Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Standards

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Miscellany for deletion This page was nominated for deletion on 4 November 2006. The result of the discussion was Keep but alter.

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards page.

Contents

[edit] Objection

I want to note an objection to the use of edit count as a way of judging adminship. It's a completely arbitrary measure, taking no account of the size or quality of the edits, and certainly has no bearing on whether they're responsible and trustworthy. --Khendon 09:17, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree; see Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits. Rad Racer | Talk 01:15, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I also agree that the use of edit count should not be the only way of judging adminship. There are many factors to consider.--Jusjih 00:26, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
But what about using edit count as criteria before considering adminship. That's how I use my criteria, so even if someone passes the basics, I still reserve the right to oppose. I feel that this is more than reasonable. Themindset 05:22, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Still wrong. Somebody who, for example, has made a hundred really good edits over a few months could be a strong admin candidate. --Khendon 18:53, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statistics

For no particularly good reason, I've compiled a set of statistics about the standards stated on this page. Note

  • All users who did not specify a non-zero figure in either the value or comments columns were ignored.
  • "A few" = 3
  • "A few hundred" = 300
  • "Several" = 4
  • "Several hundred" = 400
  • "multiple" = 5
  • Where a range was given (e.g. 1000-2000 edits) I've used the median value (i.e. 1500)
  • Where different figures were used for various criteria, I used the lowest value.
  • Time figures are given in months.
  • 1 week = 0.25 months
  • "more than" = value + 1 (i.e. "more than three months" = "four months").
  • edit count figures are given to the nearest whole number (you cannot have half an edit)
  • time figures are given to two decimal places.
  • 55 users expressed an opinion regarding edit counts
  • 56 users expressed an opinion regarding time on the project.
  • I ignored my standards for beaurocrats as they have nothing to do with requests for admin status.

Note also that the figures given may be out-of-date and not everybody sticks to them anyway.

  Edits Time
mean 1060 3.81
median 1000 3.00
mode 1000 3.00
max 3000 12.00
min 3 0.25

Thryduulf 17:14, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] AN's Standards

Er... why the age thing? This is what Jimbo says: "To me the key thing is getting it right. And if a person's really smart and they're doing fantastic work, I don't care if they're a high school kid or a Harvard professor; it's the work that matters.". Why does age matter? Does it matter if I'm 5 or 105, or does it matter whether my edits are good and I am seen to be responsible and of good intent? The Neokid talk 17:15, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Historical?

This page seems to be a bit out of date. There's people listed here I've never even heard of (and I'm an admin now), and some very low standards which surely don't represent current thought. I wonder if it might be an idea to archive this page and start again? --kingboyk 07:47, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I think people tend to add their standards (and some people have done so recently), but then never update/remove them. A less bold way would be to contact people listed whom you've never seen around and check to see if they should still be listed. If they have left Wikipedia, probably fairly safe to archive those entries. If you notice people voting very diffrently from their stated standards you could try asking them if they need updating. Petros471 11:04, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Less bold but very time consuming. I've got a bit too much on my plate with getting WP:Beatles rolling at the moment. Good idea though! --kingboyk 10:22, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, archiving it and asking everyone to start over would be less work for one person (the archiver) but more work for a lot of of people, who would have to add their entries back in. So I dunno. ++Lar: t/c 14:38, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed inactive editors

I went through all the names on the list and only the following six users have been inactive for more than three months (almost every other editor on the list has been active within the last two weeks...the great majority within the last 24 hours.)

I removed these editors. The longest inactive editor now on the list as of March 20, 2006 is CryptoDerk (talk · contribs) with two minor edits on 24 January 2006 and 30 January 2006 and the last active contributions on 27 December 2005.

—Doug Bell talk•contrib 03:40, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Just wondering, why don't we keep the innactive users, but changing the background color in the table for a slighly darker one? You know, keeping them for historical purposes. -- ReyBrujo 12:26, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
I like it.. --Deon555|talk 05:13, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
I like that idea too. Themindset 05:26, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I would not support deleting any editor's standards from this index. Perhaps the oldest standards are the most informative, even if Elvis has left the building. John Reid 01:26, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I would agree except for banned users. --rogerd 02:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Another spate of tagging

Rm historical tag. This is not a policy page, proposal, nor anything remotely in this vein; nobody has ever (so far as I know) attempted to translate this index of purely personal standards into a group consensus. Historical doesn't apply. The page has a perfectly clear introduction that explains just what it is. John Reid 01:23, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category?

I noticed that this page lacks a category. Perhaps, we should include this in a particular category, but I am not sure which category would be most appropriate. --Siva1979Talk to me 04:07, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

perhaps Category:Wikipedia administrators and Category:Wikipedia administration, like its parent page? Grutness...wha? 01:44, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Done. --Siva1979Talk to me 03:33, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Something to think about...

What if a user called Standards wants to nominate himself/herself for adminship? This space has been taken up. We should move it.--Tdxiang 08:56, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Just so you know, there is no registered user with the name "Standards", although I think that in theory it may annoy somebody who'd have to go to "Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Standards_RFA" or something. But in reality, I don't think it's a big enough deal to move a page about. See you later. MichaelBillington 08:47, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
But never the less, a good point....--Deon555|talk 05:14, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Well, the same problem comes up every time an editor gets a second RFA (or third, or fourth, etc.). The system can handle it fine. Themindset 05:31, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
PS - a name like Standards may be viewed as a violation of WP:U in that it's confusing or misleading... To quote, they say that you are not allowed to use "Names that include commonly used Wikipedia software or community terms". Although I guess such a user could make an argument that it was intended to confuse... Themindset 05:39, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Length - split time?

This page is 90 kilobytes long - does anyone else think it should be split into three sections, like A-G, H-P, Q-Z? Picaroon9288|ta co 22:20, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Definitely - it's impossible to edit with older browsers if it's over 32k. I'd suggest going the whole hog and splitting it A, B, C... since it will only grow longer with time. Grutness...wha? 23:43, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
A, B, C... would be excessive, as there are some letters (W for example) that only have one user. 3 sections as per Picaroon sounds fine. Themindset 05:33, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Well if it's already 90k and some browsers have trouble with things over 32k, three sections will be a problem very soon too. How about the traditional "London phone-book" split: A-D, E-K, L-R, S-Z? Grutness...wha? 05:52, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
That sounds fine, be bold and do it! Themindset 02:46, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I can't - I've got an old browser and can't edit the page :/ Grutness...wha? 05:41, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Well then, I'll do it 'London Phonebook' style later today, if there is no one who disagrees, and I don't forget ;D. Picaroon9288|ta co 16:23, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Do the titles Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards/A-D, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards/E-K, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards/L-R, and Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards/S-Z sound good? Picaroon9288|ta co 18:58, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Hmm... I would have prefered to remove the headers, and use inclusion to show everything in a single page while editing in different ones (someone may want to search how many think 6 months is a good time). -- ReyBrujo 23:23, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
I've updated the format to include a transcluded nav bar, and an option to display all for anyone who really wants to. — xaosflux Talk 14:57, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is it my imagination or is this page strongly biased?

What with 2 editcountitis columns, and a single box for everything else, there's not much space for serious adminship criteria outside of edit and time counts, I'd think.

Perhaps we could make the page more free-form?

-- Kim Bruning 21:35, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Unless the page has changed since I last saw it, there's only one "editcountitis" column, as you put it, then one for length of time on WP (a very important measure of whether someone is likely to know how WP works). The third column is for everything else, true, but it's almost always the one which gets the most information written in it. I don't see anything wrong with that. In any case, there's no compulsion to fill in any columns you don't want to, and - as Miborovsky has shown - anyone with a bit of nous can freeform their own section of the table quite happily. Grutness...wha? 23:38, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't think this page is biased at all, each user can put as much or as little into each box as they want. Themindset 02:49, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Too long

Might I suggest breaking the table down alphabetically into several tables, setting each table in its own section and having a TOC to navigate the sections? Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 13:55, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Categorized

I have categorized this page finally. If anyone has any objections to which category this page belongs to, please inform me about this. --Siva1979Talk to me 20:23, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Counterproductive.

I see this pages as counter to the original intent of RFA, which was that "adminship is not a big deal". - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 22:58, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Time to replace this with a real standard?

I propose that we work torwards replacing these out of date "standards" with a real standard for qualification, ie a true minimum requirement for adminship, as other languages have done.

The advantage of this is that we would then be able to:

  1. Discourage applications without a snowball's chance in hell from being filed, or at least have grounds to close them without discussion.
  2. Work torwards the elimination of the fatal disease known as Editcountitis.
  3. Limit debate to factors that more accurately consider the percieved risks and benefits of granting adminship.
  4. Allow more attention on the actual contributions made by applicants, rather than on their number of contributions.
  5. Be more realistic.

Thoughts? - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 07:42, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. People should be made administrators when it appears they have been around enough to understand the rules and haven't done anything to make you suspect they won't follow them - formal standards aren't useful for determining that. (I never agreed with this page either) --Khendon 20:01, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
I'll agree with you in that regard - this page really shouldn't exist, at least not in its present form. The various "standards" that are applied to RFA currently are a joke and a mockery of fair process and consensus. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 02:17, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Per discussion on WT:RFA, I have replaced this page with the "de facto" standards, as shown from statistical analysis. Of course, past results are no guarantee of future results. >Radiant< 13:20, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
    • I think both this, and the list of people's standards should both be listed. Themindset 17:01, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
      • Please tell us why you think that? The list of people's standards is not representative of how RFA actually works, and encourages editcountitis. Many of the standards are by people who are no longer around, and through happenstance several of the first listed are extremely high and give the wrong impression thereby.. >Radiant< 10:37, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
        • I think we can trust readers to know that the first couple of entries are not representative, and that they should scroll around to get a feel for it. I'm not a fan of the unilateral removal of the orignal standards - and since many !voters do use edit counts, it is appropriate to show their expectations. I definitely found it helpful. Perhaps we could have this, and Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Criteria for the original standards. Basically, you've deleted a page by supplanting it with something else - if you really want that info deleted it should go to MfD, not be swept under the rug, as it were. Themindset 20:07, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
        • PS - I think that having the editors sign their standards with date, then having them expire every 6 months (unless they re-sign them) would correct the "old standards" problem. Themindset 20:12, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
          • If you check the logs you will notice that I have not, in fact, deleted anything. >Radiant< 08:58, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Individual statements are a good indicator of community standards -- not the only one by any means. To the extent that they fall short, they should be improved by encouraging editors who comment on RfA to make their standards public, extending the list. The difficulty here is that there is presently no consensus on these standards. The matter is under intense discussion.

I oppose any effort at present to impose top-down standards for RfA. It may be a very good idea to summarize discussions of the issue -- in 6 months, if any consensus emerges. John Reid 15:55, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

  • For the record, I am not making any effort to impose top-down standards for RfA (although I would not be adverse to discussing that, barring ins.creep). My point is that the present standard summaries are not in any way a good indicator of community standards. >Radiant< 16:28, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Sure they're not, but they are a perfect indicator of individual editors' standards - which was the point of this page. Now it is replaced by completely pointless graphs that mean nothing. Themindset 17:09, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Note, I've returned the standards page as it was, moved the statitics over to Wikipedia:Requests for Adminship/Statistics, and linked to it from the standards page. Please lets have discussion here before changing it again... One idea is that we remove most of the standards (aside from the ones recently added), and put a 6 month expiration date on them, so once they are 6 months old they are deleted - unless updated by the user in question. What do we think about that idea to address the concept of "old" standards. Themindset 17:21, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestions for "Standards"

How about instead of mandatory standards, we have suggested qualifications to consider for a nominee. This could be based on historically the qualities a successful candidate nominee has had and be suggested for consideration before someone is nominated. Example text could be:

Before nominating an editor or self-nominating, please consider the following factors that have historically been considered for a successful nomination for adminship:

  • Editor has had experience with the project for a reasonable amount of time. (Not sure on wording, may not want to be too specific, but it should be obvious that a newbie shouldn't be nominated.)
  • Editor displays a good understanding of policy and process.
  • Editor displays an understanding of the abilities, duties, and responsibilities of being an administrator.
  • Editor has a good balance of vandal fighting, article creation, article editing, and participation in article and policy discussion.
  • Editor displays skill in dealing with tendentious editors and resolving disputes.

—Malber (talk ·  contribs) 16:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

  • The important question is, can we trust the user? Experience is necessary, but a balance of several things is not. Wikipedia is too large for every editor or admin to be a homo universalis. That is precisely the problem with standards - that they cause e.g. a user who spends most of his time on image uploading/featuring/deletion to assume that every admin must know how to work with images, whereas in fact most admins never go there since they have other specialties. >Radiant< 00:46, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
    • I think we can trust the user. Wikipedia is a consultative process, and I think that this page is form of consultation, where others can learn what people think. I find reading through the standards of others interesting, gives you an idea of where the community is - and where I am in relation to them. They affect me, I affect them. Consultation, interaction, synthesis. Themindset 07:53, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
      • You appear to have misread me. What I meant is that when a user is nominated for adminship, the important question is whether we trust that user. If so, he should be an admin. Arguments that he must have X edits in namespace Y within the last Z months are irrelevant to that. >Radiant< 09:01, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Quite. Which is part of the reason I initiated the MfD for all this in the first place. -- Earle Martin [t/c] 11:44, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
        • Sounds like a reasonable opinion. Obviously, these pages are a testament to the fact that there is a significant portion of the community that thinks that minimum standards are perfectly reasonable and acceptable. I welcome the MfD, as a gauge of the communities view. Personally, I set minimum standards that must be reached before I consider someone for RfA. I, of course, consider this perfectly reasonable. If this is true of a majority of RfA !voters, or even a significant number of them - then I would consider these pages valuable to prospective RfA applicants. Themindset 23:29, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal for restructuring of this list

In the MfD for this group of pages (see banner at top of page), the result was keep. Xoloz commented, closing the discussion:

...there appears to be a consensus that the content of these pages isn't entirely bad, and isn't worthy of outright deletion (some standards, even individual ones, do help folks become acquainted with RfA; and, at the very least, these pages have archival value); there also appears to be a consensus that the present form of these pages is inconvenient at best, and absolutely frightening in its complexity at worst. There is no real consensus about what action to take, but there is consensus that some sort of revision should be undertaken.

My nomination followed from the feeling I had, upon encountering the list of "standards", that it does no favor to the project - instead lending credence to the common view of it having a bureaucracy of positively Byzantine (or Kafkaesque, perhaps) complexity. Here are my issues with this page (let's call it that, rather than a group of pages), as it stands.

  • The list, as a concept, does not scale. It's already of sufficient size to require a "telephone directory" alphabetical split, meaning that there is a good chance that attempting to go through it will exhaust the casual reader, leaving some, or more likely all, of the opinions expressed unread. As time goes by, it will only get longer and less usable.
  • As some people commented on the MfD, the comments can go out of date fast.
  • The comments expressed are more suitable for User: space than Wikipedia: space.

I come to Wikipedia after some considerable experience as an editor on the venerable WikiWikiWeb, the mother wiki from which all other wikis descend. I state this not as an attempt to hold myself over anybody else, but only to use it as a basis for mentioning a concept developed there way back when, called refactoring wiki pages.

The WikiWikiWeb does not have separate content and talk pages, and each page exists as a mixture of document mode and thread mode. As a consequence, as discussion accumulates, in order to keep the site usable, editors will apply a process of converting thread mode to document mode. Unrefactored pages full of discussion are known as thread mess. That, in a nutshell, is a large part of the problem of this page: it is an unrefactored mess. With that in mind, I'd like to suggest that we replace the current content with a wiki ballot box. The wiki ballot box comes in several varieties, and my proposal works as follows: A numbered list of propositions is made. Each has a vote count associated with it. If you agree with one, you increment the number. For example:

  1. Admin candidates should have at least 1,000 mainspace edits. (53 votes)
  2. Admin candidates should have participated in at least 50 AfD discussions. (29 votes)

If you agree with proposition 1, you change the vote count to 54. No subtractions are allowable; if you have another opinion, add it as another criterion with one vote. This way, all opinions are recognized, a picture emerges of what people really agree on, and the need for all the space-wasting similar entries in the list we have at present is removed. The full edit history of the page makes ballot stuffing impossible and provides verifiability.

Any dubious criteria should be removed after consensus is achieved on the talk page for the list, as usual. Additionally, if people wish to indicate what propositions they've voted for (strictly optional, as anonymous voting is very much in line with the humble wiki nature and to be encouraged), there should be a subpage for them to do so on, with a list like:

  • Jane Doe: 1, 3, 4, 12, 15.
  • John Doe: 1, 4, 5, 8, 11.

(Note that the names would be user page links.) There could also be links for each person on this subpage, should they wish, to a subpage of their own wherein they make a fuller statement of their criteria for adminship - in other words, exactly what is currently contained in the existing list!

Finally, I suggest that the new format page is named Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Suggested criteria.

I sincerely believe that this proposal would resolve the current issues with this page. What do you think? -- Earle Martin [t/c] 22:24, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Problems with the older pages

  • I believe the biggest problem with the older pages is their strong focus on editcountitis. Indeed, the first thing that springs out is all sorts of criteria like "must have 5000 edits" or "must have an account for 4 months" and somesuch. We should remove these two columns; the prose text is far more helpful to aspiring admin candidates. If we wanted a strict "X edits" standard we would simply make all editors with >X edits an admin automatically. But we don't want that. (Radiant) 16:54, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
    • I don't believe we should be removing columns just because we don't accept their premise. Obviously, those who put minimum edit that info in there believe they are correct in doing so. It is fine to nest these pages deeper and deeper, and tag them as out-of-date - but censoring the very information that these pages were created to present is certainly inappropriate. Themindset 19:03, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
      • This has (obviously) nothing to do with censoring, but with removing information that is actively misleading. That people believe they are correct in creating editcountitic standards does not make them right. (Radiant) 12:33, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
        • Well, while I agree with eliminating the two numerical columns, I disagree on Radiant's right/wrong classification. AFAIK, we don't have Wikipedia:Criteria allowed in evaluating an RfA or any similar policy. The fact is, people can have these as part of their standards, and there isn't anything clearly wrong with that. I just think we shouldn't have the columns because we don't want to suggest that somebody should have this as part of their criteria. Anyone would be free to add their quantitative requirements to the prose text. —Doug Bell talk•contrib 06:07, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
          • That's a pretty sane response, in fact. Great insight Doug. Themindset 10:13, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
          • That seems very reasonable. (Radiant) 10:40, 16 November 2006 (UTC)