Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 95

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Contents 1 Gracenotes 2 How would you feel about the results of Gracesnotes' RfA? 2.1 The Question 2.2 I would accept the decision, without reservation 2.3 I would accept the decision, with some reluctance 2.4 I would accept the decision, but feel it was wrongly decided 2.5 I would accept the decision, but feel betrayed 2.6 I would feel it was evidence that RfA is broken and/or the Bureaucrats are biased 2.7 Other (what?) 3 Gaming RFA - a case study 4 Bureaucrat chat is open on Gracenotes's RfA 5 Important question about my becomink an admin 6 Trojan admin accounts 6.1 Proposal on meta 7 Questions about RFA 8 Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jonjonbt 9 Any system for users to give feedback about admins? 10 Unlisted RFAs 11 New Users trying to be Admins...A study? 12 It's multicolored week! 13 A user's past errors....how long ago is too long ago? 14 I know I saw it at one point... 15 [User] removed 16 {{RFAsnow}}

Gracenotes

I have suspended Gracenote's RfA after closing time to give me a chance to contact other Bureaucrats to see what way would be best to proceed. Just about all interested have had their say, now I ask that you please be patient for a bit. Thanks! -- Cecropia 20:29, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

You've made the right move, Cecropia. I'm interested to see what the outcome of the RfA will be after discussion amongst the bureaucrats. Nishkid64 (talk) 23:41, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Nishkid that you've certainly made the right move in suspending it, but I have to urge you not to take it into a re-run - there is a consensus to be had with the current discussion, and a discussion between you 'crats to determine that consensus will certainly put out the flames straight away. It's certainly not a super vote, but merely a way of coming to a conclusion to what the consensus is saying. Ryan Postlethwaite 23:46, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't like the idea of a re-run either. If the decision is not to promote, Gracenote is allowed to re-seek adminship anytime he/she wants to, so a forced re-run is superfluous. The question is, after discounting sockpuppets, trolling, etc, was there a consensus to promote, yes or no. --BigDT 23:49, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely no re-run. Just discuss it amongst your bureaucratic selves, and so long as your decision makes sense there shouldn't be any problems.--Wizardman 23:57, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I concur. No re-run. It's in your collective laps now. A re-run would look like a vote is needed and we don't want that. JodyB _talk 00:56, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

A re-run would seem highly unfair to Gracenotes. It might be just myself, but if I was in his shoes I'd rather see a Consensus/No Consensus decision rendered...through Bureacrat Chat if need be, than simply have my RFA relisted without comment. I know a decision might be difficult to render...but a re-run just seems like giving up before one begins. Forgive me if that seems accusatory, I'm certain any Bureaucrat would be acting in the projects best interests. The appearance of the thing just worries me. --InkSplotch 02:20, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I agree with no re-run. I made my thoughts on this a few days ago on WP:BN here. However, I wouldn't mind if Rerun were brought in to decide consensus, but unfortunately he's dead. daveh4h 02:35, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I also agree with no rerun. That's why we have bureaucrats, to decide on controversial nominations. It would be best if a bureaucrat chat would be employed, for the sake of transparency, consistency, and all that. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:21, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

A re-run would just seem unfair for Gracenotes...bureaucrat action will make the decision final. Sr13 03:58, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think a re-run is a good idea. It prolongs the process unnecessarily for Gracenotes and there is no reason to believe exactly the same outcome would not be produced. The crats should be able to determine whether or not there is a consensus to promote. If they decide there is not, Gracenotes can decide the timing of his next RfA. A forced rerun would be bureaucratic and stressful with only hypothetical advantages. WjBscribe 04:28, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree that a re-run seems unfair to Gracenotes; I find working on a contentious RfA sometimes tiring and even upsetting, and I'm not even the candidate! ;-) But I would put a question to each "side" of opinion in GNs RfA. If the bureaucrats find that consensus isn't reached, will that wrong a Wikipedian who tried very hard in good faith to explain his stance? If the bureaucrats find that consensus is reached, will that ignore the legitimate concerns of the many opposers who may feel that real and legitimate concerns have been ignored? I have developed a personal feeling about this nomination, but I am one (albeit a bureaucrat, and I appreciate the trust so many put in us) and the participants are more than 270. -- Cecropia 04:52, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Add my voice to those that feel an immediate reboot/re-run is not in Gracenotes' best interests. If the 'crat decision is not to give GN the sysop bit, then he can run at any future time of his choosing. We're not likely to get a significantly different result immediately, IMO. -- nae'blis 15:08, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

As a totally off topic question, is it possible to see the B'crat discussion? To not disturb the argument, a reply on my talk page would be best. Thanks =D G1ggy! _{Review me!} 04:55, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

How would you feel about the results of Gracesnotes' RfA?

I know some of us hate straw polls, but I really want to get some gauge of community sentiment on this issue, understanding, of course, that this is just a straw poll, not any kind of "vote." -- Cecropia 05:23, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't like polls, but I like this. --Deskana (talk) 06:38, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

The Question

If a Bureaucrat Chat resulted in a decision that is the opposite of the opinion you expressed on Gracenotes' RfA, how would you feel about the fairness of the process? (see the RfA)

I would accept the decision, without reservation

1. Although I neither supported, opposed, or stayed neutral, I would have supported him if the RfA were still open. I would accept the bureaucrat decision, whatever the outcome, with no reservation. The bureaucrats have the final decision on all RfA's, and it should be no different in this case. Sr13 06:50, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
2. I didn't vote, but leaned towards the opposers, mainly because there were a lot of names of people I respect on Wikipedia there. The result falls in the normal range of bureaucrat discretion, and I'm happy to trust the bureaucrats to make the decision.-gadfium 06:24, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
3. I voted oppose, and while I am disappointed with all of those who supported him despite what I feel is an important issue, I wouldn't be disappointed with the bureaucrats or the RfA process for deciding the consensus of the community doesn't match my own personal opinion. The role of the bureaucrats' judgment in deciding RfAs is well-established, and our bureaucrats were chosen by the community because of their sound decision-making. Krimpet (talk) 06:33, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
4. I supported, and I'd be fine with the end decision either way. --Deskana (talk) 06:35, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
5. I would accept any outcome so long as there was public comment from a number of 'crats into it - a simple explanation of the reasoning would alleviate any concerns I have. Ryan Postlethwaite 08:49, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
6. I would support the outcome regardless of my recommendation.--Xnuala (talk)(Review) 10:27, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
7. Hey, you folks should just do your job and don't worry too much about what I might think. If you interpret consensus to be X, and my personal opinion is negative X, that means my personal opinion is not equivalent to consensus. I have a fundamental trust in the bureaucrat system which will not be shaken by one controversial decision. YechielMan 14:03, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
8. It's a close call and that's why we have bureaucrats. Gracenotes should be given the tools and if it is not now, I fully expect it will be soon anyway. -- DS1953 ^talk 15:16, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
9. I will accept the decision as long as it is not the poor job Rdsmith4 did in a couple of recent RfAs. As long as the bureaucrats take a hard look, discuss among themselves, and do a good job as well giving the impression of doing a good job, their decision should be accepted by the community. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:33, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
10. As a non-voter on this RfA, had I voted I would have no problem with the bureaucratic decision.--Wizardman 16:27, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
11. Yep, this is what we have bcrats for. -- Visviva 15:43, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
12. It depends a bit on the process used reach the decision. A good rationale or evidence, in for example a beaucrat chat, of careful consideration of all the issues raised would go a long way in convincing me that the process was fair. Eluchil404 17:20, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
13. As much as I want the RfA to succeed, despite disagreeing with GN's stance on Q4, I would accept the bureaucrats' decision without reservation ... well, one reservation: I think there should be an explanation of why it was decided the way it was. As I understand it, this straw poll is meant to solicit opinions regarding the process of a "bureuacrat chat" to evaluate consensus in particularly controversial cases. I support that. Even if the RfA is closed as "failed" rather than "succeeded", you'll hear no cries of "Death to the cabal!", "Power to the people!", or "Long live the revolution!" from me. ... Well, maybe just the last one. ;) Cheers, Black Falcon ^(Talk) 17:45, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
14. This is what the B'crats are put on the hot plate for. I'd be disappointed , sure, but this is squarely in the middle of 'judgment' territory, not "only if they do what I want" territory. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 17:49, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
15. Sure. Would be a little disappointed though. —Anas ^talk? 17:51, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
16. We elect the bureaucrats to make the right decision on RfAs. I trust that they will make the correct decision even if it is not what I agree with. Captain panda 18:47, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
17. this is what we nominate b'crats for, to gauge consensus in difficult situations. -M^ask? 21:14, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
18. Aside from my rather silly response below, I have to echo the "that's their job" that several other editors are saying. If being a 'crat was easy, everyone would be one. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:17, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
19. I didn't participate in the discussion, but I would completely trust the 'crats, as they know what they're doing. I have complete faith in them to always do what is best for Wikipedia and the community! hmwithtalk 21:46, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
20. I don't envy the 'crats having to call this one. Better you than me. - David Gerard 22:34, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
21. Provided the B'crats have shown that the opposing view towards the decision has been evaluated to the fullest extent. - Mailer Diablo 04:19, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
22. I trust the bureaucrats to handle this, and all decisions, appropriately. I've never seen a case where I think the bureaucrats really screwed up (even when I disagreed with the result). Of all the ideas, I think an open bureaucrat chat is best. Ral315 » 04:21, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
23. This is an example of why we give b'crats the right to make these decisions. B'crats are people whose judgement, in the main, is felt by the community to be balanced, lucid, and discerning enough, that they have been entrusted by the community to make the tough calls. I voted oppose, but if Gracenotes is made a sysop by the b'crats, well, that is why we have them for. Now, if really poor judgement is shown (promoting someone with 45% approval) then a de-b'crating may be called for >:) -- Avi 04:33, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
24. We elect bureaucrats to make these judgment calls, and we should support them even when we strongly disagree with the outcome. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:31, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I would accept the decision, with some reluctance

1. I will grant that the oppose side had arguments, although I don't agree with them, and am astonished that one opinion over a one issue, where there is no evidence that there would be any abuse of admin tools, translated into some 60 oppose votes. Nonetheless, nobody has a right to pass RFA, and I can see that this opinion did upset people who opposed in good faith, putting this firmly in borderline territory. A borderline case can go either way and it's up to the crats now. I supported, continue to support, hope the RFA passes, and considering the promotion of people who have had more significant opposition against them, think this RFA ought to pass. But even if it does not, I am confident that the bureaucrats have taken the time to analyze this thoroughly, something I feel was not done in the Danny RFA. I will therefore accept a "no consensus" result. Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:33, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
2. I would accept it, with reluctance, mainly because I supported so strongly, and would see it as a waste to have him not get through. Nothing against RfA in itself, just candidate related "feelings." G1ggy! _{Review me!} 07:32, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
3. Though not as reluctant as my acceptance of this stupid poll. WjBscribe 22:32, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
4. The biggest "per WJBscribe" ever. bibliomaniac15 An age old question... 04:55, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I would accept the decision, but feel it was wrongly decided

1. I voted support and didn't change it, because I actually believe GN would make a good admin. Yes, I'd feel it was wrongly decided if he weren't promoted, because I believe I made the right decision. But first and foremost I'm ready to accept that it's not up to me to make the final decision, so I'd still accept any decision without hesitation. Life will go on either way. —AldeBaer 09:01, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
2. Obviously. If I felt it was correctly decided, then I should have voted the other way. But we have 'crats for a reason, so I'd accept any decision (although it's unclear what the alternative is). But I think prolonging this much further would be a mistake and take up time better spent elsewhere, so would appreciate a definitive close fairly soon, rather than spend too long discussing it (remember, it's no big deal). Trebor 09:16, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
3. I co-nominated Gracenotes for adminship, and it would be a terrible shame to see the RfA fail. I still think Gracenotes was fully qualified for adminship, and the overpowering effect of "oppose per xx" or "oppose per Q4" is the only reason why a good admin candidate like Gracenotes would fail his RfA (assuming the crats decide to go by looking at consensus). Of course, I know Gracenotes can go up for adminship again in the future, and I will undoubtedly be there to support him. Nishkid64 (talk) 14:06, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
4. His legitimate position on attack sites was over-scrutinized relative to his reasoning ability and dedicated contributions to the project (no, incorrectly labelling them as bot edits is not a sensitive way to highlight them). –Pomte 15:42, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
5. I would assume they decided not to follow consensus in the hope that it would be less divisive. This is a judgment call, and they have a right to make it. I think they'd be wrong though, & that it would just continue the situation. DGG 07:31, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
6. I voted for Gracenotes and hope that he will be named an administrator. Majoreditor 11:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I would accept the decision, but feel betrayed

1. I would feel like Consensus stabbed me in the back. That heartless bitch... but I still love her. EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:14, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I would feel it was evidence that RfA is broken and/or the Bureaucrats are biased

1. The only view I hold strongly is that there should not be a revote. I'm not going to get up in arms one way or the other over whether or not this user is sysopped. But I strongly feel that a revote is a bad idea. If the result a revote or any other action that doesn't involve simply making a decision, then that is by definition evidence that RFA is broken. The whole purpose of RFA is to make a decision and if that cannot be achieved, then there is a problem somewhere along the line. --BigDT 17:40, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

   I don't believe that answers the question asked. You are expressing an opinion against a revote, rather than how you would feel if the bureaucrats made a decision opposite to your own position. -- Cecropia 17:45, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

   That's what I answered. The only position I strongly hold is that there should not be a revote. If the decision is the opposite of that position, then RFA is broken. --BigDT 18:29, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

2. Since this is a poll, I assume I'm allowed to comment in several sections? Anyway, BigDT said it all: I wouldn't oppose either of the two possible outcomes. I don't regard a revote as a possible outcome. An RfA as such is successful if and only if it has an outcome. Restarting equals failure of the process to determine an outcome. You're the b'crats, so please do your job and decide whether or not to promote. Not deciding would only shift the problem to the future, as I strongly assume many would show up to support or oppose again. I know I would. —AldeBaer 19:10, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
3. The fact that a single unpopular opinion can make an RfA this bad demonstrates that RfA is broken no matter what the decision happens to be. People have already started to realize that the easiest way to pass RfA is not holding any opinions. Training new admin candidates to supress unpopular opinions until they're established enough that nothing can be done is not good. -Amarkov moo! 04:28, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

   This is a very important point. Currently, RfA at least tends to favour political manoeuvrers (which is not to say those are not intelligent people and/or good users), while it proves tough to near impossible for anyone with an significant attitude. —AldeBaer 09:39, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

4. The fact that people can throw in whatever accusations they like ("Why are you using an unapproved bot?", "I'm not", "Yes you are!"; "Gracenotes supports attack sites!"; "strawman strawman strawman! strawman strawman? strawman!"; etc.) is a fact of life apparently. But the fact that they can say it isn't terribly concerning to me (heck, people have to feel free to speak, no matter what they have to say). However, if the bureaucrats were to prove themselves unable to examine what was actually being said, then I think that'd conclusively prove that RfA is broken. (Not that the bureaucrats are biased, though. Closest I ever saw to any predisposition at all was one 'crat deciding not to comment on an issue, because he didn't want to affect other people's opinions, which obviously doesn't count) Bladestorm 15:02, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Other (what?)

1. If this is to gauge consensus, there was an RfA that is supposed to represent that. There is a lot of information to pour over in the RfA and I don't understand how this changes or adds to the consensus to promote or not. With that off my chest, if the closing 'crat finds that a disagreement over disputed language in policy is enough to sink an RfA, I think it may have a chilling effect on good faith editors who have differing opinions on controversial policies. If there is no consensus to promote because the oppose comments address issues besides a good faith policy dispute, then that is an easier pill to swallow. Perhaps that answers your question. As an aside, with this particular policy discussion, there is more agreed on than we think, but there seems to be communication problems. That will only be solved when everyone decides they want to listen. That's all I have to say that I feel is relevant. daveh4h 07:21, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

   I can't speak for anyone but myself, but my intent is to gauge sentiment about the process, not to help determine the RfA. -- Cecropia 07:35, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

2. The post-Cecropia bureaucrat-appellate-court-of-border-line-!votes tends to favour the Establishment by 70-to-80 percent margin. What? El_C 07:24, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

   Wouldn't this be the post-post-Cecropia era? :) -- Cecropia 07:36, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

   I hope so. Cecropia: he makes that 20-to-30 percent 70-to-80 percent more likely! El_C 07:46, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

3. I find this poll inappropriate. Pencils down, kids. Exam is over. Grading has begun. No second bites at the apple. -- Y not? 11:07, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
4. Of course I'd accept the bureaucrats' decision, it's not as though they're to blame for this. However, if the result genuinely does reflect the community's opinion of this candidate, that is not a community I can work with – Gurch 12:06, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
5. Could we have less of these ridiculous ad-hoc polls, please? Who decided what the questions would be. Please think about this for a bit. --Tony Sidaway 14:14, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

   This poll will probably have no significance in the final decision. Besides, this poll has response bias (as do most polls :P), which is why it's not even that great of a gauge for the community response to whatever outcome results from Gracenotes' RfA. Nishkid64 (talk) 14:18, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

6. Initially I thought this poll was to gauge some sort of meta-opinion on the opinions expressed in the RFA; since you seem to actually want commentary on the process of using a Bureaucrat Chat to help decide the outcome of the RFA (emphasis mine), you can probably predict that my response would be supportive. That said, if a B'crat Chat came to the opposite decision of mine (not just 'no consensus', but 'failed'), I would feel that the process failed in this instance, as I substantially do not see that outcome supported in the RFA. So I partially concur with TS and partially dissent with the poll as worded. No further questions for the witness bureaucrat. -- nae'blis 15:13, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
7. I don't really mind ... I had my say, if it's agreed with, great, if it's not, then there's no problem, there'll be other days. I do predict that no matter what result is arrived at, someone will have a hissy fit. Neil (►) 09:46, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
8. I'm confused as to what exactly is going on here. In fact I'm not clear why there's a solicitation of opinion (although I suspect I'd commend Cecropia for it once I understood it :) ) or about what exactly. It seems open and shut to me here... there's a close and contentious RfA with no obvious outcome, and now the 'crats have to decide what to do. In the past we've often seen one 'crat step up and make a decision and then take heat about it, with concomitant charges that there were issues with the RfA process, with the 'crat process, etc. etc. etc. ... in this case it looks like there will be (was?, is ongoing? I'm so confused!) discussion among the crats to try to decide what consensus actually is, and then present the community with their findings and decision. That seems like the correct process, it seems like the process we want and expect, and it seems like unmitigated goodness. So I'm confused what the poll is about. Maybe I'm missing reading some key page somewhere though? I skimmed through most of the talk on the RfA page, was this matter somewhere else as well? If it's not clear yet, I strongly support the idea that the crats are going to go off and try to figure out what the community wants to have happen, and then try to do the right things to make it so... that's after all, why we chose them, to do exactly these sorts of hard things. ++Lar: t/c 10:33, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
9. I'd support the 'crats in whatever decision they came to, but I think that regardless of what the final decision is the RfA process didn't work properly in this case, and feel sorry for the 'crats for having to close the RfA with what probably isn't the most helpful information. And "no matter what result is arrived at, someone will have a hissy fit" (a quote from Neil above) seems pretty accurate to me too. --ais523 11:50, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
10. I don't really care about Gracenotes one way or the other (I didn't even vote in the RfA), and wouldn't be hugely bothered by either decision (it's not the closer's fault the RfA went out of hand.) But my gut feeling is that when something attracts a large number of people and a lot of discussion, the guidelines for determining when you have consensus should become generally stricter. If an RfA only has 27 people commenting on it, and it seems fairly divided, it becomes much more important to look at individual comments and arguments to read if there's an underlying direction people are heading in; when you have 272 people in all and it's still divided, though, that's probably an indicator that there really isn't any consensus to be read. --Aquillion 16:02, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
11. Meh. --Carnildo 06:20, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

    Uhuh. El_C 08:53, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Gaming RFA - a case study

I guess people might accuse me of WP:BEANS, but I think the good outweighs the bad here, and honestly it's not that hard to figure out how to do this, but seeing how it was done is, I think, useful in detecting new instances of it. What I'm referring to is accounts created by sockpuppets with the goal of passing RFA. Runcorn (talk · contribs), as was recently shown in this thread, was a sockpuppet in an operation that spanned several years.

Runcorn passed RFA without much objection. Other than giving Crazyrussian and Ageo020 the gold medal for RFA comments that look brilliant in hindsight, what can this RFA do for us? Look at Runcorn's pre-RFA history... I mean, really delve into it. The majority of his edits were adding Category:Living people to articles. This is so simple that bots are the ones who normally do it. Then there was some stub sorting. Other than that, there were just a lot of late "going with the flow" comments in AFDs and RFAs that were sure to be uncontroversial. Apparently a few "substantial" edits were made, but they were all mentioned in Q2. but 99% of their pre-RFA edits were pretty obviously just done to pad an edit count without revealing anything about what the editor was actually interested in.

Here's an account that, it seems to me, was grown from day 1 with the intention of having a superficially impressive edit history and having done absolutely nothing controversial. It's account that was grown to pass an RFA. And it worked. We should look for this stuff. Assume good faith, but sometimes there's just something wrong. Does anyone think we can actually stop this the next time someone tries to do it? I think this is something people should know about. --W.marsh 14:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know that it's possible to stop. It's very easy to do - anyone with experience here knows how to do it, and I doubt Runcorn is the only one who's done this. The problem, unfortunately, is that we already have a general consensus that we don't have enough administrators - can we afford to lose more possibilities based on these suspicions? --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

One of the things Crazyrussian points out in the RFA was just 16 messages left for Runcorn on his talk page. While that doesn't prove anything, you tend to get what, maybe 1 comment for every 100 edits you make? That's about what I get... I'm sure some people get way more. But if someone is getting substantially under that number... it suggests their edits really aren't very meaningful. Even doing nothing but cleanup pre-RFA I had 50+ comments on my talk page. I know we can't catch everyone who does this... but Crazyrussian made some pretty good points and the community not only didn't listen, but they talked him out of it. Maybe identifying some "warning signs" will be helpful. --W.marsh 14:21, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

• Oooo! Oooo! A new metric! A new metric! Oppose: Ratio of external edits to your talk page vs. mainspace edits is lower than 1:50. Obviously can not be trusted! ;) --Durin 14:25, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

That's not what I said... I'm trying to be helpful here, Durin. --W.marsh 14:27, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

• You'll note the sarcastic smiley I put on the end of my comment... --Durin 14:31, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

• Can't be stopped because the vast, vast majority of people at RfA do not look at edits. They simply look at edit counts, and some cursory review on whether the person's been in controversy before. Very superficial stuff. It's easy to pass RfA if you play the game. --Durin 14:13, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Gah, I'm certainly greatly concerned. I for once, value editors who have shown their improvement over time and are not afraid to leave their distant past out in the open. Unfortunately, this is a minority opinion in practice, so most probably those editors that switch accounts in order to erase their pasts have an excuse... NikoSilver 14:19, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Durin has it exactly. We're focusing on the wrong things in RFA (edit count and conformity) when we should be looking at the ability to handle conflict, think independently and on your feet, and accept that you will be wrong from time to time. I know that I refrained from doing/saying certain things before I passed RFA because I saw how those who stood out got chopped down, and I don't believe I would have been a hard sell even if I had said them. But it was easier not to; is that gaming the system? --nae'blis 14:20, 31 May 2007 (UTC) (not logged in from work due to my sooper sekrit password)
    • It's playing a social politics game. Don't anger people, you pass. There's another aspect to this though; if a person does game the system to become an admin, and doesn't otherwise abuse things...why should we care? --Durin 14:23, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
      • If they aren't a sockpuppet then it's not a problem. But this is a case where they were. I suppose many people (myself even) does a thing or two to look better at RFA, but we're talking about accounts created from day one with the goal of passing RFA without any thought to actually improving the project. That's pretty much always going to be a sockpuppet of some sort, right? --W.marsh 14:26, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
        • Sockpuppets are not bad, nor are they against policy. If an account is created from day one to pass RfA, makes a bunch of contributions (even if menial and insignificant), passes RfA swimmingly, and does a number of admin functions properly and by policy, what does it matter? It's still making contributions to the project. Sure, it *feels* dirty. But, where's the crime? Where's the victim? I'm speaking in the abstract of course. In the cited example that began this thread, there's considerable problematic behavior. --Durin 14:30, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
        • Heh, let's just run a check-user over any open RfAs. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 14:31, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
          • CHKUSR against the whole community? Rational, but inapplicable. Or is it? (gee, we're in the age of computers!) NikoSilver 14:33, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
          • In all seriousness, I do recall someone suggesting we checkuser all people who run for adminship. I forget why exactly, but it was maybe a year ago. Ultimately though, ArbCom didn't just wake up one day and randomly decide to run a checkuser on Runcorn, pages and pages of evidence were delivered to them by multiple people who noticed things in the edit patterns. --W.marsh 14:37, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
            • It was probably related to the Jtkiefer/Pegasus incident (not an exact diff, but close). --nae'blis 20:52, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
          • I suppose it comes down to accountability, if you're looking at why this could be bad. If the user had two accounts from day one, doing controversial edits with one and menial, edit count increasing edits with the other... It's dishonest unless it's made exceptionally clear that the two accounts are the same user, because in an RfA we're trying to determine the trustworthiness of the user. If he or she has made decisions or edits I'm uncomfortable with and I'm unaware of them because they're on a different, unmentioned account, I'd feel cheated. The candidate they presented themselves to be wasn't the candidate I would have chosen, and in a case like that no amount of digging (short of a Check User) would have revealed otherwise. Cheers, Lanky ^TAL_K 14:39, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

• Durin, in response to you asking why it matters if they do not abuse their position, the problem is when you get the same guy with more than one admin account and we don't even realize he is abusing his position. Otherwise, you are right, an admin who acts like a good admin is a good admin. ^(H) 14:43, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Also, it actually is against policy to use a sockpuppet to "Avoid scrutiny from other editors". Probably for the reason H describes above. --W.marsh 14:46, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

• I wish there was a solution to this. When I vote in RfAs, I try to look at an editor's history. If I feel there history doesn't fill me with trust on an editor, I oppose their RfA and usually ask the editor to try again when they get more experience (meaning more of a history here). The problem is that too many editors want evidence of actual wrongdoing when you oppose an RfA. Merely saying a person doesn't have enough history to totally trust them usually gets an editor lots of nasty comments. That said, no matter what reforms or guidelines we institute with RfAs, there will always be people who game the system.--Alabamaboy 14:53, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

• As long as we remain an open community, this probably can't be prevented. However, it strikes me that the barriers could be raised somewhat by a more holistic, perhaps portfolio-based, approach to RfA, with candidates explicitly required to a) demonstrate a range of experience including deletion work, article improvement, etc., and b) reflect in detail on this experience. This would also, hopefully, help to reduce the role of litmus tests in RfA, since the focus would shift from "has candidate done anything Wrong" to "has candidate amassed a respectable body of work without showing critical errors of judgment." I was working on a framework for this at one time; maybe I should get back to work on that. -- Visviva 14:55, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Well, without changing meta CheckUser policy, which is currently being suggested somewhere, look over at the crat noticeboard for a discussion and a link to the meta page (consensus seems not in favor), the only thing that might help here is a set of objective-ish criteria (simialr to what Visviva just suggested above). This way, we could have criteria that evreryone would have to use (like at WP:FAC) and it would, if compiled with care, be able to "filter out" candidates that have gotten by "by going with the flow." From what I've seen before, it is not likely that we will implement something like that anytime in the near future though. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 00:30, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
• Checkuser's not magic anyway. If someone takes the trouble to "groom" an account toward adminship, they'll almost certainly take the time to segregate the IP addresses of their socks. Successful use of checkuser when someone's making an effort to conceal themself would require a good deal of effort and knowledge of what accounts are suspected socks, a casual one would turn up nothing. I personally think we need to look for something different at RfA-not just people who've reverted tons of vandalism, not just people who've made a lot of minor edits, but those who have been genuinely involved in the project. It doesn't necessarily kill your RfA. I was involved in plenty of debates before mine, and I was quite honestly expecting my second one to be very close if it passed at all. I was (pleasantly) surprised to see that most of those who disagreed with me were still willing to show support. I look for people that have been involved in some debates and conflicts-not only to verify that they're not socks, but because admins will get involved in a conflict, somehow or another, and I want to see that the person can stay cool under fire and conduct themself well. But this would also help to prevent sockpuppetry. It's a lot harder to fake genuine community involvement then it is to revert a bunch of vandals and slap down a bunch of AfD votes. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 00:49, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
• I wholeheartedly agree. There's an obvious formula for becoming admin these days: make several thousand edits (possibly with an automated tool like AWB), balance your edits across namespaces, and vote on XfDs so people have seen your name. (I have a longer rant on this topic that I've added as a new section to this discussion page.) It seems to me that anyone who wants to ensure the integrity of the admins we promote should challenge every uninformed vote on RfAs. Uninformed votes, of course, include votes that are based on nothing but looking at the edit count number. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 03:43, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Bureaucrat chat is open on Gracenotes's RfA

As Gracenotes has indicated the desire not to reopen his RfA immediately, the entire issue will be discussed in a Bureaucrat Chat. In the interests of transparency, all may view the chat here. Please remember that only bureaucrats will discuss the situation on this page and others' comments will be removed. Thank you all for your patience. -- Cecropia 15:35, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

A piece of data that may be of use, a very recent successful RfA closed with a 67% support. While the final decision is, of course, a judgment call from the 'crat who adopts it and RfA isn't supposed to be a raw numbers game, the closing bureaucrat (Rdsmith4 (talk • contribs • blocks • protects • deletions • moves • rights)) may be able to offer guidance in how he navigated the rough waters of a contentious discussion in determining consensus. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 16:06, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Of somewhat more importance than the numbers, which any monkey can count, is the strength and validity of the arguments for and against the candidate. Please remember that, otherwise there is no point having bureaucrats at all – Gurch 16:14, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Well spluh! :) Hence my comment above "While the final decision is, of course, a judgment call from the 'crat who adopts it and RfA isn't supposed to be a raw numbers game" followed up by a suggestion that the closing bureaucrat engage Rdsmith4 because he recently closed an RfA in a similar situation, and he might have some thoughts on how to determine the actual consensus here. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 16:24, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Using Danny's RfA as something to compare with is probably not a good idea. That one introduced the inovative idea of bureaucrat chat (thanks to Taxman), but overall could have been handled much better I think. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:36, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely, which is why I didn't use Danny's RfA as the example above. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 16:39, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I am still obsessed with that one. :) Your referred to Krimpet's of course, closed by the same bureaucrat, Rdsmith4, and with the same low percentage, very inconsistently with other nominations closed by other bureaucrats. (Even taking into account that RfA is not a vote, such a thing does not inspire faith in the process.) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:44, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to comment too much about this off the 'crat-chat but I want to firmly say that this is nothing like Danny's RfA. Different candidate, unique position of the candidate, different situation, different opposition, different considerations. I also want to firmly state that I will resist those who want to use this as a precedent to make every disputed nomination a bureaucrat chat. I or any of the other 'crats could perfectly well have closed this but I think its dynamics make it appropriate to treat this RfA differently. -- Cecropia 16:46, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

LOL!!! Wish mine had been as easy :) - Alison ☺ 06:07, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I refuse to accept the decision. Since there was only one oppose, and several strong oppositions, I think it's not been decided by consensus. WE WANT B'CRAT CHAT!!!! G1ggy! _{Review me!} 08:53, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Making fun? Beh! Cult of the Sacred Or_nge

Yeah, beh. a) Don't be a dick, b) listen to other people, c) improve articles, d) try and learn how Wikipedia works by taking part as much as you can. Do that for six months, and you'll know all you need to know. The kidney route is not advisable ... I'm still peeing funny. Neil (►) 12:30, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Trojan admin accounts

There have been a few cases recently of admins being desysopped after being found to be sockpuppeting and helping their other accounts with their admin tools: Henrygb and Runcorn are the latest examples.

It seems to me that the current state of adminship is making it more likely that we're sometimes electing Trojan accounts; that is, accounts of banned users; users with more than one admin account; users who are editing with multiple accounts. The reason I think it's more likely now is that there's an increasing focus on electing people who've concentrated on fighting vandalism and making other minor edits. Editors who do this need the tools, there's no question of that, and please don't anyone interpret what I'm saying to mean that I think these edits are of low value. I do not think that; I don't want a rehash here of writers versus vandalism fighters (or whatever). We all contribute in different ways.

My only point is that it's easier to get to adminship via 10,000 semi-automated vandalism reverts and AfD votes, than it is via writing articles and making lots of talk-page posts. It's easier for three reasons. First, it's faster. Secondly, you're less likely to get into controversy if you're just reverting vandals. Third, you leave less of a "voice," making it harder for your account to be recognized. I've been told that these are the reasons adminship-via-vandalism-reverts is the favored formula. I've been given information about multiple admin accounts being run on this basis by one person, who is allegedly in the process of preparing another one; I don't have technical evidence so there's nothing that can be done about it.

My question is: do we care about this, and if so, can anything be reasonably done about it? We may not be able to do anything about the ones that currently exist (assuming any do), but do we want to prevent the creation of any more? Or are we willing to pay the price in order to maintain openness? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:49, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Are you suggesting check user for every admin candidate? Ryan Postlethwaite 20:54, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not really suggesting anything, Ryan, because I don't have any good ideas about this. Check user would only work if people were careless, or were using open proxies. If you knew a check user would be performed, it would be a trivial matter only to post from an internet cafe, say, for a period before the nom: a nuisance but not a huge obstacle. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:12, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

The question is, what does it hurt? If they want to beat themselves up to revert thousands of vandalism, all the more power to them. If there accounts start acting suspect, especially with the recent hype, they would be closley scrutinized. I think the cons of the situation are fairly small personally. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 20:56, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

With the example I gave (if it is correct), there have been non-trivial consequences. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:12, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Checkuser for all admin candidates has been urged previously (most recently after the Jtkiefer/Pegasus1138 RfA last summer, which was one of my two scary introductions to the RfA page). For all we know, it's already happening. :) Newyorkbrad 21:05, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be a good idea, but for the sake of transparency, it would probably have to be all admins that go through it - I'm not sure if some would agree to that however. Ryan Postlethwaite 21:08, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Would they have to agree? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:12, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

The problem with the current set-up is that I can't even request a check user on the basis of the information I have, because it would be fishing, and fishing around with established admin accounts is especially frowned upon. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:14, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Well it could be introduced as a condition of adminship, users that wish to run, or who eventually pass have to go through checkuser before being promoted. With the information you've got, I'm sure if you emailed an Arb they could give you suggestions or they may run a private checkuser. Ryan Postlethwaite 21:22, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

It might even be enough if we announce that RfA candidates may be randomly check usered with no indication of frequency. One week it might be everyone; the next week it might only be a couple. That would cut down on the work, but it would maintain most of the deterrent. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:34, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd certainly support that, it would be one less thing to worry about. On the main page we could add the wording; Candidates may be randomly subjected to CheckUser evaluation. Ryan Postlethwaite 21:39, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

(de-indent) I would imagine that if someone is willing to put in 10,000 edits, even if they are mostly semi-automated, they will not be stupid enough to edit off the same IP. Neil (►) 21:48, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know... I made over 30,000 edits as Qxz using the same IP address as Gurch; I can't remember how long checkuser data is kept for but it would certainly have been long enough. Of couse, I never had any intention of gaining adminship (having just voluntarily resigned it) but given another month or so Qxz could probably have passed (for the record, he hates attack sites) and there's no reason why someone else in that position might not have tried to do so – Gurch 21:58, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Clearly all admins should be subject to a massive check user now and random checks later, SqueakBox 22:05, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

No. We don't do that. At worst, we give every admin the choice of being check-usered or deadmined, and even that would be overkill. A random sample, fine, but checking all admins would be overkill. And remember that if we check a large number of users then we are going to turn up some false positives. Regards, Ben Aveling 22:19, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify, a random sample of all existing admins would be also overkill. If and only if there is a way to identify the set of Admins who have never done anything but vandal-fighting, then maybe there would be some value in announcing a random check of a percentage of them. But I'd want more information about how many people we'd want to check, and how we're going to identify them. I don't mind the thought of checking a small percentage of would be admins, as a deterrent. Ben Aveling 22:48, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and this whole thing is a violation of our current CheckUser policy and possible the privacy policy as well (that's the Foundation privacy policy, which unlike certain policies around here *cough*NPA*cough* is not subject to change without a very good reason). Right now, CheckUser is only run in narrowly-defined cases of suspected of abuse. Running it on an admin candidate with no history of abuse certainly does not fall under this provision. Right now it is explicitly not permitted for users to request a CheckUser on themselves to prove their innocence, which is what this would essentially entail. Even if this was changed, any user not suspected of abuse (any admin candidate, surely) would have to explicitly agree to a checkuser and release of its results. Are you really suggesting we start rejecting admin candidates who refuse to submit to a CheckUser? Remember how admin requirements have been rising steadily for no good reason and we are turning people down for silly reasons? Why on earth would it help to raise the requirements still higher?

And I dread to think what happens when an admin candidate has edited, even incidentally, from the same IP as an administrator. Pile-on oppose and then an indefinite ban for both parties, no doubt. That's all we need. And yes, of course, as soon as anyone who does want to abuse adminship knows that this is being done they will simply get themselves a new IP. It's not exactly hard.

One more thing... SlimVirgin, forgive me for getting a little personal, but who do you think is a using administrative sockpuppets? The rest of us are all dying to know – Gurch 22:16, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't want to know. If you have good reasons, even if they are off-wiki reasons, then just email someone. Ben Aveling 22:48, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Must ...resist... urge... Must.... Oh... I give up.

Haven't ah... people mentioned someplace that RFA was becoming gameable? Once or twice? --Kim Bruning 22:24, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I think they did. Of course that was before you could recieve 70 opposes for something nobody actually knew was wrong. Hey... perhaps there is a good reason for the unnecessarily high requirements! After all, if no candidates are promoted, no... ah, "trojans" are promoted. Can't argue with that – Gurch 22:30, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

At least one WMF wiki requires a mandatory CU for all administrators before ascendancy, if I am not much mistaken. I just can't recall which one right now. If it's critical I'll dig it up somehow, LMK. I mention that without necessarily saying it is a good or bad idea. ++Lar: t/c 22:47, 31 May 2007 (UTC) er, no... I think rather it was that every voter in a particular RfA on a particular wiki was CUed by consensus of the community. Sorry. bad memory. Not the same thing at all. ++Lar: t/c 22:52, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely not unless our privacy/CheckUser policies change significantly first. 'Fishing' is frowned upon even in cases where one account is acting squirrely... and there's no way to judge how many false positives this would turn up. At least with the password attacks, we knew the password was below a certain degree of weakness if it could be guessed. CheckUser = Vodou. -- nae'blis 22:59, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

What about admins editing from shared IPs? bibliomaniac15 An age old question... 22:58, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think these recent cases of sockpuppetry are the fault of RfA's standards. In the case of Henrygb and Runcorn, both had been around for quite a while, with plenty of contributions. Henrygb had been a sysop since early 2005, Runcorn since mid-2006; both had been around for about a year at time of their RfA, with plenty of experience in article space; both were prolific contributors, and it doesn't seem like either of them tried to game the RfA system. It just happens to be that both of them were less trustworthy than the community thought.

I'm not sure a checkuser would be much help in this case, though: What's to stop a potential sockpuppeteer from simply creating their extra accounts after they pass RfA? Krimpet (talk) 23:01, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

• Simply put, no. The privacy policy is extremely clear about this:

  When using a pseudonym, your IP address will not be available to the public except in cases of abuse, including vandalism of a wiki page by you or by another user with the same IP address. In all cases, your IP address will be stored on the wiki servers and can be seen by Wikimedia's server administrators and by users who have been granted "CheckUser" access. Your IP address, and its connection to any usernames that share it may be released under certain circumstances (see below).

  ...

  1. In response to a valid subpoena or other compulsory request from law enforcement.
  2. With permission of the affected user.
  3. To the chair of Wikimedia Foundation, his/her legal counsel, or his/her designee, when necessary for investigation of abuse complaints.
  4. Where the information pertains to page views generated by a spider or bot and its dissemination is necessary to illustrate or resolve technical issues.
  5. Where the user has been vandalising articles or persistently behaving in a disruptive way, data may be released to assist in the targeting of IP blocks, or to assist in the formulation of a complaint to relevant Internet Service Providers.
  6. Where it is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of the Wikimedia Foundation, its users or the public.

  Wikimedia policy does not permit public distribution of such information under any circumstances, except as described above.

• Requesting a CheckUser on all admins (or any admin) based solely on a "let's check if he maybe is helping someone" thought does not fall under any of the exemptions above (not even the last one, as it puts a "necessary" requirement), so CheckUsers are exposing themselves to unnecessary legal risks if they make blanket checks like these. And yes, there are legal risks involved—why do you think all CheckUsers must be over 18? There are legal implications with the use of the tool, so let's not even think about going through this path. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 23:13, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

It's not really something we can realistically expect to stop every time. If someone really wants to devote 500+ hours to "growing" an account with the perfect edit history, if they want to use a proxy for every edit, there's really nothing we can do to stop that. Thankfully people rarely feel like exerting that amount of effort... Runcorn is the only example I know of, and if you look at his pre-RFA history it was hardly a perfect job (but apparently good enough). But it's going to happen occasionally... all we can do is get better at damage control. The Runcorn thing was suspected last September, and a checkuser was denied, for example. --W.marsh 23:29, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

We don't know how often it happens. We have in fact no idea whatsoever, which is an odd thing given that we're a top-ten website, and that our articles often turn up as the #1 hit on Google. Yet we have no idea how many people (as opposed to how many accounts) are actually administering the website, and how many of them (if any) are banned users. We can't have perfect security, and wouldn't want to because we'd lose our openness. But does that mean we must have zero security? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:53, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

In case you've forgotten, this is a wiki. We are founded on the principle that anyone anywhere in the world can do what they like to any page they like. We do not have "zero security", that would be giving steward and developer access to anonymous users. Anyway, I don't really see why the exact number of administrators is something we would want to know, beyond a rough figure, or even can know. Even if we were certain that every administrator is a distinct user, many have been inactive for years and can hardly be considered to be "administering the website". Even if we decided upon some arbitrary cut-off for the purposes of definition, there are dozens if not hundreds of users who do mostly maintenance tasks that I would certainly count under "administering the website" because that's essentially what they are doing; the slightly different nature of their work necessitated by a technical restriction doesn't actually make any significant difference there.

Finally, lots of administrators and non-administrators legitimately use separate accounts without revealing them as they are entitled to do by out current policy. While possession of adminship on two accounts simultaneously is not permitted, activity on another account is perfectly acceptable provided that no policies are violated when the accounts are considered together (3RR, multiple voting and so forth). If the user has discarded one account and created another and is not even active on their original account any longer, there is even less of a concern – and CheckUser data for the older account would have expired by the time they requested adminship anyway, so nobody would be any the wiser.

In short, some of the things you seem to have an issue with are permitted by current policy; try getting the policy changed, first (and no, you're not allowed to hijack RfA to do so). What's more, even a checkuser on every account wouldn't stop the kind of abuse you seem to want to stop. Is this in fact just an excuse to start opposing perfectly good candidates for "too much maintenance work" and being "not controversial enough"? Reluctant though some people seem to be to believe it, not every eager newcomer is a sockpuppet of an older account. How do you think such a user would feel if they were nominated, in good faith, for adminship, opposed to within an inch of their life for "not being controversial enough", nominated again after another few months in which they'd participated in lots of controversial things to appease the opposers and then opposed again for a combination of "oh no, not this guy again" and "too disruptive" and "might abuse the tools"? – Gurch 18:45, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

To repeat a previous comment I made on this page, there will always be people who will game the system. We'll never stop everyone. But when someone is caught breaking the community's trust, they must be dealt with severely. In many ways all of this is like the laws in every culture and country. It's impossible to stop all crimes but when someone is caught, they should be punished. As humans, that's about the best we are capable of doing to prevent crimes/gaming the system from occurring. Best, --Alabamaboy 23:42, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Checkuser is not a great solution for the reasons already mentioned: privacy policy, and the fact that it's not foolproof - it has false-positives and false-negatives, and the impact of both will be magnified if it's run indiscriminately without applying some sort of pre-test probability metric. The best solution might be to use the RfA process wisely. It's been out there for some time now that RfA can be gamed by racking up a huge number of vandalism reverts and a few AfD votes, supporting a bunch of RfA's to garner goodwill, and avoiding any kind of contentious issues. Like SlimVirgin, I'm not downplaying the importance of RC patrol or countervandalism... but: there are an awful lot of RfA's where Q1 = "I want the tools to fight vandals", Q2 = "My proudest accomplishments are fighting vandalism", and Q3 = "I've never been in any conflicts". I think we should scrutinize such applications closely. How necessary are the tools for countervandalism work? AIV and RFPP are rarely seriously backlogged, and can be cleared quickly if a backlog develops. Countervandalism work can be done quickly and semi-automatically, which article-writing can't, so in some ways, article content contributions signal a greater commitment of time and effort, even though they fall outside the "admin" arena. And some involvement in conflict or contentious issues is a plus in my book, because how else can you judge how a candidate will react to the difficult situations that come with the mop? Yet many good candidates are afraid to run because they fear the Supreme-Court-confirmation-style approach to prior conflicts. I'd suggest that the best way to reduce the burden of gamed RfA's and sockpuppet admins is to look closely at how we judge admin applicants, and especially to scrutinize accounts which fit the profile - heavy vandalism reverts, token AfD/RfA !votes, and lack of engagement in the content aspects of the encyclopedia. But then those are just my biased opinions. MastCell ^Talk 02:58, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Low article-talk-page edits is one of the things I worry about. There's usually high user-talk edits from putting tags on users' pages.

One of the reasons adminship-via-vandalism works is that a lot of the voters focus on vandalism themselves, so they vote for who they know. And the more the focus is on vandalism, the less attractive the process becomes to others. I've had to advise several people who want to stand for adminship to do some vandalism fighting and voting in AfDs before the nom, which they really shouldn't have to do. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 06:17, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't see that low article-talk-page edits are really the substantial concern you consider them to be. I agree that a lack of communication with other users could be seen as an issue, but the temptation to reduce this to misleading metrics must be avoided. For example, at the time of my adminship request I had several thousand article talk edits and nobody raised any objections. That they would have done if I did not is worrying, as all of those edits were archiving-related and I'd discussed articles only a handful of times; did that affect my ability to use the rollback button, edit protected pages, fix bad page moves and speedy delete garbage? I don't think it did. Suggesting that discussion of articles is a necessity seems to be asking too much – not everyone can do everything; there are people who write articles and people who do maintenance. The latter group are more suited to adminship, would benefit most from having it and are more likely to use it once acquired; article writers, on the other hand, are usually quite happy with the important task of writing articles – Gurch 18:56, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Checkuser will not stop this problem. If this really is a big problem, and I'm not convinced it is, then we need a real solution, maybe introduce a class of junior admin, for eg, with the right to block and unblock new users, but not established ones, with the right to protect, unprotect and salt, but not the right to delete or undelete, etc. But first, we'd need to demonstrate that there is a big problem that we can't handle with our existing capabilities, and I'm far from sure that's the case? Regards, Ben Aveling 03:24, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

There's big in terms of numbers, and we have no idea of how many (if any) it involves. And then there's big in terms of potential consequences. The accounts I've been told about allegedly caused some non-trivial problems. I'm sorry that I'm having to talk round it, but the exact details don't matter anyway, because you can imagine the problems a malicious banned user might be able to cause with admin accounts. I don't mean deleting the main page; I mean acting as if you're a normal admin but in fact always having one eye on causing problems. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 06:17, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Checkuser isn't magic. Someone who goes to the trouble of months worth of work at setting up a false admin account will almost surely also take the trouble to segregate the accounts' IP addresses. There are other means of detection of socks, though. What we really need is just more people paying attention for socklike behavior. I'm not going to spill all the beans about how even clever sockpuppeteers screw up and leave trails (because I'd like them continue to do it), but there's always a trail. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 03:52, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

There is always a trail, but sometimes it's subtle, and it can be hard to persuade people, because you need an eye for detail, and the people you're explaining it to have to be willing to follow that detail. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 06:17, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Honestly, is this really such a bad thing as people are making it out to be? Sure, if someone devotes themselve to making thousands of small, useful edits, they can game RfA... and get away with abusing their powers as an admin for how long before they get caught? There are probably many more people, too, who do large amounts of helpful gruntwork with the goal of becoming an admin, but who for one reason or another end up never getting to that point. It seems to me that, in all likelyhood, the good that they did, willingly or not, while trying to "game the system" probably outweighs the harm they managed to get away from as an admin. Additionally, and more importantly... it will always be possible to become an admin. It's just not designed to be particularly difficult; there is practically a 'default' assumption that people become admins after a certain amount of time + contributions if they want to and don't screw up (and I think that that is the way it should work--we badly need more admins, not less.) We can't read candidate's minds, and there are always ways to hide sockpuppets. If you want to stop people who become admins just to help their other accounts of whatever, you need to increase scrutiny on people who have already passed RFA, since that's when the sockpuppets will really "unmask" themselves. --Aquillion 18:46, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Amen (or other religious term of agreement) to everything you said, Aquillion.--Alabamaboy 00:48, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposal on meta

I've added a proposal to add a section allowing random checks on RfAs. Please see here. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:06, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, I do not think that your proposal is permissible under the current check-user policy. WP:RFCU states, in bold no less, that "Checkuser is a last resort for difficult cases." Random checks of RfAs neither constitutes an attempt to solve a "difficult case" nor is a last resort of any kind. Indeed, Checkuser on yourself to "prove your innocence", which is essentially what this amounts to, is expressly not allowed. -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 18:00, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Black falcon, checkuser isn't some toy to be used at random. Majorly (talk | meet) 18:20, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

SlimVirgin is I think aware that her proposal is not permissible under present policy. Otherwise she would just have made a request to the checkusers rather than proposing a change in policy on meta. The questions is whether the policy should be changed as she proposes. I think there is definitely some validity in her proposal - this isn't something that regular RfA scrutiny can determine. WjBscribe 18:29, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

The fact that it is against policy is the reason that the proposal was made. Otherwise, why would we need to propose it? EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:39, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how it could work, though. Who are they going to be checked against? The problem is, it's fine to say that anyone who applies for adminship is giving permission for a checkuser, but you need to look at the private information behind at least two accounts for a checkuser to yield useful information. Who are these adminship candidates going to be checkuser'ed against, and how are we going to justify looking at those people's details? They're not running for adminship. It might catch, I suppose, someone who is an absolutely infamous sockpuppeteer... if the person performing the checkuser happened to be the one who examined that sockpuppeteer, and they happen to remember enough details to make the connection. But I can't see that happening very often. --Aquillion 18:50, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

We could check them against Jimbo; it's important that we ensure he isn't creating a sockdrawer. ;) On a more serious note, I'd be fine with being the second target account; I trust the checkuser clerks, and my alternate account is well within policy, so I couldn't care less if someone went snooping. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:55, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Aquillion, you could check to see whether the IPs they're editing from are used by others, and if so, whether there are editing similarities between the accounts. You could also check to see whether they're editing from open proxies. Checkuser isn't a magic tool that tells you everything you need to know, but it can help. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:24, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that random checkusers go against the principle of assuming good faith in the absence of evidence to the contrary. Random checks (whether at Wikipedia, airports, or military checkpoints) presuppose that everyone is potentially guilty until proven otherwise. Since security personnel are not required to (perhaps not even encouraged to) AGF, they have an justification for random checks. What would ours be? -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 22:02, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I think a checkuser is a good idea. I didn't realize that there were these de-sysop actions, but lets face it- automated edits aside, chances are 99% of admin candidates are clean. I don't think that everyone getting checkusered is so horrible. To go with the analogy of the airport; if you're singled out at the airport, people notice, you're embarrassed, et al. With the internet, a checkuser is quicker, and anonymous. If there was no problem, no fuss and no struggle. David Fuchs ^{(talk / frog blast the vent core!)} 00:53, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Plus one: however I do feel that this will not go anywhere, simply because too much of Wikipedia would have to be rewritten to allow for such checks, and that would be harmful to say the least. David Fuchs ^{(talk / frog blast the vent core!)} 00:57, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

The only thing that would need to be changed is the checkuser policy. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:25, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Isn't the checkuser data saved only for a month or two ? [Edit : On second thoughts, I think I may be wrong about this.] Unless they are in a great hurry to create Trojan accounts, people won't even need to edit from alternate accounts to fool this check. They will just have to stop editing from an account after becoming an admin, and use a new account for two or three months before applying for RfA from there. Tintin 01:21, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Possibly with the same IP, or with open proxies. As I said above, this won't help us against a determined, clever, careful, technically savvy person. But it might help with less careful people. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:25, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

• Indeed, which makes random checkusers of RfA candidates completely pointless and utterly meaningless. As I noted on Meta, this is a solution looking for a problem. It most emphatically does NOT solve the problem it supposedly sets out to solve. This, plus the cost of having the privacy of candidates to RfA violated? Thank you, I'll pass. --Durin 02:03, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

No, this is a real problem, not a made-up one, and we're going to have to address it at some point, because it's going to keep on getting worse. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:25, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) The reason is that the cu_changes table (which is introduced by the CheckUser extension) has several indexes, and if the table gets too big, any queries to it get slowed down. Or so it was the last time I checked. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 02:26, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

(Unindent) If it is a good idea to do it with potential administrators, it is also a good idea to do it with CURRENT administrators. In fact, let's make that the proposal - that anyone holding administrative or higher rights may be subject, at any time, to a random checkuser review. Given recent events, there is reason to believe that previously unsuspected administrators may be using sockpuppets or otherwise abusing Wikipedia against policy. Risker 02:51, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't like this idea at all. It is a violation of privacy, as well as a violation of the privacy policy. --Deskana (talk) 02:53, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

How would it be a violation of the privacy policy, Deskana? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:01, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

• Random checkuser requests and "Assume good faith" can't coexist at the same time. Not just that, but it's rather unnecessary. I agree with the "solution looking for a problem" comment. .V. _[Talk|Email] 08:20, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

  As I said on the meta page, this would be a witchhunt. With no reason to checkuser people in the first place other than a widescale fishing expedition, this idea is paranoiac, and as Durin says above, useless. It is a violation of the privacy policy because unqualified users (yes, checkusers are unqualified users with no special legal status) would be forced to (not asked) root around personally identifiable information that users have not chosen to release, with no grounds for doing so. Neil (►) 09:56, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Add me to the sceptics. Even if this is a problem, it is not a common one, and it is surely more disruptive to checkuser everyone (or some sample) than to let a handful get away with something only to be caught later. semper fictilis 16:20, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, is there some way in which "random" checks are even possible? I saw the suggestion that any checkuser could make the decision, but that's not exactly random. Also, can CU check one person against all other people, whether banned or not? Slim's post above suggests you can get an IP for an account, and then run that IP for all other accounts. I don't know if that's standard practice or not, but it certainly creates a wide net. Third, how would a checkuser then decide what was reportable? If you had two admins on one IP? If they had edited together once or twice? At the checkuser's discretion, but without the ability to say what they found? I'd favor a clearer checkuser policy, perhaps a broader one, but the latter without the former seems like a significant problem. Mackan79 18:29, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

So far, many of the arguments in opposition to this proposal (including mine) have focused on the technical aspects of random checkusers, the moral aspects of violating privacy, and issues related to violating Wikipedia:Assume good faith. I would like to raise a few others.

1. Legality. Is this legal under the laws of the state of Florida? Do we have to consider the laws of another state/country if the checkuser lives outside of Florida? What about the place of residence of the person being checkusered? I'm not a legal expert, so I'll leave these questions to others.
2. Security. Can the confidentiality of checkuser results be guaranteed? Could such results be leaked (either deliberately or due to negligence) or hacked. If the answer is yes, then this raises additional concerns about editors' privacy and even personal safety (see Political repression of cyber-dissidents).
3. Unintended consequences. If we treat everyone as guilty, we're bound to catch some people who indeed are guilty. However, we'll also "catch" people who are innocent (false positives). Finally, such actions may actually turn people against the project. To use an analogy: if you treat innocent people like rebels, you shouldn't be surprised if they actually rebel against you one day.
4. The policy on biographies of living persons includes a "presumption in favour of privacy" when it comes to the subjects of Wikipedia articles. Why should the same not extend to its editors who, by and large, do not meet the notability guideline for biographies? -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 19:31, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I think this proposal is a "bandaid solution", or rather an attempt to put a patch on a problem that does not solve the actual issue. Isn't this just a symptom of the editcounting style of RfA evaluation? That is, people look at the nominee and see high mainspace and Wikipedia space edits, and therefore see a "valuable contributor". That is not to disparage vandal fighters, who do a great service to the wiki. However, it is easily witnessed in RfA that vandal fighters have a much easier time generally due to the edit counts such activity generates. In the same vein, the face value acceptance of regurgitated answers to the "standard" RfA questions seems to feed into this issue. I don't think this is an issue of people gaming the system to pass RfA with a sockpuppet. If that were so, I think an adjustment or addition to the system would be warranted. However, I believe this is an issue of people gaming the culture at RfA, which has grown to favour edit counts and bland me-too answers to RfA questions over substantive evaluation. I think there are signs this trend is changing and encouraging that change is the real solution to this problem, in my opinion. When we stop valuing metrics over substance, as a group, this "loophole" will cease to exist. Vassyana 20:04, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Questions about RFA

1. Are we allowed to support or oppose ourselves?
2. Are we allowed to ask friends to support or oppose us?
3. If our RFA is denied can we make another one in a few months?
4. How many edits would you say a user should have before becoming an admin?
5. What should I do to have a good chance of becoming an admin?

If anyone else has any other questions feel free to post them here. Mattl2001 04:35, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

To make the answers as succinct as possible:

1. No.
2. No, and may even earn yourself opposition. See WP:CANVASS.
3. Yes, definitely.
4. Numbers fluctuate, and numbers should not matter, so all I will say is: enough for us to tell us you're experienced.
5. Please read WP:GRFA.

Hope that helps. —Kurykh 04:41, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflicted)

1. No. Accepting the nomination is your own declaration of support; refusing the RfA is the oppose (and instantly renders it moot).
2. Canvassing is frowned upon; I've seen a couple of RfAs fail on that basis.
3. Yes, though if you haven't addressed the concerns raised in the first RfA, the second isn't any more likely to pass.
4. I'd say that nothing below a couple of thousand has a snowball's chance in hell. Even then, though, it's more the balance of edits (mainspace to project space) and the quality of the edits that matters more than sheer number (in theory, at least).
5. Involve yourself in the process of the project, such as AfD. Making sound, policy-grounded arguments for or against deletion will help show that you are able to properly interpret the project's policies and guidelines and apply them to various situations.

You might also want to check out Wikipedia:Admin coaching before submitting your RfA. EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:43, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. What he said. —Kurykh 05:02, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jonjonbt

Another shining example of how the wikipedia community loves to bite our newcomers that don't understand our policies and think they would make a good administrator. No one with 87 edits knows how we work. Comments such as "wicked-strong oppose", "your just a middle schooler" and "it's starting to snow" are just plain unhelpful. Please please try and offer a bit more advice before shooting them to the ground. Unfortunately this RfA was closed before I had chance to hit back at the villains and offer my own constructive advice to the candidate. Ryan Postlethwaite 18:40, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, in such obvious cases of failed RfAs, a simple note is more than enough. I do try to take the bite off of premie RfAs I close with {{User:EVula/admin/Premature RfA}}, though. EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:44, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I've just seen your note to the candidate - that's what we should be saying to them, telling them how they can improve, it's just a pitty there weren't more users participating there like you. Ryan Postlethwaite 18:47, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree. That was a kind note that EVula left on Jonjonbt's talk page. People would leave just their signature, with no rational arguments, in RfAs of more experienced users but they feel it necessary to leave more and more biting and incisive comments to say the same thing over and over again (to the effect of you are too new, get out of here) on the RfA of an obvious newbie. - TwoOars 19:08, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Which makes me wonder again, we really need requirements of who can request. Majorly (talk | meet) 19:18, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

But how could we enforce them? New users will still be able to list. Unless any user was free to remove a request that didn't meet the requirements. Ryan Postlethwaite 19:20, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, other wikis like Commons and Meta have requirements before you can request. Majorly (talk | meet) 19:25, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Leave alone the enforcement; There can never be a consensus on the requirements in the first place, I think. :) We'll never agree on the minimum time or editcount (as we can see in Hmwith's RfA).- TwoOars 19:32, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I've removed four "no chance" RfAs recently; I think the highest edit count on one of them was 400-something (for one of the editors, their very first edits were to create the RfA). I'm not saying that those should be the baseline for a standard level of participation, I'm just mentioning it. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:57, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I've removed three RFA's, and I'm not even an Admin. I think there should be some minimum standards (like minimum 1000 edits in total, for example). Evilclown93 20:07, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

See, there lies the trouble. There might be exceptions. For eg, what about cases where the candidate is an established user on some other wikipedia (like a candidate on RfA right now)? Once we set a minimum standard like that, a lot of users would blindly quote that and there would be no room for discussion on the merits of the case.- TwoOars 20:17, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree that exceptions can be made... to an extent. En's policies are different from any other Wikipedia's; just because Editor X has been an admin on the Russian Wikipedia doesn't mean that they know all of our policies and guidelines. I think that's one of the perpetual arguments against a "speedy promote" of inter-wiki admins (just as how my contributions here don't mean diddly over at Commons, where I'd also like to become an admin). EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:25, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I'd like to belatedly agree that there should be more users like me. Excellent observation, Ryan. ;) EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:36, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

(Reset) My opinions-

• There shouldn't be any guidelines in order to apply for RfA; it'll be a headache determining them. Plus, it's not difficult to close an RfA if the candidate hasno chance.
• I find the en Wikipedia having the most strictest of policies, so being an admin on another Wikimedia project doesn't necessarily mean you can be an admin here, and doesn't guarantee that you know the policies here.
• Going back to the original topic, I believe that the comments on the RfA were a little harsh. We could try not to bite the newcomers by just leaving a small note. There's no need to taunt the candidate; I'm presuming he has applied in good faith and not in disruption. Sr13 20:56, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, this is a totally different debate altogether but opinion has been fairly divided on Yonidebest's RfA. That means there is no consensus about that. And in my opinion, adminship should be given as a matter of course, based on trustworthiness, ability to learn from mistakes and ability to work non-disruptively in a community. Familiarity with policies shouldn't be that big a concern because it is not rocket science, neither is using admin tools(I assume :). After all when anybody can create an account and edit wikipedia, why shouldn't good faith editors known not to goof up majorly get admin tools? And its not like admin actions can't be reversed when a new admin makes an honest mistake or two in the learning stage. - TwoOars 20:45, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

• Actually, coming a bit late to this thread, but it should still be possible to make 400 edits spread over 2 months, and demonstrate experience across namespaces and across Wikipeida, good edits, and trustworthiness. People might suspect it of being a sock of an experienced user, but it could just as easily be a long-term lurker with experience on another wiki. Carcharoth 13:51, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Any system for users to give feedback about admins?

Is there any system/forum for plain users to give feedback for administrators? If not, there should be one. This system should be used to determine if an administrator needs to be re-evaluated. For example if there are administrators who edit war, violate policies (like RS, etc) and do other undesireable stuff that is not befitting of an administrator, should be subjected to a re-election, based on how much negative feedback they get in a certain period of time. Yes I know administrators are not any different than plain users because the only difference is that they have some extra tools, but still, an administrator should be an editor who is an example of a great editor, approved by all and shows all the different qualities that a good editor would have. --Matt57 ^{(talk•contribs)} 03:52, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:RFC and WP:ANI usually does that job. Regarding "re-election", it is a perennial proposal, but see WP:RECALL. – Chacor 03:56, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I guess WP:RECALL is somewhat what I was thinking about. --Matt57 ^{(talk•contribs)} 04:01, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:ANI is not productive for complaining about admins. Wjhonson 04:03, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I suppose so. It used to occasionally though. Heh. – Chacor 05:32, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

If you provide negative feedback on ANI, be prepared to receive some yourself :-) Tintin 07:03, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

ANI does generally err on the side of agreeing with the admin, but that's not surprising, really. The vast majority of complaints about admin abuse are unfounded. Most times when there is disagreement the admins discussing it agree that it was a judgement call and while they may not have done the same thing, the admin that was there at the time is the admin that makes the decision, and unless it was truly unjustifiable, nobody will overrule it. If we undid every admin action where we might have done something differently nobody would respect any admin decision. --Tango 22:09, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

The appropriate place to provide feedback for a specific administrator is on their talk page. Try to be polite. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:01, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Unlisted RFAs

So, having not actually participated in the project side of things for almost two months now, can anyone fill me in on the current standard for dealing with unlisted RFAs that have been accepted and answered like Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Mitchazenia? – Chacor 04:02, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Transclude them and update the time stamp, I believe. Gracenotes^T § 04:25, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

In the case of that RfA, listing it would result in a snowstorm. But in most cases, Gracenotes is correct. G1ggy! _{Review me!} 04:34, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

What about this one. I found it a few days back, but I'm hesistant about because there is absolutely no way it is going to pass. Evilclown93 13:36, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I know that there may not be consensus for this, but I would mention it to the user on their talk page and suggest that it is not needed. If they agree, you can db-owner it, if they disagree, then snow it instead. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 14:45, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Some are being prepared for transclusion later. Probably best to ask. JodyB _talk 15:47, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Um if they are malformed by a user whose only edit is to that page, delete it. Otherwise, I'd just leave it. If they cannot work out how to transclude it on, they really aren't ready. And also, there are (probably) hundreds such RfAs if you look at the prefix index pages. Majorly (talk | meet) 14:50, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

• Do not transclude it for the user. The user should be the one transcluding it, unless the nominator does so on their behalf. You can leave them a message on their talk page. Anything else is presumptive. --Durin 01:54, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

New Users trying to be Admins...A study?

I'm just kinda thinking as I type here, so just bear with me. I got to pondering earlier, about RFAs that get removed early due to pile-on opposes. A large percentage of the time, that's because the user is a new person who doesn't understand our criteria for adminship. We quickly close down their RFA, rather than letting it run the full week. Just out of curiosity, I wonder how many of those users continue to edit Wikipedia at the same rate they had been, whether some people increase/decrease their level of contribution, or if some take their failed RFA as a "screw you" and never come back. Thoughts? ^demon^{[omg plz]} 16:51, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Very interesting. I could go and look at a few. Granted, most have very little edits to begin with, so evaluating an "editing rate" may be difficult.--Wizardman 16:54, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

When I tell a newby trying to be an admin that it is not immediately possible (yes, I know it is in theory but not in practice) I always try to do it very gently, explaining why, and telling them what they need to achieve to make re-application sensible. I think we all do this. But, if we make the assumption that the large majority of RfA applicants want to improve the encyclopedia, even if as a new editor they do not know how to, then keeping track of them, perhaps by template, and offering periodic encouragement as appropriate seems to be a very good idea. Let's do it.--Anthony.bradbury 17:07, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I just did a small, probably not statistically signicant, survey of the first 20 failed RfA s in the list who were newbies; I define newby arbitrarily as having under 1,000 edits. Of the twenty, only one has contributed anything at all in the last three months. Some might have if they had been encouraged. Really, let us try to do something about this.--Anthony.bradbury 17:20, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I've found Oppose with moral Support or Neutral with moral Support eases my consience, even if it may not have helped the editor. I totally agree with the concern here - far too many editors and admins seem to think adminship is a promotion. If we could remove that ridiculous idea then it may help the issue at hand.Pedro |  Chat  17:23, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I hadn't looked at the numbers yet, but that actively frightens me. If we're losing good faith contributors just because they wanted to help out and didn't know better, then this is an issue that deserves quite a bit of attention. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 17:59, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

We shouldn't put too much weight on that. Its worrying but it could be that some of those people had no intention of sticking with the project anyway. One of the things I guess we look for is a commitment to Wikipedia as a project developing and maintaining a free-content encyclopedia. WjBscribe 21:58, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

If its a newbie who had unwisely opted for adminship, I'm not sure even going for the support/oppose/neutral sections is helpful. We have a discussion section above where we could make positive comments about their contributions so far and make it clear what is generally expected before people get adminship. The whole oppose/support concept is inherently stressful and I'm not sure there's a good reason to put someone who has asked for adminship very prematurely through it. WjBscribe 21:58, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, Wiktionary defines "promote" as "To raise someone to a more important, more reponsible or better paid job or rank" (my emphasis) which is accurate in terms of creation of admins. But we should strike out "more important" and of course "better paid job or rank". I do know that I am being annoyingly pedantic. And what we are looking at is the problem of failed applicants dropping out of the project.--Anthony.bradbury 17:32, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

This may come off sounding overly harsh, but folks who easily decide "something didn't go my way, I'm out of here" probably have an overly-fragile temperament, unsuitable for adminship anyway. That said, yes, I think it's worth looking into whatever circumstances cause us to lose editors. But I don't think it's good to focus on the adminship request aspect of this. If someone comes in as an editor, not looking primarily to help the project but rather looking mostly for recognition and opportunity to "rise through the ranks", this is probably not the kind of editor we should be trying to keep. We should instead look for ways to keep those editors whose goals are aligned with the project's goals. Friday (talk) 18:12, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree with Friday and I don't think we should really care if someone with 6 edits on Wikipedia fails RfA and leaves. Now I'm not saying that we should be encouraging their departure, nor should we completely ignore the problem of hailstorms about well-intentioned newbies that get flamed to death because of RfA. I think it would be good if more people took it upon themselves to close newbie-RfAs very very early (instead of waiting for 5 or 6 merciless opposes). But correlation and cause are very different and we have no evidence whatsoever that these people are leaving the project because someone wrote "100 edits? Bring out the snow plow!" I know templates don't solve anything but we could agree to create some sort of template like {{prematureRfA}} that could be used on candidates' talk pages and would be courteous and detailed. Pascal.Tesson 18:32, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Pascal, you are wholly correct. But i do agree with the original comment, namely that some uninformed new editors apply, in their ignorance, for admin reponsibility, and when they are hit by a WP:SNOW response, they leave wikipedia for ever, whereas they might, in a different framework, have become responsible editors and, indeed, ultimately admins. OK, someone with six edits may well not be admin material (obviously), but someone with 1,000 edits may well be, and I would like to see them being encouraged. Thinking about it, even a six-edit contributor may blossom with time. After all, at some point in the past, we have all had only six edits. Yes?--Anthony.bradbury 21:35, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Pascal, {{User:EVula/admin/Premature RfA}} could work. Greeves ^{(talk • contribs • reviews)} 21:43, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I was very lucky. My first RFA failed miserably, and I had only 250ish edits at the time. Luckily, I decided to stick around and keep working, and here I am, ages later. However Friday, I'm not looking at it so much from a "I didn't pass, screw you guys I'm gone" look at it, but more of a "Wow...they don't want my help. I guess I'd better find something else to do." It's that group of editors I'm interested in. I honestly think more care should be given to editors who's RFAs are closed early, even if it's a template message. Even a simple, "Thanks for trying, but we couldn't accept you for XYZ reasons, keep working at it and try later" might get a better response than seeing that they failed, failed early at that, and there seems to be no way to appeal it. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 21:44, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I requested adminship after ~3 months experience. I wasn't entirely sure of the potential result of my RfA. I passed (phew!), but had I not passed, I probably would have taken a failed RfA as a negative thing, and probably cut back on my editing for a while. It's understandable that the RfA process is tough, especially nowadays, and people should expect the unexpected. People should know that RfAs fail all the time, and if their RfA fails, then they shouldn't be that worried about it. Hopefully, they can take constructive criticism and learn from the comments. However, that doesn't always happen, and as Friday mentioned, the people who choose to leave Wikipedia after a failed RfA may not have been the suitable in any case. I know that one of my RfA candidates who failed, Fan-1967 (talk · contribs), apparently disappeared from Wikipedia after his RfA. I e-mailed him and got no reply back, so I'm guessing he's left Wikipedia for good. It's disappointing to see that, but then when you think about it, you might believe that the person was not suitable for adminship, anyway. Nishkid64 (talk) 21:57, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay, speaking as someone who has closed several premie-RfAs recently (and created {{User:EVula/admin/Premature RfA}} specifically to prevent hurt feelings), I have to say that I don't have much faith about the RfA candidates themselves. I've got grave concerns over any editor that immediately comes here, makes flimsy arguments for their promotion, and would then get so pissed off about a failed nom (even if they had harsh comments). As several other people have said, if someone's skin is that thin, they aren't likely to become good contributors in the first place, even disregarding their RfA experience (which is such a nebulous effect that I have severe doubts about practically any conclusions drawn from them). In my mind, these are just kids who are coming here for the "ooh, shiny" factor, and don't have full comprehension about what they're actually asking for; yes, they may become useful contributors, but not for a couple more years, when they've gotten enough life experiences to mature to the point where they can collaborate well with others (read: we might very well be better off without them for now). So ultimately... I find this rash of newbie RfAs curious, but in no way a problem that needs to be addressed in some fashion. EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:32, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

It's multicolored week!

I just find it interesting how just three weeks ago we had 15 RfAs running at nearly unanimous support, but this week, it's a totally different story. Just take a look at the image to the right. 10 green RfAs, 4 yellow RfAs, 2 orange RfAs, 3 red-orange (?) RfAs, and 1 white RfA. Oh Wikipedia...you amaze me every day. Nishkid64 (talk) 21:50, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Well June is Gay Pride month. --Ozgod 21:52, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) LOL! I think much of the red may be because more and more new Wikipedians seem to be applying. Greeves ^{(talk • contribs • reviews)} 21:53, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Lol @ Ozgod. Anyway, here's a editcount breakdown of the 6 RfAs currently below 75% support. Yonidebest 436 edits, YechielMan 6017 edits, Loom91 1885 edits, Arkyan 2479 edits, Ispy1981 1251 edits and 3919 edits for Ozgod. I think only two of those RfAs would actually fail because of people's concerns over editcountitis/inexperience. Nishkid64 (talk) 22:02, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Very new user RFAs get closed pretty quickly, so they won't really effect the table. You would have to looked at it at exactly the right time to see them. --Tango 22:25, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I encourage people to get out there and nominate - we need more admins. Last month we agreed to 53 editors getting admin tools. We should be aiming to advance on that number this month... WjBscribe 22:23, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I guess it's official. June is "RFA/Wikipedian water torture month." bibliomaniac15 An age old question... 23:45, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

For some people it is a sport. --Ozgod 23:49, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

A user's past errors....how long ago is too long ago?

I'm referring specifically to Dfrg.msc's RfA, but it's probably come up in several cases. How long ago would one have to have done something before it's considered "too long ago" to bring up in an RfA? I think it's pathetic that something done a year ago should come back to haunt you, but that's just my personal opinion. What do others think? G1ggy! _{Review me!} 04:10, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

My opinion is that it's not coming back to haunt him at all, it's just that a few editors expressed concerns of truth over him being given the admin tools. I hope the RfA doesn't put him off contributing, nor applying again in the future. --Deskana (talk) 04:15, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Steady on, I haven't failed yet! Dfrg.msc 07:14, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

in general it depends what it is, and how isolated it was. If there's one loss of temper 2 months back, this is different from if there were three or four each month until just before the RfA nomination. If it was ordinary incivility, this is different from trolling. I'd want many months of perfect behavior from a reformed troll. But in terms of ordinary politeness, many editors improve between their first and second applications. DGG 04:18, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

It isn't the time, it's how the editor has behaved since. If someone was a dick, got reprimanded about a year back, and has had a chip on their shoulder ever since (but not doing anything deserving of an official rebuke, for lack of a better term), that's a bad thing. If someone was a dick, got reprimanded about a year back, and has since learned from the transgression, that's a totally different situation. EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:25, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Personally, 6 months if it involved a justified block, or 2/3 if not. I want to be sure the user has not only learned what not to do in a situation, but also what to do. Of course, they must be regular contributing months. After the threshold, I don't consider them valid antecedents. So, when talking about a block 8 months ago, a "He has been blocked in the past." comment given as information is fine, but anyone justifying something because of such an old block is just nitpicking (of course, the user has behaved correctly since the block). However, some mistakes will always come back (Carnildo's, Essjay's, etc), regardless of time passed. Unfortunately. -- ReyBrujo 04:36, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

• Apart from the minimum time of 2 months that I feel is necessary to show that you've improved from a block, I don't really care so much about the amount of time that has passed. It's only one factor in demonstrating that the user has learned from their mistakes and won't do it again. For instance, if someone vandalized three months ago as a newbie and has been sincerely sorry for that since, I may very well support them. Conversely, though, if someone is blocked two years ago for 3RR (which I consider the most minor blockworthy thing possible) but will not admit that they did something wrong, I will probably still oppose them. -Amarkov moo! 04:47, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree whole-heartedly with all of the above statements. I really don't see how an immature edit made half a year ago is enough to justify a concern for abuse of admin tools. I have seen this in the past, but it is particularly frustrating when an edit from 17 November 2006 earns you and Oppose vote. Many people seem to agree and yet, here we are. Dfrg.msc 07:25, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

YechielMan's RfA is a classic example of this. Almost all the opposes right now are solely because of something he did a year ago. At some point I think there should be an RfA statute of limitations on almost every misdeed. Grandmasterka 07:33, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd agree, six month/a year is a very long time on Wikipedia, and I'd strongly support such a limitation, it's all too easy to dig up the past, and new users simply don't know better. Dfrg.msc 08:56, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, limiting anyone's ability to vote the way they want is not a good idea. If I found my votes were discounted because someone else thinks my concerns are irrelevant, then I'd be pissed. --Deskana (talk) 09:09, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Everyone should have the right to vote the way they wish, but the closing bureaucrat has the power to discount votes for a very good reason. For instance, have a look at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Kelly Martin and see if you think that oppose vote should have been counted. - Zeibura S. Kathau ^{(Info | Talk)} 14:34, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, well, by "statute of limitations" I didn't mean one imposed by the bureaucrats, I meant one imposed by each person commenting in an RfA. Grandmasterka 16:23, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to say something about this whole thing. If admitting to being a reformed vandal/abusive user is such a big deal, it should be suggested in one of the questions. There is nothing in the RfA layout which would suggest to the user that they need to sit down and look through their entire contributions history picking out every mistake they've made, particularly that long ago.

I don't believe a user's contributions from a year ago should be relevant, as far as I can tell he hasn't done anything to harm the project since last year, and he's helped others who've made the same mistakes as him. I believe that this user's history will have had a positive effect on his ability to deal with vandals, having been "dealt with" as one himself, and moved on and become an established editor. This is the same reason drug talks at schools are most effective when made by rehabilitated drug users; people who can relate wrong-doers, in any way, tend to be far better at dealing with them than people who can't.

I'm not suggesting anyone's vote on this RfA is invalid, but I can definitely relate to how dfrg.msc is feeling about these oppose votes. This is something that happens in real life as well as on Wikipedia, being judged on things we've done, and learned from, in our past, and it's very frustrating. - Zeibura S. Kathau ^{(Info | Talk)} 15:07, 4 June 2007 (UTC)\

I think that a user's recent conduct is as good an indicator as any. WHen I was a relative newb, I did get pissed off at AfDs, etc. But I think sometime in mid to late February I was arguing with one editor and then I realized I was getting waaaaayy too pissed off about it. Every editor acts stupid, just some more than others. But the good editors grow out of it. A spotty past is I would say never a reliable indicator. However, obviously, if the past week before the RfA the guy was making personal attacks, we know he hasn't matured to the desirable point yet. David Fuchs ^{(talk / frog blast the vent core!)} 15:36, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Yikes! Sorry to show up so late to a party I seem to have accidentally started. My thoughts on the matter (and the reasoning behind this specific vote) have always been as follows: there are two kinds of maturity that relate to performance as an admin: maturity as a Wikipedian, and maturity as a person. Maturity as a Wikipedian can essentially be described as experience with the culture and processes of the site; the learning curve is sharp (on the scale of weeks) and I've always been a believer in forgetting about errors that stem from lack of this quality almost immediately. Maturity as a person is every bit as important (successful participation in this site, particularly as an admin, requires a thick skin and patience), but is acquired over a timescale of years, and, as with most things worth having in life, you can't get it on the internet. As the timescale indicates, I tend to take errors appearing to stem from this sort of issue into consideration over a much longer time period. Anyway, that's my two cents. --Robth^Talk 03:49, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

For me, it's never too late. Anchoress 04:07, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I suppose the first edits can be ignored as long as they've learnt. If you take a look at my first contribs, they sure weren't a bed of roses. bibliomaniac15 An age old question... 04:28, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I am quite new to the whole process of picking administrators, but while on one hand do not really favor a draconian approach to past crimes, on the other hand (and eye) when I read the whingeing and whining of someone complaining about their past not going away and how they have almost leaned that "behavior counts", I mostly think to myself "This person is not demonstrating to me that much maturing has taken place." It seems to me (i.e. opinion) that every voting wikipedian should get to set their own perimeters about what determines how they vote. A statute of limitations seems to me to be a bad idea. Henry Ford is credited (at least in my mind) with saying "Don't explain, don't complain." I guess I'd like to find a bit more of that around here and when I read someone doing both, it does not bode well for the future. Carptrash 14:34, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I know I saw it at one point...

I swear that, at some point in time before I became an admin, I stumbled across a page that was, in essence, a list of links to various editors' personal RfA requirements. Anyone know where that is? I'd like to link to it from {{User:EVula/admin/Premature RfA}} (as well as add my own, whenever I actually write up my own). EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:57, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I read that too... I'll try to find it. hmwithtalk 05:02, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards... which has now been split into smaller versions. – Chacor 05:03, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah, yup, that's what I was thinking of... hrm, as it's rather out of date, though, I might just leave it alone, though. Giving them out-of-date information will only frustrate them, and since really that information should be irrelevant by the time they get ready to make a successful RfA run (and they've hopefully followed the other links in the template), maybe it's just fine the way it is. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:09, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I remember reading a Why The Hell Not? essay... –Sebi ~ 07:30, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

It may be worth reading Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards/A-D to find out what happened. --ais523 08:04, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

In reply to Sebi, User:Ral315/WTHN. James086^{Talk | Email} 08:38, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

[User] removed

Blanked as a courtesy.

{{RFAsnow}}

Just to let everyone know, I've created the above template to use to post to new users when withdrawing their premature RfA's, it gives them a bit of encouragement and gives them a few pointers as to how they could succeed in the future. If people could take a look over it and improve it as required, cheers Ryan Postlethwaite 19:08, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Hrm. For starters, I'm not certain I would call it RFASnow, nor link to SNOW. Secondly, the "you're doing a fantastic job" is probably inaccurate in a number of cases. While I support your desire to encourage, perhaps going out on a limb like that is not the best way. KillerChihuahua^?!? 19:13, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

As I said above - get improving it :-) I wasn't sure about the SNOW name, or snow link to be honest, I'll remove that now, the template could maybe be moved to {{RFApremature}}. The point is, this template should ony be used on the good faith new users. Ryan Postlethwaite 19:15, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

/me hugs {{User:EVula/admin/Premature RfA}}. :P EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:30, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

It was inspired by yours EVula, just thought it would be nice if it was in main template space - and this doesn't use any parser functions! Ryan Postlethwaite 19:33, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

But aren't all real templates required to use as many parser functions as they possibly can cram in, preferably including options for British and American spelling? --tjstrf talk 19:38, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Oooh, we could do something like meta:Template:Welcome. ;) EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:42, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Bah, parsers are awesome. :P I like the template (and I switched the "name" field to {{BASEPAGENAME}}), though I'll still use my own for premie RfAs that I catch. I like having it somewhat customized to the person I'm talking to. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:42, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not and am unlikely ever to be an admin so maybe I'm speaking out of turn by posting here, but shouldn't the template(s) steer them gently but firmly towards editor review? It seems that one of the most positive effects of a failed RfA is that it acts as a turbocharged editor review (having 30+ of the most eminent wikipedians telling you precisely why your contributions suck might smart, but hopefully it also acts as a spur to improvement) — iridescent (talk to me!) 19:59, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

You aren't speaking out of turn. I doubt the usefulness of an WP:ER link though, for the exact reasons you mentioned: they just went throught RfA, an editor review won't give them much additional information. --tjstrf talk 20:05, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I've added the ER link in, I think it's a good move for a new user. In RfA, they are likely to get the boilerplate remarks basically saying they're too new, an editor review will take a look at individual edits and give them better advice as to how to improve than they're RfA was likely to have done. Ryan Postlethwaite 20:07, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict but posting anyway) What I'm trying to say is, if the RfA's are going to be speedy-closed as soon as they open for people with low edit counts (which I think is the gist of what's being proposed here), they won't get the "Here's what you're doing wrong" input a failed RfA currently gives — iridescent (talk to me!) 20:09, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, both of you are right. If an obviously doomed RfA is closed almost immediately, as it should be, then the candidate will have gotten little, if any, really productive feedback. I like the links to both ER and Admin Coaching, which I have been passing along to Snow victims here and there. -- Satori Son 21:11, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Entirely unsurprised by your comment.[1] :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:14, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

{{RfA withdrawal}} already existed so can we redirect the hugs for Evula my way? :D (see here if you think the hugs should go to Nick) James086^{Talk | Email} 00:00, 7 June 2007 (UTC) Please oh please remove the edit count bit from it - the just encourages bot style edits and perpetuates editcountitis. Viridae^Talk 03:53, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

• Hey: I may post one of these templates on my talk page just to get used to how it looks!! —Gaff ^ταλκ 02:32, 10 June 2007 (UTC)