Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 17

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1: June-August 2003
Archive 2: August-December 2003
Archive 3: Discussion in December 2003 about time people should wait before making request and a note
Archive 4: Some January 2004 discussion
Archive 5: Discussion on January 8, 2004 about distributing the task of making other admins
Archive 6: (Greenmountainboy's claim about being attacked on this page (January 8-9, 2004))
Archive 7: Complaint against tannin (January 24-25, 2004)
Archive 8: Abuse of de-sysop area (January 30-31, 2004)
Archive 9: Discussion on January 31, 2004 about how to deal with misuse of admin privileges
Archive 10: Recent discussion archived in advance (February 2004)
Archive 11: Policy on Anons and this page (February 9, 2004)
Archive 12: Discussion on 19-25 February, 2004 about who can vote and how bureaucrats should be appointed
Archive 13: Discussion of what consensus is needed for a request (February-March 2004)
Archive 14: Polls on making all admins bureaucrats, and on possible minimum requirements for adminship (February-March 2004)
Archive 15: Discussion of nominators, self-nominations, and nominating procedures (March 2004)
Archive 16: Possible minimum requirements for voting, discussion and poll about bureaucrats exercising individual judgment in determining consensus (March-April 2004)

Toctallies

How do you think about this format? -> User:Someuser (x/y) where x is the count of Support votes and y is for Oppose votes. The (x/y) thingy is called a toctally (Table of Contents Tally). Toctallies are nice because we can see what's happening easily from the Table of Contents (TOC) without scrolling the page. But they need some maintenance/updating (just like the normal tallies) Optim 19:37, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Poll on toctallies/running totals (18 for / 16 against / 5 other votes)

Feel free to criticise. Optim 19:37, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I like Toctallies/running totals

Optim
Fuzheado - cool idea, funny name :)
- ~~Jwrosenzweig -- didn't think I'd like them, but having seen them in action, I changed my mind~~
Graham :) but I do wonder about their ease of maintenance.
Pfortuny 16:24, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC) (problem with maintenance serious).
Perl (If people remember to update the tally)
ugen64 21:09, Mar 15, 2004 (UTC)
- ~~Ruhrjung 21:45, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC) (stupid name, though) I don't care if they are out of sync now and then, but if they are so too often, then it's time to abolish them again~~ Have come to insight and changed my opinion. I like toctallies otherwhere, though --Ruhrjung 00:41, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Timwi 23:23, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Acegikmo1 04:04, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Woodrow 21:49, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
— Jor (Talk) 21:53, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC) Like the idea, hate the name. They just need to be updated.
Texture 22:12, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
It helps as a quick reference. Kingturtle 06:43, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I like them, its handy, darn it!!!! Sam Spade 00:29, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I like. jengod 19:32, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)
They're good. But is there any way to automate them? Αλεξ Σ 04:56, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Handy. ugen64 01:20, Apr 21, 2004 (UTC)
Handy. Nohat 02:51, 2004 Apr 21 (UTC)
Prefer. Infrogmation 17:59, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Like. But would vote to discontinue if I had to keep track : )Denni 04:53, 2004 May 4 (UTC)

I dislike Toctallies/running totals

→Raul654 00:32, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)
Hephaestos|§ 06:05, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
BCorr ¤ Брайен 18:25, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC) -- They're a shortcut that encourages voting -- even when you shouldn't. As I did with Gaz....
- HUH? - Gaz
Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 20:21, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC). Polls are not wiki.
Maximus Rex 06:23, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC) emphasis on numbers is not good, discourages discussion, using # self-enumerates
Anthony DiPierro 02:08, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC) too much of a pain to keep up to date, along with other problems listed above.
- overemphasize # of votes, which is already emphasized a bit too much (by using # instead of * for list-keeping), over quality/relevance of reasoning and/or consensus.
Danny 03:31, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
V V 06:09, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC) What I see is that toctallies are (a) not consistently maintained, (b) a nuisance to maintain, (c) pointless lengthening of the page history due to maintaining, (d) prone to create "edit conflicts" due to, well, maintaining, (e) not always clearcut to count, (f) not helpful (because of #), (g) prejudicial before reading what people actually say.
RickK | Talk 06:14, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC). What VV said.
Catherine 06:22, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC) Agree with VV. (h) needlessly pops Rfa up on Recent Changes and Watchlists many more times than necessary for those watching voting (I suppose it does draw more attention to the votes that way, but dislike it.)
Ryan_Cable 04:44, 2004 Mar 31 (UTC)
Michael Snow 22:02, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC) As pointed out by Silsor, toctallies make it impossible to use section headings as a link anchor, because the anchor keeps changing. Plus, they're rendered meaningless by the sockpuppetry currently going on, which I think toctallies only encourage.
Jwrosenzweig 20:32, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC) I know I'm waffling -- I initially thought they'd be a bad idea, but then they seemed positive. Now, though, their weaknesses are showing (VV explains it well) and I think it's time to cast them loose for this page. They are helpful for many of us, but they seem to cause too much trouble to be worthwhile.
+sj + 20:40, 2004 Apr 2 (UTC) Agree with VV, particularly the 'inaccurate' and 'prejudicial' bits -- you should surely read the initial post that went with a poll before getting to the current community vote. Also, they mess up anchors and intra-page linking (linking to a specific anchor tag).
I am in full agreement with VV. I find them an inconvenience which I've at times inadvertently miscounted. The automatic counts are more reliable. Jamesday 02:06, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I'm with VV - (PS: I didn't update the Toctally when I voted) - Gaz 12:13, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I don't care about Toctallies/running totals

Davodd 21:18, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)

I have mixed feelings about Toctallies/running totals

Seth Ilys 12:14, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC). It's useful for gaguing quickly where opinion is, but it tends to run contrary to the attitude of building consensus.
Cecropia 06:20, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC) I agree with the complaints involving the trivializing of comment into mere numbers and (especially) the pain of keeping them current. OTOH, I think most people naturally want to see that kind of summary information, so removing it would be upsetting. ~~How many think toctallies actually influence results?~~ Unless someone could show me that toctallies change the results, I would lean yes (include them).
Ruhrjung 00:47, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC) I agree with Cecropia and Bcorr (and others) above. Although it doesn't matter to me if peoples' voting is influenced. It's bad enough that we give an impression of 1/ one-man-one-vote and 2/ that there exists a treshold one has to pass to get appointed (80%?).
Jeandré If automated. It also breaks (sub)section editing if the yes and no are sections, like this vote was before I changed the sections to bold. 2004-04-12t01:21z

Discussion on Toctallies/running totals

I guess my plea for less polling and more discussion didn't get much of a hearing in the Optim household :-). ~~I have no opinion on toctallies because I have tocs turned off. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 19:53, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)~~

They are friendlier than the present system, just that. But! they may be misleading if they are not kept up-to-minute. I actually like them but I also dislike them. Where should I vote? Pfortuny 20:11, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

well, you should create a new vote category called "I like and I dislike toctallies" or choosing any other title you like. Optim 21:52, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I've made up my mind. It's quite useful, nice and cool! (maybe because I am there? :)Pfortuny 16:24, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

requests for my Adminship

Please review the following link, esp. if you are thinking of nominating me for admin [1] Sam Spade 03:38, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I liked this typo in the linked comment: "nobodies getting paid". We are nobodies... but if we're getting paid now no one told me about it :-). Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:08, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'd say were paid according to our status, just like anywhere. We just havn't got much status ;)Sam Spade 09:57, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Running totals

I wish to express my annoyance at the new practice of keeping running totals of votes here. I just had to post through an edit conflict due to it. I might be wrong, but I think most of the people here are capable of counting all by themselves, and those who aren't will probably be helped by the fact that votes are kept in an ordered list. These things will probably never be up to date anyway. - Hephaestos|§ 23:48, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with Heph

I was bold and removed the running totals. Kingturtle 00:21, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Gentlemen, you may be very accurate in your assessment, but if you'll look at this page, 5 people voted in the poll thus far, and all of us liked the toctallies. If you'd care to participate in our poll here rather than ignoring it, I think I'd be a lot happier. I like you both and respect you, but I'm feeling just a twitch hot under the collar right now that consensus (of admittedly only a few users) has been totally ignored. Jwrosenzweig 00:26, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

True. I didn't realize it was a poll. I was acting boldly. Shall I re-add the tallies? Kingturtle 00:29, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I think you should vote in the poll, and perhaps the poll should be more prominently announced (village pump?). Leave them out for now because it's a minor issue, and Optim's adding them was a bold action itself. I just want it recognized that his adding them (and the maintenance of them by others of us) was not done absent an honest attempt to seek consensus. If the consensus is to dump them, that's fine, but let's find out what the consensus is. :-) Jwrosenzweig 00:36, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yes I didn't realize there was a poll, sorry. - Hephaestos|§ 06:05, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Random TOC tally complaint + suggestion

Don't get me wrong, I like TOC tallies. But the biggest problem I've found with TOCtallies is that the link to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship#Fennec; ends 00:41 3 April 2004 won't stay put. One moment it could be :::The biggest problem I've found with TOCtallies is that the link to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship#Fennec; (4/1/0); ends 00:41 3 April 2004 will rapidly turn to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship#Fennec; (10/3/1) ends 00:41 3 April 2004 to whatever the next vote is. A consideration.

A possible solution. Make the user's name alone the heading, and then place the user's discussion status/end date in a separate heading, below the username. The disadvantage here is that the TOC length is nigh unto doubled. -- Fennec 20:26, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Just place it below, not in a separate section heading, and the TOC length is the same. Then you solve at least one of the problems with toctallies. --Michael Snow 01:08, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Ends is a mistake anyway - this isn't about deadlines, it's about consensus. The time is minimum time, not maximum time. I don't think the counts are of use - the individual votes and perhaps moving those which don't count, amount to an easier way to count. Jamesday 02:46, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Archiving all votes

I was told that there was no archive of votes on admins, aside from those who actually became admins. Shouldn't a page be maintained for those who didn't become admins as well, instead of having to sort through the history for the votes? CryptoDerk 12:01, Apr 4, 2004 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Recently created admins#Unsupported applications unless anyone objects to it being there. I'm not convinced it's needed or a good idea though. Angela . 17:35, Apr 4, 2004 (UTC)

Cecropia's late nomination

I want to thank each and every one of those who voted for me for my nomination for admin. I additionally want to thank those who took the trouble to read through all the material presented to determine whether or not I was fit for admin; and I have to say a special word for those who perceive my political beliefs to be different from theirs, but voted for my anyway because they thought I would be a good admin. This is what civilized discourse and reason are all about. And of course, I appreciate and am flattered by the kind remarks and evaluations many posted.

I also thank those who felt I wasn't qualified where their opposition came from a belief that I didn't have the qualifications at this time to be promoted.

For the very few who voted against me for on a political basis, especially if they thought that they would somehow be defeating my ideas by defeating me, please understand this: The world is bigger than you and me and Wikipedia. As I understand it, this is to be an encyclopedia. I find it an incredibly wonderful concept, which I elaborate on a bit more on my User Page. But you need to know that even a committed ideologue, who might be looking for factual material here, knows bias when they see it. If an article contains bias, and all the bias in an article is on one side, the entire credibility of the project is tainted. So, if you succeed in getting "the last word" in an article; if you succeed in driving off those with other views; you will have won a hollow victory, because the result will look too much like Rush Limbaugh, or Michael Moore, or the official press of a controlled state; so when you win, you lose.

Lastly, thanks to Ed Poor for bringing this all down to earth. Cecropia 03:06, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I apologize for adding an emendation to an already long post, but I wanted to mention this. I thought a number of times of simply withdrawing over the extra week and a half of this process—really, the mighty revert button didn't seem worth what appeared to be character attacks; but on reflection, I decided that if others could spend so much time reading all the material and even exploring my writings, the least I could do was see it through to a conclusion, no matter what it might be. Cheers! Cecropia 03:17, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Cecropia, we did not oppose because of your political views but because of your misbehaviour, shown by a specific example. I however have to admit that when doing this I had not really informed myself enough about what adminship means and to whom it should be granted. And while we continue to sicken each other - at least I guess I also sicken you sometimes - I point out that the only thing close to misbehaviour I have seen from you since was quickly dealt with. Our latest abuses consist of chatting on talk pages, which can also be done without admin rights... Get-back-world-respect 20:42, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

Except when there's a full moon... -- Cecropia 14:19, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

It's a shame how these polls almost always degenerate into popularity contests. -- Dissident 18:38, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I disagree. Even when candidates I support have been turned down, I would say that the majority of the votes on both sides were basing their votes on valid concerns. Granted, sometimes I disagreed, but I always recognized that the concerns had a basis in something real. I think on some occasions popular users get overwhelming support because they're popular, but I have never seen that effect allow the promotion of an unqualified administrator. Jwrosenzweig 18:55, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

My support or opposition is never based on whether I like someone. It is based on their time of service and their behavior. I have supported people I do not like and opposed people I like. Kingturtle 22:37, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I believe the official term for that phenomenon is "transition to WikiDemocracy". anthony (see warning) 21:02, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Promoting users despite lack of consensus

Moved from Wikipedia:Requests for review of admin actions

Recently Angela promoted Fennec, Ed Poor promoted Cecropia, and Cimon Avaro promoted Zero0000 to adminship even though none of them had 80% support, which is the threshold most people could agree on. Sysops are not entitled to make such arbitrary decisions as to define what a consensus is. There needs to be a fixed threshold, and if someone falls slightly short of it, then we have to say, too bad, but a near miss is still a miss. --Wik 00:52, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

I think this a policy issue, and should be discussed on wikipedia talk:requests for adminship rather than something which requires a review of admin actions. That talk page demonstrates that there is clearly no agreement on whether 80% is required, and when RfA candidates have narrowly missed 80%, no one has taken the decision to remove them from the page. It is not only bureaucrats who can make the decision to remove someone. If you think there is consensus on consensus meaning 80%, then you should remove those people before they are made sysops. I expect you might get reverted though. Angela . 08:10, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

Angela, I can't agree with that. If only Bureaucrats have the power of promotion, then only Bureaucrats should have the power to decide (outside of firm guidelines) that a close nomination should be removed. Admins have to make judgment calls all the time on issues like consensus on deletion, and those can be very contentious. To put it another way, the buck has to stop somewhere. Cecropia 15:53, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Non-sysops also have the ability to make decisions regarding pages listed on VfD. The only difference is that admins can delete pages. Any user can decide the consensus was to keep a page and remove it from VfD as long as they do so within the confines of the deletion policy. As explained at Wikipedia:Maintenance tasks, the idea that only sysops can deal with VfD is a common misconception.

I feel non-bureaucrats ought to be dealing with RfA. Before bureaucrats existed, Tim Starling was usually the developer who promoted sysops, but he very rarely removed anyone from the page who was not going to become an admin. That was left to whoever wanted to maintain the page. I see no reason for that to change now. Angela . 21:58, Apr 25, 2004 (UTC)

I'll also point out that the poll on which percentage should be required (see archive 16) currently shows only 61% of people wanting consensus to mean 80% or more. Therefore, if you believe consensus is 80%, this poll has no consensus. Angela . 08:35, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

Summary of the poll as of 23 April:
No fixed percentage (3) Mkweise, Michael Snow, Sverdrup
60% (2) Jor, Nico
75% (4) Cecropia, Stewart Adcock, Meelar, BCorr
80% (12) Sam Spade, Wik, moink, Dori, Jwrosenzweig, Raul, Isomorphic, Kingturtle, Mikez, Texture, UtherSRG, Dissident
90%+ (2) Jamesday, anthony

Let's not get silly. We have no consensus for "80%" but we have even less of a consensus, not even a majority, for any other number or other solution. But we need to have some procedure here, therefore we need to choose the one that comes closest to having a consensus. There is certainly less than 61% support for the current policy "just let sysops do what they want". So the 80% threshold should be definitive. And that's why I think you, Ed, and Cimon have acted incorrectly. Which is why I raised the matter on this page. It is also pointless to tell me I can remove those nominations when any bureaucrat can revert me and promote the user anyway. --Wik 14:59, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps 75% would be a better option, considering 75% of those in the poll support 75% or more. Angela . 15:13, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

That's a strange logic. You might as well say 0% would be a better option, considering 100% of those in the poll support 0% or more. The fact is that only 9 people in the poll consider 75% enough, but 14 don't. --Wik 15:22, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

Good point, but you still don't address the fact that whenever the vote has been between 75% and 80%, no one has removed the candidate from RfA. This suggests that even though more people support 80%, they don't support it strongly enough to actually do anything about it. This leads me to think more people would agree on 75%. Anyway, there is currently no such policy that says 80% is required, so the people you have listed here do not need their actions reviewed as they have not broken any policy. If you want 80% to be the policy, I suggest you add that to the page and then start enforcing it rather than complaining before the policy exists. Angela . 15:41, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

I just added it and was reverted. In any case, the vote on this page seems sufficient to me to establish the policy. I don't think the fact that no one has removed the candidates is relevant; I know I didn't remove them because I would just have been reverted by a bureaucrat. There may be a different opinion among bureaucrats than among the users in general, but they have no special authority to define policy, and the view of the users in general has been expressed in the poll. --Wik 16:07, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

I'm not surprised you were reverted considering only 61% of people agree with you. I'm not suggesting bureaucrats have any "authority to define policy"; I'm just saying that a policy of 80% is not something that is agreed on by a highly significant number of those voting. If I were going to vote, I would actually agree with you that, in most cases, it should be 80%, but I'm not going to vote because I feel that trying to enforce a strict numerical ruling is going to cause additional sockpuppet problems. As I explained before, I maintain my promotion of Fennec was justified. Angela . 16:31, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

Because my suggestion got archived I'll suggest it again: A bureaucrat should promote a user if (s)he gets at least 80% of all the voters or 75% of both all the voters as well as all the voting sysops separately unless there were any irregularities like suspicious users voting. In that case it becomes a judgement call (like now). -- Dissident (Talk) 16:04, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

No, sysops should not have a greater say in such matters. --Wik 16:07, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

Actually, they do -- Should bureaucrats be making judgement calls when promoting people to adminship? IE - should they take into account who the new users are and give their votes less weight (vote "yes")? Or, should they simply look for consensus (approximately 75%+) when promoting (vote "no") - 15 people thought so, and only 6 opposed. So it would seem that most people think that they are allowed to use their good judgement when deciding whether or not to promote someone. →Raul654 16:13, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

I only see 5 opposed there, Raul654. You crossed yourself out when you switched to yes, but didn't remove yourself from the no count. --Michael Snow 16:19, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Oops. Thanks for catching me. →Raul654 16:21, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

Please don't interpret the votes for "bureaucrats should apply their own judgement" as meaning "votes by sysops should be weighted more heavily than votes by non-sysops." I, for instance, support the first statement and not the second. I thought they should weight very new users who may be sockpuppets or unfamiliar with our policies more lightly, but I don't think my vote is more valid than Anthony's or Perl's or Wik's, all people who have been here longer than me, or even BKonrad, who has been here less long than me, but is obviously familiar with our procedures. moink 17:01, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

We're not talking about "new users" here. I don't think there was a concern about that. The support was below 80% among established users. And when you're quoting polls you will surely recognize the validity of the "80%" poll. So why did you revert my edit to that effect? --Wik 16:26, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

I reverted you because I agree with Angela's position - not everyone agrees that 80% is the magic number (hell, I can't even remember whether I voted for 75% or 80%), and I don't think we should be quoting it as if it were. Further, I think giving hard statistics like that only encourages sock-puppetry, which has been a problem as of late. →Raul654 16:50, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

Even less people agree with the existing policy. If you think "everyone" has to agree with a policy, then you can blank just about any policy page. In cases where there has to be a policy one way or the other, but there is no strong consensus for either, a simple majority obviously must be sufficient. Also, sockpuppets are irrelevant to this - they should of course be discounted. But in the case of Zero0000, for example, there were no sockpuppet suspects - it was clearly less than 80% support among fully qualified voters. --Wik 16:56, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by "validity", Wik, but I believe that quite a few people disagree with allowing a threshold on requests for adminship if it is set at 80%. And by quite a few, I mean that it may well exceed 20%. --Michael Snow 16:34, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Even more people disagree with any alternative. People have voted that they want a threshold, and then they voted that they want it to be 80%. So why is this not official policy? If you're saying there's no consensus for it, then remember there's even less of a consensus for the current de facto policy applied by Angela, Ed, and Cimon. --Wik 16:46, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

Where's the vote that says we want a threshold? --Michael Snow 16:49, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well, the same vote Angela quoted above. Only 3 users said there should be no fixed percentage. --Wik 17:02, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

The questions in that poll were:

Should there be a minimum number of edits / time someone has been here (or both) before their votes count?
Should bureaucrats be making judgement calls when promoting people to adminship? IE - should they take into account who the new users are and give their votes less weight (vote "yes")? Or, should they simply look for consensus (approximately 75%+) when promoting (vote "no")?
What is your comfort level on what constitutes consensus?

The only one of those that could conceivably indicate that people voted for a threshold is the no option from Poll #2, and as already pointed out, the vote there was 15 yes, 5 no. You can't read Poll #3 as saying that people wanted a threshold; those are simply opinions about where the threshold might be if we used one. --Michael Snow 17:17, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

No, as I said before the poll #2 was only about whether sysops could give less weight to the votes of new users. It goes without saying that all other users' votes carry the same weight. And people who don't want a threshold could have voted accordingly in poll #3 - only three did. --Wik 17:40, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

I don't see how Poll #3, as the question was phrased, supports at all the notion that people were voting to impose a threshold. If that's what the poll was about, then the question was so incredibly misleading that I don't think the results are "valid", as you have been arguing. --Michael Snow 17:47, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well, then let's have another poll. --Wik 18:01, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

The day that Wikipedia endorses voting as a decision-making tool is the day I quit Wikipedia. Our goal is to make a free, open, accurate and neutral encyclopedia. Everything else is secondary.

We only have conducted polls to facilitate the decision-making process, not to bind us with a tyranny of numbers.

For example, suppose if they did a quickpoll on some unpopular user (even one who seems like a "pest" to me) and the outcome was to ban them -- not for violating any rule but just because they simply got tired of dealing with them. What if that unpopular user was you? --Uncle Ed 17:27, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Voting is inevitable where one policy or the other has to be chosen, yet there is no consensus for either. --Wik 17:40, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

Poll

Should there be a fixed percentage of support votes needed to become admin, or should any bureaucrat be able to exercise their individual judgment to promote someone to admin, based on the bureaucrat's interpretation of the vote?

Is this poll determinant in any way? Pfortuny 18:39, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Fixed percentage

Wik 18:01, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC). Note that a vote for bureaucrat judgment means nothing more or less than that bureaucrats should have a greater say than ordinary users in who becomes an admin. What will happen is simply that whenever a bureaucrat likes a candidate he will be inclined to say "oh, those 75% are a good enough consensus, those opposing votes just make no sense" while on the other hand, if he does not like the candidate, he will be inclined to say "oh, those 80% are not a good enough consensus, there are some serious issues here". --Wik 18:40, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)
- With the very pronounced caveat that I do not speak for Angela or Ed, Let me allow your mind some rest on this precise question. I have had very minimal contact with Zero0000 before I made my decision. I did not recognize him at all from any context. I did not examine his edit history at all. I only went by the votes. Clearly they were against him by pure numbers. I thought is that where I can hang my hat on. The numbers were there. That is all she wrote? Why am I here then? Not some machine? I looked: "Is there any legitimate reason why the raw numbers should not count?"; and the answer was cler to me: Yup. Both opposing and supporting votes were very heavily weighted with users whose contributions were of a dubious pedigree. And this is where it got difficult for me. The numbers were clearly there to not sysop; if I wanted to, but did I have the right to want it? No. Not without further cause. And I am not likely to get it either... Wik is right in saying there is no justification in what I did where our rules are concerned.

Bureaucrat judgment

Michael Snow 18:05, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)
moink 18:27, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Jwrosenzweig 18:34, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC) With the caveat that it's obvious the community is demanding a fairly high supermajority standard (though the exact number is disagreed on), and that bureaucrats need to respect the community opinion (i.e., no promotions of users who win their vote 20-19). I have faith that the bureaucrats will, in fact, do this.
older ≠ wiser 19:11, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC) But there should be some guidelines and in cases where they exercise discretion they should have to give some sort of explanation. Guidelines such as more than 80% is clear consensus, no discretion; 70-80% dicretionary; below 70% unadvisable without an extremely good case for extenuating circumstances. Valid reasons *might* include discounting suspected sock puppets or very new users, or where one or two highly biased users might have poisoned the vote by making candidates appear more controversial than they are. (Though I'd hope the guidelines would not be too legalistic, 'cause once you start down that road there is no end to the proliferation of clauses and exceptions.)
→Raul654 19:21, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)
This no longer affects me personally, but my basic feelings remain the same. Either we have to give bureaucrats some discretion to look into contentious cases in the 75-80% or so range, or we have to make some kind of ironclad rules. But even then, it does not seem as simple to me as xx% good, xx%-1 no good. You should also figure total number of votes that show interest. We have admins appointed this year with 4 to 6 votes total. Is that the definition of consensus? No disrepect to the admins involved--they were appointed before this became a battle zone. My case I had 36 positive votes and 10 negatives (1 vote less than 80% on a huge voting base), with spirited and specific debate. What that says to me is: if you want to be an admin, never try to work on a contentious subject. No matter how fair you feel you are being, an advocate for one view or the other will decide you are poison.

I especially can't see 80% as hard and fast when any one negative wipes out four positives. Do you take into account that someone has been campaigning (notes on user pages, etc.) for or against a nomination? What about where people are convinced to vote by an opponent's baseless, notably POV, or simply lying charge? As in real-world politics, many good people will decide that the destination is not worth the journey. Cecropia 19:55, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Cecropia raises good points, and I think the nature of the votes should be considered. Users who edit in controversial areas plagued by factionalism are likely to make some enemies. Unless the opposition is fact-based and relevant, it need not be given a great deal of weight. And yes, I too believe that this should remain "no big deal." UninvitedCompany 21:01, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- If we let bureaucrats decide which opposition is "relevant" we don't need to vote in the first place. Just let the bureaucrats promote whoever they want. --Wik 21:04, Apr 25, 2004 (UTC)
BCorr|Брайен 13:09, Apr 26, 2004 (UTC)
As the matter is not seemingly going to be automatized, then in any case it would require a bureaucrat making a judgment (at least "I am going to promote this one"). Pfortuny 18:43, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Neither

Anyone who can prove their identity and asks for adminship should be an admin until de-adminned. anthony (see warning)

Comments

Reagrding Wik's comments, I can't answer for the bureaucrats, but I know that, were I to be one, I would be very careful to preserve fairness -- anyone below 80% that I had vocally supported, I would probably leave for someone else to make the final decision on. I believe I can trust the bureaucrats to do this. Jwrosenzweig 18:49, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Having bureaucrat judgement will tend to bias a bit in favor of making people admins, since it only takes one bureaucrat saying "Ok, I believe this is consensus." But, since Jimbo has said that this should be "no big deal," I think that that is the appropriate bias. I also note I can't ever recall Wik voting in favor of someone. He only picks and chooses who he will vote against. That may have something to do with his desire for tighter standards. Isomorphic 20:06, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

In all fairness, Wik does vote in favor of people on some (rare) occasions. If I were not aware of those specific cases, I might be inclined to say the same thing. →Raul654 22:54, Apr 25, 2004 (UTC)

Perceived unanimity

If someone is getting twenty or thirty "support" comments, and no oppose or "other" comments, do we still need to wait a full 7 days? I'm itching to press the button for Michael Snow! --Uncle Ed 12:29, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

That's easy for you to say: but what if you promote him too soon and we find out he's really Osama bin Laden ... or ... JOHN ASHCROFT?!?!?! (OK, OK, so do it already) -- Cecropia 13:03, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Since 7 days is the established minimum period for votes, I believe we should stick to it in all cases. Some people may be relying on that fact, and only check out the activity on RfA once a week or so. It's kind of Ed to be so eager on my behalf, but I ask for a little patience. Whether I become an admin today, tomorrow, next month, or never at all is not such a big deal, but it would be a big deal to me if I felt the process hadn't been followed properly - I'd feel like I should be de-sysoped and go through the process again. (As to my identity, I assert that this is my real name, but you may want more proof than that.) --Michael Snow 20:40, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Bureaucratic judgment

I pressed the "grant sysop rights" button for Cecropia. It wasn't an easy decision to make, but I think it was the right one.

Based on numbers alone, of course, he did not "win". If winning is defined as getting 80% support from those "voting", then 78% was a tad short. But the "dangling chad" in the whole thing was that it should be no big deal.

The over-arching principle of stewardship has always been, and always will be, what is best for the mission of Wikipedia.

Based on the comments and "votes" I made a judgment call: that Wikipedia would be better off with than without Cecropia's adminship. (If he messes up totally and goes on a bin Laden or Ashcroft rampage with his sysop powers, I'll pay a big price, to be sure!) But we never agreed to make "rank" a popularity contest.

The king is still Jimbo. I serve the king. --Uncle Ed 13:16, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Really, Unca Ed, even the people (or person) who opposed me the most can get a good night's sleep and find Wikipedia much the way it was before I became an Admin. The thing that surprised me was the intensity of one editor's attacks, essentially because of one article, which I probably wouldn't even have bothered with much if it wasn't such an incredible polemic when I first saw it. Frankly, I'm happiest when I'm rewriting the unreadable of which I have some knowledge, when I'm adding a new bit of arcana, or I'm starting a new article on an esoteric subject. However, I will say that edit wars are bad enough, but trying to drive out people you disagree with is a little over the line. -- Cecropia 17:32, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I dare say the two of you make this way too much into a personal issue. ;->

— Try to see the Case Cecropia as the illustration of the problem instead!

--Ruhrjung 00:52, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Minimum qualifications

I sense that there has been a creeping upwards of what is considered the minimum length of involvement and minimum number of edits to qualify someone for adminship, at least on the part of some voters. This trend started a year ago when the nomination process moved here from the mailing list and has continued over the last twelve months. I do not believe this is in the best interests of the project for these reasons:

Generally, the more admins, the better; particularly if we ever do receive a rapid influx of new contributors
Promoting people early limits the sense of elitism that may otherwise develop
A culture of granting adminship widely and soon would help us in the future if we should feel the need to make features admin-only
A numeric count of edits is misleading. Some activities, such as fixing broken redirects or typos, allow contributors to rack up edits rapidly, while fact-checking, careful research, and addition of new, well-referenced material do not.

I believe that adminship should be granted, or not, primarily based on understanding of the Wikipedia way of doing things and a willingness to work collaboratively. A history of contributions is important, yes, but I am concerned when I see a "no" vote solely because someone has "only 800" contributions. UninvitedCompany 17:32, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I tend to agree. I had 500 edits or so when made an admin, and no one raised the issue at all. I think that under 200 edits or so does leave you too short, and that under 8 weeks does make it hard to be sure about a person's temper/reaction to disagreement, etc., but beyond that I don't understand. Some editors I respect very much say repeatedly (and apparently seriously) that one needs in excess of 2000 edits to be an admin. I have to say I disagree, and wonder where this new perspective came from? Jwrosenzweig 17:43, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I totally agree. The guidlines reccommend that a nominee be a trusted member of the Wikipedia community. This shouldn't mean they have to have worked 3 hours a day plus for 8 months. I would suggest that if the community feels a user is ready and trustworthy, and like Jwrosenzweig said, been around for more than 8 weeks with 200+ edits, there is no reason they shouldn't be made an admin. LUDRAMAN | T 19:18, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps this is related to people realising how difficult it is to desysop someone once they become an admin. Adminship is practically a permanent position, which may be a problem. If someone has only been here a few weeks, there is no real way of knowing that they can be trusted. If I could vote "support" but then in a few months time change that vote, then I would be far more likely to support the applications of very new users, but the current system means that once someone is in, they are basically a sysop forever, even if they turn out to be untrustworthy. This makes the principle of first trust a dangerous thing to rely on when it comes to supporting requests for adminship. Perhaps people would lower their requirements for nominations if something like the confirmation of sysophood became compulsory. If decisions could be more easily reversed at a later date, there might be no need to wait for someone to have been here three months/ got 1000 edits etc. Angela . 22:41, Apr 27, 2004 (UTC)

I think you're right. When someone says in their support vote "so what if he's new, he hasn't done anything wrong, give him a chance" it makes me very wary. Desysopping is so rare that it has become this huge deal and a huge insult that causes the contributor to leave the project. If desysopping were made less of a big deal and a more common action, I would support more newish users. moink 23:28, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

My self-request for adminship was approved by a vote of 4-0. Damn - I guess those days are long gone... →Raul654 23:35, Apr 27, 2004 (UTC)

I can't say I agree with "the more admins, the better". I can think of only a few benefits from having lots of admins. Faster speedy deletions, which isn't really that big of a deal. More people able to easily see deleted articles to check for abuse, which is a power that every logged in user should have (or at least everyone in some category between admin and editor). And more people with the ability to easily revert vandalism, another power every logged in user should have. anthony (see warning)

There are those, but I think the major reason more admins is better is more about diversity of admins. The more of us there are, the harder it is to get us to agree on any point except the protection of Wikipedia. And that way we can't really behave like a junta or a cabal or whatever it is we're so often accused of being. We can't use our collective additional power (small as it is per each individual) to freeze out a less common POV. I'm not sure whether or not this works, but that's the idea. moink 00:05, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It could work that way, but the way things work, with it mostly being admins voting on whether or not to include new admins, really what it's doing is making the "junta" or "cabal" (not my words either) even stronger, because any diversity which exists is quickly drown out by the replenishment of admins who fit in with the supermajority. It's not like a single admin who disagrees with most other admins really can do very much. I don't know though. I think the more important questions are what powers do admins have and how are they expected to use those powers (only upon consensus support, 2/3, however they see fit, 51% of admin support?). Personally I feel admins should only act upon the consensus of the community, in which case they are really just acting administratively and their POV is irrelevant (note that acting upon consensus doesn't preclude being bold until someone stands up and objects). I guess this isn't really the reality though, and maybe I should just accept that. anthony (see warning) 00:29, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Layout

I am not sure if this is the right place to ask, but would it not be easier if this page and for example Vandalism in progress had a layout like that of Vote for deletion such that every nomination could be kept as an entry of the watchlist? I certainly would not want this whole page on my watchlist since it is so frequently edited but placing a particular nomination on the watchlist would facilitate following. Get-back-world-respect 20:46, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

VfD switched to that format because it was getting far too large and unwieldy, and edit conflicts happened constantly. This page is big right now, but it's usually not anywhere near this large. Isomorphic 21:22, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Isomorphic -- I think this is a very unusual number of nominations. And GBWR, I don't really understand why you wouldn't want this on your watchlist? It's only one page. It would actually take up more room on your watchlist to have to watch all those separate votes, I would think. Maybe I don't understand your objection? :-) Jwrosenzweig 21:53, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

I do not want all votes on my watchlist, only the ones I am interested in because I do not want to overlook a question as last time when Cecropia got nominated and asked me why I thought he had misbehaved. It does not make sense to put a page on your watchlist that always shows up because it gets constantly changed. I see the same problem with "vandalism" and "protection" and the page where you ask for advice. Get-back-world-respect 01:29, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Too many admins?

(I expect this to stir up an ugly discussion. Sigh...) We now have upwards of 220 admins, with 17 more candidates on this page. In short - do we need so many admins? I know a lot of Wikipedians, and I personally don't recognize most of those people up for adminship, or at best known very little about most of them. Am I the only one who feels this way? →Raul654 02:33, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

Well, what would be the symptom of the disease of toomanyadminitis (i.e. how can we test the hypothesis that there are too many)? I'd guess "ban wars", "protect wars", "delete/undelete wars"? I've not been keeping sufficient tabs on things to know if any of these have occurred or not. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 02:39, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

I'm worried too. For me it's more that we're increasing the number very quickly with (I suspect) not too as much knowledge about their behavior as we used to have about nominees. While on the one hand there's a culture of letting anyone generally trusted be a sysop -- It should be no big deal is the phrase used I think -- there's also a culture based on knowing each other (by reputation, style, and history). On the other hand, the ever-increasing numbers of users makes it a challenge for sysops to keep up with maintenance, vandalism, etc. Also, as Angela noted in a somewhat related previous discussion:

"I don't think that people realize how difficult it is to desysop someone once they become an admin. Adminship is practically a permanent position, which may be a problem. If someone has only been here a few weeks, there is no real way of knowing that they can be trusted. If I could vote "support" but then in a few months time change that vote, then I would be far more likely to support the applications of very new users, but the current system means that once someone is in, they are basically a sysop forever, even if they turn out to be untrustworthy. This makes the principle of first trust a dangerous thing to rely on when it comes to supporting requests for adminship. Perhaps people would lower their requirements for nominations if something like the confirmation of sysophood became compulsory. If decisions could be more easily reversed at a later date, there might be no need to wait for someone to have been here three months/ got 1000 edits etc."

I'm not sure what (if anything) should be done, but I think that we need to be thinking about this and figuring out what protocols and customs should be examined and possibly modified. -- BCorr|Брайен 02:51, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

I think that we simply can't have as much knowledge as we did even when I got here (November 2003). But slowing down the pace of nominations isn't fair to new users, who are just as qualified as some who got here earlier. I could perhaps support confirmation of sysophood, but wouldn't it just cause huge amounts of wikipaperwork for few results? I don't think there have been that many problems with abuse of sysop powers, or at least none that I've heard of, and most anybody would scream to high heaven at even a whiff. I think we're going to have to get used to it. Meelar

The huge current number of prospective sysops may be just a glitch. But there's a bit of a problem as I investigate anyone I vote on and the big number makes it difficult to to look at everyone. Would it make anyone more comfortable if we were to limit the number of sysop nominations at any one time to, say, 7, or some other number, so that we would have to wait for someone to be taken off the list to add another? -- Cecropia 03:03, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

The more responsible people we can find to be admins, the better. This project grows every day. We cannot keep up with the maintenance unless we continue to have more hands on deck. Kingturtle 03:06, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

I should point out that the number of admins is growing *far* faster than the number of articles we have. →Raul654 03:07, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

A more accurate metric might be rate of admin growth compared to rate of growth in users. Meelar 03:09, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Does anyone have some stats on that? →Raul654 03:18, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

Also - just to answer to the above, I have noticed that a lot of times when someone bans a user indefinietely, someone else comes along and unbans him. Off the top of my head, I know that Uncle Ed unbanned Plautus after Jimbo banned him; Martin (myreddice) has on several occasions unbanned users after they were banned. →Raul654 03:24, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

On the other hand, all these examples involve users who have been here for a good while. Meelar 03:28, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Touche. I should also point out that the more 'established' admins are probably responsible for the vast, vast majority of bans. →Raul654 03:30, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

(grin)One might argue that all sysops' appointment should come up for annual review/renewal, not least because the standards that applied in the past may not apply now. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 03:31, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Stats on that - new Wikipedians with 10+ edits. About +600 per month for the last 3 months. I'd be interested to see an admin versus nunber of users graph - my guess is it wouldn't support the original proposition. --Tagishsimon

Admins:

May 1 - 215
Apr 1 - 194
Mar 1 - 169
Feb 1 - 153
Jan 1 - 143
Dec 1 - 128

New admins created

Apr - 21
Mar - 25
Feb - 16
Jan - 10
Dec - 15

Now someone make me a graph :) →Raul654 03:39, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

Image:Admingraph.jpg

Here you guys go :) →Raul654 03:47, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

PS - March is purple, Yellow is APril, Feb is blue, Jan is Red, Decmeber is green.

This looks approximately linear, as it should, though it would be interesting to get more datapoints. I think the only long-term solution to the "I can't know all the admins" problem is to make sure that any abuse of admin powers is yelled about in every possible venue. I would not support any kind of restriction--it feels too much like a cabal. In fact, by having this conversation, I'm probably already a member. But in all seriousness, I can't see any solution other than somehow limiting adminship. And I haven't seen any proposals for that which could be both fair and useful. Meelar 06:13, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Statistical anaylsis on admins vs indicators

Ok, god help me, I put my engineering training to use. I waded back through wikistats and the page history for the admin page going back to April '03. I put them into an Excel document together and generated some nice graphs. You can get them here Wikianalysis.xls.

The gist of it is - my hunch was right on. Our admin/article count is the 2nd highest its ever been, although our admins/contributor isn't terribly high (which I suspect is from a large number of anon IPs making a small number of edits). Anyway, everyone please let me know what you think. →Raul654 06:51, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the charts. Anyway, my interpretation of them is thus: as Wikipedia grows, the number of new users is increasing faster than the number of new articles. Since new admins go up with new users, this creates upward pressure on the admins/article measure.

I think that this "new users increase faster than new articles" phenomenon is reasonable. Many, many topics are going to be covered--a new user in March 2004 will have fewer red links to follow, and fewer truly encyclopedic topics unwritten about. Thus, users increase, leading to an increase in admins. Meanwhile, the article count grows as well, but slower. Not a problem--it just means that more work is getting done on our existing articles. Meelar 07:00, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

From what I can tell from the chart, the highest admin/contribution percentage was 0.035566584 on 10/1/03. To match that percentage today, we would need to have over 240 active admins. As for the Admins/thousand articles percentage...I think three-quarters of one percent is a tiny amount. I think we should shoot for 1%. The idea of an admin is utilitarian. Admins clean and maintain. I think we need more admins. Kingturtle 07:11, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Yes, we need more admins - there are hundreds of out-and-out vandal assaults each day (by which I mean changes that all Wikipedians would agree are bad), and it's very disturbing to look at an article for the first time and discover little vandalisms that went unnoticed for weeks or months. We also need to not chase away or discourage existing admins. Stan 16:15, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Renewal?

One idea that might address (e.g.) Angela's concerns about the irrevocability of sysophood is to have periodic "renewal" periods for admins, say every four or six months or so. There could be a poll about whether to keep that person on as an admin, and proceedings would begin if there's opposition to doing so. Of course, this level of accountability may make some who take their status for granted uncomfortable, but it would address this issue, as well as the "missing Wikipedians" with admin status issue (if the admin disappears their status would lapse on its own). Perhaps current admins would want to grandfather themselves in with lifetime immunity, or at least a longer duration. Well, just a thought. (Another thought was to have a "trial" period for new admins, but I don't really like it.) -- V V 08:18, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

I don't think this would really be an improvement. How many admins would be voted down that don't have complaints about them already? It would create a lot of needless paperwork, but I believe that it would not weed out any more problem admins than we currently are. Renewal would just turn automatic, and it would create simply another hassle. Meelar 14:14, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

I have to agree with Meelar. If there are problem admins noone seems to be making an effort to remove them as it is. Requiring periodic affirmation of all admins seems like a passive-aggressive way to put a tiny number of admins up to a vote--greatly expanding time spent on politics instead of Wiki. -- Cecropia 14:34, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

A passive-aggressive way to put a tiny number of admins up to a vote? I wonder who that could be. I bet it's not RickK. 172 17:29, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Renewal is indeed a lot of work. Who'd want to vote on 200+ people again? Perhaps a better idea would be to have a renewal poll only if several, non-new (meaning there has to be some limitation to discourage sockpuppets) editors request it. This way, bad admins would be forced to renew, but you wouldn't bother with good admins. And I don't think there is a big deal to be made about inactive admins. It's not like anything bad is going to happen because of them. Dori | Talk 14:39, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

How is this different from the "Requests for Review" page or whatever we have now? Meelar 14:45, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

I think renewal is a good idea in principle, but there's a few alterations I'd make to VV's proposal:

Longer term, say 12 months
Staggered renewal, say 25% every 3 months
Support in software

I think the administrative overhead would indeed be very high if it wasn't supported in software. -- Tim Starling 15:21, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

It seems to me we are about to embark on another new procedure without clear guidelines. We still don't have any bright line to determine adminship in the first place. No qualification for voters. No proof of assertions made for or against. No percentage or any other firm means for indicating approval. So on what basis do we decide to renew or remove. WIll a simple majority against remove an admin? Or two thirds? Or do we go the other way and expect 80% support to keep an admin? If we do that, then a disgruntled 21% minority can remove an admin. Is that what we intend? -- Cecropia 15:34, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

I don't think renewal is a good idea even in principle. I can't see what good it would do. theresa knott 15:42, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Indeed. There is a page for possible abuses of admin power- what's wrong with using this? Perhaps we can alter policy to allow removal of adminship via that route to have less strict requirements (simple majorities, 2/3, some fraction...) I'll also note that "implemented in software" sounds like it'd make us more vulnerable to sock puppet games. - Fennec 15:45, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. Unless it is proposed that there are too many admins, then I can see no reason to vote again on those already in place. Warofdreams 16:07, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

I can also imagine it becoming a forum for sour grapes. Admins are frequently the ones who deal with inappropriate behavior, which breeds resentment even if the admin is acting completely within bounds. Isomorphic 19:14, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Can we please just file this idea away under "Worst Idea Ever" and forget it ever existed? →Raul654 19:19, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

I sympathize with some of the noted problems, and was just throwing this out as an idea, but this is way too dismissive and possibly rude. -- V V 01:51, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Actually, I was doing that to blunt my criticisms, but if you want the "less dismissive" version, so be it:

Not only is this idea is a logistical nightmare and a gigantic waste of valuable contributor time, but it opens the flood-gates for everyone (read - trolls and vandals) to try to de-sysop their least favorite admins (read - the ones who are most active in fighting vandals/vandalism). Further, I think even suggesting this idea is dangerous because it puts the idea out there in concerete form and gives it a sort of "precedence" - IE, that it's already been suggested. Furthermore, I don't see how it improves on our current system at all - why should we have to tend to vote in all the good admins on the off chance that one or two bad ones slip in? Isn't this what the review of admin actions page, requests for desysoping page, mediation, and arbitration committees are for? →Raul654 01:46, May 7, 2004 (UTC)

There must be accountibility. This may not be perfect, but there must be a way. Perhaps a running tally vote? See Wikipedia:Vicious cycle. Sam Spade 20:23, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Fennec that the page for complaining about admins should be used in cases in order to find out whether adminship should be removed. But I have never seen that page, where is it? Get-back-world-respect 01:47, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

We already have Arbitration and Mediation to deal with (among other things) admins-gone-bad and admin-accountibility. How many systems do we need? Each of us has plenty on our plate. I really don't want to waste our time setting up a system involving 200+ revotes in revolving intervals. Are you guys watching too much Survivor? Kingturtle 02:12, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Furthermore, you should all consider raising the bar you use for minimum requirements for a new admin. I think people give support to people who have too little experience in this community and/or in this environment. Don't feel badly for opposing a nomination. Kingturtle 01:13, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Kingturtle, I know your bar is higher than most, and that's fine. But I think it would help if some kind of guideline were spelled out, just to give a point of reference. Like two, or three, or four, or five, or whatever months of more or less continuous edits, and a minimum number of non-trivial edits. But give some specific numbers, otherwise we're wrangling over it forever. -- Cecropia

Just out of curiousity, how long were you around and how many edits did you have when you became an admin, Kingturtle? I realize the standards may be different now. Maximus Rex 01:51, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

I don't believe that any there has been any series of events, or even really any isolated event, that would lead us to believe that adminship is being granted broadly enough to pose a problem. The only thing I can think of is the recent misunderstanding on the meta involving Perl, and that has been addressed through a policy change and is a situation unique to the meta. The abuses and desysoppings that have occured in the past have involved well-seasoned admins who, for one reason or another, became fed up with the project and needed the community's help to depart in an appropriate manner (e.g. Kils). Neither raising the bar nor periodic reviews would have helped with that.

If we were to make a change, we could ask prospective admins whether they are really committed to following recent changes and vfd and so forth. UninvitedCompany

Notes

I make no objections to the removal of the nomination, as it was clear that said nomination would not pass at the present time. I request that no one nominate me for adminship during the next 6 months.

However, one user claimed that I committed "vote vandalism" when a nominee who should have had 15 votes was listed as having 14. I never did that. If it occured during an edit of mine, it was purely accidental.

Secondly, the vote by anonymous troll 172.196.208.96 should not have been counted; anonymous users may not vote. Best to all, Mike Church 08:59, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

You removed two actual votes that were spread across three edits [2], all of which were made more than an hour before you removed them. It's rather difficult to do that by accident. -- Cyrius|&#9998 10:24, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

Vandal votes

- Does a vote of a user count who continuously attacks others personally, breaks the three revert rule in order to spread his personal opinion, against the warning of many others, describes himself on his talk page as "banned from too many chat rooms to mention" and writes "Sometimes when I feel like killing someone, I do a little trick to calm myself down. I'll go over to the person's house and ring the doorbell. When the person comes to the door, I'm gone, but you know what I've left on the porch? A jack-o-lantern with a knife stuck in the side of its head with a note that says 'You'. After that I usually feel a lot better, and no harm done."? Get-back-world-respect 01:58, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

I don't know who you're referring to, but in generally the answer is "yes and no". Remember that these are not strict numerical votes. So yes, the bureaucrat will see the vote, but if said user is objecting to a nomination, the bureaucrat might consider it a non-credible objection. Isomorphic 02:44, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

I hate to burst your bubble, but that saying "Sometimes when I feel....'you':" is a reference to Jack Handy from SNL. Raul654 forgot to sign.

I do not see any bubble bursting, whatever he refers it shows he is not a guy with good manners. Isomorphic, I know that admins should take into account credibility, but have admins the time to check all voters for their credibility? Get-back-world-respect 19:10, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Get back world respect - what are you doing? You can't get rid of TDC's vote, just because you don't like him. He has every right to say whatever he likes on his userpage. theresa knott 19:59, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

I do not know him, how can I not like him? I do not like his edits, and there are good reasons why. He already got banned once, he is listed as a vandal, and continues to misbehave. Get-back-world-respect 23:38, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Firstly, don't play word games, I don't care if it's him you don't like, his edits, his behaviour, whatever, the fact is that unless he is banned by the AC he get's a vote. How much notice a bureaucrat takes of his vote, or yours, or anyone's for that matter is up to them. They are expected to exercise good judgement.theresa knott 16:06, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

GWBR, on the credibility check question, I think you mean bureaucrats, not admin, as that's who has the ability to promote. And the answer is that bureaucrats are generally the most active, longest-serving, and most trusted contributors. In general they don't have to check anything, because they know the regulars. If they don't know the background of a conflict, though, it's pretty easy to go look. Isomorphic 05:40, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Of course, cf "Too many admins", above. Meelar 16:44, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Lst27's nominations

I am removing the following nomination because I believe it is inappropriate. User:Lst27 has nominated six individuals for adminship during his eight weeks of participation at Wikipedia. Only one of these nominations has actually been approved by the community. I believe these nominations are a distraction to the community and are a source of embarassment for the nominees. I have asked for an explaination on User_talk:Lst27 and received no reply. At a minimum, I believe that Lst27 should explain his rationale for these nominations before continuning them or reinstating AaronSw's nomination, which I have moved below.

UninvitedCompany 19:22, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

User:AaronSw (1/1/0)

AaronSw has been making a lot of good contributions since August 2003 and has a lot of experiences with Wikipedia. --Lst27 22:05, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Support:

Lst27 22:05, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Oppose:

Misterrick's nomination

Why did UninvitedCompany remove my nomination before the closing date? You are not giving others members of Wikipedia the opportunity to vote. It may have seem that I was not getting support but you never know what might happen last minute, Also why have a closing date if you are going to ignore it anyway by removing the nomination before users get a chance to vote. The nomination should remain until the closing and then and only then be removed. It seem apparent to me that the actions taken by UninvitedCompany were a blaten violation of Wikipedia rules and therefore I insist that my nomination be reopened for additional time so that all Wikipedia members can get their votes in. Misterrick 17:44, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

You may certainly move it back if you wish. Policy is that widely opposed nominations are removed when it becomes clear that the nomination won't be supported. UninvitedCompany 16:58, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

UninvitedCompany All I was asking for is a fair opportunity that's all, Nothing more.... Nothing less... Misterrick 18:03, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

Sure, but a continuous barrage of oppositions would be considered embarassing by virtually everybody, even if some support has been rallied subsequently. UC simply executed this very sensible policy. JFW | T@lk 11:39, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

Criteria

I have written a summary of the criteria I use for supporting nominations. Prospective nominators and nominees may find it helpful, and they and other may wish to comment on it on the related talk page. UninvitedCompany 18:30, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

Mydogategodshat

I don't think it's fair to keep on putting Mydogategodshat through RfA when he has clearly stated he does not wish to be an administrator. I've removed the vote until such a time that he says he accepts the nomination. It can be replaced from this version if that ever happens. When someone's nomination is obviously controversial, they should at least have the choice of whether they want to be considered. Angela . 07:01, May 13, 2004 (UTC)

Obviously unqualified nominations

If noone objects, I'd like to put a notice at the top of the page explaining that nominations of users with <100 edits will be removed without need to vote. I don't view this as a "qualification" so much as a recognition that such nominations will never succeed given the general feelings of the Wikipedia community. Such nominations end up serving only as a whipping post for the candidate, and as a minor waste of time for the other contributors here. There's no reason for them to stay up for a full-length vote, and I'd like to have the notice up so that people can't complain that we haven't "let the wiki process work" or whatever it was that JRR Trollkien whined about when we removed his joke nomination of Sayyed al afghani. Isomorphic 19:52, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

I second that. --Cluster 20:09, May 15, 2004 (UTC)

I believe that should also include candidates recently turned down, say, in the last month or so. UninvitedCompany 20:34, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

I agree, but how about in the last two weeks? I wanted to make this as noncontroversial as possible, and some people (myself included) might accept a renomination in, say, 3 weeks for some cases. Isomorphic 20:54, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

Also, users nominated who have been here less than a month should also be removed without need to vote. --Lowellian 21:26, May 15, 2004 (UTC)

How about simply stating that certain qualifications are expected as a bare minimum, and that nominations that don't meet them are virtually certain to be rejected? I don't think it's necessary to state an explicit policy of deleting. If people want to go ahead anyway to see what will happen, let them. I don't see that much time need be wasted. Given such a qualification, the first response could be "Oppose: doesn't meet minimum qualifications," and there could be a tradition that in such cases nobody else even bothers to vote. Indeed, the person making the first nomination could put a boldfaced line under the title line saying "Does not meet minimum qualifications."

I think a 0/1/0 vote on an unqualified nomination would send a clear message, and not give much food to trolls. Eventually someone needs to judge consensus on making him an admin, so any game-playing or sock-puppet voting could be dealt with in however it's dealt with now.

And, by making the consequences vaguer ("virtually certain to be rejected") it becomes possible to set the bar on qualifications higher and make them more realistic. You could say 500 edits are needed, without fearing that some petty authoritarian will delete a nominee with 499 edits. Dpbsmith 22:51, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

Actually, I see the page sort of says that already, but it could be made stronger--particularly with regard to self-nominations--and more specific. If we can say "many months" we can say "at least several hundred edits." Dpbsmith 22:55, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

I decided to "be bold" and put a notice under the self-nomination heading. Take a look, edit and/or delete as necessary. Dpbsmith 23:19, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

When did we get so biased against self-noms? I personally wouldn't require a self-nomination to have any higher standards than a nominee. I would like to remove the "it is recommended that you exceed the standards by a good margin". Meelar 05:29, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

The phrase was added at 09:29, 5 May 2004 by User:UninvitedCompany with the edit comment "(update policy to reflect our actions regarding recent events)" Dpbsmith 10:19, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Archive_15

|Archive 15] has a section Self-nominations beginning with a 29 Feb 2004 note from Isomorphic: "Do we really want to allow self-nominations? Lately I've been looking at this page and seeing self-nominations from clearly unqualified people (not implying that most of the self-nominations are such, but there's been several lately that were.) This bothers me because it puts others in a position of having to oppose and state why, and it could hurt the feelings of the user in question. This is especially true for newer users who don't completely understand how the site works...

Dpbsmith 10:26, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

Concur with Dpbsmith. There's one BUT - how can we stop anyone from getting a seperate username to nominate his alter ego? JFW | T@lk 11:33, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

I guess what would be better would be a listing of some set of minimal requirements, and not requiring self-noms to do any more than other nominations. Maybe 1 month and a couple hundred edits? Meelar 17:11, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

Meh. I didn't want this to become a long discussion. The page already gives some vague guidelines for what would make a successful nomination, and I wasn't trying to change those at all, or to "raise the bar." I just wanted a note saying we reserve the right to weed out the most ridiculously unqualified nominations. I'll just be bold and make the change the way I intended. If anyone sees a problem with what I do, say so. Isomorphic 20:06, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

OK, I rewrote the guidelines a bit. Note that I haven't really changed anything or introduced any new rules. Rather, I've tried to describe what tends to happen. IMO, that's the best kind of wiki "guideline": a description of what the community would be doing anyway. Isomorphic 20:39, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

Rogper

Hi folks! I self-nominated myself and the voting period is over now. It has happened two times that users simply remove my rigths without taking any further actions. First UninvitedCompany removed me in the middle of the voting period and I merely can't see how that person can be a admin, since he has two alias which was abused in his own election. Secondly, Cecropia just put me to the archive. The outcome was 13/11/3 [3] (or 11/9/3 on 18:38 May 19 [4]). Thanks so long! // Rogper 20:37, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

Though we have disagreed on what constitutes "consensus", the number given was almost consistently between 75% and 80%. The first vote Rogper cites was 54% and the earlier one 55%, both not counting abstentions. For Rogper to have reached even 75% he would have had to gathered another 20 supports without another oppose. I didn't vote on Rogper's nomination, but his assertion I "removed his rights" by following policy and cleaning up the page a day after the end of the voting suggests that those who expressed their concern that he might not understand the culture and rules of English Wikipedia may have had a point. -- Cecropia | Talk 21:12, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

The Swedish Wikipedia has 75% consensus, too. (Closley followed by 90% in the polls!!) When we started our discussion there, the English wikipedia had more liberal rules so that yes, I believed there was no need of "qualified majority" on this interwiki. Personally, my opinion is 50% and no "foolish" neutral votes, but that is another discussion. :-)

Everyone might have an opinion, but my second language is English and has been since ~1983 so I can't see how some people vote no because "He hasn't sufficient English".

// Rogper 00:08, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

Rogper, what "further actions" are you referring to? The voting period was over and too many users opposed your nomination for you to have been made an admin. As a result, your name was taken off the page. I'm not sure what your problem is with the situation, or how you would have liked it to be handled. Moncrief 21:35, May 20, 2004 (UTC)

We can't have a self-nomination policy where people nominating themself get classified as stupid. (Has anyone got adminship from self-nomination???) I'm sorry for my "nitpicking" (i.e. answering to all comments by bullets) but I belive I should have done it more. // Rogper 00:08, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

Rogper, at the time I removed your vote, there were 9 opposed. As you may be aware, adminship on en: is generally granted with at least 80% supporting voices and hardly ever granted with less than 70%, with some room for judgement in between. Since there were well-founded objections by several longstanding contributors, you probably would have been held to the stricter 80% standard, which means you would have needed 36 supporting votes. You had 11. Getting 36 supporting votes on this page is unheard of, and so I removed your listing once the outcome was clear. That is our policy on this page, as a courtesy to nominees, so that additional "oppose" rationale is not then posted. UninvitedCompany 22:38, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

There are thousands of wikipedia users, thus 9 polls would potentially represent one promille... :-) Anyway, we cannot remove "pollings" after two days; they don't hurt anyone if they remain some days longer. :-) // Rogper 00:08, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

Actually, 36 supporting votes is not unheard of - I believe the most we've had is 37 for UtherSRG. But established practice is not to grant adminship simply based on a majority vote (see the case of BL in Archive 13). Given how close the vote was, the prospects of consensus support were not there, and removing the nomination after 7 days was perfectly justified. I agree that the earlier removal was premature, but UninvitedCompany at least respected Rogper's restoration of the nomination. Rogper is welcome to reapply when he has more experience with the English Wikipedia community. In the meantime, many admins would be happy to assist him with requests for image deletion and interwiki links on protected pages, which I understood as the reason for his nomination. --Michael Snow 22:53, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, of course I will request that. But as I have stated earlier, I have never had the energy to take this up further, as many other editors haven't done. This time I partly mentioned it, and partly self-nominated me.

Personally, as an admin on sv.wiki I don't remove new nonsens articles but instead re-start them.

Categories: Wikipedia talk archives