Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 39

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Contents

Some proposals.

  1. . Split adminship into constituant parts.
    1. VfD Admins with the power to close VfD's in the main namespace
    2. Rollback Admins with the power to rollback
    3. Full admins with the power to block users/protect pages.
  1. . Require that candidates undergo a preadminship review similar to the FAC process, 1 month before making an application. Inaddistion candidates ought to repond to all issues brought in the preadminship process.
  1. . Require at least 1000 edits of people going into preadminship review

Klonimus 04:26, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Bureaucratic mess. Oppose. Strong Oppose on the 1000 edits criteria. Redwolf24 (talk) 04:28, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

  • ditto. The current system ain't broke, and the proposal would likely make any current minor problems significantly worse. As for preadminship review, this sounds to me like simply doubling the FAC process for no apparent reason. Grutness...wha? 05:03, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I will adamantly oppose any recommendations for RfA reform until there is some reasonable listing of what is wrong with RfA right now. As I've said repeatedly before, we can't fix it if we do not know what is wrong with it. So far, the only thing several people seem to be agreeing on is "It's wrong". WHAT is wrong? Can you support your assertions with cites? Can you gain community consensus on the point? Please, stop trying to trash this system if you can not identify what in particular is wrong with it. --Durin 11:41, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Actually, I can suggest a thing that's wrong with Wikipedians on RFA. The #Wikipedia IRC channel is distorting votes in both directions. Everywhere we can, we have a rule that "IRC is not Wikipedia." We disallow it in RFC evidence, for example. We point to its non-status in determining consensus on votes. However, the popularity of the IRC channel is creating an "in" group that is not based upon article edits, vandal fighting, or policy positions. Many of us appear differently in chat than we appear in the articles (certainly I do), and there are plenty of folks who are quite friendly and chatty and engaging in conversation who have done little to nothing on Wikipedia or who have actually done harm. As long as the channel operates and continues to attract users, we will have vote totals that puzzle people who never look at the IRC. People with 200 edits may get tremendous "supports," and people with 4,000 votes may get just a few. People who chat controversially or fight a policy position on IRC may get "oppose" votes despite perfect behavior on the project. It's no good putting big bold letters up at the top saying, "Do not consider IRC behavior when voting," as that will make no difference. Further, "lobbying" for votes can take place in a few minutes on IRC and have more effect than incriminating notes on talk pages. Like I said, not a problem with RFA, but a real problem with Wikipedians not recognizing how little they should heed IRC. Geogre 02:42, 8 November 2005 (UTC)


RFA reform

The perennial debate on how to 'improve' requests for adminship has resurfaced again; so I thought I'd invite people to read over and comment on a proposal I drafted back in late June on a radical change to the system, along with a few thoughts on what is broken. It's at User:Talrias/Adminship reform. Some of the comments are outdated now, but I still think the proposal and discussion is relevant and will help us work towards a better procedure if that's what we decide to do. Talrias (t | e | c) 11:21, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

If it ain't broke, don't fix it IMHO. RfA is fine as it is. Borisblue 16:48, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Look a couple of sections up and you'll see "some proposals", which are being responded to by several more people saying it ain't broke. There's no need for reform here. No need to re-invent the wheel - the one we've got may not be exactly round, but no wheel is. Grutness...wha? 22:09, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
The adminship process is not broken. I find that mentorship suggestion a new layer of bureaucrasy (no pun intended) which will acomplish nothing. What is needed is more clear procedures for de-adminning. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:01, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
It would not be a new layer of bureaucracy, as it would replace the existing procedure. In reply to the comment that the process is not "broken", clearly some people think it is given the number of suggestions for alteration of the procedure. I think it would be best to comment on the merits (and flaws) of each proposal rather than disregard any new proposal as a waste of time. Talrias (t | e | c) 23:06, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Agreed, I think rather than new restrictions/guidelines on promoting to admin, we need a clear and well established adminship removal policy/program.  ALKIVAR™ 23:14, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
I thought that the process for de-adminning was clear:
  1. Attempt to calmly and politely resolve concerns with the admin in question on his talk page.
  2. Ask for clarification and comment on WP:AN/I.
  3. File an RFC.
  4. File an RFArb.
  5. ArbCom imposes temporary or permanent sanctions; makes request on m: to remove admins's privileges.
Given that there have been very few cases that have actually led to de-adminning–I'm pretty sure that they can be counted on one hand–I'm not sure why we need a streamlined and efficient de-adminship process. In the one truly urgent case that I can remember, a steward was contacted directly to suspend an admin's powers until the matter could be cleared up.
Making de-adminship easy and efficient is likely to have some unwanted side effects. Instead of pursuing dispute resolution and discussion, there will be a temptation to short-circuit the process and jump directly to a request for de-adminship. The usual assortment of vexatious editors will use a rapid de-adminning process as a threat at best, and a destructive cudgel at worst. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 00:19, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm nervous about a de-admining process. Admins might spend their entire time defending themselves against spurious actions by irrate vandals. On the other hand, there are few ways of keeping admins in check, unless they do somthing really bad. Sloppiness, incivility and at least the impression of abuse and unaccountability often result. And that leaves the question in an RfA - if we make foo an admin, we'd better be 100% sure, as once they're an admin, that's that. So, a de-adminning process has some merits: it might engender a culture of accountability, and increase our willingness to take a chance with some candidates, knowing that if they don't measure up it can be fixed later. Even if no admin were ever de-sysopped, the possibility of review and repremand might do some good. But we would need to have a v.high threshhold for the process to be initiated (e.g. four experienced editors must certify, before the admin even has to answer). --Doc ask? 00:57, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
So, the argument goes "So many people think we need reform, we must therefore need reform"? If you go through the archives of this talk page, you will note that reform has been talked about for at least a year and a half. If it follows that RfA needed to be reformed then because of the negative impact the process was having on Wikipedia (and so many people were asking for it), and the process hasn't changed, then it's reasonable to then conclude Wikipedia must be really bad off now because we've enabled hundreds of admins since then. I'm still not hearing anything substantiative on what is wrong with RfA. I have heard meta arguments built on meta arguments. I have heard incivility as an issue repeatedly raised, but that's an individual issue not a problem with RfA. I've said it before and I'll say it until I'm blue in the face; before we can identify a solution to the problem we have to first know what the problem is. Else, you're taking shots in the dark and are just as likely to make it worse as make it better. --Durin 02:54, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes, the argument does go that way. Does Wikipedia not operate by consensus? In any case, alternate proposals should not be disregarded because people believe "nothing is wrong", they should be considered on their merits. Just because something is not "broken" does not mean there is not a better way of doing it. Talrias (t | e | c) 14:42, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
I like your Mentorship idea, Talrias, but as an alternative track to the adminship and not as a complete replacement for Rfa. I think a "two track" system would allow more talented editors/contributors to gain promotion without having to submit to an increasingly brusing (un)popularity contest. A two-tier (with full admins and "admins lite"), two track system would be even better. And it would be no more complex than the arbitration process or gaining featured status for an article. Any system is only as good as the people involved. When the positive ones are driven away out of disgust, frustration and harassment, there will only be a cabal of assholes lauding over a mob of dunces. Then we will see how fine their precious Rfa system works. I've seen this happen to many online communities before...BBSes, Usenet groups, Message forums...all much smaller and far less diverse than this one. Please don't think Wiki is immune. I'm at the age where it often sucks to be right.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 01:04, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Proposal: Two-Day Discussion Period

I've been mulling the whole RfA situation over, and I've got a proposal that I think will improve RfA while not drastically changing anything. Currently, over at Featured Picture Candidates, there is a two-day discussion period before voting can begin. RfA could emulate such a process. Currently, a RfA runs 7-days. On the vast majority of RfAs, there is little or no activity (i.e. votes or discussion) in the last one to two days. In addition, consensus is often reached way before then. Thus, we could introduce a two-day discussion only period, then a five-day voting period. For close cases, bureaucrats could always extend the voting. Having a two-day discussion period offers multiple advantages. First, it encourages users to carefully study the admin candidate, instead of promoting quick and rapid voting based on editcounts. In addition, it offers a candidate a chance to respond to questions and concerns before voting begins; that way, all voters could see the discussion before voting. Right now, there are many times where discussion regarding an important matter is occuring simultaneously with voting; many of the voters, thus, do not get a chance to see the discussion. Finally, the two-day discussion period would also let candidates evaluate their options — if several users indicate that they think the candidate isn't ready yet, the candidate could then withdraw, saving him/herself from a deluge or pile-up of oppose votes. There are virtually no drawbacks to having a discussion period; nothing can be lost, considering that votes can always be extended in the few cases where more time is needed. (An alternative would also to have a two-day discussion period followed by a seven day voting period.) Having this two-day discussion period will not only encourage discussion but hopefully improve the RfA process. This change is certainly not drastic and doesn't change any of the main ideas behind the current process, and can hopefully make RfA more efficient and make it on the whole a better process. Thoughts? Thanks a lot. --Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | WS 02:12, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

I think this proposal bears serious thought. But I worry that it would be too easy for voting to surreptitiously sneak in- perhaps we can say that only sourced concerns be allowed? Ie. no "I don't like this dude", but rather, "His civility worries me, see this diff:" --Maru (talk) Contribs 02:17, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
  • And once again, an idea for reform (maybe a great idea, maybe not)...without identifying the problem(s) RfA has and what this proposed reform will do to fix the current problem(s). I mean no castigation Flcelloguy; the idea might have merit. But, without knowing what the problem is that it is supposed to fix, how are we supposed to evaluate whether it would work or not? --Durin 02:58, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
    • But there doesn't need to be a problem — even though there is (I'll get to that in a second). Just because there are no apparent concerns does not mean we shouldn't strive to improve our processes and attempt to make them more efficient. (An analogy, for those who love analogies: a Model T got us from point A to point B. Did they stop developing and improving cars? A 1990 Honda car gets me from point A to point B. Does that mean that cars haven't improved from Henry Ford's time to 1990, and that they haven't improved from 1990 to 2005?) But we do have some concerns raised — the inefficiency of RfA, the inappropriate focus on certain matters, and the overall atmosphere and aura of RfA. I beleive that a two-day discussion period would not only improve the efficiency of RfA, but help to alleviate some of those concerns that users have brought up. In addition, there is little to be lost, as no major changes would be made to RfA process. Thanks! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | WS 03:04, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Improving the process is fine. I have no issue with that. But if you're going to improve something, at least you've got some idea of how something isn't as good as it could be. You raise inefficiency. Could you elaborate? I see RfAs posted, they stay up for 7 days, they come down. Where's the inefficiency? Whether there is inappopriate focus is highly...let me restate that...HIGHLY controversial. It is very unlikely that any consensus would be found on what is and is not appropriate to raise in an RfA. As for atmosphere and aura...as noted, a civility issue is an individual issue. People can and should be reminding users through their talk pages that they should remain civil. --Durin 14:09, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I would support a 2 days of Discussion and then 7 days of voting. I don't like shorter voting periods because that makes campagigning much easier and more effective. Klonimus 01:15, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
    • (response to Durin): Yes, but I repeat: there doesn't need to be a problem for reform. Returning back to the transportation analogy, do you think that airplanes currently have a major problem? No; they're safe and effective (well, before gas prices went sky-high...). Does that mean that humans aren't trying to find new means of locomotion? No — after all, who could have imagined that humans could have flown back in the 17th or 16th centuries? Anyways, that's besides the point: the point is whether or not you believe that this change would help or hurt RfA and Wikipedia. I beleive that this proposal is extremely low-risk and has a great probability of helping Wikipedia; unlike other proposals, there are no major changes to RfA. In addition, there are many potential benefits. Thoughts? Thanks. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | WS 23:27, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Bureaucrat nominations

I don't know if this should be here or in Wikipedia talk:Recently created bureaucrats, but I'll put it here. Going through the bureaucrat nominations (purely for interests sake) I noticed a lot of people opposing because they don't feel we need any more bureaucrats. To me this makes no sense at all. Why don't we need any more? What possible harm could having more bureaucrats cause? There is no limit, no guideline as to the number we need, and just because we are not currently suffering from a lack of bureaucrats does not mean that having more would be a bad thing. So could someone who thinks this way please explain to me why having more bureaucrats is a bad thing? Raven4x4x 02:43, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

  • One way of looking at it; we already have a number of inactive bureaucrats (inactive in the sense they have not recently done anything needing bureaucrat rights). Nominees that clear RfA are being given admin rights in an appropriate time frame. Thus, there's no need for new bureaucrats. What argument is there for creating new bureaucrats who are going to, essentially, be inactive bureaucrats? We can never have enough admins. With bureaucrats, you can have enough and it seems we do. --Durin 03:03, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
(inserted after edit conflict with Durin, so there's some overlap in content)
Briefly, for every bureaucrat there is a small but non-zero probability that "something bad" will happen. It may be related to the bureaucrat; he could go insane and sysop Willy on Wheels. It could happen that someone else gains access to the bureaucrat's privileges—someone shoulder surfs his password; a miscreant installs a keylogger at a shared computer; the bureaucrat doesn't log out and his younger sibling starts messing around....
The single real power that a bureaucrat has on the English Wikipedia is the ability to create administrators. As long as admin promotions continue to happen without any major backlogs or lengthy interruptions, then there likely won't be a perceived need for new bureaucrats. (Of course, if the bureaucrats themselves started to complain about their workload, that would also create a perception of need.)
Since the ability to create new admins is potentially very dangerous, we try to keep a lid on the bureaucrat population. Being a bureaucrat doesn't do anything to make editing or Wikipedia maintenance easier, so there's much less incentive to become a bureaucrat. In other words, as long as admin promotions happen smoothly, there's no perceived problem that could be solved by creating more bureaucrats, but there is a perceived increase in risk. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:09, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Like TenOfAllTrades touched on a bit, people perceive bureaucrats as having much more power than admins, and that makes then weary if giving it away when there is no real need for more bureacrats. I certainly would never oppose someone's nom because I felt we didn't need more, we might need more in the future. If I trust someone, I would have no problem with them being a b-crat. But I can certainly see where the "we have enough already" crowd is coming from. -Greg Asche (talk) 03:14, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
I can see some fair points here, but I would say that more bureaucrats would mean more opportunity for discussion if a difficult admin nomination came up. I feel that this would outweigh the risk, which I would say is very small. If someone did start sysoping anyone and everyone, surely there would be a very quick de-sysoping going on. Raven4x4x 13:25, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Bureaucrats cannot de-sysop. Only stewards can. =Nichalp «Talk»= 14:31, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
My thoughts on the matter are at WP:RIG. Andre (talk) 00:04, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
I don't know if we need more bureaucrats, but I do think we need more stewards. With more admins, we see more conflicts between admins, and more inappropriate actions taken by hot-headed ones. Stewards are considered a voice of authority on all Wikiprojects; that combined with the power to discipline admins (since you can't effectively block an admin without desysoping him first) makes stewards a necessary moderating and rule-enforcing figure.
As an alternate solution, I think it would be a big improvement if Bureaucrats on en-wiki did have the power to desysop admins (but not other b'crats). Then their primary task would be keeping an eye on admins, especially the newer inexperienced ones (but also on the long-timers who think they're above the law...). Once that happens, we'll definitely need more bureaucrats. Owen× ☎ 00:57, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
I personally am for giving bureaucrats the ability to desysop. What if for example you went to give ABCD admin rights and you accidentally gave them to ABC... you should be able to undo it immediately. Stewards would still be differentiated in that they can promote/demote on any wiki, but point is this wiki is so large we should be able to have our bureaucrats demote and not bring in a steward who isn't even there half the time to come and do stuff... and as for this argument... Nichalp, the bureaucrat who has been the most active in promoting, recently endorsed and conominated my bureaucratic bid, saying more bureaucrats would be a good thing. I believe any well respected admin who is trustable and we know can interpret consensus should be an admin, there is no real harm to having excess bureaucrats. TenOfAllTrades makes a good point with breakdown... well what if something less dramatic happens and out 11 or so active bureaucrats go on break, its just about as likely. Then no one gets promoted... Ah, and add 'Stable' to the bureaucratic criteria. Redwolf24 (talk) 01:06, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Why is it that bureaucrats can sysop users but not de-sysop? It doesn't make sense to me. With the very high standards that new bureaucrat nominations are held under, I'd have expected them to be able to do more than just promote admins. Raven4x4x 03:39, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I am in total agreement with Raven on this one. Voting against someone because "we don't need anymore bureaucrats" is absolute nonsense and shouldn't be entertained. Linuxbeak | Talk 03:41, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

So what do you want to do about it? Discard those votes? Then what if the same people keep voting in that manner, but don't give a reason? Can they be pressed for a reason? Then can we apply the same pressure to people who vote "support" to provide a reason? Unfortunately, it's not as simple as saying "that shouldn't be allowed". - brenneman(t)(c) 03:48, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
We should assume good faith, and only discount votes when they are for bad reasons. Phil Sandifer 04:07, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
No, we should only discount votes made in bad faith. --Carnildo 04:59, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure how that would work—wouldn't that just result in Oppose. This candidate isn't ready for this responsibility votes? If we decide to rule out good-faith votes made for the 'wrong' reasons, it will have two effects. First, it will annoy the hell out of the people whose votes you discount. Second, they'll figure out very rapidly that they can lie about the reasons for their votes. The hoped-for end won't be achieved, and the process will be poisoned to boot. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 05:10, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree. Especially since I said it first. - brenneman(t)(c) 05:18, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Another Idea For Reform

Made up of two measures

  1. All votes must have personal reasoning behind it, or they are discounted(this has gotten better, but it's still a problem). If you stop getting the 4 word votes with little substance, the rfa process will get much better. Of course, it'll be tough to delinate a line between what's "enough" to make the opinion unique enough not to be a mere doppleganger of someone else's opinion, but it's better to have too much than too little.
  2. All admins must go back up for re-nomination every 3 to 9 months. This way, the de-sysopping procedure is more clear, and users know that if an admin is acting poorly or if an admin is tired of being an admin, they don't have that long to wait before being de-sysopped, rather than going through an unclear process. With the re-nomination, the consensus threshold would be much lower, around 60%. If an admin is de-sysoped and wants to become re-sysoped, they just go through the same process as any other candidate with the regular 70-80% standard. Karmafist 22:55, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
    • <insert text I said earlier> --Durin 23:13, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
There is some repitition here, but to comment (and broadly disagree with one while agreeing with two):
  • We have bureaucrats for a reason. I don't think we need a didactic scheme for how they go about deciding if a vote is valid. I don't like support with nothing after it. If I were a b'crat I'd "halve the value" of such votes--but whatever, you become a b'crat to make those judgements as you see fit.
  • I do agree with re-affirming votes for admins, and I absolutely disagree with the "solution waiting for a problem" bit above. What serious organization allows an entry point to an administrative position and decides "too much work, we'll never re-evaluate"? Ya, sure, the volume increase on this wiki is incredible but this is a very poor reason not to re-evalute admins. It suggests, in fact, that we should we should re-evaluate them regularly. Marskell 23:16, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
  • While re-nomination of admins may be a good idea in principle, there are two major concerns I don't think any of its proponents have commented on:
  1. How do we prevent significant numbers of revenge votes, particularly against long-standing and highly visible (especially in the dipute resolution process) admins?
  2. Will the remaining admins be able to compensate for the removal of active, if unpopular, admins, especially if such removals disproportionately affect those involved in page protection or blocking? Kirill Lokshin 23:37, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

I think your point underscores the respect we ought to have for bureaucrats (and, as an ancillary point, why bureaucrat acceptance should not be over-liberal).

So there is an admin re-confirmation (however organized). Do you think the b'crat is going to hold the votes of obvious vandals, bullshit artists, or vengeful non-named anons equal to cogent votes from established editors? No, obviously--no more than they do on RfA at present.

So, contrary example: an admin faces re-confirmation and a dozen other admins, or named, "good edit" editors come around and say "sorry, no." Perhaps this person should be de-sysopped. Why the hell is it a vote for life? Why shouldn't it be evaluated? Marskell 23:49, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

I think Marskell is quite right- any worthwhile 'crat would surely see through obvious revenge votes. I'm not sure why people are so afraid of making de-sysoping "easy"- to me it seems sensible for it to be approximately as easy as promoting the admins in the first place. If it's "no big deal", removing privileges from someone who abuses the community's trust should be "no big deal" either. Friday (talk) 00:01, 7 November 2005 (UTC)


  • Everybody seems bent on making change. I have repeatedly stated that you need to identify weaknesses before making change so as to evaluate whether the changes do what you want to have happen. To continue a car analogy from earlier; sure the Model-T got you from point A to point B. Improvements were made. But, the improvements were not shots in the dark; any engineer who proposed producing a version of the Model T incapable of having tires installed would have been thought insane. Yet, that is essentially what we could be doing here. Everyone's absolutely convinced we need change. Nevermind whether such 'reform' fixes any of the problems we have. So, we now have umpteen proposals for reform of RfA, and not any serious discussion on what's wrong with it. It seems I am one voice lost in the maelstrom. All of you want reform. Consensus seems to be go reform, and my voice is the only one in opposition. Fair enough. Reform it then. But, do not be surprised when a vast majority of the people on RfA get very upset and make calls to returning it to the way it was. Do not be surprised when you layer in all kinds of new bureaucracy and instruction creep and find the process to be suddenly horribly broken. You want a way forward, but refuse to evaluate where you are. You're at point <unknown> and want to get to point B; a better place for RfA. There is no map in the world that will tell you how to get to point B if you don't know where you are. --Durin 01:29, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Durin, you do indeed seem to be the one voice for a reasoned approach: 1) Determine what's wrong and then 2) How do we fix the wrong. There may be others like myself who agree with you but can't come up with any better arguments than you yourself so ably present. --hydnjo talk 04:39, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree, let's just boil down what we do at WP:RFA. We try and select editors that can be trusted with a few extra tools in as civil a manner as possible. On the first count we do pretty good. I think you can count the admins that have been de-admined on one hand. There are, outside of a few high-profile cases, vey few admins are identified as editors that shouldn't have been selected. There are, sometimes, problems with the civility part. The one improvement needed is to inforce WP:CIV and WP:DICK to a greater degree, when needed. Most nominations go off without a hitch, the problematic ones need to be policed a little better. Preferably by the nominee and the nominator...and perhaps bureaucrats. I don't think that any major overhauls are needed, the problems we have here would just reappear there somehow anyway...$0.02 Rx StrangeLove 04:29, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Idea 1 is arguable, but I don't think it is necessary. It is a bureaucrat who makes a judgement call, he/she should be smart enough to read carefully the comments, see what to take into condideration, etc.
Idea 2, about each admin standing for reelection every 3 to 9 months is one of the pointless rules I ever ran into. 500 or more admins standing for reelection every 9 months? It would take much, much, less effort to just deal with the occasional rogue admin than to have bureucrats promote and repromote people ad-nauseum. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:36, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
If you want my idea about what's wrong with RfA, it's that it's too much like an election. This turns RfA into a popularity contest, where people who are Popular and Well-Known get elected even if there are serious concerns about their qualifications or temperament. Of course, a candidate about whom serious concerns are voiced by an Influential Person will usually end up failing as people who don't want to appear to be Out Of Sync with the Influental Person pile on oppositions. Basically, there's too much influence politics going on and too little discussion of actual merit. Tony's suggestion (wherever the hell it is) has a lot of merit; it basically turns the bureaucrats into a Adminship Committee and turns RfA into a forum where people are recommended for adminship based on merit, and the bureaucrats decide whether or not the merit is actually there or not. (I really should run for bureaucrat....)
I absolutely agree that any sort of periodic confirmation on en is out of the question; we'd have to start two confirmations a day just to do annual confirmations, and that's not even allowing for growth. Kelly Martin (talk) 03:55, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
That suggestion would mean that there would need to be an increase in the number of bureaucrats, since they're given the burden similar in size to WP:RFAr. Titoxd(?!?) 04:22, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't feel there's anything particularly wrong with the present system. I don't mind if someone wants to educate me on the problems of it, but it seems to work fine to me, as far as I can tell. There is a problem with pettiness in some votes, I think. There was one clear recent case that comes to mind. But overall I think the basic procedure is fine. The one priority change I think ought to be made is the ability to hold desysopping votes for admins who have clearly acted outside of policy (I would think habitually, not a one-time mistake). In these cases I think these admins should only have to get a majority of the vote, or perhaps 60%, rather than 75% or thereabouts. We don't want admins acting contrary to policy, but at the same time we don't need to risk losing a bunch of good ones. Everyking 07:29, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I read the discussions carefully. Right now, I am unable to comment on all points. Basically, I do agree that “adminship’ is not a “life-long” affair. However, the matter requires examination from all possible angles. Once, the community has reposed trust, unless apparent deficiency in the conduct is noticed, process of re-nomination/re-selection, etc. is perhaps not warranted. If the current system gives “birth” to some “unusual” administrators, requiring “reforms” in this area, any changed system may also not be free of all flaws. However, the issue is a pertinent one, and requires exhaustive discussions. --Bhadani 14:42, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

My Views On The Responses

Thanks for the input. Marskell brings up a good point, and perhaps Bureaucrat vote counts can be documented in some way or standarized methodology that would half the votes of non-documented votes since Wikipedia is Not a Democracy, your vote is definately not as important as the reasoning behind it.

As for the second idea, to be honest, it was as much for the issue of admin burnout as it would be for the issue of admin misconduct. As the recent "anti-rfa" of Silsor can attest, de-sysopping can often be an unpleasant process, whether it's here or on Meta. For any admins who felt they were unable to do their job for a certain period, this would give them an excuse to leave their post and then come back once they're refreshed. Putting a Wiki-Vacation on yourself can often be like quitting smoking, this place is addictive.

I don't particularly understand the overload issue though, we already need more Bureaucrats as it is, whether something changes or not. This would just make that need much more obvious.

I definately agree that there are areas of Wikipedia in need of fixing far sooner than Rfa, but instances such as Tony1 and Bushytails have shown me that the system is still flawed and needs to be refined. Karmafist 16:24, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

The problem is not technical. The problem is social. I don't know anything about the Tony1 case, but in the Bushytails case, the issue was people opposing because they disagreed with his views on what's appropriate for the main page. That's not a technical problem, and it doesn't have a technical solution. It's people being dicks. ~~ N (t/c) 19:52, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

"Admin-lite" proposal on Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team

There is an ongoing discussion on Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team about introducing an article Custodianship for Featured Articles. The Custodian would have admin powers to revert and protect only the article to which they were appointed custodian. The idea is a form of "Admin-lite" to maintain featured articles to a high standard. You may wish to voice your opinion on this discussion here. Seabhcán 22:59, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Two Proposals

  1. I would support a 2 days of prevoting Discussion and then 7 days of voting. This would be achived by having nominations first be placed in a discussion section and then for voting to commence. Because of the Importance of Adminship I favor a more deliberative process. I also feel that shorter voting periods make campagigning much easier and more effective.
  2. A chi-square test for early closure. After two days of voting, an RfA may be suspended if (|Support - Oppose| - 1)^2/(Support+Oppose) <= 3.84 (Chi^2 @ p= 0.05 df=1). This would suggest that there is not a signifigantly greater amount of support votes than oppose votes and that the RfA will likely fail. This would be a simple and objective test for deciding to end RfA's prematurely. Klonimus 06:50, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Yeesh... mega-instruction creep on both counts. →Raul654 06:50, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Could you explain how not permitting people to vote for the first two days is "mega" instruction creep? Talrias (t | e | c) 11:03, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I think he meant the chi-square test. Plus, 7 days of discussion is far better than 2 and 7 of voting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bluemoose (talk • contribs) 11:09, 8 November 2005
He said "both counts", which I took to mean both of Klonimus' proposals. Talrias (t | e | c) 11:16, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Raul654, this sounds like crinstruction eep. — JIP | Talk 11:07, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
In my experience, instruction creep is used as a kind of sneering shorthand for "don't upset the applecart". The reality is that RfA has become a kind of beauty contest, and the process is becoming debased as a result. The main danger as far as the project is concerned is that unqualified people get promoted and good candidates get shot down because a few vocal voters don't like them More importantly, real people are getting their feelings hurt; and yes, that is more important. So, I tend to agree with the overall tenor of Klonimis' proposals, but not the detail. There should be a discussion period of, say, 5 days to enable people who are not here every day to participate. If the discussion shows clear consensus for admining, there is no need for a vote at all. Ditto if there is a clear consensus against. In grey-area cases, a further 5 days for voting should suffice. Any campaigning over and above a simple message on the candidate's own user and talk pages (e.g. messages on other talk pages, mails to the various lists, etc.) should disqualify the candidate forthwith. Filiocht | The kettle's on 11:15, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Tell me when the danger becomes a reality? If RFA hurt your fellings what are you going to do when the threats of physical harm come in?Geni 13:10, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Because the threats come from jerks, while the abuse on RfA comes from those you thought of as peers. It's different. All too often, the a large part of the "electorate" proves itself incapable of even basicly reasoned argument, resorting to abuse as the first recourse. IMHO the danger has already become a reality, but I am not about to name name as to those recently made admins who I believe were not qualified; I may well be wrong.
But all of this is to neglect the more general point; as with any decision we make here, an RfA should be handled via rational discussion and consensus building. Currently, it's just a popularity contest, with frequent examples of bandwagon jumping, kicking people when they are down, etc. To justify this be saying that successful candidates have to be able to take qratuitous abuse is no argument at all. Filiocht | The kettle's on 13:23, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
abuse from "peers". Check. Dealing with people aparently incapable of even basicly reasoned argument (and not addmitting that you think this), resorting to abuse as the first recourse. Check. .Dealing with bandwagon jumping, kicking people when they are down, etc (also know as wikipolitics). Check.
Real problems with admins are pretty rare. I can only think of two remotely recent cases whee adminship had to be removed (depending on arcom it may shortly be three). With 600 odd admins (and about 200 truely active) that is pretty good going.Geni 15:18, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I want to second "instruction creep is...shorthand for 'don't upset the applecart.'" And I'd add two points:

  • Editicountitis has become shorthand for dismissing any quantitative analysis of edits whatsoever. Support without comment? Hey, no problem. But suggest more time/more edits/more wiki contribs and you're being too picky.
  • "Do you realize how fast this Wiki is growing/how much work that would be?!?" has become the base argument to dismiss RfA changes the moment they're suggested.

Discussion for four days, vote for three (with extension in the absence of, say, two dozen votes). Thus contrib or POV criticisms can be raised as a talking point rather than a vote. Marskell 14:31, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

For an example of how editcountitis can be abused, look at Durin's analysis of my use of edit summaries in my current RfB. He found a statistic that serves his point (64% use of edit summaries in the past 500 edits). Gmaxwell found another one that doesn't: 98.96% use of edit summaries in main article edits since my adminship (excluding uses of one-click rollback). Statistics can readily be misused to prove any point you want, and people tend to misuse them. I would argue that the use of "quantitative measurements" to evaluate administrator (and bureaucrat) candidates is a sterling example of how statistical information can be misused to any particular purpose. Relying on statistics as a substitute for doing a proper analysis of the qualifications of a candidate is extremely dangerous, especially when you don't know how to interpret statistics. Kelly Martin (talk) 15:10, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I stand by my statement regarding your use of edit summaries being 64% of the time in the past 500 edits. According to [1] and [2], you feel it is important to use edit summaries. My analysis of your edit summary usage was spot on. That you later qualified your use of edit summaries to mean that you only use them all the time when you're not doing ArbCom related work is a follow on qualifier of your personal policy in this regard. As for not knowing how to interpret statistics, the bare facts are what they are; you made assertions that people should use edit summaries all the time. Your own use of edit summaries over the last 500 edits was 64%. To later qualify that usage does not undermine the assertion. The determination of your edit usage was not made in bad faith to the particular purpose of undermining your RfB. It was used as supporting evidence of why I voted oppose to your RfB. I did not rely on that statistic alone to evaluate you; indeed I spent more than two hours evaluating you and your edits, as my 22 citations of your contributions shows.
  • Kelly, I spent those hours trying to fairly evaluate you. What I found was disturbing enough for me to have voted oppose if this were an RfA as opposed to an RfB. On incivility alone there was basis to oppose an RfA. As noted, I cited [3] as evidence of incivility. On a recent RfA that was going 36-0, I found evidence of incivility [4]. The tenor of your edit is a bit better than that of NickBush's, but an RfB goes to a higher standard. Treating an editor on Wikipedia like a child (even if supposedly deserved) is undermining to respect of Arbcom and harmful to Wikipedia. You can and should be more professional than that. NickBush's RfA collapsed after I found his incivil cite, going from 36-0 to 45-23. CDThieme, Radiant and Aaron all noted incivility on your part before I made my vote. I do not see you protesting their votes. Indeed, I could make a case that it is you...not I...that is being motivated to look at my vote in the RfB through dispute goggles (as one contributor put it).
  • On a related note, I find it interesting that if a person does little evaluation of a candidate and votes oppose, they are sometimes roundly criticized. I do a several hour evaluation of a candidate and I get criticized. The lesson? Just vote oppose without any comment; if you're going to get criticized no matter what you do, save yourself some time. Sigh. --Durin 17:12, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I have written an extensive reply to Durin's criticisms; it is in my user space at User:Kelly Martin/Response to Durin. I personally believe that Durin was doing what many people do in such situations: they decide how they want the case to come out, and find "objective" reasons to justify that decision. I believe an objective evaluation of Durin's criticisms indicate that they vary from overly nitpicky to outright silly, but that's just my opinion. It is true that I consider Durin a "problem admin" at this point (due to his attempt to intefere with an editor from availing himself of the mediation process, a grave offense against the dispute resolution process, and an offense he does not even acknowledge to have been inappropriate), and I assume Durin continues to take offense with me for attempting to hold him accountable for his actions (his previous conversations on this topic indicate that he intends to hold me in contempt until such time as I abjectly admit that his actions were totally appropriate and apologize for having the temerity to question him about them).
  • The editors opposing me on my RfB are doing so for one of three reasons: they don't believe that we need more bureaucrats; they do not think that an arbitrator should also be a bureaucrat; or they do not like me personally. The first two arguments I can understand, and if my RfB fails for either of those reasons I will be disappointed but not upset. The third group of voters, however, irritate me. I am unpopular with these voters because I have expressed concern from time to time about the appropriateness of their conduct as administrators, or because they are the friend of an administrator whose conduct I have questioned. (Of course, the offense at having their conduct questioned is usually phrased as a "civility concern", so as to switch the focus away from their own conduct and onto someone else's. This is quite common, almost universal; such accusations are made even when there is no basis for them.) So, because I take an interest in policing administrative conduct, I am punished for it (and at the same time, accused of not taking a serious enough concern for administrative misconduct). If you want an answer why nobody polices administrative conduct on Wikipedia, this is it: if you do, you will be pariahed for it. It's like being in the internal affairs division of a police department: nobody will talk to you and you become grossly unpopular. Great job, Wikipedia. Kelly Martin (talk) 17:28, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Kelly above you state "Durin was [deciding how he wanted] the case to come out, and found "objective" reasons to justify that decision". You are ignoring WP:AGF. You did so in some of the cites I noted. You did so in your behavior with respect to me. You go on to call me "overly nitpicky" and "outright silly". You are taking my vote personally, and attempting to strangle it into a condemnation of me. If you consider me to be a problem admin, then I strongly...let me restate that...VERY STRONGLY encourage you to inititiate an RfC. I stand by my actions, I stand by my explanation of them, and User:NicholasTurnbull who oversees WP:TINMC gave an abject apology for his conclusions which were very similar to your conclusions. I do not question your right to question my acts. What I do question is your absolute insistence to ignore WP:AGF and assume malicious acts on my part when it is blatantly obvious that the contrary is true, as User:NicholasTurnbull attests to. I acted in absolute good faith to help a user who was being ignored by every mediation process he was attempting to find answers from. I considered this matter closed when you did not respond to my last reply on this subject on October 28, 11 days ago. Obviously this is still bothering you and you insist on dragging this out. This isn't the forum for it. Either you stop now, or file an RfC to bring closure to it through more appropriate forums. This continued assault on my character is demeaning to you, to me, and to Wikipedia. Continuing to insist I am a "problem admin" without bringing this matter to official channels is just slanderous wrong. It's beneath you. So why do it? File the RfC, or drop it.
  • You cite three reasons why people are opposing your RfB. You are including evidence of incivility as people not liking you. You are "irritated" because people find your incivility unacceptable. It isn't about liking you Kelly. It's about not liking how you treat other people. There is a difference. For what it's worth, I respect your contributions to Wikipedia. I do not know if I like you or not; it's really subjective and hard to surmise from some characters on a screen. What I do not like is your incivility and attitude of "do as I say, not as I do". Nobody is attempting to switch focus off of one person's civility and on to your incivility and unjustly accuse you of incivility. There is no justification for being incivil to people as you have been. Your record stands by itself, in the open, for everyone to read. That you do not like what has been found in your record does not change that record. You are not being taken to task for criticizing administrator behavior. You are being taken to task for your manner in dealing with other users. For my vote, I felt I had ample evidence for that with your no warning blocks, banning of an IP out of policy, lack of adherence for policy in some cases, and treatment of users. My vote was not in bad faith. I appreciate the subpage that you created to answer my review. I do not appreciate that it was labelled as "allegations". This just further goes to show an assumption on your part of bad faith by me. Your subpage was a great response to "shoot the message". Much of the comments you have made outside of that with regards to me and the RfB has been "shooting the messenger". This is anti-wikipedia philosophy. --Durin 18:11, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Policeing administrative conduct leads to pariah status? It is still probably the case that I've blocked more admins than anyone else. This isn't the thing that I recive the most hastle for.Geni 18:21, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Agree that these proposals are instruction creep. I also have no problem with adminship nominations as a popularity contest. Again, the ultimate decision is done by a bureaucrat by reading carefully all the votes and comments and who should be able to weed out popular people who would also make good admins from popular people who may not. And I fail to see how these two proposals would make a bureaucrat's job easier/more objective. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:01, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Having a non-voting discussion period is workable, and it's been a welcome introduction at WP:FPC. The chi-squared test, no thanks. Enochlau 08:32, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Archiving

Why are sections being archived when the latest comment on them was barely a day old? Archiving is important, yes, but I think we should establish that an archive should only be made after a decent amount of time has passed since the last comment to the section. Talrias (t | e | c) 14:20, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

The alturnative may be that the page becomes uneditable due to size [mode=cynic] we also know from a lot of past exprence that all this talk of reform wont go anywhere.[/mode]Geni 14:30, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
There were a total of 4 edits made less than three days ago in the material that I archived. In the case of the first two, they were in regards to a section of this page that had already been archived. Continued discussion on that section appeared to have concluded based on the comments that were left. The other two were two days ago and in another section were additional commentary continued on in sections that were not archived; thus in my opinion I was not interrupting an ongoing discussion by archiving those sections. Lastly, the talk page was more than 130kb in size. It was time to archive. If you disagree with my archive/removal, feel free to pull the section(s) you dispute being archived back to this page. The material isn't gone; just archived. --Durin 15:08, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I don't disagree with removal (after a while), I just think that by removing topics which have only just finished being discussed (or are precursors to a followup discussion) we are preventing people from replying to points (unless they start a new section, which is disjointed) which may be perfectly valid. I don't think we lose anything by leaving a few sections for a few days longer, so why not say a week after the last comment in a section, archive it? Talrias (t | e | c) 16:11, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
There's scalability issues involved. If we left discussions until the last comment in the section was a week old, we'd already have a talk page well in excess of 200kb. This will get worse over time. --Durin 16:36, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
There has to be a better solution of hiding it away in an archive somewhere; perhaps a Village Pump-style system for discussions based on various topics related to RFA? Talrias (t | e | c) 16:40, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I think there's a number of scalability issues plaguing Wikipedia. Archiving of large talk pages is just one of them. On my own talk page, I gave up archiving in segments; it makes it harder for people to find things they might be looking for. It'll end up being a huge page, but I think it's more scalable than dozens of archive pages. Here on this talk page, the standard is multiple archives and I'm not going to upset that cart :) --Durin 17:16, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Durin. If we dont archive regularly, it is mighty difficult to follow what's going on. =Nichalp «Talk»= 19:19, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I wouldn't mind an archive by topic, myself, to supplement (rather than replace) the archives by date. Some time when I feel like massive wikiprocrastination I may do this, unless someone beats me to it. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 23:42, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Chi-Square test

The reason I proposed the Chi-Square test (McNemar test), is that it can represent a lower bound below which RfA's ought to be automatically suspended(not closed). The McNemar test is based on binomial distribution with p(sucess) = 0.5. I feel that if at any time after two days of voting a candidate cannot a attract a level of support greater than chance with fully random voting, then their RfA ought to be suspended automatically (pending further discussion before it is reopened).

I don't think this is instruction creep at all. Instead this is a simple and objective way to avoid a problem which generates alot of needless rancor. That is the problem of RfA's which hobble along causing lots of needless controversy, hurt feelings and personal insult untill they crash out.

On a related note, I really favor an even longer voting period than 7 days, because it's important that any adverse evidence be brought up and cleared out before someone is promoted. A bad admin is a major problem because of the unfortunatly cliquish nature of wiki admin community. Klonimus 08:01, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

  • I'm afraid that invoking mathematical formulae would make a guideline unnecessarily complex. I do think that a couple of days' discussion before voting would be a good idea. In particular, this could be facillitated by making a couple of spots near the top of the RFA template that allows users to write a short and neutral paragraph (with citations) of the nominee's good or bad actions. E.g. "User:Foo is involved in a controversy on Article, and his response to it is shown in this diff. Radiant_>|< 14:46, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
In any case, I think the test and its usage as proposed is probably invalid. You certainly can't use any standard statistical test repeatedly in a situation where data is accumulating; you need a special statistical methodology and special "sequential tests" in a situation like that. And it certainly is not valid to watch data accumulating and choose a point at which to make a statistical test.
One of the things that was pounded into me is that the biggest cause of methodological error in applying statistics is not e.g. assumptions of normality, but the assumption of independence. There is no way that successive votes by voters, each of whom can read all of the votes and comments of previous voters, can be regarded as independent samples of anything.
So, I don't even think it would be valid to fire off a single statistical test, on a "one-shot" basis, exactly 48 hours into voting. In order for a traditional statistical test to be valid, I believe all of the votes and user comments would need to be kept secret for 48 hours, and of course users would have to solemnly swear that they had not been in communication with each other on the topic. Under those conditions, after 48 hours, you could reveal all the votes and perform the test and it would be valid. Dpbsmith (talk) 15:30, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
I take it back. You need to be even more restrictive than that. The proposal is that the discussion be closed early because the statistical test is a reliable predictor of the final outcome. But for that to be true, the votes following the application of the test still need to be independent random samples... so the test would only be valid if the rules for an RFA was that during the voting period, all votes are on a secret-ballot basis AND no communication of any kind between voters is allowed. In that case, you could perform a single statistical test at a predetermined time and end the vote early if the outcome was "statistically" determined at that time. You could also... again assuming secrecy and no voter communication... keep the vote open for an indeterminate period of time, and use sequential tests and methodology to keep the vote open for as long as was needed to determine the outcome, and no longer.
Of course, we haven't even gotten into the issue of deciding how to decide how to decide what level of statistical significance (5%? 1%? 0.1%) is appropriate... Dpbsmith (talk) 15:37, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
That's exactly why I proposed a McNemar Test, which is a chi-square approximation of the binomial distribution. This test doesn't make any assumptions at all. The only question being asked is how likely would this proportion of votes occur if the voting was purely by chance with 50% chance of any vote being made. We don't need to make any assumptions of independance or anything else since this a purely a test of proportions.
I think suspending (not closing) any RfA which fails to show a greater than chance level of support after 2 days of active voting is a good way to deal with the problem of crippled RfA's. If the candidate want's the RfA to be reopened they may do so, but this could be a nice easy way to end RfA's that are going badly without anyone losing face.
I never said that this test was a reliable predictor of final outcome. It is however a reliaable predictor of RfA's that will certainly fail. Like I said it's a lower bound test. Klonimus 18:03, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

While I applaud your attempt at formularising RfA, I feel this is all unnecessary - and potentially may cause good candidates to fail. Voting patterns can easily change over the course of a week. Take your comment that if at any time after two days of voting a candidate cannot a attract a level of support greater than chance with fully random voting, then their RfA ought to be suspended automatically. I have seen candidates with a strong objection placed by one voter later explain why that voter is strongly against them. In tose cases, it is sometimes the case that in the period between the oppose vote and the explanation, several more oppose votes have been placed based on the comments of the original opposer. After the explanation by the candidate, these oppose votes are scratched out and moved to neutral or support. So a vote might go from 10-8-1 after two days to 16-3-5 after three. In those circumstances, your initial premise is false. There is nothing wrong with having a vote go for its full seven days, even if it appears early on that a candidate may not pass. There is little cost in having the vote continue until it is complete. Suspending an RfA after two days (or any period of time) should be the prerogative of the nominee, not decided based on some potentially incorrect premise by the arbitrators of the RfA page. Grutness...wha? 23:50, 9 November 2005 (UTC)