User:Useight/RFA Subjects/Questions

Boilerplate questions (Archive 21)

I find the addition of the boilerplate questions for nominees to be, at best, marginally helpful, and at worst, demeaning. The questions are written in such a way that the correct answers are obvious, and I suggest that we quit using them. uc 22:05, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. VV 22:21, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I would agree that they should not be a boilerplate. However, if someone actually wants those questins answered, I think they have a right to ask them. It could easily be done on the user's talk page, but perhaps it is better to have it out in the open? I don't know if they're particularly good questions, and certainly I personally pay only passing attention to the answers, but I've always assumed they're put there because someone wants to know what the answers are before deciding. If we allow comments, why not questions? Is the objection to the questions themselves, or to the fact that they seem to be "imposed" on everyone? Jwrosenzweig 22:48, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't care that much, although I wouldn't call them demeaning. Still, it does produce a tendency to parrot acceptable answers, and they take up a lot of space on the page. I would prefer to see nominators and nominees do a better job of articulating why the candidate would make a good administrator. Questions can then be asked in the comments section, preferably of a more individualized nature. --Michael Snow 22:55, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I wrote the first three questions, someone else the next two, and Meelar contributed the last. The reason I originally posted them was to try to get some simple commitment from candidates that they were really interested in the job, and didn't want to be admins simply as an honorific. I was encouraged to do this by two things: (1) the fact that many people appeared to be voting one way or another for no obvious reasons, or were listening to what other people were saying without actually hearing from the candidate; and (2) a candidate who couldn't answer simple questions about the duties, even after being prompted. They seem to have caught on and I believe actually encourage the candidates to think about the job they are up for. Also, since an admin really should have decent people skills (like, when they use their admin powers and are challenged) we should see how a potential admin responds to a few straightforward questions. -- Cecropia | Talk 23:01, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I guess my point is that this has become ritualistic, and while some of the questions may be appropriate for some candidates, they have become ritualistic and candidates clearly feel obligated to answer them even when they have already covered the same ground elsewhere (in their response to the nomination or on their user page, for example). uc 19:03, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I see your point, but I also feel it helps maintain a level playing field in asking all candidates to answer a few identical questions. I think voters' decisions can be enhanced by seeing not only what the candidate answers, but how. It introduces the candidate to Wikipedias who may not know them. As to your point that "clearly feel obligated to answer them even when they have already covered the same ground elsewhere" that can simply be dealt with by saying "Please see my acceptance." -- Cecropia | Talk 19:50, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree with UC, the questions are something along the line of the "Are you transporting a bomb?" questions at the airport. I've seen too many good candidates shot down because of a casual or even semi-humorous response taken the wrong way. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 20:31, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)

I don't like the questionnaire either. The answers to the first three questions are Yes, Yes, <some known chores>, and the rest reads very much like a job interview. But nominees are not applying for a job, they're offering to maybe participate a bit more than before in Wikipedia housekeeping. All in all, I find the questionnaire pretty unhelpful. To judge a nomination, one still has to check a cross-section of the user's contributions and draw on experiences made in prior interactions with the nominated user. Lupo 15:37, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I also think they aren't working and that they should go -- it hasn't really been helpful to me in trying to decide who would be a good admin and for me they do seem a bit demeaning -- I think the answers don't mean anything, and I think UC and Lupo have laid out my reasoning. BCorr|Брайен 15:50, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think that question 6 is useful as it atleast provides a helpful avenue to self-criticize possible past mistakes, and an easy way of having the nominee mention himself what may be his worst mark against him todate (rather than have others mention it for him). To counterbalance it question 4 and 5 can be merged into a single question about some of the candidate's best contributions. But I agree, that the first 3 questions atleast are worse than useless and they should go. Aris Katsaris 16:33, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I was never a fan of the first three questions, which is pretty much why I wrote the second three. My purpose in the second three was so that editors I didn't know as much about could quickly point me to the salient details of their editing, and so that I could look and make a reasonable judgment about them. The idea was to have them point me to their editing contributions, their participation in the Wikipedia community at large, and their biggest mistake. I never particularly liked the change from biggest mistake to a question about edit conflicts, however - I always preferred my original question about biggest regrets.

In any case, I think the latter three questions do serve a purpose, which is giving people who haven't had a lot of contact with a given editor the chance to look at their work and make an informed judgment about them. I wouldn't mind if the first three went, though. Snowspinner 17:00, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

The major purpose of the first questions isn't to get a "yes" or "no," as such, but to have candidates declare that they have made an effort to understand what the job is about, since some candidates obviously didn't have a clue what privileges, powers and responsibilities the job entails. As to the last question, I agreed with Meelar's change. "What is your biggest mistake?"-type questions are too Maoist-self-critical for me, and are actually intrusive, because they force someone to come up with a potentially BS answer to show how honest they are. OTOH, revealing how they've dealt with conflict, and how they feel about how they've dealt with conflict goers to heart of a good admin. -- Cecropia | Talk 17:45, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Some random thoughts:

• I don't think it is wise to turn adminship requests into either a job interview or an essay contest.
  • Historically, adminship was granted to almost anyone based on participation and a relative absence of problem edits; "this should be no big deal."
  • Newer Wikipedians are reminded that up until 18 months ago adminship was granted by acclaimation on the mailing list. Then the wiki page was set up. The now-mandatory 80% voting threshold was adopted sometime later, about a year ago.
  • As of some months ago, there has been greater focus on the duration of participation and the number of edits, and both of these bars appear to be creeping ever upward.
  • The recent trend is towards treating the adminship requests like an interview where a single ill-considered comment can become disqualifying.
• I think the questions are bad because they continue this trend.
• I believe that having an effective review process in place that is conducted periodically for existing admins who wish to continue their adminship may help reduce some of the paranoia.
• I believe the role of adminship in the project has shifted. Administrators now have greater authority than they once did. This has become a big deal. There are many causal factors, probably the greatest being an increasing willingness to deal with non-regulars in a summary fashion.
• I am concerned that this process has evolved considerably with little debate and discussion.

uc 18:05, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I see all your points, but it is what it is (or what it's become). For example, on the one hand a number of editors did not want running tallies for good reason: this is not supposed to be a popularity contest. OTOH, other editors demand that promotions be objectively justified. If we don't have firm rules, how can we criticize anyone for not following them?

If we feel this is all bad, then we need some way to review the whole process systemically rather than piece by piece. Personally, I'm not expressing an opinion at this point on which way this should go. -- Cecropia | Talk 18:35, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

UninvitedCompany is perceptive as usual in his analysis of Wikipedia trends, but I would say the evolution has involved much "debate and discussion", not little, as is indicated by the 20 archives of discussion from this talk page. Cecropia may also have a good point that some systemic analysis of adminship is necessary, including consideration of a possible review system for existing admins. --Michael Snow 05:02, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

While you are correct that there has been a great deal of discussion, it has been chiefly limited to implementation matters, things like toctallies and "bureaucrats" and whether and how to remove bogus nominations before they're expired. This stuff has value, but it's not the same as discussing and agreeing upon the standards for approval, which are evolving on a case-by-case basis. This evolution is driven by people who have enough interest to vote here. People can vote any way for any reason. While there's been some discussion about the required number of edits and the number of months of participation, and even some votes, there was never any consensus on these issues. Yet, the policy has changed, vis-a-vis where it was 18 months ago.

I agree with Cecropia that some sort of comprehensive review would be more valuable than a piecemeal approach. We could start by asking whether we need admins (probably yes), how many we need, what the effects of admins are on group dynamics and how we would like to change this, what makes good and bad admins, and so on. It would be helpful to have some sort of numerical analysis of the use of admin-only functions - perhaps there are many admins who use these features rarely if at all. Perhaps there are only a few people doing the bulk of the admin work. I have my suspicions but the data would be rather more actionable.

I am currently of the opinion that, since page protection, rollback, and page deletion actions are rarely controversial and readily reversed, that these abilities should be handed out more liberally than at present. Page protection is the least used of these and has the most potential for creating trouble since it confers the ability to edit protected pages. Bans and blocks, and image deletion, are potentially more problematic and could perhaps be made available only on a more limited basis.

uc 15:35, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Changes made

I have rewritten Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Candidate questions based on the discussion here, consolidating the first five questions into two and leaving the last one intact. This should hopefully solve the problem of leading questions that make the candidate give the "proper" response, and reduce the amount of space they take up on the page. It will not eliminate concerns about interviews/essay-contests, but I figure making the questions less flawed is at least an improvement in the situation. --Michael Snow 18:40, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have one problem with the rewrite, and that is that I feel we need something to light a fire under candidates to know and acknowledge that they have a clue as to the powers, extent of the powers, and limitations of adminship. I realize that the former first two questions may not do the trick, but I think we need something.

I've observed that even some well-meaning new admins make mistakes that they shouldn't have made if they had familiarized themselves with policy, such as protecting articles that they've edited on, or protecting or unprotecting without being asked by the editors on the articles. One new admin posted material suggesting (s)he was available to perform certain admin duties on request which should normally only be performed as the result of consensus.

I know that there is some sentiment for a structure for de-sysopping, but I would support that only as a last, last, last, last (did I mention last?) resort. I have seen some situations which show (IMO) the problems of such a structure, not the least of which is that such a structure would lead to harassment and political attacks on perfectly good admins against whom some editors have a grudge. Much better to give admins a little gentle vetting up front than fall back on a nasty de-sysopping later.

Maybe we need a "So You Want to be an Admin" checklist that every prospective admin should have to read with questions like "When is it OK to delete an article without consensus?" (Only when a new article is obvious vandalism), "When a block is justified, how long should an initial user block be"? (24 hours). "We have hashed out an article version that has unanimous support on Talk from all the editors on it. Can I protect it and require new edits to be vetted through talk? (No). And so on. -- Cecropia | Talk 19:09, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Feel free to continue rewriting the questions, obviously, but I have to say that the checklist/quiz for prospective admins sounds disturbing to me. We have never required people to pass an examination here at any level of participation, and that's the direction this seems to go. I am willing to accept that new admins may occasionally err in the use of their abilities, just as new editors make lots of mistakes out of unfamiliarity. I think it is more important to determine whether candidates will listen to corrections and learn from their mistakes than to receive an assurance that they will never make mistakes. --Michael Snow 20:01, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure it should be an examination, but rather a FAQ that each person should know before promotion. -- Cecropia | Talk 01:58, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, we have Wikipedia:Administrators' reading list, which could probably use some updating. I am for the most part unconcerned about candidates' knowledge of the intimate details of policy regarding use of admin-only features. Most new admins strive to be noncontroversial and procedural errors can be reverted (and are). Editors who have weathered a reasonable amount of work in the articles themselves usually have an understanding of the ephemeral "way things work at Wikipedia," and that along with judgement and levelheadedness are the key qualities, IMO. They can peruse the reading list after being promoted.

Some of the special page templates should probably be updated to warn of the more common gaffes. uc 17:50, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Interview questions (Archive 26)

When did the interview questions become mandatory rather than optional? Taco Deposit | Talk-o to Taco 14:32, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

since people started to feel the need to vote on every candidate rather than those they had prior knowlage of.Geni 15:20, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

WP:TRI requirement (Archive 27)

Hello! With more and more new wikipedia users unaware of WP:TRI, I'd like to start asking all current candidates to answer a question about the trifecta. I'd even like to phrase it in a distressing way, and such that innocently answering it might cause disruption of rfa and thus emnity from bureaucrats. (Thus answering the question to people's satisfaction will require some thinking out of the box, and application of WP:DICK and WP:IAR, which is what we want :-) ), We'd also like to see the answered phrased along NPOV of course.

Well.. that's a list of requirements... Let's see what we should ask:

• Please review WP:TRI. There are three cardinal rules of wikipedia. Note which policies are included, and find out who supported them, when, and why. Do you think that these are sufficient? Please answer in 750 words. Even if you think this question is unfair, please allow the candidate to deal with it as they see fit.

Hmm, Let's see, that looks about right...

• Who when and why covers NPOV. check
• The question gives the editor some stress, so we can test if they hold up under WP:DICK. check
• 750 word essay on RFA? No way! That takes up too much space and is disruptive, but we're still asking it! time for some WP:IAR. check

Okay, so that's looking good. But maybe you might know some improvements to the question? Please comment! Kim Bruning 14:20, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Kim, I just noticed that WP:DICK is on VFD on Meta. Some of the Meta-ians seem to feel that since its mostly only en that uses it, that it should only be on en. func(talk) 14:31, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Just checked, that vote's not going anywhere, it's a near unanimous keep. Duh :) Kim Bruning 14:37, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

So you'd like to create a controversy to see how people handle it? Hmm, sounds counterproductive to me. We have enough controversy on Wikipedia as it is. If you want to see how people handle a controversy, have a requirement that candidates point out a conflict they successfully averted. That would require consensus to add of course. Now if this was all a joke, and I'm the wet blanket, I apologize. Shoot me, I'm the literal. :) - Taxman ^Talk 14:45, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

The conflict they've averted is already on the (very short!) list. I'm asking them to show that they can apply WP:TRI. Kim Bruning 15:06, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Taxman. IMHO all it would do is stress the candidate and make them not want to apply for adminship or not accept a nomination. Howabout1 ^{Talk to me!} 14:54, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, (with due credit to Bishonen) it makes adminship more self-selecting. Kim Bruning 15:06, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

A 750 word essay is just too excessive in any case. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 16:47, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes. That is correct. It's an unreasonable request. What will the candidate do? Kim Bruning 17:20, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with starting off every adminship vote with a deliberate controversy. What problem is this intended to solve? New users aren't aware of WP:TRI? Then add it to the welcome messages. New users aren't generally admin candidates. Joyous (talk) 17:02, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

Interesting, how does the question cause a controversy, and how can that be fixed? Kim Bruning 17:20, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

This proposal would be counterproductive. Essay requirements are for school. Maurreen 17:23, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Ok, well the intent is to figure out if the admin in question actually understands WP:TRI, too many new admins fail to do so, and occaisionally cause a heck of a lot of work, so I'd like to figure out somehow if they've gotten it. Any alternative suggestions are welcome. The essay request is unreasonable yes, that's the point. It's one possible way to test understanding of TRI: if a candidate understands TRI properly, they will find a way to gracefully sidestep the problem. Try to think how you'd answer this request if you were on RFA today? Kim Bruning 17:27, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the only way I could do that is to write the essay, unless you're telling me to WP:IAR and therefore write like 2 sentences on what it is. But how far from there until not answering the question at all? I'm not quite sure if I see what you mean, and if you mean it in the most literal sense I'm afraid I must disagree. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 17:42, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Different people can figure out different ways to answer the question. It's a disguised challenge to get creative and apply your admin skills to an actual (if slightly artificial) problem. It's *your call* , what will you do? So like *do* give a 2 line answer, if it shows you understand NPOV, DICk, and IAR, perfect! Or delete the question entirely, with an explanation why... , or maybe put up an essay in your own userspace (750 words or no) and link to it, or ... etc. ...

If a candidate doesn't catch on and writes a 750 word essay on the RFA page, they're obviously not suited to being an admin yet anyway :-P Kim Bruning 17:54, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Kim, possibly it would be useful to see an example of the problem you are trying to correct. Maurreen 17:45, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I think WP:TRI is a good set of guidlines to follow. However, each editor is going to intrepret them in a different manner. Requiring anyone to demonstrate their understanding of these guidelines in such a deceitful manner, borders on instruction creep. Who is to determine if the candidate was able to use WP:IAR in a clever way? For that matter, assigning such a requirement to potentional admin candidates is bias, unless the same requirement is asked of all current admins. If anyone feels that a user cannot be an admin unless they can demonstrate how well they use and understand WP:TRI, then an admin shouldn't remain an admin, unless they can do the same. so we can test if they hold up under WP:DICK, and who is going to be performing this? Are there guidelines, who will intercede when it goes too far? I do not totally disagree with wanting to know if a candidate meets a certain criteria, but that should be demonstrated by their past edits and performance, and not left up to random testing by any user, who may not even understand the guidelines themselves. ∞Who?¿? 18:29, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

In the context of RFA however, we're already looking at how a person behaves. The point is that there is no single *correct* answer, just that how an editor responds to the question will give us an excellent opportunity to gain insight into their views. I am glad to hear that you feel that requirements for admins are becoming crazier by the day. I feel that this however is a sane requirement, the more so since older admins all *do* understand the policy. We try to get everyone who has become an admin to understand WP:TRI, but it'd help if people were aware of it in advance, rather than post hoc. I do feel that any current admin who fails to understand WP:TRI should be either so educated eventually deadminned, but fortunately we haven't had the latter happen much so far. :-) Kim Bruning 19:02, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

That's understandable, and I do agree all potential admins should have a better knowledge of all the guidelines before adminship. I really don't think any current admin should be de-admin based merely on the WP:TRI, I was just giving a realistic comparison. I did however, understand the reasoning for testing of candidates, my only concern with this is who would do it, and how will they be monitored? It would be quite scary if everyone took it upon themselves to do this, and the outcome of such, I feel would not be pretty, especially if the "tester" pushes the "testee" to far. ∞Who?¿? 19:07, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Ah *RIGHT* but no no, it's just the one question today. I'm wondering if I can get away with asking that, and how might it be improved, one way or the other? Kim Bruning 19:34, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Not really sure, to be honest. I think maybe putting it under About RFA section of RFA and on the top of Wikipedia:Administrators' reading list. Then you could question the candidate on how they feel about certain policies, but NOT about WP:TRI. That way, you would know if they took the time to read it, as there were two prominent links to it, and then probe them about *other* policies, and see how they respond. Might be a good start, but theres a ton of the methods, all are probably good, but should only be used with WP:FAITH ∞Who?¿? 20:04, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Ok, you just proved my point I think ;-). WP:TRI consists of 3 rules, each of which alone can be said to be the basis of 90% of wikipedia policy. Together, they're overkill. The trifecta is the shortest policy summary we have. It's also the trickiest one to grasp. That's why it seems to me that admins should know it explicitly. :) Kim Bruning 12:48, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I believe that WP:TRI is a poor summary of the project's "basic characteristics." I disagree that "Ignore all rules" is of the same importance as NPOV. And while civil and polite behavior is important, perpetuating the "don't be a dick" slogan is counter to the scholarly goals of the project, and as a title, hardly qualifies as brilliant prose. Finally, I don't think the project is well served by additional barriers to adminship. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 18:55, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

While I agree with most of those comments, I don't think that we can get to any scholarly purpose if people act as Dicks. And as Immanuel Kant once said "Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 03:26, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps more fundamentally, any candidate for adminship will (well, should) know how to look at page history so will be able to see how previous candidates answered the questions (unless you're proposing deleting previous RFAs, keeping them from the prying eyes of all but admins). A user's edit history is an open book - if sufficient understanding of WP:TRI (or any other pet criteria anyone has) isn't demonstrated through previous edits, just vote against them. If you think it's too much work to personally do this, then I'd suggest it's perhaps not that important to you. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:06, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, they can do that. That might be a valid solution too. :-) Some people have very active social behaviour on the wiki, and you already know all about them, or it's very easy to figure them out from their edit summaries. Others are quiet and unassuming, and for those especially, adding this question would be quite useful! Kim Bruning 12:48, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Am I the only one who finds it mildly amusing that this horrendous piece of instruction creep is being proposed...in order to tell people to avoid instruction creep? Not to mention that I've never heard of WP:TRI before! Ambi 12:56, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

You mean, replace one of the questions with a question about tri? :-P And I *do* have a sense of humor, yes. Well people tell me I do... sometimes, right? That and it's not like the intent of asking wasn't to draw people's attention to the policy summary in question O:-)

I'm not immediately proposing one thing or the other, rather I'd like constructive criticism and maybe creative ideas on how to further my goal (if folks have time for me at least, that is) :-) Kim Bruning 13:51, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Kim, I don't understand what the goal is. Can you give an example of the problem you are trying to correct? Maurreen (talk) 14:52, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I'd like for all admins understand wikipedia policy before they become admins. The policy trifecta (WP:TRI) is our most succinct summary, but also the trickiest to grasp. If you can apply the policy trifecta correctly, I think you're suited to be an admin. The problem is that currently we have a couple of admins who do *not* actually understand the trifecta, or indeed understand how wikipedia policy is made at all. At least the trifecta contains a clue for that :-) Kim Bruning 23:52, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Being, as some people know, a humourless jerk, I feel the need to point out that the "dick" in "Don't be a dick" is offensive in some cultures (as, of course, is "jerk"). While I entirely endorse the intent of DBAD, I remain uncomfortable at weaving it into our established policy, which is the effect of this proposal. Furthermore, a trick question feels like an inappropriate hurdle for someone of whom we also ask "assume good faith". Perhaps a more straightforward approach would be to ask "What is your opinion of the proposal that RfA candidates should write a 750 word essay on WP:TRI?" —Theo (Talk) 00:25, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

I dunno, hurdles can sometimes be good. But your suggestion might be going somewhere. Care to expand on it? Kim Bruning 00:10, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

IMO, Wikipedia:Five pillars is a better summarization of the character of Wikipedia as a whole, and doesn't include the potentially troublesome WP:DICK, at least not directly. Regardless, I think the idea of needing to demonstrate one's understanding of even a set of foundational principles in order to be a valid candidate for adminship is a bit redundant. A candidate's worthiness for adminship ought to be obvious partially from his/her answers to the "standard questions" (which could, of course, be tweaked or lengthened) but primarily from voters' due diligence in researching the candidate's contribution history. Trick questions are simply a bad idea, and what's to prevent a candidate from viewing this very page and learning that the question is a trick question? android79 00:43, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

Well, 5P is a better summarisation of WP as a whole, forsure, but TRI is more specifically suited to admin tasks :-) I've been talking about the standard questions all this time, I'd like to tweak them to give a better view of the candidate (They weren't etched in stone by the Hand Of God, you know! besides, then there'd have to be 10 ;-) ). Since there is no "correct answer", candidates peeking here can't hurt! Kim Bruning 00:10, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Is it possible to pose my own question or two on a nominated candidate? (Archive 28)

I feel sometimes that the generic questions are, well quite generic. So is it posible to query the nominee on my own set of specific questions? If so where should I put up the posers? Tx. Idleguy 10:03, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

Yes. Stick them in the 'comments' section. --Ngb ^?!? 10:09, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Yup, in fact as long as they're formulated nicely they're much appreciated as they make it all the easier to get a glimpse into the mind of the candidate. --fvw* 11:37, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

If the questions are many in number, or likely to provoke long discussion, I'd suggest putting the questions on the user's talk page (or on the talk page for the nomination) with a brief comment and link to the questions in the "Comments" area of the nomination. It's certainly not a requirement, but that might be the wiser move. Jwrosenzweig 14:40, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Definitely! You can ask as many as you like. Ask them under comments, or add them to the generic questions, or as part of a ThreadMode discussion. Of course, be a bit careful what you ask, the candidate is under no obligation to answer. Kim Bruning 16:15, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

"Confirmation hearing" approach? (Archive 32)

I would like to propose an alternative procedure for considering new administrator nominations. Instead of rendering "support" or "oppose" opinions, which gives the illusion that a vote is taking place, why not have the nominee answer many questions from individual wikipedians over the seven-day nomination period? Then, after the seven-day period is over, a bureaucrat can read through all the answers the nominee gives, and choose whether to promote that nominee based on the big picture that emerges from the nominee's responses. I do, however, acknowledge an inherent disadvantage of this approach, in that the read-through by the bureaucrat would be very time-consuming, but that could be solved by putting together a "promotion committee" of bureaucrats to read through the responses, and then come to a consensus on whether or not to promote the nominee. In addition, this approach can reinforce the "Wikipedia is not a democracy" doctrine. What do you think?  Denelson83  06:10, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

We don't want to promote "Wikipedia in not a democracy" by promoting "Wikipedia is a bureaucracy". The bureaucrats are trusted individuals, but do we really want to make every single nomination a pure bureaucrat judgement call? Also, unless the current process is broken, I don't see a reason to dilute the power of common users. Isomorphic 06:50, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

How would people with valid reasons to oppose a nomination voice that and present evidence? ANd for those of us who live in the rest of the world, what is a "confirmation hearing" exactly? Filiocht | The kettle's on 07:27, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

It was a metaphor for the idea I was trying to present, Filiocht. The nominee answers a whole plethora of questions the group considering the nomination asks.  Denelson83  07:57, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

We already expect nominees to stand on their contributions and their responses to the standard questions. What else would we need to know? - jredmond 15:09, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

I think it would be great if we encouraged more questions to be asked, however it is impractical to remove the "voting" system. Martin 15:08, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

It would be too subjective. The voting system is much more transparent. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:46, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. Letting one bureaucrat decide the outcome of an RfA that sometimes gets 50+ votes? No way. -Greg Asche (talk) 02:10, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Template:RfA (Archive 34)

I saw that Jguk added to the questions to be asked 'Have you edited under any other accounts? ([1]). I happen to know a user or two who once was a vandal but then went straight. Of course if they say that they once controlled that vandal account, you'll see waves of oppose, so I'm not really for this question. Plus do we want to make it precedent that anyone can add in new questions? We'd probably end up with about 30 questions, taking a day's time just to answer them... A bit too bureaucratic for the likes of me. Redwolf24 (talk—How's my driving?) 18:52, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I think it's a valuable question, actually. Andre (talk) 18:54, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't see why people shouldn't be able to question the candidate. The candidate is under no obligation to answer any questions presented to them. But I don't think they should be added to the standard questions template without consensus from the community; the standard questions were put together after some large debates I believe. Talrias (t | e | c) 18:56, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree that adding more questions was a mistake. Frankly, I don't think the questions should be required at all, but as it stands they are a mandatory part of the adminship process. That means additions to the mandatory questions should have a consensus backing them. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Without a consensus, extra questions shouldn't be added. Jguk can append his questions to the individual RFA, that isn't a problem. =Nichalp «Talk»= 19:34, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree - the standard questions are standard for a reason, and any change to the status quo should be agreed upon by the community - else chaos will reign over the template.  BD2412 ^talk 19:58, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I think any user should be able to ask questions of the individual canidate who may or may not choose to answer but I think that this question shouldn't be one of the default ones. Jtkiefer ^{T | @ | C} ----- 20:15, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

It may make more sense to ask if users have vandalised under any other account rather than just edited under another one. This would (assuming people answer honestly) highlight problem users without needing to remove privacy from users who have genuine need to edit under another account. Considering someone (or someone who shared the IP, opinion, and editing style of a user here) was recently made an admin after vandalising the September 11 memorial wiki, it may be useful to ask if they've vandalised any Wikimedia wikis, rather than just this one. Angela. 02:21, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Longer nominee replies to questions (Archive 35)

Can I encourage people who have been nominated, either self-nominated or by someone else, to spend a little more time answering the three questions? This especially applies to people who haven't been here for the typical duration expected of a candidate, and for people with fewer than 1 000 edits. Having more detailed answers allows people who might usually oppose due to low edit counts or other similar reasons might instead support. I don't really think a one line answer can go into that detail about a potential admin's interests when they become an admin or their contributions up to that point. What do other people think? Talrias (t | e | c) 19:03, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

My personal opinion is that if people want to sabotage their RfA's by writing short answers to the questions, it's up to them. It just shows how serious (or not) they actually are about Wikipedia and Adminship. FireFox 19:08, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with FireFox. I personally started my question answers about 3-4 weeks before I nominated myself, and let them sit for a bit and edited them again a few times before posting them. I wanted my answers to be well thought through. If others slap down one or two sentences, and don't seem to take much time considering them, well, thats their choice and they run the risk of making whatever kind of an impression such a response makes. Evilphoenix 19:29, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Not always - a person might not know what a good length might be. Sometimes if you write too much, people might just lose interest and stop reading it! A length guideline (or telling candidates that they should examine x points in their answer) is not unreasonable. Enochlau 02:19, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

"I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time." -- Blaise Pascal. (Kim Bruning 21:03, 20 October 2005 (UTC))

I think that more questions are the answer. Such as "what do you thinks is concensus genrally(2/3 or 3/4?)" and "when would you overide it? What if 1/2 say delete, 1/4 say merge and 1/4 say redirect?" Also, when do you protect pages?". Any comments.Voice of All ^{@|Esperanza|E M} 04:56, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I think more questions might work, but not those questions. We shouldn't ask anything that involves numbers, because if numbers aren't specified in Wikipedia policy, asking administrators to specify numbers would end up creating a de facto standard here, which is not what we're on about. Also, asking questions that are merely procedural, I think, are rather useless, as we'll just get people summarising the policy pages. Enochlau 05:37, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

That's right, any question asking about specific consensus numbers is a bad idea, you're either too high or too low and one group or another won't be happy. What I'd like to see is evidence of a nominee's recent activity in admin type areas....there's always backlogs in WP:CP and WP:RM, there's certain types of AFDs that can be closed by non-admins along with RC patrol, vandal duty and policy pages to be involved in. I'd like to modify question one to ask a nominee what admin type work they have done in the past in addition to what they expect to be doing going forward. In my experience the most successful admins have been involved in those sorts of things before they became an admin. And after all, that's the sort of work they were nominated for (or applied for) at WP:RFA. It'd be nice to see a track record when considering them and it would benefit them when they are up for admin. Rx StrangeLove 06:25, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I could see how those numbers would be devisive.

I do like your idea about question 1. While saying what you would do does require knowledge of what admins do, saying what you did do helps to see who is ready to walk right into adminship without a lack of experience.Voice of All ^{@|Esperanza|E M} 16:40, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

• For what it's worth, I could care less about the questions. The first question is especially pointless, and the other two don't tell me a whole lot about the candidate either. Frankly, I don't care that much if the candidate answers the questions, and I certainly don't approve of this newfangled requirement of expecting the candidate to write extensive essays on what are essentially useless questions. Kelly Martin (talk) 01:41, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Delisting when questions not answered (Archive 35)

The new procedure is mostly ok, but since the questions are not mandatory, I don't think people should delist if someone doesn't answer them.

Kim Bruning 00:54, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

More to the point, when a member of the arbcom adds a listing here pursuant to an arbcom decision, it's probably not a good idea to revert him (grin) →Raul654 00:57, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Arbcom referrals are a special case, and probably shouldn't be reverted. But the delistings are meant to prevent the "Oppose until the questions are answered" votes we were getting. Titoxd^(?!?) 01:05, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

It's been Neutral til answered in my experience. Durin recently said to me that the policy reads they must answer the questions, but I'm totally against this. If someone doesn't wanna answer the questions, there's no stand alone literal POLICY stating they must. Policy dictates they must accept the nomination however, as we won't op someone who doesn't want it ;-) Redwolf24 (talk) 01:11, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it actually says explicitly anymore that nominations without the questions answered will be removed. Christopher Parham (talk) 06:12, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah I shouldnta de-listed it, which I realized after I had, but by then I'd already been reverted. Sorry Raul. Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 01:20, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Tsaright, we all make mistakes. →Raul654 01:23, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Maybe a better compromise would be to replace the boilerplate questions (with no answers) with a small explanatory notice when a arbcom referral or other special circumstance takes place? (Although in an ideal world people would not blindly oppose due to no answers without reading enough to realize why there are no answers :) Turnstep 11:33, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Information on De-listing

I offer the following information only as information for those who may have recently come to the RfA discussion page as a result of Stevertigo's RfA. I do not assert that the following policies apply to that nomination, I only wish to make clear why certain procedures have generally been followed on RfA recently.

• Kim Bruning commented above: "The new procedure is mostly ok, but since the questions are not mandatory, I don't think people should delist if someone doesn't answer them. "

• →Raul654 pointed out that the listing in question was added at the behest of the ArbCom, which does make it a special case.

• Christopher Parham then commented that "I don't think it actually says explicitly anymore that nominations without the questions answered will be removed."

As a consideration for discussion, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/nominate currently states: "Once this RfA subpage has been created, the nominator must explain on the RfA subpage why this nominee would make a good administrator, and the nominee must accept the nomination and answer the questions on the RfA subpage before it can be transcluded to the main RfA page. This prevents editors from voting against candidates simply because they have not accepted the nomination or answered the questions. It also prevents both nominees and nominators from being embarassed when a nomination is declined."[2]. This information was added on October 23 2005, beginning with this revison: [3]. Prior to that, the page had only these less clear instructions, which stated:

1. Go to your RfA subpage, and either accept or decline your nomination. If you decline, be sure to inform your nominator.
2. After you accept your nomination, make sure to answer the standard questions for all candidates.
3. Change the time on your RfA page to indicate the current time (available on this page).
4. Edit this page and add the following text above the most recent nomination (replacing USERNAME with your name):

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

(from this revision, dated October 7, 2005.)

RfA standard procedure for some time now has been to require the questions to be answered and the nomination accepted before being transcluded to the main page. A discussion in procedure change to require nominations to be accepted before being transcluded to the Mainpage occured here. Further discussion occured here. Several RfA's have previously been removed from the RfA page, with the given reason being both that the candidate had not accepted, and that questions had not been answered:

1. [4] (unaccepted)
2. [5]
3. [6] (questions unanswered)
4. [7] (questions unanswered)
5. [8]
6. [9]
7. [10]
8. [11] (questions unanswered)
9. [12]

With one recent exception, where Titoxd removed a nomination that was accepted but the questions were unanswered [13], and Redwolf24 replaced it, asserting that "they only have to accept, they dont have to answer Q's yet", [14], which does seem to contradict the previous precedent.

I offer the above information only as information for those who may have recently come to the RfA discussion page as a result of Stevertigo's RfA. I do not assert that the preceding policies apply to that nomination, I only wish to make clear why certain procedures have generally been followed on RfA.

Best regards, Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 19:54, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't recall the policy discussion that led to the assertion that there is a consensus to remove nominations where the candidate fails to answer the questions. Answering them is optional, and a small number of candidates have either failed to answer them or deliberately deleted them from the RfA and still passed. I object to this new requirement; at the very least, let's have a poll on this issue so that I can find out if there is anyone other than myself and Kim Bruning who feel that this is unnecessary. Kelly Martin (talk) 01:57, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Again, I link you to this discussion (linked above), which I assert has a consensus that the nomination should be accepted and the questions answered before a nomination is placed on the RfA page. In my mind, it also holds that pages should not remain listed unless questions are answered, and that has been the practice on the page for the recent time period. That does not mean that the issue cannot be reconsidered, I am simply trying to assert that there was a discussion of this and a reasonable consensus for that action, at that time. Further, I am not asserting that said policy of removing unaccepted and unanswered nominations applies to Stevertigo's RfA, I am merely discussing the process in general. I personally haven't noticed any candidates that have refrained from attempting to answer the questions, or have removed the questions, but I am sure you have been observing RfA longer than I. Best regards, Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 02:21, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Neutral, until you answer my new question... (Archive 40)

I've noticed something of a trend in recent RfA's, where an voter will vote "Neutral, until you answer my new question(s)", accompanied by the posting of some number of new questions in the comments section (in Ianblair23's RfA, for example, Aaron Brenneman posted 5 such questions). For some reason, I find myself irked by such statements - as though the voter is demanding that the nominee jump through an extra hoop just for that voter. Additional questions may be appropriate, but I feel a more polite thing would be to just ask the questions, and then vote neutral without putting a condition on your vote. Obviously an editor who asks a question is looking to clear up some point that may effect their vote (and perhaps others). BD2412 T 03:45, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm afraid I do not see the problem. If the user does not feel like answering, the vote will simply remain neutral, which by definition does not hurt or help a user's chances. --Maru (talk) Contribs 03:57, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree, but it does become an issue when people say oppose until the person answers the questions. Jtkiefer ^{T | @ | C} ----- 04:34, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Seconded. Redwolf24 (talk) 04:38, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

I would hope that bureaucrats would ignore oppose votes made for this reason. Guanaco 04:52, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Neutral votes are generally ignored by bureaucrats. =Nichalp «Talk»= 05:14, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

But not oppose votes. Guanaco 02:51, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

I stangely feel the need to defend myself here. This user's contributions were extensive due to the nature of the area they focused on. I found it very difficult to seperate out anything that showed more about what this guy was about, so after looking over like 3K contributions I posted some questions in the comments section, and made a note on the user's talk page saying "take your time". When he really took his time, I then placed my name under "neutral" with the comment "Just waiting." I'm not sure what the problem with this is, and I'd hope that other voters would pay attention to the answers (or lack thereof) to questions as well, so this isn't about "just [...] that voter".
brenneman^(t)(c) 06:08, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Ah, well you probably feel the need to defend yourself because I (rather unfairly) singled you out as an example, since yours was the most recent instance. And you did ask five questions. Actually, I commend you for quickly adjusting your vote to the responses once the questions were answered - I am irked even more when a voter votes "neutral [or opposed] until nominee does x", and then nominee promptly does x, and then the voter who made the demand seems not to notice for a day or two. I probably wouldn't even be complaining about these kinds of questions at all but for that aggravating factor. BD2412 T 14:11, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Can't you just ask the nominee on their talk page and not worry about adding it to the RfA? --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 15:00, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

• Honestly, I don't see anything especially wrong with it as long as the question is meant in good faith (no "will you agree to completely stop editing any article related to your primary area of interest" like I saw a while back, or "why are you such a jerk" or something silly like that). If a question gives an admin a chance to address something which is clearly a significent factor in their RfA, then it can only be a good thing; heck, it's certainly better than voting based on editcountitis or so forth. And, remember, the asking of a constructive question itself shows a level of trust for the candidate, since an untrustworthy candidate would just give whatever answer they thought was wanted and then forget about it the instant the RfA was closed. I think RfAs are supposed to be discussions, not just up-or-down votes; extra questions are one of the few things currently done that works towards this. (That said, there are limits, and I think the five questions recently asked of Mongo go over that... despite the "briefly", they seem to basically be asking him to write an essay. I have no problem with "what would you do if..." or "would you recuse yourself from/allow your views on X to influence..." type questions directly related to adminship things, though, when they relate to things that are clearly already significent factors in an RfA proceeding.) --Aquillion 17:09, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Well of course some questions would be appropriate, but where is the limit? If 20 people all want to ask an additional question, is that okay? I just see some questions that really could be answered on a talk page, not the RfA page. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 17:56, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

• • The first thing that came to my mind here was that I might have a problem if someone changed a neutral vote to a oppose solely because the nominee didn't answer the question(s). I suppose a question might be offered as a way for the nominee to answer an objection that would otherwise result in a oppose vote. It just seems like a neutral vote is like holding a vote hostage in some cases. I don't generally find neutral votes very useful. Rx StrangeLove 17:31, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Rx StrangeLove's statement that he doesn't think neutral votes are useful in general, with a caveat. I think neutral votes are not particularly useful, unless they can be read as "undecided." Stipulating what exactly makes you undecided, or what you'd need to see to make a decision, can at least tell the nominee what that person would like to see answered. I don't think it's necessarily bad, then, to pose a question and say "neutral until I see the answer to this question," although I suppose it's all in the phrasing -- how you say something can be as important as what you say when it comes to ruffling feathers. · Katefan0^(scribble) 17:35, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Hey, I may be over-reacting - but it's a peeve. BD2412 T 20:51, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Why no mention of the Comments section? It's there for a reason--post questions in it (of course questions aren't actually comments, but you know what I mean...). I did two days ago and got a response. Marskell 20:22, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

A fourth question (Archive 41)

Given the nature of some recent controversies, maybe we need a fourth question for prospective admins: are there any subject matter areas in which you would consider recusing yourself from using administrative capabilities? I think this might make matters much simpler in the cases where people are objecting to prospective admins who hold strong opinions in some areas. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:28, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I like it. It's kind of a leading question—people will know what the answer should be even if they don't believe it—but it's a good reminder. -- SCZenz 07:14, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, yes. ナイトスタリオン ✉ 07:37, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Concur with SCZenz, it is leading, which actually might tell more about the candidate than a non-leading question. If they fail to answer this one adequately, it truly shows a lack of understanding. KillerChihuahua 13:39, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Although thinking about how I would answer the question, I'm not certain that I could list any specific articles/subject areas. I am not a big article editor, and most of my edits in the article are minor corrections, adding pictures, linking/disambiguating, categorisation, etc. Generally however, I'd take a back seat in admin actions if there was a dispute - I think I've done this regarding at least one protection request. Because of the way I work, the subjects I edit are very disperate (I often go off on tangents). I doubt I'm unique in this, so don't judge people harshly if they cannot say specifically. Thryduulf 14:23, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think this question is going to be very fruitful, first because it will only apply to a very small portion of the nominees, and second because it's likely to be covered in the third question -- the only reason for an admin to recuse himself, as far as I can tell, if he is involved in the dispute. Christopher Parham (talk) 14:57, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Can't you always just ask a specific nominee your own questions? Does this really need to be added to the standard nomination? --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 15:03, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree, situations where this matters can be explored in the third question, and people are free to ask additional questions in specific cases. The fact of having standard questions is already sufficiently obnoxious, let's resist compounding it with question creep. --Michael Snow 18:56, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Another way to "challenge" RFA candidates (Archive 44)

A lot of the newer ideas around here about "weeding out" RFAs have centered around setting a minimum edit count or account age. I propose a different tact. Some of the criticism levelled at new admins (at least, from what I've read on the various Wikipedia discussions and mailing list) is that they have all this power without knowing a sprig about policy. Some of the new admins will readily unblock a user without knowing about blocking and unblocking policy. This has irked some veteran blocking admins, especially when procedure hasn't been followed (for example, you're supposed to notify the blocking admin and discuss the matter on WP:ANI before unilaterally unblocking the user).

Instead of setting minimum edit counts or account age, which RFA voters can tell for themselves, we need to add more questions to tell if an RFA candidate truly knows what being an admin is all about.

I think we need to add two or three more questions on the standard template that specifically asks candidates what they think of specific parts of these guides. That shows that the RFA candidate has read the policy pages or at least has a decent idea of the sorts of decisions that an admin needs to make. Here are the types of questions that I have in mind:

1. What do you do if you disagree with the blocking of a user?
2. What would you do if a user reverts an article three four times in 25 hours?
3. In your opinion, when would you delete an article under CSD A7 and when do you nominate it for an AFD instead?
4. How would you tell the difference between a sockpuppet and a new user?
5. When would you use {{test1}}, and when would you use {{bv}}?

(I recently made a gaffe w.r.t. #4. If I had to answer this question, maybe I wouldn't have made that mistake, but luckily I only asked a question on WP:AN, rather than block the user in question)

Notice that I deliberately didn't provide any Wikilinks to the appropriate articles unless absolutely necessary. This encourages RFA candidates to read through the proper documents, and also favours those who are already familiar with some of the Wikipedia procedures without being unduly weighed down by editcountitis or ageitis.

The one problem with this is that some users can simply regurgitate answers from previous RFAs, but maybe if we also include questions that ask for the candidate's opinions rather than having a "correct answer", we'd get a better result. What do you think? --Deathphoenix 18:22, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I personally think this is all fine and dandy, but not really good. It would be quite naïve to expect a prospective admin candidate to know all of the policies beforehand—and it's not only because there are so many of them. I remember myself having to consult the admin reading list every single time when I was going to perform an administrative task, and I am sure even then I still made some mistakes.

Prior knowledge of the policies, to me, is far less important than willingness to diligently study them when need arises. After all, if you need to apply a policy and have to study it first it would make you a more refined admin than mechanically studying them beforehand "just in case", and then forgetting most of them after bein adminned. It does not really matter if a candidate does not know what exactly a three-revert rule implies; what matters is that he realizes the need to thoroughly read (and understand) the policy before blocking someone for a 3RR violation. I would rather support a trial period (three months, say?) for new admins than rigorous testing your proposal will eventually lead to.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 18:44, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, how would you feel about questions that an experienced Wikipedia editor would be expected to know, rather than an admin? I would expect a few of these questions should be answerable by an editor, such as questions 2, 4, and 5. These kinds of questions would give RFA voters a better idea of how familiar users are with Wikipedia procedures and policies without expecting them to know procedures and policies specific to admins. --Deathphoenix 18:54, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I am not strongly against those types of questions; but, IMO, it would all too easy for a would-be admin to copy correct answers from the previous nominations, thus defeating the purpose of the questioning (unless, of course, someone would be willing to present each new candidate with a brand-new set of questions/situation scenarios). I personally find questions testing the attitude of admin candidates a lot more useful, but these are pretty much the questions we already have in the "Questions for the candidate" list anyway. I would not mind seeing the latter expanded, though, but the questions should not be of the yes/no/"I will do this, this, and that in that order" type.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 19:07, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that's the weakness in these questions that I acknowledged when I posted my idea. Maybe we need questions for which there are no "correct" answers (I think the 3RR in 25 hours would be one of these). Either way, I'm just gauging what people think of this idea. If it's a good one, we'll probably all get together and try to come up with questions where the answers can't be readily duplicated (or would easily be spotted as plagiarism if it is). Or maybe rotating questions is another way of dealing with it. :-) --Deathphoenix 19:13, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, if all goes as planned, becoming a sysop will be harder than entering a Starfleet Academy :) I still think a trial period is a better and a more fool-proof way, but let's indeed hear out what others have to say.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 19:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I've been musing along these lines myself, lately. I'm very supportive of the general idea, but not sure of a good implementation. Regarding whether the candidate should be questioned about "admin" policies or not, I say of course they should! A counter-argument was "prior knowledge of the policies, to me, is far less important than willingness to diligently study them when need arises." That's true. But it wouldn't be a "closed-book" test, right? If a candidate needs to go look up and read the policy pages to answer the question, that's great! And if a candidate can't be bothered to do so -- if doing do when applying for adminship a big burden -- what makes you think they would ever bother to investigate the policies after they are promoted? —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 19:23, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

That's also true. I perhaps put too much trust in that the new admins thoroughly read the administrators' reading list before starting to use powers vested in them. Still, unless there is going to be a system of checks and balances allowing us to verify that the candidate in fact read and understood the policies instead of simply found them (or other admins' responses to a similar question) and copied them to the answers section, I am going to remain skeptical of this particular process. As an addition, perhaps, it's not a shabby idea, but I would be hesitant to rely on it too much.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 19:35, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I think something along these lines would be a good thing. I'd rather have the nominee outline his or her involvement in different areas of Wikipedia policy...talk pages, involvement in admin duties that don't need admin tools (WP:CP is a big one, AFD debates, WP:AIV and so on), input in policy discussions. If a nominee is familar with policy there should be some pre-existing involvement that can be pointed to. But either way, a nominee should be able to thumbnail where they have interacted with and learned WP policy. Rx StrangeLove 20:49, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

A probation period would work also, I'd rather do the decision making before the admin tools are handed over though. Rx StrangeLove 20:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I think that this proposal is a good idea, subject to some tweaking of the questions. Anyone who does NP or RC patrol will likely have an answer to questions 3 and 5, and anyone who's ever faced or become involved in an edit war will likely have an answer to questions 2 and 4. Someone who wants to be an administrator should be able to answer all five when the time comes. Someone who copy-pastes from policy or another RFA does not have the competence, the diligence, or the honesty to be an administrator. NatusRoma 02:39, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Don't you mean 4 reverts in 25 hours? The 3RR permits three in 24 hours. ~~ N (t/c) 02:39, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Woops. Corrected. --Deathphoenix 03:21, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Extra points and question

There seems to be a general consensus to use this, though there are questions as to its general implementation and what questions to use. Before putting this idea up for a formal poll, I'd like to make a few points:

1. The specific questions we use are definitely up for discussion
2. One possible idea is to have a "pool" of questions and rotate them regularly (though this requires regular maintenance of {{RfA-nom}}, so this is probably a bad idea).
3. I think it would be best to have a header pointing out that these questions are asking for your opinion and that there are no correct answers. Hopefully this would encourage RFA candidates to think and form their own opinions rather than cutting-and-pasting the answers from current policy pages or from past RFAs.
4. I think cut-and-pastes from RFAs would be fairly easy to spot.

I also have one question: How and where would we form these questions? In this talk page? On WP:AN? --Deathphoenix 15:25, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Whoa! Hold your horses! "seems to be a general consensus to use this" is outright ridiculous—how do you expect to establish "general consensus" within less than 24hours around here? When only four people have expressed support for this idea? Just for the record: I am opposed to any further inquisitory questions for admin candidates. Granting adminship is no big deal, and is a sign that the community trusts the candidate not to goof and fool around with the extra tools in bad ways. Usually, the community trusts a person when he or she has shown before that he or she is a reasonable editor, has an idea of what an encyclopedia is that matches Wikipedia and interacts reasonably well with others. All admins so far have been learning on the job—inevitable when you don't have the tools available before. Candidates are offering a service to the community; they are not applying for a job. Be glad for anyone who offers to help housekeeping, check their contributions to get a feeling what kind of persons they are, and then vote yes or no or abstain, and be doubly grateful for any admin who, once elected, actually finds the time to do some housekeeping. But do not expect or require elected admins to actually be active, and let's get rid of that mindset of requiring them to be near-perfect before being handed the mop and bucket. Remember, we're all volunteers here. Lupo 15:59, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Please WP:AGF. If you read what I wrote, I wasn't pushing this forward, and I wasn't going to unilaterally apply these questions. All I was doing was presenting a few extra points and questions and I was also saying that all I wanted to do was to perform a poll. Please don't take what I said as being reckless. Thank you. --Deathphoenix 18:01, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Don't worry, I do (assume good faith, that is). Sorry if I came across a bit strongly. I just stumbled upon that "consensus" remark combined with the short time. Lupo 07:47, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

That's okay. I could have worded my post a little differently. --Deathphoenix 13:10, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

And one more thing. I am fully aware that we're all volunteers here. I keep that fact firmly in my mind when I am on Wikipedia. --Deathphoenix 18:06, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Now I'll get around to addressing your concerns. This proposal is actually an attempt to give RFA voters more information on a candidate while not applying any strict minimums with account age or edit count. I see this proposal as being milder than others than have come about. There is nothing forcing RFA voters to strictly look at the answers to these questions before voting. There is nothing in this policy that forces admin candidates to answer these questions (though, like the original three questions, I'd imagine answering these questions would be highly recommended). I'm not expecting admin candidates to be perfect. There are no such things as "correct answers" to these questions. There are plenty of people who answered the original question 2 without much in the way of good contributions (myself included) that got handed the adminship anyway. I didn't say the admin candidate would have to answer all five: I was only giving examples of the types of questions I had in mind. People seemed open to the idea of asking additional questions in general, and in my point above, I stated that the actual questions are still up for discussion. I'm merely proposing the asking of questions to gauge how much the admin candidate knows of Wikipedia policies and procedures. I'm proposing simple questions that have no correct answers that only ask for opinions. If there's anything here that you find exceedingly draconian, I'd like to hear your feedback so I can modify this proposal further. --Deathphoenix 18:17, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, these detailed questions you proposed certainly would make the questions section look even more like a job quiz. But anyway, it's no big deal, and we can experiment. Why not just be bold? IIRC, Cecropia introduced the first version of these standardized questions pretty much out of the blue without any extensive discussions beforehand. (I might be mistaken, though—it's been so long ago.) In fact, I have just been bold. Lupo 07:47, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

That's an idea. It's not like I'm breaking RFA policies or anything, since all I'll be doing is putting additional questions for the candidate to answer. Maybe to make the experiment a little easier on the candidates, I can put up a note that these questions are strictly optional. I'll take a look at the questions and maybe make them a little easier to answer. --Deathphoenix 13:10, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Draft questions ready

I've made a draft of these questions here, and will appreciate any feedback you can give me. Starting tomorrow (UTC time?), I'll be putting these questions on new RFAs as an experiment. Thanks, --Deathphoenix 18:42, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Questions (Archive 44)

I've noticed the recent addition to the set of compulsory questions: "4. What do you think of these questions?" If I may ask, what's the point of the question? enochlau (talk) 11:47, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

• See Template_talk:RfA#The_fourth_question for the proposed reasons, although I would say the question is pointless and should be removed. A couple people have reverted each way on the template itself. Christopher Parham (talk) 17:52, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Optional questions (Archive 45)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The original Q.3 - Time to modify it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Additional questions (Archive 45)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Time to add the optional questions to the template? (Archive 47)

Hi all. We've had this little experiment running for a while now, and I'd like to think the optional questions have been of some use to those of you wanting to get a better sense of our RFA candidates. I'd appreciate any feedback you can provide at Template talk:RfA#Optional questions (sorry for the delay, I thought there were more people who read that talk page). Thanks, Deathphoenix 00:34, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

• Yeah, I'm for it. -lethe ^{talk +} 14:46, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
• The questions have proved their mettle, so I support moving them to the standard set. Well done. ++Lar: t/c 15:47, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
• Yes, but remove the old and stale questions. Radiant_>|< 16:00, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I think we should do away will all the questions. Let the nominee set up their request however they wish. Or make the nominee give a couple of reasons why people should support their request, and a couple of reasons people might not support their request. Admins should be open to talk about their past mistakes, and if people want to oppose them, that's their prerogative. I'm just not sure anything should ever be mandatory to do within Wikipedia. My opinion. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 15:59, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

The questions aren't mandatory in the first place, and certainly there are plenty of voters who wouldn't care if they weren't answered. By and large I agree with you, though; the standard questions are needless paperwork. Better to let the nominee say what he wants, and then people can ask whatever questions they want. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:20, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with this. Right now they are optional, no big deal, but if they are added to the template, no matter if the questions are optional, in reality, they will become mandatory. -Greg Asche (talk) 23:00, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

• The questions are de facto mandatory, not because there is a policy against not answering them, but because sufficient people will oppose any candidate who doesn't answer, or gives answers that are too terse. >Radiant< 12:08, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

As a compromise, perhaps all questions should be optional. If an editor wishes to state his case in another way, ve should be free to do so. -- Ec5618 12:33, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I think as Radiant points out, we can call them optional all we want, but if people are inclined to oppose someone who does not answer, the questions become mandatory in practice. I would like to see very few automatic questions, but then encourage users to ask candidate specific questions that focus right in on areas of concern you may have about a candidate. NoSeptember ^talk 12:38, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm slightly worried about instruction creep here. Any questions that are asked in all RfAs are essentially mandatory. While it might not affect the success/failure rate, RfA is becoming an even more difficult process. The Land 15:13, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

We have 800 admins now, I'm not sure I see the process becoming more difficult as necessarily a bad thing if it improves the quality of new admins. Especially absent the mooted reforms that would make it easier to remove admins that have not been discharging their duties satisfactorily. Optional or not, evasive answers or refusal to answer some or all of the questions will lose my vote absent some good countervailing argument. ++Lar: t/c 15:22, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Lar. We need to make standards higher for admins so that we won't have to "de-admin" anyone later on. --a.n.o.n.y.m ^t 15:29, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

• The optional questions is actually the least instruction-creeping thing to add to the RfA process because there's nothing added to the RfA process. What would be instruction creep, IMO, is waiting a mandatory period before adding the optional questions. However, if you mean instruction creep in the sense that the candidate has to answer a few more questions, yes, it makes the RfA process a little harder for the candidate, but it doesn't add any additional steps to the process. --Deathphoenix 15:56, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Questions (Archive 51)

I personally think the number of additional questions candidates are being asked is rediculous. In the space of less than 24 hours, lightdarkness received an additional 14 questions. He's managed to answer all 17 of his questions so far, but it's too much. I had my RfA back in November, and I didn't get any additional questions, and neither did anybody else really, at that point. I don't know if bringing out a limit to the number of questions would be the right thing to do, but it can't stay like this in my opinion. What are everyone else's views? — FireFox • T [15:08, 11 April 2006]

As someone who initially proposed adding additional questions (but only three or four, though with admins being more likely to be desysopped, I don't see this as much of a necessity anymore), I have to agree with you. The number of questions being asked on these new RFAs is simply insane, and since the user asking these questions isn't point out that these questions are optional (like mine did), the candidate often feels obligated to answer all the questions. It's insane how many questions are being asked. --Deathphoenix ʕ 15:14, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps we could limit the 'hypothetical' questions - you know the ones 'You begin the process of correcting a cut and paste move when a tornado strikes up outside your house. You have no computer in your basement. You are wearing green socks and eating a bagel. Do you run for cover leaving the correction half done, or do you complete it first?' Robdurbar 16:24, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

The tornado carries you off to the Land of Oz!--more--
The Wicked Witch of the West appears in a flash of green smoke!--more--
She kills you instantly...--more--

Do you want your possessions identified?

I would obviously create a sockuppet with my socks to finish the edit, while I eat my bagel before running for cover. Johnleemk | Talk 17:16, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with asking more questions of candidates as long as the questions are sensible. If these nominationsa are "discussions not votes" then asking the candidate stuff is a necessary part of the process. That this is a comparatively new phenomenon is unfortunate; we should have been doing it always. -Splash^talk 17:21, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't want to restrict anyone from asking questions. I also have no problem with someone adding Optional questions: above these added questions even if the question asker does not. NoSeptember ^talk 17:25, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I've noticed questions are often only rhetorically optional... someone might say the questions are optional but some users vote oppose if their questions aren't answered. So if question are really to be optional, such oppose votes should be disallowed. Mikker ^(...) 17:30, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

No, we can't disallow votes on that basis. If a voter is being unrealistic in their expectations we can point that out, and we can point out unreasonable questions too. But ultimately the community through its voting decides what is acceptable. We don't need more rules about who's vote is going to count. NoSeptember ^talk 17:43, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough but just note I was making a conditional point: if questions are to be optional in a substantive sense then oppose votes of the type I mentioned need to be disallowed. If we're happy for questions not to be voluntary or if we believe disallowing such votes does more harm than it's worth, then no change needs to be made... Mikker ^(...) 17:52, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, holding the record for most questions, I think the additional questions help an "on rhe fence" voter. The willingness to respond to 12 questions also helps signify the editor is serious IMO. On the above note though I'll add a bib bold optional to my list. -- Tawker 17:30, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

As someone who is slightly responsible for the question inflation, I'd argue that additional questions are in general going to increase someone's chances to become an admin if they answer them well. For Jedi6, for example, I was mainly thinking of opposing, largely due to the concerns discussed in the first of my questions in that RfA. However, he gave a good detailed response illustrating why my concerns were not an issue. Thus, I voted to support. It seems to me to make much more sense for those considering opposing to ask questions first about how the user would adress their concerns. This makes more sense than what many voters do where they vote oppose for some reason, and then when the candidate attempts to respond to the various oppose concerns people vote oppose because the candidate is being too defensive/argumentative. JoshuaZ 17:41, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you to an extent. I asked my optional question for all candidates, and some of the candidates' responses to my questions led me from not voting at all to voting support, so yes, it helps. My concern is putting a candidate through answering fifteen or more questions, and I wonder if all that is really necessary. I have no objections to a few questions (having asked a few myself), but I wonder if pushing the questions up to double digits is necessary unless the candidate has some clear problems in the past that need to be addressed. BTW, take a look at my questions here. I haven't asked them in a long time, as I feel they're unnecessary with a change in arbitration committee, but they're still available for use if anyone wants. :-) --Deathphoenix ʕ 20:52, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't really see a problem with it. Presumably if the candidate finds the questions too burdensome he will leave the questions blank, and will pass or fail the RfA with that taken into account. If the contributors by and large agree that the questions were unreasonable, then not answering them shouldn't substantially affect whether or not he is promoted. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:17, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I too had my RfA in the days of 3 questions being the norm... I dunno if I'd feel like the hassle of RfA "nowadays", though the barrage of questions are only part of it. We should be cautious of making RfA so annoying that many would-be good admins don't bother. --W.marsh 22:25, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Whatever happened to simply asking any questions on the candidate's talk page? Most of these questions won't have any influence on people's vot comments. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 23:07, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

RfA is "supposed" to be a discussion, so I say, more questions!ßlηguγΣη | Have your say!!! 00:50, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

See also WP:DFA... I still think it's an idea that has some merits, even if it hasn't been accepted or used much (discussion is goodness)... I have no problem with thoughtful questions, I think seeing how candidates think is useful. But one downside of questions is that you have time to think about them. In real life, out in the wild, there are certain sorts of situations (a fast moving vandal, for instance) we want admins that do the right thing most of the time without taking a lot of time to think about it... and others where taking time to think is the right thing to do. I expect knowing which is which is not easy.

THAT said, 38 questions may have been a bit much. I think Tawker (with his 12 questions cribbed from various sources) may be getting revenge in the traditional fraternity hazing way... what was given to you by your predecessors, pass on to your successors, it all flows downhill. OK not really, but it sounded funny. They're actually good questions! Let it oscillate for a while, the right level will depend on the candidate. We don't need new rules or guidelines I don't think. ++Lar: t/c 04:32, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I see no merit to asking additional questions; the questions in the template already do a good job of gaguing the suitability of the candidate (plus we should also focus on the candidate's edit history). If everyone felt "I want my question to be answered, or I won't support", then the RFA process will become very confused and frustrating for the candidate. Oran e (t) (c) (e) 04:39, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

PS Being able to articulate responses to 100 questions do not necessarily mean that you will be a good Admin. in practise. We are missing the point here. Oran e (t) (c) (e) 04:42, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I think it's getting absolutely ridiculous too. I scroll through pages and pages of questions... not only that but some of the questions users set are ridiculous. "What policy covers 'to blacken the memory to one who is dead'" or something like that. Don't tell me if that user had answered that wrong that the person would have opposed. I'm getting very angry with this. It's "Requests for Adminship" not "Lets question every single action and do a complete evaluation of this person using 9.99 x 10⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹ questions. --Darth Revert ^{(AKA Deskana)} (talk) 09:37, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

That appears to be a fairly new development brought in by Masssiveego. Generally though, questioning is a good thing to help gauge suitability as in open questioning for interviewing purposes rather than closed questions for testing purposes. MLA 10:23, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I would characterise (my opinion here, which I am entitled to hold, based on my assessment of the content and results of asking them) those questions as "trick" questions, designed to trip up the candidate so that Massiveego can justify (in whatever scheme he uses) voting oppose. One was poorly formed, and when the candidate tried to answer it anyway, the candidate was dinged for not reading Massiveego's mind as to what was sought. I am certain as I can be without mindreading that the 'crats discount much of what Massiveego does. My concern is that not everyone else does. Those questions should be disregarded when evaluating whether questions are good or not, just as they should be disregarded when evaluating candidates. (again, in my view, which I am entitled to have) ++Lar: t/c 11:46, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Masssive also opposed a candidate for not answering his questions in 24 hours after their being asked. JoshuaZ 12:39, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Be fair. I think it was actually 24 hours and 7 minutes. What a slacker that candidate was, eh? It apparently is not fair to assume that people have lives once they decide to stand for admin. </sarcasm> ++Lar: t/c 17:21, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I want to know why I was the only person ever asked: "What do you have against the month of September?" This is clearly a question that everyone should be required to answer ;-). NoSeptember ^talk 10:12, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Hehe. — FireFox • T [10:18, 12 April 2006]

If someone named NoMay turns up I pledge to ask them what they have against May. ++Lar: t/c 17:21, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, I have no problems with on topic questions but it has been getting a little silly. Lightdarkness's RFA has gone 100% wonky with LOTS of off topic questions, as a "joke". RfA is not for jokes, if you want to joke around take it to a talk page, RfA's are serious. As for "baiting" candidates with reasons to oppose, I don't agree with it. If a user doesn't get the question they should be able to ask for clarification (which I did several times with my questions) and nobody should oppose simply based on the fact that they didn't get their (possibly hard to understand) question -- Tawker 02:58, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to chip in and say personally, I would not have minded getting asked extra questions (I wasn't during my RfA), because it would have given me more space to discuss my viewpoints on stuff. It wouldn't have bothered me at all. I know I watched my RfA like a hawk that week, as I'm sure most candidates do, so it's not like I wouldn't have noticed any additional questions or really minded taking the time to answer them. That being said, I think we should be careful in asking too many questions, but I'd like to know if anyone around does feel like they werer asked too many questions themselves. Tawker maybe? Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 14:08, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I didn't find I had too many questions, I was bad and encouraged on topic questions (I'll admit, I was starting to think my RfA was going to fail and I wanted it to hit the record books for something) - though I think a lot of the questions helped candidates see what was going on and were not totally stock so nobody could think that I looked at past RfA's and the phrases that worked. Overall, I am for questions, just nothing really really silly and off topic. RfA is not a joke, lets keep it at least semi serious.... please! (though one of the questions was a test of my sense of humour, no idea what to say there :) -- Tawker 06:15, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I personally lean towards not limiting the number of questions that can be asked. I think they are an important mechanism to get a true feel for the candidate's personality and approach, in combination with a review of their contributions. They also give the candidate a chance to respond to issues raised without having to respond to many individual votes (which itself can be frowned upon). It seems quite common that a question is raised in the format "Several users have raised concerns about X. How would you address these concerns?". Although they do lead to extra work for the nominee, it is not a huge amount and I feel that anyone entering into an RfA should be prepared to put in that extra effort to assist the community in making the decision.

Answering the questions should be optional, but I think that not answering questions or deleting them can send the wrong message to some voters and make them wonder:

• Does the candidate not understand the policy mentioned?
• Is the candidate unable to address the concern?
• Can the candidate not be bothered to answer the question?
• Is the candidate hiding something?

I'm not saying that it is correct to infer such meaning, just that I think it is likely that some will. Because of this I wonder if some further guidance should be included in WP:GRFA, to the effect of: "Answering additional questions is optional, but a failure to do so may be interpreted negatively by some contributors." TigerShark 08:30, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Hm. On the one hand, the "old" questions are becoming less and less useful, because every candidate who's not entirely sure in answering them and who has half a clue will look what people recently promoted answered. On the other hand, all these "optional" questions mainly benefit candidates who are good at answering questions the way the community wants to see them answered - a good quality in an admin, but not the only one for sure. I'm undecided - questions are good, but they should somehow be related to the candidate ("You did $something. Would you do it again?"), and not general boilerplate like "Who are you, and what is your stance on userboxes$some_recent_issue". -- grm_wnr Esc 22:49, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Removal of questions (Archive 51)

RGTraynor removed the standard questions from his/her RfA - here. I have assumed for now that this was unintentional and have added them back. I just wondered if there is any precedent for the intentional removal of such questions by the candidate. Cheers TigerShark 09:08, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

There are a few editors who have opted to not answer them; they are not obligatory, although they are certainly traditional. Given the excessive number of questions that have started appearing on RfAs lately, I'm almost moved to say "Bravo!" Essjay ^{Talk • Contact} 09:33, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Fair comment, but I wonder if deleting, rather than just not answering them, would be the right thing to do (unless they were obviously nonsense or bad faith). That might possibly give the wrong impression. Certainly, I think that once the candidate answers the questions (and especially if "voters" have commented on those answers) - they should not be removed as they then form an integral part of the RfA. This is what happened in this case, but as far as I know it was a mistake. Cheers TigerShark 09:49, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Who "owns" the candidate's RfA page? (answer, it's a wiki, no one does, not even the candidate) I guess I'm slightly supportive of 'crats using their good judgement and removing out and out silly questions/answers (but on the other hand, not very supportive, because I think they humanise things, within reason, and what's the harm?), but not at all supportive of the candidates themselves removing questions. Once a question is asked, the candidate ought to answer it, or choose not to, and leave it unanswered, but not remove it. If this practice of deliberately removing questions that weren't maliciously placed spreads, it might become a factor in some people's voting statement of opinion, well mine at least. RfA is supposed to be a discussion. Within reason, more questions mean more discussion and more understanding. (this is setting me up to get 94 questions, I am sure of it!) ++Lar: t/c 11:22, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

He's talking about the standard three questions themselves getting removed, not added questions by other users. Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 14:04, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Maybe he is, in this specific case. But Essjay DID remove some (increasingly silly?) ones from a different RfA. Since he drew the "silly line" just AFTER my questions, maybe I feel lucky... but I would not have removed as many as he did. That said, he's a bureacrat and I'm not, meaning his judgement is more seasoned on this (by loads) than mine is... ++Lar: t/c 14:28, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Um, no, I didn't. Look at the history. A regular old admin removed questions, I had nothing to do with it. Essjay ^{Talk • Contact} 02:26, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

You've said "no I didn't" twice (here, and farther down) so I'll apologise twice (I already did farther down but it merits saying again/before/whatever), I was wrong, I wasn't paying close attention, I should have checked the history instead of relying on faulty memory, and I'm sorry. No slight or impugn was intended! I do agree you should find a different Mindspillage pic though, and fully intend to take you to task on that every chance i get. ++Lar: t/c 23:29, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I do rather object to bureaucrats opting to remove questions on the basis of being bureaucrats. We hand the 'crats power over the outcomes of this process, not over how the community conducts its deliberations. It is not up to the 'crats what questions a candidate should and should not be asked; it is up to them whether to answer them or not, and people can remove them if they really must in their capacity as an editor. Bureaucrats have had this slightly overbearing view of their RfA-superpowers before, when they attempted to directly suspend the process: but they control only the end, not all the means unto it. -Splash^talk 01:12, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Um, to be clear I was deferring to Essjay's judgement (rather grudgingly, because i thought they were worthy questions) not precisely because he was a 'crat, but rather that knowing he was one, I knew he had been around a lot longer than I and had more seasoning, and further, because I trust his judgement (more or less, except when it comes to photoshopping Mindspillage pictures, but I digress)... I or anyone else could still revert those removals, he doesn't own the page any more than any of the rest of us do. Heck I might go revert them now, I dunno. ++Lar: t/c 02:19, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Just like to point out, you're wrong: I didn't remove questions from any RfA. I removed an innapropriate commment from an RfA; questions were removed from the same RfA, but not by me, check the history. Shanel moved the questions to the talk page, not I. Essjay ^{Talk • Contact} 02:28, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Right, apologies. I was shooting a little blind on the back of Lar's comment. Essjay says that he didn't remove them, so there's no problen. -Splash^talk 02:29, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

And another set of apologies here. You did not remove the jokey stuff, you removed stuff that was wildly inappropriate after BorgHunter removed the jokey questions (and Shanel moved them to talk). My bad. It was all pretty fast. But details schmetails. My point stands, I tend to trust your judgement (even about stuff you didn't do!) and in general am willing to shortcut a bit on who to trust, people on arbcomm, 'crats... how did they get there? By having more experience and more good sense because of that more experience (and if in general people don't feel that way it sort of says they think the process is broken)... is any of this making any sense? ++Lar: t/c 02:43, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

On the important issue (the photoshopping), my only complaint is the constant use of the same image. I would like to point out to Essjay that many nice pics can be found from the various Wiki Meetup galleries :-). NoSeptember ^talk 23:18, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

My opinions (each worth exactly the standard 2¢ and no more): • Nominees should not remove anything from their nomination pages whatever. If I see it I will vote oppose, no slack. • Nominees should do their best to answer all questions posed. A good part of adminship is fielding stray balls. • Bureaucrats should not tamper with nomination pages in any way; they get their chance to play god soon enough. • Editors should not throw excessive or funny-only questions on nomination pages; it's stupid. • Editors should rm such questions on sight. Like any other edit (in my playbook) you express yourself directly by adding or rming once and once only. If you add and it's rm: Well, if it had merit then someone else will restore it. If you rm and it's restored: Well, if it didn't have merit then someone else will rm it again. John Reid 23:12, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Dissecting the questions (Archive 53)

I'd like if I might to plead the case that the additional questions, if and when they are used, need to be tidied up a little. I do this pleading here, as I don't think they are templated or 'owned' anywhere I can find. Question in italics, comments in plain type:

1. You find out that an editor, who's well-known and liked in the community, has been using sockpuppets abusively. What would you do?

   This one seems ok to me. -Splash^talk 23:45, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

2. While speedying articles/clearing a backlog at CAT:CSD, you come across an article that many users agree is patent nonsense. A small minority, of, say, three or four disagree. Upon looking the article over, you side with the minority and feel that the article is salvagable. Another admin then speedies it while you are making your decision. What would you do?

   The question errs. Speedies are not discussed, nor are they readily discussable by this many people. One or two implicitly, perhaps, in the history of the article, but that's all. The question describes either an AfD debate, in which case it neuters itself, or a talk page discussion, in which case it should say so and be reconstructed on those lines. -Splash^talk 23:45, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

3. You speedy a few articles. An anon keeps recreating them, and you re-speedy them. After dropping a note on their talk page, they vandalise your user page and make uncivil comments. You realise they've been blocked before. What would you do? Would you block them, or respect that you have a conflict of interest?

   The end of the question, "...or respect that you have a conflict of interest", is highly leading in one particular direction. It also appears to misunderstand that simple vandalism is blockable wherever and whenever it occurs. The question does not say that it might not be vandalism, it says that "they vandalise", and thus needs to be reworked or, preferably, discarded. Why is incivility thrown into the mix? -Splash^talk 23:45, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

   I agree that this question is leading. Personally I feel that an incivil vandal is an incivil vandal, and should be blocked whether they're attacking you or someone else. By that logic, all a vandal would have to do to not get blocked would just be harrass any Admin that might block them. Obviously that doesn't really work. Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 00:28, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

4. Long question about a whole bunch of dispute resolution hypothetical happenstances.

   This is so hypothetical, and makes so many assumptions about what a given admin might get involved in in the first place, that really it should just be gotten rid of. Also, "Would you respect the other admin's decisions" is another leading question.

5. If you could change any one thing about Wikipedia what would it be?

   Ok, I guess. -Splash^talk 23:45, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

6. Under what circumstances will you indefinitely block a user without any prior direction from Arb Com?

   This should be more gently phrased: "will" is a very binding sounding word. "...might you..." would be better.

7. Suppose you are closing an AfD where it would be keep if one counted certain that you suspect are sockpuppets/meatpuppets and would be delete otherwise. The RCU returns inconclusive, what do you do? Is your answer any different if the two possibilities are between "no consensus" and "delete"?

   Has anyone ever conducted an RCU as part of an AfD closure? Do we just count the votes? Does RCU not have better things to do? -Splash^talk 23:45, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

8. Do you believe there is a minimum number of people who need to express there opinions in order to reasonably close an AfD? If so, what is that number? What about RfDs and CfDs?

   Potentially an interesting question, if mispelt. -Splash^talk 23:45, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

9. 10 and 11 seem fine.

More generally, the questions seem designed to constrain an admin into giving sociologically correct answers that they may feel somewhat bound by later, when a different approach is needed to that they gave as an RfA answer. This concerns me a little. -Splash^talk 23:45, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

could we maybe just cut down on the number of additional questions just a little? i don't even read most of them anymore because there's so darn many, and then you get into the string of ten different joke questions, and in the end it makes for a rather messy RfA page. does anyone else feel this way? if it's just me, i'll shut up.--Alhutch 02:18, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Nope, not just you. When joke questions begin to be added, the user(s) who added the question(s) looks bad. I don't care what your answer is to "If there's a thunderstorm and your Internet connection dies in the middle of deleting an article, what would you do?". Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 02:22, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. What's with all those extra questions? I'm all for asking questions that may be pertinent to any particular RfA, but we need to keep it real. Lately, a group of 11 "standardized" questions is being added to new RfAs. That's a little too much, I believe. It has been suggested before that the standard questions need to be revised, since the answers are not meaningful anymore, etc., etc. So maybe that's what needs to be done. And then we can keep it reasonable, at least. Yes, I know the extra questions are "100% optional", but really, who's going to take the fifth in their own RfA, of all places?? Redux 02:57, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

i think there are people that won't support unless you answer their optional questions, too. I agree that we could revise the standard questions, as having to answer 11 questions seems a little much to me.--Alhutch 03:05, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, being the poster of those 11 questions (which are basically other peoples questions that I liked) (which upon review of this page is now 9) - I do think they help the candidate a bit, without the extra "insight" some people might vote oppose. I know they are essentially mandatory once I post them, though if a user requests on my talk page, I'll remove them (to remove the user removing questions stigma) -- Tawker 03:06, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Makes for an interesting definition of "optional", eh? While I dislike the idea of a standard slate of questions (seems like instruction creep), it may be necessary to keep RfA candidates sane. Ummm, more sane. -- MarcoTolo 03:09, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I've used question 6 in the past before, and will change the wording per the above comments. Actually quite a few of these questions originally came from me. I think they are useful under the right circumstances (like when they were originally used in Tawker's highly unique RfA (with his permission). Also, if someone is a good admin candidate then their answer will generally show it. I do try however to personalize my questions to each candidate (and in some cases have felt no need to ask additional questions, although generally that means I'm going to oppose). JoshuaZ 03:28, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Your point is one I was reaching for but hadn't quite hit: the majority of the questions are very good, but the key is tailoring the question set to the candidate. Much of the value is in picking questions to clarify issues that may have come up while you (the impresonal "you", not JoshuaZ) were reviewing a candidates edits, user interactions, conflict resolution skills, etc. By tossing a mass of identical questions at someone, you reduce the value while making folks expend the same (or more) effort in answering them. -- MarcoTolo 03:35, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I would like to know whether this is true in practice. Do people really change their potential oppose to support after reading the answers to the optional questions ? Tintin (talk) 03:43, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, I know I have. One example: I was going to oppose Jedi6 and expressed my concern in my first question to him. He have a very satisfying answer and I voted support as a result. Given that people sometimes vote "neutral pending answer to ___'s questions" or "neutral pending answer to question _ by _" and similar things, I would suspect that there are other examples also. JoshuaZ 03:47, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

That's an example of a rarer case. It's more common, however, for people to oppose due to inapt answers to questions. I suppose everyone would remember a RfA where the candidate got a lot of opposition after answering, in an optional question, that (s)he had never heard of the test1-5 and bv templates. That would have never shown in the answers to the present standard questions, since they are far more general, allowing the candidate to talk about topics (s)he selects. If this were to be incorporated into the standard questions, there'd be no need for extra questions designed to test a candidate's basic knowledge of Administrative functions. Redux 04:19, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Questions to test policy minutia are not good. However, if a candidate gets one, then they presumably have the time to look up what the relevant thing is, check the policies and guidelines, and then answer based on that. Also they are functions of what a candidate intends to do as an admin. For example, if the candidate intended to use it principally for vandal fighting but didn't know what test1-5 were that would be a legitimate concern. JoshuaZ 04:54, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I believe we are in agreement. Even if it's not ideal, we should introduce more specific questions, designed to check the candidate's basic knowledge of Administrative functions. True, it's always possible to look up the information before answering, but I suppose we would be able to tell when the user was writing about something (s)he knows and when (s)he was copying the information and just changing the words. With one or two well-written questions, the candidate's familiarity with the job should become apparent. Noting, of course, that all of this would become pointless if we were to come up with some 20 new standard questions, since this wouldn't be reasonable. Perhaps five or six, and we'd need a compromise so that users will not add blocks of questions to RfAs at a time, or else the whole point would be moot. Redux 17:39, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be more reliable to test people's knowledge by looking at their contribs? If you see them placing the test templates on vandals talk pages, you know they know how to use them - that's the only sure way. If everyone gets asked the same questions you can just look at the last few successful candidates answers and reword them as your answers. --Tango 17:48, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

But there are other Administrative functions in which the user may be more interested. VfD, for instance — if you are not an Adminstrator, you don't get to close *fDs and carry out the decision, which may be what the candidate is interested in doing. I haven't given any thought to any specific possible wording for any new questions, but I suppose they would cover more than one area of Administrative functions. We already check the contribs, anyway. Even if the candidate says that (s)he knows everything that there is to know about (e.g.) fighting vandalism, most users will still check the contribs to see if the candidate has been reverting vandalism, warning vandals with the templates, etc. The questions should serve the purpose of complementing the data we get out of checking a user's list of contribs (or vice-versa). Redux 18:08, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Expanding the standard question area (Archive 60)

Okay. I can't believe this didn't dawn on me prior to this evening, but better late than never. How is it that we don't have any standard questions on process or basic ideas surrounding consensus? Certainly, as an admin who'll be expected to close discussions, delete articles, and block users, those questions would be at least as important as "What articles are you proud of?" I'm not sure how to word them, but considering that they're such an essential part of the mop, why aren't they addressed? --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:53, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Consensus varies on circumstances, forcing a potential admin to set down what he thinks constitutes consensus would violate m:don't vote on everything (as it may make him start vote counting) and discourages individualized judging of consensus. --Rory096 03:05, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Personally I think the extra questions way too often result in votes of the form, "I don't like or disagree with their answer to X so oppose". Opposes based on purely political issues like that are very bad, almost as bad as, oppose, less than x % of edits in my preferred namespace. Both amount to failing to evaluate the intangibles of a candidate and if they can be trusted to use the tools well. - Taxman ^Talk 03:12, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Woudln't one's ability to demonstrate their understanding of consensus and process be a reason to judge trust, though? It's certainly more worthwhile than what we're doing now, no? --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:22, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

But is one question really enought ot demonstrate understanding? It's best if users review the candidate's edits. --Rory096 03:27, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

no, but one question is much better than the none we've got right now. --badlydrawnjeff talk 10:49, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

With nothing, nobody opposes because the answer was too short. They just look at their contribs to figure it out. This also invites people only seeing if they understand policy from one question, and not look at their contribs at all. --Rory096 21:44, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree, and the "optional" (but you get opposed if you don't answer them) generic additional questions are almost as bad. If someone wants something answered, they should ask a direct question, not tons of uselessly general stuff given to everyone. --Rory096 03:27, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm completely against more questions. I understand that users want to get a good grasp of the candidate's experience and knowledge, but sometimes I feel people go too far. Some RfAs, like Alan Liefting's, will have ten or more questions, several laughably labelled "optional" (we all know a long unanswered question doesn't look well). Questions like "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely." Expound in 300 words or less, with specific references to Wikipedia politics. (12 points) seem largely irrelevant to the process as they potentially could yield answers unrelated to Wikipedia. Also, I believe it's wrong for people to support a candidate, but then still ask questions since clearly the answers to the questions have nothing to do with the vote. I wish people would only ask questions to elaborate on certain things brought up by the candidate or voters (such as a blocking incident) instead of overloading the candidate with philosophical or especially abstract questions. This is a request for adminship, not an FBI investigation. joturner 12:09, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about others, but I don't ask questions to try to interrogate. I ask, such as in Alan's case, when I don't feel his required question answers give enough of an idea to decide on a vote. By asking more questions, it gives users a chance to explain themselves further. The subsequent oppose (such as mine in that RfA) is not because they didn't answer the optional questions, but because I didn't feel they answered the required questions sufficiently - the optional ones were to give him a 2nd chance, as it were. -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 12:58, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

If you ask questions about policy, people will expect candidates to give the "right" answer, which basically means reading the relevant policy page and summarising it. Anyone can do that, it doesn't say anything about your understanding of the policy. It's like the question for buros about when to promote - it's a completely stupid question because anyone can read the answer from the policy page (and worse than that, it encourages the idea that buros are robots that make decisions based on numbers and aren't allowed to think for themselves). --Tango 12:25, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

The fact that this conversation is taking place calls suggests that the process as it currently stands fosters an environment for m:Instruction creep.

Perhaps NoSeptember was right after all... Folajimi 17:41, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I wrote that in a single day some three months ago, and I see it needs quite a bit of fine tuning. But thanks for reading it :-). NoSeptember 23:28, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm conflicted about the addition of a set of "standard" questions and/or whether nominees should feel obligated to answer "optional" questions. I felt that the optional questions asked during my RfA were very appropriate to why I wanted to become an admin (mainly to deal with images); however, I find many of the optional questions to be ridiculous and usually they are the person posing the question trying to make a point versus anything else. Sue Anne 00:43, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

More issues with explaining votes (Archive 62)

Let's look at my own RfA for example. A full-fledged majority of the voters opposed to me relied on some very bizarre explanations regarding that they didn't "like" the responses to the questions that I submitted to RfA. Okay, that's a fine opinion, but what does that have to do with whether I'm capable of handling rollback on vandalism patrol? I much prefer those people who state that they have concerns about my neutrality or they think that I might abuse one of the tools. There, at least, I can understand the reasoning and people can decide for themselves whether it is flawed or not. But simply making an oppose vote based on a "poor nomination" is definitely against the spirit of Wikipedia of accomodating those people who may not be up on the Wikiculture standards that have organically evolved but have not been stated anywhere. What does a "poor nomination" entail? Can anyone point me to a bit of prose that explains what distinguishes between these types of nominations? Let's make things as transparent as possible. This process is bordering on ridiculous especially considering that this is a process for deciding who should be given a certain set of edit tools. --ScienceApologist 18:26, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Just an opinion. Right now it is possible to rollback with two clicks from a diff. I think popups allows you to revert with a single click. You don't need administrator tools to revert, I myself revert between 10 to 30 changes per day without patrolling, just by keeping my watchlist reviewed. Your statement "will probably help" is not as strong as stating "I will help", thus converting your answer to "I will use the administrators tools to revert changes." which is not really a motive to have these tools (see VandalProof or popups for others you may use). -- ReyBrujo 18:38, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Rey, for this explanation, but I don't quite buy it. Of course, I could write external code to Wikipedia to do the equivalent of rollback, but this puts pressure on me when there is a tested, efficient, and time-saving Wikipedia code that does the job better without wasting more time for me to go through the task of dif-clicking, filling out edit summaries, etc which are handled in a single smooth move by rollback. As I stated in my nomination statement: I want to be efficient. This is fast going by the wayside for me. Unfortunately it looks like many of the people who inhabit RfA space aren't into efficiency but are interested instead in reading meaning into statements and lack of statements, if you get my drift. The syntactic differences between "I will help" and "Will probably help" is an honest distinction on my part. I could lie and state that I will join every Wikipedia project, welcome every new user, make every speedy deletion decision, and watch the noticeboard like a hawk, but that's simply not what I'm going to do. Instead, I anticipate doing exactly what I stated I will do. --ScienceApologist 19:10, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

You don't need to write any external code - VandalProof and popups already exist, just use them. --Tango 20:07, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Believe me, I know all about VandalProof and popups with both their joys and drawbacks. They are excellent external codes and fairly easy to implement, but they aren't ideal for users who jump from location to location when editting like myself. Implementing Vandalproof was cumbersome and I never got it to work right in every browser I used. I eventually abandoned the idea. Popups were a bit more stable for me, but I have had to turn them off a few times because they were destroying my memory. Rollback doesn't have either of these drawbacks. I thought since I'd been around long enough an RFA wouldn't hurt. Boy was I wrong. --ScienceApologist 20:18, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Adding a question on Recall (Archive 66)

I would like to propose changing the RfA template to include a question with regard to Category:Administrators open to recall, to be answered mandatorily. Now that we have a precedent of an administrator being recalled, I want to see the recall process get more defined, and the perfect way to get all admin candidates to consider recall and to go on record with their opinion on how they would handle theirs is to add a question, as follows:

Q4: If promoted, do you plan to take the optional step of joining Category:Administrators open to recall and why? If yes, what course of action will you take if recalled?

Doing so will raise the profile of the recall process and will put a lot of peer pressure on candidates to volunteer - which I think is a net good thing (proceeding from the premise that recall is fundamentally a good thing, which could be debatable). I have added this question (on an optional basis) to a couple of still-pending RfA's, and my understanding is that Lar has asked a similar question of candidates in the past. Prior discussion is at Category talk:Administrators open to recall - CrazyRussian talk/email 14:55, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I Support this idea 110% (could turn nominees into politicians however - how do we make them keep their word??? ;) Great idea - Glen 14:59, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I object to the entire category on principle. It should be all admins or no admins. Trying to pressure some admins (or admin candidates) into joining creates an ugly double standard. It is on the same spectrum as saying: "If you have nothing to hide, then surely its okay if the police know every detail of your life", i.e. "If you are going to be a good admin, then surely you won't mind being held to a higher standard than other admins". And if an admin candidate refuses to join, do we really want to believe that this person is more nefarious than all the other admins who haven't joined? If something is a "good idea" then refusing to participate will look bad even though being forced to participate would create an unfair double standard. I'm on record in multiple places as supporting some form of admin recall for all admins, but I absolutely think it is unfair to create de facto policy applying only to new admins by pressuring them into it. Dragons flight 15:16, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

What DF said. The idea of admin recall is good and sound as a check on the system, but so far none of the proposed systems have gained both consensus and widespread use. The self-nominated category has some flaws (not least of which is small usage), and applying this only to new admins actually intensifies the problem, not solves it (IMO). Anyone can ask voluntary questions of candidates, though... -- nae'blis 15:20, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I feel the question would back people into a corner. The vast majority of admins have not joined the category, but that does not mean they don't feel they should be held accountable for their actions. However, some !voters would take objecting to joining the category as an indication that they don't feel it's necessary to be held accountable for their actions. I think some people, including myself, feel the structure of the open to recall category is a bit too rigid and would result in the admin in question being forced to step down despite relatively minor infractions. Admins will run into trouble, garner a few enemies. It happens, but that's part of the job. I'm sure I could easily find six people who believe Cyde, for instance, is a bad admin, but that doesn't mean he really is; he's just willing to put his neck on the line in controversial situations. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 15:25, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Forcing this into the standard questions now amounts to blackmail to join a category that has significant opposition to it's use. Get consensus on admin recall for all admins, then and only then can it go in the standard questions. - Taxman ^Talk 15:28, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

But we now have the issue of people asking it at all. People are currently welcome to ask this question on every single RfA which would essentially have almost the same effect as being a standard question. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 15:40, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Adding it to the template makes it a standard part of the process and indicates consensus for it being a criterion for evaluating an administrator, which all candidates must answer; instead as an optional question, it is one editor asking it to help him and some others make their own decisions. —Centrx→talk • 16:12, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Taxman, would you then consider me guilty of blackmail if I asked that question on a voluntary basis? Would you like me to withdraw the yet unanswered question I posed to Wangi a few minutes ago? Nevermind [15]. Good answer. - CrazyRussian talk/email 15:43, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

A number of the issues people seem to have with this question is the idea that saying no could be then taken as a reason perhaps to oppose. However consider Alphachimp's response: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Alphachimp. I think such an elegant reply on why they would not join does their RFA no harm at all (in fact it does the opposite). Saying that I don't feel it should added in to the template, it's fine as an optional question. Thanks/wangi 15:50, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

This is a terrible idea and I object to asking the question at all. It will just make people think they have to join that category or say they will for them to get the vote of the person asking. The category is not anywhere near accepted by anywhere near a consensus or majority of admins, and questioning people at all about such a controversial thing does nothing but make them think they have to go along with it. Wangi's answer cited above is a perfect example of this. People are so afraid of things on RFA anyway, that few will say "no I won't join" because of the implication that if you don't join you are a bad admin. This is nothing but a way for the supporters of admin recall to advertise their category. pschemp | talk 15:52, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I second that statement--this is indeed terrible. While I have no issue with someone voluntarily joining this category, to raise this as a questions implies that if someone says no others will try to blackball their nomination. --Alabamaboy 16:04, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I concur with all of the above - this idea is awful. Raul654 16:42, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I totally agree with Pschemp - asking this to candidates is and would be a very bad idea. Supporting or submitting to a highly muddy and controversial proposal (which is probably new or of little interest to many or most Admin Candidates anyway) should not be added to the list of mulitcoloured hoops that candidates here have to jump though (which it will become, as many have stated above). Plus, during/just before an RfA is not the environment in which to decide on it. Each individual Wikipedian should decide where they stand on it when they hear about it naturally and have no pressure on them either way. Thanks! —Celestianpower ^háblame 16:08, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I also agree with Pschemp -- it's fine as an optional question, but making it mandatory should only come after there is consensus that the category is beneficial, at the least. Even then, since the point of the category is to implement a voluntary recall standard (as opposed to making the recall process a regular part of the admin policy) it would be arguable that making the question mandatory gives it a higher profile in the RfA process than appropriate. Mike Christie 16:11, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Well you missed half my point then. I'm opposed to asking it at all, even voluntarily, because I think that is just the supporters of the category advertising it. pschemp | talk 16:22, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

You're right; I didn't make it clear which part of your comment I was agreeing with -- my mistake. Personally I wouldn't ask the question and don't feel it is necessary, though I did find AlphaChimp's "no" to be useful and informative. However, I don't oppose it as an optional question because I have a hard time placing limits on the optional questions. Optional questions are clearly from individuals and I don't see a reason to oppose any questions other than obvious time-wasting. Mike Christie 16:30, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

That's a lot more opposition than this proposal had gotten at the talk page of the category - which makes some sense. - CrazyRussian talk/email 16:14, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I have nominated the category for deletion as inherently divisive. Dragons flight 16:24, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Wow. Somone asks a question here and as a reaction you put this cat on CfD. Not really nice. (Warning: this was a divisive statement. Let's call the wiki thought police). I would propose that all admins here step down from adminship because adminship is divisive. A statement from a humble non-admin --Ligulem 17:46, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Not to mentions I doubt you'd be asking anyone about this if you hadn't just been recalled CryzRussian. Asking that question, even voluntarily is advertising for your cause, and as such does not belong in an RFA. pschemp | talk 16:25, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Recall is not my cause. I would like to either see it made near-universal or deleted altogether. A rejection of this proposal is something I am 100% ok with, but I definitely want recall discussed. - CrazyRussian talk/email 16:36, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

"I want to see the recall process get more defined, and the perfect way to get all admin candidates to consider recall and to go on record with their opinion on how they would handle theirs is to add a question" sure sounds like it is your cause. pschemp | talk 16:42, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

(proceeding from the premise that recall is fundamentally a good thing, which could be debatable) on which the jury is apparently still out, as I have now heard. - CrazyRussian talk/email 16:46, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Lookit, I haven't done anything wrong. I asked three optional question, something I was not the first to do, and I started a discussion in a couple of places, to which I've gotten some strong answers, which is a very good thing. That's all. - CrazyRussian talk/email 16:48, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Calm down. My point is that RFA questions are there to determine the suitability of the candidate, not to promote or make visible a category. Since that was your stated goal, that question is not appropriate. I'm not accusing you of doing wrong, just pointing out why you shouldn't continue. pschemp | talk 16:59, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

100% calm. It was a mixed motivation. I will certainly not continue as recall seems doomed. - CrazyRussian talk/email 17:04, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I support the category, and encourage admins to consider placing themselves in it, and argued strongly for keeping it just now, but oppose asking this as a standard question, and further note that my comment record shows I have supported people who opposed the idea and opposed people who supported it. It should not be a litmus test for admins. I further argue that it need not be near universal to do siginficant good for the encyclopedia and if it's not near universal, that's no reason to delete it. "Admins willing to make hard blocks" isn't near universal either and yet does a great deal of good by existing. ++Lar: t/c 16:39, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, this question should not be asked in any way. CrzyRussian's quote above points out that the reason for asking is to make it more visible. That is an unacceptable use of RFA questions. RFA questions are there to determine a candidates suitablitiy not to make a category more visible. If you don't care about their answer to the question, it shouldn't be being asked, not even voluntarily. pschemp | talk 16:42, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Other issues aside, the question seems perfectly reasonable as something to help determine a candidate's suitability for adminship. It's certainly more relevant than some of the other questions that people will ask. Kirill Lokshin 17:05, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Exactly how is it relevant? pschemp | talk 17:15, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Because a potential administrator's views on the possibility of recall (if not necessarily on the particular method being discussed) are usually indicative of their view on the role of admins within the community in general—which is a rather important point to a number of people. (Provided the answer to the question is honest, of course; but that's true of all the questions being asked.) Whether you choose to use this information in determining your opinion is entirely up to you; but surely you can see that some (many?) of those commenting might find it useful? Kirill Lokshin 17:20, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Well then ask about their views of the recall proposal, not if they want to join a category. As it is worded right now, it isn't relevant. pschemp | talk 17:22, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I can't speak for Crzrussian's reasons for asking but they are not mine. As I say below, I asked (a rather long winded multipart question about both recall and ROUGE) to gauge the answers. To say I don't care what the answers are is not really a very accurate thing to say beacuse I do care very much, but more about the process and the thinking than the actual answer. That's because I don't think that being in or not in it makes you better or worse as an admin. ++Lar: t/c 03:50, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Extremely related to this, an actual Recall policy proposal is currently being discussed at WP:RECALL. Thanks. rootology (T) 17:17, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

The question isn't about WP:RECALL, its about joining the current category. Two different things. To make it relevant, ask about WP:RECALL instead. pschemp | talk 17:20, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I think both approaches are misguided. If you want to know how the candidate feels about administrator recall, ask them how they feel about administrator recall. Don't ask them to hit a moving target (WP:RECALL is far from solidified, despite the straw poll) or blackmail them into support the current voluntary categorization. Maybe it could be useful to mention both in the question, but that just overcomplicates things in my view. -- nae'blis 20:43, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I meant aske them how they feel about recall in general as I said up above. I put Wp;Recall in there because that seems to be Rootology's currrent fascination, but what you said is correct. Ask about the general idea, not the category or the proposal. pschemp | talk 01:27, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

My take on the particular discussion: do NOT add as a mandatory question. Individual people are fine to ask, on their own volition, but as the self-recall is just something a group of admins is willing to do does not make it policy. rootology (T) 17:19, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I think that would be a good step to take. Michael 02:02, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Voluntary -> no question

May I suggest a simple way out. As it is very well understood, adding your self to the recall list is voluntary. As such, it should not be a question on a RfA, but post the question at the talk page of the new admin as soon as a nomination has been concluded successfully. In that way, they are aware of it, can add themselves, and it will not result in a false suggestion at the RfA if someone for whatever reason does not want to put themselves on the list. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 02:46, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Cool! - CrazyRussian talk/email 02:47, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Excellent suggestion. I wonder if it would be worth posting this entire discussion over to the talk page of the category, to avoid having to hash this out again in three or four months. -- nae'blis 02:57, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Sure, assuming the category survives deletion, that is. ++Lar: t/c 03:40, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

It will. There is no way either side will get a consensus. --Kbdank71 15:38, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

good suggestion. thanks Kim. pschemp | talk 02:59, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to the suggestion of asking about the category after the successful RfA but I gotta say, I think there is value in asking all sorts of questions of prospective admins to see how they think on their feet. I'm standing behind the versions I asked as having generated a lot of good thinking from candidates (and remind you yet again that my comments of support or oppose were not completely congruent with the yes/no answers I got, rather they were congruent with the level of thoughtfulness I saw) ++Lar: t/c 03:40, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with you. Michael 03:43, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd be inclined to vote "oppose" to someone who said that they would add themselves to the category. The more people who are unwilling to do anything that might offend anyone (or, well, 6 anyones) the less able Wikipedia is to protect itself from nogoodniks. Guettarda 04:04, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

If a bad-faith recall happened, I'm sure the targetted admin would romp back in. Regards, Ben Aveling 07:02, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I suppose my underlying concern comes from my experience with teaching evaluations. Student evaluations can influence hiring, tenure and promotion for faculty and teaching assistants. Getting good evaluations pays off, getting bad evaluations can hurt you. I believe that this is a major driver of grade inflation, which lowers the overall quality of tertiary education. There are enough forces which limit your fearlessness as an admin. While there are a few people who are too fearless, starting people off like that seems to be a good way to produce cowed admins. Guettarda 15:01, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

What's a "bad faith recall"? I can't see that happening to me, frankly. (again I refer folk to User:Lar/Accountability for more info) If 6 trolls turned up to try to recall me, regardless of their edit/time numbers, I'd spurn the request and say "I don't consider myself recalled, if you disagree, take it to ArbCom". If somehow that got past me and we got into the discussion phase, I think the bad faithness would come out pretty quickly and I'd say "well that was a nice discussion, I don't consider myself recalled, if you disagree, take it to ArbCom". (in both cases I'd expect ArbCom to laugh and decline to review the case) If on the other hand it was ME acting in bad faith by spurning legitimate requests, or by not being collegial during the discussion or trying to wriggle out of admitting I erred on things or whatever, again I'd expect that it would go to ArbCom.. but in this case I'd expect to be sans the sysop bit pretty quickly. Reading that, you might say... "ok how is that better than just going to ArbCom directly???" and the answer is, those are edge cases. The one case we've seen so far wasn't edge. The petitioners were acting in good faith, had legitimate grievances, and the petitionee and everyone else acted collegially. That he chose the most stringent option, one I would not choose, was his choice. My expectation is that most if not all cases would not be edge cases, because the ArbCom as backup would tend to reduce the tendency of trolls to even waste the time and tend to reduce the tendency of an admin who had previously agreed to be collegial and reasonable to be intemperate and unreasonable. I think this process so far has went swimmingly and the troll argument is a non issue. ++Lar: t/c 18:56, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

What sysop chores, if any, would you anticipate helping with? (Archive 69)

This first of the standard questions given to every user has been bugging me for a while. The fact it says "if any" is totally pointless, because the whole idea of being an administrator is that sysop chores are helped with. I have tried to edit the template but found it to be protected, so I'm commenting on here. Does anyone agree with me :-) --Alex | talk / review me | 15:44, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I think it should stay as it is, as it helps people see if the person nominated intends on using the admin tools should they get them. No point in being an administrator if you're never going to help out, is there? jd || talk || 15:54, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, no, I think it should go. To leave it there might mislead candidates into thinking that they don't have to do anything at all if they have the tools. jd || talk || 16:00, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

They don't have to do anything at all if they have the tools. Like everything else on Wikipedia, exercising admin powers is entirely voluntary. --Rory096 21:25, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Remove the "if any". You could even word it more strongly and say "What sysop chores will you commit to doing?" --Richard 16:06, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, good idea. --Alex | talk / review me | 16:08, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Agree with Richard. It is necessary to perform sysop chores, but since people differ in their area of contribution, the question should stay. — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 16:18, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

The "if any" should go though, as it isn't an "if any" option - if you become an admin, you should become one for a reason. A user may write "I anticipate doing no chores, but would just like to be one" under this current question. I agree with Richard's point about it being worded more strongly. --Alex | talk / review me | 16:22, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I think the "if any" should stay. If someone says they aren't planning on doing much in response to that, it serves as grounds for opposition. It also shows the user that he or she is expected to perform admin. duties if promoted, and it shows the "voters" information that is required to form an opinion. Michael 16:25, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

That's my point. I've seen so many users who request adminship with such a bad idea about what administrators do. By removing "if any" it shows that chores are not an option, and it'll also require the user to do some research about it. Opposition should be made on grounds of another reason, not the fact the question possibly confused them. --Alex | talk / review me | 16:30, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

It could work either way. With "if any", it gives grounds to oppose. If we delete it, it would make people more hesitant to answer and nominate themselves or respond to a nomination. Either way can act as a deterrant. Deleting it would possibly just mean fewer RfAs actually reaching the nomination page. If we keep it, it is possible for us to see how the user responds and allows us to evaluate whether or not they would use the tools given the possible exception. Michael 16:36, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

There are far too many nominations that fail though. IMHO only the ones which are likely to succeed, or get lots of support should ever make it to the main page. --Alex | talk / review me | 16:41, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Deleting two words will not change the fact that many admins will do less than others. Most nominees will know that. So just clean delete these words - don't overanalyze. Rama's arrow 17:01, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Rama's arrow. However, I think it's restrictive to force potential admins to "commit" as per Richard.--Lkjhgfdsa 17:52, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think they should necessarily be commited to what they write, but I'm just saying "if any" is a redundant phrase because of course there will be chores anticipated to help with. --Alex | talk / review me | 17:54, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Keeping the question would be akin to the "Found the image somewhere" booby trap in image upload page. The question is: Do we need booby traps in RfA? — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 18:06, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

My suggestion about "committing to specific chores" was just to illustrate that we would like admins to commit to helping rather than just having the buttons "for the heck of it". Since some have objected to the specific word "commit", we could change "do you anticipate helping with?" to "will you help with?". I'm not hung up on this bit though. It would be sufficient to just strike the "if any". --Richard 18:25, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

A grammatical point that has been bugging me for a while, and illustrated in the preceeding comment - the wording "would you anticipate helping with" should be "do you anticipate...". On the main point, I personally prefer the "if any" to remain for the reasons stated above. Despite the booby trap aspect, not every admin applicant will apply in order to do 'chores'. It may be expected of an admin, but they may want admin priviledges just so they can go about their normal business without the hindrance of queueing to get simple admin tasks completed. I think it is appropriate to ask if that is the case. Jim182 18:30, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

That clashes with the purpose of adminship doesn't it? Its not for personal convenience. Rama's arrow 18:42, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Agree, it's to help the project. --Alex | talk / review me | 18:46, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if anyone would disagree, but it is appropriate to ask without assuming. Anyway it was just a minor thought addition - my main point was on the grammar. Jim182 18:55, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

• Adminship was intended to not be a restrictive class. By insisting that trusted editors must agree to substantial admin work you raise the bar on what is and is not an acceptable admin. Perfectly acceptable admins can be trusted to use the buttons wisely, yet very rarely actually use them. There isn't any reason why such people should not be admins. I nominated exactly such a person back in October of 2005 (see his RfA). Since he was given the admin abilities, he's used them eight times. That doesn't make him any less an acceptable admin. The idea that admin candidates must commit to doing lots of admin tasks overlooks what adminship, at its core, is about. It's about trusted users being able to efficiently conduct the business of writing the encyclopedia. --Durin 02:34, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Apart from the fact that removing two words won't change anything, its not a question of demanding that candidates do "substantial work." But "if any" implies that one is free not to do any, which is unacceptable. I'm pretty sure we are over-analyzing an otherwise mundane point. Rama's arrow 03:03, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if I sound too objectivist, but I would not like to see candidates who don't want to perform admin-tasks stand for RfA. Its not about their capabilities as an admin or admin-eliteness, but I just feel it is a waste of community time if nearly 50~100 people research a candidate's background, ratified his capabilities and granted him sysop status only to find that he doesn't deliver. I am also a bit sad to see that many editors still see RfA as a "show of strength", getting praises from the community, and after becoming succesful, never (or rarely) touch the buttons. I have seen many such editors in the past, and am sure all of you would have. This is the reason I keep telling people that they should only go for RfA only when they need the tools. Guess I am a strong follower of Essjay's philosophy that: "If your edit doesn't make Wikipedia a better place, its better to not perform that edit". Consequently, I feel that people with no interest in sysop chores should think twice before submitting their RfA. — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 05:21, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

So is there a concensus here, or should we do a straw poll? --Alex | talk / review me | 10:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Anyone? --Alex | talk / review me | 11:06, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Aside from the minor grammatical change (would -> do), I am content with the current wording. It allows candidates to express a preference for not doing 'admin chores', which is their right, and perhaps also their downfall. I concur with the points made by Durin above. Jim182 11:15, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

"Pop quizzes" (Archive 69)

There appears to be a recent trend toward users' putting "pop quiz" questions to candidates and then !voting or commenting based on the replies. I'd welcome discussion on whether this is a desirable development. Newyorkbrad 19:16, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

What's an example of a pop quiz question? Picaroon9288 19:22, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Questions 7-9 on NishKid64's pending RfA are examples. Newyorkbrad 19:37, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I see no immediately apparent problem with most of them. Not specifically relating to Nishkid's rfa, but in general, these sorts of questions can help users verify that the candidate is knowledgeable enough to perform duty X that they listed in q1 by asking them to comment on a specific example of X, or making sure they generally understand task/area X. However, I have seen at least two such "out-of-nowhere" questions, which, when not answered perfectly, led to a somewhat questionable oppose. Picaroon9288 19:57, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I think they are a good idea if a user wants to know more about the candidate, or a particular incident. --Alex | talk / review me | 19:27, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

This isn't really a recent trend, it happened a few months back. I disagree with 15 standard questions that people copy and paste onto every RfA, as was the case a while ago, but specific questions directed to a specific candidate should be encouraged. --Rory096 21:25, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes I agree. Anybody should be free to ask questions - I recommend using the RfA's talkpage for this purpose. Rama's arrow 23:19, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I think rely on an RfA as a process of interview is a very good way to solve its present issues. Rama's arrow 23:23, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I find questions that havne't been asked before to be a good test of whether the candidate can think on their feet. The stock questions may have been answered weeks in advance, with reference to other answers (I know I thought about how and why others answered the stock questions when I answered them). So I support these, within reason... ++Lar: t/c 17:28, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

As far as the ones I've added, I've caught 3 admins doing speedy deletes w/o realizing that the pages were vandalized into looking like attack pages. If they hadn't been on my watchlists, those pages would have disappeared into the void forever - not on anyone's contribution lists or anything. You can't even see what other pages an anon has vandalized similarly since they don't appear on the anon's contributions - only the negligent admins' deletion logs. To me, the possibility of losing more viable articles forever to lazy future admins is enough reason to oppose. —Wknight94 (talk) 18:04, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Optional Questions (Archive 72)

Is there any way to stop optional questions. Its making the RFA size too long. Also some of these questions are only remotely related to admin stuff, like questions on humour or wikipedia criticising sites. I would want, that if they have optional questions, either ask it inthe RFA talk page or the users talk page --Ageo020 (Talk • Contribs) 21:57, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I think its fair that if the questions don't concern adminship, the nominee should not answer them at all. Rama's arrow 22:49, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it's good to ask questions, but to be honest I think that Q1 (the mandatory one) is often more useless than the optional because the answers are sometimes about as sincere as a politician's promise. Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 04:40, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

On the contrary. An administrator must have the utmost of patience when dealing with difficult and tendentious editors. Having a sense of humor is important with keeping a cool head. Finding out about a nominee's temperment is as important how many edit's they've made, whether or not they've had 1FA, and what they'll do with the tools. Asking about wikipediareview and other critical sites is probably a too much political question for a new admin, but any editor should be able to ask a nominee questions that he or she feels is important in determining the qualities of a nominee. Totally frivilous questions like "What is your favorite color?" or "If you could be any tree, what would it be?" should be right out, but removal of an editor's relevant questions (as Splash (talk · contribs) has done) should be considered incivil. Besides, by definition these questions are optional; the nominee could simply choose not to answer them. —Malber (talk • contribs) 13:24, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Should have checked here first. Keep the questions on topic please. Asking their favorite joke is disruptive at worst and not helpful at best. That is an extremely tortured connection to WP:COOL you've outlined, and if ability to keep WP:COOL is what you're looking for, ask something more related to it. And keep the number of questions down please. When it gets to be too many irrelevant ones it's not helpful. If you really don't care if the candidate doesn't answer, put them in the comments section. In the questions section they look too official. - Taxman ^Talk 14:20, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Fine, I've removed the favorite joke question. But I still feel that a nominee's opinion on keeping a sense of humor reveals much about their temperment. —Malber (talk • contribs) 14:30, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

It's still at best barely tangential, and I agree it doesn't really get to what you're trying for. The second question is basically redundant with the first and the third is needlessly phrased as a trick question. It all adds up to not being very helpful to the project. I grant you're trying to be helpful, but trying doesn't mean it is actually helpful. - Taxman ^Talk 17:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

What I'm trying to do is gauge how well the nominee understands policy. The second question is redundant, I should remove it. The third question is tricky, but if a nominee did answer indicating the punitive blocks were acceptable it would be a good indicator that they don't understand the blocking policy. —Malber (talk • contribs) 18:27, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

No you're not, when you want to know what the funniest joke ever is. -Splash - tk 20:15, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Then phrase it so it's not a leading question implying they are allowed. - Taxman ^Talk 21:43, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I've changed it to a yes/no question. The nominee can feel free to expand if they wish. There was a recent discussion at WP:ANI where a punitive block on an established user was considered, so this question is timely. Do you feel the IAR and SNOW question is appropriate? PS Splash: I've removed the joke question; that's old news. —Malber (talk • contribs) 12:27, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

There's no reason to stop optional questions. First of all, they're optional. There's absolutely no pressure for the candidate to answer them. Secondly, it's reasonable to assume that most, if not all of the questions being asked will not only give the candidate another platform to engage the community but it also helps the participants get a better feel of the candidate. We should in no way attempt to restrict participation in RfA's. hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 18:30, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

You did actually see the particular questions I removed, right [16]? I'm a repeated advocate of the very free hand editors have in RfA; it is not, however, an infinitely-unlimited one. Questions which are of most relevance when asked late at night in a comedy club do not give the candidate, the readers or the questioner anything, least of all a platform of engagement. -Splash - tk 20:15, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that's where you're missing it too. There is pressure to answer them. They look official, and people oppose based on people not answering them. I don't think we should stop optional questions either, but looking official does mean the questions that get placed should be well thought out and have demonstrable value in helping build an encyclopedia. I don't think these meet that bar. - Taxman ^Talk 21:43, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

You seem to indicate that you dislike people being opposed based on not answering optionals, Taxman. So, as a bureaucrat, what weight do you put on opposes that read "Oppose. Didn't answer questions 5. ~~~~" when evaluating rfas you're closing? Picaroon9288 01:08, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Sigh. Did we forget what happened in Lightdarkness's RFA when joke questions got out of hand? Remember that having too many optional questions makes an RFA look like War and Peace, and will probably make whoever wants to comment just skip the questions and make an uninformed decision. Same thing happened with the editcount overkill. Titoxd^(?!?) 01:15, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Generic questions (Archive 73)

I've noticed that Malber and Imoeng ask (almost) each and every candidate the same question. Now I don't have an opinion on those questions (or rather I do, but I prefer not to share my opinion at this moment so as not to influence the discussion), but these questions have de facto become generic questions.

This addresses the following questions: Will sysop tools likely reduce your mainspace editing? (asked by Imoeng) What do the policy of WP:IAR and the essay WP:SNOW mean to you and how would you apply them? (asked by Malber) Is there ever a case where a punitive block should be applied? (asked by Malber) How important is it for an administrator to keep a sense of humor? (asked by Malber)

I would like to hear other editor's comments on whether these questions should be included in the generic questions. If not, what, if any, action should be taken concerning these questions? Errabee 11:07, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

With questions generally, they are fine. This cannot be simultaneously insist on being a discussion notavote and then not like discussion when it occurs. -Splash - tk 11:09, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I was asked to speak more clearly :). I mean that it is often repeated that RfA is not a vote, but a discussion. It cannot viably be discussion, or at least more discussion than vote, if when discussion-related things are used, such as questions, we start trying to take them out. There are exceptions: the final of the examples in Errabee's list is not particularly useful to anyone, imo. -Splash - tk 13:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I strongly agree with Splash. At the same time, all nominees have the right not to answer, to exercise personal discretion. When the questions are obviously disconnected with adminship, where is the obligation? So (1) anybody can ask questions, but (2) only adminship-related questions are relevant to the process, (3) the nominee has discretion and right to not answer and (4) the closing bureaucrat must take into account who asked the unrelated questions, and if they voted based on unrelated factors. Rama's arrow 12:59, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Its entirely the nominee's choice whether to answer a question or not. Even if the nominee answers a question, the risk that the questioning editor will oppose the nomination does not really mitigate. Rama's arrow 13:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Copy and paste questions I find are irratating to candidates. Sometimes users add questions about admin activities the candidate hasn't actually said they'll take part in, which is basically pointless. And Rama's arrow, if the candidate doesn't answer an "optional" question then this shows there may be a problem with a candidate and users may be oppose for this. So questions aren't optional.--Andeh 14:49, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Certianly the questions are optional, but if a nominee chose not to answer, don't you think that would show a lack of willingness to engage in discussion? However, I would excuse a nominee from answering completely frivilous or personal questions like "What is your shoe size?" or "If you could be any tree, what would it be?" (BTW: I've removed the "sense of humor" question from my template.) —Malber (talk • contribs) 20:27, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

IMO the generic questions do a good job of gauging if an administrator understands the functions and responsibilities of an administrator, what the nominee feels their encyclopedic contributions have been, and how the nominee views that disputes should be handled. But they don't do much to display the nominee's understanding of policy and process or even if they bother to read the policy pages. This is why I ask the IAR/SNOW question because I feel how a nominee answers this displays whether or not they understand the spirit of policy/process. —Malber (talk • contribs) 20:44, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

The current standard questions are all about the candidate. The questions mentioned above are about the candidates views of adminship. That's a very big difference. Someone else's answers to the standard questions wouldn't help me much, as they're about someone else, not me. Someone else's answers to these questions could be very helpful. If these questions are asked on every RfA, then very soon people will be able to just look through the past successful noms and basically copy their answers, making the questions completely useless. If you're going to ask someone these kinds of questions, they need to be different for each nom, or asked in private (or on IRC would work well). --Tango 21:07, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

People who judge nominations have a responsibility towards nominees. Everyone knows that RfAs, despite being "no big deal(s)" are stressful. It is not good if your questions spill into general editing issues. Stick to adminship, process and policy issues and avoid trick questions or contentious issues. There must be respect between both sides of an RfA. Rama's arrow 22:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that we need at least 2-3 more generic questions, and the ones above would make good editions.Voice-of-All 00:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The questions are no probelm at all, however, I do think that votes should keep in mind that they are OPTIONAL and that they should not think less of the candidate that choses not to answer them. I have seen many neutral votes that would normally be support votes had the questions not been inserted. - Mike | Trick or Treat 01:07, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• It strikes me that cutting-and-pasting the same "optional" questions into every RfA verges on WP:POINT. By doing so, it is a defacto expansion of the existing questions that are in the RfA by consensus. By repeating the same stock question to every candidate, the "optional" questions are becoming part of the RfA template, so to speak, and circumventint consensus as to whether or not they ought to be standard questions. The pressure to answer these "optional" questions re-inforces their defacto nature as "standard" questions. 209.17.182.217 19:02, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps all "options" questions should be placed on the AfD's talk page? The only questions I feel should go on the main RfA page are those which have been agreed to through concensus. If they are on the talk page it is much more obvious that the quesions are one person asking the candidate rather than quesions which a lack of answers to will reflect badly on the candidate. --StuffOfInterest 19:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

"Optional questions" doesn't make that clear enough? Saying that not answering the questions will not influence your RfA is wrong, because many users may not be willing to support a candidate if they don't know the answers. -Amarkov ^babble 00:48, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Hamedog's 21 question fiasco

On a related note, I think I would feel kinda pissed off if I was being badgered by seven times as many questions as are included in the RfA. People should feel free to ask extra questions, but I feel it's turning into a form of harrassment too often lately. So, everyone: Think about whether your questions will really benefit the situation at hand, and the fact that I think a candidate would feel compelled to answer all of them. (Candidates could also put more meat into the standard three questions to cover any concerns that might be raised in addition.) Thanks. Grandmasterka 04:33, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

21 questions? Unless they are about specific items of concern regarding that user's conduct that's just ridiculous. JoshuaZ 04:39, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

It looked like sharks in a freakin' feeding frenzy. I think Hamedog unwittingly triggered some of that with his responses-- he lost his composure and was perceived as defensive and argumentative. (They smell fear, you kmow.) Sad thing is, he'd probably be a good admin with a little more seasoning and a thicker skin. Hopefully, he'll lick his wounds, heed the constructive feedback, and try again. BTW, JoshuaZ, the set of questios used by you and others is a much better tool for evaluating nom's than what's been happening lately.Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim

Some of the questions were just stupid. "Is this an AfD or RfA?" was one such question. A lot of it came about from me criticising the ending of an AfD related question. Thanks to everyone who supported me.--Hamedog_Talk|^@ 14:54, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree that, in general, 21 questions is probably excessive for an RfA. However, in this specific case, there were genuine concerns about the candidate's knowledge of policy and procedure as well as his ability to handle confrontation. Also, many of the answers seemed rather vague and/or confusing, which likely led to follow-up questions. My advice is similar to that of Dlohcierekim: get some more experience, don't take things personally and try back in a few months. SuperMachine 16:41, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Cheers--Hamedog_Talk|^@ 14:13, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Optional Questions (Archive 73)

Are candidates allowed to add optional questions given to other users into their own nomination? --Daniel Olsen 01:58, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why not; if a candidate chooses to ask himself questions and feels that it will be beneficial to the discussion, there's nothing preventing him/her from doing so. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 02:41, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

A potentially silly question... (Archive 74)

... but why is "Why do you want to be an administrator?" not a default question? I understand that some people are perhaps a little hesitant to load up the RfA with a billion and a half questions, as RfAs are supposed to be moderately approachable, but this is a fairly rudimentary question. EVula 03:55, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the nomination statement and the Q1 answer requires that this question be addressed. Many people don't support if they feel the nominee doesn't really need the tools or have any real desire to serve as an admin. Rama's arrow 03:57, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

And I kinda agree that this question should be answered in this way. A nominee's passion should be evident through and through. Rama's arrow 04:00, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Also, you invite cliches when you ask such a question. "I love Wikipedia" is a genuine feeling that most people here have, but a pain to keep reading in each nom. Rama's arrow 04:02, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

While it's one of my favourite questions, I wouldn't make it a standard question. Usually, it's clear that the reward of having adminship is being able to serve Wikipedia better. But sometimes, some candidates give me the feeling that they see adminship as some sort of prize, a competition, a proof that they are better than the average editor. That can cause me to ask about people's motivations. Regards, Ben Aveling 09:23, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Incidently, this is why I like self-noms... you're pretty much automatically going to be have to explain why you want to be an admin. It makes it seem much less like a prize someone is giving to you and more like a position you're applying for with a specific reason. --W.marsh 17:15, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, all of the above are fairly reasonable answers. I happened to answer Q1 and Q4 fairly differently for each other, so I didn't see the latter as necessarily being answered by the former. And I wholeheartedly agree that doe-eyed "I wuv Wikipedia!" answers would get very old, very fast. EVula 17:26, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Optional questions (Archive 75)

Is it me, or are people abusing the privelege of asking optional questions? I know that these questions are supposed to be just that —optional— but people still look to them when voting in the RFA's. If the process is supposed to be "no big deal," then why is it that almost every candidate have to sift through 5 "optional" questions from 10 different editors? It's unfair and very annoying to bombard the candidate. RFA has become so unpleasnant nowadays. Orane (talk • cont.) 08:01, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I think asking questions is fine however the people (both nominees and voters) must remember that they are optional. If questions are just silly, then there is no need to answer them, however sometimes they are important to the outcome of the RfA. James086^{Talk | Contribs} 09:43, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Is it "RfA is an evil gauntlet run" time again? :P

Joke notwithstanding, I don't see what the problem is. Sometimes, people need the information in the questions to !vote accurately. They're "optional" in the sense that you are not required to answer them to have an RfA, but I don't think they were ever intended to be optional in the sense that no matter what you do with them, it won't affect the outcome. As for "annoying", I hate to see what an admin who gets annoyed by people asking questions to help them decide will end up doing when random people they've blocked swear at them over email, or when people rage because their vanispamcruftizement well-written article got deleted. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 15:47, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Some of the questions are really stupid. Optional questions should be used to test the candidate's potentitial aptitude in handling admin responsibilities; NOT ask personal questions and preferences. =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:52, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Optional questions should be for whatever someone believes is necessary to form an opinion. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 16:03, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

No, the personal questions part can be misused. IIRC, we had an instance of people voting for a candidate based on sexual preferences. Can't remember the details though. =Nichalp «Talk»= 16:06, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I've seen something of the kind. Those votes should really just be thrown out, anyway, and I'm not sure that restrictions on askable questions would work. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 16:13, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

That's bizarre (Nichalp's example). However if I know which RfA Journalist is talking about, I found it helpful to have optional questions, given that this is the candidate's third request. More than 5-10 questions is a bit much, though, like Hamedog's RfA. riana_dzasta 16:19, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

The above RFa is an example. I have no problems with one or two questions. However, sometimes, editors take it overboard. As a community, can't we decide on a number of questions to ask the candidate? We could add a couple more to the RFA template—obviously, the existing ones aren't sufficient if so many people find it necessary to formulate 10 additional questions. After this, if there are any "optional questions," they can be addressed on the RFA's talkpage, or the candidates' take pages. Orane (talk • cont.) 17:13, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

If a question is completely irrelevant to adminship (as with the sexual preference example), there should be no problem with a candidate politely declining to answer. If someone opposes due to this, it would be a bureaucrat's perogative to place less weight on their opinion. I don't see any real need to set a limit on the number of questions. SuperMachine 20:02, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

My opinion: questions should be asked that are relevant to the candidate. For instance, if the candidate says they want to help out at WP:RFPP, a good question could be "In what sort of situation would you fully or semi protect a page?". Questions like "Is a sense of humour important in an administrator?" or "What are your feelings about Ignore all Rules?" are generally irrelevant unless the candidate specifically mentions them. --Majorly 20:07, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

No they aren't. The humor thing, maybe, but if I'm supporting someone who takes IAR to mean "ignore all process if something is obviously bad", I want to know that. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 21:49, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe, maybe. I can usually work out their attitude to that kind of thing in their answer to question 1, but if it isn't clear it seems reasonable to ask. I'm looking at Wikiwoohoo's RfA with 15 questions, compared to Daveydweeb's who has one totally relevant optional question, relating to his username change. --Majorly 22:29, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

There's a relatively straightforward reason for this discrepency. Daveydweed has no opposition, while Wikiwoohoo has about 20% opposition. When there are concerns about a candidate's suitability, that often leads to optional questions. The highest number of question will usually occur when a candidate is in the 70-80% range. SuperMachine 22:38, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the optional questions are completely relevant, and optional. It would indeed be instruction creep to try and qualify what questions can and cannot be asked, just as trying to qualify what criteria people can and cannot apply. There's no problem here that needs to be solved. Move along. —Doug Bell ^talk 22:33, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Except for the fact people often go neutral "pending answers to questions". They are optional only in name. --Majorly 22:38, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

When people believe they can evaluate a candidate properly without answers to the optional questions, they do so. Neutral votes are basically irrelevant to this matter. It may even be the case that without these questions, some people would have opposed rather than remaining neutral "pending answers". I agree with Doug that this really isn't a problem to be addressed. SuperMachine 22:43, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

SuperMachine, if a user goes neutral or opposes pending answers, why can't they just wait until the answers come? You don't have to announce to the world "Hey guys, I'm not voting yet because my questions have not been answered!". Frankly, I see no point in voting if your question has not been asked. Nishkid64 22:51, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

One point would be to inform the candidate that if they provide more information about themselves, they may pick up some support. I don't see any harm in taking a neutral stance, whether it's because you're waiting for additional information or any other reason. Worse case scenario is that there ends up being a large number of neutral opinions. SuperMachine 22:57, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to mention that although optional questions are great for RfA's, some of them are getting out of hand nowadays. It seems people want to just have a "say" in the RfA, so they feel an obligation to ask questions, which may or may not affect their decision on the user. Nishkid64 22:51, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

There are many things about an RfA that are only optional in the sense that it is possible to pass without them. An attempt to make anything strictly optional is, in effect, telling people what criteria they aren't allowed to use, which, as Doug said, is pointless instruction creep. I've yet to see someone opposed only because they failed to answer all the questions. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 22:47, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Only a tiny percentage of RfAs have what might be considered an "excessive" number of questions. At the moment, one RfA might have reached this level. The majority have a handful of optional questions that the candidate spends a few minutes answering. The only way to solve this "problem" would be to come up with arbitrary rules for optional questions. This truly seems like a non-issue, though that's just my opinion. SuperMachine 23:01, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

By no means was I suggesting that optional questions should be limited or regulated. My comments were just merely a complaint. Nishkid64 23:47, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be a terrible idea to limit the number of questions, but I don't think oppose !votes based on someone not answering a question should be counted. Opposing because of the answer is fine, but if someone doesn't answer, it probably has a good reason, and candidates would understand that explaining more about themselves should attract support votes (if they are a good candidate). It's good that I have never seen an oppose based on the lack of an answer. James086^{Talk | Contribs} 07:57, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Questions are not a big deal - coming from someone who has had at least 25 RfA questions. But then, I was going to break a record and yeah, for when I had an RfA, I was kinda new and was borderline (and required a nice gutsy judgment call from Linuxbeak -- Tawker 08:33, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

• The problem with too many questions is that some people will oppose a candidate who doesn't answer all of them. I don't think this requires regulations, but if e.g. some user insists on asking ten questions of every candidate, we should tell him to knock it down a notch regardless. (Radiant) 16:11, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The likelihood of a user getting extra questions piled onto them increases if their edits are mildly questionable, they have sub-par answers to the questions already asked, or their edit history doesn't showcase their attitudes about certain policies. For example, I had seven questions in my RfA. A later conversation clarified that the "Why do you want to be an administrator?" question is optional because, most times, it gets answered in the first question (such as in Husond's RfA). The other questions were asked (I'm assuming) because there was very little in my editing history (at that point) to show what my attitude would be in the face of G11-class spam, or how likely I would be to give rules the bird.

Really, it just depends on the editor. I think we're all smart enough to see if one person is filling RfAs up with questioncruft and call them out on it without needing to institute an actual policy or guideline about it. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:25, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

True. And if the questions were unreasonable, !voters would not oppose for not answering. Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 19:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes this does seem like a growing problem, maybe there should be a limit of 10 questions. Just an idea. — Seadog 03:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

With a limit on questions, there would seem to be an incentive to game the system and get some friends to fill the quota with powder-puffs. And even if that doesn't happen, I'd hate to explain to an editor with a really good question that, sorry, the limit has been reached.

I like the idea of handling exceptions (overly questioning editors) on a case-by-case basis, and revisiting this policy if indeed things seem to get out of hand, consistently, in the future. But acting now seems to me a bit of instruction creep. John Broughton | Talk 17:25, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree a limit would be faulty, but a limit of questions per editor might be another idea. — Seadog 18:23, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

While I could support a limit on questions per editor rather than a limit on questions in general, I still think it'd be creep. I have faith in all the RfA folks to beat down abusers, regardless of written rules. :-) EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:36, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Optional questions, redux (Archive 75)

A previous discussion on this point can be found in the talk page archive.

I see that the practice of some editors of cutting-and-pasting the same "optional" questions into most RfA discussions continues. While I believe that may be an abuse of process (or verging on a violation of WP:POINT) and a bit of an end-run around the fact that there is a consensus on the "official" standard form questions, I've not been too bent out of shape about it, particularly because it doesn't violate any particular policy or guideline. However, I now see that a standard optional question being added is to ask the nominee his or her age. That is inappropriate in this day and age. No nominee ought to feel obliged to disclose personal information in order to stand for adminship. If a person chooses to do so without prompting, so be it, but there ought not be a scintilla of pressure, real or perceived, to have to answer such a question.

It seems to me that if there are to be "optional questions", they should be included in the "discussion" portion of the nomination page and not with the sanctioned questions. That should minimize some of the problems with the optional questions, or at least remove some of the patina that they are somehow "de facto" standard questions. Agent 86 23:53, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it matters greatly. Candidates who don't answer this question are unlikely to be opposed for it, and if they are the 'crats won't take it into account. --Majorly 00:25, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I solved that in my RfA by stating I was a teen and that was it. Cbrown1023 00:42, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Brilliant. It could be a lie, but who cares, at least you answered... =) --Majorly 00:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

The specific point isn't whether or not !voters will oppose or not. The issue is putting nominees in the position of having to answer a question regarding their personal information. In other contexts, in North America most states and provinces would prohibit this kind of question under privacy or human rights legislation. If a person chooses to put this kind of stuff on their user page (or elsewhere), so be it, but they shouldn't be asked to do so for adminship. The broader point, which I would have left alone but for the privacy issue, is the de facto creation of not-so-optional questions. Agent 86 00:51, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. This question should be discouraged. It doesn't matter that they are unlikely to be opposed for declining; I think every candidate wants to answer all the questions and this could put some in an awkward position. -- Renesis (talk) 00:53, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I concur, it does make people feel uncomfortable. If their minors or if they just do not want to reveal their age, then this question is definately a no-no. It violates WP:CHILD and WP:PRIVACY (not really privacy, but it has some info). Cbrown1023 00:56, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Care to rethink this response? WP:CHILD is a proposed policy and WP:PRIVACY is defunct. I would be concerned about an admin not understanding policy and making administrative decisions based on proposed or outdated policy because the WP:ALPHABET sounds nice. It might cause some people to vote oppose on an RfA. —Malber (talk • contribs) 03:55, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd suggest preventing anybody from asking questions which could be used in future to stalk the candidate or where a truthful answer about anything off-Wiki could affect the RfA in anyway. I'd like to see any questions about the real life name, age or specific location of any candidate banned. This is stuff that nobody needs to know in order to assess how well an admin can do their job, they should look at the evidence available. Lots of these optional questions are a result of users going through the candidates contributions and their user pages and using a question to prove a point, to disrupt the RfA or to try and to provide material which could sway voters towards a particular decision. Normally it's to provoke an Oppose. There also needs to be less curiosity when somebody signs differently to their account name, and perhaps a suggestion that users who wish to remain anonymous ask for a username change before submitting an RfA with respect to the questions that popup from time to time over signatures. Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 01:18, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

"How old are you?"

"Old enough to run for RfA. Next question?"

Problem solved. ;-) EVula // talk // ☯ // 01:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I should've answered that way! Cbrown1023 01:24, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I think questions requesting personal information should be banned. I can't see any reason why the information would be important, and it puts people at risk. We're always saying children shouldn't put their personal information on the site, and then we go and specifically ask for it? It's crazy. --Tango 12:46, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

But do we want really young admins? That is, younger than 10? I ceratinly wouldn't care but others might. --Majorly 12:51, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

If you can't tell they're under 10 without asking them, then they're obviously mature for their age, so their age is irrelevant. --Tango 13:21, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Certainly, but some people don't like it... --Majorly 13:41, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I'd rather have an admin whose age is ten instead of 110. Still, either way, if they are trustworthy and have proven themselves, they should be given the mop regardless of age. Unless of course, we're ageist... | AndonicO ^{Talk | Sign Here} 13:50, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't care if people don't like it. It doesn't hurt the encyclopaedia, so there's no reason not to let young children be admins if they're competent. Wikipedia policy is not based on what people like. --Tango 14:02, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

There was a New Yorker cartoon some time ago with the puppy sitting in front of a computer screen, saying something like "The great thing about the Internet is you can be a dog on the Internet". Personally, I don't think we should even ask if someone is human - that would be speciesism.

Perhaps rather than deleting this optional question about one's age, editors could drop a note to the candidate whenever they see the question appear, suggesting that the candidate simply answer Old enough to run for RfA, as was described above. If this happens enough, it might well catch on, at which point the question will presumably go away. (I'm doubtful, given the emphasis in Wikipedia against censorship, that a consensus could [easily] be created to actually ban this question.) John Broughton | Talk 14:07, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

This site runs on discsussion. Limiting discussion would be contrary to the goals of the project. There are no codified standards for becoming an admin, so everyone has their own personal standards for voting support or oppose. Any registered user is allowed to participate in an RfA discussion. Therefore, optional questions should not only be permitted, they should be encouraged. And since we have open standards, the content of the questions should not be limited.

Also, several of you are under the impression that asking for personal information is somehow illegal. Quite the contrary, you will probably eventually find that this is a common question on any job application. Being an administrator may be no big deal, but there is a lot of potential for abuse and little accountability. I'd like to know if I'm getting myself into a Lord of the Flies situation. —Malber (talk • contribs) 18:02, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I think you need to re-read some of the discussion; we're not talking about asking for personal info being illegal, we're talking about how it applies to guidelines and whatnot and whether we should shy away from it. Your comment about additional questions also seems a bit off the mark; while discussion is indeed important, we're trying to ensure that RfAs don't become fifty-question pages. EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:34, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

The issue isn't entirely about legal standards; however, it should be stated that in many jurisdictions, you cannot ask a job applicant their age. You can ask upon hiring, but not before. Agent 86 19:55, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

There are no guidelines or standards to selecting an admin. Perhaps if there were there wouldn't be a need for optional questions. Given that I'm not the only person asking additional questions to the standard three, I would say that there is not consensus that the three are sufficient. And anyone shouting that asking questions is a "violation" of WP:POINT seriously needs to sit down and actually read that essay and try to see the difference between policy and a guideline. Besides, it's interesting seeing the nominees try to answer that question. The question of the possibility of this place being run by adolescents may be important to some. —Malber (talk • contribs) 03:34, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean by that... technically aren't we the you's (I know, bad grammar... argh) of tomorrow? Cbrown1023 03:42, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Malber, while you're pointing out what others need to read, let me ask you to read the matters at issue in this discussion. No one has suggested that optional questions ought not be permitted. No one is shouting, either. The key issues are (1) that blindly slapping the same set of "optional" questions on each and every RfA may constitute an end-run about what consensus has achieved thus far regarding the standard questions and that it may be disrupting wikipedia to make a point and (2) that asking someone to disclose personal information is unacceptable. There is no age restriction to read or edit WP or to get an account. As to the ageist position that some may not want people who are adolescents running the place, calendar age ought not matter if a nominee has proven his or her self through their editing and contributions. Agent 86 04:57, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand the argument here. The impression I'm getting is that candidates are getting too many questions that someone always asks, despite not being standard questions, and that this is unfair because people are opposing for it. I'm not supposed to gather information I want because people might not pass if it is known? -Amarkov ^blah_edits 05:25, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Agent 86 wants more rules. The most question an RfA has ever had is around 20. This pales in comparison to the 60+ questions at prospective Wal-Mart employee has to complete on their job applicaation. —Malber (talk • contribs) 13:30, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I have not asked for more rules. I have simply stated that (a) it is an invasion of privacy (at the very least) to ask a candidate to provide personal information in order to gain adminship, which is unacceptable and (b) that the "optional questions" should be moved to the "discussion" part of the RfA and (c) have suggested that some repetitive posting of some so-called "optional" questions may not be in the spirit of consensus in that they may be an end-run around what the community has agreed and are possibly disrupting things to make a point. On that latter issue, it might be said I'm looking to apply the rules we already have, not add new ones. Agent 86 19:08, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Agent86: The questions I've been asking relate to general administrative functions. The first relates to general policy and the nominee's philosophy on policy/process. The section question tests if the nominee has actually read the blocking policy. The third focuses on a specific criteria of the speedy deletion policy. All of these relate the the responsibilities of being an admin. The fourth question is new and while it does not directly relate to being an admin, there have been criticisms of Wikipedia that it is run by adolescents. For now this is a test of the community's reaction to this type of question. Being optional questions, the nominee can certainly decline to answer, or come up with a creative way to answer it. Or they can be truthful. It's really up to them.

As for your concern about cut-and-paste (I actually use a template from my user-space) to every RfA, I've taken the personal policy of only applying these questions to RfAs that are not already snowball accept and RfAs where only the three standard questions have been answered. If I see one where other users have asked their own questions, or the questions would be redundant, I don't apply the questions. —Malber (talk • contribs) 18:01, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

While I'm not the most attentive person to RFA, I've never seen a direct "How old are you?" before Crazytales (I've seen it commented on or brought up as a sort of "evidence" from userpage/talk page diffs elsewhere, but never directly asked). If I had to guess, I'd say this comes out of some concerns over age and maturity over at the ArbCom election. -- nae'blis 19:50, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe asking personal information should actually be banned, as it is an invasion of privacy. The "I'm old enough" answer should be sufficient. S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 20:33, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Time for new questions (Archive 76)

For quite some time now, every nominee has been asked their opinion on WP:SNOW and punitive blocking. They boil down to leading questions, in that a wrong answer will probably "sink" your adminship, but they have been used long enough that the "correct" answer is clear from RFA history. Thus I believe they are, at least for the time being, no longer useful in judging candidates, and that we should find some new questions instead. >Radiant< 14:11, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I'd drop them or ask new ones. feydey 15:13, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

We need some new questions, the same old thing is very boring. Let's ask something different. Terence Ong 15:15, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Suggestions? — Seadog_MS 15:19, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Find a specific example article, currently in question regarding the policies and ask what they would do in regards to them? I.E., ask about a particular afd and ask what there thoughts in regards to WP:SNOW and the particular afd. Do they think it applies, etc etc. Similarly, for WP:IAR, ask if they have ever used WP:IAR as a rationalization, if so, where, how why, etc. If they havent, find something controversial and ask there opinion on its relations to WP:IAR. I think these are important concepts to make sure an candidate understands, butlets make it more real like a lab , as opposed to an "open book test". Just throwing some ideas around. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 15:28, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

How about "Have you stopped making bad-faith edits to Wikipedia?". On a more serious note, now might be a time to reuse old questions or tweak them for new purposes. I still have my very old RFA questions that I used after some discussion (dating back to January 2006) at User:Deathphoenix/RFA questions, though only questions 5 and 6 are useful IMO. Questions 4 (test1-4 vs bv) and 7 (NPOV) will likely get stock answers and question 8 (greatest frustrations with Wikipedia) sounds useless. I think if we start with some new questions, we can use some questions in the same vein as these old ones. --Deathphoenix ʕ 15:42, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I propose "Are you now, or have you ever been, a communist?" Ah, that's a classic... EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:45, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

"Have you stopped being a communist?" --Deathphoenix ʕ 15:46, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Lets bring back "Is the glass half empty or half full?" :) thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 15:47, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Too easy, the glass is at the half way point. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 16:04, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I am sure we have some editors that would propse the question, "How old are you?". Any takers. lol. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 16:08, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Bah, that question is so passé at this point. "a/s/l", on the other hand... EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:03, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

In a more serious vein, I really like Deathphoenix's questions 5 and 6; the first one question 5 is tricky (I'm still mulling over what my answer would be), and second one question 6 is an excellent "test your policy knowledge"-type question. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:03, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem with the first question (question 4) is that there is pretty much a right answer to it. Once a single RFA candidate has answered it correctly, all subsequent candidates can provide the same answer. OTOH, 5 & 6 doesn't have a single correct answer, so those could be used for multiple RFAs. I think we need questions similar to 5 and 6 if we want to add new optional questions for candidates. --Deathphoenix ʕ 17:13, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, "first" and "second" were in reference to questions 5 and 6. I've modified my comment above to read a bit clearer. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:07, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

What is your name? What is your quest? What is your favorite color? Newyorkbrad 17:08, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Additional questions should (hopefully) relate to and test the candidate's understanding of policy. This is the intent of my IAR, SNOW, blocking policy, and CSD questions. But I agree: they have become stale and people are cribbing answers. But hasn't my age question been fun? —Malber (talk • contribs) 18:27, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Um ... not especially, no. Are you trying to help !voters evaluate candidates at this point, or just stir up trouble? Newyorkbrad 18:29, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I say we shove my bureaucrat question on them. Or maybe something that doesn't involve bureaucrat responsibilities, such as "What would you do if Essjay blocked all your Wikifriends indefinitely as sockpuppets of you?". Or "What if Jimbo replied to a comment of yours on the mailing list by spamming "I HATE YOU YOU IDIOT?". Those would be pretty fun to see people try to answer. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 18:34, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Practice answers: (1) I'd find out who's been signing Essjay's name again. (2) I'd give an NPA-2 warning and if it continued post to ANI for advice, but not block him myself. Would I pass? Newyorkbrad 18:59, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I find Malber's questions about IAR and SNOW, as well as the one about G11, to be very useful. If he were to stop asking them, I would likely continue it. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:02, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

How about we dont ask all the same questions. Tailor a set of questions against what they do mostly. I.E. somebody like me who always does vandal patrol would probably not be lacking information on that. have a set of questions, and ask the vandal patrollers questions on xfds. So what, there may be a right answer but lets not at least give them one that is easy off the top of there head. Make them research a little and, they may be close to admin status and the research will give them that extra knolwedge after picking up a mop to make effective infomred decisions regarding the use of the tools. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 18:37, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

It would make sense to ask about admin area's the user is not familiar with. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 18:41, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Makes much more sense than rubberstamping questions on. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 18:45, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

When I write optional questions, I normally base them on the output of my diff-generator (which often highlights areas that a user is interested in, especially in Wikipedia:-space). Matching the question to the candidate makes more sense then rubberstamping on questions (the answer may be clear from the candidate's history, for instance). --ais523 18:51, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea of having different questions for each editor. Maybe have a pool of questions that can get picked from, with suggestions on "groups" of questions perhaps (ie: someone who is good at vandal fighting would get asked 2, 4, and 5, while someone heavy on the XfD would get asked 2, 3, and 8). [question numbers totally made up] EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:07, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

That's still too rubberstamp for me. It seems odd to ask questions in a way such that I could just code a template to put in the appropriate ones, depending on whether the parameter is "XfD", "RC patrol", or "Article writing". -Amarkov ^blah_edits 19:10, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I will agree, I dont think it should be a template question. A template question would imply that the questions are fixed. With any fixed questions, there would be a fixed answer. I think some certain fixed questions might be good, just to make sure the user answered them good. I mean, how many RFA's probably failed miserable because when asked what they most looked forward to they said something like, "blocking vandals forever" or something? Questions like the punitive block are important. I think it should be a mix of some cookie cutter questions (just to see if the candidate does the work to answer the questions), and some more compelx, thought provoking ones to get an idea how the candidate would do in a real life situation. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 19:26, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that RfA candidates answer the standard questions either very competently or quite hopelessly, with very few editors in the grey area in between. given that the answer to any set question will be intensively studied by all succeeding applicants, have we considered dispensing with the set questions altogether? Unless this is heresy. We could make the Candicates voluntary statement, which right now some make and some do not, the starting point, and then depend on answers to voluntary questions based on this statement and on the editor's editing record. This would focus decision-making directly on the wiki- and communication skills of the candidate, and on their involvement in mainspace, namespace, etc.--Anthony.bradbury 19:41, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

No, dispensing them is not heresy, but as you just said, we can judge the candidates' answers to the standard questions to see if the applicant is "either very [competent] or quite [hopeless]." Do note that one applicant did try to dispense with the questions, and note the furor that it caused. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 06:09, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Did I just contradict myself? --²¹⁰physicq (c) 06:11, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Our only example of a candidate dispensing with the questions is pretty ridiculous. Hex basically argued he should be trusted pro forma until he screwed something up. If another candidate dispensed with the questions but had a long nomination or a long candidate statement, their RfA might fly better.--Kchase T 06:20, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I personally almost always get enough information out of the user's contributions (particularly leading up to their RfA), nomination statement if self-nom, and the three standard questions. Policy-quiz questions are pointless -- knowledge of policy can be attained by anyone at any time, prior to or after becoming an admin. The attitude and demeanor of the candidate are longer lasting, and give a better indication of whether the candidate would make a thoughtful and conservative choice if a difficult situation came up where they didn't know the applicable policy -- something that has probably happened to every admin, regardless of how "prepared" they were. -- Renesis (talk) 07:08, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Totally agree. I think all questions should be scrapped. --Majorly (Talk) 09:00, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree to a point. Questions are nice, but a candidate is hardly going to incriminate themselves. They won't deliberately lie, but they may have forgotten some details, or they may just whitewash what they did. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 15:28, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

We are trying to choose as Admins editors who will be responsible, efficient, effective, consistent and trustworthy. And, I am sure, many other things. The ability to memorise the answers to standard questions submitted by previous successful admin applicants proves none of these characteristics. But a good, thoughtful personal statement, together with a good, balanced edit history and good answers to ad hoc questions specifically tailored to the candidate should be as good a way of selecting the right people for the job as is possible at this time. Of course, this will mean that other editors have to work harder to form their assessments. But that's not really a problem, is it?--Anthony.bradbury 15:48, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Tony. As opposed to asking standard questions, we should simply allow and encourage the candidate enough rope to hang themselves an opportunity to comment on their own record. I've noticed that in 90% of the cases the personal statement alone is enough to tell me whether the nominee is admin material (and that is borne out when I do further investigations, of course!) Thus questions that are tailored to the nominee's experience should be encouraged (rather than the current situation where the optional question often tells us more about the questioner than the answer does about the nominee). I'd like to see questioning along the lines of:

"Dear Rockpocket, with regard to this edit summary and the response it elicted from a new editor, do you think you fell foul of WP:BITE and what, if anything, did you learn from that experience?"

I don't think there is a right or wrong answer to such a question, and I also think that instead of testing for policy wonkage, it simply provides us with an insight of how the nominee works, rather than the theoretical "what-if" scenario that is normally trotted out in answers. Rockpocket 18:34, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm guessing a lot of nominees learn several policies during their admin application, that many of the admin nominees only find out about the policy when asked in the question. Of course upon reading the policy they can understand it (usually) and answer the question just fine so it seems as though they know it. I think if we want to find out more about their policy knowledge we should "trick" them into answering a policy relevant question, such as "what do you do?" as opposed to "would WP:WHATEVER apply here?" Because Malbers IAR and SNOW question is being researched in prior RfA's it could be reworded into a situation where the policy would apply (non-controversially), because what's the point of knowing a policy if you can't apply it? Personally I think that question is a good one, but it is becoming less useful when candidates can look up the correct answer. James086^{Talk | Contribs} 04:35, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Asking about education level (Archive 76)

I see people above saying Malber age's question would provide useful information but is not appropriate to ask because a prospective employer can't ask it. What about asking the admin candidate his level of education (e.g. high school, college, grad/postdoc), or just whether he has a college degree or not? --Quarl ^(talk) 2006-12-25 01:58Z

I still happened to have this on watch, so I'm going to throw in here based on my own experience. I think there are already too many artificial "hurdles" to this process-especially given that even admins can't take non-reversible actions. Why not simply look if the prospective admin has contributed constructively (to whatever areas they've chosen to contribute), and has a general lack of losing their mind, and if so why not? These questions about age and experience seem to serve just to create more artificial barriers-a postdoc might make a terrible admin, and a kid in middle school might make a good one. Who knows? Besides, it would be trivially easy to lie on these, and since the vast majority of us here use pseudonyms, there would never be any real way to check. Seraphimblade 02:05, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Are there actually middle-school-age administrators on Wikipedia? :) --Quarl ^(talk) 2006-12-25 02:14Z

I am one. :) Cbrown1023 02:32, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Excellent, kudos. --Quarl ^(talk) 2006-12-25 02:45Z

There's probably a few. Maybe even younger than that. I see no problem with it as long as they can handle the job. TeckWiz^TalkContribs_@ 02:18, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

There're administrators on enwiki younger than 11? --Quarl ^(talk) 2006-12-25 02:21Z

The youngest I know of are 14, although there may be some a little younger than that who don't mention their ages (or whom I happen not to have noticed). At one point we had a bureaucrat who was 14, although I believe he's had a birthday since then. Newyorkbrad 02:22, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You might be rather amazed. I've seen some kids more mature at 13 than most people are at 30. That's the exception, of course, but it sure does happen. Seraphimblade 02:24, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think I'd be amazed, and I agree with you. Newyorkbrad 02:28, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

There's probably at least 100,000 IP vandals over 20. There's people less mature than 13 year olds. TeckWiz^TalkContribs_@ 02:29, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I myself am in middle school, and I don't see how education level can affect how good an admin is. Maybe it would help in writing articles, since college student may write better than people like me, ut the purpose of adminship doesn't require a high education, it just requires an education (ie. being able to read). As long as they are fluent or almost fluent in English, it's fine with me. Anyone who can request an AFD appropriately is smart enough. TeckWiz^TalkContribs_@ 02:13, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I fear this is discussion drifting into the age metaquestion again. If you were an employer and choosing between candidates of the same age, would it be appropriate to consider whether they have a college degree (even if the specific major is not directly applicable to the job)? --Quarl ^(talk) 2006-12-25 02:30Z

While people like me of a certain age (63) like to think that wisdom and judgement come with age and experience, I would say that it is none of our business how old a contributor is or how much education they have. What should count in choosing admins is the editor's record of contributions to Wikipedia. We are not hiring someone based on a resume and an interview, we are deciding whether to hand someone the mop based our estimation of whether they can be trusted with it and will use it for the betterment of Wikipedia. -- Donald Albury 02:39, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

If the job doesn't require any special knowledge (like a fast food cashier), than I'd say a GED is enough (if the person is old enought to obtain a GED). If they're younger, but still in school, it's fine with me. I don't expect them to ask at McDonalds if you have a college degree. The same goes for Wikipedia. You don't need a college degree to protect pages, block users, and delete stuff. You just need to be trusted and experienced in Wikipedia. TeckWiz^TalkContribs_@ 02:42, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

The principal qualifications for adminship here are a reasonable amount of wiki-experience and good judgment. Age doesn't necessarily correllate with those factors. I will not go so far as to say that age and educational level are completely irrelevant to the work a Wikipedia administrator does: there are specific situations when they can be relevant, not to whether a candidate should become an administrator, but to whether a particular administrator should do a certain administrative task or let another admin handle it. But the good judgment criterion covers that, for a younger admin just as much as an older one.

The question that gets bruited about on this page, though, is whether candidates should be asked their ages. In principle, this is a serious violation of privacy. In practice, though, I think many of the younger candidates are proud of their accomplishments on- and off-wiki and voluntarily mention on their userpages their age or grade or whatever. But I still think that an age or educational background question gives undue weight to that one factor, as well as invading the privacy of those who choose not to disclose, and hence shouldn't be posed, whether couched as "how old are you" or as something more subtle. Newyorkbrad 02:50, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Good answer, thanks. --Quarl ^(talk) 2006-12-25 02:58Z

I agree with NYbrad. And once again, if you can fill out an RFA appropriately, and speak fluent or almost fluent English, then you're smart enough to be an English Wikipedia admin. TeckWiz^TalkContribs_@ 02:54, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify, following instructions to fill out an RFA and speaking English are necessary but not sufficient requirements. --Quarl ^(talk) 2006-12-25 03:00Z

Yes, it is familiarity with Wikipedia and good judgement in dealing with problems and other editors, as demonstrated in the edit record, that counts. -- Donald Albury 03:12, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

That question is no less inappropriate than the age question, for the same 2 reasons: 1. It encourages voters to vote against people that do not reveal personal information. 2. It encourages voters to vote based upon an irrelevant factor, rather than the candidate's degree of responsibility.

A college degree does not magically confer the essential character trait of honesty.

HalfOfElement29 05:33, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Just as age is irrelevant to being a Wikipedia administrator, so is formal education. I'm 23 and have only completed two semesters of college; does that make me any less qualified to undelete an article that was axed improperly (which, incidentally, I just did)? Would someone who is 24 and does have an undergraduate degree be more qualified? Would someone who is 22 and does have an undergrad degree by less, more, or as qualified? What about a 35 year-old with a GED?
Remember, we're !voting on being an administrator on the English Wikipedia. Facts that have nothing to do with that are, largely, irrelevant. EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:41, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Succinctly, all we demand from an administrator on the English Wikipedia is judgmental maturity, not physical maturity. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 05:56, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Just wondering, why do people put an exclamation point in front of words containing "vote"? Like two comments above it says, "Remember, we're !voting... .". — Preceding unsigned comment added by TeckWiz (talk • contribs)

I believe it's a convention meant to remind the reader, or acknowledge the writer's awareness, that an RfA (or some other wiki-process like AfD) is meant to be decided on the basis of consensus and the quality of arguments rather than just the number of supports and opposes. Beyond that, the definition of "consensus" in terms of whether the outcome is based on numbers versus more the closing bureaucrat's discretion gets fairly contentious, but the exclammation point (which is roughly equivalent to putting the word "vote" in quotation marks) is a reminder it's not strictly an election. Newyorkbrad 14:15, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Just to make it clear, I (and I'm sure other 'crats may too) will not consider any support/oppose votes based on a candidate's age when closing a tight RFA. =Nichalp «Talk»= 14:30, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that any votes based only on things beyond a user's choice (age, ethnic origin, etc) should not be considered. Regards, Asterion^talk 14:34, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Tailor your voting to whether and what optional material is provided by the candidate but don't ask outright. If information is not provided, assume they want to keep this information private and don't !vote if lack of this information bothers you so much. In some places, even quite large towns, there will be just one person called "Dave" who's "23" with a degree in music, so identifying that person wouldn't be difficult for a determined person. --Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 16:06, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

If I were to remove my age question, I would probably replace it with something like this. Anyone saying education level isn't important is simply being naive. This is a research project. An editor with a 6th grade education level is simply not going to have the same kind of research experience an undergraduate would. I would trust a doctoral candidate to evaluate if an article has been properly sourced much more over a middle school student. If you think this isn't important to being an admin, then you haven't been following WP:AFD. —Malber (talk * contribs) 23:46, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Asking about education level is almost as contentious, is it not, as asking about age, and certainly as completely unnecessary. An admin needs to have common sense, consistency, a mature approach, an adequate degree of literacy in the English language, a reasonable and balanced degree of Wikipedia experience and a clearly defined ability to understand the full range of Wiki policy and, as appropriate, to implement it. Neither a College degree nor a twenty-year-old birth certificate will confer these gifts. If my suggestion to dispense with the questions and require a detailed personal statement from the RfA candidates were to be implemented, and decisions were based on this statement and on the applicants edit history, I believe that the presence or absence of the characteristics required to make an admin would be easily detectable. As would their absence.--Anthony.bradbury 00:15, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Anthony. We should not judge a Wikipedian's potential capability as an admin by their age/education/location, etc, but by their skill and contributions to the project. I would personally prefer a 10-year-old admin than a 110-year-old in the same position. I challenge Malber to give a reply to this question and defend his right to ask the question. Yuser31415 05:16, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that while having a college degree is, in a very limited way, somewhat indicative of maturity, not having a college degree is not indicative of anything at all. This makes even an education level question mostly useless, and possibly harmful. Can't we drop it? This really is turning into ageism (a term I use regretably), and I find that sad. -- Renesis (talk) 08:33, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Since when is proper sourcing a responsibility (solely) of admins anyway? It's anyone's responsibility who places any information in to source it properly, and anyone else's responsibility to check that it is and challenge it if it's not. Seraphimblade 08:42, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

One must ask "Hows does a college/university education bestow on an individual the necessary common sense, maturity and civility required to become an administrator?" While the answer may be exceedingly obvious once the question is asked, not every person has/had an opportunity to attain this level of education. Try considering the amount of petty bickering that occurs across the community(even here), maybe its more appropriate to enquire as to the candidates experience with teenagers, drunken football teams and door to door salesman. Gnangarra 15:00, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

That's simply absurd, there's school kids, government employees, scientists, religious fanatics, patriots and terrorists all editing Wikipedia and trying to introduce vandalism, misinformation, a point of view or whatever, and a potential administrator needs to be friendly and firm to deal with all this. A good admin doesn't need any formal education, but just needs to know his or her limits in a particularly sticky situation and draft in someone more familiar with the subject if necessary. Realistically, a degree isn't going to help in 99.99% of an admins workload anyway, because content disputes that could be resolved if the admin had a degree are probably something like every 1 in 100 edits, and a degree is only going to help on something like 1% of articles on Wikipedia. Aside from the privacy concerns I've outlined above, the need for an admin to have a degree is so minimal it's not worthy of any further consideration. --Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 15:44, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

As I said above, educational background can be relevant to a specific administrative task but not to whether one is suited to adminship itself. For example, if there is an AfD posted about, say, a complicated article involving vector calculus, it might be that an admin with background in that subject would be best suited to calling and closing the discussion. A good administrator without a background in vector calculus going down the day's AfD list might therefore skip over that particular discussion and move on to the next one. But it doesn't matter whether the reason the admin doesn't feel confident in evaluating the article is because he or she is older and has forgotten all the vector calculus previously learned, studied humanities and never covered vector calculus, didn't go to college and never had the chance to study vector calculus, or is a middle- or high-schooler and hasn't gotten to vector calculus yet. The important thing is that each admin deals with the specific admin tasks he or she feels qualified to undertake. Age or educational level per se are relevant to relatively few administrative responsibilities. I won't say quite none, but few. Newyorkbrad 17:54, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I have degrees in surgery, medicine, biochemistry and physiology; but not in vector calculus, nor for that matter in Etruscan history or Mediaeval Greek. This is not relevant. If specialist knowledge is needed to close an AfD, which is a fairly infrequent situation, than an admin with this knowledge can do so, and if necessdary can be sought to do so. No, as I have said, we need peple who are, of course, literare, and who have a good experience of and understanding of the policies and principals of wikipedia. As I have also said, intelligence, consistency, common sense and integrity are also needed. Does this really need further discussion?--Anthony.bradbury 19:49, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm fairly certain that your higher education has enabled you to better scrutinize prose and proper sourcing in any subject than an editor with 6 years of public eduction. —Malber (talk * contribs) 02:32, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

So what? Do you imply I cannot revert vandalism on the Black hole page when someone writes "Our teacher has a black arsehole"? Just because I do not have a degree that enables me to edit that page? Your argument is irrelevant, and considered disruptive. If I were you I would stop before you catch the wrong end of the banhammer. Yuser31415 02:40, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Malber is certainly not worth getting worked up over Yuser. --Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 02:49, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Malber, I personally think your wrong yet again. In a couple of years, I'll have a degree in Chemistry, but I've only got a rather basic Standard Grade pass in English. Your not talking about only giving people with English degrees admin tools now, or degree holding Germans that don't speak English. Could you do the decent thing and admit your argument is very flawed please. --Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 02:49, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, so my immediate reaction upon reading that was "fuck you". Because I've only had two semesters of college, I'm unable to tell the difference between a link to whitehouse.gov and whitehouse.org when reviewing sources in an article? EVula // talk // ☯ // 03:00, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Well it's a good thing you coached that comment in quotation marks because while saying it up front might have been the braver thing to do, it certainly would be incivil. Of course you don't need an advanced degree to revert vandalism to your Black Hole. You don't even need to be an admin. However, education on proper resarch, citing sources, and readling level to determine POV can help in evaluating the inclusion or deletion of articles. This something that is directly related to being an admin. Again, edcuation level is only a plus. —Malber (talk • contribs) 21:41, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

It's nice to see that Malber now appears to be asking this question. Lovely. I do wonder where he got the idea? --Deskana (talk) 21:50, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

In regards to asking possibly inappropriate RfA questions, I do believe that the questions themselves should be discouraged by all means. However, we cannot penalize users for their continuing to ask them (such as what happened in the Malber situation). The questions are entirely optional and answerable at the discretion of the nominees. If there is more dispute with their being in use, its only best to civily scrutinize the question by bringing them to the RfA talk page (as done with this topic) or Request for comment, rather than blacklisting the users who are asking them to begin with. I would consider bad user conduct to be way more disruptive than asking not-so-appropriate RfA questions.

Anyways, as far as asking the question of one's education or age in an RfA, I believe both are highly unnecessary and do not contribute in a beneficial manner to learn more about the candidate's qualifications. Many users have brought up above that to serve the English Wikipedia you do not necessarily need a whole formal education but simply a good comprehension of the English language and a strong understanding with how Wikipedia works. Contribution history is what really signifies what a candidate is capable of and not what education they received or if they are over the legal age limit.¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 22:12, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I answered the question, but having read this discussion I think that it's probably an inappropriate quesiton. A fundamental principle of this community is that it can't matter who you are only what you contribute. savid@n 23:54, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

This is a very silly discussion. I am an admin, a bureaucrat, and a steward. In my other life, I am an employee of the foundation and a published author (popular and academic), I have, in the past worked as an editor of encyclopedias for major publishing houses, a television scriptwriter, a respected translator (including poetry), a museum educator, and a curriculum developer. In fact, the only thing I am missing is a high school diploma and a college degree. Danny 03:19, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Well said! And hopefully that's the end of this one? Seraphimblade 03:23, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

My feelings entirely. In fact, if Malber continues to violate strong consensus, I would support him being banned from the RfA page. Yuser31415 03:31, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I think what Danny said was funny, and gives the answer to our question. If he can write books, be an admin, b'crat, and steward, as well as many other non-Wiki things, and not even have a high school diploma, what education do people need for adminship! TeckWiz^TalkContribs_@ 03:39, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

We need people with common sense who aren't assholes. It doesn't matter if you have a high school diploma or a doctorate in history. And a decent understanding of policy and the like, of course. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 04:42, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Having a high education level would be a plus. Not having it but being a good editor would not be a minus. —Malber (talk • contribs) 13:18, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

If it gives some (maybe less qualified) users an unfair advantage, why ask it? Anyways, as it has been pointed out above, level of eduacation isn't necessarily what makes a good admin. Tennis DyNamiTe ^{(sign here)} 14:24, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with the asking of education levels as there are many teenage admins and great editors. I think what matters is the understanding of wikipedia policy not education. — Arjun 14:37, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Why is it that when I posed the age question I never received any complaints from any of the candidates? The same has held true for my education question. Both participants have answered candidly (the location of the educational institution isn't requested, but I appreciate the candor). Is it me or are people blowing this way out of proportion? Education level isn't nearly as invasive a question as age and if a voter doesn't want or care about this they can ignore the question. It's not as if I'm saying that a high or low level of eduction is a plus or minus, it's just interesting information to know. Like I said before, a grade 6 education isn't a minus if the other factors show that the person can be a good admin. A person being a Doctoral Candidate would just be one more plus for votes to support. —Malber (talk • contribs) 18:32, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

It's the psychological element, the candidate won't actually complain about it because they don't want the questioner to oppose because they complained (etc.) - and so don't. A fair few probably don't even have this page watch listed.

My thoughts on this is that it is irrelevant (just as age is) - the level of education is not important within Wikipedia, should we start asking if a candidate has a disability? (I'd sure hope not) - You don't need an assortment of degrees to qualify as an administrator, the only things I'd say you do need are: Trust, level-headedness and a friendly attitude. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 18:51, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Even you admit that asking that is invasive! As you said, it is not as invasive as asking a user's age, but such personal questions, in my opinion, should be avoided. And again, that gives an unfair advantage to some. Having a higher level of education does not determine how well someone would do as an admin. Yes it would help with the encyclopedia, but you don't need admin tools to contribute. All we're asking is that you refrain from asking such questions. Please, Malber, listen to consensus. Tennis DyNamiTe ^{(sign here)} 23:53, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Statement of Purpose (Archive 76)

I like Anthony.bradbury's idea of simply requiring a statement of purpose from RFA candidates (like the ArbCom statements). This would be a reasonable small hurdle/opportunity to show maturity and judgement, letting the candidate disclose as much personal detail as he feels comfortable. --Quarl ^(talk) 2006-12-26 05:28Z

I concur. Yuser31415 06:10, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

(Or she) I also think it's a good idea. James086^{Talk | Contribs} 06:26, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Definitely would support this as well. Seraphimblade 08:39, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I like that idea, not too complex, but forces a candidate to put a small amount of work in to show good intention. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 15:07, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

And it demontrates what they intend to do as an admin, gives an impression of how they see admin tasks and duties, and perhaps most important, why they actually want to be an admin. Almost nobody asks this question. They ask what you will do as an admin, but not why you want to do it. And they are different questions. A voluntary statement, considered in conjunction with a consideration of the edit history, should in my personal view be the best way so far of determining who will, or will not, make a good admin.--Anthony.bradbury 19:40, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I will restate my like of the idea, however we should make sure it isent too much like "1. What sysop chores do you anticipate helping with? Please check out Category:Wikipedia backlog and Category:Administrative backlog, and read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list. " It seems like the answer to anthonys proposed questions could be relaly ismilar to the answers most commonly given to this common question. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 19:42, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

As I said above somewhere, I think questions should be removed altogether, and it is up to the candidate, and/or the nominator to write a brilliant nomination. --Majorly (Talk) 19:48, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

No, Chrislk02. I would put, as the only question, something like; "Please say why you have applied to be an administrator?" Or, if the community prefer: "Please make a statement supporting your nomination as adminstrator". In either or any case, I would like the candidate to make a spontaneous and pro-active statement on which the community can judge, together with an assessment of edit history, their commitment, dedication, and skill as it applies to wikipedia.--Anthony.bradbury 19:58, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I would personally use something like, "Thank you for considering serving Wikipedia as an administrator. Administrators have many additional responsibilities as well as normal Wikipedian duties, and you are requested to make a detailed statement indicating your fitness for the position. Your statement will guide participants in your RfA while they consider you as the candidate, so it is a good idea to disclose as much as is possible." Feedback please? Yuser31415 23:45, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't say responsibilities, more like privileges. But otherwise, I like it! --Majorly (Talk) 23:52, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

More like this? "Thank you for considering serving Wikipedia as an administrator. You are required to make a detailed statement indicating your fitness for the position to guide participants in your request. Since administrators are generally held to higher standards than other users, it is recommended that you disclose as much of your past history on Wikipedia as possible." Yuser31415 23:59, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

It's a great idea. Instead of having to constantly come back to your RfA to address issues that may or may not have any significance, we should just allow a mandatory statement of purpose of why he/she wants to become an administrator. They must address all the points usually covered in RfA's, and by doing so, this will probably cut down on the number of people who wait until a question has been answered, before actually voting. That's my take on this. It's a great idea, and I really hope it will be implemented. Nishkid64 00:50, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Also, make it into a vote again, with a requirement of having over 500 edits to vote, and 2000 to stand. --Majorly (Talk) 01:02, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Great. We seem to be building consensus :). Yuser31415 01:10, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I would say 250 to vote. And would the 2,000 count for just the nominee or the nominator also? TeckWiz^TalkContribs_@ 01:12, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, personally I'd prefer just 200 to vote and/or nominate, and 2000 to stand (easy to remember :). Actually there does not have to be a standard for nominators, since the nominee must accept the nomination first (and basically they OK it). Yuser31415 01:19, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

NishKid, couple of minor tweaks, there needs to be a reasonable limit on candidates statements, and if we're changing the terms of suffrage then it might be an idea to appoint some clerks to check edit counts, remove votes from those without suffrage and update tallies, that sort of thing. --Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 01:29, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. Needs to be limits on who can request, vote and nominate which would all need checking. --Majorly (Talk) 01:45, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

This is why I think it should be up to the bureaucrats to discount votes based on the voter's editcount. When a genuine SPA appears, usually it's pretty obvious - crap reason for oppose, redlinked user and/or talk pages, no-one recognising them. But to weed out people with 200 edits, you'd basically need to check every single participant's edit count, because no-one can tell instinctively whether someone has 150 or 250 edits. That's a massive waste of time for no discernable gain, frankly. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 01:54, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

This is a bad idea, IMO; essay-writing is not a required skill for adminship. To judge an RfA candidate we need them to answer the questions "why do you need admin buttons" and "why can we trust you with admin buttons", which is what we do with the mandatory questions (1 for the first, 2 and 3 for the second). There's no reason why prospective admins should guess what we want to know. The suggestion that people wanting to volunteer as admins should know not just the right answers but the right questions is faintly Kafkaesque.

Remember, we're not doing candidates a favour by giving them adminship; they're doing us a favour by volunteering for it. We want as many as possible, and we should come out and ask the questions we want answered explicitly. Without mandatory questions, a candidate could know policy and be experienced and trustworthy, but fail RfA because in his statement, he wrote 500 words on his experience but didn't know he should say what admin tasks he intended to carry out. That would be a tragedy we could ill afford.

The opening post in this thread mentions the Arbcom elections, but that couldn't be a more different situation; they were a competition for a limited number of seats, so a statement was needed because you had to show not just why you were good, but why you were better than the other candidates. In comparison, RfA is purely about being above a certain standard. For candidates with knowledge, experience and trustworthiness, we should make passing RfA as easy as possible without making it easy for those without it. Removing the mandatory questions in favour of requiring a statement just makes it less easy for good candidates and no harder for bad ones. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 01:20, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

A compelling counter-argument. I would hope people give this serious weight. --Deskana (talk) 01:22, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Certainly. Hello Sam! I think we have already addressed your counter-argument. The RfA boilerplate will contain a message asking the candidate to answer exactly those questions. Oh, and by the way: as I understand it, essay-writing is a required skill for adminship - one of the reasons I failed my RfA was because I did not contribute enough to articlespace. So article contributions appear to be important. Yuser31415 01:30, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd accept something like "Please write a statement of 400 words explaining why you want the admin tools, and why you believe you should be trusted with them". (400 words up for discussion, of course.) I really don't like this wording you suggested: "You are required to make a detailed statement... it is recommended that you disclose as much of your past history on Wikipedia as possible". With that a candidate could spend a very long and miserable time trying to remember everything good he's done for Wikipedia and finding diffs, without it doing his candidacy any good, because "I've done x, y and z for α months" is usually all that needs to be said to show experience.

Even with that I would still prefer the current system - not sure what problem we're trying to solve here.

As for what you said about articles, true - but writing about yourself is very different from writing encyclopaedia articles. Personally, I find it very difficult to write about how marvellous I am (whether my Arbcom statement, covering letters with job applications, performance reviews at work, anything) to the point of almost hating it. Direct, straightforward questions I have no problem with - perhaps knowing that at least one person (the questioner) is interested in what you're about to write makes it easier. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 01:54, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

How do you like the modified wording Physicq210 proposed?

Thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia in the capacity of administrator. In order to assist other editors in evaluating your fitness to serve in such a position, please provide below a statement of variable length detailing your experiences and your anticipated activities on Wikipedia, which may include, but not be limited to, your editing habits, past achievements, various discussion, past disputes, dispute resolution, and the like.

What we are trying to resolve here is the fact many editors are requesting information that simply need not be answered (ie., the age question above). If no questions are asked, it is up to the admin candidate to demonstrate their writing skills, and say whatever they want about themselves, without releasing additional info. Feedback? Yuser31415 02:02, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

<edit conflict> Compelling indeed. But if we were to go ahead and replace the questions with an "essay" of sorts, we can just indicate what many editors look for in an RfA. Please consider the following:

Thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia in the capacity of administrator. In order to assist other editors in evaluating your fitness to serve in such a position, please provide below a statement of variable length detailing your experiences and your anticipated activities on Wikipedia, which may include, but not be limited to, your editing habits, past achievements, various discussion, past disputes, dispute resolution, and the like.

This is just a hashing together of some ideas from Anthony Bradbury and Yuser31415 above and some of the current wording from the RfA. Many of the current points demanded by the current questions are addressed, though in an essay question format. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 01:34, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Now that is a fine piece of writing. Yuser31415 01:50, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

What about an either/or situation, those who want to write an essay can, those who wish to use the standard questions can. --Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 01:37, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

An interesting idea, but for some reason I can't see it working. I'm not quite sure why. --Deskana (talk) 01:40, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I think I can see it working, but since I greatly value your opinion if you have any ideas why it wouldn't work please tell me/us. Cheers! Yuser31415 01:50, 27 December 2006 (UTC) Ooops, posted in wrong place. Now to avoid an edit conflict ... I just think one or the other, and I would prefer the statement we are debating rather than the questions. Cheers, Yuser31415 01:53, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, thinking about it, we should be trying to make things identical for all candidates. If candidates wish to ask themselves the questions though, or list their achievements in a bullet point list, what would we do though ? --Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 02:08, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

They may list their achievements in a bullet point list if they wish, as long as no one asks them any questions. Depending on consensus, an exception could be made that editors can ask the potential admin to amend a point of their statement on the candidate's talk page. Yuser31415 02:13, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, it's getting better all the time, just a couple of final points. Will voters be allowed to ask candidates questions such as age or education level on their talk page, or will there be a ban on asking for private information not already volunteered by the candidate on the assumption that if they wanted us to know age, education, location etc, they would have already provided such information ? --Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 02:19, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I assume there will be a ban on asking for private information. There appears to be a general consensus that the age question is frowned upon. Yuser31415 02:27, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Compelling, yes. Basically, what I meant with "no questions" is the candidate should outline why they should be an admin: describe what they intend to do, how they are worthy of extra priveleges etc. Much like question 1. Doesn't need to be an essay. Question 2 is irrelevant because articles, however much people associate writing with being an admin, are nothing to do with being one. Question 3 can be left off completely, and voters can make up their own minds whether to research the candidate or not. All that we need to know is: will this user make a good admin? If, from what they have given in their statement shows they would be, and from evidence of seeing the user around, then the user should be supported. --Majorly (Talk) 01:41, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I would certainly agree to that as well. I wish I'd had more chance to state my case in my RfA, and the lack of questions even being asked were rather a difficulty to that! I would much prefer an opportunity to free-write, and I think that would be better for each unique candidate to express why (s)he believes h(im|er)self to be a good candidate and to express this to the community. (Might also help with the nasty case of editcountitis/timeeditingitis that seem to have reached epidemic levels...) Seraphimblade 03:29, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

While a statment of purpose seems to be an attractive idea, the proposed phrasings I've read here seem too open-ended. In my opinion, it's best to ask clear, direct, and fairly non-meandering questions to get the best answers. Furthermore, asking an admin candidate to prepare a 400-word statement gives some candidates inherent advantages over others, as in those 400 words will likely be hints to the candidate's age, educational background, and so forth via analysis of the flow of the text and vocabulary. Posing direct questions will better level the field for all candidates. Also, rather than seeking loquacious admins, we should be seeking those with good judgement who don't skirt issues. An experienced writer can in 400 words espouse every side of an issue, flip-flop, and assert and concede the same points while convincing many readers that he or she actually stands for something.

I think that the current questions 1 and 3 work well to assess whether a candidate can express himself or herself clearly and has a need for the admin tools. If in these questions the candidate wishes to disclose other ideas that he or she feels are salient to his or her RfA, that would be his or her opportunity to do so. I don't think other editors should be allowed to ask the same questions to every single candidate as I have seen some doing. Rather, I feel optional questions should only be posed if an editor is unsure whether to support or oppose a candidate based on a past editing issue. For example, if a candidates speedy deletion experience or AfD voting becomes an issue, an optional question asking the candidate to clarify his or her position would be appropriate. Asking for a candidate's age or educational level is not savory in my book as it might (consciously or not) influence some editors to oppose fine candidates who are young and/or who lack higher education. Fabricationary 03:36, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

The way the candidate writes the statement will obviously reflect that user's ability to write in English, while allowing a free flow of writing. If you don't think the proposed phrasing is good enough, how about providing a draft that you like? Cheers! Yuser31415 03:46, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Candidates are not required to give a 400-word-and-no-less essay, hence the "variable length" part. If they are true candidates for adminship, they would have lots to write about other than their personal information, and it won't be that hard to go past 200 words, give or take. And candidates are always welcome to elaborate on ambiguous and/or unmentioned points upon request, or when things come to mind in the future. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 03:52, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, let me take the liberty of modifying my proposed statement:

Thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia in the capacity of administrator. In order to assist other editors in evaluating your fitness to serve in such a position, please provide below a statement of variable length describing your reasons for requesting adminship. Please incorporate in your statement your experiences and your anticipated activities on Wikipedia, which may include, but not be limited to, your editing habits, past achievements, various discussion, past disputes, dispute resolution, and the like.

This may clear up some confusion, and leave for more stuff to write. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 03:58, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• I think such a statement is much better than arbitrary questions. >Radiant< 15:11, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Ew, statements. I don't like statements. Some people really do much better at answering questions than just writing a free-form statement. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 16:17, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Amarkov. Maybe the candidate should be able to choose which type (statement or questions) he/she wants. And like Amarkov said, some people are better at answering question, so people shouldn't be penalized for copy-edit mistakes in their statement, like grammar and sp. TeckWiz^TalkContribs_@ 17:18, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I am forced to agree too, though not for TeckWiz's reasons. Everyone makes spelling mistakes, and no editor will be so anal as to nitpick on every spelling error the candidate ever made, lest the picky one be scrutinized also. About grammar issues, one of the requirements to be an administrator of Wikipedia is to have a decent grasp of the English language, so as long as people get easily what you're trying to say without confusion, you're good for. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 19:08, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Although egregious command of English is sometimes a reason to oppose promotion, no one is even suggesting grading essays on minor grammar and spelling mistakes. Good communication is essential to being an administrator; someone who can't write a simple statement in support of his own nomination would have trouble debating and justifying actions if he became an administrator. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-12-27 22:56Z

But defending actions requires a specific answer to a specific situation. If you go and write wonderful prose about all your admin accomplishments when defending your actions, we'll all admire the wonderful prose. And then revert your actions, because you failed to explain why you did them. If anything, specific questions is better for showing you can defend actions. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 23:01, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

As will many an English teacher will tell you, if you didn't specify why you advocate said position or action, then obviously you didn't write a good essay. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 23:10, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh man, that reminds me of one "persuasive" essay I read, where the author forgot to actually argue a position on the topic. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 23:13, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I agree with Amarkov. It often takes a great writer to be a good editor of the writing of others. However, to be an admin, the most salient skills needed are an understanding of policy and how it applies to varying situations and clear communication that needs not be wonderful, publishable prose with nary a grammar mistake or misplaced punctation mark. Thus, give candidates clear, objective, and direct questions to assess how well they understand policy and can effectively communicate their understanding to the community. Fabricationary 23:15, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Again, no one is arguing for grading the perfection of punctuation marks (and that could already be done on responses to answers anyway, so it's an irrelevant strawman). People who follow the abyss of drama that is WP:AN and WP:AN/I know that better communication between administrators would have avoided many problems. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-12-28 00:32Z

Regarding specific vs open-ended, that is a good point that justifying a specified action is easier. That is because there are always many arguments for both sides of a debate and it's easy to pick one side and reiterate that side's arguments. It's harder to present or consider all arguments when there is no right answer and weigh the pros and cons. I do believe "why should you be an administrator", especially with leading wording suggesting past experiences in dispute resolution, etc., is quite specific, and as specific, if not more, than what one faces as an administrator. Ultra-specific questions like "what would you do in [e.g. image-related situation if candidate has no experience with images]" have easy low-entropy answers. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-12-28 00:32Z

New questions (Archive 76)

I've tweaked my last two questions. I'm particularly pleased with how I've phrased the last two. Here they are. —Malber (talk • contribs) 13:19, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Optional questions from Malber (talk · contribs)

1. What do the policy of WP:IAR and the essay WP:SNOW mean to you and how would you apply them?

A:

2. Is there ever a case where a punitive block should be applied?

A:

3. What would your thought process be to determine that a business article should be deleted using CSD:G11?

A:

4. Can you provide examples outside of Wikipedia where you have had to evaluate research and reliable sources? If yes, please provide examples.

A:

5. What is your educational experience with relation to research, proper sourcing, and reading comprehension?

A:

Sadly, the last two are pretty much pointless. It's not just admins who need to know how to research articles, ensure proper sourcing and have an ability to read material. These are requirements for any good editor and frankly candidates don't need to have admin tools to source and verify the accuracy of articles. --Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 13:25, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

A few fresh ideas for additional questions. Duja► 13:33, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the last two questions are not immediately related to admin tools. But I strongly believe that a good sysop has also to be (not just a good but an) excellent editor. I regard these skill as some kind of necessary background. And if a sysop has to handle a complex edit war, where issues such as copy-vios, sources' verifiability, obscure POV claims etc. may appear, the editing and researching skills may be proved very valuable. Therefore, I do not think the last two questions of Malber are redundant.--Yannismarou 13:46, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

The one on Turkish prison and the one on the naked man? They're not indeed, but they're my favorites nonetheless :-). Duja► 14:42, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I think he meant from Malber's questions. | AndonicO ^{Talk | Sign Here} 14:47, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Yannismarou, I doubt whether someone's expertise in physics would be of much use in making a judgement about a work in history or vice versa. So this requirement is going to help an admin only in his particular area of expertise. I have often noticed that in RfA people often prefer jacks_of_all_trades than subject experts. Tintin (talk) 14:14, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I do not speak about subject expertise, but of editing and researching skills. This is another thing. Somebody can be a jack_of_all_trades with editing and researching excellence!--Yannismarou 14:17, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Duja: :-) —Malber (talk • contribs) 13:52, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

They're actually good questions, but there are admins that aren't article writers (I know, much to the annoyance of many experienced editors) but who do have a genuine requirement for admin tools. There will be candidates who need the tools more to help with housekeeping or to help with developing software and who don't have mass experience of writing articles. Many !voters are focusing on housekeeping ability as it is, with some !voters (admins) requiring 500-1000 edits to the WP namespace. --Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 14:38, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I am more of an article writer. In my wiki-life I have had to do quite a bit of research, comparing and judging multiple sources and authors, and often contacted authors for clarifications and questions. I am rarely required to do any of this in my real life, and chances are that I am hardly alone in this. I wonder where this will put us. Tintin (talk) 14:46, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

What if the candidate doesn't want to provide examples of non-Wikipedia reaserch evaluation? | AndonicO ^{Talk | Sign Here} 14:47, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Then they decline to answer. That's what the optional in optional questions means. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 15:34, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks; I forgot they were optional for a moment. | AndonicO ^{Talk | Sign Here} 15:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

We all know it's optional, but someone putting in optional questions and the nominee not answering them makes it look bad to voters. Basically, if someone asks optional questions, your going to answer them. --(trying to get 1,000 edits in 1 month!) TeckWiz^TalkContribs_@ 15:51, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm a big fan of #4. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:24, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever seen a single nomination fail because an editor posed optional question was left unanswered. If you can find one, please let me know. If someone is afraid they won't get a single support vote out of 100 because they didn't answer an optional question, that fear is absurd. —Malber (talk • contribs) 20:17, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I like #4 as well. Replace #5 with "have you ever been in a Turkish prison?" and you'll have my support. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:29, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

What do questions 4 and 5 have to do with being an admin? Which of the admin tools needs researching powers to user properly? Hehe after reading a bit more I see this has already come up, I still find them out of place. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 16:30, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• 1. 4 and #5 imply far higher standards for Wikipedia editors or admins than we actually have. I don't mind #1 and #2 per se, except that they've been done to death and any serious candidate can easily look up what kind of answer will cause people to oppose (obviously, speaking up against the first paragraph of WP:BLOCK isn't all that tactful, and there is at least one editor who would oppose anyone who supports WP:SNOW). >Radiant< 17:00, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I find questions 4 & 5 irrelevant as any information provided could not authenticated. Then there is also the possibility of a person being identified by the answers to thos questions. Gnangarra 17:31, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm with HighInBC. Heaven knows enough people already think of adminship as something you deserve just because you do good article writing, we don't need to encourage it. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 19:56, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

An applicant can lie about education history an a resume too. But that doesn't make the question irrelevant. I'm not asking about the nominee's ability to research, but their experience with evaluating research. When we have admins closing AfDs against consensus because they personally feel that an article is either well or improperly sourced, this is highly relevant. I don't think higher education is necessary for this. I learned about proper sourcing before I had to write my 11th grade English term paper. —Malber (talk • contribs) 20:17, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I guess that makes sense. I find it rather funny what some people I know try to use as sources for papers... -Amarkov ^blah_edits 20:21, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, since I've been lurking around this discussion a little, I will try to voice my opinion.

I think Malber has rephrased the questions better than before, and if anything they are acceptable for asking in RfAs. However, I get the feeling (and take no offense) that questions 5, and maybe 4, are being asked just for the sake of it (I may be completely wrong). Really, on Wikipedia, we have two types of editors:

• The article-writing editors, who tend to work up large numbers of mainspace edits. They help the encyclopedia by adding content, references, and generally help readers.
• The article-filtering editors, who filter out inappropriate content, vandalism, and help the encyclopedia indirectly by monitoring what's inside Wikipedia.

Different people have different philosophies and gifts; some people are going to be better at writing, and some at filtering. In some ways, the better admin would be the one who filters, since admin privileges are not needed for writing articles.

For this reason, I personally don't think being able to write brilliant essays, articles, and references is a sensible requirement for adminship. Instead, users who are good at monitoring content and revert vandalism would probably be better at admin positions.

Feedback? Yuser31415 22:04, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

You read my mind. Tennis DyNamiTe ^{(sign here)} 23:18, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• Questions 4 and 5 are, in my opinion, irrelevant to a person's ability to act as an administrator on Wikipedia. Over and over and over again we see attempts to raise the barrier which people have to overcome to become admins. This was never the intent of the administrator position. All that being an administrator is is encapsulated by the idea that that person is trusted with a few extra buttons that have completely reversible uses. That's all. You don't need to be a PhD. You don't need to have written research papers before. You don't need to know every nook and cranny of Wikipedia. You don't need to be 18 years of age. You don't need to be a perfect editor to get everything right the first time every time. You need to be trustable, and that's it. --Durin 23:25, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I think Malber's new #4/#5 are quite applicable and not discriminatory, and I'm happy with how these questions have improved since the first controversial question - they don't strong-arm the candidate into revealing private information, as they can easily be answered without giving away specifics. Durin, you yourself are raising the bar for adminship your own way, with your excellent nominations. Whether we like it or not, the bar is constantly being raised - a look at the trends in editcountitis and months of experience required will confirm this. I would much rather the caliber of admin be raised in terms of qualities like "ability to evaluate research and reliable sources" than some of the barriers currently being used ("not enough image experience"? "not enough edits in User_talk: category", even though user has plenty of Talk:, WP:, WT: edits?!). I agree that there are a lot of good candidates that don't have research evaluation experience, and they'll probably be promoted just the same if their good qualities are shown. Good experience in research would be a bonus, but lack of such wouldn't preclude promotion. I heard complaining of "unfairness" somewhere earlier, but if anything, we should use such questions to help level the playing field when most candidates that do have degrees are advertising such without solicitation, but those without don't know to talk about other relevant research evaluation experience they've had. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-12-29 00:50Z

I'm sorry, but I, with all due respect, disagree with you. What is your answer to my reasoning above? Why should this question be asked? Your reasoning is that is does not harm anything. You are correct. My reasoning, however, amounts to "What does it help?" What does the question have to do with adminship, per the concerns I raised above? I ask you to consider this carefully. Yuser31415 01:17, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Yuser, my post wasn't in reply to you, but since you are asking me directly I will reply. I think your editor categorization is a false dichotomy (for example, I do both writing and filtering, using your definitions), and in any case I disagree with your statement that evaluating reliable sources is not a skill that would be useful to the "filtering" type of editor; if anything it is a "filtering" skill rather than an article-writing skill. Also, nobody has said anything about writing essays. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-12-29 01:41Z

I'm sorry I have to disagree with you again. Take these admin actions, extracted from Wikipedia:Administrators' how-to guide:

• Deletion: Why would an admin need to know how to use references for deleting a page?
• Undeleting a page: Same as above.
• Protecting page and editing protected pages: Why are references relevant to this?
• Blocking a user: Same as all the above.

References are just as essential to normal users as admins, and I don't see any reason the question is relevant to admin actions. Instead, it is relevant to normal editing actions, in which no RfA is required. Yuser31415 02:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

See GuildCafe DRV for an example where the closing admin should have evaluated reliable sources more carefully, resulting in a deletion review (i.e. this affects the "delete" and "restore" buttons). I agree that not all actions an admin does, like blocking, universally need any specific skill, and that's why I argued for open-ended statements in the thread above, but there was no consensus for that so we're back to specific questions. As you say, we want a wide variety of skills among administrators, and evaluating research, in an encyclopedia, is an excellent skill to have. No one is claiming the image/category experience questions, which clearly aren't litmus tests for ability to use admin buttons, are disruptive, so why is this question disruptive? The agism and privacy concerns were valid, and have been addressed. I don't see how academism can be disruptive in an encyclopedia. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-12-29 03:15Z

I'm sorry but your GuildCafe example depends heavily on your personal opinion, and I won't comment on my opinion. So depending on a user's philosophy, the closing admin might have made a good or bad judgement. Your example does not appear to illustrate the point. Yuser31415 03:35, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

The closing admin agreed with the point about WP:RS. There has been a culture shift recently towards higher standards of sourcing for including content. See Jimbo's comments in the thread on wikien-l about the GNAA deletion. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-12-29 04:52Z

As we are pushing for Wikipedia to be used for academic purposes, we will start to see people who are getting more and more of their research experience through the use of Wikipedia. Wikipedia can, in certain highly sourced fields, now be used as a repository of primary and secondary sources. Also, in many places Wikipedia is being used as a text for reading comprehension. Your, Malber, questions seem to exclude any academic use of Wikipedia. I don't know if this is because you don't feel that there is any legitimate academic use or for some other reason. I also can't see how either #4 or #5 have any bearing whatsoever on being an administrator. One needs to understand policy, be trustable not to try to intentionally screw things up and have good people skills, or at least not be a m:dick. In fact, even if someone did decide to intentionally screw things up, as a certain well known and liked ABCO once did, we can now reverse everything they could do. One does not need to be able to read at a college level as everything that we produce should be understandable by someone without a bachelor's degree. If a source is too complexly written for someone without college level reading comprehension, it should probably be evaluated by a topic expert anyway. I have an extremely high English proficiency, yet wouldn't understand even half the primary sources used in honors theses at my college. I am tempted to start asking follow up questions to these along the lines of: "If you had attained one grade/degree less than you currently hold, would you still be worthy of my support? Would someone with equal maturity, knowledge, communications and person skills, and intelligence as you have be equally qualified if they had the same on-wiki experience as you?" To some this might seem like I was making a WP:POINT. To some degree I would be, though no more of a point than is being made by asking age/education questions in the first place. In fact, asking any further/optional/personal questions at all is making a point. You are saying that you think the answer to your question is relevant as to whether the person is !promoted or not. Personally, I would be happy with doing away with all questions. Let the nominator(s) and the nominee make statements. If someone has a comment to make, let them make it next to their statement of support/opposition. The nominee and nominator should be able to update/modify their statements as they see fit. If you have a particular question you should feel free to ask them, but I see no reason that your personal question needs to go on the RFA. If they think it is important, they can update their statement. If you think it is important, you can modify your comment. There's always talk of how RFA is screwed up/doesn't work. I think that if consensus is that it should change then we should start changing things and see how they work. Changing by adding more questions which even the asker feels are invasive is not a step in the right direction.—WAvegetarian•(talk) 02:33, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi WAvegetarian, I'm not sure what you mean by "[Malber's] questions seem to exclude any academic use of Wikipedia" - would you explain, please? —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-12-29 03:19Z

• There's nothing offensive about these questions; however, I still think that applying them to nearly all RfAs smacks of creating de facto standard questions. That said, while there's nothing wrong with asking these questions, I don't see the point. Number two is a bit misleading and slightly deceptive in that, according to the policy itself, there is no such thing as a punitive block. For number 3, it's too narrow. Why not a broader question on CSD, rather than one of many criteria. Four and five, as said before, go more to editing than use of the tools. Unless there is a compelling reason, or some horrendous gap in the present standard questions, I would think less is more. I'd rather let the candidate do his or her nomination speech, answer the standard questions, and let his or her record speak for itself. I don't want to have to wade through a huge number of essay questions based on someone else's agenda in making up my own mind. Agent 86 06:48, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
  • If you're not going to consider the nominee's answers to the questions in your decision then skip and ignore them. Personally, I'd rather go by how well the candidate does on an interview than wade through a mountain of diffs and contribs. Questions actually make it easier for a nominee; they provide an opportunity to display qualities that they may have neglected to mention in their personal statement, or that the nominator neglected to mention. Unless the candidate answers a question in a manner that diplays a woeful misunderstanding of policy and process, I think any answer to the questions is a positive. —Malber (talk • contribs) 13:30, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Malber, your free to do that, but I think it's pointless. Time and time again, the answers to question 1 typically have the standard answer "I'd like to be more involved with XfD" but with many candidates, it's bullshit where they've never been near an XfD discussion, let alone closed one. The answers to the default questions are only useful in pointing !voters in the right direction for trawling through contributions and diffs. If a candidate is lucky, nobody will bother checking what they say and everyone will vote on the answers to the questions, and it's easy to find out what to say in order to pick-up Support votes. --Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 13:53, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

A point that I have made before, some way above on this page; if we have standard questions, either the old four or User:Malbers new ones, it is pathetically easy for any new applicant to look at the answers given by recently successful applicants and paraphrase them. What is wrong with my suggestion, apart from its revolutionary nature, to dispense with pre-set questions altogether and require RfA candidates to provide a statement detailing their qualifications, experience and reasons for wanting admin status. Supplementary questions can be posed thereafter on the basis of the voluntary statement, and decisions then made on the basis of the statement, the answers to any questions asked, and the edit history of the applicant, which is in my opinion the most important aspect of their resumé.--Anthony.bradbury 00:03, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, great point. Questions could be asked that relate directly to the candidate and their statement. --Majorly (Talk) 00:13, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

optional question - alternative approach (Archive 76)

There has been a continuing discussion on the merits of various generic optional questions and whether they actually add any value or provide useful information to a candidates nomination. Maybe the questions need to become more of a scenario.

eg

editor AB makes legal threats against editor BC. editor BC posts to WP:AN/I how should this be addressed.

or

Bio-article A has been edited with false claims about sexual misconduct by a single IP address and a request for protection is posted at WP:RFPP what should happen.

These type of questions can be altered to suit the satement from the candidate in that if the candidate says they want to use the tools for vandal fighting then a scenario about speedy deletion of an image being use to vandalise articles could be asked. The only thing is it takes some thought from person asking the question to frame one that suits the candidates statement Gnangarra 02:26, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

You're free to do that if you think it's a good idea. The issue I have is that anyone with experience in the process for which the situation is can easily go find a precedent which will give the correct answer. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 03:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Policy questions (Archive 77)

How important is it for an admin to know and understand policy? What policies do you feel are important for an admin to understand? I'd like to develop some new questions. Please comment here. Thanks. —Malber (talk • contribs) 18:04, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Check Wikipedia:Administrators' reading list. While you don't need to memorize them all, you should at least be familiar. -- ReyBrujo 18:27, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, should have thought of that. But I do wonder what's most important to most people. —Malber (talk • contribs) 18:44, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

More questions? As I've said before, I've got no problem with asking RfA candidates optional questions. However, I see no need for instruction creep or an overly long set of questions being applied to almost every RfA without consideration to the specific circumstances of the particular RfA in question. Instead, I suggest starting a discussion about whether or not the existing standard questions are adequate, and if the consensus is that they're not, then follow up with a discussion of what the questions ought to be. Agent 86 18:39, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Not more, new. As many have pointed out, the answers to my first and second questions are starting to sound canned. —Malber (talk • contribs) 18:44, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

In that case, if by "new" you don't mean "new in addition to", it may well be time to review the existing standard questions. After all, consensus can change. Even if it hasn't, and the existing standard questions remain, it doesn't hurt to review these things from time to time. Agent 86 19:30, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the opening questions are general and about all we could expect to get consensus on for standardized questions. I think it's a good idea to leave it open to editors to pose their own personalized questions on issues that are important to them. But I do agree that too many questions can be difficult to sort through when evaluating a nominee. I think a restriction on three (I'm considering restricting myself to this) per editor would be a good idea. —Malber (talk • contribs) 19:35, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Many say that blocking is the most important power admins have, but article deletion has a greater effect on the readers of the encyclopedia. Two proposals, one for each: "Under what circumstances is it appropriate to indefinitely block a) a user account, b) an IP address?" "What constitutes an assertion to notability? Explain your reasoning."--Kchase T 18:53, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

What's wrong with the current questions? --Durin 19:27, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Nothing is wrong with them and I've said above that it's the best we can expect to get consensus on for standardized questions. In the suggestions to the nominee we recommend the reading list, but there is no evaluation on whether or not they, you know, actually did this. —Malber (talk • contribs) 19:37, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

• Above you say "Not more, new". The implication is an intention to replace the current questions. Yet here you indicate more questions. Which is it? Replace the current questions or add questions? --Durin 20:12, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I was referring to my personal questions. IMO the generic ones should stay. —Malber (talk • contribs) 21:59, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Questions about policy are pointless, anyone with half a brain can read the appropriate policy page and summarise it. I suggest you ask questions that are actually relevant to the candidate, rather than asking the same questions of everyone. If you think everyone should answer a particular question, start a discussion about it and if there is concensus we can add it to the standard questions. I think asking everyone the same questions should be banned, it's pointless. --Tango 20:26, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Would you want to give the mop to someone with less than half a brain? —Malber (talk • contribs) 21:59, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I think I can tell whether someone has more or less than half a brain without having to quiz them on reading comprehension. Looking at their contribs should be plenty. --Tango 23:31, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree totally with Tango, users commenting can do their research and see if the candidate understands policy by looking at their contributions. And, answers can always be copied. --Majorly (talk) 23:35, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

A bit off-topic, but I think we should have 9 or 10 optional question, out of which candidates may choose three to answer. The kind of questions he chooses to reply may give a good lead about what he intends to do with his administrator status (in example, "What would you do if someone vandalizes a single page multiple times, block the user or protect the article?", "If two users are war editing, and both have been warned, would you protect the article or block both users?", etc). -- ReyBrujo 05:01, 6 January 2007 (UTC)