Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 45

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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.

Contents 1 Bureaucrat nominations 1.1 Yes (Nominees should put themselves forward only) 1.2 No (Nominees or other admins can put up candidates for bureaucrat) 1.3 Other perspective 1.4 Comments 2 Optional questions 2.1 The original Q.3 - Time to modify it? 3 request for checkuser privilages 4 Additional questions 5 edit history tool 6 Suffrage requirements 7 Reluctant votes 8 Bureaucrat's closing 8.1 Bureauclosing: Second attempt 9 Withdrawn nomination 10 Votes by Masssiveego 10.1 Loss of patience 10.2 My take on it 11 Notice 12 Wikipedia:Snowball clause 13 Closing withdrawn RfA 14 Wiki School proposal 15 Consensus or Supermajority? 16 Radical motion

Bureaucrat nominations

Lately there has been some question about bureaucrats being nominated (as admins can be) though the tradition has been that they be self-noms. The bureaucrat voting instructions do refer to this: "The process for bureaucrats is similar to that for adminship above, but is generally by request only (emphasis added). This does not preclude outside nominations but does express that it has not traditionally been done this way. I think we need to have a more definitive expression of community sentiment to either affirm the community's belief in self-nomination for bureaucrats or else delete the language.

Question: Should candidates for bureaucrat be required to put themselves forward for the position as previously expected, rather than allowing others to nominate them?

Yes (Nominees should put themselves forward only)

1. Support With the important disclaimer that I am in no way criticizing or looking down upon those recently made bureaucrat on other's nominations, I do want to express an opinion on this for future bureaucrat nominations.

   Being a bureaucrat requires a commitment to certain things that are inherent in making or removing candidates for adminship or bureaucratship. An expectation of fairness is a given. Knowledge of the process is a given. However, having to deal with other users in a promote/non-promote situation calls for the willingness to do a few extra things, among them: (1) to be active in watching RfA and/or renames; (2) to be ready to make a decision that may anger any number of people, no matter which way it is decided; (3) to be willing to make that decision with neither sympathy nor rancor; and (4) to be ready to coherently explain that decision and stick by it. Because of these considerations, I feel that this is a case (compared to adminship) where self-nomination is not only not a negative, but should be required. Why? Because if an admin feels that he or she has gained the knowledge, skills, commitment and desire to do the things above, their first act of positive interaction with the community as a prospective bureaucrat should be to put themselves forward and express why they should be placed in the position.

   Therefore I feel that bureaucrat nominations should not be put forward by others, nor candidates solicited. If someone needs to be convinced to be a bureaucrat, they probably should wait until they feel confident in themselves that it is something that they want to and are capable of doing enthusiastically. Those who might have been inclined to nominate a bureaucrat can put their same reasoning and discussion into their Support vote for the candidate. -- Cecropia 06:59, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

2. Support, but with no objections or criticisms towards the recent successful RfBs per Cecropia (they are qualified). Bureaucrats do a very specialised and limited subset of adminstration activities. It shouldn't be seen as being a promotion or reward for being a good admin, and the best judges of who would be a good RfB candidate should be that RfB candidate himself (or herself). I know I'd find it hard to turn down being nominated for "an honour", so I'd accept even if I didn't think about being a bureaucrat before being nominated. Therefore, I think the "original status quo" which limited RfBs to self-noms only is the way to go. This system worked when RfB was first created, and I believe there's nothing wrong with it. --Deathphoenix 22:04, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

   (Tangetially note that Quadell's did not succeed. -Splash^talk 22:26, 9 January 2006 (UTC))

3. Support, because bureaucrats should be able to stand on their own two feet. They should be candidates who command near-universal support anyway and so a nomination should be unnecessary. There is not (or should not be) a need to rely on someone else's reputation to help get your RfB started. Of course, those who participate may influence the process; that's part of the deal. Cecropia's ever-insightful remarks are also compelling. It was my inclination in the two recent nominated RfBs to oppose on those grounds — I think the process is inherently less suited to its purpose when there is a nominator. -Splash^talk 22:26, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
4. Support, a bureaucrat should speak for themselves. If they need to have someone else suggest them, I question their actually interest in holding the position.--nixie 00:06, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
5. This seems like the tradition, and I don't see any reason to break with it. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
6. Strong support - bureaucrats must be quite proactive, and self-nominating is a sure sign of such proactivity. BD2412 T 01:43, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
7. Support, I prefer bureaucrats to nominate themselves, and they will know whether they have the capability or not. --Terence Ong ^Talk 13:04, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
8. Support, what BD2412 said. - ulayiti (talk) 13:24, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
9. Support, bureaucrats should be able to judge themselves and not rely on other people's opinions. -- §Hurricane ERIC§ archive -- my dropsonde 21:40, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

No (Nominees or other admins can put up candidates for bureaucrat)

1. Strong Object Luckily, my nomination of User:Francs2000 found here is a testament against this. I hope others follow in this form! εγκυκλοπαίδεια* 12:35, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

   Your understandable pride in accomplishment notwithstanding, I'm rather amazed by your response, and I feel it makes my point as to why bureaucrats should put themselves forward and firms my own feelings that this should be policy. Francs2000's nomination was successful, but now it is he, not you, who will have to perform the duties of the position. Bureaucrat is a high-profile job in having to deal with editors. Why do you feel he needed an agent to present him to the community? Why wouldn't it have been better for him to have presented himself? Why are you writing someone else's resume for this position instead of your own? -- Cecropia 17:17, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

2. Object, I can't see why users shouldn't be able to nominate other users for bureaucracy. — JIP | Talk 21:28, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

   Because it's a responsibility potential bureaucrats should take upon themselves, when they think they are ready? -- Cecropia 21:50, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

3. The difference between accepting a nomination and self-nominating doesn't seem to be an important one. Cecropia writes that nomination constitutes "writing someone else's resume," but this ignores the fact that the main part of that resume is the exhaustive record of every edit the nominee has ever committed, which is submitted for the community to examine. Also, I don't see how self-nominating especially reflects confidence or enthusiasm for the job (why would it?). In short, no need for rules on this. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:59, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

   The thread of the negative responses, including yours, suggests to me that I haven't made my point clearly enough. When a nomination clearly passes or clearly fails, you don't really need a human at all (begging the question that bureaucrats are human). The job could be done by a bot. But when a decision must be made, a bureaucrat needs to be able to effectively engage the community. That is why, when someone is looking for this position, they should put themselves forward to give us our first impression of their commitment and people skills. For this, you don't want resume writers or head hunters. If this were to become common I could see bureaucratship becoming the kind of beauty contents that some of our admin nominations have become. Bureaucratship is a very specific responsibility, not a rite of passage. reward for tenure or good editing, or proof of how much some of your friends admire you. -- Cecropia 00:24, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

   Yes indeed, about the beauty contest aspect. Bureaucratship is not a lollipop. -Splash^talk 00:38, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

   But they are putting themselves forward, regardless of how they are nominated. By accepting the nomination, they put forward the entirety of their editing history for inspection, and also invite questions, etc. The difference between nominating yourself and accepting someone else's nomination doesn't at all reflect the nominee's ability to engage the community. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:47, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

   In one way it does. It reflects on the desire to accomplish this particular job, which requires relatively few but dedicated Wikipedians. It's something I feel should come directly from the candidate, not suggested by another. To which I'll add the comment that my fear is that open nomination will encourage some nominators to make a hobby of looking for people to nominate. When the day comes when a few of a large body of bureaucrats begins making some bad or even prejudiced decisions, and/or we have a large body of "paper bureaucrats" who didn't want to turn down what seemed like an honor, we'll wonder how it happened. -- Cecropia 00:58, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

   I don't see why the nomination issue really reflects on the desire to accomplish the job -- again, why would it? Christopher Parham (talk) 01:31, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

   And to your second point -- I see no reason why they shouldn't do so. One can only hope they manage to dig up dozens of users who are trusted enough to pass an RfB, but if the percentages at the ArbCom elections are any indication, such people are few and far between. Christopher Parham (talk) 01:36, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

4. No. To be blunt, I feel that "bureaucrat" has become an elite status-based position and I'd like to see this attitude changed with a swarm of new nominations. All users capable of managing responsibilities should be granted them, as per the logic of Wiki. Being a Bureaucrat is currently a "big deal", and far as I can tell this is simply because there are so few of them. I also don't see why we need to have a different policy regarding bureaucrats than we do for admins. Sarge Baldy 01:13, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
5. Object, as per JIP. As for Cecropia's response to that, bureaucratship is a daunting task and as such acceptance of nomination is not something anyone should take lightly. Nominees show that they can stand on their own two feet by accepting their nomination. Grutness...wha? 01:14, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
6. Honestly, what does it matter if someone is too modest to nominate themselves? They might just need a little encouragement, and engaging the community is actually having the guts to accept the nom and have it listed. All the time people speak of instruction creep, and stopping people from nominating people olny for BCrat seems to fall into this category. Am I mistaken? This is a wiki, if someone wants to nominate someone else, why should we stop them? --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 01:52, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
7. Object. An old internet wisdom states that the best candidates are those who don't want the job, and must be dragged into it kicking and screaming. Kim Bruning 03:43, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

   I find it unlikely anyone would be made a bureaucrat against their will. For example, if I were nominated for bureaucracy, I would simply decline the nomination. — JIP | Talk 11:42, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

   You have no idea what you just got yourself into, do you? ;-) So, around what time will you be (or have you been) eligable to be a bureaucrat, did you say? Kim Bruning 17:46, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

8. Object Kim is right, I just wish I could find the pithy quote I remember. I don't see why it matters, and the folks most apt to nominate themselves are not necessarily the most qualified, it's not a measure of leadership or wisdom. Rx StrangeLove 06:25, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
9. Object. Instruction creep, and all of the "support" rationales would apply equally well to admins. ~~ N (t/c) 17:22, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

   Yes, they would, and I personally would be inclined to so apply them. However, that doesn't make them somehow less applicable to bureaucrats. It's not creep, incidentally, since it's the way it's been forever, with a couple of very recent exceptions. -Splash^talk 13:58, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

   Well, then that's exactly what it is. Just because people didn't do it in the past doesn't make it wrong to do now. You are asking to now make this policy. Hence, adding more small rules to an otherwise fine process. Following tradition and making things policy are two drastically different things. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 14:48, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

10. Object. A user will decline if they don't wish the position. Limiting it to self-noms keeps the modest away. Ral315 (talk) 01:12, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
11. It should work either way. User wants to be bureaucrat, then please nominate yourself. Or you believe there is a really cool guy/gal, then please do nominate him/her. Of course, a smart person would first ask the nominee if he/she is interested, to not get a public embarrassment both for nominator and nominee. That is to say, why should it be different for bureaucrats than for admins? What matters is not how one gets nominated, rather how people vote :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:56, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
12. Object'. Let them reject noms if they want. Francs2000 certainly made the right choice.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 01:14, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
13. Object Ral315 says it best.  ALKIVAR™ 22:57, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
14. Object as per Ral315. -- Kjkolb 13:35, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
15. Object per all the above. -- §Hurricane ERIC§ archive -- my dropsonde 05:01, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
16. In my opinion, a nomination by another person is often a point in favour of the nominee. Ingoolemo ^talk 23:07, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Other perspective

• It was established tradition that all bureaucrat candidates were self-nominated. It doesn't fundamentally have to be this way, so nominations by others have slipped through, and we can abandon the tradition if we're so inclined. On the other hand, there isn't a tremendous need for bureaucrats, so there's not that much reason to abandon the tradition (unless it is treated as a reward or status symbol, which it emphatically shouldn't be). --Michael Snow 22:31, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
• I second Michael Snow here, sentence for sentence. Redwolf24 (talk) 04:36, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Comments

• I feel a duty to make a comment as I was one of the two bureaucratship requests that directly relates to this question being raised, however I am diplomatically holding no official position for that very reason. -- Francs2000 22:26, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
  • And you understand that this question has nothing whatsoever to do with your or the other nominee or your fitness as a bureaucrat? If you don't think that's true, please state it openly. -- Cecropia 00:27, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

    Yes that is my understanding. -- Francs2000 12:48, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

• No vote, as both sides have good points, however I tend to lean toward 'no' because it's more instruction creep for which I see not much point. I just think it's sort of funny that we're arguing about bureaucracy... —Ilyanep (Talk)
  • I feel it's the opposite of instruction creep. We have an ambiguous but traditional qualification for adminship which has now be questioned (before this). Either we should enforce the sentiment of the wording or eliminate it. -- Cecropia 01:04, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

• Long comment. As a non-self-nom (others-nom?), I was honored at the suggestion that I might be qualified, and I studied carefully through the requirements and responsibilities before accepting the nomination. I read several other candidacies, and looked through the talk page history. Still, there are a few things I missed, which weren't explicit, and which required in-depth understanding of the RfA and RfB process. I didn't know that an others-nom was almost never done. I didn't know that most bureaucrats agreed not to discuss ongoing admin nominations at all, so I hadn't thought through question #4 carefully enough, and had to change my answer. And most importantly, I wasn't aware of the higher standard for consensus when promoting bureaucrat nominees. I suppose this indicates that I wasn't really ready, and my nomination failed. This is all despite the fact that I have been around for 3 years and had a good working relationship with several bureaucrats. But nothing beats experience in the actual RfA process.

If I had waited until I decided to self-nominate, I probably would have been around RfA and RfB long enough to catch onto these things. So I suppose that's an argument for self-noming. I would advise potential bureaucrats to be very involved with the RfA or RfB process for at least a month before applying - and you would know better than anyone else when you're ready. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 01:42, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

(P.S. A bunch of caveats: Yes, the anonymous vandalism had something to do with my non-promotion as well, but that was not under my control. And thanks to all those who voted for me - I think I would have caught these things quickly enough, so please don't feel you were wrong to vote for me. But a little more experience couldn't have hurt. I still don't think bureaucrat nominees should necessarily vote in RfAs, but they should be very involved in the process, which usually implies voting.)

Optional questions

Hi, I'll be away on assignment in a few days and likely won't add the optional questions to any more RFAs. I've been adding them to RFAs as an experiment, and so far, I think it's gone okay (in fact, I even supported a couple of RFAs I might not have voted on because I only had casual prior interaction with the candidates). What do you think of these questions and the answers so far? Do they need additional work? Thanks for your feedback, Deathphoenix 18:05, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea. Those general questions are a bit too general in most cases when the candidate is a relative unknown to most voters. Still, some questions are better than others.

The question on NPOV is kind of strange to answer because, as one candidate put it "why ask me? we have extensive guidelines on this". Its not much of a question really. If someone would ask me how I would apply NPOV to articles, my best guess at an answer would be "as best as I can". Also, the question on the Sockpuppet is similar. How do you tell the difference? Without m:checkuser, its all based on behaviour. All the other questions are formulated more like a dilemma rather than an open question, and just work better methinks.

Lastly, I'd like to put forward a suggestion for a question which I think would really work: "What are your greatest frustrations regarding Wikipedia?". The reason is simple: this reveals a great deal about any editor, and the most important aspects of their preferences will most likely surface. Inclusionists, deletionists, POV-pushers on specific topics. Hell, if the question would be posed to me I'd be tempted to include a few usernames! And yes, that says something about me as well ;-)

The Minister of War ^(Peace) 15:15, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback. Yes, I've noticed that about the NPOV question. Initially, it was agreed (albeit only two other people sent their feedback there) that it was an appropriate question to ask because it was one of the core values of Wikipedia. But I think you're right, it's easy to just give a canned answer because there's so much information on it. This also applies to sockpuppets: there's so much information on it already that candidates can simply answer based on what's already documented, and cite m:CheckUser. I like your "frustrations" question. I also saw something very recently on ANI that I've seen as a very common misconception about Wikipedia: that Wikipedians have an unrestricted right to free speech. I think I'd remove the NPOV and sockpuppet question and replace it with the following:

• How do you think the right to free speech applies to Wikipedia?
• What are your greatest frustrations with Wikipedia?

Well, the first question also seems like it would lend itself to "canned" answers, so I can always just remove it to reduce the number of questions. I appreciate your feedback. --Deathphoenix 16:04, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Speaking as a nom who received those questions, I have mixed feelings about the NPOV question. It may serve as a "weeding out" question - if someone answers completely inappropriately, it would serve to show they do not understand NPOV. It may help to rephrase, if confusion seems to be an issue. I took it to mean, "How would you apply NPOV to an article?" which is problematical to answer succinctly because of scope. But apparently it also has been taken as "When would you cite NPOV" as well as "What do you think of the NPOV policy". KillerChihuahua^?!? 16:22, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

How you took it was the way I meant. If the spirit of the NPOV question is a good one, I can always replace it to highlight "you", thus clarifying to the nom what exactly I'm looking for. --Deathphoenix 18:59, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps rephrasing to be more specific: "How would you apply NPOV to a controversial article which you are editing?" or something similar. KillerChihuahua^?!? 19:11, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Tweaked, and tweaked the other questions too. Take a look here. --Deathphoenix 19:51, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Better, i suppose. But still the NPOV Q doesnt cut it for me. Applying NPOV is one of the first things you (should) learn on Wikipedia. To an experienced user the question is kind of pointless, and on the RFA that is our target audience. The Minister of War ^(Peace) 10:15, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

The original Q.3 - Time to modify it?

The Q. 3 asks about the candidate getting stressed. Many a time ppl respond in platitudes such as "A wiki break in such situations is always better and I take one" etc. Can this be modified to ask the candidate to list what he considers to be his three most egregious procedural lapses and three most egregious behavioral lapses on Wikipedia? This would tell a lot more about the candidate than the 3rd question in its current format. On a tangentially related note, ability to view deleted edits of a nominee would throw up incidents like copyvios etc., but current policy seems to be against displaying deleted edits. --Gurubrahma 16:13, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

About your tangent, yeah, the deletion log really isn't much help. It would be nice if there were a tool to check that, but there isn't. Unfortunately, edits to deleted pages don't show up in "user contributions", even for admins. Sounds like you should start an RFC asking if there's community consensus to allow searching for edits by a user to deleted pages.

About your question, well, Q.3 could be replaced, but I'd like to hear more about the question you're suggesting it be replaced with. Specifically, what do you mean by "procedural lapses"? – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 17:19, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Kate's tool has the ability to view deleted edits.  Grue  18:48, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Only the number of them, as far as I can see, which doesn't seem very helpful. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:15, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

(after edit conflict) Not anymore, due to the change that non-admins cannot view deleted. See this. KillerChihuahua^?!? 19:16, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

My impression is that the ability to look at deleted edits has been suspended pending review of some privacy issues - hopefully it will be restored in some form. BD2412 T 19:34, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I think that question is deliberately open-ended to give the candidate a chance to answer it in any way. I don't know if we need to specify three events, but maybe asking the candidate to give a specific example of the stress-inducing event and what the candidate did to deal with it. --Deathphoenix 18:59, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't like the "three most egregious procedural lapses and three most egregious behavioral lapses on Wikipedia" kind of thing. Countries that have encouraged that kind of thing sort of encourage you to make things up that will sound good/bad but not evil. I think msybr Q3 should be modified, but not that way. -- Cecropia 19:46, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

request for checkuser privilages

I have removed this section because it has been tried and established several times that the only ones who can give out checkuser are Jimbo, the board, or the arbcom and have stated that they are currently comfortable with the number of users who have checkuser power at the moment so voting people to have checkuser would serve no purpose and could in no way be binding or even helpful in most cases. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 01:44, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• Sorry, is this with regards to finding a user's IP? JHMM13 (T | C) 21:43, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Yes, see m:CheckUser. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 10:29, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Additional questions

I've noticed that a few editors have begun asking additional questions to the nominees and I think that is fine. But I do have a problem when they ask them and then disappear, never returning to vote one way or the other, or to even leave a comment. In fact, I am finding this to be somewhat rude, as the process is already stressful and what not to many nominees, so why play games with them like this. I urge anyone posting additional questions to make sure they then promptly return, especially after being notified that questions have been addressed, and at least render a comment.--MONGO 21:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• As this is clearly a matter of etiquette, I don't think anything serious can be done, but I agree. Also, with these longer and longer lists of questions, the "optional" ones will eventually start turning into "optional, but if you don't answer, you won't get the adminship." We should be careful how many get tacked on before the list gets out of hand. JHMM13 (T | C) 21:42, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure you're referring to me, so I'll explain. These optional questions (well, the ones I put in anyways) are an experiment to try and improve the process (see above here and here). I made sure these were optional because it's still an experiment, with an eye on possibly including these questions in the standard RFA template. Some folks have suggested that I be BOLD and simply tack on those questions to the template, but I don't want to do that without a clear support to do so. So I've taken to simply adding on these questions to every new RFA as an experiment to see how these folks answer it. I also made sure to point out that these are optional questions, and since people have been voting support regardless of whether the candidate has answered them or not, I don't think this is affecting the outcomes of RFAs at this early stage.

I've voted support on a few RFAs as a result of their answers to these optional questions, but I still apply my personal standard of only voting for people with whom I've seen around a fair bit. Some of these I normally wouldn't vote anyways, but since I've seen them around a little bit and I was impressed by the optional questions, I decided to support. Some of the ones I haven't voted on are simply because I haven't seen enough of the user to meet my own personal standard, and some of the other ones have answers that just underwhelmed me, but I don't want to oppose simply on the basis of those optional questions, so I decided not to vote at all. If you think I'm being rude, I suppose I could vote Neutral or Oppose because I asked those questions, but at this experimental stage, I don't want to oppose or bring any negativity to candidates simply because they chose to answer questions that they didn't have to. I'm hoping these questions get accepted and moved into the normal RFA template, but you won't have to worry about me being rude for the next little while: I'll be away on assignment and won't have time to work on these things for the next few days.

I'm sorry if you think I'm breaking etiquette: I'm actually trying to be nice here because I know these questions take extra time to answer and it's still in the experimental stage. --Deathphoenix 22:04, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

It wasn't directed solely to you, as you are the one person that has been following up promptly. As I said, I see no problem with asking additional questions, I just expect that the person doing the asking should take the time to then promptly read the answers and then support, oppose or at least comment.--MONGO 01:04, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

edit history tool

I've written a tool that gives an alternative view of a user's edit history, see here. As far as I'm aware, it gives more insight into a user's edits, and allows easier viewing of conversations on AN/I and such than existing tools that I'm aware of. Here is an example of AN/I tracking, click on the "context" link, and the user's edit will appear at the bottom of the history, allowing you to see anyone that may have replied to the user.

The sort-by-name feature [1] allows one to quickly look at just AfDs, or WP:AN comments, or just WikiProject contributions, etc.

The tool is somewhat targeted to the RFA process, and if anyone has any suggestions to improve its applicability to RFA, please let me know. --21:58, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Interiot (talk • contribs) .

That's handy, having a link to the various articlespaces like that. Makes things very handy for checking out someone's contribs. --Deathphoenix 22:13, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. Already bookmarked. · Katefan0^(scribble)/mrp 22:14, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

That is pretty rad. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 22:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Great job! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:05, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Wow. How much of a server impact is there? Does it cache? KillerChihuahua^?!? 22:54, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Heh, Kate will tell me soon enough if anything is being abused too much. :) Nope, no caching except for what mysql does itself. People on the toolserver do run queries that take some time to run, and this tool ends up being fast because I was able to pull the data off of indexed fields (eg. in the second view that lists the individual articles, I would have liked to have included date-first-edited and date-last-edited, but that field didn't seem to be indexed). Still, it's pushing some number of bytes over HTTP. Maybe it should have the "(next 50)" links like the Special: pages have. On the other hand, if it's really popular, maybe somebody should code it in PHP so it is a Special: page. --Interiot 23:08, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

very useful - good work that interiot! Grutness...wha? 23:38, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

re-indentingExcellent work without doubt. In fact, I've used this tool in its previous avatar to understand the nature of my contributions. I have some concerns, though, but doubt if these can be addressed by the tool. If I look at my contribs to article space using the tool, the top four articles in terms of edits [2] are those where I have been fighting vandalism, link spam and POV. Whenever I create articles, I use an off-line editor and hence even full-length articles started by me are in the region of 5 to 8 edits - e. g. Aruna Asaf Ali and Tanguturi Prakasam. Hence, we should not be blindly following the tool but using it in conjunction with answer to Q.2 + with the statistic of edits per page. Thanks to the current version of the tool, we can dig deeper and we should do so, probably at least for the top 5 on the list and the bottom 5 on the list, to get a flavor of the editor's contribs. --Gurubrahma 05:28, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Certainly, automated tools can't/shouldn't be a major influence on RFA's. Any tool will certainly distort your own edit history, and probably others too, and not always in immediately-obvious ways. But hopefully it moves a little beyond unvarnished editcountitis at least. --Interiot 05:47, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Nice!! Very nice indeed! Editcountis may be mitigated somewhat because you can check out what lies BEYOND the plain numbers. Good work! The Minister of War ^(Peace) 10:11, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Suffrage requirements

Today's failed RfA of abakharev demonstrated how sock puppets may rig voting and mislead other voters into believing there is a substantial opposition to the nominee. Bonaparte's socks exposed in this case also voted on other RfAs. To avoid such problems in the future, I suppose we should articulate some clear suffrage requirements on the par with those applied the in ArbCom elections. It is unacceptable when admins are elected by people totally uninvolved in Wikipedia. Only those who have a certain number of edits (say 300) and a certain time of editing (say two months) should be allowed to vote. I'm curious what others think about it. --Ghirla | talk 15:44, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

• Here's my wacky thought on this process. Since only registered users can vote, and votes by new users are discounted, let's semi-protect RfA's (thereby automatically knocking the newest 1% of users out of the voting pool). BD2412 T 16:52, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
  • It's an interesting idea, though I don't think we should prevent anons or new users from simply commenting in RFAs. --Interiot 17:33, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
    • While I agree in principle, have you ever seen an anon (or even a newbie) make a truly useful comment in an RfA? It takes some time on Wikipedia just to have a frame of reference on what admins do, and which non-admins would be good at doing that. BD2412 T 18:08, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, they could always just use the talk page... but that's not what we were told Semi-Protection would be used for. Wouldn't we need to amend the policy first? --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 18:09, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah, sometimes my brain works faster than my fingers - what I am proposing is indeed a change in policy. BD2412 T 01:21, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, so you preemptively SEMI RfAs, what about preemptively SEMIing AfDs then? Then why not just preemptively SEMI articles mentioned in the news or on certain blog-type sites? I know, I know... slippery slope arguments are weak sometimes, but would it not fall under instruction creep? --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 01:39, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

• • It will work for the time being but the puppeteers will eventually get around it with 'experienced' puppets. It would not have stopped Bonaparte. He has 4000+ votes; he could have easily created three or four pups with a few hundred votes each. Tintin Talk 18:10, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Ghirlandajo's idea has been going through my mind lately as well, and in fact I was planning to discuss the subject here asap. Not only because of Bonaparte's now notorious exploits, but a simple analysis of other current RfAs also show other suspicious votes. Indeed, it has been as if you had read my mind, Ghirla - the recent ArbCom elections have shown that establishing minimum requirement for voting can effectively shed a light of transparency over the process. It shouldn't be as rigid as semi-protecting the RfA pages, imho, but to establish a criteria of minimum participation prior to the beginning of the voting in order to qualify. Since, for obvious reasons, the requirements to participate in the ArbCom elections were set in a minimum of 150 edits and 3 months of registration, I think that those to take part in RfA should be lower; i.e. 100 edits and a month respectively.

It is certainly a possibility that eventually a few "professional" sockpuppeteers could go around it by making accounts beforehand and artificially incrementing their edit counts. Yet I believe that taking the effort of doing so will also discourage many potential sockpuppet voters not as dedicated as Bonaparte, since it will surely take lots of work to have merely one sockpuppet account with flawless looking contributions, properly distributed in time and subjects as to not to arise suspicion - not to mention many of them.

Interiot's comment is also correct: while this newest part of the community may not be allowed to vote, they should nevertheless continue to be entitled to express their comments at the proper RfAs. Although this may not be a complete solution, it would imho solve a large part of the problem.-- Phædriel ^*whistle* 12:17, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

The arbcom voteing standards have not been contiversy free and 300 would be way too high a barrier.Geni 15:03, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I would support a suffrage of 100 edits & 1 month. -- JamesTeterenko 16:22, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Reluctant votes

I was thinking yesterday at night, about how I recently voted "Reluctant oppose". Other people have made such votes too sometimes in the past. I can understand why people do so. They feel the candidate is a good person and has great potential, but has too little experience or is too controversial at the moment, so they have to oppose the nomination for now. But what if it was the opposite? How could anyone ever vote "Reluctant support"?

The same goes for AfDs. I can understand "Reluctant delete" votes, they are for articles about valid and encyclopedic subjects, but which are badly written. But how could anyone ever vote "Reluctant keep"? JIP 10:24, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

at AFD it happens all the time. I see people vote reluctant keep on video game characters or barely notable schools which are kept because of precedent and policy, but which the person voting keep on would rather could be deleted. Grutness...wha? 11:45, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I would think that "reluctant keep" would make more sense when it was a very, very close call, and you happened to come out on the keep side. Voting keep when you actually wish it was delete doesn't make much sense, better just not to vote at all in that case. —Cleared as filed. 05:21, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Bureaucrat's closing

I voted for four candidates (Wgfinley, Rogerd, Alex Bakharev, Sceptre; I did not vote against yet, since I didn't have chance to make bad opinions) and I am glad that three of them passed the nomination. However at my talk page Alex Bakharev notified me that he failed, and I would like to know the reason why. The rules mention "75-80%" as rough threshold, and I understand that the decision to fail was at the discretion of closing bureaucrat.

I noticed that "Articles For Deletion" are closed with (1) verdict (2) explanation of the decision in cases of not clear consensus and (3) signature. All three are missing in RFA. I believe votes for adminship are much more important and I would kindly ask to amend the FRA policy similarly, even as a matter of politeness with respect to failed candidates.

I may explain why I became particularly interested in this case. The official tally in Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Alex Bakharev is 70/23/2, which gives 70/95=0.736842105. Then I noticed that the counter of "oppose" is set to 25, so I concluded that the Bureaucrat discounted some votes. Lots of red ink also attracted my atttention, and I see that user Bonaparte was convicted for sock puppets. This must result in at least three votes discounted, not two. (Bonaparte and two proven sock puppets. The fourth one (user:yodo) was not proven. I looked into his history and see that he didn't edit a single article after casting his vote, so a malicious intent is very clear, but I don't know how wikipedia policy looks at that. It was also very funny to see "My name is Yodo. I come from POLAND." and his edit Romania article only.)

Since it was not clear who closed the vote, I looked into page history to find the bureaucrat to inform him that the tally must be corrected. And in the history I noticed that one vote was cast after the official deadline for the vote (Deadline: 00:24 January 12, Vote: 01:39, 12 January 2006 Johntex (→Alex Bakharev - Oppose)). As a result, 4 (or 5) votes ar to be discounted, rather than 2, which gives 70/93 = 0.752688172 (or 70/92= 0.760869565). Allah is wise and without doubt he has the reason to play with scales in this way.

Page history says "02:14, 12 January 2006 Francs2000 (archiving)", so I guess that user:Francs2000 was the bureaycrat that made the decision.

A am afraid that this long text may be confusing, so I am summarizing my questions:

• Is it reasonable to request that bureaucrats close RFC in the same way as AFD?
• Will my arithmetics change the decision of Francs2000?

My apologies for wasting your precious time, Mukadderat 00:35, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Don't apologize for wasting a bureaucrat's time. Any bureaucracy worth its salt is committed to wasting YOUR time. :)

Francs2000 is the removing bureaucrat in this case, and I imagine he will be here to discuss this, or you can leave him a message on his talk. But to answer one question, the decision has been made by a bureaucrat in good faith, is within policy guidelines, and will not be changed. Alex Bakharev may be put up for admin again in a month or later. At that time discussion concerning the validity of any voting in the new RfA may be made, before promotion or removal. In reference to manner of closing, RfA closing involves counting votes until the actual closing rather than the formal endtime, unless there is suspicioun of foul play or the post-end-time votes would significantly alter the outcome, notifying the promoted candidate and now we will probably also notify non-promoted candidates. Explanations are not standard in disputed cases but the bureaucrat is generally expected to respond if anyone has a question. Months and months ago I used to always explain my close decisions but found that this tended to encourage dissent, second-guessings and Wikilawyering. Now I also usually respond only to queries about nominations. -- Cecropia 00:53, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

In answer to your two questions:

1. Feel free to propose a policy change with regard to the way that these things get closed. There are no guidelines at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats for closing failed nominations so perhaps there should be. I made sure everything was where it should be; I apologise that edit summaries were not to your satisfaction.
2. No. I have to be fair to all editors, and if I take into account the alledged sockpuppet activity in the oppose section, I also have to take into account alledged sockpuppet activity in the support section. There were at least three votes under support where questions were raised with regard to their edit histories before voting, a common sign that they are sock- or meat-puppets.

I have explained at Alex Bakharev's talk page the reason for deciding that consensus was not reached, and he has since responded at my talk page to say that he accepts this reasoning. I hope I have answered your questions satisfactorily. -- Francs2000 00:50, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

With all respect to the important role of administrators and bureaucrats, I find the expressed attitude towards malicious actions troublesome. I was talking not about "alleged" sock puppets. I was talking about proven sockpuppets. With this attitude I can generate a hundred socks and kill any administrator nomination, and you will never have (Allah forbid!) a single new administrator.

Also it is disturbing that a significant person phrases his apology in a manner of insult: "feel free to propoes... edit summaries were not to your satisfaction", which I read as a polite "none of your business how I do it, as long as I do it by the book, and it is none of my business that the book is only one and half page", and which are in fact evasion of the answer. My primary complain was that there was no any explanations, rather than "unsatisfactory" or "unclear" explanations.

Your explanations at Alex Bakharev talk page also leave an upleasant impression: you write "80% was not reached", i.e., failing to indicate 75-80 guideline and making it to appear as if it was not your decision, but Allah's will.

While reading various wikipedia policies, I was amazed to see heated talks about admin abuse. I am absolutely sure that 90% of them are flames uf punished wrongdoers, but I begin to be frightened too. An openly rogue administrator is an easy target. Much more harm is done in shadowy areas of polite dodging. Mukadderat 02:13, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I looked into who bureaucrats are, and I see that there is only a few of them and there is a strong will to keep only few of them. In my uneducated opinion, this situation immensely increases the nessessity of transparency and accountability of the position. Which is not necessarily much increases the burden upon them, since they have only a few additional but important functions. Mukadderat 03:13, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

To take last first, we are always looking to increase transparency, as in the direction to bureaucrats to discuss difficult promotions only with each other, and to have no contact with those who wish to influence a promotion except in Wikipedia space, for all to see. Bureaucrats are committed to explaining their decisions when asked civilly (not referring to your question) and not changing those decisions once made. There is no hard limit on the number of bureaucrats and, in theory, we could have dozens or hundreds, but most Wikipedians seem to feel that having a large number could lead to an increased potention for bad decisions, or even abuse. The small number of bureaucrats means that those who do the work are well known and people most Wikipedians feel comfortable with. In the case of Alex Bakharev, the Bcrat's decision not to promote took into account the socks, and even without the socks, it was still in the discretionary area. When Alex'snomination comes around again (this isn't a football tournament--losing doesn't mean forever) let's hope the action is more civil. -- Cecropia 04:15, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Please understand that I am not questioning Bcrat's decision: I am well aware that even under most favoreable tallying Alex Bakharev's is on the lower boundary of slack threshold. I asked about changing simply because I don't know the tradition here. If not then not, I don't especially care. What bothers me is an element of dishonesty, may be unintentional. For example, you wrote that you stopped writing explanations because you "found that this tended to encourage dissent...etc." This statement is honest, and the reason is understandable. Some other person could like to always prove that they are right. But you have a different character, and your decision may be disagreable, but respected. But the statements of your colleague, mentioned in my previous post, left an impression, possibly unintentionally, that their author was unscrupulous to a degree. And I find this disturbing because he belongs to a kind of elite. History shows that power corrupts. I hope you have mechanisms to deal with this. And I hope that you think about what I wrote previously, and comment not only to the questions that have a comfortable answer. Mukadderat 09:02, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

It is a profanation of the voting process when three trolls and three socks rig the vote and a bureaucrat abuses his discretion to take their side. What's the point of voting for the best wikipedians around? It's just not worth it. Trolls and socks, supported by bureaucrats, always win. I believe you, me and other editors should learn their lessons from this disgusting situation. No more voting on RfA. Let the trolls, socks, and bureaucrats have their fun. --Ghirla | talk 15:20, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I would like to know precisely what I am being accused of here. I discount a small number of votes in an RFA closing per policy, and all of a sudden there are people posting messages about vote rigging and bureaucrats taking sides with sockpuppets and trolls! Has something been done in my name that I'm not being told about??? -- Francs2000 16:35, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

If you can't see what was going on that page, you never will. There was the side of wikipedians and the side of trolls/socks, and you chose to give credit to the latter. Good luck, bureaucrat. --Ghirla | talk 17:03, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what page you've been reading but it doesn't appear to be this one. I clearly pointed out above I have to be fair to all editors, and if I take into account the alledged sockpuppet activity in the oppose section, I also have to take into account alledged sockpuppet activity in the support section. There were at least three votes under support where questions were raised with regard to their edit histories before voting, a common sign that they are sock- or meat-puppets. That means I discounted all sockpuppet votes, not just the ones on the side you support as you clearly appear to be suggesting. Please remain civil, or I will refuse to answer any further questions from you. -- Francs2000 17:12, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't remember having asked you any question at all. It was you who started asking questions. If you had read Alex's RfA carefully, you would have known that the doubts as to support votes were raised by an archtroll who is about to be banned from editing Wikipedia by ArbCom precisely for vote rigging. He stalks me and Alex for having exposed his vote frauds in the past and brought the arbitration case against him. It was demonstrated by me that the accounts questioned by him are active and long-standing editors of ru.wiki. No evidence of their sockpuppetry ever surfaced, and one of the alleged socks even responded to impertinent accusations in an angry tone. Bonny's socks, on the other hand, were exposed and proven by Kelly Martin using a checkuser procedure. If you see no difference between AndriyK's habitual trolling and the checkuser procedure performed by an arbitrator, I can't help you there. --Ghirla | talk 17:57, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

It's wrap-up time. This was a very stressful nomination, one of the most convoluted nominations I can recall. Francs took it on and made his decision in good faith. Whether or not he (or anyone) could have done it better is a moot point now. It was within guidelines. The problem was not with Francs, or with the nominee, or with the process, or with Wikipedia in general. There are something close to 800 people are admins, almost all made within the last 2-1/2 or so years, and the bureaucrat system has worked quite well, with the occasional inevitable flare-up. It is unfair (and rather insulting, absent some very specific knowledge) to accuse Francs of siding with the socks. Even with the provable socks eliminated, the nomination was still in the area of Bcrat discretion. I myself hadn't formed an opinion of the nomination (though I'd followed it somewhat) and when Francs made the decision, I didn't have to. If there was a problem, it was that some Wikipedians decided to make war over this nomination--there were evidentally passions that had little to do with the nominee's fitness or non-fitness. If anything could be "reformed," it would be the tendency of some to carry over feelings of anger and spite into the process. If there were a way to deal with that, I'd like to know about it. But that's why we have Bcrats instead of strict numbers.

OK. I'm just trying to understand how the system works. If you bureaucrats discount some votes only because a troll questioned them, one can rig up any vote by writing hysterically in red link under it: "Sockpuppetry is suspected in this vote; chekuser strongly requested, etc", without proceeding to request the actual check. Say, User:Jimbo Wales casts a vote tomorrow, and I will question it like this - would you dismiss it as a falsification? --Ghirla | talk 18:35, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

And so, in less than a month, Alex Bakharev's nomination can come up again. I will be watching, as will many others. Let's all mellow out until then. -- Cecropia 18:23, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

To comment on "admin abuse," we have greatly increased the number of admins and ease of getting adminship. There are 700-some admins, and I believe about half of those were made just in 2005. The process used to be much tighter in that a total vote for admin of more than 40 or 50 votes (pro and con) was rare. Now they are common and they can go well over 100 votes. There were typically maybe 5-10 nominations at any one time, and self-noms were looked upon with disfavor by many. Now there are many self-noms and around 20 nominations going at any one time. Efforts to reign that in are viewed as "clubby" or "elitist" by many. I am taking no position on these since it is up to the community to set the standards, and the standards now are liberal. What we have lost is that when there were fewer nominations at any one time and a relatively smaller number of "regulars" voting each nomination was more carefully looked at. Now we have a broader "democracy" in voting but also more admin problems. Reasonably speaking, we should have a better way of dealing with rogue admins, but that is beyond what can be done here. -- Cecropia 04:27, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Mukadderat, I am sorry that my earlier response was not satisfactory. I answered your two summary questions as well as I could, and closed with a statement that Alex himself is fine with the reasoning given behind the decision to close. What would you like me to say? -- Francs2000 21:57, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I am reclusing from this discussion, since I see much uglier things are happening around this page. Still, I find it alarming that you failed to understand my concerns. Mukadderat 18:12, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I heartily agree that "much harm is done in shadowy areas of polite dodging" and believe that the newly-promoted bureaucrat could have started his term by doing something more positive than extending his hand to inveterate trolls and proven sockpuppets. His closing action left a sour aftertaste, especially after he alleged that some support votes should be somehow discredited. The guy seems to see no difference between Bonny's socks and well-established users from ru.wikipedia, who had been editing en.wiki when neither me nor Alex were anywhere around. IMHO his closing demonstrated contempt for all those great wikipedians who voted in support and encouraged the trolls and socks who disrupted the nomination to continue their activity in future nominations, as it ultimately results in success. I formerly thought that admin standard was too lax, but actually the quality of bureaucrats is not any better. Or perhaps the former proceeds from the latter. --Ghirla | talk 15:17, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Let's not get into the area of personal attacks. What is this all about? A nomination that could have gone either way was closed by one of the Bcrats. Enormous verbiage has been placed here and the decision was viewed by many and chewed over and over. I am personally very disturbed by the increasing lack of civility in some of the nominations, and that is certainly true in Alex's nomination. Read back the many archives of RfA talk and you will find that, when asked, the vast majority of the community trusts the bureaucrats. It is bad policy in any system to try to layer on rules to meet complaints about one, or even a few, discretionary actions. Suppose new rules are put in and the results are still not to your satisfaction? Shall we continue to tweak and twiddle the rules until they produce the result you want?

Now you allege that [Francs2000] "seems to see no difference between Bonny's socks and well-established users from ru.wikipedia, who had been editing en.wiki when neither me nor Alex were anywhere around." It is not fair for you to expect a functionary at en.wikipedia to know the users and internal politics of ru.wikipedia. To say that he "extend[ed] his hand to inveterate trolls and proven sockpuppets" and that "expressed [...] contempt" is out of line. You should assume some good faith. -- Cecropia 06:00, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, I want to explain that I do not have any problems with Francs or his actions on my RfA. He acted within his discretion and with a good faith. I do not have any problems with his announcement on my talk page and find it quite polite and to the point. On the other hand, I feel that the rules and the guidelines are wrong. There should be a single number for the threshold (either 75% or 80%), not the current 75-80%, as it put to much pressure on the closing bureaucrat, who, in the case like mine, has to single-handily make a decision that a hundred people hotly argued during a week. I feel also it is good idea to require the closing bureaucrat to put a few words in the closing statement including the explanation which votes were discarded and why and the final tally. It might be a worth to protect the RfA after the closing, as in my case it became a subject of a revert war. Once again it is not a criticism of Franc2000 but the current rules and practices. abakharev 22:24, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem with any of that, however placing each vote disregarded and why in the edit summary is impractical - the edit summary does not allow enough characters to do that in some cases. -- Francs2000 22:30, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, for misunderstanding. I meant that there would be nice to ask the closing bureaucrat to add a short note to the RfA. Like:

At the closing time, the vote was xx/yy/zz that gives the candidate x1% support, after discarding the proven sockpupeet the vote became xx1/yy1/zz1 that gives the candidate x2% support. There were a few suspicious votes that may be of sockpupeets on both side of the vote. Discounting them, may change the vote from x3% to x4%. After closing time there were z votes, all of the oppose, that may indicate that the community opinion of the candidate may be more negative that seen from the vote. Taking into the account this, and an unusual amount of tension during the voting, I decide that the higher limit of the threshold for the consensus should be used that was never reached by any way to count the votes. Thus, I declare the RfA as failed. It does not require much time but saves many people the task to do the math themselves and answered many questions. I think it is a good idea to insert something like this into the rules. abakharev 02:12, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Bakharev, this is a matter of some discretion. Francs judged your nomination as he did, in good faith as we have both acknowledged, and used his best judgment. And since you are OK with that, I don't think we need to discuss that further at this point. However, the issue is not a hard number, so no hard number can be stated. The standard here is and always has been consensus. If we could have a hard number, promotions could be done by a bot and all the bureaucrats, myself included, could go back to an honest non-living of editing, or be put out in the grassy pasture and trade tales of glory days.

In a contentious nomination, the bureaucrat is always expected to be ready to answer civil questions about his/her decision. If this has not been done; i.e., if a Bcrat has been approached and does not respond, this is clearly outside of policy. As to "too much pressure on the bureaucrat"--nonsense! Any management functionary must be able to deal with pressure.

As to the issue of a "hard number," the nature of votes is too variable and subjective. There have been some 500 or so promotions just in the last two years, and we shouldn't identify an occasional strain on the system as an indication that it is broken. -- Cecropia 22:41, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I would still prefer to have a hard number as a recommended threshold, with a bureaucrat's discretion to alter the decision if there is a clear-cut reason to do so. Alternatively, there might be indications in the guidelines as when to have 75% and when to have 80%. The number of editors of wikipedia doubles every year. I assume this also the case with the number of admins, bureacrats and RfAs. The system that worked for 1 RfA per week might not work that well for for a few RfAs per day. abakharev 23:51, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

There are too many variables. The more precise you make the instructions, the more fights there will be. People make the decisions and people make the instructions. The same fallability applies to both. And if you were to give a hard number "with exceptions" you're in the same boat. Suppose you split the difference and say "77.5% is the hard number," then what's the discretion? +/- 2%? 2-1/2%, 3%. Right back where we started, or worse. -- Cecropia 00:01, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, currently the guidelines tell (the threshold for consensus here is roughly 75–80 percent support). That means that the discreetion is not limited to 75-80 range, just there should be reasons to go outside the range. Similarly, the proposed discreeton should be proportional to the cited reason to modify the threshold. E.g., if a canidate run a paid advertisemnt on Fox News accusing Wikipedia of supporting Al Qaida and urging all people to vote for his nomination, or if there suspected a massive vote fraud, then even a near 100% support vote can be ignored, if one of a voters is suspected in e.g. sockpupetery, than the adjustment should be less than a vote, etc. abakharev 02:12, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Bureauclosing: Second attempt

I am very sorry that the discussion veered in the direction I did not intend. Also I am a bit offended by the remark "decided to make war over this nomination". If you read from the beginning, it started simply from curiosity how things work. The answers were unsatisfactory for me; I explained why; bureaucrats chose to ignore my concerns; I decided not to go further, since I basically agreed that at the moment this is not the most serious problem with policies and processes. But I see some people went into actual questioning on the vote, which was not my intention.

Therefore let us forget about the vote and the tally; I am repeating: I never challenged the decision. Therefore let me restate my TWO (only) concerns, with an addition what kind of answer I would like to see instead what I have seen.

• When I asked: "Is it reasonable to request that bureaucrats close RFC in the same way as AFD?" I was answered: "Feel free to propose a policy change with regard to the way that these things get closed." In the whole context I read it: "I feel good the way it is. Go fill forms in triplicate, and we shall talk." Because in fact, what I did was exactly a very clear policy proposal, and in the proper place too: the talk page for the page that defines the RFA process. What I expected is one of : "No, you suggestion is silly"/"It is being discussed"/"It was rejected"/"It has merits; please state it formally according to our rules <btw, what are the rules of policy change proposals?>"
• I was told: "I have explained at Alex Bakharev's talk page". A looked at this explanation and found it deficient: it said "... because ...an 80% consensus was still not reached". I find this misleading, because it is phrased as if 80% is an ironclad rule, rather than Bcrat's decision (which I don't question). I may well believe this was not done in a deliberate attempt to mislead the nominee (hand washing). But I am worried that no one seem to understand this my concern: if someone makes a decision within a slack of the rule, they must say loud and clear "this was my decision, within my rights" or "with respect to this process I decided to use the 80% threshold as my guideline [always / in your case]".

I hope this clarifies my concerns. Mukadderat 22:11, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

It was the bureaucrat's decision to apply 80% threshold when the socks wanted just that. He must live with this conscience and meet eternal judgement someday :) --Ghirla | talk 09:08, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

1. What do you mean "in the same way as they close AFD"? As far as I understand it there are no hard and fast rules for closing AFD discussions either so I don't understand your concern. I closed the nomination as prescribed by the guidelines at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats and I personally don't see a problem with the way it was closed. I have explained to several people my reasoning for dismissing certain votes, I have been accused of vote rigging, siding with trolls and allowing sockpuppets to proliferate and to be honest, I'm getting fed up with this subject being brought up yet again.
   • In the original post I wrote: "Articles For Deletion" are closed with (1) verdict (2) explanation of the decision in cases of not clear consensus and (3) signature. As I see it now, it is not a policy, but rather a good tradition. I suggest to make it into policy both for afd and rfa. Mukadderat 22:56, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
2. If 80% was an ironclad rule we would have no need for bureaucrats. I closed it at my own discretion based on criteria already explained in triplicate to several people.
   • I am not questioning this (and I am saying this for 4th time). I am questioning your weaselish way of explanation in Alex user talk page. (Sorry for this insulting formulation; I stated it twice in different, more polite ways, but it looks like I have a poor command of English, since you are every time answering the question I did not ask). Mukadderat 22:56, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
3. I find the statement He must live with this conscience and meet eternal judgement someday extremely offensive and I refuse to answer any further questions with regard to this issue. It's been done, it'll come up again very soon and when it does I wish Alex every success in becoming an admin. Thank you. -- Francs2000 11:08, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
   • I assume that you are pledging not to answer User:Ghirlandajo, since you warned him about his improper behavior. I believe my two questions were stated reasonably.

   Since User:Francs2000 is obviously frustrated by vigorous, but improper way of defence by Alex's friends, I no longer insist him to answer me. But I would really like to know an opinion of some other admin, whether my suggestion about updating the policy: Votes in various pages must be closed with (1) verdict (2) explanation of the decision in cases of not clear consensus and (3) signature. Mukadderat 22:56, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

   It is important not to reduce it to a numeric algorithm which a bot can simulate. The point is to remain transparent so that humans can stay on top of the situation. Otherwise you will get coordinated attacks by bots which can game an algorithmic system. What you are espousing is a conversation between human 'crats and human contributors, each playing their role. That is division of labor and balance of powers. That's Good, in my opinion. But the trick is not to un-earth defensive behavior. That tends to reduce communication and harden positions. That's Bad, in my opinion. That said, please note that User:Francs2000 is properly playing his role, in my opinion. In other words, I must disagree with the wording "must" in any policy. That simply allows someone to game the systems by forcing humans to behave like bots. --Ancheta Wis 00:44, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Withdrawn nomination

Would someone close Lotsofissues's RFA, please? Voters do not seem to have noticed that he has withdrawn. Thanks. Chick Bowen 03:01, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Votes by Masssiveego

As I've noted on all the current RfA's, it seems Masssiveego is the new Boothy (although, in retrospect, that's unfair to Boothy, who occasionally voted support, and appeared to have some unspoken rationale for his votes). Of course, it's ego's right to vote as he pleases, but I wanted to note this pattern for what it's worth to closing 'crats. BD2412 T 03:30, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

They should just ignore it. Opposing everything is just disruption, opposing every arbcom nominee will create a zero sum effect so it is obviously just aimless zealotry or trolling.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 03:32, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm thinking of a banning for disruption...[3]--MONGO 03:43, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Really, it's not all that disruptive. I'd say wait and see if the behavior continues. BD2412 T 03:47, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Disrupted if BCrats count it, also very annoying. It has no affect on ArbCom due to the nature of the voting there, but is still annoying down there.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 03:48, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Everyone's vote is "counted," but (have you heard this before?) the standard is consensus, not numbers. "Gray" nominations are ~75%-80% by and large. If a Bcrat is looking at such a gray nomination, a reasoned vote gives him/her more information toward a decision than just "Support" or "Oppose." Was the same with Boothy, and we survived.

P.S. There's nothing wrong with pointing out doubtful votes or voters within reason: i.e., someone who always opposes or is an obvious sock, not someone who you think doesn't deserve to vote or whose reasoning you disagree with. -- Cecropia 04:01, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Obviously I have heard of consensus before, and I advocated all the time, so the sarcasm is somewhat unhelpful. Anyway, votes are still tallied as part of the decision. I just hope that such votes are given the feather weight they deserve. Why? Admins and arbitors where made by Jimbo and then elected per policy, voting oppose for everyone is just saying "I disagree with Wiki having admins/bcrats/arbiters", OK, so someone disagrees with policy, why don't they try to get a policy vote, like semi-protection, to get rid of admin/bcrat/steward/chechuser status?Voice of All^T|@|ESP 04:07, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Point of privilege, Mr. Chairman -- To Voice -- I was intending no sarcasm, nor was my comment directed specifically at you, so sorry if my words were unclear. When I said "have you heard this before?" I meant "have you [all] heard this before [from me, over and over]?). I don't know how many times I've had to say this consensus, because the question of counting comes up over and over and I re-explain consensus over and over. No offense to you meant. -- Cecropia 04:45, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I say it's being done solely for disruption. Maybe the editor is about to vapor-locked.--MONGO 04:13, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

If we could be certain of that, then we would remove the votes, but we cant; it could still just be some zealot anarchist or whatever.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 04:19, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

(de-indenting) Okay, we could dicount the vote, but what about the votes of people that simply vote support on everyone's RfA without explanation? Are they not doing the same thing? Should they be discounted? I think not. People are allowed to vote the way they please. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 04:24, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Their weight is also decreased, I can think of a few people who support almost everyone, and I tend wonder how much the BCrats would weight that in a grey case. Either way, the wieght goes down.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 04:28, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes. And 'crats are allowed to discount 'votes' as their discretion directs them. Panic over. -Splash^talk 04:27, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

So discussing it here has been a waste of time since the 'crats are infallible? Okie dokie.--MONGO 04:38, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I didn't say the 'crats are infallible; please don't invent me as saying things I didn't. Yes, discussing it here is a waste of time. If you don't trust a 'crat to work this out for themselve, then take them to ArbCom and make some kind of no-confidence move. -Splash^talk 04:42, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Tell you what, Splash, let's speedy this discussion page since it has been a waste of time. Yeah, if there are questionable votes, us little peons need to just shut up 'cause the 'crats have got it covered...I mean, what da heck do we know, anyways.--MONGO 05:02, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

There's a good bit of distance between alerting the 'crats to a voter with such a pattern, and calling for some kind of punishment for that individual. I've noted ego's pattern in every RfA in which he's voted thus far, and having done so I trust the 'crats to take that information into account (which is why we elect extremely seasoned users to that position). BD2412 T 05:07, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think you did the right thing, and I did not, hopefully, try to suggest that you supported banning...that was my thought. The remainder of my comment was as a response to what I perceive as the usual attempts by Splash to be condescending.--MONGO 05:24, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Whoa... whatever happened to civility here? Experienced users like youselves should probably exercise better caution. Thanks. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 05:29, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Splash is often condescenting (EVProtection)(EVP template)(on sockpuppet/RfA issues) ect...I am kind of sensitive, so I though maybe it was just me. I don't think he "tries" to do it.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 05:31, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think the 'crats have it covered. That's why we approved them. Do you think they do not have it covered? Please feel free to use your discretion to delete this discussion page if you think that the best course of action. -Splash^talk 05:11, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, he said it, Cecropia, I guess you are the best tasting person here :).Voice of All^T|@|ESP 05:08, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think the 'crats have it covered. That's why we approved them. Do you think they do not have it covered? Please feel free to use your discretion to delete this discussion page if you think that the best course of action. -Splash^talk 05:10, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I do have to say, I don't get where Splash said that BCrats are infallable.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 04:44, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

"No offense to you meant."

Geeeze, now you got me wanting to do one of those big Esperanza group hugs....

....GROUP HUG!!!:-).Voice of All^T|@|ESP 04:48, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Esperanza? I thought that was Esselen, or something like that. But that was long ago... -- Cecropia 05:00, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I believe this is a very new user who still does not know well what is going on. At Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/EurekaLott s/he opposed for "Lack of complex problem solving skills". Surely bureaucrats will discount such a silly vote, and hopefully Masssiveego will get smarter as times goes on. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 07:11, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Editor has been around for two years and is trolling...opposing decent candidates for the most part and supporting those that have mostly oppose votes [4]. I stick to my original comments above.--MONGO 07:56, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Loss of patience

I've lost my patience. Harassment of Masssiveego or any other user on an RFA will no longer be tolerated. Neither will modifying other users' comments as Gustafson has been doing. Or voting multiple times as Encyclopedist has been doing. Or advocating ignoring the votes of certain users as many have been doing. freestylefrappe 14:39, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

WP:COOL. The cabal^Wbureaucrats are looking into this right now. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 14:44, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I would like to point out that we are not advocating ignoring anyone's vote, even your innapropriate Spite Votes, FSF, just pointing out a voting pattern. As it is, like Alex said, its the Bureaucrats decision here. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 14:55, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

No. The Beauracrats don't need to rule in this at all unless there's going to be a policy change. Last time I checked, following users around, adding little disclaimers like BD2412 has been doing, and you mimicked, is the only inappropriate action. As to my "spite votes" - continue your behviour, and continue to nominate candidates, and you might as well get used to them. freestylefrappe 14:58, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Freestylefrappe, I do hope you understand that if you're actually admitting to spite votes, then they will be ignored.. there are better avenues to voicing your concerns, such as using the talk pages as you have been doing. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 15:09, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not admitting to "spite" votes. I'm just pointing out his rude characterization of my votes. freestylefrappe 15:24, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I think there is an accepted view that, if votes in RFAs are believed to have been cast in bad faith, it is legitimate for a user to point this out (courteously). The oppose voter is, of course, entitled to their view and to justify their vote. In any case it is usual and fair for any oppose voter to explain why it is a 'big deal' for the admin candidate. David | Talk 15:02, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Do you really expect us to believe that BD2412's disclaimer on almost every current RFA was courteous? It is unfortunately usual and unfair that administrators feel they can harass any user without facing consequences. freestylefrappe 15:24, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Excuse for me "shouting" but this is a tempest in a teapot. Policy on issues like Boothy or Masssiveego was established a long time and remains the same. Bureaucrats are expected in tight cases to consider the reasoning behind individual votes to try to determine whether they are contributing to, or useless to, determing consensus. Someone who always votes "no" and who seems to do little else on Wikipedia will be recognized in that context. BD2412 is doing nothing wrong in pointing out potentially problem votes, any more than a candidate asking why someone opposed or editors arguing about a voter's assertion. However, I would ask anyone who "points out" problem voters that a half-dozen or so such postings should be sufficient to "hit the bureaucratic donkey over the head" to get its attention. -- Cecropia 16:39, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Please don't shout it isn't helpful. On the topic of these notes I think that it's perfectly alright for a user to point out suspect votes either by an indented comment below the vote or (preferably) a comment in the comments section, assuming that it can be done politely. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} _{this user is a candidate for the arbitration committee} ---- 17:56, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Ouch, my ears are burnin'. I posted a note after every instance because I do not know which bureaucrat will close which RfA, so I was notifying whoever closed that particular RfA to a relevant pattern. In retrospect, this was overkill, and in future instances I shall restrict such commentary to this page and to the talk pages of the closing 'crats. BD2412 T 14:04, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

My take on it

First, everyone needs to chill and take a step back. Let's all stop being silly and start acting like adults; there is no need for namecalling, nor is there any need for this to blow up like it already has. So much drama. Have you people forgotten about assuming good faith and staying cool?

This is my take on this entire situation. BD2412 could have alerted the bureaucrats in a more discrete manner, but he didn't. There's nothing he or anyone else can do about it. One one hand, Masssiveego has not violated anything by blanket opposing without explaination. On the other hand, I as a bureaucrat find that oppose votes without explainations are not in any way helpful when I need to make a decision on whether or not to promote someone. Why?

The RFA page itself states: Please explain your vote, if possible, by including a short explanation of your reasoning, particularly when opposing a nomination, though this is never required. To me, this is a catch-22 for us to make an informed decision. Oppose votes that have an explaination are what I like to see. However, sometimes an oppose vote which has an explaination will have such a stupid explaination that I will be inclined to discount it. "I don't like this candidate" is not a valid oppose reason, in my book. But if I discount that vote, people will think that I'm being biased. However, oppose votes that have no basis behind them, especially if a candidate has a vote ratio that requires my discretion between promotion to admin or not, make me angry. Why did you oppose this person? Did you oppose him/her because he/she is a man/woman? This has happened in the past! If I'm going to be making a decision based upon what a person says as compared to what a person doesn't say, then I'm sorry, but I will probably rule in favor of the candidate, not the oppose vote.

Consider this: a candidate requires a 75%-80% support rate to be considered for promotion. That means that one oppose vote effectively nullifies 5 support votes. Sure, providing a reason to why you're blowing away five support votes isn't required, but it's at the very least a courtesy to not only the candidate but also those five support voters that you're nullifying. Providing an explaination is not required, but it is the civil thing to do. It is not difficult to spend an extra two minutes to provide a reason behind an oppose vote. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 15:07, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, BD2412, did post here, just above this thread, but perhaps email would have been best? I think he did the right thing overall IMHO.--MONGO 15:15, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to commit a very unorthodox act by pointing to Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard. This is an underused noticeboard for bureaucratic things. I invite people to use it regarding things such as this. Future reference, of course. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 15:19, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I've doubled Gustafson's block to six hours since he unblocked himself. I'm annoyed that I was not alerted about the discussion going on on the administrator's noticeboard until several users had already commented, and Mackensen, not Gustafson was the one who notified me. Either there needs to be a policy change, or the disclaimers have to stop. It's that simple. freestylefrappe 15:27, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

This is beginning to get really ugly... --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 15:30, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Wow. We're all making a mountain of a molehill here, and I see no reason why we should escalate this even more. After reviewing the discussion, it seems like our bureaucrats have been providing a voice of calm and reason in otherwise un-called for panic. There's nothing serious about this situation; we trust our bureaucrats to make the right call based on consensus, and there's no need to change anything right now. If it works or isn't broke, there's no need to fix things. How things got aggravated to the point of blocking, I don't know... <sigh> Sorry, just my two cents. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 16:55, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure bureaucrats can figure out when to promote and when not to promote. A single oppose vote against a tide of support votes isn't going to change the outcome. Also, bureaucrats are here to judge the community consensus and *not just* a single vote. Raw numbers need not add up when the situation calls for a b'crat's judgement. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:46, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Don't feed the trolls. That's all that seems to be happening with this wasted breath over Massiveego. Marskell 22:36, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Notice

Oppose votes are no longer allowed. Anyone found to be voting opposed shall be submitted to reeducation. -The Cabal —Preceding unsigned comment added by Freestylefrappe (talk • contribs)

Hey, can you please calm down? The way you're treating this isn't likely to get anyone to agree with you or compromise. — Ilyanep (Talk) 15:40, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Addition: And not just you, this whole situation is getting out of hand. — Ilyanep (Talk) 15:41, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Freestylefrappe, I don't know how I can politely say this, but you're acting rather immature. Knock it off. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 15:42, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Everybody calm down. This is why you elected bureaucrats. Now we're even fighting about issues before a particular promotion/removal is made. -- Cecropia 16:21, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

A sense of humor helps. But this takes an atmosphere of self-confidence. Any paranoia seems to remove the fun out a situation. It's important for us to somehow build rapport with each other, a sense of common ground. Fortunately, there is an encyclopedia to build here. That ought to build the community spirit. But when a defensive reaction occurs, somehow we collectively seem to harden our hearts against the recreants. --Ancheta Wis 20:17, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Snowball clause

There are several pileon oppose nominations again. Any objection to prematurely removing those, to prevent the nominee from getting badgered overly much? Radiant_>|< 23:12, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

No opposition here. I used to be of the opinion that we should leave it up to the nominee, but the point of RFA is to determine consensus to give a user admin privileges, and leaving up obvious failures don't contribute anything to that effort. —Cleared as filed. 23:20, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I have already re-added mine after Cecropria removed and closed it prematurely under the snowball clause so I would just like to request that you don't remove mine prematurely. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 23:24, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Can it be that a snowball comes from flocking enemies, and if you wait for a week, it turns into a diamond? Mukadderat 23:28, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Pileups on RfA should be treated much like pileups on the freeway - clear them out so traffic can flow. BD2412 T 23:25, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

The closure of RfA noms should be left to Bureaucrats. That's why we have them. -Splash^talk 23:38, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me to be common sense that a nomination that is totally opposed after a few days is going to fail. Since our purpose here isn't to have procedures for the sake of procedures, I can't think of a good reason not to remove obviously failing nominations. It's not like it can't be easily reversed if someone does it in error. —Cleared as filed. 23:43, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

If the nominee agrees, then fine. But not otherwise — bureaucrats are imbued with the authority to determine outcomes of RfAs, and, imo, noone else has that authority. -Splash^talk 23:46, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

• Seeing support and no opposition here, I went ahead and did that. Of course, when I came back, there was opposition by Splash. I don't think this is such a big deal though. Promotion and borderline cases are strictly the domain of the 'crats - but there's no need to be bureaucratic (excuse the pun) on an obvious snowball. I mean, non-admins close AFDs as 'keep' and there isn't much opposition against that either. Radiant_>|< 00:06, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Radiant, I'm with you. It's dumb to let them linger on, but in past discussions there has been substantial opposition to anyone other than a bureaucrat closing noms, even the failing ones. So much so that they rewrote the instructions on the RFA page to explicitly exclude it. See here and here. Dragons flight 00:27, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Oh wait, I hadn't noticed you had just editted the instructions to justify closing them early. Tsk, tsk. I do like the snowball picture though. Dragons flight 01:04, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
• I already do removal of withdrawn RFA's already, and non b-crats should go ahead and remove a badly failing RFA in my opinion --Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 00:42, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
• If it is felt that a pile-on is becoming a problem then it can always be raised to a bureaucrat for resolution. I don't think we need to extend the ability to close nominations, to anyone other than bureaucrats. Cheers TigerShark 00:47, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
• Agreed with Splash and TigerShark, bureaucrats should do the closing. They all come with an end date that should be honored by non-bureaucrats. Dropping a note on the bureaucrats notice board and/or the nominee's talk page should do it. Rx StrangeLove 04:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I think that leaving a note for bureaucrats to see is perfectly fine, though. However, leave the closing to the bureaucrats. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 04:19, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• Myself and others have repeatedly argued against non-bureaucrats removing/closing RfAs. There is no consensus on removing clearly failing RfAs by non-bureaucrats. Furthermore, citing WP:SNOW as justification is fatally flawed; WP:SNOW is not policy. It's not even a guideline. Even worse, it's not even proposed as a policy or a guideline. Citing it is worthless. What is the harm in suggesting to a nominee that they withdraw as opposed to unilaterally deciding the nominee hasn't a snowball's chance in hell and pulling the plug? Early withdraw against a nominee's wishes can leave just as bitter a taste as a failed RfA. Lastly, RfA is a consensus building mechanism. Evidence can come forward during an RfA which can signficantly change the outcome. While (to my knowledge) this hasn't happened to swing an RfA in favor of a nominee (though it definitely has happened in the other direction) not allowing an RfA to proceed prevents this possibility from ever happening. Meanwhile, you're kicking users in the jaw and essentially saying "you suck, get lost" and tossing them out. WORK with these people, will you? In the time it takes you to remove an RfA you could have left a note for the nominee on their talk page. --Durin 04:34, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  • No, piling up more oppose votes is kicking users in the jaw and tossing them out. We've lost good editors this way. Also, I fail to see the logic behind your reasoning that a certain argument may not be used because it's not policy, guideline or proposal. WP:NOT a bureaucracy; the question should always be "is this a good idea?", not "does this conform to the letter of policy?" Radiant_>|< 10:36, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
    • And how do we decide here what is a "good idea"? Consensus. Removing failing RfAs lacks consensus. User's getting bruised by a failing RfA is not the only outcome that can happen from a failing RfA. --Durin 14:09, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• Calm down everyone. Didn't we already have a huge poll & discussion on this. Lets the bcrats do what they think best. Non-crats SHOULD NOT be closing RfA's though. WP:SNOW is has little standing since it is contraversial (WP:IAR does not overrule consensus, the point is that it is obviously the right thing, but the rules are not clear). So WP:IAR and SNOW have feather weight here. I do believe that it would be nice if crats ask if the person would like for it to be re-listed anyway.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 05:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• If the nominee withdraws, the RfA is closed. Period. Doesn't need any more than that, regardless of whether they were ahead or behind or whatever. If the nominee doesn't withdraw, that's their decision and if it's an avalanche it's an avalanche. IMHO, YMMV, VWPBL, etc. Regards, Ben Aveling 07:36, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Agreed. The nominee or a bureaucrat should be the only ones to determine that an individual RfA has "no chance". With all of the vitriol flying around these days, an anti-snowball is too easy to see happening (see the ArbCom elections). -- nae'blis _(talk) 15:52, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Per Splash, Durin, Tiger, Tit, Strange and Ben...bureaucrats close RfAs or the nominee withdraws. There is no consensus for any other policy and I really must take issue with citing the (non-guideline, non-policy) Snowball clause in Front Matter without consensus. Marskell 11:08, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• Fully agreed, and thank you for removing it Marskell. --Durin 14:09, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Closing withdrawn RfA

In order to prevent a pile-on, I closed this RfA after the nominee withdrew his request. I hope I didn't break the rules (since I'm not a bureaucrat, or even an admin.) Please correct me or follow up behind me or do whatever is necesary to maintain order in the RfA system. (Just don't block me.) --TantalumTelluride 07:25, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me. Regards, Ben Aveling 07:28, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• Reasonable maybe, given the low number of edits for the candidate. But, closing such RfAs shortly after they have begun seems to set a standard of X number of edits in order to apply for adminship. There is no such standard. ANYone can apply for adminship. User:Raul654 became an admin with just 30 more edits to his credit than Bugs5382. Again, see discussions above; early removal of RfAs by non-bureaucrats lacks consensus. --Durin 14:12, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but I think the issue is not edits, but that the nominee withdrew. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 14:24, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• (laugh) Right you are. I was in too much of a rush with my earlier comment. --Durin 15:48, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Wiki School proposal

Having just gone through (and failed) the RfA process I would like to propose that a greater effort is made to help enthusiastic Wikipedians who feel they want to do more than just editing to develop.

I think the problem is that the RfA pages don't really direct users wanting to do more, about how they can do more without actually becoming an Admin.

I am thus proposing a Wiki School to help us post-newbies learn more of the trade.

Brusselsshrek 08:47, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia maintenance is a good start for those looking how to help further without being an admin . -- Longhair 08:50, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

there are also any number of Wikipedia:WikiProjects that are always looking for willing people. Grutness...wha? 08:58, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Esperanza has something set up. NSLE _(T+C) 09:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• And also, Category:Wikipedia backlog could always require help, and most of that is not related to admin buttons. Radiant_>|< 11:20, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Consensus or Supermajority?

There is talk on Wikipedia:Consensus concerning the statement that certain Wikiprocesses, in particular WP:RFA and WP:AFD, no longer work on the principle of Consensus, but instead on the principle of Wikipedia:Supermajority, which seems to imply a more-or-less strict numerical limit. I would appreciate it if some bureaucrats would weigh in on the discussion on Wikipedia_talk:Consensus to comment on this. Radiant_>|< 14:53, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I can answer right here, if that's okay (if you want me to talk on the other page, tell me). RFA certainly seems to be heading towards supermajority, but that is not how we want it to end up. Indeed, I have talked with three other bureaucrats regarding this very manner and we're not exactly liking how it's heading.

Do you want a very to-the-point take on it, from my perspective? RFA is an effing bloodbath. I hate watching RFA because it seems that some people are more concerned about pushing an agenda more than supporting or opposing a candidate based on suitibility as admin. Back when I was up for adminship in June, I had 45 support votes to 4 oppose votes. I had 2500 edits (which was a huge amount) and less than three months as an editor on Wikipedia. Now look at me: I'm one of the 22 bureaucrats. However, if I had my RFA now instead of back in June, I would not have passed. Why? Not because I'm incompetant, but because enough people rubber-stamp RFA instead of taking the friggin time to investigate a candidate. RFA has become way too impersonal. Too many people are creating this idea that unless you're "part of the cabal" (which, honestly guys, doesn't fucking exist, so knock it off), you're not in. That's bull.

I believe it's best to apply for adminship when you have 4,500 edits or so. When you have 20,000+ (as myself) it becomes a waste of time. You've had too much exposure, there are numerous trolls who hate you, and there are Bcrats always willing to lend them a helping hand. --Ghirla | talk 15:30, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Read my lips/keystrokes: RFA is NOT a beauty contest. RFA is NOT a popularity contest. RFA is the place to determine if some administrative and maintanance tools can be given to someone without them destroying the place. People are making becoming an administrator too much of a big deal. As of this post, we have 791 administrators. Do you honestly think that becoming an admin is really that glorious? Of course it isn't. Stop treating it like it's some sort of trophy that only the few elite should get a hold of.

Now, what does all of this have to do with concensus? Simple: the bureaucrats, based upon what the community of voters voices, have the final say when it comes to pushing the "promote" button. The reason why you elected us to BE bureaucrats in the first place was because you trusted our judgement enough to hand out the keys based upon what the community says. I understand that people have been treating RFA like a game of numbers. Well, it was never intended to be that way, and as such I hope to see that changed.

Too much drama. Way too much drama. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 15:20, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Somebody say AMEN. -Zero^Talk 15:32, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Linuxbeak is right. We decide based on consensus, not on voting, and what that consensus is depends on the reasons people give to justify their votes - especially the oppose votes. If there are 30% oppose votes citing bogus reasons, the candidate should be promoted. If there are 20% oppose votes citing significant abuse of procedures, then the candidate should not be promoted. We put our trust in the bureaucrats to make these judgments. David | Talk 15:35, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. --Ghirla | talk 15:39, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed with all of this. In the end it's consensus or supermajority as the bureaucrats say (that is, of course, barring policy change brought about by the community). — Ilyanep (Talk) 16:20, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Radical motion

Regarding the above, here's a radical motion. HALT the RFA system. Voting will continue on current candidates, but there will be no new candidates for a week or two. Having no promotions for a short while won't harm the wiki and gives us time to work out the kinks for a new system.

New system: take a leaf out of WP:FAC. New nomination pages shall have two sections. One with reasons for why the person should be an admin, citing good things they've done. And one other with reasons for why the person should not be an admin. People are encouraged to be concise and cite diffs. After a week, the bureaucrats decide if the person has (1) done enough "good things" (i.e. has enough experience) and (2) done few "bad things". Advantages should be obvious. Disads include more work for the 'crats, and possible allegations of cabalism.

Radiant_>|< 15:34, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I somewhat agree. I think it should be somewhat similar, except only editors with 500 + edits should have suffurage, voters should be required to cite reasons why they oppose or support, and it be required that voters do proper esearch on each canidate before a vote. -Zero^Talk 15:37, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that without suffrage the procedure turns into a circus. On the other hand, reasons cited pro and contra often consist of bullshit like "I think he would be impartial" or "I believe the user will abuse his rights". Precise links to the editor's previous edits are indispensable to assess whether objections are genuine or trollish. --Ghirla | talk 15:44, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• No, I mean no voting. Use reasons rather than pileons. Radiant_>|< 15:40, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I like it. Gets back to the idea of consensus, farther away from voting. Surely we won't die if we don't have any RfAs for a week or two... -- nae'blis _(talk) 15:48, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I think Raul's tenth law is relevant to this discussion:

For Wikipedia:Requests for adminship: People support on the basis of a good track record with no "bad" incidents. That is, they think someone is a good admin because of a lack of evidence that person is bad. So when asked why they think someone would be good admin, they have nothing specific to point at (merely a lack of bad behavior). On the other hand, when opposing someone, generally they oppose on the basis of one or a small number of incidents which exposed that nominees's judgement as questionable -- that is, they have a small set of incidents which they can point at affirmatively and say "these are why I oppose". As a result, oppose votes are much easier to explain than support votes.

Corollary - Because specific incidents constitute evidence against bad behavior, whereas it takes a long track record of good behavior to become an admin, in a given time it is possible to build up far more bad evidence than good evidence. This explains the RFA effect often derided as "people having long memories" - that for a given number of bad incidents, it takes a very long time to build up sufficient good behavior to counterbalance the bad.

When I have more time, I'll check in with my opinion on RfA. Carbonite | Talk 15:41, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. I think it be mandatory that all aspiring voters be required to do research on the nominee first. If they support, provide a diff, if they oppose, provide a diff. And I think suffurage very important - 500 + edits or more should be sufficent. Hell, make it a 1000. And the closing Bcrat absolutely needs to check thee allegations and reasons for one's vote. I hope we are serious about this, because the latest "spite votes" by Freestylefrappe and "no-concensus" votes by Massingvino have been the most slanderous votes I seen in the rfa nominations since I've come to wikipedia. -Zero^Talk 15:56, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• (responding to several people) (1) You can't require people to evaluate a candidate; it's virtually impossible to know if they have or haven't. Ideally, I think we'd all love to have people who vote for admins to actually review candidates. I do this myself, but it's a major factor in why I don't vote very often. It's time consuming to really review a candidate even just to vote on them. When I nominate someone myself, it takes a minimum of two hours to review them. (2) This is another solution looking for a problem. I have frequently stated that to "fix" RfA, we must first identify what is wrong with it. One of the best ways of determining that is understanding what makes a good admin, what makes a bad admin, and seeing how RfA is filtering candidates vs. that metric. But, since we lack feedback loops on admin behavior (once an admin, it's almost impossible to lose it...no accountability, no feedback) we have no way of knowing if a particular behavior is good or bad for an admin. Thus, at this point, any changes that we are to make to RfA are just as likely to induce problems as they are to fix problems. This might be a fantastic idea to "fix" RfA. It might be a terrible idea. Problem is; we currently lack any means to determine whether it is a good idea or bad idea. Recently, we had some people suggesting a minimum of 30 support votes to give someone adminship. Yet, nobody...nobody...could provide any evidence that suggested that candidates with <30 votes were somehow bad. All that was cited was 2 new admins in a 30 day period...10% of the pool. Is change good or bad? Who knows. We don't have any way of knowing. So, feel free to pick up the guns and blast away into the darkness. But, don't be surprised when you hear screams of pain. --Durin 16:02, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Cruel, truthful, and graphic. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 16:06, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

But the suffurage, my good men, the suffurage..! And what about the diffs..?! Surely een those minor aspects would help improve the process. -Zero^Talk 16:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• So basically you're saying we need to create accountability for existing admins in order to have a good way of judging prospective admins (not to mention for creating a failsafe). That sounds reasonable, actually. I agree that at present, admins are not really accountable for anything, and they should be. Radiant_>|< 16:19, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, your very asute comment sums up my concensus quite nicely. Although my main point was also to keep bad-faith voters out of the nomination. I have seen rididculous amounts of votes based on the most petty of views. (FSF's spite votes are unacceptable and should be marked out). Nominating administrators should be based on was best for that person, the community and the encyclopedia as a whole. And one more thing: No people under currently under rfar should be allowed to vote ethier. -Zero^Talk 16:33, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• So guilt before innocence? Even if ArbCom were a court of law (which it isn't), presuming guilt of someone simply because they are under ArbCom is, I think, a very bad idea. Under the current RfA system, a bureaucrat has no obligation for transparency of their decision. I think this is a good idea. If it was transparent, being a bureaucrat would be an awful job. With the opaqueness of the process, bureaucrats are free to discount whatever votes they wish for whatever reason. I think they already do this on a regular basis. This is also why it is important to be very careful about who becomes a bureaucrat. They must be absolutely, implicitly trustable more so than an admin or ArbCom member because their decisions can not be scrutinized by the public eye. Currently, our current batch of bureaucrats does a pretty good job of this. I've noticed only a couple of what I would call irregularities in the last 400+ RfAs. --Durin 16:40, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. The rfa process has become sickeningly slanderous. Its time to crack down, and its time to crack down hard. My suffurage query is still my most important ideal on this subject however- 1000 + votes. Real simple. Keeps out (most) of the trolls, and we don't have to worry about clueless newbies assumming wrong allegations. One vote I've heard flaunted to the point of obsesssion is the half-ass "I've never met this editor". -Zero^Talk 17:08, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• I once engaged in attempts to get people to stop attacking other people for their votes, and instead focus on the votes themselves, if they felt they had to comment. I was roundly attacked for doing so. I guess that followed; tell the attackers to stop attacking and you get attacked. Still, as I noted elsewhere, this is a volunteer effort. I don't volunteer to be attacked. So, I gave up. RfA is an inhospitable place at times. But, until someone takes some very direct action to take a stance of intolerance against abuse at RfA, the abuses will continue. As for what people think are viable basis on which to vote; again, bureaucrats are the people who decide. I've had one vote discounted because the bureaucrat felt my rationale was poor. C'est la vie. I'm sure the bureaucrats are capable of handling this. --Durin 17:15, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• The main question is...are the admins that are currently active lousy enough to suggest that we are promoting admins that shouldn't be admins? That would be the only reason I see to change the current system.--MONGO 16:26, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yeah I tend to agree. I have still not seen any hard evidence that there is a real problem with too many admins or bad admins, (in fact I thinkw eneed more admins not less) let alone that any changes to the system would fix that problem. Simply put: I've seen no evidence of a problem or that these changes would fix that problem. Until then I am opposed to any changes.Gator (talk) 16:32, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

If you see no problem, you have too little experience here. One example. One of the most active wikipedians ever, User:Mikkalai was blocked for the first time in his 50,000+ edits when he fended off attacks by proven socks of a troll, who is now banned from editing Wikipedia. The admin who blocked Mikka was elected a week before that and nominated by a troll who indulged in that sockpuppetry. Mikkalai got pissed off and does no editing since then. This is a problem: the admin who scared one of the most prolific editors from editing never heard about Wikipedia:Controversial blocks and/or decided to support a troll of the same nationality as himself who had him nominated to adminship to boot. The damage is irreparable, as there is no other editor who can make such an amount of anti-vandalism work as Mikkalai had done.--Ghirla | talk 18:34, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• Re: Suffrage. If applied, it would significantly increase the amount of time it takes for a bureaucrat to process RfAs. Instead of that, it might be easier to semi-protect all RfA pages. Of course, this would require admin intervention. Thus, until an admin got to the page and semi-protected it, it would still be possible for new and unregistered users to add comments/make votes. However, there are going to be people (and I think rightfully so) raising an issue with preventing people from voicing their opinions. Let's remember something; Wikipedia works on a volunteer basis. The more we do to make Wikipedia the realm of the elite, the realm of those who have been here for a while, the realm of the trusted, the lesser our pool of volunteers will be.

  Nonsense. Too often we care about boorish newbies but scare established wikipedians from editing. Do you know that the number of editors making over 100 edits per months remains virtually the same? --Ghirla | talk 18:34, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• Re: Accountability for admins. That's a problem indeed. I've tried to address admin shortcomings with admins before, and about half the time I run into a buzz saw of aggression back at me, even though I make signficant attempts at being polite. Most people do not like to be told they are in the wrong. We'd much rather hear we're doing ok, and when told we're wrong we fight against it. Human nature I think. Anyways, the main point I'm trying to make on this is that we don't have any idea what makes a good admin or a bad admin. Thus, changing RfA to produce "better" candidates is an utterly flawed notion until we know what a better candidate is. It's like sending race car drivers out on the track, nebulously deciding that our processes for determining who to send out are bad and thus changing the process...and never once having any understanding of how fast those drivers are, how safe they are, etc. We have no clue what makes a good or bad admin. There's no feedback mechanism. Without it, we're just shooting in the dark trying to find solutions to "fix" RfA. Most people seem to agree RfA is bleeding. Yet, not one of us has any idea where the cut is in such a way that we can back it up with even soft evidence (much less hard evidence). General agreement with MONGO. --Durin 16:30, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• Whenever fixing RFA has come up in the past I've always said that by the only measure we have RFA is doing ok, at least it isn't so bad that a major fix is in order. Recently though I've been re-thinking that. Slim Virgin mentioned that there were a couple admins she felt weren't doing a good job, in the same vein, there are a couple I'm familiar with that really don't seem to get it. I'm guessing that many people reading this know an admin or 2 that probably shouldn't be admins at this point in their Wiki-careers. When their numbers aren't significant it doesn't have much of an effect, but we're producing what, 8-10 admins a week now? The cumulative effect of a larger number of ineffective admins is just as destructive as one really malicious admin. The problem is that their effects aren't obvious and it's bad form to name them so it's really hard to do anything. An RFC type process or the one Radiant suggested would increase discussion, reduce the whole beauty pageant aspect that some have mentioned and make people actually add to the discussion rather than just voting. Now, this wouldn't help with the problem admins we might have now but at least it would decrease the number we create in the future. I'd like to have a process run without voting for once...bureaucrats are capable of reading and interpreting comments/arguments without having voting involved. Rx StrangeLove 17:28, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

  Perhaps a test drive would be in order? I'm open to any and all suggestions at this point. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 17:31, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Of course. We need a new way of doing things; infact, that's why we're discussing it now. I also have good faith in our Bcrats', and I am positive they are competent in this procedure. But, we as the community, are going to put in our two cents and help them out. No longer shall we see baseless trolling and Spiteful vandalism on rfa's. We settle this now. -Zero^Talk 17:35, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• "We need a new way of doing things". Prove it. --Durin 19:48, 17 January 2006 (UTC)