Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 108

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Subheadings for discussion sections

It's really frustrating to edit the entire discussion section in a busy RfA when attempting to either address a single person or fix the numbering in one of the sections; it'd be really nice if each section were editable.

To that end, I've tweaked the RfA format templates in my userspace. You can see it at work (albeit with fake RfAs) at User:EVula/admin/rfa. There would only need to be a tiny little tweak made to {{RfA}} to add the headers, but though I'd get some feedback first. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:25, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Definitely! That would make commenting a whole lot easier. I was thinking about this a couple days ago, but thought that no one complained, so everyone must think it's ok. J-ſtan^Talk_Contribs 16:29, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I like it. Rlevse 16:30, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I support this. Would really be convenient in popular RfA's. We already have considerable load times, and frequent edit overlaps. This layout sure would reduce this. Gray62 18:11, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I was the user who added the headers originally; see Template talk:RfA#Fourth level headings? for my original proposal, and Template talk:RfA#Protected from the first indentation reset in the bulleted region for what happened as a result. (User:Majorly objected to having the 'support', 'oppose' and 'neutral' headers as section headers; the compromise reached then was to make all the other headers into section headers, but not those ones.) Of course, consensus can change, but there wasn't consensus for this change back then. --ais523 16:35, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, it seems to me that most objections seem to be based on issues related to people's !votes, which I don't think will be an actual issue (especially when weighed against the technical issues this change would address). It seems like there's plenty of initial support for the change right now, but I'll leave this here for a couple of days before making any changes. EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:05, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

(ec) OMG. Put this into action immediately. That has been driving me crazy since my first RfA vote! нмŵוτнτ 16:36, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Good idea, this will make things easier. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 17:15, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Ditto. --Eye of the minD 21:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

But you haven't demonstrated that the current system is broken! How can you suggest a change?? oh, alright, good idea.. Friday (talk) 21:07, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Might as well pile on too... bibliomaniac15 23:12, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

To reply to an inquire on my talk page, mathbot won't be broken by this change. The idea of introducing section headings is a good one I think. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:51, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

See, a proposal can be passed here if consensus supports it. 1 != 2 16:04, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Support, I always wondered why they weren't separate sections. That aside, OMG! Someone get the camera! A proposal with no opposition. This is a Kodak moment! Lara❤Love 05:34, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

The reason why they weren't separate sections is because they were in the middle of a heated debate over a "voting" template and a "consensus" template. Some people wanted to have the support, neutral and oppose sections removed altogether, some wanted to have them as real (clickable) sections, so the compromise version was just a bold word. It wasn't anyone's preference, but it was better than nothing. See the history of Template:RfA. Melsaran (talk) 00:30, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

This was a great idea! Makes life a lot easier. Phgao 11:33, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah, good! I'm really glad we did this. GlassCobra 00:19, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

This has been suggested multiple times before, and always got wide support. Why was it never implemented before? --Tango 15:54, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Bot RfA demonstrates an important point...

Kudos to those who decided to hold an RfA for User:RedirectCleanupBot - indeed, the current situation (and likely outcome) shows an important point about consensus and discussion, which we need to learn from and use in other circumstances. Let me explain.

Prior to now, all discussion of the idea of an "admin bot" had led to assertions that there was no consensus for such an idea, because when you have a free-form discussion (like we have on talk pages), a small but vocal minority can crush any idea they don't like, by disputing their opponents' points and making it appear that there is no consensus. Hence, most supporters of an "admin bot" believed it was an unlikely dream.

However, the RfA, in which numbers are counted, and we have a structured poll in which support for an idea is clearly demonstrated, has shown that there is overwhelming support for the idea of an admin bot, with only a few dissenting. I'm not discussing the rights and wrongs of admin bots, just observing that there is a very, very clear consensus in favour of the idea.

In contrast, everything we try to discuss here, on the talk page, goes round and round in circles. Good ideas which come up are perennially crushed by a vocal minority. This is because the free-form discussion model is a very weak method of decision-making. Different options get conflated with one another; there's no indication of how many people support or oppose an idea, just how vocal/aggressive they are in expressing their views; and the end result is always "no consensus for a change".

Moral of the story: the poll format is good. It demonstrates how much actual support there is for an idea. Two different options can be set out clearly, with a clear distinction, and the community can come to a collective decision. In considering future reform proposals, both at RfA and everywhere else on the site, we need to recognise that the voting method has been proven, time and time again, to work; and none of those who repeat the mantra "voting is evil" have ever justified why this is allegedly the case. Walton^One 18:03, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

• I agree with your point, Walton, but I don't want to read too much into the adminbot RFA. People tend to take a conservative approach: they're less interested in what a new approach can do to help, and more concerned if there might be a potential downside. The opposition at the RFA came from two approaches: (1) "Hell or high water", we don't want adminbots under any circumstances because human judgment is always necessary on the administrative level; and (2) A more mild concern that the adminbot might delete a few pages that should not be deleted. We saw that the "hell or high water" approach occupied a very small minority. I think that's good because I'm not fundamentally opposed to adminbots with proper checks and balances. The more mild concern led to many questions and minor tweaks in the code. Ultimately, as much as this bot will save administrators tens of hours of wasted time, the real reason the community approved it, in my understanding, is that it will not cause harm. For a lot of the bold proposals we get, such as dumping RFA or making it look like AFD or RFC or whatever, there may be a benefit, but there also may be harm. People don't want to make that trade-off. It's just not worth it to take those risks. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 18:26, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
• "Moral of the story: the poll format is good." Exactly! good point, Walton! Gray62 18:14, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

In the case of the bot RfA consensus and vote counting happen to agree, it is not always the case. There can be plenty of support for something, or plenty of opposition, but without good reasoning to back it up it means little. Consensus, not democracy. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 18:27, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

The bot has an admin flag now! FunPika 21:00, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Admin bot does have its advantage, as it is not bias when closing the poll. However, votes inside the poll can be manipulated. For example, someone may vote for "oppose because of ugly userspace" or "oppose because you were against me at XYZ". Bots cannot analyze votes like these. In conclusion, bot can assist, but never replace humans in closing the poll. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 16:51, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Once hell has frozen over, pigs are flying through the air, and consensus has formed to turn RFA into a pure vote counting democracy (i.e. going German), I would be happy to write Bureaucrat Bot to run this place. Dragons flight 17:21, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

That's exactly the point - will someone please explain why pure, democratic voting is bad? I've never, ever seen a convincing argument against voting. Indeed, all the arguments turn out to be circular. People repeat trite catchphrases such as "Wikipedia is not a democracy", without giving any justification as to why Wikipedia can't be a democracy. Or they say "the community will never support a shift to majority voting" without justifying why the community shouldn't support such a change. Or my personal favourite - "it's unwiki". How is that an argument? Basically, all the arguments against voting boil down to "well, this is the way we've always done it, why change?" The only Wikipedian who's ever actually endeavoured to explain to me what's so bad about voting is User:Tony Sidaway, and even he distinctly failed to convince me. Walton^One 17:31, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

For the record, I am strongly in favor a pure vote counting solution (with modest suffrage requirements to minimize sockpuppetry). I think the virtue of having an unambiguous/less controversial decision making process greatly outweighs the possible harm of promoting/not-promoting a different set of marginal candidates than we do now under the "discretion" standard. I just believe, based on previous discussions, that the community will never accept a democratic process here (such as they use on the German Wikipedia). It is amazing to me that the English speaking world could pioneer the modern concept of democracy and yet we are so distrustful of it. Dragons flight 17:48, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. (I'm glad someone else agrees with me.) Walton^One 18:13, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I also agree. The election process in real life has gone through hundreds of years of trial and error, and eventualy perfected. Why not implement this successful process from real life into cyber life. That's also how we cast our ballot to vote for Wikimedia board of trustees in June. Clearly, the statement "consesus is not equal to voting" is wrong as from this election. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 18:53, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

No begging for compliments, pls, Walton! You're hardly ever alone in RfA's,too. Good reasoning will always find supporters. :-) Gray62 18:17, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I am also happy that there are people who oppose the sentiments of elitism and anti-democracy on Wikipedia. Samohyl Jan 18:31, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Well you might want to start at WT:NOT and try to get the "we are not a democracy" policy removed... I personally think that pure voting in real life is far from "perfected". I also think that once we abandon discretion for majority rule that we are basically screwed. 1 != 2 18:22, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Some limited discretion is fine, to counteract the higher potential for abuse here on Wikipedia. But the discretion should determine consensus as in what the community agrees on, not consensus as in what the community should agree on. And if you're deciding only what the community agrees on, that is still voting, just not strict majority rule. People who say "voting is evil" invariably want discussions to have as a result what the community should think, whether or not most people actually think that way. -Amarkov moo! 18:41, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

To Until: What's so wrong with majority rule? You seem to be arguing that "discretion" and "majority rule" are opposites, which is a false dichotomy. Our policies are made by the community, and enjoy broad majority support. The "discretion" of admins lies solely within implementing those policies. For instance, admins make decisions on individual deletions, but our decisions have to comply with deletion policy; we can't just delete things we don't like. The reason I oppose bureaucrat "discretion" in closing RfAs is because there is no community-approved policy which tells them how to close RfAs; if such discretion were to be extended, it would amount to the bureaucrats simply doing what they wanted, which is self-evidently a bad idea.

And to address another aspect of Until's point: yes, majoritarian voting in RL is far from "perfected". But as Winston Churchill once said, Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. On Wikipedia, just as in real life, people disagree in good faith about the best way to do things. Such decisions have to be made, and there's often no clear-cut "right" or "wrong" way to approach a question. In such cases, we should go with the course of action which is broadly endorsed by the community - and yes, that involves majority voting. Walton^One 14:31, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Standstill

I have noticed that after the flurry of activity, the drive to change RFA has sort of stopped. We need to do something, or else all of this discussion has to a degree been pointless. Several proposals have gathered a fair amount of consensus, especially a proposal where a more established community based system of de-adminship would be formed. Another suggestion was having a two day period of actual discussion before the "voting" began. Let's try to hammer out a solid proposal and then put it up for a straw poll. --Eye of the minD 21:12, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

This is one of those areas where there are at least as many people interested in saying "You have no consensus, you can't change anything" as there are people interested in talking about how to tweak or improve the process. This is why I hope to see bold action from the crats on this matter. Friday (talk) 21:26, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Are we sure we want the crats making the big changes? --Eye of the minD 21:33, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Considering as they're at the core of a lot of RfA matters? Yes, I know I want their input. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:51, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I would be in favor of a two-day treaty period before the actual voting phase. That might also hammer out some SNOWball RfAs by keeping them out of serious discussions. This would also decrease the time involved in deciding. The whole process might only take 5 days, maybe the standard 7 days to determine consensus in a few hard cases. I think we should have a counter-interpretation to WP:SNOW as well. If an RfA doesn't have a snowball's chance at failing, it shouldn't have to go through that process. It doesn't go against the original Snowball Clause, which states "If an issue doesn't even have a snowball's chance in hell of getting an unexpected outcome from a certain process, then there is no need to run it through that process." J-ſtan^Talk_Contribs 22:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Well one thing that I think is that all the people saying there should be no desysopping process because nothing is currently wrong have not considered the point of it. People are not proposing a desysopping process because there is currently something wrong. They are proposing it so that people would be more willing to support in borderline cases to get us a greater amount of admins to handle backlogs and such, so that we can remove the access of the borderline cases that should have perhaps failed. I think in this respect, its a good idea. It's not a proposal because something is currently wrong at all, so saying "Nothing is wrong now" is not a valid defense against the introduction of the process. And I can assure you all that should the bureaucrats be enslisted to oversee a desysopping process as they do on RFA, I would never let good admins get demoted. There would need to be an extremely clear consensus for desysopping supported by diffs and well thought out arguments, otherwise the desysopping would not be allowed to take place. That's what I think. --Deskana (talk) 22:03, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Maybe the threshold should be more than that of an RfA, which is 70-75%, I believe. Maybe 85% or so. J-ſtan^Talk_Contribs 22:09, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I do not propose any sort of threshold because I would intend to read every single comment very closely and weigh them against the concerns that have been raised. --Deskana (talk) 22:17, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

While I agree with the idea of an RFA being closed as successful early due to WP:SNOW, there is the legitimate concern that new information (say, about socking) would be found late in the process. And, if your suggestion were enacted, arbcom would need to desysop (at least I think so). SashaCall ^(Sign!)/_(Talk!) 22:06, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

This is a nice declaration, but in my view RFA system demonstrates that the bureaucrats generally don't feel the desire or authority to operate in this fashion. Why would I believe that the bureaucrats wouldn't let good admins be demoted, when they have historically allowed good candidates to fail on a regular basis? Christopher Parham (talk) 16:49, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Just a question. I've been following this migrating discussion off and on, but not in line-by-line detail. As far as concerns desysopping, has anyone considered making it a strictly peer review process? By peer, I mean other admins. Or at least requiring a threshold of something like three or more other admins before such a process could be supported? Into The Fray ^T/C 22:23, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Upside: admins have already theoretically had their judgment vetted by the community, so they should be reasonable. Downside: We don't want to encourage an atmosphere where admins are considered above "mere editors". Then again, if the system works properly, in time any reasonable editor ought to be an admin, so this problem eventually becomes less of an issue. Friday (talk) 23:03, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

No, adminship is not a trophy, it is a technical function that gives an editor the "delete", "block" and "protect" buttons. Admins aren't a special subclass of users, and their opinion shouldn't be given any more weight than the opinion of the rest of the community. Melsaran (talk) 23:05, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Well. The fact is that admins are a subclass. The special part? Dunno. But they can, as you indicate, block folks and whatnot. Wouldn't this be just like adding another button? And, with a 'crat overseeing it all and finding consensus...does that make the 'crat a trophy holder? Anyway, that's my take. Trying to find something that would make the process speedier that Arbcom, but not so speedy that it wasn't done without due consideration, etc. Into The Fray ^T/C 23:31, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I feel that having the admin tools, while not a trophy, is a symbol that the user is trusted by the community to have extra responsibilities. And though Jimbo disagrees, entrusting these users is, to an extent, a fairly big deal. They can stop someone from harming wikipedia. They can keep other editors from disrupting a page. They can remove harmful content. Trust is a big deal, and these users have it. J-ſtan^Talk_Contribs 01:59, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay, so is there a general consensus to have a two day RFA "discussion" period before the voting. Yes or no please. --Eye of the minD 23:16, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm in favor of course. --Eye of the minD 23:17, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I do not support this idea. I do not feel it would accomplish anything, and I doubt there is consensus for such an idea given it has been proposed and rejected many times before. And before someone cites "Consensus can change!" as someone invariably does, I don't think it has changed at all. --Deskana (talk) 23:25, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I can't speak to consensus, but since I barged into Eye of the Mind's section here, I may as well give my opinion on this. I don't see a purpose served either. Into The Fray ^T/C 23:55, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

As I keep saying, you can not make people discuss by labeling a section "discussion", removing all bold text, and telling people that they may only use that section. It just won't do anything useful. -Amarkov moo! 23:58, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I would be in favor, as it may influence our view of the candidate, but it might get in the way a little. J-ſtan^Talk_Contribs 01:59, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

As an alternative: How about the "jury duty" system proposed a while ago? Choose a random sample of, say, 51 users and let them discuss and settle on a "recommendation" for the crats to either promote or not. It could help make the system less gameable, and I believe possible technical difficulties can easily be overcome. It should IMO be accompanyied by a set of rules (yes, I know: WP:CREEP. but instructions can sometimes be useful), e.g. that non-jurors may provide their input only on the RfA talk page (or a subpage), and not in a threaded way but instead only in an individual section (less gameable).

I don't believe RfA is broken, but like someone else said, it appears to be bent, which may be even worse because it makes some people argue (and some of those actually believe) that everything's fine when in reality it's not always so. Preventing minorities from exerting disproportionate influence is probably the first stepping stone towards a better reflection of actual community consensus.

Incidentally, since such a jury is far less prone to selection bias, they would also be far more suited to eventually re-evaluate a user's trustability. (That's not a necessary part of the jusry duty system, just saying that it could also help with some kind of downvoting process that may come real soon now). — Dorftrottel⁠ 06:51, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Whilst I like the "jury selection" idea in principle it will quickly just add another layer onto the process. Who decides on the jurors? Random selection? Probably not. Therefore we end up with a "panel" of "jurors" and hence WP:REQUEST-TO-BE-A-NEW-ADMIN-PANEL-MEMBER to get the community to agree who should be on the list. And then we're back where we started. I guess I'm just opposed to yet another "layer" when we're all (barring vandals) basically on the same team. Pedro :  Chat  07:46, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

The idea is of course based on the idea of random selection of the jurors. — Dorftrottel⁠ 07:50, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

And where do we source this "random" list from. 5.5 million registered accounts - errr... nope. 5,000 (ish) regular users? What happens if they're on a wiki break? What happens if they don't want to be involved because of contention? What happens if they just simply didn't log in for a week and missed the talk page comment? So then we pull from say just the admin community - eeek no way - far to Cabaly for most people I would think. So in the end we'd have to create a list of regular Wikipedians who are prepared to be on the panel and hence we end up with another layer again. Say, for example, anyone can register to be an "RFA Jury Member". We'll just get a load of wars over why such and such an editor shouldn't be on the "panel" because of x, y and z reasons. Like I say I can see the principle (and I like it) but I can also see the pit falls. Pedro :  Chat  08:06, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Restricting the list to people with userpages would probably be a reasonable heuristic; most regular users have them, and most one-off or vandal users don't. And the randomisation feature for that exists already: Special:Random/User. --ais523 08:54, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

A "jury" idea is flawed thinking. Special:Random/User wouldn't work, as there's only about 10,000 "active" accounts out of the 2.5 million registered accounts (and about 60% of those are blocked). We'd have to have some kind of determination process. And we would end up with, as someone says above, a "WP:Requests for adminship jury membership" (WP:RFAJM). Then what? A jury to determine who gets to be on the jury to determine who gets to be an admin (WP:RFAJMJM)? Then we'd need a jury to determine who gets to be on the jury to determine who gets to be on the jury to determine who gets to be an admin (WP:RFAJMJMJM). Layers upon layers of bureaucracy. I don't want to wear out my J and M keys, so will stop there, but you see the point. Neil ム 09:37, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Exactly my point. We'd just be banging in more things for people to argue about, and yet more processes. Pedro :  Chat  10:00, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

The link I provided picks out a random userpage (or subpage, but you can just try again if you hit one of those), not a random user. --ais523 12:24, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Just as an aside I clicked the link and got this user. Hmmmm.... :). I understand, but the problem is still setting up a level of beureaucracy of people hitting the random button, and even then getting editors prepared to review an RfA candidate; and frankly if they have zip experience at RfA not neccesairaly knowing what they are looking for in an admin anyway. I know there's issues with the "RfA crowd" and I bet their's probably a core of about 200/250 editors who are "RfA regulars". But at least that core of editors have experience in RfA, as opposed to just some random user (without any disrespect intended of course)

Heh, when I clicked it as a test while making my edit I went and prodded the page I landed on... personally I don't think the random jury is a good idea, but I'm the sort of person who likes to figure out how things could be implemented even if the implementations aren't used. --ais523 12:49, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Ha! And when I tried again for a laugh I got User:A. Hoar. Stroll on! So, as you say I think the implementation of a "Jury System" is just not going to be work, at least via Special:Random/User. Pedro :  Chat  12:54, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Why didn't I think of that? :) I think it might work, but maybe there should be a discussion period for everyone, and then a voting period in which a trusted panel votes. I don't know. Just a suggestion. J-ſtan^Talk_Contribs 18:36, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Why not just have a userbox that users place on their user page that puts them into a category of eligible jury members? The userbox should have a date field (added by bot if desired), and a bot will swing by after 90 days and remove the user as inactive (with a note on the user's talk page). That user is free to re-add the userbox at any time, of course, and can update the date field at any time to show that they're not really inactive). Choosing a jury pool seems like a fairly trivial thing this way, then the only thing to hash out is how many users will be invited to be in a jury pool? Neil916 (Talk) 19:51, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, this "drive to change RFA" has "stopped" because a) the RFC remains ongoing, and b) nobody has yet to show that RFA is broken (a vocal minority saying it is doesn't make it so). Neil ム 09:37, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

As I have mentioned on the RFC, we need proposals on how you can have a discussion with 60+ people. Do that well, and we can consider a wholesale replacement. Otherwise, try to limit it to modifications of a process with a very good track record. If anyone feels like running the stats, whats the total number of admins ever promoted? How many were desysopped? —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 15:06, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Since bureaucrats were created (which seems a good point to start measuring the current process) 1,274 admins and bureaucrats have been created through RfA/RfB (from WP:CRATSTATS). 23 admins have been desysopped involuntarily (discounting Isis, Kils and Ed Poor as they were given adminship before RfA) - 33 if you count those who definitely resigned in controversial circumstances (from WP:FORMER). That means using the 36 figure we're talking roughly 2.6% ... WjBscribe 18:27, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Since you have still not shown that this change is needed, why should we have another vote beyond what was just done above on this very page? Do you just want to keep voting until you get the outcome that you want? There is no consensus to change the current process, because you have not proven your contention. Corvus cornix 18:30, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Hehe, please read again, you miss read my argument. The low failure rate of RFA means that we should not replace it. As I said please see my comments on the RFC... I suppose I can get you a link... its here. In any case, I will note that RFA is an interesting process, it can be said both ways (by looking at the RFC, there is not a clear consensus for RFA as it is, but neither is there a clear consensus that RFA needs to be changed. If you look at it by the numbers, I'd say RFA is doing fairly well. 2.6% is not bad at all. However there is a significant portion of our community that feel that RFA could do better, or at least get the same preformence with a more wiki** like fashion. I don't think either "side" of this debate has the full agreement of the community quite yet, not for lack of effort or time! ;)

** - Wiki in this context means discussion, m:voting is evil, WP:NOT#DEMOCRACY, etc.

As long as this debate is still ongoing, we should not be marginalizing either side. Both have legit points, and represent the various views of our community. Some parts of our community would rather have the b-crats do the choosing, without constraints as to vote count, some even wishing to do away with the concept of bolded comments altogether, while others of our community are on the opposite end wishing for a pure vote count, and the crats to simply function as a final check on sockpuppets etc (ie don't promote until any issues are cleared up).

As this is wikipedia, the status quo is the default, just as it is in any other policy dispute (Articles for deletions default to keeping the page if there is no agreement on course of action. Content disputes are different, I'm talking major community discussions.) Pretty much every community based process follows this, however that being said just because something is default does not mean it has the consensus of the community. As such, marginalizing any point of view on this dispute because "it has already happened" is not productive. It is up to the status quo to gain the agreement and consent of the community or else allow the community to do some tweaks with it. Some will obviously fail, others may turn out better. This is a wiki, anything thats done can be undone, at least at the level of permissions we have here.

This debate as I have stated is an age old argument, with stats being generated for this every few months or so. As such I have a few recommendations:

• To those that want change: Having 20+ ideas on how to best do RFA is not working. If it is discussion that you want I'd suggest first coming up with a format that can stand 60+ editors talking at one time, and be able to have a somewhat clear result. If its strict voting that you want, then I suggest a proposal on how doing it by votes alone is best, and how such an RFA would be carried out.
• To those that think the status quo is best: My suggestion is to allow folks to experiment and see what the results are. The prior two experiments that I saw did not work so well, but if someone is willing to put themselves up to a new idea at the request of others, allow them to do so! See what the result is. Worst comes to worse, the candidate has to do a new RFA because the b-crat gets so confused he does not know what to do ;).
• Overall I would suggest renewed vigor in this debate, but be wary of the path that those that came before you followed. Finally, not to call attention to myself or to WJBscribe, but remember the days when the community said no admin bots ever. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 19:24, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

RFA - Broken?

This talk page, it's littered with discussions about possible changes to the RfA process most of which draw the responses like RfA isnt broken. There has been a substantial amount of noise over possible alternatives to the current process some look plausible others dont. Some questions;

1. will RfA break?
2. does it need to?
3. can it be improved?

The most outrageous thing is that the process that identifies editors worthy of trust with the mop, where we review these editors ensuring they are civil, follow consensus, act in good faith and know policy. Then looking behind where you'd expect to see the most ideal of discussions what is found nothing but, suggestions abound all concluding the same way cast aside. Maybe its time for everyone to refresh themselves with what assume good faith means, because from what I've read at the RFC and here we appear to have lost that spirit. While thinking bout RfA maybe also consideration as to what the principles of these WP:FAR, WP:GAR and this are for. Gnangarra 13:43, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, whatever. Let's face it, RfA will never be reformed. I simply don't care any more. Walton^One 14:50, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Cummon Walton - that's not like you. Maybe it would be better to say RfA is unlikely/not going to be reformed now - never is a long time and all that. Pedro :  Chat  14:55, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I actually agree with Walton. I tried the same last year and it never worked out. This will go on until an outrage occurs, for this system to be properly reformed. - Mailer Diablo 15:17, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

There is an alternative. Instead of trying a major overhaul, we can look for ways to make small incremental improvements. Instead of suggesting we throw out what we have, we can see if there's a way to supplement the current system. Friday (talk) 15:19, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I would also want to see something that complements RfA, but inertia is going to prove a tough one. Closest we had was ER and AOR. - Mailer Diablo 16:25, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

RfA will be reformed one day when the need presents itself and consensus agrees. 1 != 2 16:05, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Friday and Until(1 == 2). A complete overhaul of RfA probably will never work out. A drastic change will only occur if RfA ever reaches the point where the community truly considers it to be broken beyond repair. That doesn't mean that it can't be tweaked here and there to improve it. Chaz ^Beckett 16:43, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

In any large, cumbersome organization -- which, let's face it, is what Wikipedia has become -- major reforms tend to happen only when there's a train wreck. It took the Seigenthaler controversy to motivate a sensible BLP policy. Raymond Arritt 17:53, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. - Mailer Diablo 17:56, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Time may very well be running out [1] [2]. --Aarktica 18:55, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Things are changing (as always), but I don't think it's yet time for doom-and-gloom. The information in the links has some interesting implications, but not all of them are bad by default. Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 21:11, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

It does seem that the proponents of change has been at it a while, based on many of the aborted efforts mentioned in this thread. Also, consider this concluding remark on a difficult thread started by an editor fortunate to have had an outside perspective on this entire matter.

If the essence of the remark is true, the trend should be discouraging. --Aarktica 14:12, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

RfA Talk page stats

Is there a general guideline as to what stats should be shown here, recently I've seen a spate of [3] [4] where only the bare stats are shown as opposed to [5] where everything is shown. For those on slower computers I think it is better to have everything up there so they do not need to access Kate themselves. Phgao 04:08, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I'd rather not have them at all, but that's just me... --Agüeybaná 04:11, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Just the main statistics is better, if anyone else wants to go further in depth, then they can just check the Kate URL for themselves. ~ Sebi _[talk] 04:16, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Well you may not like to see them, but tbh they will be referred to and will have to be addressed, so it is useful to have them in an area easily accessible and not have to go to Kate each time. To Sebi; I think the main point of having detailed stats there is to help slow net users as well as to alleviate the need to keep bringing up Kate, every time something needs to be checked. Phgao 04:21, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Do 'em all. If you see an instance where it's just a handful, feel free to update them yourself. EVula // talk // ☯ // 06:09, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

• I much prefer the full one, many of us do it any way, why waste the cycles to run it 50 times? I also check deleted edits, is there a tool for that as well, or just the old fashioned way? Carlossuarez46 22:24, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

  Well only admins can check deleted edits so...yeah it can be disadvantageous sometimes as those who CSD tag or participate in areas where the edits are deleted afterwards would have a low Kate count. But yeah, no big deal as long as you are learning the ropes. Phgao 04:34, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

That's why I was wondering whether there was a tool that at least would summarize the deleted edits somehow - if someone has 100 deleted edits if they are all {{db-somethings}} that's a different story than if they were all edits to an article about his/her pet dog that got deleted. Carlossuarez46 04:50, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Eh, I think there are enough admins that are active on RfAs that can check for that sort of thing (and [hopefully] have the good sense to note any problems). Yes, it's a slight disadvantage for regular editors, but there's a technical restriction on deleted edits being available to everyone. Besides, generally someone who has a ton of speedily deleted articles also has a ton of notices about speedily deleted articles somewhere on their talk page (at the very least, in the history). EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:26, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely, as deleted edits often contain rather distasteful edits and opening that up wouldn't be good. But I hear there is a edit-counter that queries the tool-server and that gives a count with deleted edits, but I'm not sure, so you'll have to ask someone more familiar with the system. Phgao 07:31, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Indeed there is. See here for your total edit count including deleted edits. I believe this is what produces the edit count you see when you click on "my preferences". Carcharoth 00:27, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah, at first I thought that was just a bunch of code, then on closer observation, it has the number nestled in there. Lol :0 Oh can you shed some light on what the other numbers are? But that is a super quick way to get a edit count for someone else w/o going to Kate! Phgao 11:55, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Note that the same number, for yourself, also appears in Special:Preferences, although you need the contribcounter query to view the information for another user (or install an edit counter like mine that provides an interface to that information, among other things). On another note, I've updated Wikipedia:Edit count with an explanation of the various sorts of edit count, which should be helpful for clearing up such matters in the future. (Note that Kate's counter shows a deleted edit count as well as a non-deleted edit count.) --ais523 12:07, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Um, I don't want to say you're wrong, but Kate does not show any deleted edits; unless I'm not looking at the right place? Phgao 13:39, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Here's an example of the original Kate counter: [6]. (It's my alternate account and therefore has a low edit count.) 'Deleted edits' is four entries below 'Total edits' (and the 'total edits' doesn't include deleted edits). Interiot's "Wannabe Kate" counter doesn't show deleted edits. --ais523 11:02, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Non-optional Optional Questions

It's come to my attention that it states on RfA pages this "It is recommended that you answer these optional questions to provide guidance for participants." Now I think we all know that not answering these questions is akin to a failed RfA; most times rushed answers are critised and play a part in RfAs failing. Now I see a contradiction with this which is on nominations for adminship, "Once you have answered the questions, you may post your nomination for discussion, or request that your nominator do so" where it implies pretty much only after answering the questions, then one may post the nomination.

Furthermore, these questions really play a major basis for further probing/questioning and as such I would not consider them optional. I suggest a minor rewording, and am welcome to suggestions here, but something along the lines of "Please answer these questions to provide guidance for participants" would be more suitable I would think.

Sorry if this has already been brought up! Phgao 06:49, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Although I know that it probably won't happen, I must agree with this. The questions have not been truly optional for a long time, so the only reason to continue to refer to them as optional is for a test to see the difference between what we say and what we actually want. And that's silly. -Amarkov moo! 18:43, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

They are optional in that they are not required to accept a nomination, if the wording bugs you add a comment that historically the community has not favored skipping the questions. 1 != 2 19:17, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

The questions are stupid, and every candidate gives roughly the same answers. You should look through the candidate's contributions and decide whether you deem the candidate suitable for adminship, rather than looking how well they can formulate standard answers to standard questions. There has never been a consensus to add them to the RFA template, but unfortunately I don't think there's going to be a consensus to remove them now either... Melsaran (talk) 19:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

If they were removed from the standard template, then someone would invariably ask them every time. So long as people wish to use the answers to those questions, they will be put up in some form or another. -Amarkov moo! 19:24, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, those three question are ones that I would like to see every candidate answer. The fact is that some people betray a fundamental misunderstanding about what an admin is by these questions, other times it show a lack of experience in other areas. I don't think they are "stupid", but they are very on-topic. 1 != 2 19:24, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with that comment, I like to see good answers to the questions and certainly consider them when deciding between support, oppose or neutral. GDonato (talk) 19:50, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree as well. I think they are good questions and can help gauge a candidate. These questions are like handshakes. You don't have to shake someone's hand when you meet them, but a strong handshake makes a good first impression. Not shaking can be seen as rude or dismissive. Similarly, you don't have to answer the RfA questions, but strong answers make a good first impression. Not answering is dismissive and leaves the opposite impression. That's my opinion on that. Lara❤Love 06:05, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

• Optional/non-optional. Lots of people !vote while questions posed remain unanswered. RfAs have closed successfully in this situation as well. I have no compunction stating my views while others may need answers to specific questions. I am not alone, apparently, by looking at behaviors. Could an answer make me change my mind? sure, but for the most part it would have to be so out of expectations to do so. Like "Optional question: What's your view on WP:IAR?" 99% of admins and candidates have a view within a spectrum I have no quibble with so I'd have no qualms about supporting without awaiting the answer. If the answer then comes in as "I'll use it in connection with random page function to delete 50 pages a day whether they need it or not" that would get me to an oppose position quickly - but I won't be holding my tongue nor my breath for that response any more than I plan to pay for my next year's rent from my lottery ticket I just bought. Carlossuarez46 22:37, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

  Small clarification; what I am referring to are the 3 basic questions, not extra optional questions that may be asked. Phgao 04:32, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

  • Oops my stupidity. Carlossuarez46 02:30, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

• The questions are optional pretty much only in theory. Theoretically, a candicate can be evaluated and supported based solely on contributions without saying one word about themselves. They are required in a practical sense though, because, unlike a candidate's general collection of edits, they provide an idea of the candidate's direct opinions of administrative work as it relates to them. You could show up for a job interview underdressed, slide your resume to your interviewer, and say nothing more, but I don't think most would expect to be hired in that situation (though it's theoretically possible). It's common practice, so it's kind of a de facto requirement. In that way, I would support a rewording of the instructions to this effect. Leebo ^T/C 19:40, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

  You've got it spot-on. Of course we can not just rely on these questions, as like has been pointed out, anyone can pre-write superb answers but may have been uncivil or repeatedly bit a newbie after a glance at their contribs. Then again, the answers to these questions do form a basic judgment in reader's minds, whether we know it or not, as to the suitability of the candidate. As we often see, newbie candidates not familiar with the RfA system often give sub-par answers consisting of vague or insubstantial remarks. Thus, these candidates are pretty much automatically ruled out. Also, the remark about not answering these 3 basic questions, even by a most prolific editor or one held in high regard, could and probably would be seen as disrespect or disdain for the RfA system we have, and could be seen as a kind of I'm too good to answer these questions, look at my contribs, and you'll see how good I am thing, and would no doubt draw oppose !votes. Phgao 07:26, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Prior to reading this debate, I've just chucked a question at two of the recent candidates. If the optional questions and contribution history are not enough to determine how one should !vote then more questions are the way forward. I agree with Leebo above - the chances of passing at RfA are slender if you don't answer the questions, and this is a good thing. Why ? Because community consensus is that they should be answered. And administrators are bound to act for and on behalf of the consensus of the community. So by going against consensus within a candidates own RfA would make me oppose, even if everything else was in order. Pedro :  Chat  07:46, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

• • I think I'm going to throw a spanner out there that may indicate why they're called optional questions: because sometimes people might ask silly questions. I know I do it all the time (nto in RfAs, but I re-ask questions that have been brought up already in other cases). Some of the RfAs I've seen have had people simply respond "See my contributions for my response" and rude or abrasive as that might come across, that may be the appropriate response. In other cases, the question may be simply a rehash on another question, and it would be silly to re-engage a discussion or argument already fielded within the same page. These are my hypotheses, and there're likely to be other reasons one may not wish to answer them, but from a consensual point of view, all questions should at least be addressed, though the depth of the response is to the discretion of the nominee. I think at times too much weight is put on a person's responses, however, but that can't be helped as it's human nature to judge based on that, but my personal opinion is that the contributions in general are by far the best measure as to the quality of an admin. --lincalinca 12:50, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Hut 8.5

Can somebody pz nominate user User:Hut 8.5 2 be admin!

Actually, I concur - s/he seems to be an experienced user, and looking at Special:Contributions/Hut_8.5 I saw a long history of productive edits. So if someone rises to the above challenge, I will certainly support. Walton^One 17:05, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

It seems another user has already thought of that... --ais523 17:08, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

That would be me :-) --Agüeybaná 17:10, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Good job! We need more of those candidates whose contribs assure unanimously support. RfA isn't broken, we just need more of those good candidates. Gray62 18:23, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. As I said earlier, if potential candidates know how to behave and plan for the long term, they'd eventually be nominated and succeed.--Alasdair 21:35, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Right. More candidates who refuse to think outside the box, don't rock the boat, and come from <insert editor who spends too much time on RFA>'s favorite cookie cutter. kmccoy (talk) 21:09, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

It's my opinion that the only reason RfA is "failing" anymore is that the regular opposers aren't commenting very often lately. *Cremepuff222* 21:46, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Now that's an interesting observation. Who in your mind are "regular opposers"? Pedro :  Chat  07:39, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Well it could be me, but this recent lot of admin candidates have been pretty good (not counting newbies of course), but those regular opposers are good in that they point out flaws that perhaps aren't blatently obvious, and sometimes can change a RfA completely. Then again, often these were past minor slips of mind, and have no impinging effect on the editor's capability as admin at present. But I too would like to know who you consider these opposers to be. Phgao 11:51, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Ha, I'm not pointing out anyone in particular. *Cremepuff222* 14:49, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

New and different Rfa closing bot

Before you say anything take a look and the idea here, the idea is not a bad as you might think(at the moment). Also please place your comments there, not here so we can have a centralized discussion --Chris  G  01:54, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Commented. Phgao 05:38, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

For reference, the consensus was against this bot. Useight 18:51, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

RfA system

RfA seems to be one of the best examples on Wikipedia of how human communities, when faced with bureaucracy, create even more bereaucracy to counter it :(. — Thomas H. Larsen 01:54, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

How so? J-ſtan^Talk_Contribs 02:49, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Tangobot and the separator

Some people seem to be missing out the "----" bit when adding their noms. I think this is the thing needed for Tangobot to pick up the RfAs when it generates its bot-report here. See here and here for examples. Possibly the instructions are slightly confusing

• Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/nominate says to add the following above the most recent nomination:

  {{Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/USERNAME}}
----

• The HTML comment on the main RFA page says:

  "Please place new nominations for adminship at the top, and please leave the first "----" alone."

I've changed this to say: "Please place new nominations for adminship at the top, above the most recent nomination. Please leave the first "----" alone, and don't forget to include the "----" line separating the new nomination from the previous one." That is longer, but is hopefully clearer. Carcharoth 09:51, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

We could tell people to add:

----
{{Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/USERNAME}}

above the most recent nomination. --bainer (talk) 11:18, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, technically above the "----" that appears above the most recent nomination. Even better would be to get Tangobot to work without the separator, but I don't know enough about how it works to suggest that. At the moment, it seems people have to watch out for the correct "----" format, and if bureaucrats only watch the bot-report and not the RfA page, they might miss an overdue RfA if people somehow fail to notice during the course of a week that an RfA was transcluded to the RfA page but not appearing on the bot-report. Maybe a solution looking for a problem, but having seen lots of "make sure you get the technical bits right", it seems a bit unfair to add another thing for people to look out for when adding noms. Well, when I say "add", I don't know how long the "----" system has been operating for. Is it really a common problem for people to get this wrong or not? If we leave RfA regulars to put edit summaries on the talk pages, do we similarly leave RfA regulars to watch out for "----" formatting problems? Carcharoth 12:54, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

If you leave the bottom ---- off, the bot doesn't actually mention the bottom RfA at all in the summary, which gets a bit confusing. --Deskana (talk) 07:24, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, why don't we just add ---- to Template:RfA? --bainer (talk) 02:01, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Right. There always needs to be a "----" at the bottom, so that is where we put it in Template:RfA. Then we have just one permanent "----" on the main RfA page, and if there are no RfAs running, there will only be "----". Then we ask people to add new nominations below the "----" bit. It wouldn't even matter if they messed up where they put it, all they would have to do is add the {{Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/NAME}} bit, and they wouldn't have to bother with the "----" bit. Only question is, will this mess up the bot? I'll ask the operator. Carcharoth 14:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah. User talk:Tangotango says the bot operator is on wikibreak. Rather than send an e-mail, shall we just be bold and try the above and see if it breaks the system? Carcharoth 14:32, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Withdrawn RfA needs closing properly

Can someone with greater familiarity with the process do the necessary at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Dreamafter, as Dreamafter has withdrawn? Bencherlite^Talk 11:52, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I have done it. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 12:10, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

So anybody can vote right?

I already voted on some but just wanted to make sure!! Have a good day Stupid2 05:50, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

If u want to be an admin ten you just put your name up there? Stupid2 06:01, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Anyone with an account is welcome to participate in the RfA process. If you're looking to make an attempt at adminship yourself, I highly recommend that you look at all the requirements of an admin; with only 61 edits to your name, I can assure you that your RfA would be removed rather quickly. EVula // talk // ☯ // 06:03, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, ok, thanks for clarifying everything. most other website you have to be on really good terms with the owner or admins to become one, not like here where teh comunity decides. Stupid2 06:08, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Yup, pretty much everything on Wikipedia (and all the other wiki projects, like Wikiquote and Wikinews) is decided by the community in one way or another. EVula // talk // ☯ // 06:17, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Hehe... favoritism. Just be friendly with Deskana and you'll definitely receive adminship. That's the way I got mine. *whistle innocently* --D_arkF_alls ^talk 06:22, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

It used to be Cecropia. Its not what you know about policy, but who the crats you know! ;) -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 06:40, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

EH? I had to PayPal fifty quid to every one of my supporters and two hundred to each of the 'crats. What's this community decision thing??? </fun> Pedro :  Chat  08:57, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, Pedro, I'm uhh still waiting for my money. If you could hurry that up, it'd be great. Thanks, I look forward to supporting your upcoming cratship request.... for a fee of course.... :) -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 09:05, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Heh, heh, all you guys had to fork out I'm getting all my votes from pure trust --Chris  G  09:10, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah - Sorry Chris G - I supported you in good faith because I thought you were a paying punter (as per WP:AGF-FOR-A-FEE). I need the dosh to hand over to Dark Falls for my RfA......... :) Pedro :  Chat  09:17, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I'll fix up your deal with Dark Falls if you get the rest of your socks to support... :) --Chris  G  09:20, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Well Pedro, I imagine Anonymous Dissident or Phaedriel would be filing for bankruptcy then. They'd have to pay twice the price. As for me, bribing with free gift certificates from my company was a much cheaper deal. bibliomaniac15 A straw poll on straw polls 00:17, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

We're talking about RfAs, I wonder how much some paid out for their RfBs. Note to all aspiring crats: Get a rich aunt. J-ſtan^Talk_Contribs 02:26, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Hey, my rent is due tomorrow, Pedro. Bearian 12:16, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Ironically, this thread highlights the very danger of some RfA reform proposals. most other website you have to be on really good terms with the owner or admins to become one - this is what will happen if we give more power to the bureaucrats. This is why straightforward, majoritarian voting is a good thing. The best thing about Wikipedia is that it is governed by the community, and we need to preserve that at any cost. The worst thing about Wikipedia is that it "is not a democracy", a provision which was clearly intended simply to show that some things (such as copyright policy and NPOV) are entrenched beyond the reach of the community, but which some people treat as an excuse to be authoritarian. We really need to scrap that particular provision, as it causes a huge amount of harm to Wikipedia on a daily basis. </rant> Walton^One 15:57, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Busy, Busy, Busy

We currently have 20 RfA's running. I can't remember ever seeing such a high number in one go. The whys and wherefores not withstanding I also note that none have gone much over 50 odd votes/comments, inlcuding ones well past th emid-point when generally the level of comments tails off. Now this isn't a bad thing per se, but I would remind the community that we have been caught "napping" before. Whilst an RfA passing at say 30-0-0 is a clear cut consensus it also implies a lack of interest in the particular RfA but more importantly a lack of editors who have reviewed and commented. I'm not saying we need to get every RfA to WP:100 for the sake of it, or that "RfA Regulars" (ugh!) should comment on every request, but whilst it's great to welcome ever more editors to help I'd like to think that all RfA's receive a decent level of scrutiny and input. Just a thought. Pedro :  Chat  09:36, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

All you admins should have another mass RFB just to add to the tension! :) --Chris  G  10:40, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

While RFA has undoubtedly been "caught napping" on occasion, I don't think you can fault the community's standard of scrutiny on the Windybear case, where informed scrutiny (rather than pile-on "voting") worked very well [7] [8]. It's an error to view the RFA discussion as the sole means of detecting and dealing with untrustworthy candidates for administratorship. --Tony Sidaway 10:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree that in the case of OWB it was not clear at the outset there would be issues. But I'm interested Tony, other than RfA discussion what other methods are there to prevent the sysoping of inappropriate candidates? Pedro :  Chat  10:58, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes there's just no way to tell until someone mucks up. --Deskana (talk) 11:09, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

That's very true Deskana. As I said, I'm not exhorting everyone into mindless !votes for the sake of it. But I do recall comments by 'crats before asking for further input on requests that have had minimal commentary made. I suppose I've not really angled this correctly - what I'm getting at is - just because there's twenty odd RfA's let's not alow them to slide through but to give them the attention the candidates deserve. In the past when there have been just a few RfA's on the go at any one time, it seems that 80 odd !votes one way or the other is the norm (I can't back this up with data - it's just a perception). There's no major concern here just a reminder that commenting at RfA, whilst not building an encyclopedia, is still a valuable use of time when the comments are helpfull to the candidate and/or the community. Pedro :  Chat  11:20, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

If we don't want mindless "votes", we should stop using the word "votes", whether preceded by an exclamation mark or not. What is useful at RFA is substantive comment. An editor who gives specific evidence of relevant behavior by an admin candidate is performing a useful function. An editor who simply says "yay or nay", while he is permitted to do so, really isn't helping us to evaluate a candidate. We need to encourage editors at RFA to do more of the former and much, much less of the latter. Indeed, we should encourage editors to stay away if they cannot expend enough effort to evaluate a candidate properly. We used to do this as a matter of course, but the voting impulse took over in mid-2005. --Tony Sidaway 15:03, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Given this discussion, I feel like I must look pretty suspicious at this point, because my RFA passed with only 26 in favor. To make matters worse, I then went on a Wikibreak right after (I got hit by a truck called "college", as usually happens at this time of year). I'm not going to go rogue, I swear!--Danaman5 06:44, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

There should be data somewhere on numbers of votes in RfAs. Maybe User:NoSeptember has some data? Have a look at User:NoSeptember/The NoSeptember Admin Project. The closest thing I can find is User:NoSeptember/RfA voting records#Chart, but maybe I missed something. It wouldn't take long to produce some stats for this year based on Wikipedia:Successful adminship candidacies. Carcharoth 12:44, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/RfA stats. Majorly (talk) 13:43, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I wonder how many of the RFAs currently running have been kickstarted or brought about because of what's happening in November, with anon page creation being re-enabled? I'm trying to convince about four different people to run for adminship solely because of that. If every active admin could find one suitable Wikipedian to nominate, we would be well-stocked with a few hundred bright-eyed, bushy-tailed new admins ready to beat back the wave of garbage we'll be getting. Neil ☎ 13:24, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I believe that this is certaily one of the reasons Neil. I've done my one :). I concur with your thoughts that if anyone is mentoring a propsect they feel is ready they should bring them forth. But I still feel the community should give the candidates the same level of scrutiny wether there be 1 RfA in progress or 30. No point promoting willy nilly because of a potential onslaught at CSD, if it's going to create more havoc at WP:DRV though poor quality / trigger happy deletions. Pedro :  Chat  13:56, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Pedro writes: "But I'm interested Tony, other than RfA discussion what other methods are there to prevent the sysoping of inappropriate candidates?"

The two references that I gave show that this case was dealt with by an alert editor who spotted the socking and alerted the community. After discussion Theresa knott, one of the checkusers, declared it to be obvious socking and the newly sysopped editor agreed to resign. That's one concrete example of how we did it in one particular case. Flexibility, rather than bureaucracy, won out. --Tony Sidaway 14:11, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Wait, wait. A simple, lightweight way to desysop someone accomplished something useful? Holy cow, I thought that had been declared impossible. :) Friday (talk) 14:14, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely. As I've been saying for weeks but you don't seem to understand, we already desysop abusive administrators. You seem to be unable to understand what I am saying. --Tony Sidaway 14:17, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I understand that just fine. Where I believe we disagreed was on whether there was any possibility of cases that should have been dealt with this way, and were not. I believe a few such cases exist; others have a belief that no such mistakes are ever made. So, I believe it might be worth making "desysopping by social pressure" a more commonly-accepted tool at our disposal. There may be a few details to work out on how this should work, but I see that as a minor issue. Friday (talk) 14:22, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

We can certainly acknowledge that there may be such cases. We seem to be very short of tangible information about such cases. On the other hand, ccases that have been dealt with successfully seem often to be cited as examples of the failure of Wikipedia. A few examples of actual failures, in view of the frequent claims that they exist and are identifiable enough to be dealt with by some kind of community process in addition to normal dispute resolution, would help to make the case that such a process would be useful.

On your phrase, "desysopping by social pressure", I think it's an unfortunate term. It could be misunderstood to mean some kind of voting process. Whilst some social pressure was applied in the Windy bear case, the underlying reality was that we don't tolerate administrators who behave as he did and he would have been desysopped anyway. The use of social pressure was useful in enabling him to opt to resign before it got to that. --Tony Sidaway 14:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

(ec'd - to Tony) I'm not quite sure to whom you are addressing your "unable to understand" comments above and in your edit summaries, but my "point" of this thread was to illustrate my perception that the level of commentary / participation within RfA's at present seems to be lower than normal, and that this could be to do with the quantity of RfA's. It's no big deal, I'm sure every candidate that passes will do so deservingly. I recongise from your above that indeed there are post RfA methods of dealing with troublesome admins and I thank you for bringing them out. I guess I just don't understand what you think I don't understand  ?!?!? Pedro :  Chat  14:26, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I was addressing my "unable to understand" comment to Friday, who falsely claimed that opposition to yet another community desysopping process was founded on the belief that such a process was "impossible." As far as I'm aware, all such opposition has been based on the observable fact that the community is very successful in desysops bad admins, often within a matter of minutes.

The suggestion the level of participation in RFA is presently "lower than normal" is hard to establish, given the observable facts: the number of active applications is much higher than it has been for many months, and the open RFAs are, over the course of the week, attracting comments in the dozens. As I said above, however, RFA isn't the only way of detecting bad admin candidates. --Tony Sidaway 14:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. Yes, it's a very subjective thing, and just my take on it as to wether participation is low / normal I guess. Cheers. Pedro :  Chat  15:04, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I've never seen anything like this, we have 21 simultaneous RfAs! We even broke the report template! GlassCobra 02:43, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

If memory serves, the record is this period in December 2005 with 28 active RFAs. So if you can find 8 more candidates you can break a nearly 2 year old record. Dragons flight 03:32, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Right, I'll give it a shot. :P GlassCobra 05:49, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

• Isn't that a good sign? After all we need more new admins to deal with the increase scale of the project. - Mailer Diablo 18:32, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

To Tony; yes, really bad admins are desysopped in a matter of minutes. But moderately bad admins get away with misusing (not abusing - there's a difference) their tools, being rude and uncommunicative, and driving users away. We ought to be able to desysop any admin, at any time, by a simple majority vote - and the same should apply to all office holders, including Jimbo Wales himself. Walton^One 15:59, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Indenting a blocked user's comments

Politics rule was blocked indefinitely very recently for sockpuppetry, and I've just begun going through the RfAs to indent his comments, as that's what is supposed to be done. However, as I was going through them, I came across this edit, and I'm uncertain to whether I should continue what I was doing, or revert the edits I made. What should be done? Acalamari 18:47, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I would only modify if the socks were involved. PR had his say. His socks do not. Just my 2 cents. the_undertow ^talk 18:56, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, I am willing to revert the edits I made in indenting four of the comments. I haven't touched the others yet. Acalamari 18:57, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Are these current RfA's? the_undertow ^talk 06:01, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I only indented them from active RfAs; there's no point in indenting comments on a closed RfA. Acalamari 18:58, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I made that comment based on an understanding that basically goes like this. Single Purpose Accounts and multiple (i.e. more than one) votes by sockpuppets would be indented. Blocked users (who are blocked only as a result of disruption to this board) and whose only contribution has been to an RfA (or more than one RfA) would be indented. I believe the !votes made by Politics Rule where in good faith at the time they were made, and as there is no evidence of sockpuppet use outside of the incident that resulted in his block there is no cause to strike these comments. I'm certainly flexible on this however, and if others feel that all his !votes should be indented then that's the way it is. Pedro :  Chat  19:41, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm of the opinion that if you're indefinitely blocked from editing, you're no longer part of the community, meaning that you're no longer allowed to participate in community decisions (such as XfDs and RfAs). If a discussion was closed before the block was put in place, the editor was still a member of the community and so the comments stand, but if they are blocked before or during the discussion's closure, however, they are no longer welcome to contribute. It's a consequence of their actions, as far as I'm concerned. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:04, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I see exactly where you're coming from EVula, and I certainly respect your opinion. I just think in this case PR lost his judgement (as evidenced through his actions) in one particular instance and the !votes he made on other RfA's could be considered to have been good faith. A quick glance idnicates that indenting of these votes will not affect the outcome of the various RfA's at this time, although that would be a 'crat decision anyhow. However I'm unsure if there is any prior consensus to this at wider level e.g. XFD et. al. and if not their certainly needs to be probably should be. It may come down to how far we AGF and how far back we retoactively no longer assume it. Pedro :  Chat  20:23, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

That's not exactly true Pedro, I blocked PR for one week originally due to using socks in an RfA, a checkuser was then run, and it was found he had made a number of other socks in recent weeks, hence why the block was extended to indef. I indented PR's comments in the RfA he had been proven as using socks in as he had attempted to disrupt the discussion. As he is a multiple sockpuppeteer, I'm also of the opinion that all his other comments should be indented as we don't truly know who he is. Ryan Postlethwaite 23:36, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

My comment was also addressing my more general attitude towards blocked editors and the subsequent consequences of their edits, rather than just this one instance. EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:41, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Agree with both Ryan and EVula. Ryan, on further examination yes, I agree. EVula, that's what I was getting at further up the page, is that my understanding is we do not have consensus / precedent on how to manage !votes in discussions (whatever areana) for blocked users. But I think it would have to be case by case. Someone voting keep on an AFD who later gets blocked for edit warring on an unrelated article shouldn't have their comment indented even if the AfD is in progress as we'd be turning WP:AGF on it's head - i.e. that as they've broken faith once they must allways have done so. To me noting that a user has been blocked would be sufficent for the closing admin (at XFD) or crat (RFA) to take account of the "value" of their comment. Perhaps another consideration is that if we start indenting comments at RFA (with the exception of mutiple votes from sock-puppets) we are clearly giving up the concept of RFA being a discussion. A discussion is - editor makes a support or oppose comment - another editor notates that the editor has been blocked - 'crat decides what weight to give to comment. A vote is - if you're blocked you loose your enfranchisment and your comments are disregarded however valuable they were. Just a rumination. Pedro :  Chat  08:21, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

One of the reasons that I like striking or indenting rather than removal of comments is that it's still visible to the 'crats. As for the comparison of vote to discussion, that's a good take on it, though I still look at it the whole RfA process as a "community-derived decision" (whether it is a vote or a discussion), and users who have been indefinitely blocked from the project are no longer members of the community. Their struck comments are still visible and can be cited by others if there is any merit to their opinions, though; I certainly wouldn't have a problem citing a !vote from a Willy on Wheels sock iff it provided damning (and real) evidence of editor abuse that other editors had somehow missed in their assessments. EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:00, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry did I say remove? I should have made it clear I mean indent / strike if I did (I can't see where I did?) That's why I prefer indention to be honest. I'll happily strike through the words oppose / support but the rest of the text should be legible, as you rightly say, so that others can read and comment based upon it. I guess until we get an RfA that hangs on the knife edge because of a subsequently blocked users comments it's probably academic, and when that unhappy event does happen the 'crat decision will provide precedence. Pedro :  Chat  15:13, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Don't hurt yourself looking for where you said "remove"; you didn't. That's accidently left over from a couple of lines I typed and then removed because I realized it was a bit of a fork in the conversation. Whoopsie. :D
The gist of what I was originally trying to say with it is that striking makes it clearer to everyone else what has happened (as opposed to indenting, where it can get mixed in with responses to individual !votes), but still leaves it in place for people to read and potentially refer to. I think I was just pre-emptively opposing the removal of blocked users' comments, without anyone having actually suggested it. Perhaps I need to re-read WP:BEANS. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:28, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Nice edit summary ! Ha! Yes, actually you're right in that unstruck votes can also look confusing. I guess that's not a big issue, certainly we agree that removal of votes totally is never acceptable (well except pure vandalism). Thanks EVula. (spelt it right this time....!) Pedro :  Chat  15:46, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

For the record: Professional Deletionist's !vote on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Dppowell hasn't been re-instated. — Dorftrottel⁠ 12:13, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you're right Dorftrottel. Surely either all of Professional Deletionist's and Politics Rules' comments should be counted or indeneted for consistency? Neither was a single purpose account. Admitedly the closing 'crat will take care of this all all RFA's and I don't think any hang in the balance based on these votes. Pedro :  Chat  13:21, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

My view is that all indefblocked editors' opinions on RfA candidates should be indented or struck. If the community is not willing to have them editing the encyclopedia, it seems incongruous for them to play a role in determining who should or shouldn't be an admin. WjBscribe 23:07, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Why RFA is broken and what can be done to fix it

The request for admin process has been criticized since the beginning for various reasons however I want to bring some of the reasons why the process is broken from my experience. Essentially the RFA process is where someone nominates him or herself or is nominated by someone else and precedes to explain why they are suitable for being an administrator. From there users come and add their name and comment under “support”, “oppose” or “neutral”. Generally a 75% consensus for approval equals a pass, anything below that generally means a fail or non-consensus, though sometimes there are variations. This system seems ideal on paper but in reality it is very flawed for several reasons which I will explain. One of the main problems with RFA is that it is obviously a system of voting. Long held wikipedia philosophy and policy states that Wikipedia is NOT a democracy (WP:DEMOCRACY) yet that is essentially how many things are done on wikipedia, via voting. The reason that this is so bad for the RFA process is because a lot of editors don’t actually take the necessary time to closely examine the editors that they are supporting or opposing and are only doing so based on glances at edit counts or the number of previous supports or opposes. Many times editors essentially only add “support per above” or “oppose per above” without actually reading why users are supporting or opposing. Often this is done simply to get more edit counts at RFA’s so that they themselves can use it as evidence of participation on other wiki procedures during their own RFA’s. An example, A user has 10 opposes, 15 supports and 5 neutrals. A user as described above might see the 10 opposes and think “Oh, I’m just going to oppose as it probably won’t be controversial and I won’t have to come back again to defend myself.” and then they oppose simply saying “Oppose per above” or something similar and brief. The same thing is frequently done when supporting users, and is frequently done much more often when supporting users.

Another problem that I see at RFAs is that many editors are becoming more and more unwilling to defend their “votes” and often get aggressive when asked to do so. An editor might support or oppose and when asked for clarification on their “vote”, they might either ignore the request or get aggressive in response to it and not provide an answer. This is actually very harmful to the process for many reasons, one of which is the fact that since RFA is supposed to be a “discussion” and not a “vote”, discussing the issue means that you should be open to the possibility that you are wrong and that perhaps your support or oppose was incorrect and the editor asking for clarification might see where you are wrong in your assessment. I frequently see editors change their opinions based on comments from other editors. Discussion is very important to determine true consensus and reach the truth.

Yet another problem with the RFA process is the fact that “vengeance” or “retribution” seem to play a large role in it. Let me give an example: An editor frequently edits controversial articles and makes controversial edits. This editor follows policies to a tee and is always civil when discussing or editing. However in the process of editing controversial articles this editor makes enemies from POV pushers or other people who oppose their edits or beliefs. These people follow this editor to the RFA and oppose based on personal issues, disagreement in philosophy or simply an attempt to “get back at” the editor to prevent them from getting admin status. This is a big problem with the admin process and seems to be one of the main reasons that many very good editors are unable to become an administrator. Some editors who for instance have made mistakes a year or two ago and as a result lost their admin privileges seem to be totally unable to get admin status again, regardless of their editing ability, remorse for mistakes that they made, etc. Other editors who frequently edit controversial articles and make enemies with POV pushers also seem to be unable to become an administrator due to reasons described above. As I’ve said, this prevents the most experienced and qualified editors from becoming administrators, however this also means that editors who spend a few months editing, stay under the radar, get a few thousand edits, are easily able to become admins, even if they lack the experience needed.

These problems described above seem to be impossible to change however I believe that a few simple changes in the way that RFAs are done can make drastic changes and get rid of problematic issues relating to the RFA process. The remedy that can be used to solve the problem of editors seeing the RFA as a “vote” opposed to a consensus would be to clarify that RFA is NOT a vote but is a discussion in an attempt to reach consensus. This means that editors who make a comment that is questioned but fail to provide an answer or fail to respond at least a few times should have their addition of support or oppose ignored by the closing bureaucrat. The closing bureaucrat should closely examine the page and look for a consensus. If an editor comes in and says “Oppose, per above” and is asked for clarification and does not respond or responds stating that they don’t need to clarify, then their opposition should be ignored. The remedy that can be used to solve the problem of editors who use the RFA process as a means of “getting back” at editors who they had disagreements with previously or with editors who they disagree with would be to change the “pass/fail” line from 75% to something like 65%. If RFA is indeed “no big deal” then I think that if 65% of the community supports an editor then that should be more than enough. This may increase the number of editors who become administrators, which in turn means more “bad admins”, but with an adequate process for removing admins per community consensus, this could be easily solved. This % will also be subject to personal interpretation from the closing bureaucrats. If there is a 95% support but the opposition has very good points then the closing bureaucrats should simply fail it. Another way to prevent “retribution” opposes would be to encourage editors to closely examine all opposes or supports and take an independent look into the editors history to determine if the evidence or reasons for opposition or support are indeed justified. “Voting” based on current opposes or supports needs to be strongly discouraged and editors who do “drive by” RFA comments need to be encouraged to spend more time at a single RFA and learn more about the user before ever supporting or opposing. Decisions to support or oppose should never be made purely based on the number of current supports or oppose but on the justification for the supports or opposes, which should be closely examined. RFA is a DISCUSSION and not a vote, being opposed to discussion at an RFA and being opposed to explaining, clarifying and justifying your statements at an RFA should be discouraged for very simple reasons. The best way that one can come to truly understand a position that they hold is to argue it with individuals who deny the position and be able to reliably defend it. I believe that in order to truly know whether or not your position is valid would be to defend it against people who don’t believe in it and hear all of the valid arguments against it. If you can refute them accurately then your position is that more justified, If you can’t then perhaps you should reevaluate your position. This is why discussion during an RFA is so important. Perhaps your initial position is wrong and perhaps discussing it with someone else can convince you of this. One should never be so confident of a specific position as to avoid any discussion of the possibility of it being false because with many positions, there is always a possibility that they are false, regardless of your confidence that they are true. RFA’s need to be more about discussion and less about the number of oppositions or supports. As mentioned above, if there is a high % of supports but the opposition makes very good points and provides very clear evidence that the editor is not read to be an administrator, then the closing bureaucrats should not promote the editor. This means that the bureaucrats should spend more time on RFA’s and not base it purely on the % of support or oppose. I believe that there should be at least 3 bureaucrats examining an RFA prior to closing it, each leaving a final opinion based on all of the evidence presented and discussions discussed. If the three bureaucrats believe the user should be promoted after closely examining the evidence then it should be done, if not then it shouldn’t be. Closing bureaucrats should explain their reasoning on the page prior to closing it, and it should not be archived for at least 1 week due to the fact that even the bureaucrats could have bias and a request for 3 other bureaucrats to examine it and make a decision could be made. I also believe that in order to spend more time on specific RFA’s, no more than 10 should be allowed to run at any given time. There should be a waiting list for RFA nominations prior to being held so that more time can be spent on specific RFA’s for the closing bureaucrats. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 16:09, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

The first step towards fixing RfA is to fix RfB. Until that process manages to select enough bureaucrats who have the ability and determination not to treat RfAs as straight votes, then straight voting will be allowed to continue. --bainer (talk) 16:18, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Unless we strongly encourage them not to treat it as such and add other procedures as described above to make sure that it's done right. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 16:32, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Or we could decide that the problem is actually the confusion in the community about how RFA functions. The simple fact is that it has primarily functioned as a vote with embedded discussion for years. Democracy is not evil, and certainly no worse than all the other alternatives. In the vast majority of cases RFA is, and in my opinion should be, decided as a vote. That is the most pragmatic way to provide clear results and manage a process that routinely draws dozens to hundreds of contributors. Bureaucrats do not have magical consensus-sensing powers (even if one is willing to use the word "consensus" for something that 1/4 of people may be opposed to), and in general they will not have signifcantly greater insight into a candidate's qualifications than the dozens of other contributors in any particular discussion. I encourage the Bureaucrats to follow the voting in the vast majority of cases and to hell with WP:NOT. Dragons flight 17:06, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

There are too many inherent problems in proceeding it as a vote, as described above. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 17:20, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

And I strongly disagree. RFA works fine most of the time and many of the largest conflicts surrounding RFA have occured exactly because Bureaucrats overrode the direct vote count and substituted their own opinions about consensus. Marginal cases are always going to be marginal no matter what system is used, and that being the case, it is better to have a system (like the German wikipedia does) that consistently gives clear results than one that evokes cries of cabalism and bias everytime the result is different than people expect. Dragons flight 17:48, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

In my experience many successful RFAs shouldn't have been successful and many unsuccessful RFAs should have been successful. Most "votes" are made without significant examination of the discussion or users. Many times when the "votes" are made, the editor "voting" could easily have their views changed if they only spent the time needed on the RFA instead of coming, voting on a whim and then leaving without ever commenting again. If you think that RFA works fine most of the time then try spending some more time around administrators who really shouldn't have the tools to begin with or users who can't seem to become admins who are clearly qualified for the tools. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 18:01, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

A pure vote doesn't allow for discussion, which can be important. It would also tend to attract sockpuppets. There are no other real disadvantages to a pure vote that I'm aware of. The current system gives the opportunity for discussion, so is in that way better than a pure vote. We give everyone, including the 'crats, the opportunity to find and eliminate the sockpuppets, so that flaw is also solved by the current system. The real flaw in the current system is that we let the 'crats exercise discretion in ways that we shouldn't let them, particularly to disregard certain arguments because they don't like them, or shift the boundaries based on their personal opinion of the candidate. Those would be eliminated if we made the decision solely a function of the post-discussion vote after sockpuppets are eliminated, and got rid of all other 'crat discussion. Of course, this is the opposite of the original poster's suggestion to give the 'crats more discretion. RFA will only be broken if the community factionalizes too much on this issue and the factions become unwilling to live with the current system as a compromise. I can live with the current system as a compromise. GRBerry 18:10, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Did you read my initial post? Wikidudeman ^(talk) 18:13, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with most of what I think Wikidudeman is thinking, and at the same time disagree with some of what I think he's saying. I think much of it is a legitimate concern, but couched in the wrong argument. I think the perennial discussion of whether RfA is a discussion or a vote or a !vote is a semantic argument that doesn’t get to the heart of the problem, and in fact distracts us from getting to the heart of it. I think we should be clearer (or, if we’re already clear, more honest with ourselves) about what consensus means. I just re-read the Wikipedia article (not the policy) on Consensus decision-making, and I humbly suggest reading that article to anyone to re-focus their thoughts. My own personal experience outside Wikipedia in watching consensus develop comes from technical committees, where:

• The groups are much, much, much smaller
• Most people have a POV, and aren't afraid of having it or admitting it. BUT...
• All of the participants have a professional reputation to maintain, which would be severely damaged if there was even a hint of obstructionism, whether due to personal conflicts or what we here would call pointyness.
• The main focus of the committee is to continually alter the proposal so that it is acceptable to nearly everyone, rather than alter it just enough so that the percentage of opposers falls below a magic number. Only when the discussion has become hopelessly stalled does consideration of "how many opposers remain" come into it. There is a heavy emphasis on compromise, and on convincing opposers to suggest changes they would accept, rather than getting to a point where we can say "OK, the number of opposers is small enough that we should ignore them."

My own take on consensus as it applies to RfA's is:

• An RfA is harder than most things to compromise on, since the result is not a new wording in an article, or a new policy proposal, but ultimately a yes-no decision. For what it is, RfA doesn't do a terrible job, currently, of being a discussion and measuring consensus. But it could be better.
• WP:DEMOCRACY actually says it isn't an "experiment in democracy". There is nothing inherently evil in using a vote to measure consensus, and for a project of this size, where unanimity is essentially impossible, it's better than anything else.
• As far as "discussion vs. vote" is concerned, we should unashamedly combine the two: Consensus is acheived thru discusion; consensus is measured by a vote. We should remove the taboo of using the word vote without an ! in front of it.
• "Letting the bureaucrat determine consensus", if not driven by voting, is really "Let the bureaucrat use his own judegement to weight the relative importance of each argument". While I trust the judgement of every bureaucrat we have, I don't think this is good policy.
• It should be agreed that there is no limitation on disagreeing with someone else's comments, as long as it's civil.
• More focus should be put on addressing the concerns of the minority, so that they can feel comfortable changing their vote, rather than waiting to see if the size of the minority stays below a certain number.
• Encourage vote changing, as a Good Thing. Encourage continued participate in the discusion. No one in any other real-world consensus driven process would think of voting and then walking away, never to return.

More radical changes that would take more effort to implement:

• The boundary between pass and fail should be fuzzy. I'm making up my own numbers now, but I would say if it's between say 65% and 85%, the bureaucrat should NOT attempt to determine consensus, but should instead push the participants to review and rethink, by extending the vote, and asking participants to review the entire discussion, and change or confirm their original vote. Perhaps if someone doesn't return to review the entire thread and confirm, their vote could be discounted; although that might be a little draconian, its advantages might outweigh its disadvantages. But we should try to force the support percentage to go past 85% to pass, and below 65% to fail. There aren't that many RfA's that fall in this range, so it wouldn't be that much extra time and effort.
• Votes to determine consensus should be by active members of the community. While anyone is welcome to provide comments, votes to determine consensus should be limited to people with (again, making numbers up) 200-400 edits and a month or so of editing under their belt. Since we would be removing a large portion of bureaucrat discretion, we should be militant about striking votes from inappropriate people.
• If some RfA's are going to be extended for further discussion, reduce the workload somewhat by making the usual length of time shorter. 5 days instead of a week. If the result is in the range of 65% to 85%, extending it 2 more days and encouraging renewed discussion should be enough to swing things one way or the other.
• Make use of the fact that most new adminship candidates are willing to be open to recall to address opposer's concerns. If, to pick an example completely at random, a large number of opposers were concerned that a candidate might have too quick a temper, an opposer could say "I would change to support if the candidate acknowledges this is an important issue, and is willing to be open to recall, so that it is easy to remove the admin bit if my worst fears are realized."

Sorry this was so long, but... Wikidudeman started it! --barneca (talk) 18:32, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

The idea that RFAs could be extended in time to allow for more discussion and changing of opinions is really giving a lot more credit to some of the editors who cause such problems than they deserve. Unless we have clear policy that says that you must discuss your decisions at an RFA and must answer to objections then we can't go from talk page to talk page of people who just drop by and say "Oppose- Per above". Many editors would consider that harassment, and many editors even consider simple questioning of RFA opinions as harassment, which is absurd in my opinion as explained in the initial post. Let's use your RFA as an example, barneca. A lot of users opposed simply citing another editors comments. I think that they likely didn't even closely examine the evidence presented and were simply convinced by the amount of it. At least this is true in a lot of RFAs. Editors come and see a few paragraphs of evidence and 3 or 4 oppositions and just think "Hey, This much evidence and there MUST be a reason to oppose" and precede to oppose without ever even looking at it. This happens with supports also. An editor comes and sees 40 supports and 5 opposes and thinks "Hey, 40 supports and only 5 opposes? If I support then there won't be any controversy and I won't need to come back and defend my decision" and then the editor precedes to support, citing the above comments and then unwatches the RFA and moves on. Concerning Bureaucrats being the final decider, I see no problem with this as long as we have at least 3 bureaucrats who agree with promoting or not promoting and all bureaucrats involved agree. As mentioned above, There could also be a method for requesting other bureaucrats review it if there might be an issue of Conflict of interest. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 18:50, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

• You can give it a try (remember the experiment RfA formats?), and see how it goes. It does sound a bit like Featured Editor Candidate, whereby one substantial objection should be able to bring down the entire nomination if the crats do not feel that the actionable objection is addressed properly even without the pile-on editors. I must warn you, however, that the RfA system may be too "grandfathered" to be receptive to this kind of format. - Mailer Diablo 19:01, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

RFA is not broken, if it were, we would not be getting new admins, but we are, nor would we have a record number of active RFAs at the moment. — Rlevse • Talk • 19:05, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed RfA isn't broken, but it isn't perfect. Improvements can me made to unbroken things to make them better. --barneca (talk) 19:12, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Though some might argue that the fact that the current "record number of RFAs" is less than the number in late 2005 is a problem... Dragons flight 19:27, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Folks, The fact that Admins are being promoted doesn't mean that they should be promoted. Assuming that there are no problems with the system just because admins are being promoted would be like saying "The govt works fine, politicians are making laws, people are getting elected, everything is hunky dory!" Wikidudeman ^(talk) 14:26, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Zzzz

Without wanting to sound like a scratched record, I am getting pretty tired of people asserting RFA is broken. Prove it. We've had around 3,000 RFA discussions. How many of those were "wrongly" closed? How many RFAs failed to sysop someone who should have been sysopped, or sysopped someone that has subsequently been de-sysopped?

Don't simply tell us it's broken, back up your assertion with evidence.

Even if you can show me 50 RFAs that were closed wrongly, that would still be only a 1.7% error rate. And I bet you can't even show me 20. RFA isn't broken. Neil ☎ 19:35, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I propose that the idea that RfAs are broken is broken. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:02, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. Enough is enough. The page is working as best it can; a process like this cannot be simple or easy, and people need to get used to that. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 20:06, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

It's too subjective to provide solid and concrete evidence, but anyone with sufficient experience with it knows what the issues are and how to fix them. Sure, I can point out dozens of RFA's that have failed but shouldn't have, but as you say, that's only a small %. I suppose it would be possible for dozens of people to get together to examine all of the RFA's and examine which ones failed but should not have and which passed but should not have, but anyone with enough experience seeing unqualified editors become admins and qualified editors not would agree. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 14:30, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I think the biggest stumbling block is the fact that most complaints about how RfA operates has more to do with the participants than the process, while the proposals have reversed that focus to concentrate on the process. At most, all we (as individuals) can (and should) do is refuse to participate in whatever fad is being applied, and hope that it falls out of favor (for example, I haven't seen candidates be opposed for failing the "1 Featured Article" requirement in a while). EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:40, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

If "Adminship is no big deal" then having contributed to promoting featured articles isn't that big of a necessity. However there seems to also be a movement pushing the idea that Adminship IS a big deal and that even minor transgressions can cause someone to fail. This results in qualified editors who have made a mistake or two several months ago not being promoted yet unqualified editors who stay under the radar and who have only been here a few months be promoted. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 14:39, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

There have only been about 35 desysoppings where the admin is currently desysopped and would have to go through RfA to get the tools back. Out of 1368 admins that's a pretty good success rate, especially when you consider that 9 of them did not gain adminship through RfA. Looking through the old discussions most seem to have little opposition, which suggests that even here they were closed correctly. Hut 8.5 20:36, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

That's a bad argument. You're assuming that 1. All of the desysoppings were justified and 2 That all of the desysopps were the only ones that needed to be desysopped. It would be like saying "There weren't that many U.S. presidents impeached therefore most of them were good!" Wikidudeman ^(talk) 14:32, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I am going to agree with EVula here and also point out that a good deal of the problems with RfA would not be solved by a different process. Captain panda 22:07, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

RFA is only broken in the sense that we're short of admins. We really should take this seriously. --Tony Sidaway 00:46, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Short on admins? You must be planning to run for admin...(That was a joke, of course, but there does seem to be a movement occurring where most of what so many people do or say is only in an attempt to become an administrator.) The fact is that we are not 'short on admins'. The real problem is that we have too many unqualified admins and not enough qualified ones. Simply adding more admins won't do anything but complicate the problem more. Too many people are becoming administrators who simply aren't qualified for it. The results are wheel warring, admins breaking 3rr, lack of civility, etc, etc. This is itself bad for several reasons as it causes people to lose faith in wikipedia itself when administrators act like that. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 14:34, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

This won't ever happen but... If we could just give out the +sysop bit on a temporary basis (with the software de-sysopping to save everyones time) it would be so much better. Want to be an admin ? Okay subject to say 1,000 edits, clean block log and not currently involved in an edit war you can have it. After one week you loose it again. Then 1)The editor can really decide if they want to put up with the abuse they get and 2)The community has some admin actions to look at when assesing RfA, rather than believing that we can determine how good someone will be with admin buttons by reviewing their editing history when they didn't have them. Pedro :  Chat  14:58, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

This sounds like a good idea. Carcharoth 15:59, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, I don't think that one week will give people an accurate taste of what being an admin is like. I know my first few admin steps were rather tentative, and it wasn't until I'd been a sysop for a while (maybe a month) before I started being more aggressive in my adminship (such as blocks and more pro-active warnings), which is when you start getting into conflicts. I could be an exception, though. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:10, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, give people a 30 day run. I think it could be great, but there's two major problems - 1) the software patch to auto desysop and 2) we'd probably need a method of emergency desysopping at a more local level, and that then goes back to the age old debate of giving 'crats desysop powers. I think it's a nice thought but it won't ever happen. Pedro :  Chat  16:20, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

For those of you interested in all of the problems that arise when unqualified people are promoted to admin status, just take a brief look at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. I won't mention any specific incidents or individuals, but just browse through it at any given time and you'll see at least a couple incidents where administrators act uncivilly, do things against policy or guidelines, etc. There are actually a few listed as I speak. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 17:03, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

That just won't do. Please be specific. WP:ANI is always full of complaints about administrators, but this doesn't mean there are many administrators doing anything wrong. --Tony Sidaway 04:51, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

• RfA is most certainly broken in the sense that it will arrive at the wrong result some of the time. But I quite think that if there were a process that never arrived at the wrong result, it would be used everywhere. -Amarkov moo! 00:48, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

"Looking through your deleted contributions..."

I seem to see quite a lot of comments like this made in support of candidates

• Looking through your deleted contributions, your speedy deletion tagging seems spot on.

It seems a slightly odd thing to say, as the deleted articles are only the pages tagged which actually got deleted. So, assuming the reviewing admins are doing their job, all deleted CSD tags should be spot on, by definition. Surely in assessing a candidate's CSD tagging, it's at least as important, if not more so, to look through non-deleted contributions for speedies which were rejected - that's where the incorrect tags are likely to be found.

Not really a question, more of a suggestion for anyone who's only looking at one side of the coin. Iain99^{Balderdash and piffle} 17:52, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Somewhat true, somewhat untrue. I've seen plenty of articles that were tagged for speedy deletion with the wrong tag, yet I speedy deleted them for another reason. I think the most common mistaggings for articles I speedy delete involve A7, A1 and A3, and G1. I've taken down A7 tags under G10, A1/A3 tags under A7, and G1 tags under A7. A reviewer of deleted contributions can check if the tag applied matches the reason the deleting admin used and whether they agree with that decision. Whether any reviewers are doing that, I'm not sure. GRBerry 18:00, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Good point; I hadn't considered that this might be what people were checking. Of course, many articles fit multiple criteria: an article called "Joe Bloggs" with the text "you're a wanker" could plausibly be classed as G3, G10, A1, A7, and arguably A3 as well... in such cases I normally don't worry too much about which of the many possible tags to apply, except that if it's an attack page I'd give priority to G10, as some admins make a point of deleting attack pages before moving on to the others. Iain99^{Balderdash and piffle} 18:21, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Another point. If an admin has evidence that only admins can access, take a screen shot. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 23:01, 2 November 2007 (UTC)