Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 176

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Archive 170

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Archive 174

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Request

i would like to be an administrator. i have been serving Wikipedia for long time.and i think i can handle the job well.please trust me and let me be a administritor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Animesh1986 (talk • contribs) 09:51, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

At the present time, I don't think a request for adminship from you would be successful. While you've been here since August 2007, you've got less than 40 edits. Take a look at WP:NOTNOW for some helpful advice. –xeno^talk 14:20, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

And it might help if you sign your posts :) Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 15:16, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I suggest that you read WP:RfA. Please note that it is almost unheard of for any editor to be entrusted with the admin tools until they have made 3,000 edits, and most applicants have made more. Edits should be spread not only in article-space, but also in talk-space and in admin-related articles such as WP:CSD, WP:UAA, WP:AfD, WP:AIV, WP:RfA, etc. --Anthony.bradbury^"talk" 17:46, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Oppose Too many admins who don't sign their talkpage posts already ~~Dou~~ (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 21:23, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Section Wording

In the ABOUT RFA's section, in the Decisions section, it says:

may also de-list a nomination

does anyone think it would sound better as "unlist"?--Airplaneman (talk) 15:22, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Either one could probably be used, but I believe "de-list" should not have a hyphen. Tim meh !_{(review me)} 15:32, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I went ahead and changed it to delist. NW (Talk) 19:47, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree that delist sounds best - there's a subtle difference, I think. Something that's unlisted has never been listed, while something that's delisted was once listed, but now is not. Not sure if general English usage supports that or anything, but that's how I think of it! ~ mazca ^t|c 20:08, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I kind of think of "delist" as "to remove from a list" while "unlist" is "undo the action of listing", somewhat implying completion versus cancellation. Useight (talk) 22:22, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the terminology definitions of mazca and Useight. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:24, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Yea, not that I'm some huge fan of "group-think", but Useight and Mazca pretty much say what goes through my mind when the two words are compared. — Ched : ? 00:11, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

What I'm most impressed with is that someone actually read that section in enough detail to bring a grammar question here to wt:rfa. Kudos to you, airplaneman. :-) Keeper | 76 01:39, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Obviously Airplaneman is either not a not a product of public eduction or not an American ;-)---I'm Spartacus! ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 15:07, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

They can't be British - they're complaining. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 15:09, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Are you implying that British people don't complain? lolwut? hmwith τ 14:11, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

British people complain a lot, as long as there's no chance of their concern being rectified. For instance, if a British person has a bad meal in a restaurant, they won't complain to the manager, but they'll bitch about it all day at work the next day! ~ mazca ^t|c 16:29, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

"Hanging on in quiet desperation..." Tan | 39 19:57, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Request for adminship

I intend to use Wikipedia Adminsitrator powers to enforce Wikipedia policies and to punish vandals who damage works that are meant to help the many people who use Wikipedia as a base of information. I wish to help make Wikipedia reliable.

I do not have any "best" contributions but I have contributed to many articles and helped correct flaws and add information. Although many are minor edits such as corrections of spelling mistakes or grammatical errors, I always correct mistakes whenever possible, and always to the advantage of other users of Wikipedia.

I have had one problem with adding in articles which where not necessary. However, I have dealt with that problem and have never made any problems since.

Nathan.tang (talk) 10:26, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Hello Nathan, if the above post was you asking to be an administrator, please read through the guide to adminship, especially things to consider before requesting adminship. There is a specific application process one goes through, and as you have less than 300 edits in total, there is very little chance that your request to become an administrator would succeed at this point. Wikipedia has numerous areas, policies, and guidelines, as well as many behind-the-scenes areas that most editors are not even aware of, and one must be familiar with a good amount of these things to be able to be an administrator. I would suggest that you seek out a mentor for a while, to assist you with editing articles, how to follow the manual of style, learn about things like footnotes and sourcing, and many of the basics before you consider adminship. Cheers! Posted on user's talk page as well. - Ariel♥Gold 10:44, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Wow Ariel, I've never seen you edit this page before. Welcome to the circle of hell known as WT:RFA ;-) Nathan^T 22:16, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

And sandwiched between two Nathans, no less. Useight (talk) 22:31, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

bow ch ch bow wow... EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:12, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

[1] –Juliancolton | ^Talk 23:17, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Julian! – (iMatthew • talk) at 23:37, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

ROFL! You guys make me laugh. (HI EVULA!) I read this page often, just have rarely had any reason to join in. ;) Ariel♥Gold 13:10, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Lets try to avoid all checking the same things

COM raised an interesting point on the talk page of Ched's RFA. No-one reviews every single edit by a serious RFA candidate, and I suspect few then check the circumstances, sources etc to look for plagiarism and all the other potential flaws that should derail a candidacy. If we want RFA to be a bit less of a hazing ceremony and more of a serious discussion as to whether a particular candidate should become an admin, I think it would be helpful if we all made it clearer what part of the candidates contributions we have checked and from what angle. Looking at the ninety or so !votes on one current RFA, very few give enough indication as to what aspects of the candidate's contributions they have checked for other reviewers to look elsewhere. If we assume that every !voter spends half an hour reviewing an unfamiliar candidate, thats an an awful lot of eyes going over the last 500 edits, the talk page and the block log, quite a few admins going through the deleted edits but possibly the odd thousand edits in the last few months left totally unreviewed. I think that RFA would be a more effective process if more of us copied So Why, A Nobody and some others in giving clear indications as to what sort of scrutiny we've done of the candidate, much like at FAC where different reviewers tend to focus on different aspects of an article. In the longer term I suspect we'd save a lot of duplicated effort by implementing a flagged revisions or New Page patrol type system whereby RFA !voters can mark a candidate's edits as reviewed, and if they choose only look at edits not yet marked as reviewed. Ϣere SpielChequers 14:42, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I see where you're coming from, but often the sum is greater than the total of the parts - and often one very poor edit will bomb an other excellent candidate as at Beebelbrox's RFA for example.

A review of, say, all AFD comments might indicate exceptional knowledge of content policies - but if the candidate is tagging for CSD badly then should they be given the delete tool?

Equally a review of all edits in say May might indicate exceptional strengths - but a foolish ANI bit of drama in June is then missed. I for one find hitting random diffs across the namespaces to be a good way of getting the overall impression of the candidate. Then a drill down through user and articel talk archives often uncovers more, and finally a review of the nomination and existing supports / opposes / neutrals.

The main problem of course is that RFA supports or opposes are subjective. No-one's "criteria" or standards are the same. Pedro : Chat 15:07, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Gotta agree with Pedro here. This approach would only work if I was confident that your review of all X edits would yield the same impression as my review would. Tan | 39 15:08, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll often spend a good amount of time reviewing an unfamiliar candidate, but a lot of what I do tends not to be focused in specific areas - I skim-read down pages of contribs looking for things that look good/bad/interesting, and investigate anything that catches my eye. I generally find I get a good feel for the candidate from doing this, but it's hard to summarise in my vote unless I find something particularly noteworthy. ~ mazca ^t|c 16:26, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I check userpage; talkpage; block log; a random sample of user talk, Wikipedia, Wikipedia talk, and deleted edits; along with a deeper look into the areas mentioned in Q1. But I guess what you're suggesting is that there be something like a list on the talk page of each RFA of who checked each major area. Something like: blocklog was checked by User:ABC and User:XYZ, ANI was checked by User:Example and User:Sample, UAA work was checked by User:Somebody and User:Anybody, and so forth. And then each subsequent reviewer could take a look at the list and see which areas have and have not yet been checked by many other reviewers and/or reviewers that they trusted and thought had a similar criteria to themselves. But, as mentioned above, it is extremely subjective and some users are more stringent in some areas than others. Which, if you know the other editors well, could be either quite useful or not useful at all. For example, Wisdom89 happens to be on the stricter end of the scale when it comes to UAA. If he checked UAA work and still supported, then I know his (the candidate's) UAA work must definitely be very good. However, if Wisdom89 opposed based on UAA work, I would still take a look at the candidate's UAA work because I happen to be slightly less stringent in that area. But in other areas of work, it would be the other way around. Useight (talk) 17:29, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Well, I'll certainly admit that it's given me a totally different perspective on the process. Having participated in maybe ~~70-75~~ 60 RfAs in the past, and reading through maybe 40 or 50 older one, it does appear that a couple things may be a tad unusual - but perhaps that's part of the subjectivity. Only you guys and girls would be able to say if it was "typical" I guess. I've definitely seen a huge evolution in RfA from the ones of only 2 or 3 years ago. I get the sense that there is a certain "ebb and flow" to the process too. As far as evaluating, in the past I've glanced through UT and UP, the stats on the RfA talk page, looked at areas where the candidate is most active, and looked through maybe the 3rd or 5th from the top item. If I think I need more input, I'll go back and look through things from about a month ago, hope there are edit summaries, and look at some diffs. I do try to check back toward the end of the RfA too, just in case something has come to light that I wasn't aware of - and if I think it's proper, I'm not opposed to changing my vote. — Ched : ? 17:34, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Well we could encourage voters to say what they checked against their vote. Or perhaps we could have a checklist that is substed in, and checkers can sign up against the items they have checked. We could break it up into timeslots of a month each, different categories of activities, eg file uploading, moving, SD tagging, AIV warnings, AfD nominations, XfD arguments .... There are probably aspects that no one checks. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:28, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Why fix what isn't broken? This sounds like an awfully tedious type of reform that will turn alot of people away from participating in RfA, narrowing the ammount of input garnered for a candidate (which, mind you, is already incredibly slim when you sift through all the useless comments).--Koji† 03:13, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree. If people think there's an RFA cabal now, just wait until this checklist is created. Law_{type! snype?} 03:16, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate that not every reviewer would want to change the way they review at RFA, and I suspect that the editors who post here will include many who've been around long enough to want to make their own judgement about candidates. I agree with the above that we don't want to make the place more bureaucratic, with checklists and so forth but I do suspect that there is an awful lot of time wasted at RFA because multiple eyes are looking at the same things. I'm also fairly sure that some things are being missed because we don't know what has and has not been checked by others. For example, if I'm unfamiliar with a candidate who says they intend to work at CSD then I'm liable to look very carefully at their CSD tagging, however there are RFA regulars whose judgement I trust at CSD and if one of them says they've checked and approve of the candidates CSD tagging then I'm liable to accept that and check something else. So the answer to why "fix what isn't broken" is that the current system is one of the many aspects of RFA that some consider broken or at least worthy of improvement. We recently had an admin resign just after her RFA because of something that wasn't spotted in her RFA, if even a third of the RFA participants were to make it clear in their !vote what they'd checked, and only check things that had not already been checked, then in my view RFA would be a little more likely to identify relevant flaws in a candidate's contributions; and potentially make slightly more efficient use of our volunteers time. Ϣere SpielChequers 10:00, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I get what you are saying about things being overlooked, but take that case you mentioned, for example. Ottava and others now seem to really look at the character of contributions, which shows that as RFA goes on, we are learning. Law_{type! snype?} 11:23, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

The only way to get around that point (WSC's) without turning RfA into a collaborative project and leaving it a process that is open to the community as it always has been, is for individual reviewers who share your concerns to crack down and spend more time evaluating a candidate. Any attempt otherwise would be trying to reform RfA into a closed process with only certain people allowed to elaborate candidates, going against the point of RfA's being a community decision. WP:RFA says: "the community currently endorses the right of any Wikipedian with an account to comment in the Support, Oppose, and Neutral sections" To turn reviewing certain aspects of a candidate into responsibilities of a few designated people, if I'm understanding this right, defies that.--Koji† 16:35, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi Koji, Just to clarify I'm not suggesting that only particular editors have responsibility to review candidates or that more time in total be spent reviewing candidates. What I'm suggesting is that reviewers give more info in their !votes as to what they've checked, so that those who wish to check things that may not have been checked already can read what others have checked and look elsewhere. Hopefully this will result in a more thorough evaluation of RFA candidates and a more efficient use of everyone's time. But this is not a suggestion either to restrict who participates at RFA, or to prevent those who wish to knowingly duplicate what has already been done from doing so. Ϣere SpielChequers 17:52, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I mis-understood in that case—my bad. Although now, tbh, it sounds like less of a proposal and more of an advisement.--Koji† 19:25, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I support the proposal, and suggest a refinement to minimise duplication still further - editors should sign up to review some aspect / part of the candidates' work, add comments, then sign off when done. This is not bureacracy, it's an adaptation of the very simple system used at WP:GAN, where we can't afford duplication of effort. More generally I'm all in favour of having a standard "form" - it would act as a reminder / checklist, help other editors to find things, etc. A template for the initial (empty) layout would be fine. OTOH I wouldn't make it dependent on knowing which templates to use - "checking" and "checked" plus signature would do. --Philcha (talk) 16:52, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I do think editors should say more than simply "support" or "oppose," because otherwise it is a vote rather than an argument. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 17:43, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I think it's a pretty interesting and reasonable idea. On every DYK they check the length, cites, and dates. It would be nice if someone actually checked the article content, AfD votes, CSD noms, etc. Maybe an options checklist and people who review them can have a place to comment? Like *I checked XYZ, PBQ, and MNO articles and they looked pretty good -sig. And *the AfD posts look reasonable -sig. It would be interesting I think. Could it be tried on the talk page? In theory noms would do this anyway, so I think they could help too. ChildofMidnight (talk) 03:58, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I can't see any harm in trying it, at least. You're welcome to use my RFA's talk page if you wish :) . - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c, rfa)} 17:48, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Troublesome statistic

I know we've been over and over admin burnout and why admins are leaving in increasing numbers, but a net of -21 in 8 days? Troublesome indeed. Enigma^msg 08:25, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

We have way more admins than we used to, so more will retire or become inactive at any given time. Not terribly surprising to me. Prodego ^talk 08:26, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and we have far more inactive admins than ever before, so one would think we could have enough admins being promoted or returning from a hiatus to make up for the ones leaving in droves. A net of -21? That's not the amount of admins that became inactive over that period. That number is even higher. Enigma^msg 08:29, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

The last time it was this low was the 3rd of April, 2009, so that's not too drastic Spitfire^Tally-ho! 08:34, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Bit of a shame really. Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 08:40, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Also as another interesting point, on September the 5th 2007 it was exactly the same as it is today. Spitfire^Tally-ho! 08:47, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, it will be plus one a few months from now when Fut.Perf automatically gets the bit back (I think that's the current plan). Personally, I blame some combination of ArbCom and an as yet determined segment of the community for making the admin job thankless AND high risk. Who needs the aggravation? In fact, I would strongly encourage any regular editor reviewing this page who is considering an RfA NOT TO RUN. Hiberniantears (talk) 20:16, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Turnover is as high as ever, and that is something Wikipedia has to be prepared and cope for the long term. - Mailer Diablo 21:53, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to panic. There are always fluctuations in the numbers of admins here. Unless we see them dropping by the multiple scores, I don't think it's an issue. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 22:04, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Another frightening statistic... +4 admins one day later. At that rate we'll soon be over run with admins. No? I guess my point is that you literally picked the highest date since march... and yes 908 is the lowest in a long time, the 912 isn't outside of the range of normalicy. The numbers seem to fluxuate greatly with a 20 point range.---I'm Spartacus! ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 22:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think these numbers are something that should really be paid attention to, unless one week it shows some sign of suddenly dropping off by a few hundred so that wiki-chaos befalls everyone, putting vandals in control and officially raising the wiki-defcon level to the previously un-used "Holy Balls" setting.--Koji† 22:21, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

If it drops by 21, you'd expect it to come back up. It's something I noticed a few days ago. I wasn't picking the highest number since March, just the highest from this month. Since we need more administrators, not less, and since the number of active admins has been trending downwards this month, despite promotions, well... Enigma^msg 22:30, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

This conversation reminds me of Mark Twain. Useight (talk) 22:27, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

He's a distant relation. :) Enigma^msg 22:30, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Oppose too many admins. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:03, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

If anybody cares, it's currently at 915, up three more... looks like they're trying to prove you wrong, Enigma :O weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 10:27, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah yes, the famous "Prove Enigma Wrong" cabal... :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:09, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

You don't need a cabal to do that... Tan | 39 23:29, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I am my own cabal. I see now where I was wrong, but I still don't agree with removing the protection. Enigma^msg 01:03, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Exactly one year ago we had 999 "active admins", 84 more than we have today, but less than our Jan & Feb 2008 peak when for three months we consistently had more than a thousand "active admins". This is a very different pattern than the plus or minus twenty mentioned above. The numbers of "active admins" are fluctuating, and we are still appointing a trickle of new admins. But the clear trend since spring 2008 has been negative, with insufficient new and returning admins to replace those we lose. This isn't news to those of us who've long considered that RFA is broken; but I'd be interested to hear from the RFA isn't broken crowd as to how long that trend would have to continue before they would concede that there is a problem. I think it's also time for those who believe we have too many admins to start suggesting ways in which the community can operate with a smaller group of admins who perforce do little but admin work. I would like the community to be self administering; with most responsible longterm users having the mop, and few if any specialising in primarily being admins. But with the current RFA process that seems to be an unrealistic ambition, and I would be interested to hear from others as to how else they think we can operate; and especially how we can avoid the pitfalls of a dwindling admin cadre becoming detached from the community. Ϣere SpielChequers 16:09, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

This is a perennial topic, so I'll give my perennial response. You say that the percentage of active admins has gone down by 8%. How does that compare to movement in the overall number of active accounts? It isn't a given that that number has gone up during the same time period. Dekimasuよ! 16:17, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi Dekimasu, I don't know what our figures are for numbers of active accounts, but User:Katalaveno has been assembling some useful stats on the intervals between ten million undeleted edits. For two years now this has been consistently six to seven weeks. I would have thought that blocks per month and pages deleted per month would be even better indications for our need for admins, but if total editing activity is steady then IMHO our need for admins is unlikely to be falling. Ϣere SpielChequers 18:22, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

It's possible that a greater percentage of edits are edits or reversions being made by bots as well. As of last September, year on year, bot edits were on the rise, while the number of editors with <250 edits a month was falling. The number of editors with 1000 edits a month was rising, but those users are much less likely to make administrative actions necessary, and probably more likely to be administrators themselves. Dekimasuよ! 10:25, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

WereSpielChequers question about "how we can avoid the pitfalls of a dwindling admin cadre becoming detached from the community" is very relevant. There's a widespread perception that admins stick together when one is under fire, and that they care more about continuity of procedures and administrative convenience than about fairness or aligment with consensus among non-admins. An effective recall process is an essential but not sufficient part of a package to "avoid the pitfalls of a dwindling admin cadre becoming detached ..." --Philcha (talk) 17:57, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

we do not a certain number of admins. Just being an admin doesn't mean you're doing anything useful. We need enough admins who

are willing to do chores (backlogs)
have enough experience, and guts, to tacke difficult situations and troublesome users.

It will be very difficult to get any reliable statistic on that. Counting admins is at least as flawed a concept as counting articles. --dab (𒁳) 18:59, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

How to become one

How do I nominate my self? AlienX2009 (talk) 01:36, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Follow the instructions here. But first, please read this advice from that page and reconsider running:

"Wait. We have 47,446,288 registered users, but only 859 administrators - this process is not taken lightly by the community. Take a moment for self-evaluation. Try to consider your contributions to Wikipedia the way that others will see them. Look at recent successful RfAs and unsuccessful RfAs. How do your contributions compare to those of candidates who passed but had notable opposition, or failed but had strong support? Check your edit count (line four of your my preferences tab). While there is no minimum requirement, self-nominated candidates with fewer than 2,000 edits and three months of active editing often see their RfAs closed per WP:SNOW or Wikipedia:Not Now shortly after adding them. More importantly, candidates should have contributed substantially to different areas of Wikipedia and should demonstrate a thorough understanding of Wikipedia policies (e.g., deletion policy, blocking policy, etc.)." Tim meh !_{(review me)} 01:39, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not saying this to you, AlienX2009, because we're currently in a dispute, but don't. You have only been editing for a little over a month and a half, you have only ever edited one topic area, you have under 700 edits, and you have absolutely no knowledge of any of Wikipedia's policies that an administrator should be aware of. If anything, wait several months.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 01:42, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I do I know all the rules of Wikipedia. AlienX2009 (talk) 02:01, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I highly doubt that. Nobody is familiar with all of the rules. While applauding your enthusiasm, it's patently obvious that you have a long way to go before you are ready to put yourself forward for adminship. Don't despair though. Just glean the experience and return in about 6 months or so. Heed the advice of your fellow Wikipedians. Wisdom89 _{(_T / ^C)} 02:29, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I highly doubt you know all the rules. I don't think anyone on here would know every single policy. I've been on here a year and I'm still very much learning. Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 11:37, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I've been here 5 years and I know darned well there are policies I've never taken more than a cursory glance at.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 11:39, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Ditto! Deb (talk) 11:43, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Request

Can an admin please create Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship with instructions on how to properly nominate and that this is not the page for doing so, as some people are not getting it. Triplestop (talk) 21:10, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

The instructions on how to nominate are at Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/nominate#Instructions. There is a notice at the top of this page already. And users who don't understand the process aren't likely to be suitable admins (see all the requests on this talk page), so making new users who would fail per WP:NOTNOW or WP:SNOW actually go through the process is a bad idea. Cheers - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 21:14, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I have very little faith that people who don't read the instructions are going to pay attention to an editnotice here. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:07, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Proposal

I propose that we adopt a guideline recommending no more than three questions from any one person in an RFA.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 16:57, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I can appreciate the idea behind this proposal but I believe it to be fundamentally flawed. For one thing, setting a limit on "questions per person" is arbitrary and may prevent users from asking useful, germane questions; at the same time, it does nothing to prevent a proliferation of irrelevant and often wasteful questions by multiple users. Shereth 17:01, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

While I like the idea, I do agree that arbitrary limits are unlikely to be effective. If you cap someone at 3 questions, you'll end up with people who want to ask six and just mash them into three multipart questions (i.e., "4. What is your opinion of the BLP situation? Flagged revisions? RfA? Being an administrator open to recall? ..."). On the other hand, people legitimately trying to follow the spirt and letter of the rule may not be able to ask pertinent and useful questions. Cool3 (talk) 17:08, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Stuff like this was talked about before and gets talked about all the time. This won't lead anywhere, and I can remember a time when it'd get swiftly archived for that very reason.--Koji† 17:11, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Other proposal

For me, it would be easier if under each main "Questions for the candidate" section, we had three subsections, "Questions about the candidate," "Questions based on policy/guidelines," and "Questions based on opinions." Anybody agree? – (iMatthew • talk) at 17:17, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

That's a good idea, but it doesn't solve S Marshall's problem (too many questions from one person). Aditya ^α _ß 17:20, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

You're right, I split it into a new section. – (iMatthew • talk) at 17:21, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Well if you don't think we have enough questions at RFA this might encourage some of our regulars to put at least one question in each section. Apart from that potentially dubious benefit I'm not sure what we would gain from this split other than reducing edit conflicts for those adding questions; and if that's happening we perhaps have too many questions. Also I can envisage discussions as to whether a question had gone into the right section, and whether the candidate was answering questions in the right sequence across three sections. Ϣere SpielChequers 19:14, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I find myself agreeing with WereSpielChequers. This suggestion sounds like it could cause more problems than it solves. ~ mazca ^t/c 19:28, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I find that people spend time looking for the flaws in any type of proposal. Nothing will ever be improved if we don't stop looking for flaws instead of considering the positives in any type of proposal. The advantages of this is just more organization, helpful to voters and the candidate. It would help eliminate questions that have no value, if we don't allow questions that don't fit into any of these categories. – (iMatthew • talk) at 19:41, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I think the bike shed should be orange, with lavender stripes. Diagonal ones. In fact, I insist. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:52, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I disagree .. I strongly believe the stripes should be horizontal. ;) — Ched : ? 20:28, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

←Getting back on topic though - I agree with the first two. The third one I'm not sure - I think it would depend on how closely it was monitored. I could see it getting off into areas that really don't reflect on the candidates abilities to handle a few new tools - and drifting into an area of personal preferences and such.

One other item on "questions" that had me scratching my head though .. What about people that ask questions - but then don't !vote? Is that unusual? — Ched : ? 01:46, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Going back to the original three categories, and the implicit idea of reducing extraneous questions by only having questions in these categories; I think the important questions are usually those based on diffs showing the users past contributions. Whether those questions are probing policy knowledge, POV, civility or maturity; to my mind they are the questions that matter, as they are based on research of that candidate's contributions. So if there were to be a split I could see some merit in organising the questions so that those that were diff supported were in the current section, and the rest were on a separate subpage for those interested in such things. Ϣere SpielChequers 14:41, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

people that ask questions - but then don't !vote?

Maybe they just don't wanna vote, but still feel like the question will help everybody else make a decision. I don't think it does any harm either way, not worth losing sleep over.--Koji† 01:54, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Not every neutral participant feels a need to list themselves in the neutral section. I suspect that if someone asks a question but then doesn't !vote, the answer or other things in the RFA has left them neutral. Either that or a RL intrusion has stopped their further participation. Ϣere SpielChequers 07:27, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

The last time I asked a question without voting, the request was snow closed before I saw the answer. I have to get in early with the questions, because I don't want to stress the candidate with too many. And another reason could be unable to make up their mind. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:35, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Aye, I often ask questions without !voting, because I think I have value to add by raising particular issues but not by making a comment about the candidacy and am not convinced either way. I think there is little point in undecided editors adding a neutral comment that does not advance the discussion. Skomorokh 11:20, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

For me, the more "annoying" issue is people who !vote, then ask questions. What's the motivation to ask the question if you're already saying that you oppose the candidate? If the answer to question would sway your decision, stay out of the oppose or support sections until the question is answered. either way (talk) 11:24, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

It's not a vote, it's a discussion. No problem with discussing (if you do that through asking questions than fine), and not !voting. As to !voting and than asking questions, isn't that nomally if something comes up which the user hadn't thought of before and wants to investigate further? There's no problem with changing your mind. And there's no problem with asking questions even if the answer isn't going to change your mind, after all, it's a discussion - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 11:29, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

polite request for information

Is it possible to find out how many bytes (mega, mebi, gibi, whatever) Wikiedia:RfA took in various months over the past two years? I'm less interested in RfA:Talk than RfA. I'd e interested to know some figure that combines amount of bytes for total RfAs in a month divided by number of RfAs in a month. Statiticians are welcome to tell me why this is a dumb idea (I need to learn this stuff) but it might interest people who are suggesting that RfA is a hurdle-too-big for wannabe admins. 82.33.48.96 (talk) 23:32, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't actual physical disk space is the issue. And yes just go to all the RfA's and look at the page size. You can see them from the list of Unsuccessful/Successful RfA's. 03:39, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Sure it's possible. Open up the lists of successful and unsuccessful RfA's, open the RfA's one by one and look at the page size. You can see the size of the latest version in the page history tab. Jafeluv (talk) 06:18, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Definitely possible, in bytes:

Date of start of RfA	Sum of bytes of last revisions	Number of RfAs	Average size of each RfA in bytes
2003-12	44921	1	44921.0000
2004-6	100	1	100.0000
2004-8	898	1	898.0000
2004-9	226334	26	8705.1538
2004-10	393802	26	15146.2308
2004-11	758103	71	10677.5070
2004-12	283636	35	8103.8857
2005-1	164796	20	8239.8000
2005-2	147148	15	9809.8667
2005-3	374607	31	12084.0968
2005-4	433599	38	11410.5000
2005-5	558094	41	13612.0488
2005-6	712308	59	12073.0169
2005-7	663177	49	13534.2245
2005-8	831376	61	13629.1148
2005-9	1288312	74	17409.6216
2005-10	2106270	107	19684.7664
2005-11	1213548	72	16854.8333
2005-12	1828609	111	16473.9550
2006-1	2080378	96	21670.6042
2006-2	1554036	75	20720.4800
2006-3	2099973	94	22340.1383
2006-4	2229806	75	29730.7467
2006-5	2615095	102	25638.1863
2006-6	2035934	80	25449.1750
2006-7	2551094	87	29322.9195
2006-8	2277669	89	25591.7865
2006-9	1389450	64	21710.1563
2006-10	2728847	90	30320.5222
2006-11	1885805	68	27732.4265
2006-12	1581641	75	21088.5467
2007-1	2589204	88	29422.7727
2007-2	2587099	98	26398.9694
2007-3	2112882	100	21128.8200
2007-4	3071034	101	30406.2772
2007-5	3123971	126	24793.4206
2007-6	2361270	87	27141.0345
2007-7	2619329	86	30457.3140
2007-8	1985850	89	22312.9213
2007-9	2444669	87	28099.6437
2007-10	2603946	96	27124.4375
2007-11	2556316	96	26628.2917
2007-12	2608378	89	29307.6180
2008-1	3160116	101	31288.2772
2008-2	1963541	57	34448.0877
2008-3	2983441	136	21937.0662
2008-4	2158035	61	35377.6230
2008-5	2660010	75	35466.8000
2008-6	2024589	61	33189.9836
2008-7	2165927	51	42469.1569
2008-8	1964262	39	50365.6923
2008-9	2022859	146	13855.1986
2008-10	1404361	36	39010.0278
2008-11	943491	33	28590.6364
2008-12	1546467	33	46862.6364
2009-1	1511001	29	52103.4828
2009-2	1516303	31	48913.0000
2009-3	1914241	53	36117.7547
2009-4	2169288	50	43385.7600
2009-5	1992681	50	39853.6200
2009-6	817930	29	28204.4828

See User:Cobi/RfA Stats MySQL for the SQL code used to generate this. -- Cobi^(t|c|b) 09:27, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Cobi's figures give you a graph that looks like :

That's a five point moving average by the way, not that it matters very much. It makes interesting viewing I think. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c, rfa)} 10:09, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

And a comparison against the number of RFAs open at the time (red):

Fewer RFAs = more discussion per one? Seems logical, but the correlation on a month by month basis is poor (e.g. Spearman's of 0.17), though one would expect that because of the manner in which the data was collected. Draw your own conclusions from the graph, I say. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c, rfa)} 10:40, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

The length of long RfAs could be understated if this data is only related to the main page of each RfA. A lot of the more controversial RfAs have long discussions moved to the talk page (and generate discussion elsewhere as well... here, BN, etc.). Dekimasuよ! 10:59, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

(deindenting) So if you want a short RFA, do it in February. That's been the case for the last several years. Interesting. tedder (talk) 12:18, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much for this. 82.33.48.96 talk 18:32, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

That makes perfect sense... its the month of love!---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 19:48, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Pardon my ignorance but the table shows the highest averages over a five month period from Dec 08 to Apr 09 yet the graph suggests the peak was the five months between Apr and Sep 07. Is there an explanation for the difference in table and graph? Also March and September look far better months for short RFAs than February, at least in the past three years. 212.139.88.102 (talk) 20:53, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

IP comments and auto-numbering

IP editors are not allowed a numbered vote. That's fine. This means that any IP comments will be marked with, probably, an asterisk and not an octothorpe. So, if you're a registered user, and you're adding a numbered vote please make sure you add it before any IP users add their un-numered comments, otherwise wiki breaks and the numbers reset and start counting from 1 again. Or don't, I don't particularly care, but I guess some people will and will raise merryheck about it. Please note that "Vote" is not my choice of words, but is the word used on the RfA page -- "Any Wikipedian with an account is welcome to comment in the Support, Oppose, and Neutral sections, but IPs are unable to place a numerical (#) "vote"." You may wish to edit that but I'm wary of getting involved in the clusterfuck of RfA policy editing. 82.33.48.96 (talk) 22:46, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I find it amusing this comment was posted by an anon IP. ···日本穣^? · Talk to Nihonjoe 23:31, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I find it refreshing. An anon posting on this page must be brave seeing as we registered editors have cut off their right to officially comment on RfAs. Malinaccier (talk) 23:38, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

hmmm, RfA page itself says that anyone can comment, but IP editors cannot have a numbered "vote". (This is fine, I'm not trying to change that). But it means that IP comments either break the auto-numbering that happens with the octothorpes because they chose to use an asterisk, or, uh, something else. 82.33.48.96 (talk) 23:55, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Comments from IPs are indented, but that doesn't screw up the numbering. We don't use an asterisk, which would break it. Instead of "# comment" its "#: comment". Nathan^T 23:41, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay, that makes sense. If (and I probably wont) I have a need to comment on an RfA in future I'll remember not to use an asterisk, but to use colons instead. Which is a better solution than my bossy grumpy suggestion. 82.33.48.96 (talk) 23:55, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Specifically, make sure it's a # before the colon; that's what preserves the numbering. Anything after the # is rendered normally (you could do "#*", but it would likely be converted to just "#:"). EVula // talk // ☯ // 03:02, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah, right. now I finally get it. That's counter-intuitive to me but I'll remember if I ever need to use it in future.

About placing the comments in neutral (or otherwise) vs in COMMENTs - I had thought that putting stuff in comments would place undo prominence on them. hidding them away on a list, after all the YES / NO votes, would allow useful comments with minimal disruption. I've noticed that they seem (and I have no idea why) to have een a bit disruptive, so I'll probably stop doing even that. 82.33.48.96 (talk) 22:07, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Instead of worrying about this, you can just create an account then you can support/oppose.--Giants27 (c|s) 22:33, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

It really is time we get rid of the tagline "WIKIPEDIA, THE ENCYCLOPEDIA ANYONE CAN EDIT". 82.33.48.96 (talk) 10:50, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll bite - are you being prevented from editing the encyclopaedia's articles? Cheers, This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 10:57, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

"i'll bite" feels a bit like calling someone a troll. Trolling is, after all, a fishing metaphor. You may wish to think if that's good civility. Why, if registration doesn't prevent anyone from editing, is it not compulsory for all articles? Why, if captchas don't prevent anyone from editing are they not used a lot more on wikipedia than they are now? The answer is because of pillar three, and the link near the top of the main page - you do not need to register to edit most articles. 82.33.48.96 (talk) 14:14, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

And that's ignoring the fact that it is a wikimedia project founding principle 82.33.48.96 (talk) 14:19, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

My point was that you do not need to be registered in order to edit the vast majority of articles. The tagline remains accurate. Anyone can edit it, registered or not. With the small but important exception of those former editors who have abused the privilege. You may need to be, or may find it beneficial to be, registered to edit outside article/talk/user/usertalk space - but that doesn't render the tagline inaccurate - the daily politics of running an encyclopaedia is not the same as the encyclopaedia itself. And if I'm honest, your query did sound like trolling. Apologies if it wasn't. Cheers, This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 14:48, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Net Positive

I've dragged my personal essay kicking and screaming into the Wikipedia space. There was already a cross namespace redirect anyhow, so I've de-personalised the essay as it seems to be increasibgly getting quoted at RFA.
Any one want to take a bet on how long it takes before someone uses the short cut as rationale at WP:AFD? :) Pedro : Chat 10:39, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Shouldn't you have moved it rather than copy+pasting it to Wikipedia space? So Why 11:27, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

PS: Wikipedia:Net positive is the essay Pedro talks about, not the one he links above.

So Why 11:30, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

It's not a total cut and paste. The original essay is a highly personal view, with lots of first person statements. The one in Wikipedia space is a bit different, and I wanted to retain the personal one as well! Pedro : Chat 12:02, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Given Pedro wrote it and moved it, I don't think the attribution issues are too severe. MBisanz ^talk 12:06, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

That's my understanding - because it's a derivate work of my own work. Akin to uploading a photo, then re-uploading it with a crop and some fixes. If the original creator is the same then we don't need to attribute back to the first version. I think that's okay under both GFDL and CC-SA ? (I hope!) Pedro : Chat 12:12, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Sure is. I misunderstood your posts that you have dragged it to Wikipedia space but essentially leaving it the same. Sorry, my mistake. Regards So Why 12:17, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

No worries - that was me not being clear as well. So, how long before;

Strong Keep Article about this myspace band is a net positive to Wikipedia's coverage of musicians.

.....? :) Pedro : Chat 12:27, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Just what point are you trying to make exactly, sir? Skomorokh 12:43, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Added a Ø edit that makes it possible to trace Avraham's copyedits back to him. While those edits may be considered to be "very small or irrelevant", and not require attribution, at least it doesn't hurt. decltype (talk) 12:31, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Er, wha? Can you explain? Nathan^T 12:33, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh I see, an edit to the Wikipedia space page linking to the userspace page history. And Pedro, my guess is it won't be long! Nathan^T 12:35, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for dotting the I's and crossing the T's decltype. And yep, Nathan, days at best :) Pedro : Chat 12:36, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I forgot about that :) I think my edit summaries had more merit than my edits :-D -- Avi (talk) 04:47, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Done, now used as a rationale at AfD.[2] :) — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 13:54, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Pointy Jeff, beansy Pedro, or both? Dekimasuよ! 14:35, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

That one doesn't WP:COUNT, Jeff. You did it on WP:PURPOSE. Jafeluv (talk) 14:37, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

If you are going to cite NET POSITIVE at that AFD, then I'll do the same with NOT NOW.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 15:40, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I think Balloonman is spot on here. If we take our p&g items and view them in the "spirit" and "intent" mode, I don't see a problem with citing items that may be aimed at one area (XfD, RfA, Consensus !votes, etc.) and applying them in a broadly construed manner to other areas where they may apply - if it helps get your viewpoint across. (no need to point me to WP:NOHARM, I've read it.;)) — Ched : ? 17:23, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/LouriePieterse

Would anyone care to close this, or shall we let it run?Dlohcierekim (talk) 16:29, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Why should it be closed? The only reason I can't think of is WP:SNOW, and WP:NOTNOW defiantly doesn't apply. I say inform the candidate that they can withdraw, and leave it at that - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 16:31, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

In fact, I've informed them myself - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 16:36, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Asking the candidate should happen before asking on this page. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:49, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Well yes, although it's a bit late for that now. LouriePieterse says they plan to keep it up, I for one don't have a prolem with that - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 16:53, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi all. I would like to see it continue. I would like to see all the points in which I could improve. Kind regards, LouriePieterse (talk) 17:05, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Admirable. Tan | 39 17:11, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. — Ched : ? 17:45, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Very admirable. Dlohcierekim (talk) 18:09, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Note Small hint: it is not helpful to the candidate to simply oppose "per Julian" or "per JC," or with no rationale at all. There are currently three comments in the oppose section that simply say something along the lines of "Per JC," and two that have no explanation. If you must comment, bring some fresh advice to the table (though I do not deny that Juliancolton's comment is not insightful :]). Malinaccier (talk) 19:36, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I dunno. While it is nice to have fresh insight, sometimes someone else says it all, and spending the time to come up with a new way to say the same thing is a waste of time. Tan | 39 19:37, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I think the point is that in this case, the outcome is already determined and the request is only open for the edification of the candidate, so uninformative opposes are of little value. Skomorokh 19:42, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I see Malinaccier's point now, and yes, I agree. Tan | 39 19:43, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I really dislike piling on in cases like this, especially if you've got no additional advice to provide. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 05:04, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't really see why it's necessary to protract an RfA like this - perusing the responses in both columns, I see nothing constructive being offered anymore. It clearly fits a SNOW definition. NOTNOW doesn't seem to apply. Wisdom89 _{(_T / ^C)} 03:28, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

The purpose of SNOW-closes, I have always understood, was to protect the candidate. If the candidate specifically states that they wish the candidacy to run its full term, I do not see a valid reason for taking it down. This is one area where NOTPAPER applies, IMO. -- Avi (talk) 04:44, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

The purpose of SNOW-closes is partially to protect the candidate, but also to ensure that certain processes do not needlessly run to full term. Wisdom89 _{(_T / ^C)} 05:42, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Per SNOW:

Use common sense and don't follow process for the sake of it. But when in doubt allow discussions to take place.…The snowball clause is designed to prevent editors from getting tangled up in long, mind-numbing, bureaucratic discussions over things that are foregone conclusions from the start.…The clause should be seen as a polite request not to waste everyone's time.

This is not mind numbing bureaucracy; the candidate has specifically requested that the RfA finish so as to glean as much constructive criticism as possible. That is neither a waste of the candidate's nor the respondents time, although I would suggest the candidate note the request for constructive criticism during a likely failing RfA for clarity. -- Avi (talk) 07:19, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

In the absence of any further constructive criticism, despite the obvious good faith request by the candidate, I absolutely do perceive this to be unnecessarily bureaucratic. What more can be gained by further "Per X" opposes or moral supports? My common sense tells me not a whole lot is to gleaned. Wisdom89 _{(_T / ^C)} 09:53, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

You are probably right and this should be closed, BUT we have a long standing tradition that with experienced editors to let them have a little more say when their RfA gets closed.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 14:11, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Someone may come in at the end with a good piece of advice. Even simpler, the predominance of "Per X's" may indicate to Lourie which items on which to focus first and most intensely. SNOW for the sake of SNOW defeats is ipso facto bureaucratic. When the candidate is mute or in denial, I agree there may be no purpose. When the candidate specifically asks to be allowed to learn as much as possible, that is a good thing. We want candidates who are receptive to the community, not scared of the process, and willing to learn and give of there time. Lourie has indicated, I believe, that he has those qualities by wanting to gain as much advice as possible. In my opinion, it would be positively WP:BITE-y to shut it down for the sake of some nebulous notion of bureaucratic efficiency, even more ironic as it would be done by bureaucratic implementation of a process in opposition to what I believe common sense would indicate. SNOW is meant to be the application of common sense; not bureaucratic paper pushing. -- Avi (talk) 15:16, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Avi here. Noone is forced to comment at that RFA or anything and if the candidate is positively willing to endure further discussion, then we should respect it. SNOWing should be of the benefit of all involved and if it's against the explicit wishes of someone who is affected the most, then it's no longer beneficial. SNOW is not a rule, it's a part of WP:IAR. And IAR also means that you need to decide whether (and explain why) ignoring the rules really is the best thing to do in a certain situation. Regards So Why 08:05, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I also agree with Avi. SNOWing the RfA at this point seems counterproductive when the candidate has explicitly stated a desire to gain as much feedback as possible from the process, despite the likely outcome. I think it's good for the candidate to want to receive the feedback, and therefore this is a poor application of IAR. ···日本穣^? · Talk to Nihonjoe 09:02, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Questions - thoughts?

Just thought I'd ask for outside input regarding my questions since I've never really been a fan of questions that try to "catch people out" and give reasons for people to oppose, so I thought I'd ask for outside input. I created these two questions as I have strong feelings about the two issues that these questions involve, admins using their judgment, and the ability of an admin to solve conflicts. But I thought it would be best to ask for outside input. Steve Crossin ^{The clock is ticking....} 22:37, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

My immediate comment actually pertains to grammar (Lord I hope that sentence is syntactically correct). The first sentence of the first question implies that the candidate is already an administrator, and the second sentence confuses me. I think you're asking that if the candidate disagrees with the "general policies and guidelines" as to how a problem might be solved, would they act on it? It's not entirely clear to me. The second question has some odd tense and subject issues akin to the first one, and I think it's a little pointed. The sentence starting with "For this reason..." implies that what is essentially your opinion (however widely held) is inherently true. I imagine, depending on how early or late you post to the RfA, a candidate might just choose to ignore it. Just my two cents, I think some rewording would improve them. ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 23:26, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I actually dislike them. Nothing about the questions themselves; they are quite good. But the fact that you intend to ask them on every RfA is what bothers me. In my view, you should really ask questions if you want information about how the candidate would act as an administrator that you simply cannot figure out from their contributions. I agree with several of the users in the above thread, #Amount_of_questions, but Tango said it best: "Questions that apply to everyone should be part of the standard questions that everyone is asked and should be added to that list by consensus. Custom questions should be limited to questions relevant to that specific candidate and not to everyone." NW (Talk) 23:41, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Ditto. The only questions I like to see are the ones custom made for specific candidates based upon their edit history or individual concerns. Generic out of the box questions, regardless of what they are asking, IMO should be avoided at all cost. The number of times we've gone through this with people who think their questions are special or worthwhile is staggering... I think we have people asking about their questions at least once a month. If not that, we have people raising questions about the perponderance of banal questions coming from the peanut gallery. Do your home work, research the candidate. If you have questions,THEN ask them. But only AFTER doing your homework first.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 01:23, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah, the infamous meta-questions. Useight (talk) 04:41, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

←Well, my intentions weren't really to ask them to every single candidate. That said, I feel that administrators should have some DR experience (as I explaned here) and be willing to use their discreton as an administrator, so I'd really only ask these questions if I had doubts after reviewing the editor's contributions. That said, I'm hardly an RFA regular, and generally only weigh in on RFA's that I've taken some interest in. And just in response to Amorymeltzer, the questions need fine-tuning. I basically thought of these in my head, and they were all good in my head, but putting it onto paper proved to be more difficult. Anyway, I thought I should respond to the concerns raised above. Best, Steve Crossin ^{The clock is ticking....} 06:12, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Most RfAs ever

I was just wondering, was there ever a record for the most number of active RfAs at a single time? Triplestop (talk) 01:13, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

There have been more running at the same time than there is now. Not sure of the exact number, though. – (iMatthew • talk) at 01:16, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

If you look at the date promoted of User:Majorly/RfA/Stats, you can see there are times in 2006 when over a dozen successful RFAs were running at the same time. MBisanz ^talk 01:28, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I saw 20+ at a time before, though that was rare. Wizardman 01:39, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

(ec)I didn't feel like doing a whole slew of work, but it seems that September and December '05 were the months with the highest percentage increase in sysops, although September didn't seem too big when going through it manually. October was though, so going by those numbers...

The period of 24-12-05 to 30-12-05 had seven unsuccessful and 13 successful, counting to a total of 20 during that week, exactly 1/5th of the total for the month. The period from the 11th to 17th had nine unsuccessful and 18 successful, for a total of 27 (27%). The week from the second to the eighth had 26. October '05 had, during the first full week (2-8) 20 successful and five unsuccessful, making 25.
Additionally, November 2007 had 20 unsuccessful and 16 successful from the second to the eighth, for a total of 36 (~35% of 103 total). The week from the 8th to the 14th had 28 (27%), and the week from the 24th to 30th had 25. So... November 2007, between the second and the eighth, had the most (based on this extremely limited, hand-counted, and eye-balled examination). ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 01:59, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

tedder's numbers

I did the whole slew of work (okay, I wrote code to do it for me).

the absolute max: 30 on 2005-12-06 (see the page with that many)
There have been quite a few distinct times where the count was over 20. I haven't trawled them yet- need to decide how to divide the segments apart based on the "time distance".
The most in 2009 (so far) is 13; the most in 2008 was 24; the most in 2007 was 26; the most in 2006 was 23; the most in 2005 was 30; the most in (the limited 3 months of) 2004 was 19.

I checked every edit in the modern era of transcluded candidate templates (i.e., back to 9/16/2004).

I have timestamps with the count of candidates, so I may go back and make a graph, pull some averages, etc. I could certainly see as it was trawling through the logs how the numbers have decreased. tedder (talk) 06:51, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

And here's the graph:

The numbers are hard to see on this graph, click through for the bigger size. Any idea why things started fading out at the beginning of 2008? tedder (talk) 03:21, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

The drought at RFA that we've been in since early 2008 has been discussed several times here; but usually in terms of whether its just a statistical fluctuation or a genuine sign of trouble. Those like me who consider that the RFA process is broken sometimes cite the drought as evidence of this, but I'm not sure that the RFA isn't broken lobby yet accept that this is more than a statistical fluctuation. Interestingly I think this graph shows a less dramatic picture than if you simply graph the number of admins appointed per month, it might be worth charting RFA successes, fails and total applications per month as I suspect our fall in RFA candidates may not be as dramatic as the fall in the number of successful RFAs. As for why the numbers have fallen off my view is that we have several separate but interlinked phenomena:

An increasingly diverse set of adminship standards amongst the RFA regulars means its quite easy to provoke a significant minority of opposition.
Supermajority rather than majority voting means that the psychological pressure for standards to drift to the minority view rather than to tend to the mean (in majority decision making it is those in the minority that are left wondering why they were out of step with the community, and the tendency is to converge on the swing view at the 50% mark. But in a supermajority vote such as RFA you often have a large majority on the "losing" side who may find their standards drifting upwards so as to more frequently be on the successful side).
The more RFA is institutionalised as our communities right of passage and hazing ceremony the less attractive it becomes to some of our potential admins (it would be fascinating to work out whether editors who edit in their own names were less likely to go through RFA, certainly my advice to anyone editing in their own name would be not to run for admin unless they were at a stage in their life when they no longer needed to worry about being googled for job interviews etc.)
As with any hazing ceremony there is a risk of things getting increasingly vicious as the process acquires a momentum and subculture of its own.
Some editors have speculated that the lack of an effective deadminning process is a reason why some !voters are increasingly cautious at RFA.
I suspect that some !voters are judging RFA candidates against the best of our existing admins rather than against the level of experience those admins had when they became admins.

But whatever has caused this phenomena it is in my view very unhealthy for the community and unsustainable in the medium term. Ϣere SpielChequers 12:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I like that last point. Two things would fix everything: having at least a few RFA voters give the same opinions at WP:ER that they give at RFA, so that candidates know what to expect and what to work on, and listening to and engaging opposition voters in close cases. One recent RFA would be a good example, but I don't like to point to recently failed RFAs unless that's okay with the candidate. RFA is clearly not "broken" in most cases where candidates get less than 50%, and one thing we can be very proud of is that we've got tough-skinned people who are willing to speak up at RFA when they see something they don't like, so that passing RFA is generally a very good sign and the community can have reasonable confidence these days in people who get the mop. Generally, when someone says "RFA is broken", they're talking about an RFA that failed in the 50-75% range. What I don't like about the word "broken" is that it reminds me of how people use the word "crazy" ... "she's crazy, I can't deal with her" ... it's an excuse not to have to listen to and work with people who are being difficult (and maybe it's the situation that's making things difficult, not the people). - Dank (push to talk) 13:36, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Just found the Twain quote I was looking for: "Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest." That's it's exactly. When an opposition vote seems to be non-specific, or off-point, or bat-shit-insane, if people would just engage the commenter as if they were a rational, competent adult making a tough choice, then many of them will be astonished ... and the astonishment will interrupt whatever was going on, and may start a conversation. And some people will be gratified and get what you're trying to do, and will be encouraged to help out. - Dank (push to talk) 13:50, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I think points 4-6 are particularly salient.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 14:06, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I liked them too, but 5 is out of my narrow range of competence, and the problem with words like "hazing" and "vicious" is that they tend to close off rather than encourage debate. Presumably, the opposers don't believe that they're viciously hazing people. - Dank (push to talk) 14:40, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

The wording could be better, perhaps have it prefixed with the words a "A perceived hazing ceremony there with a risk of things getting increasingly vicious as the process acquires a momentum and subculture of its own."---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 16:18, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah- I don't think it's useful or accurate to describe criticism of a candidate as "vicious" or "hazing". But, we do have a certain crowd who regularly show up to complain about how mean it is to ever be critical of anyone. It's unclear to me how anyone could not realize that vetting candidates necessarily includes being critical. Friday (talk) 14:48, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi Friday, no I don't regard all opposes as hazing, I used that word to try and differentiate between legitimate opposes and a minority of opposes that I consider incivil or too vague to give the candidate an understanding as to why the voter considers their contributions appalling. Does the phrase "because I can" ring a bell? Ϣere SpielChequers 15:25, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

It's also entirely plausible to view these stats in parallel with general stats of the decline in expansion rate of Wikipedia, whether RfA is broken or not. --Dweller (talk) 15:17, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking that. Decline in RfA participation is a seemingly good example of a trend with multiple causes. A distinct, though not precipitous, decline in Wikipedia expansion rate and a distinct, though not enormous, increase in community standards can combine to produce a rather steeper decline in RfA submissions. Neither of the two trends in itself is an enormous problem, but they combine to make the third trend look more worrying than it is. ~ mazca ^talk 15:24, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd also like to throw in some purely speculative OR and posit that as Wikipedia is now increasingly seen as a Major Force in Internetland (c), as opposed to the thrusting young interloper it was when I first started hamfistedly editing, the idea of becoming an admin has become that much more daunting - irrespective of the behaviours and norms at RfA. I recall that it didn't even enter my head that I could become an admin for some time on Wikipedia and that was then. If I were a newbie now, I'd be frankly awed.

All of which namby pamby warbling leads me to a suggestion... perhaps this page can achieve something positive that helps? I'll post it in a new subsection just below this. --Dweller (talk) 15:34, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Points 5 & 6 raised as problems above are good things. We should be leery of promoting in doubtful cases until we have a better way of deadmining. And it is right that people should be judged against a higher standard than the "average admin"--we want to raise the quality. DGG (talk) 21:00, 29 June 2009 (UTC)