I expect most confirmation votes to pass, so your allegation that we would lose a hundred admins sounds like a strong exaggeration. It is very unlikely that, as you seem to claim, many admins have sufficient opposition in hidden enemies. Please provide some evidence thereof? Being uncertain is no grounds for assuming the absolute worst.
  • Most regular adminship nominations pass. If (as I strongly doubt) there are in fact a large number of current admins that would not pass an adminship nomination, then we are having serious problems with double standards here. Radiant_>|< 13:44, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
    My apologies — I didn't mean to imply that we would lose a hundred admins (I should certainly hope that wouldn't be the case). My concern, however, is that, if this were put into place and subsequently got out of hand, there would be no way of stopping it without being unfair to those who had already undergone the process. Kirill Lokshin 14:20, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Despite the response to "What problem is this trying to solve?" I think this is a solution looking for a problem. I also fear that it's a form of m:Instruction creep. I do agree that there is a limited accountability loop for appropriate admin behavior. That loop is, at present, restricted to dispute resolution processes. The appropriate area is Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/User_conduct#Use_of_administrator_privileges. Notably, this area sees little in the way of traffic. I have come across users before who have complained of admin abuses. I have routinely asked users to show me the evidence of their concerns. So far, I've received nothing in return. I'm not saying that what I received wasn't substantiative; I'm saying I received nothing. Of course, that is anecdotal. At this point, I think a new level of procedure/bureaucracy is premature. More evidence of the need of it needs to be generated. In an effort to help keep admins accountable, I started a (still very notional) project called "Admin watch" as a subpage of mine. Feel free to contribute there. --Durin 13:59, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
    • There is a difference between being downright abusive (which are very rare and dealt with by ArbCom) and not adhering to the high standards to which admins are supposedly kept. According to Wikipedia:Administrators, an admin is a "known and trusted member of the community". If someone no longer has community trust, should that person remain admin indefinitely? Radiant_>|< 14:12, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
    You've avoided defining "community", however. There is a certain group of users — the trolls, the creators of speedied pages, the submitters of copyvios — who would love nothing more than to exact their revenge on the admins who interfered with them. Are you quite certain that this group is not large enough to constitue a significant voting block? Or that certain members of this group, given the capability to remove admins, could not restrain their destructive impulses long enough to create a "legitimate" account with which they could vote? Kirill Lokshin 14:27, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
    Chicken Licken thought the sky was going to fall in. It didn't. -Splashtalk 14:40, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
The difference is that most admin nominees have never been admins before nor have they performed admin tasks. If we set the standard 70-80% threshold for reconfirmation, I expect that we will risk losing a large number of productive and useful admins simply because they are the ones who most often deal with active trolls and the most ornery editors. Every editor who you have temporarily blocked for 3RR, personal attacks, disruption, and other forms of asshattery becomes a potential revenge voter—and each of those revenge votes needs four support votes to be counterbalanced. Toss in a couple of 'legitimate' oppose votes from editors with honest qualms and suddenly we are in a position to lose a lot of admins. If we set threshold for reconfirmation lower to account for this, then you start getting charges that confirmed admins don't have the support of the community, and you taint their reputation for the next year.
Plus there's the delightful disruptive effect of encouraging the formation of cliques and voting blocs. If this is an annual process then we're looking at a couple of confirmations per day with our current admin population; it becomes a continuous election atmosphere. We've already started to see some editors engage in campaigning for and against RFAs—I don't want to see the practice take root in a reconfirmation process too.
This may also have an effect on our supply of new admins. If we start seeing a very ugly reconfirmation process–and frankly, I can't see how it won't be–then that is likely to give pause to new candidates who won't want to put up with the annual abuse.
Finally, if the vast bulk of confirmations are expected to pass, then the process is a waste of our time. Though the ArbCom is certainly busy right now, I don't see their docket crowded with cases regarding admin privileges. Requiring all of us to run through six hundred reviews every year seems kind of silly if we can't be bothered to refer six cases to ArbCom now. If someone has lost the trust of the community through misuse of their administrative power–even if it's not gross abuse–you can still ask the ArbCom to step in. If it appears that that process won't work, then we can consider creating a whole new massive bureaucracy. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:29, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Very insightful. Not quite related to my RFA but insightful nonetheless. silsor 14:38, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I think this would be incredibly divisive, and I think we have enough of that as it is. If an admin is active at all in some of the more difficult areas they'll get a review virtually automatically causing a lot of ill-will, discouraging taking and defending unpopular positions. Any group needs some of its members to challenge the status quo and community assumptions and this would stifle that. We have processes for comment and de-admin right now, if they are ineffective then I think we should look at improving those first as a review function. Rx StrangeLove 14:45, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Kirill Lokshin hit the nail on the head above when he pointed out that silsor has "requested, technically, that his admin status be removed (and, by stressing that his request is no different from any other on RFA, seems to be suggesting that one can nominate someone else to be 'promoted to usership')". This is the vital big giant neon-illuminated red flag that everyone should be looking at: silsor's actions are creating a back-door Requests for De-adminship, when every attempt to do so through community consensus has failed. This should be ended now. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 14:42, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Two responses to Ten... first, you're assuming that most (e.g.) blocks would result in revenge votes; I don't think that's correct - first, most blocks are not against established editors, and second, most established editors are not vindictive. And of course the 'Crats would discount obvious troll or sockpuppet votes. I invite you to take a look at the Dutch process, which is working fine on our 6th-largest Wiki. Second, you're assuming that we would have to vote on every existing admin, but that wasn't the idea. There would only be a vote on those to which objection is voiced. And I do believe that the average effect of campaigning is to vote down the nominee because he was gathering votes. You do have a good point about cliques though, but of course such cliques already exist in whichever discussion forums we use. Radiant_>|< 15:12, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, no—I don't actually assume that most blocks will result in revenge votes; I merely suggested it as an example of a reasonable administrative action that could result in retaliatory voting. Editors who act as mediators on our more contentious articles, or admins who try to keep the peace or warn users about WP:NPA violations might also tend to face problems. Any admin who's expressed an opinion on Gdanskig will probably face review. There are dozens of things that admins do (or should do) on a regular basis that may annoy the editors who don't take our policies to heart. We don't block editors (usually) for the more mild violations of WP:AGF, WP:CIV, WP:NPOV, and WP:NPA; frankly there are quite a few regular contributors who are dicks—it only takes a few to force a vote, and only a few more to push support below 75%.
Looking at the Dutch Wikipedia, they have only 66 admins: a tenth our number. Is it reasonable to assume that a process that works for them will work equally well when scaled up by a factor of ten? Of the fifteen candidates whose adminships are currently on the review board, nine are being voted upon; while it is true that they don't have to vote on all candidates, they still have to vote on a majority of them. I freely admit that I don't speak Dutch, so I'm doing a bit of guessing here—but between my broken knowledge of German and a little bit of machine translation, it appears that most of the oppose votes are based on candidates being insufficiently active rather than on their administrative actions or missteps. From what I can see, the Dutch process appears to affirm my suspicion that the process would be a waste of time. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:49, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
A "factor of ten" doesn't begin to describe it. The English Wikipedia had more than 66 admins (68 to be exact) confirmed in the month of October 2005 alone (see Special:Log/rights). -- Curps 16:07, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
  • And that will become more problematic over time. I did a linear progression of this recently. I don't have the finished data any more. But if I recall correctly, the progression showed that by the time two years from now we'll be nominating >100 admins per week. I don't think what is being suggested is readily scalable. --Durin 16:31, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

As an aside, Fred Bauder has recently created a page describing Administrative probation as a possible remedy that the ArbCom could impose. It is designed to cope with admins who are not "...able to adequately fulfill or conform to community expectations regarding some aspects of their responsibilities". Such a remedy could be appropriate for the cases where full-blown desysopping might be overkill but where there is serious concern about an admin's behaviour. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:38, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm minior burcratic challenge. If a review system was set to one year on what date would I be reviewed?Geni 03:23, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't see silsor stating anywhere that he is trying to prove the point that Radiant describes up there, to wit, that there should be adminship reaffirmation. Maybe that is what he's trying to prove, but he has certainly not been clear about it, and this strikes me instead as somebody trying to hitch the wagon of their own issue to the minor disruption of silsor's RFA so that they can get attention given to the issue without personally having to WP:POINT.

I also have an issue with the statement that People change, and standards change, and people should not be in a position of authority merely for having been around longer. I agree that that shouldn't be the sole reason, but "having been around longer" is one of the most important things to me in an admin. From my point of view a lot of admins have not been around on Wikipedia as long as would like. Jdavidb (talk • contribs) 15:42, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Silsor

Hmmm, looks like Silsor is not requesting Admin review at all. He's requesting honorable discharge basically. Something we'll likely see more of in future.

RFA is the page best suited for now, though I agree we might want to set up a separate page if this becomes common.

Anyway, please state your support if you think Silsor has done a good enough job as admin, or oppose if you think he needs to stay on longer to prove he's good enough.

And do leave the RfA up, I'm curious as to the outcome! It can't do much harm to have it there anyway. :-)

Kim Bruning 08:16, 3 November 2005 (UTC) (Note also that the deadminship request submitted by Curps was denied )

No, the page best suited for it is on the talk page of a steward or at m:Requests for permissions. The request was denied because Silsor didn't make it himself. Wikipedia:Requests for adminship is to request adminship, not to request de-adminship. This request is just a poll; regardless of the outcome, nothing will take place except Silsor can see people's opinion of him and his request. If he wishes to have his adminship removed, he will still have to ask a steward or on meta, just as he could have done first without wasting people's time. That a strong majority of people commenting/voting on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/silsor are protesting the listing should be a sign that the listing is inappropriate. — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:50, 3 November 2005 (UTC)


Kim, I'm glad you reposted this RfA (RfDA?), but disagree with your interpretation. Drawing on my military background, what Silsor is requesting is not an honourable discharge, but to be stripped of his rank. He can get an honourable discharge much easier by moving his name from the Active to the Inactive section of WP:LA. Or better yet, create a new section on that page called Editors who stopped acting as admin. Again using the military metaphor, I voted "Oppose" as any court martial would when judging an officer in good standing. I don't expect Silsor to do any more than he is prepared to; this is a voluntary service, after all. But Silsor has rightfully earned his sysop rank, and I will not support stripping him of it—even at his own request—without due cause. Owen× ☎ 11:36, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
I know I'm often thought of a bureacratic process monkey, but why is everyone so bloody serious? A little breaching experiment now and then, performed by someone with such obvious good standing, can only serve to keep us from ossifying.
brenneman(t)(c) 11:48, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
  • If we set a precedent of abusing standing process for purposes other than for which they are intended, where do we stop? Should we use AfD for undeletions? Should we use ArbCom to heap praise on somebody? Should we use RfCs in reverse? This is an abuse of Wikipedia processes. RfA is ill-suited to handle such a request, was not designed to handle a request, and regardless of the result will not result in the action that Silsor wants. He's been directed to the appropriate place to handle his request. He should go there. If a brand new user took the Mel Gibson article to AfD to get an idea of how much the people liked the article, he would be roundly criticized for the action and it would be rapidly undone. Why is this any different? --Durin 13:13, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
RFA is and should be "bloody serious" (aside from the sometimes-funny support votes). WP:POINT still applies, even when the supposed point leaves most, including me, scratching their heads. IIRC, Aaron, you weren't too happy when Uncle Ed did a little "breaching experiment" by deleting VfD. What makes that bad and this okay? android79 13:25, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't know this admin, but this looks like vanity, pure and simple: and timewasting vanity at that. If an admin wants desysoped, he requests it at meta, he gets it - end of story. What this admin seems to want is a dramatic exit, with lots of people saying wonderful things about him. Well, someone give him a damn carriage clock - and organise a whip-round! It is about a childish as editors who say they are leaving the project, in order to get everyone to say 'no don't do that, we all really love you......' --Doc (?) 13:30, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
  • If we approach this another way:
    1. Has silsor demonstrated that (prior to this) he was overly dramatic?
    2. Has silsor demonstrated (prior to this) eggregious poor judgement?
    3. Does silsor know what the processes are if all he wanted was to be dead-minned?
As I understand it, that's "No, no, and yes". So he makes his point, or gets his lovefest, or corrupts the database, or introduces crypto-anthrax into the Erotic spanking article or whatever. He's happy, and in three weeks this will barely be a blip on the collective horizon. We'll have all forgotten. Chant WP:IAR thirty times, examine the real level of harm done by this, and move on. The possible damage is limited mostly to silsor's reputation, slippery slope arguments aside. Most importantly - Nothing is to be gained by further exhorting him to stop. He's found enough supporters/hangers-on/codependant personality types/whatever to let him have this unfold the way he wants. Unless you want to have open wheel wars over this total non-issue? People do crazy things, stupid things, even pointless things, and sometimes all that we do if we try to figure out why is make ourselves crazy.
brenneman(t)(c) 13:39, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, I may be a little bit slow on the uptake, but to this moment I haven't really understood what he really wants. It smells of WP:Point, it has a slight tinge of vanity, with something on top which I can't really fathom. Lectonar 13:47, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Erotic spanking is censored where I'm at, but I must ask: what the hell is crypto-anthrax? ;). Marskell 13:51, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Aaron, I agree. To qualify as WP:POINT, an action has to involve a disruption. It takes maybe five seconds to read silsor's nomination and skip it, if you think it's pointless, futile, or a waste of time. We are engulfed in counting votes, tallying edits, and endlessly debating whether someone or other deserves to be admin; I find it refreshing to see this RfDA shake things up a bit, make us examine both our processes and our view of what is essentially a multi-class hierarchical society, as much as we hate to admit so. Silsor is questioning our beliefs in this dogma, but is doing so in a fascinating, thought-provoking way. Silsor didn't just go ahead and delete WP:RfA or open an RfC against all the admins whom he believes are tarnishing our image; his methods are much more subtle, and—I believe—more productive.
I think giving the RfA system a good shake once or twice a year is a good thing. It is, indeed, a constructive way to illustrate a point. Owen× ☎ 14:47, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
You see "fascinating" and "thought-provoking"; I see confusing and pointless. As it stands, I'm still unsure what silsor's point was in the first place, as he has remained pretty enigmatic throughout this whole... thing, whatever you want to call it. Whatever problems silsor sees with adminship could have been discussed thoughtfully on this talk page, but instead we get disruption and acrimony, intended or not. Make a statement with words, not with actions. android79 14:58, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

In the absence of a detectable 'point' to this so-called 'disruption of WP:POINT', one arrives at the logical conclusion that there is no point trying to be proven, and that no harm is being done here. Talrias (t | e | c) 15:54, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, there's the unecessary conflict. If nobody can figure out precisely why the non-RFA was posted in the first place–I know I still can't figure it out–silsor's insistence on reposting it without a clear explanation of what he's looking for and why it belongs here is disruptive. There's also the bandwidth being wasted, which I object to as a matter of principle. This non-request will stay up for a week, then...what? Be closed as no consensus? Since nobody seems to understand exactly what Silsor is hoping to get out of this process, we can't give it to him anyway. If he wanted general comments on adminship versus non-adminship, he could use RFC or the Village Pump. He's a good editor and a sound admin, but this non-RFA just doesn't make any sense; it's disruptive for him to ignore all the other sensible editors who are telling him that.
This obviously isn't an urgent matter. He'd have been better off not repeatedly restoring his non-RFA to the main page until he could clearly spell out what he wanted to find out. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:17, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
I've had the list of reasons for my RFD listed at the bottom of it for two days. You are of course welcome to continue wondering and speculating about what I want but it's really recommended reading. silsor 23:01, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
The number of comments here expressing confusion would seem to suggest that some of us are particularly obtuse; we still don't understand what you're hoping to accomplish. If you're interested in knowing what we think of you having yourself desysopped, put a note on your user page, file an RFC, or post a question on the Pump. I suspect that the bulk of the reaction to your specific request would fall somewhere between "That's too bad; he's done a good job as an admin and I don't see why he needs to give up the tools if he's not leaving" to "Meh; this won't have a significant effect one way or the other".
If you're interested in more general comments or discussion about the adminship/deadminship processes here, once again an RFC or Pump notice would be the way to go; a note at AN and even a box at the top of RFA wouldn't be amiss.
This third route that you've chosen has left a lot of people scratching their heads. You've couched your non-RFA as a request for permission that we're not required to give (or capable of giving, for that matter). We've already told you how to achieve the goal you've purportedly set out to accomplish. Once again, I ask you to state plainly what you want. What topics do you want to discuss? What do you think is wrong that needs fixing? Do you have any goals here? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:30, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
I second TenOfAllTrades. I support de-adminning, and I surely don't mind voluntary votes of confidence, although for both of those I have questions of the appropriate forum. Here, I'm still confused. I don't mind the RfA, I just can't see how it can mean anything. There are many different interpretations of what it's for, and many people like me, going, "eh?," so the thing is really useless. If Silsor wants it, fine... as long as he's actually de-adminned at the end of it, because I'm worried that he's unwell. Xoloz 18:35, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I'll tell you what I don't understand, and that's why we're all still talking about this. The best thing that we could do is simply shu
    brenneman(t)(c) 00:05, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
    • I second the mo
      Owen× ☎ 00:17, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

The proper page for such requests is meta:Requests for permissions. I have moved Silsor's request there. A vote is not necessary. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 23:37, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

flawed jewel

Today I was sorely tempted to pull an Ed Poor and delete RFA, luckily I came to my senses that it would be a bit too bold, would be a violation of WP:POINT and would be too crazy of a unilateral action to take not to mention countless other side issues it would cause.


I contend here and now that although it is not inherently flawed RFA has become flawed, RFA used to be an unbiased and untainted way for users who felt they had what it took to request community input on whether they were trustworthy enough to have adminship privileges. Over time this has been changed and dare I say corrupted by campaigning for and against canidates as well as being influenced by old grudges from long before the fight began and that adminship is now not determined by whether an editor is trustworthy enough and is not given out very liberally as originally intended but a canidate's worth has now been degraded to who's faction agrees with them and how much power that faction holds, who likes them and who doesn't, whether they're in the in crowd or whether they are not. I think anyone would be hard pressed to disagree with me when I say that this is not what the envisioned when RFA was originally implemented.


My suggestions for RFA are simple. Form a solution, even a temporary one, and use it to replace the current system. If the created system is only temporary then work as a community to create a more permanent one, one that works and one that is free from individual and group biases. I would also suggest getting the input from those who who envisioned and worked on the original RFA process and even from Jimbo himself if he is willing to comment on how to create this new system. I will be the first to admit that I do not have an answer to RFA nor do I have a way to solve it's problems, however I hope that the community as a whole can find a way to make RFA work. We have the technology, we can make it faster, better, stronger. Jtkiefer T | @ | C ----- 01:49, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Is it just me or are a lot more people getting admined now than they used to? People also seem to have many more votes than before (my RfA had somthing like 20 votes)- why do people bother to vote support when there are already an overwhelming number of supports? A while ago somebody (not that I remember who) was using a criteria that said that all admins had to have an FA to their name. Perhaps a concrete standard like that (that particular one seems a bit strict) could work. It wouldn't solve the factionalization though I personally haven't noticed such cabalish behavior. Are you looking for a complete overhaul or just different standards? Personally, I wonder if we should make vote soliciting against the rules? Broken S 02:07, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
There are more editors now, and Wikipedia is growing faster, so I should hope that more people are getting adminship now than in the past. A more interesting question is how the ratio of successful/unsuccessful attempts has changed over time; but that is actually fairly hard to calculate, since unsuccessful attempts are not grouped by date. Naturally, the number of people voting in each attempt has also increased with Wikipedia's population. In successful nominations it does no harm; in close ones we can hardly forbid people from adding their vote; and plainly failing attempts generally get removed. But anyway, to get back to the main point: I agree that a few recent nominations (and some not-so-recent ones) have suffered from extreme amounts of factionalism... There are some people whose name, appearing on one side of a vote, is practically a guarentee of several other specific names on both sides. My general feeling, though, is that whatever course we take, we should try to stick to the principal that adminship is no big deal. The more admins we have, the less damage individual admins can do; making as many people as possible admins, then depending on them to watch each other strikes me as the closest we can get to the Wiki Way. Optimally, adminship should be automatic for anyone who wants the job and wouldn't abuse the position. --Aquillion 02:38, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
...Is a solution possible? Those seem more like problems with the community than the process. It is obvious that community input is necessary for adminship selection. The community is sufficiently large that a vote may be the only non-cumbersome way to get input. A vote will naturally lead to social issues. The current RFA process seems to be the least bad of all the bad choices. ~~ N (t/c) 02:20, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
My assertion though is that there shouldn't be bad choices, whether through reform of the process or of the community there should be a way to find a good choie in all of this. Jtkiefer T | @ | C ----- 02:46, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Of course, but that doesn't mean a good choice exists. I don't believe one does, aside from the fairly minor change of discounting unjustified "me-too" votes (and I'm not even sure that's a good idea). Getting proper community input (a vote or other objective measure, not evidence to sway a bureaucrat's subjective judgement) is not possible without making heated argument likely. The only way to fix that issue (to the extent that it can be fixed) is through changing social atmosphere. ~~ N (t/c) 03:47, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to restate a proposal that I made several weeks ago, and similar to that which R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) made earlier on this page - to divide the distribution of admin powers into at least two levels, with a lower threshold of support required to achieve less potent powers (e.g., the rollback button, the power to block only anonymous users, perhaps page protection), and a mentoring system for people in the higher level to assist those in the lower level. BD2412 T 02:55, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
In my experience, blocking anon IPs requires much more care and skill than other blocks. It would probably be better to leave that to higher levels. Of course the software would need to be modified to enable the above (except for rollbacks which can apparently be provided to non-sysops in the current version of the software). --Tony SidawayTalk 03:08, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Alternative

I agree that it's horrible right now. I was adminned just over six months ago, but if RFA had been as it is now I would have refused the offer. I could edit Wikipedia perfectly well without going through this bare-knuckle battle.

So, the beauty contest concept is becoming less useful. Here's an outline of a possible alternative:

  1. Give admin powers only to people who demonstrate useful skills. An RC patroller who consistently gets high praise from his fellows, an AfD closer who does a good job, someone who cleans up copyright infringements, or one who lists them, someone who maintains one of the dispute resolution pages, or tracks down orphanned page protects and listed them on Wikipedia:Protect page, welcomes new editors, or maintains Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress. Someone who does a good job on these tasks for a couple of months is probably admin material.
  2. Discount anyone who keeps getting involved in sterile edit wars. We've got enough edit-warring admins already.

The idea is to have published criteria. Someone would be nominated in the usual way. He can write a brief (250 words at most) candidacy address.

Anyone who likes (including the candidate) can then add single lines in a prescribed format of the form:

  • (list of diffs) "Brief and neutral description of useful task performed by candidate"
  • (list of diffs) "Brief and neutral description of sterile edit war involving candidate"


A bureaucrat decides at the end of the period whether to grant an admin bit to the candidate. He should use his common sense, and may wish to take into account the editing experience of the candidate as well as the evidence presented.

I bet it'll frighten away the RFA groupies and the edit counters, while permitting useful information to be quietly gathered and a good decision to be made. --Tony SidawayTalk 02:49, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

A bureaucrat decides at the end of the period whether... that's making it too subjective and less transparent. =Nichalp «Talk»= 03:17, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
What's transparent about an editor who just rolls up on RFA and types ~~~~ '''Support'''? Where's the objectivity? --Tony SidawayTalk 03:23, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Nothing, but anyone gets to do it, not just a bureaucrat. Just discounting votes that don't have a reason would fix that problem (although it has its own problems). Leaving the final decision up to the subjective, non-transparent judgement of an empowered class is oligarchy. I don't trust the bureaucrats enough to give them this level of (opaque, subjective) judgement, do you? ~~ N (t/c) 03:47, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Bureaucrats closing noms based on diff and common sense makes it less transparent. Bureaucrats are there to enforce community decisions on adminships, not to make subjective calls. =Nichalp «Talk»= 03:54, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I would support Tony's proposal wholeheartedly. It is time the RfA process evolves to something better and devoid of political bias or being missused to castigate editors with opposing POVs. ≈ jossi fresco ≈ t • @ 03:33, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

As reform proposals go, it doesn't seem that bad. Two issues: one, it should be more flexible, allowing more reasons to oppose than just edit-warring. Two, again, subjective, opaque judgement of a bureaucrat is bad. ~~ N (t/c) 03:47, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Alternative 2: Adminship by "mini-RfC"

In the past 12 months Wikipedia has more than doubled in size: from 380,000 articles in November 2004 to 804,000 now, for an increase of 112%. Growth in total traffic has more than tripled during this year. The number of active admins, on the other hand, grew by only 74%, from 313 to 545 in this period. This means that the workload on each admin is much higher than it was a year ago, and it keeps getting worse. The reason we have more admins now is that we need more admins now. What we should now find is a method to recruit admins faster, without giving up quality. My solution includes two parts, drawing on some good ideas presented above by BD2412 and Tony Sidaway:

  1. Adopt the new Wikipedia:Requests for rollback privileges, and assign the "rollback" privilege liberally (automatically?) to any registered user with a clean record (never blocked) who has been here for two weeks and amassed 150 edits. Having an army of well-equipped RC patrollers would take a good chunk of the workload off admins, allowing them to deal with trickier or more delicate tasks such as copyvios, AfDs, CSDs and such.
  2. Modify the RfA process as follows: nominations would still appear here, but opinions, rather than votes, would be added by anyone who has something to say about the candidate. At the end of the seven day period, two bureaucrats would review the opinions as well as any evidence they choose to collect, and based on that and their own best judgment, issue a unanimous decision. If the nomination fails, the two "adjudicators" will issue a short justification for their ruling. Since the two adjudicators are assigned and announced at the time of nomination, they can—at their discretion—make a decision before the seven days are up, if they feel additional opinions are unlikely to change the outcome.

Using this system, "piling on votes" would be futile. Only people bringing something new to the table would have an impact on the outcome. Any "faction" or clique would be quickly recognized and discounted as such by our seasoned b'crats. Petty grudges, when such exist, would have to be supported by real evidence. And lastly, we would get the benefit of the judgment of two humans making a choice, rather than a blind algorithm counting votes. I expect most nominations to gather no more than a handful of opinions. Some would turn into a heated discussions, of course, but maybe rightly so. Repeat nominations of failed candidates would only accept new material; the pervious nom would be used as a baseline. Not all bureaucrats will be willing to take this job, but all we need is a few dedicated ones, and we're in business.

This may not be a perfect system, but I think it is a step in the right direction, and addresses many of the concerns voiced on this page. Do I hear a 'second'? Owen× ☎ 04:13, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Seconded, if the issues of transparency and oligarchy can be properly dealt with. I.e., the bureaucrats should have to provide a detailed rationale no matter what, and there needs to be an appeals process (at least for opponents to appeal promotions). I do think this would require many more bureaucrats, though - what you're describing is actually like a mini-arbitration case. ~~ N (t/c) 04:31, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
I disagree. The current system of making admins is fine, except this should be done: All "yes" votes for promotion should require no explanation, a simple "yes" should do. However, if you make every "no" voter be required to post a unique reason, at the tally, those "no's" with crummy reasons would be discarded for having not having met a reasonable objection threshold. In addition, use a "bot" that tags an editors user page with a "You can be an Admin" announcement -with easy to follow link that says "click here" to accept your nomination. The system "bot" can automatically nominate editors who reach certain thresholds. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 05:10, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Excellent, enforce editcountitis by 'bot. That'll be popular. -Splashtalk 14:04, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
That, too, would be excellent (except for the bot). Bureaucrats should however have to provide reasons for accepting or discarding each vote. And explanations on 'support' votes should not be prohibited, although they shouldn't be required either. ~~ N (t/c) 15:01, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I absolutely shudder to think at the acrimony that will rapidly appear in the RfA process if bureaucrats are required to show their reasons for accepting or discarding each and every vote. If that happens, this process is doomed. No person in their right mind would ever want to become a bureaucrat. --Durin 17:11, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Before we can make changes, we have to clearly identify the problems

There's a call to make changes to RfA. Very well. Step 1: Identify what the shortcomings are. You have to do this before you can craft a solution; else you have no way of determining if your solution addresses the shortcomings. Without this, you're just as likely to make things worse as you are to make them better. What I've seen people say the shortcomings are of late (and my responses).

  • Incivility. This is an individual issue, and not a problem with RfA. RfA was plenty civil in the past. The process hasn't changed to cause it to become incivil. What has changed is our willingness to accept incivility in the process. That's not a fault of the RfA process. That's a fault of the contributors. Put blame where it belongs.
  • Campaigning for and against candidates: What I have seen over the last four months has been a number of candidates being roundly criticized for campaigning, and similar response to people campaigning against them. I simply don't see that this has been a problem. Cite examples if you want to make the case. Currently, I don't see it.
  • Factionalism: Again, I don't see it. I see quite a number of RfAs that have not become contentious in any respect. If cliques truly existed, it is again a fault of specific users and not a fault of RfA. If nominees who are not in the 'in' crowd are not getting in (this wasn't spoken, but implied) then how is it that User:Edcolins passed with barely a peep of opposition (only Boothy443 opposing). He's a patent lawyer, and hardly among the 'in' crowd. There might be certain groups of people heavily influenced by IRC. I can't speak to that as I personally refuse to be party to IRC.
  • Individual and group bias: Individual bias? How do you expect we can remove that and still have humans involved in the process? If we did it purely by machine, we still couldn't remove group bias. Any mechanism by which we attempt to develop consensus is going to inherently have bias. We can not be automatons that simply look at base facts and vote strictly based on binary qualities. No matter what system you design, there will be bias of one form or another.
  • Piling on of support votes: Since more people are on Wikipedia, more people are involved in RfA. Unavoidable. Unless you want to exclude people from the RfA process you can count on this being part of RfA. I readily grant it is not easily scalable, but I doubt there's any easier solution unless you layer in all sorts of instruction creep (perhaps things like...only allowed to vote thrice weekly or some other arbitrary restrictions on suffrage).

Opaque judgement of a bureaucrat is part of the current process. It is generally used in the 75% realm of RfAs. If the process were transparent, and a bureaucrat was obligated to show which votes were discounted, or what consensus they felt was stronger and why...I doubt there would be any people applying to be bureaucrats and the bureaucrats we have now would run screaming for the hills. The process would rapidly degenerate into accusatory pit brawls, with bureaucrats being in the center of it.

The measures of Wikipedia growth used to show why admins aren't being promoted fast enough suffer from being indirect measures of how much work admins need to do. There's a presumption that the amount of work has increased in direct propotion to the growth. This could be very, very wrong in either direction. At least one person did a very (very) small study on the incidence of vandalism. We need a more comprehensive study before we can say with any firmity that we are not promoting admins rapidly enough.

As for having a featured article to a nominee's name; can anybody...anybody...provide a reference to an article that was crafted by one single individual that made it to FA status? Such articles aren't the work of a single individual. An article getting to FA status isn't the credit of one single person.

If people are curious, I can provide statistics on any number of different takes on the RfA process as it has progressed since June 23rd of this year when I began keeping detailed statistics. As memory serves, I don't think the ratio of success/unsuccess has changed. What has recently been a surprising aberration is the number of early withdrawls; a rate in excess of 30% when the prior rate had been ~10%. A number of editors have been working on WP:GRFA, a recently developed guide to the RfA process. One of the hoped for outcomes is a reduction in the number of premature nominations. This may have a desirable effect on the number of early withdrawals.

Thanks for reading. --Durin 05:05, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

As for having a featured article to a nominee's name... I think we should look at it as getting articles to featured status, rather than owing an article. FAC is not a cakewalk, esp to newbies. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:44, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes, can anyone provide an example of where factionalist voting has altered the result of an RfA? In Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Aaron Brenneman where one might have expected it, I actually saw very little evidence - and result was not affected. Where are folk voting 'oppose - he's not in my gang'? I suspect this is a phantom problem. --Doc (?) 09:36, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Since this is getting fairly long, can we set up a page to specifically talk about RfA reform? I know, "what do you think this page is for?", but reform is going to take a lot of writing and shouldn't clutter this area up too much. --LV (Dark Mark) 15:22, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

  • I personally don't see that there is a case for reform, and leaving it here on the talk page for everyone to see helps develop some consensus on whether such is required. By creating a reform page, it's in essence saying that reform is required. Today, I've been going through the archives of this page. Reform is *far* from a new concept. I've worked my way through the archives (oldest to newest) up to March of 2004. This is not a new concept, and there's never been consensus (that I've yet seen) on radical changes to the system. --Durin 17:13, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Of course it is not a new idea, but it is brought up so often that a separate page, or even some sort of RfC, specifically dealing with RfA reform could be formed. Establishing it doesn't mean that reform is required, it would be there that we could determine if it is. It would be an open area to discuss different options and ideas. We establish pages with proposed policy, etc. all the time. This wouldn't really be any different. And my suggestion would simply move the debate for or against reform to a different page than this one. --LV (Dark Mark) 18:09, 4 November 2005 (UTC)


At the risk of repeating myself, I'm just going to repeat myself:> The Rfa system may not be broken, YET, but it is clearly starting to bend under the weight of Wiki's growth. A system, ANY system, is only as good as the people involved. A play may be brilliantly written, but if it has lousy direction and untalented actors it will be an ordeal when performed. One need only watch a typical grade school adaptation of Hamlet to see how bad the results can be. This being said, I do not think any radical measures to change Rfa are needed, yet. But I do advocate some modest reforms, which may or may not work but are at least worth a try.

  • First- WP:GRFA, alone is simply not enough. It will be no more effective than a small safety sign at a MOSH PIT. I do think it is worthwhile to try, however, provided it is used along with the following two proposals.
  • Second- A type of candidate "Peer Review" very much like that used in the FAC process, where it has proved highly effective. This would be optional, of course, but highly recommended. It would ne easy to implement and allow issues, personal and otherwise, to be discussed and hopefully worked out before an Rfa. It could help to drastically cut back on the number of ambushes, pile-ons and withdrals. *Third- As a final line of defense, should the first two fail or not be followed, some set of officials to oversee the Rfa to try and ensure the proceedings are kept civil in accordance with the letter and spirit of Wiki guidelines. They would have the power to strike abusive and/or insulting comments, warn those who make them and if they continue, kick them out of the Rfa and nullify their votes. These "Ushers", would be appointed by and answerable to an elected Rfa "Bailiff", who could reinforce their decisions or remove them if they abuse or neglect their duties.

So there you have it...nothing radical (duuude:), these three steps are only modest, incremental measures, which separately would have little effect, but if used together as part of a coherient policy, they might just work. No, they won't make the process perfect, but they can make it less painful...less of an ordeal. I have some Wikipedians and friends I'd like to nominate for admins, because I have full confidence they are worthy and deserving of the title and responsibility. But as the Rfa process now stands, I would not dare risk subjecting them to it. Meanwhile, as I was telling SoLando, I'm growing weary of this debate. It is becoming clear to me that many of the key players here think the system is just snazzy and nothing is wrong at all. It works has always worked and always will work. This is the way of complacency and denial...a path which almost always leads to disaster in the long run. All the moreso in dynamic, fast changing situations. The trouble with trying to reform ANYTHING is the powers-that-be refuse to recognize the problem until it is too late and modest, incremental reform is no longer a viable option. Now that I've said my peace and bored you all to tears, I'm removing myself from this debate. Call me if anything constructive, productive or interesting should come of it.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 21:40, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

  • Officials to oversee the RfA process? That's what bureaucrats are for. Also, any user is empowered to comment on the edits of other contributors at RfA. I've taken it upon myself to do so. Anyone concerned with civility at RfA should. As for the RfA system being snazzy and perfectly fine as it is; nobody has identified anything that is clearly wrong with the process itself. Objections have been raised regarding civility, but that is a user specific issue, not a process one. I'm all ears if you have particular objections to the process, but so far nobody has put forther anything specific as to what is wrong with the process. Analogy; you tell your mechanic "My car is running poorly". He asks, "What is it doing wrong?". You have no answer, or the answer is "The people who get into my car are jerks". We need material to work with here. So far, nothing has come forward. You want people to recognize the problem, but don't state what the problem with the RfA process is. This is very difficult. All the moreso because you don't believe incremental reform is possible. This implies tossing the process we have now, without identifying what is wrong with it, in favor of a new process that may or may not address the concerns you have. --Durin 22:31, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

There's a numeric rule for removing?!

I'm disturbed by the suggestion that once Oppose–support=10 an RfA has failed. I don't recall, and nor can I find, a "general consensus" on this new instruction. We don't need it, it wasn't very widely approved (unless I was asleep for, say, a two week voting period), and we shouldn't be removing noms early anyway, in my opinion. And hard numbers are bad since a controversial RfA could easily swing around 9-11 votes difference and I would be horrified if someone thought "ah, then that RfA is dead". It seems to me to be part of a recent instruction creep assault on RfA which we have successfully fought off. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: RfA is not broken and does not need constraintive rules to help it in not-breaking. The immediately above debates aside, of course, since they are substantial reform rather than creep. -Splashtalk 03:54, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

In complete agreement. Legalism is bad. ~~ N (t/c) 04:04, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
In general, any arguments in opposition to the idea that failing RfAs should not be withdrawn early have fallen on deaf areas, and it remains policy. Barring a full blown poll on the matter to demonstrate (or not) community consensus on the issue, I doubt there will be any shift. --Durin 04:20, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
There are too many negatives for me to be sure of what you mean. But in any case, policy (such as it is) most certainly does not stipulate a 10 vote difference constituting failure, and it never has. -Splashtalk 04:22, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Although it's possible to come back from 10 votes in the hole, it's totally inconceivable. 10 supports up? Easily, just screw up and bang! you're gone. But 10 opposes? If you get 10 opposes with 0 supports, it's strange that the oppose votes came that fast that you can expect to get 40 support votes without another opposition vote, and it's just as weird to go from 50/60/0 to uhhh, 240/60/0, if you know where I'm going with this. I can't think of being able to do something so amazingly great that you WON'T lose the RfA. However I believe if RFA's are delisted to protect the subject from woe, and thus if the subject doesn't WANT to be delisted, don't delist them. Redwolf24 (talk) 04:27, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
The point about numbers is that, if you stay 9 votes down, you get a whole week to turn things around, but, if you're 11 votes down, you're a dodo. If you're a controversial candidate, and your total vote count is reaching toward 80-100, that's dead easy to see happen. -Splashtalk 04:31, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Are you saying 80 people participate? that'd be 35-45, meaning you'd still need 180 total support votes, assuming no more opposes come... and as for 9 vs. 11, I guess you have to draw the line somewhere... but once again I think we can use common sense in delisting, and if the subject wants to relist themselves, don't stop them. Redwolf24 (talk) 04:43, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Lucky6.9 springs to mind, and so does William M. Connolley. But anyway, there doesn't have to be a line drawn at all. If you must unlist early, then use judgement, not hard rules. Judgement in reading RfAs is why we make people Bureaucrats. Those we elect to interpret sociology over statistics should not be trying to break the process down into mere statistics. -Splashtalk 05:01, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Many of the arguments in favor of removing failing RfAs are based on the presumption that the only thing that can result from an RfA is a determination of consensus on adminship. This simply isn't true. Quite a number of RfA candidates have used prior RfAs as a guide on how they can improve themselves for the next go around. Removing RfAs prematurely denies them this resource. Further, quite a number of RfA contributors use prior RfAs to see if the candidate has improved on shortcomings from the last RfA. Remove the RfA earlier, and you open the door for people to castigate noms on a second nomination because of errors they made prior to their first RfA. Look at Alkivar for a case in point of how bad it could have been if his prior RfA had been yanked prematurely. He's succeeding because it's clear the objections are from before the last RfA and were stated in the last RfA. Remove early, and you deny a candidate that. No matter what arbitrary measure you use to determine whether an RfA is failing, you are going to find exceptions and objections to it. Early removal also encourages people to vote quickly, rather than slowly. I tend to not vote very much despite spending a lot of time involved in the RfA process. This is because I vote slowly. Look at my oppose vote on Aranda56's nom ([1]). That took a while to develop. Let's say instead that it was a positive vote. I would have to move quickly for an RfA that I thought might fail to get my support vote into the RfA, to perhaps influence other later contributors prior to them voting oppose. As it stands now, anyone...whether a bureaucrat or not, whether an admin or not, can arbitrarily remove an RfA as failing based on whatever criteria they so choose. I can go on for a while on a number of points on why removing RfAs prematurely is bad. In fact, I have in the archives of this talk page. I keep repeating myself over and over and over again on these points to no avail. As I noted earlier, it's falling on deaf ears. I believe the policy is essentially etched in stone. As I noted previously, barring a poll to reverse the policy, it isn't going to change. --Durin 05:17, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I kind of see were RedWolf24 is going. The votes should be quite randomized and linear, assuming no "rallying", so that O(t)=Kt and S(t)=Ct. C and K can be determined after only a samplespace number of votes are cast to get an accurate prediction. Therefore V(t)=t(c+k). If C/(C+K) is *WAY* less than 2/3 then the nomination will fail, whether you close it now or wait(let t increase). C and K, as determined by O(ti)+S(ti) must be at least about 10 or so("i" for initial), and after more than 2 days; but using standard deviation..ect...we could get the exact right number to get +/-3 % accuracy ;-).
Then again, numbers aren't everything, and Durin's Bane, I mean Durin...:-), has a point. Maybe failed candidates can learn from this as opposed to a quicky removal.Voice of All T|@|Esperanza 06:06, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

For myself, I would have much preferred to have left my nomination open until either it expired or it turned heavily uncivil. Sheezamageeza, I'd love it to be re-opened now, 190 proof feedback is damn hard to come by. There were still quite a few people from whom I hadn't heard, people whose opinions really count to me, who didn't even log on in the short window my nom was open. I certainly didn't expect another fifty people to turn up and support, let's be clear, but a lot can happen in five days.

A big issue in mine was racism. In fact, the first "oppose" came based upoon this issue while the nom was still in my user space. But if that user hadn't been around it probably wouldn't even have come up, everyone else seems to have accepted my apologies when it happened. Where I'm going with this is that if it hadn't been raised and dealt with in this nom then it could easily have derailed some potential future nomination.

So how do I now know that there's not some other skeleton in my closet? Something that could have been expunged this time, but wasn't? Being nominated is stressful enough, having to potentially run once for every mistake you've ever made is torture.
brenneman(t)(c) 06:31, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I didn't vote on your nomination, but I sympathize with you. It would be disconcerting to find your RFA closed without warning. I think unless something is spinning wildly out of control a nominee should at least be consulted with before an early closure. There is value in letting a nomination run to it's term for all the reasons people have pointed out. Rx StrangeLove 07:23, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
To be clear there was consultation, and I did express that I'd like it to be kept open, but left it to the other party to close if they felt it was disruptive. My previous facetious edit summary aside, I'm not terribly upset by the early closure. I'm sure there's a polysyllabic German word for "mild dissapointment at premature end to enriching experiance", so whatever that word is that's how it felt. - brenneman(t)(c) 09:43, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
I actually think Aaron has a point. And what if a serious charge was made in an RfA - and then the thing was removed before the candidate had a chance to respond? Even if the RfA is obviously going to fail, a reputation might be at stake if an editor is denied the right of publically replying. --Doc (?) 09:53, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I take the tack that an RFA should be removed only when the respondents specifically request its removal. For example, if a user with no experience in vandal-fighting whatsoever and only a few score edits makes an RFA, the first few comments will oppose their adminship, and then later commenters will clamour to remove the RFA. Contentious nominations, on the other hand, such as Alkivar's first two nominations, Sam Spade's nominations, and Alphax's nomination, would rarely receive requests to remove the RFA, because most respondents would see know real reason to remove the nomination. If we follow this strategy, we can weed out the joke nominations while retaining the ones that are merely contentious. Ingoolemo talk 07:01, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I suggest a compromise (compromises are good). RfA's that are 10 down (and thus cannot succeed) should be promptly suspended. However, the candidate should immediately be asked their wishes, and their right to request relisting should be absolute (except in extreme circumstances). That saves the face of many, but does not stifle the right of reply. Doc (?) 09:53, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I think more appropriate (and this has been suggested before) is that a nominee is informed that his RfA is going poorly, and they may wish to consider closing their nomination early. We can create a template for this, with reasons to keep it open and reasons to close it, and instructions to remove it if they so desire. Removing it, and then making nominees relist it, seems hostile. --Durin 14:05, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Doc, in that case why do we need a default delisting at all? Leave it up to the candidate to decided whether to close early or not. But again, this would allow a joke nomination to clutter the board for a week. Here is another compromise:
Where consensus to promote will clearly not be reached, a bureaucrat may decide to change the transclusion of the RfA to a simple link. This way, discussion can continue on the separated page for the full duration for those interested, without disturbing voting on the main WP:RFA page. Closing the voting can only be done at the end of the seven day period.
In some rare cases, such a vote may even turn around and end in a promotion. Owen× ☎ 14:21, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Oh, now that's quite creative. I rather like that idea, I think. -Splashtalk 14:22, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Yeah, that is a creative idea...except that I think discussion will decrease, defeating the purpose of keeping the RfA open. This seems the best compromise so far though; I'd be willing to try some test cases. --Durin 14:40, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Discussion may decrease, but not end totally as with delisting. People can always withdraw if they choose. Test cases sound good. --LV (Dark Mark) 18:33, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Since I am party to the above post, I wish to state that I had asked Aaron about his RFA delisting. He did give me the option to remove it, and I removed it. I'd suggested that he try again with a clean slate. IMO, I don't think it was a bad call, and I stand by my decision. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:23, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

No harm, no foul. - brenneman(t)(c) 22:28, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Non-bureaucrats closing RfAs?

Are there many non-bureaucrats who close RfAs? Of course only a bureaucrat can close a successful RfA, but are there many non-bureaucrats who close nominations as failed, if:

  • They expire without gaining consensus to support,
  • The candidate declines or withdraws the nomination, or
  • There seems to be a strong consensus to oppose?

I'd be interested in hearing from other Wikipedia users. I personally only close RfAs if the candidate declines or withdraws them, as it is the only non-controversial case. Please also indicate whether you're an admin or not (I am one). — JIP | Talk 08:00, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I am adamantly against non-bureacrats deciding that there was no consensus. That's what the bureacrats were elected specifically to do. →Raul654 09:40, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Ditto. Marskell 09:48, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree. It's almost as bad as the Arbcom saying "well, we can't be bothered making a decision, what does the community think?" If people who were elected to do a task don't do it, what's the point of electing them? Alphax τεχ 09:50, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Extreme (...) agree. Bureaucrats close RfAs. Period. -Splashtalk 14:06, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Raul. Managing the RfA process is (at present) the only responsibility a bureaucrat has. They are responsible for deciding the fate of RfAs. They were given that responsibility by a strongly supportive community. Let them do their jobs. If bureaucrats were overburdened, and RfAs were extending days and days past their conclusion dates, then I could see some rationale to users closing RfAs that had obviously failed. But, this isn't the case. --Durin 14:09, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Per this discussion, I added the following: "Only bureaucrats may close or de-list a nomination. In the case of vandalism, improper formatting or a declined or withdrawn nomination, non-bureacrats may choose to de-list a nomination but they are never empowered to decide on whether consensus has been achieved." OK? Marskell 14:29, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

  • Except that a nominee should be able to withdraw their own nomination. --Durin 14:41, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
    • "Or withdrawn" added. Marskell 14:48, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I would like to point out that the community did not give bureaucrats the job of "managing the RFA process." It gave bureaucrats the job of promoting admins who are eligible. If the job has grown to include the "management of the RFA process," so be it, but it was outside the original remit. Non-bureaucrats were closing failed RFAs long before bureaucrats existed, and I still don't see a problem with this, particularly in those cases where the outcome is clear. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 23:21, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd already outlined my views on a rough guideline as to when an admin can remove a RFA a few weeks earlier. Its now lost in the archives. =Nichalp «Talk»= 12:14, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Well there was Tony1's case, which I closed as a no consensus before it ran its course. The RfA was something like 35 supports to zilch, then a comment is made, and more comments are made, and he ends up with just as many oppose votes as support votes. Its obvious he doesn't have a hope in hell in passing, and his particular RFA was causing a lot of stress for himself and several others. I agree though that if its in the grey area with 70%+ support to ignore it and let a bureaucrat decide, but when you have 50% support and 4 oppose votes are coming in for every support? Redwolf24 (talk) 19:11, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

An attempt is being made to address this problem in the Guide to requests for adminship now being developed, with a line in the Miniguide making it clear that the candidate can withdraw at any stage, and a last paragraph on General advice for nominators suggesting that a nominator contact the candidate if things go sour. Do you think this would help?. . ...dave souza 23:03, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Some charts

I've been playing around with some data regarding RfA nominations from June 23, 2005 through October 28, 2005 (last nomination date of a closed nominaton, other than three withdrawals). I don't know if these will be of any use to any one, but I've uploaded three charts for your reviewing pleasure...

I was originally setting out to see changes in success rate over time (as a result of a statement made earlier on this page). What I found was that over the last four months, there's been a small reduction in frequency of RfA success for nominees over 2,000 edits. I also found some other statistics that show the burden of the number of edits per day per admin has increased 38% since March 28, 2005. Unless there was a corresponding reduction in the frequency of vandalism, then we are losing capability to deal with vandalism. That doesn't mean we're losing ground, just that our admins that frequently fight vandalism are under increasing burden. We might be doing just as good a job of fighting vandalism as in March. Discerning that would be considerably more difficult (on par with the IBM study). --Durin 20:34, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Interesting charts. When you say frequency of RfA success for nominees over 2,000 edits, do you mean percetage of successful overall nominations or just the number? Would it be possible to compile statistics on the percent of successful nominations each month and do a graph for that? In addition, did you compile statistics on the number of support votes (perhaps percentages of nominations with 40+ support votes)? There seems to be a lot more nominations with 30, 40+ support votes... Thanks! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | WS 21:31, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes, thank you for the charts, I am very impressed and appreciate that you put time into something like that for no other reason than to improve the community. Thank again.Gator(talk) 21:34, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Your scales are confusing; not only are they in reverse order (from highest to lowest, rather than 0 upwards), but the scales are not linear either. Also your y-axis label is incorrect - it would suggest that there is a less than 1% success rate for the data scale shown. Would it be possible to fix this? Talrias (t | e | c) 21:38, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Durin, this is painful. You're interpreting noise. --Tony SidawayTalk 22:18, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Feel free to collect your own data and do your own charts :) I too thought the charts were reversed. But, by the time I had done them (which was purely for my own viewing) I didn't want to bother with reversing them. Reversing them is relatively straight forward, but the charts convey the information anyways. As for the non-linearality of the x-axis...difficult. To attain the figures, I average over the last 20. Identifying those figures for specific target ranges is difficult; going with the average over the last 20 is a lot less time consuming. Sorry if the charts aren't perfect. I thought they might be useful for demonstrating trends (or lack thereof) so thought I'd share them.
Re: number frequency over 2,000 edits; % of total RfAs over 2,000 edits, not the number of RfAs (which, if memory serves, his risen significantly). I am keeping track of numbers of support/oppose/neutral votes. There's been a small rise # of overall votes.
Re: Tony: Your comments regarding the charts are so far a bit vague. Please clarify? --Durin 22:24, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
I'll field that one - there does not appear, from the brief look I've just given, to be sufficient discriminitory power on the variables you've chosen to draw any real conclusions. If you could perhaps make a cube available so that other people can run their own analysis? Extracting the data is the worst part. - brenneman(t)(c)
Presumably you have your data in a spreadsheet; surely telling the program to plot the graphs linearly (and not with a back-to-front scale) is a quite simple step? It looks like Microsoft Excel to me. Talrias (t | e | c) 11:14, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
There's a fairly strong indication that, up to a point of 2500 or so edits, increasing edit count corresponds to increasing RFA success. Beyond that, it's all noise. --Carnildo 22:55, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Confounds, confounds. You have three graphs each with similar slopes. What you need is a stepwise regression showing which of the three is the important one. The only thing that can be clearly seen from these graphs is the importance of length of time on Wikipedia, and in a very interesting way. If an editor has been on wikipedia a long time, any variation due to individual worth of candidate cancels out - with newer editors, individual considerations are taken more into account, as can be seen from the fluctuations on the right hand side (right-hand side? These scales are backwards!) of that particular chart. In which case, editcountitis is not a problem at all, at least not compared with "timeitis". Mind you, a further confound not quantified (and not quantifiable) has been totally ignored - the worth of the candidates. And that variable is the most important of them all. Grutness...wha? 05:42, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Alternate proposal: Allow votes for provisional adminship

This idea is simple. Allow voters on RfA the option of voting Provisional support or something similar. People who are able to pass the post with normal support votes would not be affected by this proposal at all; but if someone does not get enough full-out support votes to pass muster, and has enough provisional votes to make up the difference, then they are elected as a provisional admin. This would be exactly like a normal admin, but they would have to be re-elected after a set period of time (say, three months). Naturally, they could become a full admin on that second vote if they got enough normal full-support votes, after which no more voting would be necessary; they could continue on as a provisional admin if they still needed provisional votes to squeak through; or they could lose their provisional adminship. Candidates would have the option to pre-decline provisional adminship in their nomination acceptance if they find the idea distasteful, requiring full support/oppose votes from all voters, or to decline it after the vote if they decide on seeing the totals that it's not what they want. This proposal would allow for a measure of later review for some candidates without the chaos or bad blood of widespread reelections; indeed, by allowing for more nuanced votes, it would hopefully take much of the edge out of RfA. --Aquillion 05:22, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

To me, this is instruction creep. Make a way to de-admin people who abuse the privileges as easily as admins are made, and such a thing becomes very unneccessary. Friday (talk) 05:26, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
A streamlined de-adminship proposal, though, represents a far more serious form of instruction creep; no matter how carefully you word your criteria for de-adminship or how cleverly you set up the process, it would still be open to abuse and would become a set of rules and procedures that every single admin would have to know by heart if they wanted to avoid the risk of spurious de-adminship. Indeed, no matter how they ended up being handled, offical de-adminship proceedings would amount to a new structure on the scale of RfC, RfAr, or RfA itself, with all the attendant rules and regulations. Provisional adminship, on the other hand, would serve as a purely optional alternative available to voters and candidates, allowing for a way to defuse some of the nastier adminship proceedings without substantially adding to the rules under which most people operate. --Aquillion 05:41, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
  • First, it is instruction creep. Second, the issue attempting to be addressed is incivility in the RfA process. This can and should be addressed with individual incivil contributors in RfA, not by modifying the RfA process. --Durin 11:45, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Withdraw

I would like my RfA withdrawn, if this can be done. Thanks! — Wackymacs 08:03, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Ok I've taken care of it. Jtkiefer T | @ | C ----- 08:17, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
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