User:Durin/Withdraw policy

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In observing Wikipedia:Requests for adminship I have noticed a lack of consistent policy with regards to when a valid RfA should be withdrawn. The statement as of 3 November 2005 at WP:RFA regarding this is "Nominations that will clearly fail may be removed earlier to prevent discussions that generate ill will." Yet, there are no clear guidelines regarding when an RfA should be withdrawn; what defines "clearly fail"? There have been a number of people who have protested these actions. As of 31 January 2006 WP:RFA states "Only bureaucrats may close or de-list a nomination as a definitive promotion or non-promotion. In the case of vandalism, improper formatting or a declined or withdrawn nomination, non-bureaucrats may choose to de-list a nomination but they are never empowered to decide on whether consensus has been achieved". There is ongoing uncertainty on this point. This page is intended to assemble information regarding this issue.

Contents

[edit] RfAs pertinent to this issue

  • Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Adam1213 2; (January 2006). This was closed normally. It is interesting to note that after the RfA began and was clearly failing, the nominee requested the RfA remain open anyways, to gain input on what they could do better.

[edit] Prior discussions at WT:RFA about this subject

[edit] Reasons to not prematurely withdraw RfAs

  1. There is more to be gained from a failing RfA than just failure of the RfA. The candidate, if conscientious, will use the failed RfA as a list of what to do better for the next go around. This has been done multiple times.
  2. Without a complete RfA, other issues can arise in a future RfA that were not addressed in the original RfA. This is setting people up for repeated failure. This does not serve the candidates or the community very well at all. An example of the reverse can be found at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Alkivar 3, where a number of people raised concerns that had been raised in his second RfA. 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.
  3. Some RfAs have come back from a substantial deficit to become successful. For an example see [3], which at this point was 1 support 6 oppose. It finished 27-4. Note that some people changed their vote (see point 5 below).
  4. Closing an RfA early denies a nominee the opportunity of responding to concerns, for example to explain actions in a given incident.
  5. Closing an RfA early denies the opportunity for people who voted early to change their votes based on later information. Votes are frequently changed from support to oppose and vice versa.
  6. As a test of validity we can ask the opposite question to this issue. Our issue is does it make sense to prematurely close failing RfAs? The opposite question is does it make sense to prematurely close passing RfAs? There's been a number of RfAs that were doing well, and then suddenly went sour. Thus, it doesn't make sense to close passing RfAs. A possible conclusion from this is that it also does not make sense to prematurely close failings RfAs either.
  7. RfA isn't a vote. It's a consensus building tool. Bureaucrats have, can, and will disregard oppose and support votes to determine consensus. By closing early the bureaucrats are prevented from reviewing the RfA regarding such issues.
  8. RfAs are sometimes afflicted with sockpuppet voting. If we allow anyone to close failing RfAs, the closing person may not take due diligence in discerning what is and what is not a sockpuppet vote.
  9. Non-bureaucrats may not be familiar with RfA policies and procedures, yet if allowed to close failings RfAs could be acting contrary to RfA practice. This can cause a disruption to RfA.
  10. What do we define as failing? There's no clear criteria that can be established for what defines a failing RfA, since RfAs evolve over the duration they are posted at WP:RFA. A well-meaning RfA closer might close an RfA whereas if it was left unclosed two support votes might have come in within the next ten minutes, pushing the RfA over some theoretical line of acceptability.
  11. Users have been upset about having their RfAs closed prematurely. Most recently, User:Mb1000's latest RfA was closed prematurely, upsetting the user [4].
  12. Early removal can encourage some people to vote quickly, rather than slowly. This can lead to knee-jerk votes rather than votes made after reviewing a candidate. Support voters might move too rapidly to prevent RfAs from being prematurely closed.

[edit] Reasons to prematurely withdraw RfAs

  1. Prevent pile-on votes that can result in hurt feelings for the admin candidate. Some RfAs have resulted in the editor leaving Wikipedia permanently. Having a dozen of your closest friends oppose or vote neutral because they know you're not ready doesn't harbor well for your relations with them in the future, nor does it encourage you to continue participating. Even worse, having contributors feel forced to vote for candidates that are clearly not ready causes a breakdown of the RfA system that leads to all sorts of problems.
  2. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. We should be able to remove clearly failing RfAs since they have no chance of passing (see Wikipedia:Snowball clause).
  3. Failing nominations muck up the RfA list and make it too long
  4. RfA is not RfC; if you want people to comment on your actions, file an RfC. When we start allowing essential processes to take on unnecessary ancillary functions, we invite the further breakdown of our own systems.
  5. RfA is a Request for Adminship, not a Request-to-avoid-a-nasty-Request-for-Adminship-in-the-Future. This crowds up RfA, and can potentially come back to haunt the candidate on their "for real" request, when users pop up opposing due to the previous failed RfA(s).

[edit] Alternate courses of action

  • Some people have suggested removing failing nominations and then suggesting to the user that if they want it relisted that they should do so.
  • Some have suggested leaving a message on the user's talk page suggesting they withdraw rather than actually withdrawing the nomination for them.
  • If there were a minimum threshold (probably 1500 edits) for experience, most of the early terminations would not happen; it's RfDs for newcomers that are typically closed early by someone invoking WP:SNOW. If such a threshold were in place, it would be relatively easy to insist that only an admin can close an RfA early.
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