Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 65

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Archive 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

Question

Can someone keep removing my RFA off the main site. It seems a bit communist to me. Removing my page just because they don't support me.-- Bpazolli 10:02, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


After reversion, plans for custom edit links

Yep, a speedy revert was much appreciated by all I think, and no stuff left on the page. Many thanks for that. The bot problem is not an issue, that can be tweaked. If you can fix the TOC problem I may come around to supporting, but the extra edit issue is still a problem IMO. I know that many editors forget to update the tally as things stand, but splitting sections out will only make it worse. --Cactus.man ✍ 14:37, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
The reduced number of edit conflicts would be a good thing, but not until a) the bots are notified/fixed, and b) the TOC issue can be worked out (I looked last night and couldn't find it, either). Tallies probably should be managed by the bots when they do their checks, but I don't know how they parse things currently (I assume it's by the actual bullet numbers, since WP:WATCH is frequently more correct than the RfA manual tally). Thanks for cleaning up after yourselves, guys. -- nae'blis 14:42, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not a fan of using section headers in RFAs, but in the interest of neutrality, I'll make the adjustments to my bot so that section headers could be used. Probably won't get to it for 24 to 48 hours though. Dragons flight 17:09, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

What we need is a new feature to allow us to set what level the TOC should go down to, so the section breaks within RfA's can be set below that level, so they don't show up on the TOC. --Tango 14:14, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Or some sort of syntax near the ===Header=== tags to remove a specific header from the TOC. --james // bornhj (talk) 14:16, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
I discussed this with Rob Church a few months ago here, we can ask the developers to add this feature. NoSeptember 14:55, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Who's good at searching bugzilla? Maybe there's a feature request open already we can all pileon? :) If not, perhaps someone wants to write a new one and give the link here. HOWEVER I think james might be on to something. Off to go read about headers and divs and things... ++Lar: t/c 15:38, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, in Phaedriel's nomination having section headings for every co-nominator was unnecessary I believe. I doubt they much help in edit conflicts also, if everybody is editing the same section (say "support") edit conflicts will still happen. Of course section headings (for support/oppose/neutral) make it easier to vote. I don't know if the gain is that much though. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:48, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Could something be done with noinclude's and includeonly's - when the RFA is transcluded, it's all done as one section (with edit links manually added), and when it's view directly, it's all in sections? --Tango 16:57, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

You can see an example of what I mean here: User:Tango/RFA_test (I've only done the first RFA on that page). If someone can suggest a better way to format the edit links (so they look like normal section edit links would be good), please feel free to edit that page. --Tango 17:13, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Very nice, Tango, and clever. Maybe this could be templatised somehow... It achieves the effect nicely, I must say. There is, I believe, a way to format them differently, but am not sure what it is. ++Lar: t/c 17:27, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Your new version really seems good. Nice work Tango. αChimp laudare 17:49, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm sure it can be made into templates, but it's beyond me. I'm not sure how to get the includeonly tags to work correctly with one template inside another. Also, it needs someone that knows how to use the fullurl thing to get the edit links to work correctly on different pages. --Tango 17:51, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Take a look at this. It looks exactly like Tango's version once it is substituted once, which is exactly what we want. —Mets501 (talk) 18:05, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
That looks like what I wanted it to do, thanks! --Tango 18:11, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
{{phony edit link|page name|section number}} will create an edit link in the Mediawiki style. I note that these hacks all depend on knowing how many sections the page will have, hence using these means agreeing that RFAs shall have only the default sections and no more (or having people update all the links if sections are added). An alternative might be to javascript away the extra TOC entries in a similar fashion to how the Main Page header is removed. Dragons flight 18:24, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
I really like Tango's proposal with your edit link template (which I renamed from "Template:Phony edit link" to "Template:Edit link" because it sounds better) and my template which I have tested and it works perfectly. I suggest that we should implement it. What do you all think? —Mets501 (talk) 21:31, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Wow! I think that's really cool. I like how the comments ( Voting!! Hi WMarsh) section is at the bottom. We need buyin from all the botdevs though so we don't repeat how I flubbed up... ++Lar: t/c 22:29, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Wow, indeed! That is quite an ingenious proposal! I like it a lot! hoopydinkConas tá tú? 02:19, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I didn't have time to look at all of the test pages, but what we basically want to do to template:rfa is add:
<includeonly><noin</includeonly><includeonly>clude></includeonly>===<includeonly></noin</includeonly><includeonly>clude></includeonly>'''support'''<includeonly><noin</includeonly><includeonly>clude></includeonly>===<includeonly></noin</includeonly><includeonly>clude></includeonly>
which, when subst'ed, renders as <noinclude>===</noinclude>'''support'''<noinclude>===</noinclude>. GeorgeMoney (talk) 19:04, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Have you guys tested the new versions to see if the edit section links work correctly when transcluded on the 2nd, 3rd, etc RFAs on a page? Also, I added a section header to simplify commenting here. -- nae'blis 19:29, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I've now tested it, and it works perfectly on all RfA's, as long as no extranious headers are added to the RfA. We should contact the bot owners so they can update their bots and we can implement it (I doubt anyone would object because all it does is add functionality, and doesn't expand the TOC.) —Mets501 (talk) 18:02, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
What's the issue with adding extra sections/links, exactly? I wonder, can't the person who added them adjust the section numbers by hand below them to make things work again? Or, would the bots be depending on section numbers? Thanks for helping me understand! ++Lar: t/c 18:06, 30 July 2006 (UTC)i
As presently constituted, I believe this proposal does not require any changes to my bot. Dragons flight 01:49, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I did an (unsaved) transclusion test in the main RfA page, and I think we want 4 ==== rather than three though, right? Although I suppose it doesn't matter, using 4 makes the header less "large" and more the size of what you get when you triplequote bold something. I must say... This noinclude trick seems the simplest trick yet... well done. I say let's change the template if there is no objection (maybe it was already, I am using an RfA I genned from teh template yesterday for my testing) ++Lar: t/c 14:33, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Format change?

Is it deliberate or inadvertent that the questions, statistics, etc. are now coming before the "votes"? I cannot see anything indicative of the format change in the history, so it may just be the way the last two nominations were created. If it was a deliberate change, I can see why one would want to put the discussion first, but after the recent "section-break" matter, it might be best to discuss format changes before making them. Agent 86 01:22, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I concur. In the interests of maintaining a reliable service I will be thinking about changing my bot to support both types later. However, I would still have liked to see some kind of discussion, as well as a sample test case as mentioned earlier in the discussion above. It's okay to be bold on articles and other, non-bot pages - but the Requests for adminship page is processed by no less than three bots, so please be civil to bot operators and notify them before any significant changes are made. - Tangotango 03:47, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
There should have been some discussion about it, but I do agree with the format as format. People should read the questions before the comments/votes (some of which refer to the questions). Now if there were some way to make the associated Talk page more used: People should feel free to ask simple or minor questions of the candidate that are in a centralized place for everyone to read, but that aren't major enough, "top-level" enough, or are such that an answer would resolve it rather quickly. It would also all for more questions and general discussion, whereas the present or at least recent format encouraged more straight-up voting and was not suitable for discussion of various sections. So, I think it should be directly, and perhaps Largely, linked in the main text. As of now, someone browsing the top RfA page (rather than the subpages) doesn't see or isn't reminded that there exists that discussion page. —Centrx→talk • 04:03, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree. It was weird to see, but people should actually need to go past the questions (and actually read the responses) to make a decision which should be based on merit, not just one that goes along with the concurring majority. Michael 04:11, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
No matter what the format (and I agree that questions should be before supports/opposes) the bot generated infoboxes should be at or near the bottom since if nothing else they get in the way and are distracting not to mention the fact that people shouldn't be basing votes purely on those stats anyway. Thygard - Talk - Contribs - Email ---- 04:29, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, though they do attest to how much one has actually done on Wikipedia and the various means of involvement. Michael 04:37, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Having the stats for RFA's are definitely a double edged sword, back in the old days people actually had to work to find this information and learnt a bit more about the candidate in the process, now you have the stats at your fingertips and many people vote purely on that without a second thought or a second glance. Thygard - Talk - Contribs - Email ---- 04:47, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
At least they still give it a first thought ;-) Stephen B Streater 08:40, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I should've thought of the bots, sorry. A few days ago I remembered the old discussion linked above, wondered what had happened to it (recalling general support for the measure), went back to look, saw that there was clear consensus, and so implemented it. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:51, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
What discussion was that? I don't see the link you refer to. --Michael Snow 22:35, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Ack, I could have sworn somebody linked to it. I gave it in the diff where I made the changes; it's Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 60#Moving around stuff in RfA. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:03, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

One of the main problems of RfA are that voters opinioners don't look at the information, but judge the first oppose votes. Hopefully this will force the information onto them before the oppose votes. This should be a change for the better, Highway Return to Oz... 20:55, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Man, this format looks weird. 1ne 22:37, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
It probably looks weird because you're not used to it. ;) I think it's useful, in that it makes people at least scroll past the EULA questions and stats before they jump into X per Y. -- nae'blis 00:56, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
The job-interview format trending towards safe and "approved" answers to questions has been criticized just like the "vote"-oriented aspect of support/oppose discussions and the reliance on edit-count metrics. So this isn't necessarily an improvement, it's just rearranging the furniture. --Michael Snow 22:35, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Nothing set in stone

I was amazed, excited, and shocked to know that I was nominated for RfA. However, I was displeased with the information I found after reviewing and participating in a few other RfA's. I found that there is no set guideline or requirment for RfA outside personal criteria. This strikes me as very strange, as I have turned more recently into a process wonk, and feel that there should in fact be such a criteria for handing out the mop. I cant believe that there isnt one already. I take adminship very seriously, and believe that supporters and opposers do the same. I would never abuse such a privelage, but looking over my current RfA, it seems that there are minor mistakes which hold a serious and hard working candidate back, which are based off of either personal views or POV criteria. So my main questions is, and this does not reflect my RfA, can we propose such a guideline (even if it means I fail it)? SynergeticMaggot 12:00, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

It's notoriously hard to narrow down RFA criteria among RFA participants, and usually trying to do what you suggest during your own RFA hurts the RFA. —Quarl (talk) 2006-07-31 13:12Z
Hard criteria has always been rejected in favor of just letting people (and b'crats) decide on a case-by-case basis. There's simply no objective criteria that determines a good admin. You can set the editcount bar as high or low as you want, and there will always be a glaring example of someone who has a zillion edits yet would make a terrible admin, and someone with relatively few edits who makes a great admin. The main criteria (should be) that a user is unlikely to abuse admin tools... and yet there's no real way to quantify that. --W.marsh 13:15, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict) In addition to what Quarl says, what would a set of RfA criteria look like? The current process is intended to be a debate, focused on editors' evaluations of whether the candidate will make a good admin (or alternatively, would they abuse the tools, which is not quite the same thing). That has to be a fairly subjective judgement call. It would be possible to have objective RfAs: the criteria would ultimately have to be based on edit counts. Do we really want a system where all editors over a certain edit count (or number of months editing, or with a certain percentage use of edit summaries) automatically become admins? It has some advantages, but any such system would automatically be open to abuse. RfA is about judging a person, so it has to be subjective and to some extent POV. To me its the lesser of two evils. Gwernol 13:20, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I dont mind that it hurts my RfA, Quarl, as I previously mentioned. This is neither a complaint nor reaction to anything that is specifically mentioned in my current nom. I'm merely concerned, and its just a thought I wouldnt mind having feedback on.
W.marsh: I dunno. I've seen great minds across all areas of Wikipedia. And more great minds reaching consensus to suggestions and proposals. So I cannot share the opinion that it is all together out of our reach from creating a proposal that lists and requires at least a few notable qualities in admins. Clearly if there are so many people willing to add their personal criteria to the current RfA standards page (linked as a sub page :) ), then I believe we can all work together in agreeing on these criteria.
Any such criteria as edit counts, helping others, responding in a civil manner in disputes, and many other qualities can be gone over in the proposal. This just requires effort. And I wouldnt mind being the first to slap my signature down, in efforts to create such a proposal. I feel that this is a must have for editors wishing to make the leap, in an interest of conensus among editors. And I thank you for responding.
Gwernol: Its subjective only because, as the header says, nothing it set in stone. The only way to make it objective is to reach a consensus as to what the exact requirments would be. To achieve this we need only look over the AfD standards sub page, and start a poll, adjusting to specific concerns. I fail to see how anything like this can be abused, since we have a number of guidelines already in place, that we reached through consensus. SynergeticMaggot 13:32, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

(de-indeting for clarity) Here's an example of why objective criteria are a bad idea. Let's say we chose 2500 edits over at least 3 months with no blocks as the criteria. Yes, its simplified, but just for argument's sake let's use those. So every editor who passes those requirements automatically becomes an admin. Let's say I'm user User:HairyVandal. I set up a new user account User:SmoothAdmin and plug away vandal fighting (look, I even blocked nasty old HairyVandal once!) and generally racking up edits. 3 months later I become an admin. Are we confident this is a good idea?

Of course, the current system can be abused as well (no system for RfA can be perfect). But, the advantage with the current system is at least we have a lot of eyes on the candidates and there is a better chance we'll find something suspicious. Maybe SmoothAdmin got a couple of warnings on the way, or there are suspicious timing coincidences between HairyVandal and SmoothAdmin; at least there's a chance to spot those during the RfA vetting process. Any set of fixed, objective criteria make it much easier for someone to cheat a sockpuppet into adminship. Gwernol 13:54, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

For the sake of the hypothetical, we should also require a check user or ip then, to avoid complex problems such as those. But on another note, do you honestly think that arguing an editor into adminship is any different? A criteria would only serve to express the desires of mutiple users through conensus, either way, there will be issues of who is who. It wont stop by adding a proposed criteria, or leaving it like it is. It my understandin if anything can be proven, then admin powers are taken away, and I agree with this. But to deny a user adminship just because so and so did something here or there is not helping the system. Who knows? What if the editor that was refused went on to do a better job of securing the values and principles of Wikipedia? I'd hate to be one to oppose.
With regards to the current system yes, nothing is perfect. But I wish to contribute anyway I can, and I believe a proposed criteria will help regulate such tasks as admin requests. We can only go so long without one, and fear of this circumstance is no excuse for there not being a criteria already when it could happen with the criteria. Everyone has at least one eye on them on Wikipedia, I'm not worried. SynergeticMaggot 14:06, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Who would you run CheckUser against? At the moment that SmoothAdmin crosses the threshold (s)he automatically becomes an admin. Because no-one is looking at their record we can't know that we should check them against the IP of HairyVandal. The only way to spot this would be to run CheckUser against every IP in the system. That would be technically unfeasible, not to mention a violation of several privacy-related policies.
I don't know what you mean by "arguing an editor into adminship". What I do know is that in a typical RfA somewhere between 50 and 100 editors go through the contributions of the candidate and look at the breadth, depth and quality of their past work. No doubt some do this more thoroughly than others, but we do sometimes turn up disturbing evidence on candidates who on the surface appear good (I'm not referring to your specific RfA, by the way).
Setting up a criteria would indeed express the consensus of multiple editors, as you say. The problem is it would quickly become either ignored or something that would be subject to wikilawyering. Let me expand on that. If we have a policy-level criteria, then any candidate who passes it would have a case to say "I must be made an admin" regardless of anything else in their record. What do we do then in the case of SmoothAdmin where someone discovers they are a sockpuppet of HairyVandal? We have to give them the tools, because the policy says "this is the criteria for making someone an admin".
To get around this we could include a clause that says (something like) "editors expressing an opinion can oppose candidates who pass these criteria if they have reasonable grounds to do so". But now we're right back to where we are today: subjective loopholes. The only thing a fixed criteria would guarantee is a minimum standard for adminship. No-one who didn't meet the threshold could ever become an admin. once they passed the threshold, we have the system that's in place today. Is that better? Perhaps, but I don't think it addresses the issues you are raising. Gwernol 14:29, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
This is getting kind of long! I'm glad to have generated such a response.
Who would I use a check user against? Your hypotheical RfA candidate, that is, if there is reason (only if ther is reason). I never implied we should check their history or contributions. Your hypothetical RfA candidate would become an admin regardless of the proposal.
What I meant by arguing into adminship, is this. It appears that since there is no criteria, although I have since found snippets on pages, its soley based on an arguement to oppose, or support, and others will notice this and say "support per him/her" or "oppose per him/her". And I take none of this the wrong way, and will not, and have no inclination to suspect this reflects my RfA :) (no sarcasm at all).
Ah. No one should just walk up and say "I should be an admin". They should in fact be humble about it. And I wouldnt par with the term wikilawering, more like adhering to so and so, whichever policy or guideline apply. I always side with policy in the end. And who says that we should leave these loop holes in that you are bringing up? I'm happy you have found them, and exceptions can be made, and we should not ignore large mistakes in a users history, nor make a big issue out of small mistakes. We dont have to give out the tools just because they meet x amount of the requirements. Its the same judgment call that gets made on AfD's, and these RfA's. Any of the opinions editors may have, can be worked into the proposal, based on said situations, like aformentioned loopholes you already brought up.
And lastly, the only issues I bring up, is that a proposal be at least attempted. We need only start with the personal requirements listed on the sub page, and work them all in :) Doesnt seem that hard at all. SynergeticMaggot 14:52, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually I'm all for you making the attempt. But you should be aware that similar proposal have been made (several times) before. They have always been rejected by the community because they attempt to make an inherently subjective process into an objective one. You'll need to overcome the objections outlined above (and others) if you want the attempt to succeed. These attempts tend to fail because you have to put so many subjective loopholes into any proposed set of criteria (to avoid cases like my hypothetical HairyVandal) that you end up back where we are today - editors making subjective judgements - but you've added an extra layer of rules which don't achieve what you want and make the process overly complex and open it to wikilawyering. If you can solve that, then more power to you. Gwernol 15:18, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. I take all feedback into consideration. SynergeticMaggot 15:20, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Totally objective criteria are impossible; there must be some case-by-case evaluation. But I think that we, as a community, should work out strong guidelines on what sorts of criteria people should use. Principles like (to give some examples, ignoring the specifics):
  1. Having contributed only slightly to certain specific tasks, such as article content or vandalism reversion, should not be held against a candidate, except insofar as they may correlate with knowledge or ignorance of policies relevant to admins.
  2. Admins should be civil.
  3. Overall edit count should not be held against an admin with over 1000 edits, and time spent here should not be held against an admin who's been here for at least three months.
  4. Although edit summaries should be used extensively, this is not relevant to adminship unless the candidate fails to use summaries even for major or controversial edits.
  5. Admins should be willing to discuss their actions with others.
Assume further that some kind of rationale is required for every RFA vote (even if it's just "per X"). Then if someone clearly ignores these principles and gives a rationale in violation of them, their votes could be discounted by a bureaucrat. I expect such votes would become rare, however, with the guideline in place. Of course, people might try to evade the rules, but that's true for any kind of rule, and can be dealt with by a bureaucrat if necessary. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:03, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Of course. They way I see the possibility of a proposal such as this, would be the same for any other, with the exception of the case specific. But if I were to list all of my suggestions, this talk page would get pretty long. One such suggestion, would be somewhat similar to how you choose which speedy delete tag to put on, or under which area of say, WP:NOT your basis of deleting an article is, etc. etc. It would be like "Support per this section, this section and this section", or "Oppose per this section of the criteria or A7". This would cut back on alot of "Sorry but..." and "Try again next time and..." or "I'll support you later if..". It would be a straight decision, still based on their personal views mind you, but specifically stating the number under a specific area of the criteria they either most see in the candidate, or dont see. The only difference is, we reach a consensus as to what exactly should be on these lists. SynergeticMaggot 21:49, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
We have had candidates who appear to meet commonly-stated criteria (high edit count, reasonable amount of time spent on the project, not Willy on Wheels, etc.) but who nevertheless would quite possibly make Dave Letterman's "Top 10 Really Terrible Candidates for Adminship". I recall one particularly woeful candidate actually wiki-lawyering when it appeared his RfA was going down the gurgler; even complained to Jimbo that the words at the top of WP:RfA guaranteed him adminship, and us miserable peasants were breaking the rules by refusing to give it to him.
Even in less extreme cases, there's nothing wrong with a somewhat nebulous criteria being used. Personally I don't support unless I believe a candidate possesses (or will obtain before he does any damage as an admin) Clue. How do you legislate that? More rules invariably leads to more attempts to use the exact wording of the rules to damage Wikipedia; I don't want people who are inappropriate candidates for the role of admin squeaking in because they found an obscure loophole. I want the freedom to oppose any candidate, simply because I do not believe they will be good admins. I trust the bureaucrats here to disregard my opinion if they feel I'm being unfair to any particular candidate, but I don't trust the idea of a group of users forced to support if they can't pick acceptable "oppose" reasons off a list to prevent RfA being unfair to Wikipedia as a whole. fuddlemark (befuddle me!) 11:18, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Yup. We elect our presidents and prime ministers without strict criteria or technical requirements. Each voter gets to make their choice on whatever they want, and many will vote on their gut feeling that candidate X is trustworthy or has common sense or many other very subjective measures. We also need to allow for very subjective gut feel voting in RfA. I suspect many people who say "not enough WP edits" are just being polite, they may actually be voting on the basis of "I don't trust this guy". Let's continue with the nice flexibility and ambiguity of the current RfA process. NoSeptember 13:15, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

The harsher side of RfA

I'm not being a moaner here, I'm serious, RfA has turned from a "friendly discussion" into a hate camp. Candidates either get humiliated, or have their egos groomed. Most candidates which aren't landslides, get pulled because they either -

  1. Get extremely unfairly treated, such as Moe Epsilon's RfA
  2. Get a pile of Oppose votes all "per Whatshisface" at once
  3. Receive several pointless votes, such as "no AfD participation", when the nominee is a vandal fighter
  4. Receive harassing votes because of definite lack of experience
  5. Realise their RfA is premature

Now, except for the last one, this really shouldn't be allowed to fly on RfA, candidates are starting to pull their hair out. We all know the tag lines, "RfA isn't a big deal", but I think that RfA has moved one step from "tough love", to "how far can we push candidates". Highway Return to Oz... 22:16, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I understand your frustrations, but I'm not sure that this is the proper forum to vent. I suggest revising your header and comments a bit, as a slight change could significantly alter how this discussion unravels. I imagine you're wishing for a constructive discussion on how better to go about the RfA process, so perhaps word your comments to reflect your desires. As an aside, if you do wish to vent, I'd be happy to lend an ear on my talk page. Cheers hoopydinkConas tá tú? 22:24, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Same here. SynergeticMaggot 22:26, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Hopefully cleaned up. Highway Return to Oz... 22:28, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
RfA is the first time most people here get a chance to receive criticism from strangers. It's like going into an exam without knowing the syllabus. And today we're going to test you on... Your contributions to the Help pages. There does seem to be a supply of very good experienced candidates this week though, so some of the newer candidates are getting rejected mostly for being not perfect. Stephen B Streater 22:32, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree that the RfA can be harsh, having seen some very angry/aggressive comments. People cast votes on a whim in many situations. Another thing is that with everyone having different criteria, there are problems in regards to various people analyzing and criticizing every detail of your existence of Wikipedia and perhaps tearing apart one minor detail where perhaps you were new and did not know a rule or obviously have poor communication skills since their Wikipedia space edits are not large in number. Two of the same candidates may be treated entirely differently. It definitely has the potential to be a bad experience for some, and I agree with you, but what else could be done? Michael 22:36, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
It's not the rejection, I'm referring to, its the users that take it a step too far and scare or pester users into pulling their RfA or even leaving the 'pedia. People have too high standards, and when people fall short, then can come down fast and hard. Highway Return to Oz... 22:38, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Some of whats being said is true here. I've noticed alot of inacurate decisions in RfA's. Some are small and petty, while others would make the next user decide to oppose so fast the nom has no chance. See the above header for discussion on what can in fact be done. SynergeticMaggot 22:42, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I've noticed that those that fail by a landslide often get criticed heavily for one particular issue. This can look like "Get a pile of Oppose votes all "per Whatshisface" at once" mentality but usually reflects an issue that many users sees as a big flaw. It is possible that there are many other flaws but most people will not dig more to further humuilate a candidate. I believe this is the real reason for many oppose votes being quite similar.

If a candidate is really getting harsh treatment then they do have an opportunity to put out the fire and sway the voters opinion with good counter arguments. However, i have rarely seen this type of constructive (admin material like) reply. More often the candidate gets overly defensive, or worse has a tantrum. This then leads to everyone to consider that the user is NOT ready to be an admin (rightly so too). How users respond to the oppose opinions is as key to the success of an RfA as their past editing history.

In general, it seems that the right candidates get selected. For those that try again, i think they are vastly improved next time around and this is good for wikipedia whether they are doing admin duties or not. While adminship is apparently no big deal, I don't think the bar should be so low that it becomes a wikipedians 'right' and it is definitely wrong to kick candidates when they are down. It is also wrong, however, to humor a candidate when there are clear flaws in the candidates editing patterns or behavior.

Nevertheless, if we really want to change RfA to be be a kinder place we should just lower the bar and let all candidates with 3000 edits become admins. Those that then abuse the tools should be desysopped and encouraged to change their ways and reapply later. Is it possible that everyone will rise to the responsability? I believe that is possible and I would be interested to see if wikipedia is willing to experiment and be more liberal with handing out the tools, so liberal that RfA could become redundant and replaced with RfD (request for desysop), that would hardly ever be used. David D. (Talk) 23:01, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem with any experiment that makes the RfA process more lenient is that it's very difficult to desysop an admin. Yes, it does happen in extreme cases, but the process is very time-consuming and almost always causes huge amounts of ill will. Therefore, changing the RfA procedure may well require a change in the desysop procedure. While RfA certainly isn't a perfect system, it does work "well enough" that changing multiple processes isn't a task many would like to undertake. Aren't I Obscure? 23:35, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I have to say I am of the opinion RfA works well and those that fail do learn something constructive about themselves. My extreme suggestion of every 3000 edit user has the 'right' to be an admin was more an observation of an alternative model. I don't agree with it, but I do think it is possible it would not be the total disaster than some might imagine. David D. (Talk) 23:55, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree with you that RfA generally works well and even failures can be useful to candidates. I also think that an experiment such as the one you described might not be a total disaster...at first. However, any system that's set up so that you gain adminship by achieving certain metrics is bound to be abused by trolls/vandals/POV pushers, etc... Aren't I Obscure? 00:00, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I think you mnade a good point below about the desysop criteria would need to be relaxed. Initially this would probably be OK but you're right about the trolls. It would not take them long to realise that they can game the system and bait admins into losing their admin tools. This would be an unacceptable handicap for admin and a very strong rationale for maintaining the current status guo with respect to RfA nominations. David D. (Talk) 00:04, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I stumbled across Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship. Who knew? Highway Return to Oz... 23:38, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia gets many RfAs from users who just aren't ready for adminship yet. Is having an RfA stressful? Certainly: the potential of having your every edit scrutinized and every bit of dirty laundry dragged into the open is daunting. But a candidate who can't handle the stress of an RfA is, in my opinion, not ready to handle the greater stress of dealing with vandals, blocking users, etc. There is a growing trend of some strange "standards" from people who appear to be unfamiliar with the RfA process (oppose !votes based on strict percentages ("7/24ths"), help space edits, etc). Those just don't make any sense to me, but at the same time, I don't feel the RfA system is failing. I agree with David that it's wrong to give a candidate false hope, or humor a candidate who doesn't exhibit basic admin skills. If the user isn't ready, it's just better to say so, even though it may seem harsh. I've tried to stick the word "reluctant" in there when I oppose a nom, and give several reasons why; I tend to shy away from "per above" in those cases. I'd rather give reasons so the candidate can improve for the next time. --Firsfron of Ronchester 23:45, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Yep, it currently is possible to desysop an admin, but this requires intervention of the ArbCom or Jimbo himself. While this system can deal with a few (4-5 a year) rogue admins, it's not very scalable and would collapse if we implemented a scheme such as "all candidates with X edits are made admins." Thus, the desysop process would have to be made more lenient, which has its own problems, such as encouraging trolls to harass admins who block them. Aren't I Obscure? 23:50, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Plus, a system where "all candidates with X edits are made admins" could be easily gamed. Vandals could amass X edits of any quality and then would get shiny new tools. The possibilities are chilling.--Firsfron of Ronchester 23:58, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
It is actually quite surprising they do not already try to game the system. How hard is it to act a model user for a while? I hope this is not a case of WP:BEANS. I suppose the reality is that it rarely happens suggesting the vandals don't have the patience. David D. (Talk) 00:08, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
We have some very patient (dedicated?) vandals on WP. I mean the ones who keep coming back, like CapnCrack. I wouldn't put it past these types, though their temptation to vandalize might be be too hard to resist.--Firsfron of Ronchester 00:21, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Jayjg once remarked (roughly, this is from memory) that he could create a new account and spend a half-hour a day on it for six months, and become an admin by a landslide. This is, I think, quite true, but I'm not aware that anyone's tried it. freestylefrappe did, but of course he failed. I think the key would be to make yourself look knowledgeable, be friendly, but remain totally uncontroversial (e.g., avoiding issues of copyright where possible and taking a moderate stance on notability). However, you would have to know the process quite well to have a chance at pulling this off, whereas a simple standard would be very easy to game. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:23, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is too big now for a "one-size-fits-all" requests for adminship system. It is like trying to have one court room for every legal case. We could have one requests for adminship page that specializes in editors who have mainly done vandalism patrol and others that are suited to other types of editors. We need admins who cover the whole spectrum of editor types. --JWSchmidt 00:52, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

A similar proposal for piecemeal power assignment was discussed (but is labeled as "rejected" in the archives TOC) here. There are, of course, other failed proposals in the archives and at User:Linuxbeak/RFA Reform.--Kchase T 02:18, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I was not trying to suggest giving different powers to different admins. I was suggesting that there are different types of Wikipedians and they do not all have to be measured by the same criteria. --JWSchmidt 04:28, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I understand what you suggested. They're similar but distinct approaches.--Kchase T 04:32, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

The flip side is that as a regular contributor to RfAs, I have seen some fairly significant failures to assume good faith on the part of some of the critics of the present system. To suggest, as some have, that oppose opinions are left without adequate thought or consideration is pretty insulting to those who are contributing here in order to make Wikipedia better. Just because you disagree with someone does not give you the right to question their motives and the quality of their contributions like this. For example, suggesting that editors are trying to see "how far can we push candidates" is pretty hard to justify, in my opinion. Just a thought... Gwernol 01:13, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

  • I agree with Gwernol. While I readily grant that some contributors to RfA may in fact be making trivial oppose votes, there are certainly those that feel "X" quality is important in a potential admin and like to see that quality. Others think that quality is a silly requirement. Neither is right, and neither is wrong. RfA is NOT objective.
  • Any objective measure that we attempt to apply to RfA will fail. Edits, for example, are very easy to accumulate these days, with a number of editing tools available that make it easy to rack up edits. RfA by its very nature needs to remain subjective. It isn't about numbers, it's about trust.
  • Something else to consider; we've heard various comments essentially asserting that we're not promoting enough admins. These assertions are based on a number of factors, including the declining acceptance rate of admins, the rise in standards at RfA, and a perceived decline in the number of admins promoted per month.
  • I disagree with the last of these assertions. While the number of admins promoted per month is lower than it has been in the past, it is well within the first standard deviation of the results over the last year. Thus, this can easily be ascribed to normal distribution of data over the time period; note as others have that we've had a recent increase in the number of generally acceptable nominees. Perturbations in the rates are to be expected, and I don't see a reason to fear a problem as yet.
  • Secondly, there's a dizzying array of ways in which to evaluate whether we're promoting enough admins or not. How backed up are processes at Wikipedia? Are they more backed up than typical? What is typical? Are we keeping vandalism in check? And on and on and on. One way in which to look at the data is the number of articles per admin. Some of you may be surprised to know that the number of articles per admin has risen just 11% in the last 1 1/2 years; virtually static, and given the increase in the presence of vandal fighting tools, we're probably doing a *better* job finding and fighting vandalism than we were in the Spring of 2005.
  • In short, I think we need to be more careful in our assertions that we aren't promoting people fast enough. Perhaps we're doing a better job of filtering than ever before? Just a possibility, and one that hasn't been discussed in great depth. --Durin 13:29, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree with the oppose per above or support per above point. I wonder if it ought to say on the RFA page - no per above votes, try to give an individual reason... --Errant Tmorton166(Talk)(Review me) 13:46, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
So if a candidate is found to have moved a page or two to "...on wheels", only one person is allowed to use that as grounds for opposing? -- Steel 14:04, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Well no thats not what I meant but rather than saying oppose per userx people should say oppose due to moving pages to "...on wheels". It doesn't take much to type and clarifies exactly what they are opposing - which is kind of useful. --Errant Tmorton166(Talk)(Review me) 14:15, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
If user x identifies the pagemoves, then it makes absolutely no difference whether people oppose "per user x" or oppose "per pagemoves". -- Steel 14:30, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I strongly feel that RfA is not a one size fits all. It is also nearly impossible to change the reasons for which people !vote. As a suggestion, shouldn't we rather insist that candidates/nominees go through the logs of RfA to find out what lies in the future. Also, for those who aren't sure, Editor review should be publicised. Though ER rarely gets the "enemies", issues like low edits in certain namespaces, experience, etc. are handled well in it. — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 14:01, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree about publicising editor review, I added a sentence and link to it in the About RFA section (under Decision Process section where it says you can self nominate). What do you reckon? --Errant Tmorton166(Talk)(Review me) 14:21, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
A brief look at Wikipedia:Editor review suggests it to be rather useless. Users seem to be recieving very few comments. The user currently at the top of the list seems to be getting laudatory reviews, yet is about to be banned for a year by the Arbitration Committee. Perhaps this sample is distorted but it is not looking like a process that will help people prepare for RfA. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:52, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Receive several pointless votes, such as "no AfD participation", when the nominee is a vandal fighter I view this as one of the strongestreasons to oppose around. We select admins who can help the 'pedia and have good knowledge of process. You can't have that if you dont participate in that process. I like RC patrollers, and do more then a bit of it from time to time, but vandal-fighting is not the be-all and end-all of being a wikipedian, and it does not make you a saint. Go contribute some, go help in the XfD proccesses too. Too many people RC-patrol to inflate edit counts and race toward the perceived goal of adminship like this is a game and their racking up points. -Mask 03:42, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I was making an example. I don't see any point to users complaining "nominee has not asked for pages to be protected", when the nominee doesn't wish to do that, and has noted that what they want to do wil help the 'pedia. If you're only trying to promote über admins, who will destroy our backlogs in hours, then your plan isn't working, editors are just leaving because they're sick of jumping through hoops, just to become an admin. But we all know, It's not a big deal. Highway Return to Oz... 07:22, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Vandal-fighting is a necessary activity, and one to which adminship is highly relevant (rollback and block). Why does it matter whether someone who wants to revert and block vandals has contributed to AFDs? If they indicate any intent to start closing AFDs, then they had better have contributed, but asking people to participate in all the important Wikipedia processes when they only want admin tools to contribute better to one makes little sense. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:07, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
It wouldn't matter if we were just giving them rollback, but we're not, were giving them ALL the admin tools. You need not be a crazy-awesome AfD closer, but I'd (and others) would prefer that you have at least some experience with all or almost all areas, not just one. (edited for spelling, typing while standing does not behoove me.) -Mask 02:11, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I think some RfAs are getting ridiculous in terms of the volume of nit-picky hypotheticals thrown at candidates. Has anyone yet had the balls to respond along the lines of "I haven't got time to answer all of these questions because I'm busy contributing usefully to Wikipedia"? --Dweller 17:15, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Resurrecting a proposal: jury voting

Whose consensus is RFA supposed to represent?

Well, let's look at how we currently determine it. What we have now is a conventional vote: anyone who stops by can throw in their opinion. So whose consensus do we gather? That of RFA regulars, of the nominee's friends, and probably of the nominee's enemies. Assuming there's significant off-site discussion of Wikipedia matters amongst the wiki-savvy, such as on IRC, and given that people who have had interactions with someone are more likely to notice that person's RFA on RC or wherever, it's safe to say that a very large percentage of those who currently vote in RFA will have preconceptions as to the candidate's worthiness.

Is this good or bad? At first glance, it would seem good. Who better to judge a candidate than those who know him? But actually, I think it's probably not good. The acquaintances of a candidate surely have better knowledge, but they may also have unusual opinions. One example of this is, of course, where a candidate has consistently enforced an often-resented policy, such as WP:FU: those who have had their images removed (the minority of active Wikipedians who disagree with the policy) may feel resentful, and as discussed above are probably more likely to see the RFA than others. Basically, someone's pool of acquaintances may be skewed due to the spheres they walk in. Likewise, people may hold personal grudges if they were involved in a difference of opinion with a user. These people are not impartial, but they'll be disproportionately likely to vote in the candidate's RFA.

Now, the current process is not "broken". That's true. Most people it lets through are deserving, most people it bars are undeserving (or at least not clearly deserving). But "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" is a recipe for perpetual mediocrity. The current system could use improvement; the mere fact that it works at an acceptable level is not reason to fail to improve it. Let's not oppose change just because it's change.

So, I would argue that consensus should be the informed opinion of the Wikipedian community as a whole. Obviously, we can't ask every single Wikipedian what they think of every single admin candidate. But an interesting possibility comes from jury votes, and the idea of a statistical cross-section. Select fifty or a hundred people randomly from the community for each candidate. (A bot could pick them and leave messages on their talk pages linking them to the discussion.) Have an open discussion for perhaps three days, longer if necessary, where people present diffs and other evidence and discuss the candidate's merits. Then let those in the jury (who showed up) vote. If they agree by a margin of 80% that the candidate should get the tools, then they get them.

Of course, many of these people may be inexperienced in RFA. They might not understand what adminship means exactly. But I think this could be overcome quite easily: just tell them all when they're selected what powers an admin gets and how difficult it is to remove them. It's really quite simple, not something that you need any experience to grasp.

Is the scheme overcomplicated? I really don't think so. A simple bot running on open-source code could handle all this quite invisibly. And unlike the present system, it's also completely immune to vote-stacking of any sort. People with open minds and average opinions will consider the matter, not people who may have preconceived opinions based on personal slights or out-of-date facts.

Of course, the question of how to select the jury remains, but that's more of a detail not important to the main thrust of the scheme. What are people's thoughts on this? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:04, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Is the system broken? What percentage of RfA's do objective wikipedians think have been opposed with unfair predjudice? David D. (Talk) 21:11, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
The system is not broken. It is merely imperfect. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:33, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Since it would be bad to block people from raising legitimate concerns, uncivil diffs, etc., comments to that effect would be made and allowed anyway, and the jury members and the closing bureaucrat will see them and they will have a similar effect as they do now; and supporters will object to those objections and bring up countervailing diff's and we have a similar system as we do now. Except, the selection of the jury is the key part. If they are randomly selected, a significant majority will have no idea what an admin does, etc., and many of them will, aside from being new, be uncivil or fringe or otherwise problematic; it is not sufficient to give a paragraph explanation, even if they are all good faith jury members. So we end up with people raising objections about the qualifications of the jury in any particular case. That is—if more than a handful of the randomly selected jury cares to give any careful evaluation, if they do anything at all. I think, if anything, this will result in a less careful evaluation or less discussion. If the current RfA participants were to still review contributions of the candidate in this proposed system, we would then have a situation where the people who know the most about the candidate have their opinions not count, and then the people who just happened to login one day so they can edit their favorite band article don't know the qualifications, haven't reviewed the contributions, and may not even vote reasonably if they had. —Centrx→talk • 21:26, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I think problems with the current system are related lack of thorough discussion. —Centrx→talk • 21:27, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
That's because RfA is a vote. We're kidding no one. Highway Return to Oz... 21:32, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
With the proposal, keep in mind that not everyone is on every day. Some may visit once a week-maybe less. It also doesn't seem right to block some from having the ability to vote. Michael 21:39, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
In addition to the problem of people's schedules, the idea depends on having enough "jurors" feel an obligation to participate. In a volunteer project, that's a dicey proposition to rely on, and the combination makes me skeptical about whether the result would be a reasonably representative body. And that's without getting into the technical challenges of selecting them, which may not be critical to a theoretical discussion, but which are large enough that the theoretical side may not be worth spending much time on. --Michael Snow 22:54, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Yep, current "bottom up" system works best. Wikipedia is a distributed, community based system. For certain very exceptional things, like ArbCom, etc., it is important to have a "top-down" approach. However, for editing articles, voting things for deletion, voting for admin, and others, it is best to let things at the hands of the community (will all the disclaimers of the supposed silliness of the masses, etc.) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:39, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
The technical challenges are negligible. Anyone familiar with pywikipediabot could probably knock up a bot to do this in a day. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:33, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Somebody could easily create a bot to pick a jury pool, no doubt. What I meant by technical challenges was the issue of making the pool random, or otherwise ensuring that the jury is a representative sample of the person's peers. Addressing those problems goes beyond mere skill in programming. --Michael Snow 20:57, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Those who only visit once a week will, of course, not be able to participate as often. There will be an inherent bias toward more active members of the site, but I don't think that's a bad thing: they're the ones who will most likely have to deal with the new admin, after all. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:33, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
You raise a few concerns here. First, as you say, the jury will not know what an admin does. As I said: so? What's there to know? Be told what they can do, what use giving someone the tools is and what harm it could cause, and you're pretty much set. You don't have to be an expert in Wikipedia policy to judge admin candidates, any more than you need to be a lawyer to judge a legal case.

Second, you suggest that the jury might be uncivil or otherwise fringe. To that, I think all I need to say is, are contributors to RFA at present really all civil and mainstream? You'll always have some jerks in the crowd.

Third, you suggest that the jury won't review the evidence. Maybe. My belief is that given the small number of RFAs, no one of our tens of thousands of active members will be picked often enough for the jury to lose its interest. I would guess that given editor turnover, a large percentage of people will only ever be picked once. Put a big notice up saying DO NOT PARTICIPATE IF YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO SPEND AT LEAST AN HOUR DISCUSSING AND CONSIDERING OVER THE COURSE OF A WEEK, and I think the large majority will put more effort into it than most RFA voters currently do. (How much time do you spend when deciding how to vote on an RFA? I doubt I've ever spent more than half an hour.) —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:33, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I still like the idea of the juror voting. Juror's can be randomly selected from the pool of people registered for the juror's duty, so to prevent from choosing people, who are not interested. People who edit wikipedia are usually fast learners and it is not that bad if the nominated admin and the people arguing his case will be a little more verbose explaining their arguments to the Jury. After all in the real courts of law the Jury is usually less educated than a typical wikipedian, the instructions are more complex and the results are much more important abakharev 03:02, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Jury cases in courts of law are quite different that this proposal. Courts of law are a negative process. They would be more similar if all it took were a single wiki-juror to deny adminship, in which case we wouldn't get any admins. There are many other dissimilarities too; the analogy doesn't hold. —Centrx→talk • 03:55, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Sure it does. The principle in both cases is this: a random selection of an individual's peers are the most neutral possible group to judge him. The exact requirements for conviction versus adminship aren't the point of this suggestion. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:33, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
I still think it's a terrible idea. One of the principles behind the ideal of consensus is "those who are there to make the decision are the right people to make the decision". By saying we need a juried system, we're demolishing a huge chunk of good faith in our editors, and for no proven gain. RFA needs help, probably, but this isn't it. -- nae'blis 03:22, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
I strongly disagree that that's a part of the ideal of consensus. Consensus is of the entire community, not just of people who happen to be there. The people who happen to be there may be better-suited to make the decision . . . or they may be just the opposite. And as for assuming good faith, that is completely unrelated to assuming beneficial action: I can assume someone is acting in good faith while still saying they should not be allowed to act that way. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:33, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Any substantial RfA reform is unlikely, I'd say, because there is a substantial group that views RfA as one of the smoothest-running, most effective processes on the English Wikipedia. This despite the vocal group that believes otherwise. A reform that is, like this one, purely experimental and not modelled on other process that have a history of success, is especially unlikely to find purchase. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:41, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

In keeping with the spirit of RFA:

I'm not sure if I was the first to propose this, but I've certainly brought it up before. The current processes at RfA, CfD, AfD, etc. are all "consensus" based, but based on consensus of whoever shows up to participate. This makes all of these processes extremely subject to manipulation by any organized group. If we actually want these processes to reflect community-wide "consensus" I don't think there's any real alternative to some sort of random sampling technique. The "jury" analogy is not really accurate. It's more like statistical polling. With sampling techniques, and a small amount of statistics, it's possible to figure out what the +/- percentage is for a given (random) sample size. A self-selected sample (what we have now) has a +/- of 100% (might be completely wrong). If we want 80% approval, I think we could get within 2% of this by sampling something like 30 randomly selected users (I am not a statistician, so this number might be extremely inaccurate). If we allowed users to elect to be part of the population from which a random sample were selected, I think we avoid most of the infrequent participant problems. I'm not claiming this is necessary, but I think it's quite doable. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:44, 2 August 2006 (UTC)\
  • The way I see it here's how a jury type system would ideally work:
    • A set group of trusted Wikipedians would be overseers or selectors if you will of the jury pool and are selected through some way that is acceptable.
    • Anyone with X edits or more may put their name on a page to be eligible for the jury pool
    • The overseers/selector group selects the jury group for each, to make sure the overseers don't rig it it would be simple to have multiple groups and even possibly have a 2nd group that decides which overseer or overseers choose the jury for which case to avoid jury rigging.
    • Once a jury is chosen there would be a period of time for comment and diff presentation from the public. Comments and diffs would have to be regarding the candidate's past behavior and any reasoning based on possible actions would have to be justified based on past actions (to avoid mudslinging).
    • Supporters could also present diffs and well based reasoning to why the person would be a good candidate for adminship
    • Responses to criticisms and supports alike would be allowed but not required of the candidate who would also be able to present diffs. Room could also potentially be given for outside supporters and opponents to counter given diffs.
    • Jury members could excuse themselves if they felt they could not make a fair decision and would not be allowed to comment or provide diffs on the nom either for or against unless they excuse themselves.
    • After a given amount of time (7 days or 14 days would probably be best) the chosen jury pool will discuss among themselves whether the person gets promoted, a consensus would be required to promote and jury votes would have to be reasoned in explanation.
  • Please give your feedback on this idea, I'm more than willing and ready to write this into a proposal but would like some comments on it first lest I waste the effort to have it shot down immediately. Thygard - Talk - Contribs - Email ---- 05:29, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
    • I think this concept of jury voting is one of the best suggested reforms of the RFA process that I have heard. It allows us to get away from voting and reach a consensus for every nomination. I would definitely volunteer to be on the jury. -- JamesTeterenko 16:23, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Volunteering for jury duty is one way we could do it, randomly selecting from registered users active within X days is another, picking edits off RC is still another; it's the concept that matters more than the implementation. However we do it, though, the jurors should not be selected by a human group, but rather at random, possibly with some kind of criterion for removing anyone who knows/has strong feelings toward/whatever the person. And jurors should most definitely be allowed to comment on the case, ask questions, and join the discussion; I know real jurors aren't allowed to, but AFAIK that's more of a relic than something with a real purpose. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:33, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

This proposed jury system strikes me as taking a fairly simple and transparent process and making it pretty complicated. Do we want to risk breaking something that, by many accounts, isn't broken? Let's keep it simple. Sxeptomaniac 21:22, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Types of potential admins, and how each type fares in RfA

I think it would be good to look at recent RfAs and determine how the community responds to each type of admin candidate. When I say type I mean: 1)the vandal fighter, 2)the article editor who could use the tools, 3)the tech expert 4)the WP policy wonk, and so on. Which types are being most supported and which are being passed over for adminship. Ultimately, what mix of admins are we creating? Six months from now, are we going to have a group of admins dominated by one or two types? And how is this going to affect the ongoing operation of WP? This is so subjective, I am not sure where to start, but I think looking into this sort of thing would be useful. Any ideas of how to analyze this? NoSeptember 08:49, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

We can look into his/her contributions and identify his edits. This is a tough one though, but I like the idea. --Terence Ong (Chat | Contribs) 09:47, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Vandal fighters and AfDers are reigning supreme, because if you don't do those things, you are absolutely worthless. Highway Return to Oz... 14:49, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
No one's ever said Article Editors are worthless, but I have seen many people !vote oppose for these folks based on "doesn't need the tools".--Firsfron of Ronchester 14:55, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
But even then, AfDers are only reigning supreme if they're supporting the right articles. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:59, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Well I don't think that's a very good view, because article editors can do everything, they revert vandalism, they protect, they move and they occassionally log AfDs. So Article Editors are Jack-of-all-trades, is that a bad thing? Highway Return to Oz... 15:11, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
To get back to NoSeptember's original question... I suppose, for new RfAs, you could simply ask each candidate which category s/he felt s/he was in. For analyzing old data, you could compare them with the "what would you do with the tools?" question, which is asked in many (certainly not all) RfAs. Making some sort of chart might be useful. Didn't User:Durin create something like this? I don't rightly recall.--Firsfron of Ronchester 15:03, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
I like the idea, and I think between the nom statement, the answer to "what would you do once an admin?", and the supports/opposes, you could get a (very subjective, but perhaps useful) metric. Maybe rate them on each of the four types? That gives you an automatic fifth type: the eager newbie who applied WAY too soon. I like the idea. -- nae'blis 15:42, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
I think we're kind of barking up the wrong tree here, although the study could be interesting if done the way Nae'blis describes. The point is that people who are exclusively any one of those stereotypes are more likely to fail than editors with experience in all four areas, or at least the first, second, and fourth. My perception of votes is that people are lookin for a balance. But, as I said, if someone comes up with some rough rating in each area as Nae'blis said, perhaps it will reveal how much experience is being required in each topic, and we can evaluated if that's a good thing. -- SCZenz 16:31, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
There's probably archetypal categories you can pigeon-hole candidates in, but the above four doesn't get at the two things I see most often taking candidates down in flames: civility and POV-pushing. Maybe a "skill" based analysis would be better than the above categories:
a) article-writing
b) civility
c) NPOV
d) general policy knowledge
e) anti-vandalism
f) MediaWiki knowledge (trying to get at the "technical" type).
Try to rate them from 1-10 (obviously former admins like Sean Black would have a bonus in some categories), and see where we end up? I'd hypothesize SCZenz is right, about the well-rounded candidate being best, but some will likely come up as more consistently high than others. I know where I'd rate myself... -- nae'blis 16:41, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
If you try something like that, be sure you include things like inclusionism/deletionism and copyright stringency. Opinions can count for a lot; many RFAs fail because the person is too harsh/lenient on notability or copyright in particular (since both are very relevant to many admin tasks). Likewise belief in IAR vs. consensus vs. process regularly comes up. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:37, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
If you want a Guinea pig to first disect this thing, you can use me when I'm not so shiny new. Yanksox 20:42, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
I believe inclusionism/deletionism is too subjective to be measured (as is eventualism/immediatism). IAR/process is likewise very subjective, though you could argue it falls under "does the user known/is familiar with policy?". Copyright definitely comes under policy awareness IMO. I was trying to limit the list to things that were unequivocally good, but individual standards may vary as to what "score" is needed. -- nae'blis 20:49, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Along the same lines of what the candidates do, another polarising factor seems to be does the candidate hang out in IRC. It seems that those who do get an initial rush of support. The oppose votes tend to come later when others happen to pass through RfA. At least this is my impression, has anyone esle noticed this phenomenon? David D. (Talk) 16:50, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

If an editor has a record of contributions to the project and no history of causing problems and they want to be an administrator then they should be an administrator and it should be no big deal.--JWSchmidt 17:02, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

"no history of causing problems": And there lies the subjectivity. David D. (Talk) 17:37, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
"Current Wikipedia policy is to grant administrator status to anyone who has been an active Wikipedia contributor for a while and is generally a known and trusted member of the community. Most users seem to agree that the more administrators there are the better." (source) --JWSchmidt 17:07, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikimedia conference and administrators

Will there be an opportunity for discussions about administrators at the upcoming Wikimedia conference? Perhaps it might be beneficial to talk about issues surrounding adminship there as well? --HappyCamper 17:04, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I hope so, even if only informally. Anyone that wants to buttonhole me, should... ++Lar: t/c 17:26, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
In my opinion, it would be an opportunity lost if there is no productive discussion about this at the conference... --HappyCamper 17:33, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Indeed. Administrator status will become, I think, a focus of greater and greater attention and problems. As the chance of passing an RfA goes down over time (and it is dropping), the frequency of complaints about administrators will rise. The more selective the group, the more negative consequences there will be. --Durin 17:36, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. As the number of administrators in Wikipedia rises and the chance of having a successful RfA (in the first attempt) decreases, ordinary users would demand and expect a high standard of behaviour (as well as edits and vandal fighting) from admins. There should be a productive discussion about this at the conference. --Siva1979Talk to me 18:03, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Whether there is or is not, it might behoove us to consider having a discussion about this here, on Wikipedia, and consider the consequences of this shift. --Durin 19:11, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
For me, I think I'm going to sit back and wait for another Wikipedian to take the initiative to do that. --HappyCamper 21:00, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Taking up your offer, it appears there is a growing trend for some users to be excessively harsh and oppose candidates because they have not been involved in a particular issue (e.g. not going to WP:IFD can be construed as lack of knowledge about image and deletion policy), yet they do not consider whether the admin candidate would actually stop down and ask how to do something if he were faced with a particular situation. That's why specialist admins aren't such a bad idea to begin with, and I guess that's something that will get the ball rolling... Titoxd(?!?) 22:00, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
I disagree, my opinion is that admin should at the base knowledge of other tasks. --Masssiveego 08:13, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

July 2006 WP:RFA in Review

This month 1 Last month Six months ago
New RfAs posted: 78 79 83
Successful RfAs: 28 (36%) 26 (33%) 37 (45%)
Early withdrawn RfAs: 38 (49%) 38 (48%) 29 (35%)
Self nominations: 39 (50%) 40 (51%) 30 (36%)
Noms with <1000 edits: 19 (24%) 22 (28%) 13 (16%)
Average number of votes per successful RfA: 91 88 61
Success rates based on edit count of all nominees with at least...
All RfAs 36% 33% 45%
>1000 edits 47% 45% 53%
>2000 edits 53% 49% 59%
>3000 edits 58% 54% 65%
>4000 edits 54% 50% 63%
>5000 edits 57% 47% 65%
Success rates based on time on Wikipedia of all nominees with at least...
>2 months 38% 38% 49%
>4 months 41% 39% 52%
>6 months 42% 41% 54%
Average edit count of successful noms: 6713 7039 6701
Average edit count of unsuccessful noms: 3157 3144 2871

1 - July data is preliminary and assumes success of Ambuj.Saxena, Phaedriel, Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, Crazycomputers, MisfitToys, GHe and failure of SynergeticMaggot.

--Durin 21:27, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what's worse, the statistics, or the fact I'm not suprised. Highway Return to Oz... 21:54, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Not surprised at what? The one thing that surprises me is that there is a large increase of self noms. Do most unsuccessful RfA's come from this group? David D. (Talk) 22:13, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Probably. In the past, I imagine nominating someone was a nice thing, now nominating 90% of editors is generally tying a noose around their neck. Highway Return to Oz... 22:19, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, don't they just show the world collapsing around us? We had better throw RfA in the bin, and begin the weekly hue and cry about it. Are you volunteering for this week? Where did you pull 90% from? -Splash - tk 22:25, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
  1. There has been no particular decline in the number of candidates.
  2. People are more inclined to withdraw a failing RfA recently than in February.
    1. Probably relatedly, there have been a sharply higher proportion of self nominations.
    2. Also probably relatedly, in this pair of months with sharply higher self-nominations than in February, more have failed. Perhap self-nominators are less able to judge when they are ready, or perhaps they are less qualified candidates, or perhaps people are more likely to oppose self noms. There could also be generally worse candidates, more choosy people participating, a spate of patently unacceptable candidates, the oft-reported but rarely-sighted 'rising standards', an unusually well-established crop in the arbitrary 4 week period selected for comparison.....
  3. The average edit count requirements are essentially unchanged.
  4. The proportion of success based on edit count fluctuates wildly from month to month and no particular conclusions can be drawn, particularly considering that one month is compared with an arbitrary other month, rather than the interverning averages.
  5. The proportion of successful RfAs went up this month.
  6. There are more people participating in the average RfA (unsurprisingly; Wikipedia grows).
  7. Accounts of all ages are affected approximately equally by the lower success-rate this month, and so there is little discrimination on account-age basis apart from "don't be really new" (4 and 6 months are just as likely to be ok, but 2 is bad).

-Splash - tk 22:27, 2 August 2006 (UTC) 22:25, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the best figure for looking at the "big picture" is the success rate of candidates with over 1000 edits (those with less are almost always rejected). In July 47% of these candidates were successful, up from 45% in June and down slightly from six months ago. Doesn't seem like there's too much to panic about here. Aren't I Obscure? 22:37, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I just did a review of all nominations since June 27 of 2005. In that time, self nominations of all candidates with >2000 edits have had a 49% success rate. Non-self noms, 75%. At 26%, that's a big difference. --Durin 22:43, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, this is my edit 3163, so perhaps I'd better avoid a self-nom ;-) Stephen B Streater 22:53, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Perhaps, yes :) --Durin 22:55, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Apparently, I'm a statistical anomaly. My self-nom with only 2200 edits passed, although I had been here for 18 months, and only 54 votes were cast in my entire RFA. If you think you're ready, go for it. RyanGerbil10(The people rejoice!) 08:24, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
  • There might be a correlation between the increase in number of self nominations vs. perception that RfA standards have risen. Maybe the most significant factor in the "rise" is not in edit counts or time here, but in the rise in number of self noms. --Durin 22:55, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Would you happen to have any stats on the average edit counts and time for self noms vs. non-self noms? Great work, BTW. Aren't I Obscure? 23:01, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Durin, you wouldn't have to use preliminary numbers if you used the date the RfA ends or is withdrawn (like on my chart) instead of the date it is started ;). NoSeptember 23:31, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Patience young grasshopper :). It won't be preliminary in a few days, and results are skewed per month by using a less than firm date of end or early withdraw. I prefer to use the incept date for each nom. --Durin 01:21, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


So can you chart how many admin have been removed from their position , for what reasons, and how many complaints on admin in the recent days? --Masssiveego 08:15, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

For your first question, have a look here; and concerning the complaints: do you mean complaints in general, or founded complaints? Lectonar 08:57, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes. both Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship and User:NoSeptember/Desysop can help you track desysopped admins. With complaints, there are so many bogus complaints mixed in with the legitimate ones, we can't quantify it objectively. NoSeptember 10:51, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
One could get some general idea by going through the admin user WP:RFCs. Some may be spurious, but the effort of an RfC suggests that they're largely not "bogus". Jkelly 20:35, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Durin has posted some other charts in the past here at WT:RFA, I collected those I could find here. If you find more, please add them. NoSeptember 10:54, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

My imaginary self-nom

The following is officially semi-humorous material under the little-used but critical standard WP:Not Really Very Funny. I’m way too exo to even vote on an RfA, must less submit myself to the torture process.

Uh, hi. You probably don’t know me because I stay out of trouble and edit articles like Escrow payment that nobody with a life would ever read. My big claim to “fame” (ha-ha) was getting Henry James (the article, not the guy’s ashes) up to FA status. FAC was almost as much fun, frivolity, and fabulousness as RfA. But then some admin said I couldn’t call James’ autobiography “charming” because that was POV. Really p.o.ed me. But hey, who am I to argue with an admin?

Anyway, I’ve got about five or six thousand edits now, though a couple thousand or so were anonymous when I was trying to dodge admins like the anti-charming lady. Now I don’t care because, gee, I’m going to be an admin myself (I hope)! I’d like to give you a breakdown of my edits but Essjay’s edit counter is busted or he took it down and I can’t get that damn Java doohickey to work.

If promoted to admin I’m not going to do a lousy thing except what I’m doing now. That’s right, I ain’t gonna promise to AfD and RC and PDQ and Zowie and all that other junk admins promise to do but then they never do it, anyway. (That’s what SlimVirgin says and I don’t argue with virgins of any weight class.) If somebody vandalizes an article on my watchlist I’ll fix it and forget it. Otherwise, I’m just gonna write articles. This is an encyclopedia. You don’t like it, vote me down!

I will promise to be brave, trustworthy and clean. I will take four showers a week, help old ladies across the street into the crack house, and not eat what I find when I pick my nose. I also won’t post on Wikipedia Review (oops, I'm not supposed to link to that) and I think Kelly Martin and Tony Sidaway are just swell as long as they don’t bother me. Plus, I’ll read all the TROLL stuff in the Signpost and made stupid remarks about it on my user page.

Thank you for your consideration. If I don’t get 80% support, I won’t kill myself. This is no big deal, right? Casey Abell 13:46, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, you'd have my vote! --W.marsh 13:52, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Luckily, there are backup counters available:
Edit count for User:Casey_Abell
Counted at 15:48, Thursday August 3, 2006 (UTC)
(main)         2706
Talk           238
User           363
User talk      36
Wikipedia      132
Wikipedia talk 56
Image          248
Template       53
Template talk  1
Or see these results in a stupid level of detail
There's probably some spurious information in the above, as my edit counter is new and tries to figure it out from the summaries with a bot-like intelligence level... anyway, reasonable, but probably too exo for you to be voted in, as you say. (You'll get people complaining about the low Wikipedia: edit count.) See, just posting on RfA's talk page will get your edit count dissected and insulted. (Revenge attempts to count my edits are welcome, so long as there is some comment about why the User: space count is skewed). --ais523 15:57, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I figure I'm a shoo-in. I got "non-deletion voting-related edit summaries" for crying out loud. If that ain't admin material, what is? Casey Abell 17:23, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Honestly, I'd be tempted to vote for you. I would probably just ask that you participate in a little more process first. (And yes, that means getting the WP count up.) Themindset 22:29, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I'd vote for you in a heartbeat, which probably tells me you wouldn't pass at the moment. I'm somewhat of an iconoclast on RFA now. Honestly, during my RFA, I was angry at the reasons people opposed me, but I held my tongue. Now that I'm an admin, though, I guess I could launch on an emotional tirade now, and just block people who complained about me :) . My advice is to read RFAs which are failing, and make sure you could dodge having the same criticisms leveled at yourself. RyanGerbil10(The people rejoice!) 01:03, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Halfway seriously, I don't know how anybody can go though RfA without spouting off. I know you're expected to just take the less-than-flattering comments, but sometimes the talk gets pretty trying. Funny thing, the admin who got her knickers in a twist over my use of the dread word "charming" was sysoped way back in February, 2003. Back then they did it on the wikien-l mailing list, and it was maybe a half-dozen people deciding. Getting adminship really was no big deal. Now it's become godawful torture a lot tougher. Casey Abell 04:09, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
You're not an admin already? alphaChimp laudare 01:09, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Jeesh, I'm hardly even a respectable editor. Though the more I post here, the less exo I get. Casey Abell 04:09, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Heh. More edits in Wikipedia space would be good, but you seem to have a good attitude.--Firsfron of Ronchester 01:13, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Increase your shower count and we're in buisness. Yanksox 01:15, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

According to the edit counter from ais523 I have 47 edits in Showers Talk. Is that enough? Casey Abell 04:09, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Ambuj.Saxena

Would a bureaucrat please close this RFA; it's already 12 hours overdue; the actual time for closure being 5:50, and currently it is 16:30. --May the Force be with you! Shreshth91($ |-| ŗ 3 $ |-| ţ |-|) 16:33, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe that the crat's are consciously letting it go a little longer since it is so close and previous votes are moving around. JoshuaZ 16:34, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I believe there has been a flurry of activity recently. Oh the tension! Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 16:39, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I have extended this RfA until 16:50 (UTC) on August 4. In advance, please do not ask for the specific reasons, as those will not be discussed while the RfA is still active. Thank you. Redux 16:52, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

New user vote

Hi,

What's the policy regarding completely new user's voting? I.e. users that haven't contributed on any other Wikipedia page but except for a particular RFA? User:ManhattanNY has done so on Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Ambuj.Saxena. It seems a bit odd that an anonymous user cannot vote, but a brand new user account can (which essentially may be the same thing). Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 20:32, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

First, they ain't votes. It's a consensus gathering excercise which means that Supports or Opposes from new or anon users are usually given much less weight by the 'crats during their decision making. Usually consensus is clear, but when it's tight, those new users who provide some explanation for their opinions will no doubt be considered. A big list of 'votes' should not make the decision, though, as WP is WP:NOT a democracy. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 20:37, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I knew this was coming when I used the term vote, but the section on "Voting and expressing opinions" specifically talks about voting ;) But, my point is, why is an anonymous user specifically bared from voting when a user who has made *zero* other contributions is allowed to vote simply because of the fact they're logged in? It makes no sense to me. Either allow anons to vote or allow neither. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 20:41, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
A brand new, zero edit user who has registered has made a tiny but significant step towards establishing a reputation in the WP community. Their opinion may not carry the same weight with the 'crat as someone more established, but it deserves more consideration than one of the faceless hoardes of the anonymous community. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 20:43, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm not going to instigate a major policy change, because, well, can't be arsed :) But, I think my point still stands. Especially when it's a case of such blatant "just signing up to vote". Although no doubt the user will now make a contribution to make my point moot! Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 20:47, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Another consideration is that it is possible to look at the contributions of a named account and guage something about them -- at the very least, you can tell whether it is a new account. With an anon, there is often no telling for sure whether the anon's previous edits were from the same person or whether the same person may be a frequent editor but from a rolling IP. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 20:48, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

In regards to the specific RfA, it was not appropriate to strike the user's Oppose. A better course of action for the future in this situation would be to make a note below the vote making a note to the effect of "Above is user's first edit". This helps the 'crat when he/she is making the decision and closing the conversation. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 20:51, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Duly noted Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 20:55, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, that would be your main priority. It wouldn't eliminate the vote but give it less credibility. Michael 07:44, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Further, it seems a bit fishy to me if a brand new user's first edit is to an RfA. How many new users actually know about them for them to be their first edit? Michael 07:45, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I'd think hardly any. Personally I just started adding stuff to articles without knowing policy and didn't participate until about my 500th, even though I had already met some admins at maybe the 100 edit stage. Probably not regularly until even the 1500 edits, I didn't care about these things - why I started to, I don't know.Blnguyen | rant-line 07:48, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
That's pretty much the same for me. As time passed, I suppose I became more involved not only in the editing of articles but in other things such as RfA, AfD, and vandal fighting. When I first started, though, I just edited articles with little knowledge of the rest of Wikipedia. Michael 09:01, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

My, uh, new RFA criterion

Dude, I just came up with the perfect way to tell if someone will make a good admin! Witness User:Szyslak/200MWTE. szyslak (t, c, e) 06:02, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Love it! I'm going to adopt to it as well. This, along with 100+ portal talk edits, will be excellent criteria. — Deckiller 07:33, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Racking up a big edit count in the MediaWiki talk namespace is a great way to show that you understand Wikipedia policy, the software behind Wikipedia, and Wikipedia in general. All things being equal, it might suggest that you're likelier to understand such stuff than are people who don't have such big edit counts. But one trouble with such a standard, once it's announced, is the way it may encourage some people to inflate their counts; another trouble that it's likely to get in people's way. I don't understand Mediawiki very well (I've gone no further than digging around in the stylesheets), I don't think this has crippled me, it hasn't caused me to waste others' time (my only participation was description of a bug and filing of a bug report), and I suspect that people doing good work in the MediaWiki are quite happy not to have people like myself cluttering up the talk namespace with comments ("Yes, I too agree with that. ~~~~", "Sorry, could you explain that once more, this time for non-techies like myself? Thanks. ~~~~", etc.). -- Hoary 07:36, 4 August 2006 (UTC) PS Aha! [Sound of palm slapping forehead.] -- Hoary 08:14, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm inclined to agree. You will find the majority of users will not have MediaWiki edits. Your new criteria seem to reserve adminship for those with more technological inclinations while a more pertinent point with adminship is an understanding of Wikipedia policy. I agree with Hoary. Prospective admins will be flocking to MediaWiki to say things like, "I agree with the above user." or "That is true." It would be pointless. Michael 07:43, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I think this criterion was meant to be tongue-in-cheek.... — TKD::Talk 07:47, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Especially since Wikipedia talk:MediaWiki namespace is old and dusty: it still has unarchived messages on it from 2003. I'd be very surprised if Szy's "new requirements" weren't a clever joke.--Firsfron of Ronchester 07:53, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
And doesn't MediaWiki require a different type of account? How would you check? Michael 07:49, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
An eerie glow of self-satisfaction as the user goes on to make 150 help edits over at mo: in order to demonstrate an awareness of the wider community would be a good indicator I feel. Rje 07:58, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, I've got one edit to MediaWiki talk (from before this was posted), but seeing as it was an {{editprotected}} request I suppose I can count one to the MediaWiki namespace as well. 200MWTE seems a bit excessive; technical knowledge is needed to make any useful contributions there. Perhaps the criterion should be 'at least one edit that resulted in a change to the interface, which wasn't reverted/shot down in flames/got the user indef-blocked', which I'm calling 1MWE. This still only applies to prospective admins trying to get in on a 'technical' remit. And yes, I suppose 200MWTE was meant to be humourous, but there's a possibly good idea here. Extra points if Deckiller can explain why the Portal talk namespace has to be handled differently by my edit counter, and in response to Michael, all MediaWiki pages are on permaprotection and can only be edited by admins (which is why I used {{editprotected}}). --ais523 08:08, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I would certainly hope this was a joke. Michael 08:51, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, it's a joke. I was tired of seeing those inflexible rules some RFA regulars go by, with comments like "Oppose, you have only 5,967 edits. My minimum edit count is 6000" and "You must have 200 template edits and 100 category edits, and half that many for each corresponding talk namespace. You have 289 template edits, but only 92 category edits, so I must oppose". So as a reaction to this trend, which I hereby dub "criterionitis" or perhaps "standardsitis", I came up with the most ridiculous RFA standard I could think of. (How many of us have one MW talk edit, much less 200? And who even watchlists a MediaWiki page, except perhaps MediaWiki:Blockedtext?)
However, I don't criticize those who choose to hold high standards for adminship hopefuls. While I don't agree with the tighening of standards we've experienced lately, I think it's understandable. Early this year we witnessed a series of scary incidents involving adminship: the pedophilia userbox wheel war, the Freestylefrappe fiasco and Guanaco's failed resysopping. And inflexible voting standards aren't anything new. But now it seems like just enough are using inflexible standards that it's causing a few more RFAs to fail where they would otherwise succeed. szyslak (t, c, e) 09:34, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree with the spirit of your comment, but I must admit that I stick to my standards pretty rigidly, as I believe they are easy to meet. Some of the standards some people set (6000 edits, etc.) are unrealistic for straightforward editors who aren't using vandalproof or some such edit-count-booster, and who have full lives with jobs/sports/ect filling up most of their time... I watch some people come in here and rack up more edits in one month than I've gotten in over a year and I can't even get my head around it. Themindset 18:41, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Your criteria are reasonable and simple, and ones almost anyone could agree with. (Someone with fewer than 1000 edits has no chance of passing, anyway). szyslak (t, c, e) 22:29, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
And today's game can be figuring out if anyone actually does have over 200 MWT edits. I've got 27, Geni has about 110, and none of the likely devs seem to have racked up more than a couple dozen. I suppose it could be that in the entire history of Wikipedia no one has gotten to 200 MWT. Dragons flight 18:57, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I hope this is a joke...? --Lord Deskana (talk) 22:36, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[1] ~ PseudoSudo 22:43, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Makes 200 times as much sense as all the 1FA's running loose biting RfA's in the hindquarters. :) Dlohcierekim 04:32, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Edit counter

Just noting, since it was mentioned above on the page, that the kinks that necessitated the edit counter to go offline have been ironed out and it is back online. It can be found at http://tools.wikimedia.de/~essjay/edit_count/Count.php. Essjay (Talk) 06:46, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for posting this link. :) Michael 08:50, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Very sweet, thank you essjay! Themindset 18:47, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Transfer of Adminship

At the moment I have two accounts, User:Wilfried Derksen and User:Electionworld. Usually I use the latter, but I am an administrator under the first name. Is there a possibility to transfer the adminship to the latter, so that I can limit myself to using only one useraccount (which is more according to Wikipolicy). Electionworld = Wilfried (talk 07:17, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Naturally, users will be rather skeptical of the claim; it would likely spark quite a discussion (and no doubt will shortly) of whether doing so is appropriate. Without commenting on such, the first step would be to log in with the admin account and post confirmation of what you have said; until you do that, it will only be speculation that you control both accounts. Users will no doubt speculate on the possibliy of a hacked password, and will discuss extensivly the motivation for having multiple accounts, regardless of the policy involved with doing so. I steward would be needed to desysop the admin account, and given that the possibility of doing this hasn't been discussed before, to my knowledge, users will likely want to discuss extensively whether a transferral of this nature should be allowed. However, all this is really moot until we hear confirmation from User:Electionworld, though I have no doubt whatsoever that a lack of confirmation will do anything to halt a lengthy discussion of the matter. Essjay (Talk) 07:30, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

You might want to keep in mind your reputation as an admin. under your current status. Which carries the larger load of your work-that may be looked upon by users who may question your credibility. Michael 07:38, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Just for clarity, you might want to indent back out, as the double-indention makes it look like you're replying to me, rather than to the initial post. Essjay (Talk) 08:10, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I've posted on User talk:Electionworld asking for the usual confirmation that two users are the same. Essjay is correct in saying that the community almost always doesn't allow one user to have two admin accounts (the only exception I can think of is User:Danny/User:Dannyisme, and that's a pretty unusual case), and so the old account would have to be desysopped. Also, it's usual to give notice of use of alternate accounts rather than just redirecting: see User:Typochimp or User:Shayl, for example (alternate accounts of User:Alphachimp and User:MiraLuka respectively). Even if all the conditions were satisfied, I'd be happier if there was a discussion at WP:AN or a WP:RFA application that showed the community was happy with the sysopped-account change. The stewards at m:Stewards are likely to be happy to do the desysopping required if a 'crat decides the sysopping change is appropriate. --ais523 08:26, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
It's worth mentioning that several Admin nominations were opposed on the basis of the name - or at least this has been a contributing factor (eg Requests_for_adminship/SynergeticMaggot oppose 23 and Requests_for_adminship/CheNuevara oppose 8). I don't see this being a problem here, but worth mentioning nevertheless. Stephen B Streater 08:44, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, but that was a different type of case when credibility was questioned, thus defeating adminship. I don't think those problems play as much of a role here-just the fact that as an admin., this user will be questioned due to its lack of reputation. Michael 08:47, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

As you can see, I use in both accounts the same signature. As you can see in the History of this page, the request was done from my adminship account. Now I am editing from the Electionworld account. When I decided to choose the electionworld user name, I didn't know how to transfer adminship. Normally I use the electionworld acount. The old account I use rarely (since you have to log out and in and after finishing, out and in. It just doesn't work. If the adminship is transferred, I will only use the Electionworld account, the old account can be deleted and/or desysopped, and I can make more work out of the adminship. Electionworld = Wilfried (talk 08:49, 4 August 2006 (UTC) (Electionworld account) and Electionworld = Wilfried (talk 08:51, 4 August 2006 (UTC) (Wilfried Derksen account) (check history)

Is there a reason you have two? Michael 08:52, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I used to work under my own name. I have seen that that is not normal in Wikipedia, so I wanted to rename my user account. At that time not having any clue how to that, I created a new account with a name similar to my previous own website. I had to keep the old username because of its adminship feature. I was allways very clear about having two user names for one user (see the signature and the redirect from the old user name to the new user name. I was done in good faith, not to create a suckpoppet. Electionworld = Wilfried (talk 08:59, 4 August 2006 (UTC) (now logging out as Wilfried Derksen and logging in as Electionworld)

Oh, I see. Michael 09:02, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

If you just want to protect anonymity (or whatever the purpose of the change), a request at WP:CHU might be easier and faster. Admins change usernames all the time (BD2412 comes to mind). I'm reasonably sure you could even get it changed to Electionworld by changing that one first. Essjay does things like this all the time, from what I can tell of past requests.--Kchase T 09:13, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

That would be option, if I would be sure that I could change it to Electionworld. Can somebody confirm that to me?. Electionworld = Wilfried (talk 09:37, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Why don't you simply change username "Wilfried Derksen" to "ElectionworldAdmin" (or something similar)? I would find this better anyway as system operators do login as root (or whatever) only when needed and do their normal work under a non-root account (here under a non-admin account). --Ligulem 09:59, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Is that compatible with the idea of not having two accounts? Electionworld = Wilfried (talk 10:34, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Obviously not. What's the problem with using two accounts? We also have bot accounts. Some users also use a separate account for their WP:AWB edits. But nevermind, this is Wikipedia :). --Ligulem 11:11, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Which account's contributions do you want to be associated with the account you will be using into the future? That should determine how this is done. Since your Electionworld account has been used most recently, you may want to do what you first asked (a sysop of that account, and desysop of the older account) Either the name change option or the desysop resysop option should be fine. This has been done in the past. NoSeptember 10:05, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Electionworld. Electionworld = Wilfried (talk 10:34, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Then after you get a bureaucrat to agree to sysop Electionworld once Wilfred is desysoped, you can request desysopping on Meta. (Or you can get a Steward to do both) NoSeptember 10:48, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm thoroughly confused now; my initial understanding was that you had an admin account and a separate second account (perfectly valid) but hadn't acknowledged the connection between the two. Now, it's sounding as though you created a new account as a rename, rather than getting a rename (also valid, and quite common), and are now wanting to abandon the old (sysop) account entirely and use the new one exclusively. If that's what you're wanting to do, we can do a quick desysop and and resysop the "new" account; I was under the impression that you were wanting to switch adminship from two seemingly unrelated accounts (as though you'd been using one for one thing and the other for another). Provided this is simply an abandon of an old account for a new one, and you want to keep the non-sysop username, I can get this fixed up for you shortly. Drop me a note on my talk page that says "Yes, I want to move my sysop flag from X to Y" and I'll take care of it. Essjay (Talk) 11:52, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Just for transparency: User:Wilfried Derksen has been desysopped and I've sysopped User:Electionworld per the confirmations here and on my talk page. Essjay (Talk) 12:46, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject on Adminship

In an effort to boost discussion of alternatives to the present RFA mechanism, I have started a WikiProject on adminship. Membership is open to anyone who supports significant changes to the RFA process. The purpose of having a WikiProject separate from RFA itself is twofold: one, to focus the conversation on alternatives to RFA rather than on whether RFA should change, and two, to provide a discussion forum that is (a) centralized and (b) not affected by the archivings and unrelated discussions which occur here. If you support changes to the adminship process, please consider joining. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 16:31, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I think that excluding users that do not think change is needed is a mistake. As long as users are willing to stay on topic, all users should be encouraged to participate. FloNight talk 16:37, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
As with other WikiProjects, everyone is welcome to edit. However, many otherwise promising efforts to make changes at RFA have been shouted down before the proposals had matured; I'm trying to avoid that. I think that many people who have historically been critical of any attempt to change RFA might be better convinced by a more fully thought-out proposal with due consideration both to common objections and to transitional effects. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 17:13, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Perhaps, but excluding those people who tend to think RfA does not need improvement will hamstring your development process by muting those voices best able to characterize opposition to suggested changes. Furthermore, by excluding those people from the discussion, when you do bring a suggestion back here it will suffer a great deal under massive rejective scrutiny, even if responses to common objections are well thought out beforehand. I recommend you invite everyone who wants to be involved to help hammer out a way forward. --Durin 17:33, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
  • And right off the bat, I see problems with the project that fail to address significant issues raised in the objections to WP:DFA. There's a presumption without any evidence gathering that RfA currently fails at (1) selecting the best people for the adminship role and (2) ensuring the enculturation of new admins. I submit that the former assertion is so far without basis (and would be disagreed with by a number of people here) and the latter assertion is not the role of WP:RFA, never has been, and is ill-suited to being such. If you want that, start Wikipedia:Newbie admin training school. One of the biggest objections I raised with DFA was no serious attempt at identifying what is wrong with RfA before attempting to find a way forward. This new project fails in the same way. Though, I do like the goal of identifying the goals of RfA. --Durin 17:42, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
This should be a proposed policy changed, not a WikiProject. Wikipedia:WikiProjects says WikiProjects are for articles. There's a good reason for this--we should have centralized discussion on Admin policy, not a standing committee for arguing about it. -- SCZenz 17:39, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
SCZenz has a cogent point. Wiki projects are generally for content, although there are probably many examples to the contrary. Themindset 18:55, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Per FloNight this is a very bad idea. By all means have a discussion about what you think needs to be changed or improved, but to suggest that only those of a similar mindset are open to membership of this proposed project is promoting the worst kind of cabalism, and is very anti-wiki. I also agree that the scope of a WikiProject should be restricted to article space, and not venture into policy or procedural areas for these very reasons. --Cactus.man ✍ 19:12, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be better to bring Esperanza's Admin coaching into a proper wikiproject--since it has...um...healthier aims than something focusing on just the Adminship request, and not the adminship itself :). The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 22:43, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Again, there's several issues here: a) There's never enough volunteers as it is an extremely appealing idea ("hey, someone will help me become an admin!!!"); b) How to weed out obviously unacceptable candidates; c) How to make sure the coaching/mentorship does not become focused on the adminship process or unduly glorifies adminship; d) Whether the coach/mentor should be "blamed" for something the candidate did or didn't do, and e) whether that is acceptable or not. Titoxd(?!?) 06:55, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Good luck with WikiProject on Adminship. :) I am a bit skeptical of it, but hope some good ideas come out (ideas which will of course need to be discussed with the comunity at large on this talk page before being implemented). Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:01, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

As with all the recurring debate on RFA the comments above don't fill me with much confidence that it'll actually come up with something useful. In order to identify a robust and defensible selection mechanism (RFA currently being neither) then there needs to be a clear, pithy, statement of what Administrators are actually for. That is lacking at present and therefore the guidance is open to interpretation by the candidate and the voters. Until that requirement is nailed down then any discussion of the process is moot. Notwithstanding that if the project actually comes up with a Statement of Need to propose to the wider community then that is a useful step, and should mitigate for the endless tedium of 'RFA is broked' discussion. RFA being broked is merely a symptom of the more fundamental issue.ALR 08:15, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

How are the lines on RfA page supposed to be?

After adding my RfA by copy/pasting the line in the instructions ({RFA/name etc} line line line line), it seemed that that horizontal line was in the wrong place, below mine where there already was one, and causing a neutral vote for Mr. ---- for some reason. So I moved it above. But now another RfA is up and again there is no line above the top one. Is there supposed to be? Mine never seemed to show up on the bot til I put one there, and this one isn't now either (maybe a coincidence), but the way the instructions do it, it would seem there wouldn't be one. -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 21:36, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I added a line above the comments, where it is unlikely any new nominee will have the urge to remove it. Hopefully, that doesn't interfere with any of the RfA counters. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 21:47, 5 August 2006 (UTC)