Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 218

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Minimum requirements

I often see oppose rationales that include "too soon" or "notnow". And indeed few "green" users ever pass RfA. So why not just set the minimum requirements for RfA at 2 years and 10,000 edits? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 05:01, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

The truth is its more about popularity than edit count or time. If you make a lot of friends on here very fast you can get RFA before you graduate High school. If you are looking at building an encyclopedia and not build up your Facebook freinds list then it might take a little while. Sarcasm and kidding aside. Its hard to put a time or edit count on it. Some tasks take longer than others and some don't show on the edit count list at all such as review new articles. Its a good thought though. Kumioko (talk) 05:05, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

@GabeMc: Many editors have their own criteria by which they judge candidates (for an example, see mine). The criteria that these editors have are so varied in their definition of "qualified" that it's close to impossible to set a minimum requirement that the majority of the community can accept. The Utahraptor ^Talk/_Contribs 05:07, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Because sometimes good candidates pass with less than 2 years and/or fewer than 10,000 edits. 28bytes (talk) 05:09, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Good point, but do you have any examples that aren't over 14 months old? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 05:12, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

How about ItsZippy and Yngvadottir – both from April. Don't get me wrong, most successful candidates will have 10,000 or more edits, but there are exceptions like these that would tend to argue against a hard cutoff. 28bytes (talk) 05:24, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

I also fear that you'd see candidates run as soon as they meet the threshold – and then become very disenchanted if their RfA fails anyway. A very hurt "but I met the requirements" from unsuccessful candidates is something I've seen in other wikis that have more firmly established cutoffs. 28bytes (talk) 05:33, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Good points. I guess you are right, but I don't see how making several good potential candidates fail every year due to coming to RfA 6 months too soon does any good either. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 05:39, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Personally I do agree that some reasons for opposing are just silly. Some Oppose self nominations, Some just seem to oppose every RFA for some reason. Kumioko (talk) 05:51, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

@Kumioko, yeah, I've seen opposes because the nom took too many months off in the last calender year, or fell bellow 100 edits per month for too long, how silly. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 06:36, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

No, I understand where you're coming from... I don't like to see good potential candidates fail either. I'm definitely on the same page with you there, Gabe. 28bytes (talk) 05:53, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

How about 7,500 edits and 18 months service? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 06:34, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

If there were some way to effectively communicate to potential candidates that those numbers are necessary but not sufficient to gaining adminship, that would cause a lot fewer hard feelings... but I'm not sure how to do that. We have so many guides to adminship already that go unread by the candidates. 28bytes (talk) 06:43, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

I think we could simply state at the nom page that the candidate must meet the minimum requirements but they should not be construed to imply having X edits and X years of service guarantees anything. It's not worth losing or discouraging good candidates just because they nomed too soon IMO. This would reduce the failed noms that were so obviously premature. Any thoughts? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 06:47, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

I would disapprove of any minimum requirement created to stop anything other than snow and notnow closes. My RfA was a valid learning experience and it came fairly close. Ryan Vesey 07:01, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm with Ryan on this. It has been a while since anyone got through with fewer than 3,500 edits or 12 months tenure. But I wouldn't want to put the minimum threshold so high. 1,500 edits and three months tenure would be my suggestion for self noms - above that most people have an idea as to whether they have a chance at RFA. Also it needs to be programmatic rather than manually enforced. But the risk is that a focus on edit count or tenure exacerbates our problems of editcountitis - I've seen people suggest ridiculously high minimum edit counts - 5,000 even. Ϣere SpielChequers 11:33, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't think the community should tie its own hands. Inexperienced candidates do not pass; the matter is taking care of itself. Nuff said.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:55, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Wehwalt. Having a set of minimum requirements could potentially alienate editors who would be good admin material before meeting the requirements. Often times, in my opinion anyway, far too much emphasis is placed on the quantity (experience, edit count) rather than on the quality. AutomaticStrikeout 16:50, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

RFA is a bruising experience at the best of times, if we can save a score or so of new editors a year from running long before they are ready then we should do so. The pedia will be a nicer place without the mess that happens when people run long before they are ready. If we don't want to tie our hands then make this specifically self noms that need 1,500 edits and three months tenure. Ϣere SpielChequers 22:31, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

The number of SNOWS and over enthusiastic transcriptions that need to be nipped in the bud has dropped dramatically. The issue of minimum requirements was discussed in depth at WP:RfA/C and its talk page, and for now, it's moot. I don't believe that the introduction of minima is necessary at this time, whether as a policy or a software tweak. If there does happen to be a noticeable increase in the months to come however, perhaps the issue could be revisited. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:29, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

*cough* I think you meant Wikipedia:RfA reform 2011/Minimum requirement, RfA/C was Clerks ;) Worm^TT(talk) 09:20, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Oopsie. Ta! Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:10, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Quality NOT Quantity By placing restrictions, good editors who do not meet the edit count may be passed over for editors who edit often but provide no real value. This is the classic experience vs skills argument. Skills should always be put first before experience. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hillabear10 (talk • contribs) 13:21, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

The whole purpose of measuring experience in anything (Wikipedia, employment, etc.) is that it gives an indication of acquired skill. It doesn't guarantee skill, by any means; nor does it give real evidence of lack of skill regarding those who have less experience. It is a shorthand analysis that attempts to stand in for genuine analysis of candidates. Therefore, in my opinion, it should only be used for absolute minimums. For example, if you have less than 3 months and 500 edits, then we think you cannot even fully comprehend Wikipedia. I personally think that such an absolute minimum would be acceptable, if paired with an admin training program, where Wikipedia policy is fully comprehended and tested. Frankly, such a course might be good as a requirement in itself (with or without the minimum requirements for experience). Also, it wouldn't hurt if existing admins had to take a course (if they hadn't already) to retain their adminship. Guðsþegn (talk) 18:25, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I know Hillabear10 is a blocked sockpuppet, but they still made a good point. As for a need for minimum requirements, we aren't being inundated with a bunch of SNOW close RfA's, so I don't really see a need for this. Having these requirements would put an emphasis on the numbers, and the more important aspect of how the editor relates to others may be overlooked. AutomaticStrikeout 18:33, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Unless the RfA process gets inundated with nominations from clear SNOWs and NOTNOWs to the extent of becoming disruptive I don't think there is a need for minima to be set as I have said many times before. What is needed is perhaps still more effort to ensure that candidates read all the available advice before running which obviously this one did not and it turned out to be a disaster in more ways than one and clearly demonstrates that not only do experience and skill need to be counted, but also some pretty good demonstrations of maturity. I don't believe any training is necessary for admins - whether RfA is a pleasant experience or not, it still functions and those who should not pass generally don't while those probably should usually do. Although there are rare hiccups, I have seen absolutely no significant behaviour that would suggest that all admins should undergo a refresher course - it would be as odd as requiring all priests to be re-ordained. The presence of a formal training program, IMHO, would only encourage even more users to join the Wikipedia for other reasons than wanting to build the encyclopedia, which of course (I at least believe) should be everyone's primary objective. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:20, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I am in total agreement with Kudpung. Also, requirements add an additional layer of needless bureaucracy to a process that already functions adequately. Trusilver 06:18, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Disaster? Not at all. I was actually very impressed at the fact that the !votes were offering actual constructive criticism, there was little pile-on. The CCI was a necessary outcome once that number of copyright issues came to light, and that will be cleared up soon. The point of a CCI is not to vilify, but to tidy - and that's all. Insisting that an editor reads all the available advice - that's madness, if you know how much there is. I agree there's certain advice which is useful, but that's all it is - advice. That RfA though did show a case where minimum requirements would do nothing to help. There's been a drop off in NOTNOWs, since we've changed the warning message to suggest a minimum edit count - that seems sufficient to me. Worm^TT(talk) 09:45, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong - the actual RfA was calm and civil. The disaster was the personal one for the candidate whose copyvios were exposed. No one is talking about vilifying, but it it's automatically extremely embarrassing for the poor candidate. Some copyvios were recent too, and surely while some errors of judgement are excusable (we've all made some, and probably as admins too), copvio on such a scale is a cardinal sin. A couple of years ago, I helped handle a massive CCI by a multiple sock who atoned and is now an excellent contributor. One mistake he didn't do however, was running for adminship. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:33, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Things to Keep in Mind before running for RfA

Hello Everyone, I am TheGeneralUser a regular editor and contributor to Wikipedia for over a year now. I work many different times of the day on Wikipedia. My main area of work is Maintenance and Administration of the project and i sometimes write article content to random articles. I see there are various pages like Wikipedia:Administrators, Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship, Wikipedia:Administrators' how-to guide, Wikipedia:Administrators' reading list and many more which describe the requirements, process and methods by which an Administrator is usually chosen by the community and how they are expected to uphold that trust of the community by providing them with special duties that need to be performed responsibly. I wanted to know that are there any more things that need to be kept in mind before running for RfA ? I do plan to help the project running smoothly and efficiently in the many c:oming years and for a long time and for that i think of running for Adminship in some time, around 2-3 months. So are there any other things i currently need to watch for and improve like skills and abilities before running for Adminship ? I will be greatly happy if other users can answer and address any specific issues and things that need to be kept in mind and watched for before I get nominated for Adminship or just provide a general overview. Thank you. TheGeneralUser (talk) 09:55, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I would recommend you wander over to WP:Editor Review or Request a nomination, just so you can get your work reviewed by your peers before you run. It's always a good idea :) Worm^TT(talk) 10:01, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Worm. If most editors are willing to spend a little time looking for perceived weaknesses, and spend a little time shoring up and getting a little experience where it is needed, it makes RfA less painful. I approached Pedro (on that list but no longer very active) and he said I needed to work on some issues for 6 months, which I did, and I passed the first time at RfA. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 10:23, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Take a look at this too. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:32, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I think that Kudpung's essay, WP: RFAADVICE is ver helpful. At an editor review, many of the people will come there to comment based on your interactions with them, and there are very few users who will actually do a full evaluation. Electric Catfish 16:45, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I would also recommend staying clear on contentious subjects. Participating in contentious subjects or being very vocal will substantially lesson your chances of passing RFA. Kumioko (talk) 18:01, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

If editors contributing in contentious topic area are likely to fail at RFA, then it is very discouraging. Its like demotivating editors to contribute to any such subject. I think editors who contribute in such topic area are prone to disputes and can better be judged at RFA rather than an editor who never edited on controversial articles. --SMS ^Talk 18:40, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Taking part in contentious discussions will NOT sink an RFA. However, how you respond/react when challenged during a contentious discussion will either make or break your RFA. Indeed, I personally WANT to see how you take part in contentious discussions. If you WP:DIVA or threaten, then it's pretty much an automatic fail dangerous panda 14:18, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

The single most important attribute for anyone seeking adminship is to recall the advice of the First Lord in HMS Pinafore:

Stick close to your desks and never go to sea

And you all may be Rulers of the Queen's Navy

IOW, avoid all controversy, stick to spelling corrections, write articles on sufficiently obscure topics that no one will read them - and you all may be rulers of the Queen's Navy. Collect (talk) 18:32, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I thought so little, they rewarded me

By making me the Ruler of the Queen's Navy Worm^TT(talk) 08:21, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Note Well This will be viewed as canvassing. Thus, your chances at adminship will be slim. Sorry. Hillabear10 (talk) 18:41, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
It's not canvassing, until after a discussion goes "live". Until then, people can apparently chat about potential discussions all they want : ) - jc37 18:55, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

~~WOW! maybe I should start talking about my run at adminship for 2034! :) Hillabear10 (talk) 19:11, 22 August 2012 (UTC)~~

Not clear on what "admin work" you intend. To be clear, adminship is just like any other user w/ the added functions of Deleting, and Protecting pages and Blocking other users from editing. One must have made a strong commitment to content building. Because of the functions of blocking, deleting and protecting and the gravity of the consequences of doing the wrong thing the wrong way, candidates must have demonstrated wisdom, intelligence, knowledge of policy, good judgment and even temperament. Digging into controversial areas can make you a lot of enemies , but it can also let your fine qualities shine brightly. Because adminship requires a high degree of tust, admins often find themselves called upon to offer advice and settle disputes. Hope this helps. Dloh cierekim 20:16, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone who has took their time to give their reply to my important query. I had to ask about this just to be sure what important things one needs to be sure of and kept in mind before going for RfA. I respect everyone's opinions and do hope to make the project run more collaboratively, smoothly and efficiently. And Hillabear10 with all due respect, this is not in any way called Canvassing. This is just a inquiry about an specific issue, just like Wikipedia:Requests for comment is there where editors are randomly asked to give their opinion on a specific topic and Wikipedia:Editor review where review about a user's contributions are done, that's all. Thank you everyone. TheGeneralUser (talk) 19:05, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Administration Rights

I finally understood the Wikipedia tools, and reached more edits. I'm hoping to run as one of the Administrators on Wikipedia. Since I learned what Wikipedia is, and what its tools are, can I be in the running for Adminship (again)? Agent Perry 04:24, 26 August 2012 (UTC)This in's

This isn't really the place to ask. This page is for discussions about the RfA process. Your last RfA was only 2 weeks ago and with only 379 edits another RfA is almost certain not to succeed again. To understand what is required please read WP:Advice for RfA candidates and all the other advice pages that are listed there. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:48, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

WP:NOTNOW applies to basically anyone with less than several thousand edits and around a year or more of experience.--Jasper Deng (talk) 04:50, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Also, do take the advice that was given to you on your previous RfA and on your talk page. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:54, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Personal attacks like this will pretty much ensure you'll never be an admin. Kilopi (talk) 05:00, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

PerryThePlatypusFan, I think that something that you need to understand is that you can't block people just because they don't agree with you. Blocking is only used for things such as copyright violations, consistent vandalism, sockpuppetry, vandalism, personal attacks, telling personal information of others (unless it's public), and edit warring. I am pretty sure that there are other things that blocking is used for, but having disagreements is not one of those things.You may request administrator rights again, but I don't think that you will pass. Ha dg er 21:04, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Here are a few more reasons why I don't think that you will become an administrator if you nominate yourself again: You have a very low amount of edits. Maybe you should try to get at least one thousand edits before you run again. Another reason is that although you say that you understand Wikipedia's tools, the fact that you want to block people just for disagreeing with you shows that you don't. You have also recently made personal attacks. You just made one a few minutes ago. I also recommend that you stop making edits with your IP address in order to make it hard for us to undo your edits, because some people may see that as sockpuppetry. If you fix those things, you will have a better chance at becoming an administrator. Ha dg er 21:13, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

A user has told me that some of my advice is probably not the best, so please ignore what I said. Also, sorry if I sounded harsh. Also, just so you know, when I said "a few minutes ago", I forgot that you had added that a few hours ago. :) Ha dg er 04:24, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Can I Requests for adminship

Please I'm good at writing please I'm an expert at computers please.

Bye my name is XDraggon.

Godbless you.

Goodbye.

From: XDraggon — Preceding unsigned comment added by XDraggon (talk • contribs) 10:05, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia, I'll answer on your talk page. Worm^TT(talk) 10:18, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Is unbiased discussion allowed?

This article provides for a period "during which users give their opinions, ask questions, and make comments" about a nomination. Is it allowed to cite evidence that the nominee might not be qualified? How can this be done without violating the Wikipedia:No personal attacks policy? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.135.48.237 (talk) 20:42, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, there is a difference between making outright personal attacks and providing constructive criticism. Anyone who allows his or herself to be a candidate here should expect to face some criticism, and comments about the editor are actually desirable, because the RfA is an evaluation of if the nominee deserves to be an admin. Personal attacks should be avoided, but if an honest review of an editor requires taking a negative viewpoint, that's part of the process. AutomaticStrikeout 20:49, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

If you look through previous RfAs, especially unsuccessful RfAs, you will see many examples of constructive criticism that imply that the nominee is unsuitable. There is a link at the top of this page. Axl ¤ [Talk] 16:30, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

The best way to avoid making a personal attack or being uncivil is to give examples and, where possible, advice on how to improve. For example, "this editor doesn't understand deletion", or "this editor always gets angry" is probably not helpful; however, "this editor doesn't understand deletion, as shown by these examples A, B, C, D, and could do with a little more experience tagging CSDs and participating in deletion discussions", or "this editor tends to get angry, as shown by his comments at E, F, G, H, I, which could mean the stressful nature of adminship is not suited to them" are much more helpful - they do make a criticism of the editor, but it is backed up with evidence, and the candidate can use the comments to improve their editing. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 16:46, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Note: The above IP is being cryptic. See also WP:DEL#Deletion without discussion? as well as Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive767#Request additional review of disruptive editor. They are upset that User talk:150.135.161.45 was deleted by me, as it was simply an attack page ranting about being blocked on Commons. They now appear to be either looking for loopholes and/or WP:FORUMSHOPPING both here and at WP:NPA (see this edit which was reverted at WT:NPA per WP:RBI). --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 17:47, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Crat proposal

See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Bureaucrat_rights.27_proposal. Thanks. MBisanz ^talk 20:48, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

A discussion regarding de-sysopping

For those who are interested, there is currently a discussion going on regarding a method for de-sysopping admins due to misconduct. Said discussion can be found here. I'd like to point out that having a process to remove admins might cause people to be more willing to support RfA's as the tools could easily be revoked due to misuse. AutomaticStrikeout 20:46, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

The Year Without a Santa Claus

Regardless of what occurs before October 1, it is a certainty that no successful RFAs will occur in September 2012. I believe this is an unprecedented occurence in the history of the project. The prior low was one promotion, occuring in August 2011 and December 2010. For comparison, when I was promoted in February 2008, there were 27 successful RFAs. Thoughts? MBisanz ^talk 16:43, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

The mop is not something we should be more lenient with - we don't want every Tom, Dick & Harry to have the buttons. Giant Snowman 16:45, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Please tell me you realize the irony of using the term "mop" there.--Tznkai (talk) 17:02, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Even if he doesn't, he has a perfect username to be getting involved in such a festively titled thread. On which subject, I'm very tempted to ask Kudpung if he feels he himself would make a good Santa Claus :) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:19, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

And to get into the perennial discussion, how much of that difference do you suppose is due to changed standards and how much to general site activity? -— Isarra ༆ 17:33, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

The damage that was done over the years that turned RfA in to a 168 hour survival course worse than anything I experienced at boot camp, will still take a while to repair. However, I think that it's on the road to recovery - I've been asked to do several assessments for willing recruits recently so we might be seeing more activity soon. Let's hope so, and wish them a bloodless run even if they are not successful. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:12, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

More of a problem is the attrition rate of admins. 30 others were promoted the same month as me - only 6 are still particularly active as admins; notable is the number who are still active or semi-active but rarely use their tools. Black Kite (talk) 18:22, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I think the real question is not whether the rate of Santa Claus creation is high enough, but rather: are the presents being delivered? To exit this bizarre analogy, what I mean is, are admin jobs being done in a relatively timely fashion? Are there backlogs, or is there evidence that we're teetering close to the edge of the accumulation of massive admin backlogs? The answer to that question will inform us about whether or not we need to worry about the fact that no admins have been promoted in an arbitrary 30-day period. Also keep in mind that there may have been other 30+ day periods with no promotions; they just may not have fallen neatly within one month. -Scottywong | talk _ 19:27, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

The issue I have with your analysis is that the problem may develop before we have a reasonable means to correct it. If admins are being promoted below replacement rate (that is, if admins are leaving faster than they are being replaced) it may take a year or two to get below the minimum threshold to maintain the project in an adequate manner. By the time the backlogs show up, we may be years into a problem before we know it, and then what do we do? We may be forced to rebound too far in the other direction, and instead end up with having to force through a bunch of unprepared admins in order to deal with mounting backlogs. Instead, we should be focusing on a process that produces a steady stream of new admins which are competent enough to be trusted with the tools. As it operates right now, the pendulum has clearly swung too far in one direction, we simply don't put enough obviously qualified people through because the process has become so overwhelming that lots of good candidates never consider putting their name in the hat because, well, they'd rather not deal with the unmitigated stream of unreasonable shit they have to go through. By the time the backlogs show up, we're going to have a giant gap in admin experience: a bunch of admins at the 5-6 year level, and then a gap where we've got entire years without so much as a few active admins from that cohort. That isn't an acceptable way to run the system. You need constant new blood to replace admins that leave or become inactive, and the current system just doesn't do that. The results bear that out. Do we want 100 new admins per month? No, but neither do we want 1-2, which is the most we see now, and we're also seeing entire months without any. At some point, we need to fix the problem. --Jayron32 19:48, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I wonder if the backlogs in areas that don't require the bit, but were traditionally handled mostly by admins, such as RFC closing, are an early symptom. It certainly seems that there is an increase in non-admin RFC closes recently, and the backlog is still pretty large. Monty ₈₄₅ 20:01, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

At the end of the day, stick our necks out into the more contentious areas where we're expected to use our skills rather than the actual tools. Although it wasn't intended, when I got the bit, my editing focus naturally shifted more towards admin tasks. Having been a busy admin now for a while, I can understand why the initial flash soon wears off for some, and many admin tasks are just plain boring. There's also the fact that many admins whose names we don't see around in the contentious areas such as resolving SPI, ANI, and other behavioural issues, do good work quietly hacking away in the background at deleting CSDs and expired PRODs. The number of names regularly appearing at RPP, AIV, DRV, PERM, Unblock requests, RfA voting, and XfD closures, etc, is actually very small indeed. Like Black Kite, I've seen several admins who were were promoted since I was already fading into the background. Whatever the solution is, we certainly don't want to lower the bar because as the WP grows and continues to attract more POV pushers, spammers, vandals, plagiarists, and pure cases of CIR, there will be even more work to do and we need people with those skills. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:07, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

On top of our dilemma in promoting administrators, we are having a similarly hard time retaining active administrators. WP:LA indicated a couple days ago we reached an all-time low in active administrators (686 on September 23) since prior to Rick Bot's statistics being kept. Only 46% of administrators were considered active that day (active is 30 or more edits in the past 2 months). Regards, — Moe Epsilon 22:50, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

And that "fact" is irrelevant anyway; many of those 686 hardly ever use their tools. Black Kite (talk) 23:00, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

That's very true, if we had 686 regularly active administrators, we'd have significantly less backlog (logically). I'm thinking of asking for a re-definition of "active" to be 30 or more edits in a month, rather than two. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 23:03, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

May be interesting to have it track active with log actions too, while there are certainly purely administrative actions that don't generate them, it would still be interesting. Monty ₈₄₅ 23:15, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

My point exactly, log actions are the important point here, rather than edits. Black Kite (talk) 23:17, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

For the sake of consistency over time I think we should keep the current measure, but by all means introduce additional ones. Ideally including some measure as to whether admins are active as admins as opposed to being active editors and inactive admins. Ϣere SpielChequers 23:29, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

The first month without a new admin since October 2002 is not the only worrying sign. For the last few years we've appointed about a third fewer admins each year than the year before, but at current rates this year we may not manage half as many as last year. So to answer ScottyWong's point, there may have been longer calender gaps between new admins, but this years as a whole is producing drastically fewer admins than at any time since the dawn of the project. Ϣere SpielChequers 23:29, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Black Kite: I agree - I count as an "active admin" because of my edit count, but I haven't touched the tools in 2 months. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 23:31, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Monty845 and BlackKite: I did a quick sample of the 48 semi-active administrators whose username begins with A. Only about 16% made at least one administrative log in August and September of this year. Only one user made a total of fifty or more administrator logs in August and September combined. Many of those forty-eight have not made an administrative log in in 2012. Also to note that dates of administrative logs also roughly correlate with times that they are editing as well (but not by number of edits/logs). Regards, — Moe Epsilon 23:32, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

My point is that we need data to come to real conclusions, as opposed to knee-jerk reactions. Right now, we're only able to conclusively say that the number of active admins is decreasing. Ok. Well, the number of active admins has been pretty consistently decreasing since the beginning of 2008 (see this visualization of Rick Bot's statistics). How many admins is "enough"? How many active admins do we actually need to do the work? If I could time travel back to 2009 and tell you, "In 3 years, there will be at least 200 less active admins than there are right now" you'd probably shit a brick and start predicting the end of Wikipedia as we know it.

Well, what if I told you that I come from the future, and in the year 2015 there are only 575 admins, and everything still works just great. We don't yet know if Wikipedia can function well with less admins, because we have no data. Rather than asking the knee-jerk question, "How do we get more admins?", we should be asking the question, "How do we figure out how many admins we need?". Once we can estimate how many admins we need, then we'll know how urgent our problem is. Do we need to just start handing out the bit automatically to anyone with a clean block log and more than 7500 edits? Or do we just need to look for a way to increase the admin promotion rate by a slight amount, just enough to level it off?

Perhaps we should look at other wikis. Here's a comparison of the top 4 wikis, with 1,000,000+ articles:

Wiki	# Articles	# Admins	# Active Users	Articles per admin	Active users per admin
English	4,060,266	1,462	130,815	2,777	89
German	1,467,044	269	21,585	5,454	80
French	1,298,696	187	16,010	6,945	86
Dutch	1,111,667	62	4,351	17,930	70

Now of course, these stats are not taking into consideration the number of inactive admins, which may exist at a different rate in other wikis. However, it is clear that en-wiki has way more admins than any other major wiki when you normalize them based on article count. And, we're pretty close to the average when it comes to the number of active users per admin. If the Dutch Wikipedia can exist with only 62 admins taking care of 1.1M pages, then that the overly simplistic implication would be that we could survive with about 225 admins. Obviously, I'm just throwing numbers around here to make a point; surely there are other factors that are skewing the numbers somewhat. I don't seriously believe that we'd be able to operate at the same level we do now with 225 admins. But, I'd be willing to believe that we might run relatively unchanged if we had 500-600 admins, perhaps even lower.

To be clear, I'm not taking one side or the other, at this point I don't know if the admin promotion rate is a problem. In my opinion, this is the question that needs to be answered before there will be a groundswell of support around RfA reform. If we can point to indisputable evidence of a looming threat, then we will have everyone's attention. But simply pointing at a number and saying "Look, it's getting lower!" isn't going to effect change. -Scottywong | soliloquize _ 23:59, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Just as a point to make based on your stats: are you sure that demand for admins scales with the size of the Wikipedia? The sheer mass of en.wikipedia has enough gravity to attract a greater share of vandals, the lunatic fringe, and general trouble makers than other language Wikipedias. I was told recently by someone who didn't speak English natively that they weren't interested in editing their native language Wikipedia at all, because en.wikipedia is so much bigger, that they didn't deem it worth it to contribute anywhere else. If en.wikipedia has a higher proportion of admins, that doesn't mean it doesn't NEED that higher proportion of admins because of the sort of attention it gets just because it is the flagship Wikipedia. --Jayron32 05:09, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Theoretically – and I'm not arguing it is this way, just pointing out the possibility – it could be the other way around. If you sit in Sweden and want to contribute, you might end up here, because you feel it's more worthwhile, but the bored teenagers in junior high will still end up vandalizing Swedish-language Wikipedia because that's what pops up when they do a search for something. /Julle (talk) 17:19, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Point of order: Teenagers aren't bored in Sweden because they have a functioning school system. --Jayron32 03:41, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Just over a year ago, I prognosed that this year would close with only 18 new admins. It looks as if I'm not going to be far off. Any stats that are extrapolated will only be academic because they won't address the cause, but it might be interesting to see just how many tool uses were made by each of the 30+ edit 'active' admins say in the last 30 days, and compare it with the total of all currently backlogged/unresolved items requiring admin tool use (XfD, CSD, expired PRO/BLPPROD, FPP edit requests, page moves, unblock requests, refunds/usefications, etc.). The result might give us an idea of how many truly active admins are needed. It's my guess that the majority of admin actions made over the last 30 days were done by fewer than 30 admins. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:11, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Some time ago I started a study on the RFPP and AIV backlogs to see if there was an increasing delay in responses. The problem, surprisingly, is you need to see deleted pages to make a good shot at it. :) Well, that and the overall volume of data. I'll probably get back to it when my teaching load drops a bit, but any study along those lines is likely to take a while to complete if the data is to be rich enough to reveal anything of interest. - Bilby (talk) 00:33, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I think it's slightly misleading (perhaps you are only throwing an example of "data" out) to post the users/articles per admin (etc.) given the greater activity that the pedia sees, both vandalistically and not. It would be more interesting to see the number and duration of blocks issued per time period for a given project, or protections per time period, or the number of reversions (etc.). Perhaps, on the same scale, the number of requests made at RFPP. Strictly speaking, is it the case that those numbers are decreasing, remaining steady, or not, and is that due to number of admin actions (or inactions due to burnout etc.), or simply due to load being shed to non-admins, or what not? Those are more useful metrics to use to gather information on whether pedia is in need of more administrators. --Izno (talk) 00:38, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

The process is far too hostile to all but the most experienced and bonafide users. Make the RfA process less negative and nit-picky and you will see this change for the better. Candidates should not be picked apart for every mis-step or mistake, nor should their character be put on trial. Most never pass the first round, and few of those would ever return for the public lashing that so many candidates get. Reduce the arbitrary opposes and set a more clear standard for users to follow in regard to supports. I also think a brief probationary period would allow the community to take chances on candidates that are less obviously qualified, but who may otherwise do a fine job, but I digress. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:12, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

We've already been there, done that. None of it ever reached a consensus. The only way to ensure clean play is to regulate the !voting, either by introducing a system of clerking, or a set of miniumum qualification for !votes like the other Wikis have. Been there, done that too, in fact a consensus was never even reached by the research team to launch any RfCs on them. I'm sure the closing 'crats count most votes as made in good faith and don't examine the background of every one of the often well over 100 voters in all the sections. Not that it would make much difference to the end result because where RfA is not broken is where it nevertheless generally continues to promote those who should be promoted, and decline those who should not; close calls are still very rare. All that is needed to get more candidates of the right calibre is some guarantee of a clean game. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:18, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Slightly off-topic, has anyone ever proposed a pre-RFA nomination (for lack of a better term). For example: Editor A wants to be nominated, Editor A files for pre-RFA, he receives five nominations for adminship within a timeframe (nomination, i.e a complete explanation/summary of why they would be a good administrator) and then once they get five nominations, the pre-RFA advances into a full-fledged RFA where there are supports and opposes. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 01:52, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Been there, done that - again. There were about three different RfC of varying kinds ranging from admin-lite to probationary admins earlier this year. All fell very short of a consensus mainly because the way the proposals were worded, they were a solution looking for a problem. What the community apparently does not want is a get-the-tools-quick programme which would need to be monitored by admins. Those in favour were most ly people who saw it as an easy way to get a new hat. Most who oppesed were admins who don't see why it should be made any easier for others. Some of the discussions fragmented into tool unbundling, again a PEREN that has never gained community approval. Apart from some radically different systems althogether, every conceivable idea to improve the current system has been researched, analyzed, and discussed at great length in the huge project at WP:RFA2011. In June this year another group tried to start a WP:RFA2012 but it never got off the ground. Basically all that happened was that they suggested merging WP:RFA2011 and WP:RFA2012. Probably what actually happened is what usually happens here at WT:RfA - when nothing is happening, there's nothing much to discuss. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:12, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Frankly, it does appear we are losing admins at a rather brisk pace. However, I think if we really want to do something about it, the answer is simple: Find editors who are admin material and nominate them. We can't have new admins without new nominations. AutomaticStrikeout 03:13, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Anyone with the experience enough to be a good admin knows enough about what RFA is and almost always says "Fuck that noise". Again, it isn't the lack of people interested in or with the skills to be a good admin, its that RFA does a piss-poor job of taking people who would be good at the job and giving them the bit. --Jayron32 03:41, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
Well, I get where you're coming from, I understand why some don't want to go through the process and I can see why there could be a need for improvement. However, given that there were several unanimous or nearly unanimous noms just recently, I think maybe we could at least give it a try and put out a few more noms. AutomaticStrikeout 03:45, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
How sure are you that people aren't being asked. I've occasionally tried to nominate someone I thought would be good, and they patently refused, not because they didn't want the job of administrator, or because they didn't think they would be good enough, but because RFA wasn't worth the hassle. It isn't that people aren't being approached, I think, its that when approached they aren't interested specifically because of the RFA process.--Jayron32 04:19, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
I'll second this, though I think (in the instances I'm thinking of) it was more how admins are treated. The extra tools are quite often considered not worth it. - jc37 04:23, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
I've always held to the belief that RfA standards are simply far too high. When I first began editing here in 2007 (this was before I registered an account), there were literally a dozen RfA's going on at any given time — and unless you count what we would today call WP:NOTNOW closures, the good majority of moderately experienced users (at least 3 months and 3000 edits was the standard for the time) passed with flying colours. Many people will use the argument that the times have changed, and we need to be very strict with who we entrust with the sysop bit. My suggestion is to have a look at Wikipedia:Successful requests for adminship/2007, Wikipedia:Successful requests for adminship/2006, and Wikipedia:Successful requests for adminship/2005; now tell me, how many of those editors fucked up royally as administrators? Kurtis (talk) 04:04, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
Okay. So, my point is, if you want to do something about the problem, why don't you nominate someone? AutomaticStrikeout 04:11, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
Because they still won't pass, though they would have. Or they won't even accept... -— Isarra ༆ 06:33, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

There are people I'd like to nominate at some point in the near future. I'm not sure of how likely they would be to succeed at an RfA were they to submit one, or if they'd even want to. Kurtis (talk) 07:17, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
Any candidate with a clean block log, >3,500 manual edits spread out over at least 12 months, a diverse record that includes both adding referenced encyclopaedic content and doing some of the chores that keep this site running and a record of civility would have a fair chance at RFA. They could blow that chance in several different ways; By demonstrating a poor grasp of copyright, being too far from the median on the deletionist/inclusionist spectrum or by not realising that the reason why you call an open book exam open book is that you are judging them on their ability to handle and unfamiliar awkward situations by checking the policy. There are also candidates who don't meet all that but could get through depending on what they say in their RFA. Ϣere SpielChequers 13:08, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
I can't help but feel as if you're making subtle reference to something, WSC. =/ Kurtis (talk) 21:02, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I have a few nominees in mind, but they are busy IRL right now. --Rs chen 7754 07:23, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I hear often that the decline in administrators is linked to the "the decline of editors" and this is a distinct possibility. Not one of our administrators started editing after 1 January 2011. Only about half a dozen started in the year before that. This fits with the rise in standards (the median number of edits made by a successful candidate has risen by about 3000 each year) - it's now very difficult to reach the standards expected by the community. I don't buy the "hell week" argument anymore, some RfAs are difficult, but those editors have rubbed people up the wrong way. The right candidates are getting through if they run in the first place.Figures taken from Wikipedia:RFA2011/CANDIDATES
So far this year, I've searched for and asked 8 editors if they would like to run for adminship. Two said yes, one was successful, one was not. The other 6 were not interested in adminship. Only 1 was worried about the RfA process itself, the rest just didn't feel they wanted the tools.
I don't know what other editors experiences are, but from what I've seen, the problem isn't with RfA, but with the perception of adminship in general. Admins instantly become "high profile editors" - meaning they are berated, scrutinised, subject to less AGF and told they ought to have a thick skin. Don't get me wrong, other non-admin high profile editors also have to deal with this and it's certainly not a bad thing that admins are held to a higher standard. However, I have personally found that few people want to take on that role, with few little benefits. Worm^TT(talk) 09:03, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I haven't offered to nominate anyone for a few months, but I doubt things have changed much since I was approaching possible candidates. Those who would be likely to be opposed for "no need for the tools" will take some persuading that they should run, partly because you are in effect asking them to take on additional unpaid work. Those who are already functioning as admins but without the tools almost invariably would like to become admins, some won't run because they've blotted their copybook in some way and know they won't pass, others just don't fancy the grief that is RFA. Ϣere SpielChequers 13:08, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I note the wisdom of Scottywong's comment above[1] (which Hammersoft follows up on below). Its the nature of discussion sections to fret about and "solve" problems of undetermined, and perhaps non-existent, severity--otherwise we'd have nothing to talk about. The BLP mass blanking of 2010 comes immediately to my mind. If we develop a true admin shortage, the standards for promoting admins are naturally going to drop back to their earlier lax standards. I look forward to banning Jimbo and deleting the entire AfD system again in a crazed inclusionist binge when that day comes. In the meantime, the normal process of those concerned keeping an eye out for good candidates and encouraging them should continue.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 15:07, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Ah, good times :) Kevin (talk) 23:30, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the state of complete stagnation/collapse that many users have predicted, warned about and tried in vain to fix for a long time seems to actually be upon us now. Yes, the shocking, nearly unprecedented low of August 2011 (i.e. 1 promotion) is now the norm, with a majority of months experiencing this level of inactivity. And, completely unsurprisingly, we've finally hit the zero-promotion mark. I know for a fact that no discussion on this page is going to improve things, and taking the initiative to nominate candidates is going to be nothing more than a temporary fix. Both the community and the Foundation have proven unable and unwilling to implement RfA "fixes" in the past, and short of an actual admin shortage crisis, I don't see that changing. And I know that no discussion on this page is going to yield any results. Swarm ^X 04:20, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

We don't really have many truly unpleasant admins, but those who are were generally appointed back in the old days when standards were more lax; getting rid of them isn't getting any easier either. I became interested in our adminship process because I wanted to learn more about why such admins are allowed to behave as they do. If ever the bar gets lowered, Wikipedia can count on tools being handed in by some really good admins who had to go through hell and be humiliated not only by voters who have no business getting involved at RfA, but by other admins. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:21, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

At least twice this month I have gone to WP:RFA to make sure that I hadn't accidentally unwatched it. I totally agree with Swarm, though. The issue has not reached a critical point yet, and until it does we will not see significant changes being made. And even if those changes come about, I'm at a loss to say what the right ones are. RfA is not an imperfect system, it's the RfA participants who are imperfect. Much like Kudpung just illustrated, a good number of the users most qualified and able to wield the mop aren't willing to have their entire history picked over by the armchair bureaucrats peanut gallery who are going to engage in a bunch of phony hand-wringing, suggesting that one edit that amounts to perhaps .001% of their total activity on the project represents a significant threat to the project and by promoting this obviously unfit candidate, the main page will be deleted and Jimbo will be blocked by next Thursday. Trusilver 06:55, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

And I was about to slap a big "historical" tag to the page... I mean no RfA's (even SNOWed) in almost a month... time to turn off the lights and close the door.38.100.76.228 (talk) 15:53, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

And you forgot the last part Trusilver. They aren't willing to have their entire history picked over by the armchair bureaucrats peanut gallery who are going to engage in a bunch of phony hand-wringing...just so they can assume a position that completely sucks. Being an administrator is not fun. There's no a reward at the end of an RfA. Congratulations, you can now perform a bunch of tedious, menial, thankless tasks! You do also possess a limited amount of extra "authority" in certain areas, but exercising it in even the most miniscule way will probably result in scathing criticism and hatred. In fact, just being an administrator will garner that, so you should probably just get used to it. Swarm ^X 17:24, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Statistics (and lies?)

Rather than discussion in this section, I'd like to just add statistics.

Copying the stats from Scottywong above, and adding others...

Comparison of the top 4 wikis, with 1,000,000+ articles:

Wiki	# Articles	# Admins	# Active Users	Articles per admin	Active users per admin
English	4,060,266	1,462	130,815	2,777	89
German	1,467,044	269	21,585	5,454	80
French	1,298,696	187	16,010	6,945	86
Dutch	1,111,667	62	4,351	17,930	70

Admins active in deletion

Admins who performed at least one deletion/restore in the last rolling month: 479
Top ten in deletion/restore as share of all deletions/restores: 45.2%
Top ten are:

Explicit (12%)
Magog the Ogre (9%)
Skier Dude (4%)
Diannaa (4%)
RHaworth (3%)
Gogo Dodo (3%)
Cydebot (3%)
Mark Arsten (3%)
Peridon (3%)
Plastikspork (2%)

Bottom half of actives responsible for 1.6% of all deletions.

--Hammersoft (talk) 14:55, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

There are names there I've never or rarely come across so that bears out my theory of 'backroom work'. Clicking the deletion button is not hard work, but there is far more to the admin remit. While the above stats are useful, we need to see who have been working in other admin areas too, such as PERM, AIV, AN/I, Blocks/unblocks, Page protection, AFD closure, etc., etc., etc., and how many admins made at least 20 uses of admin tools in the last month. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:36, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Cydebot does the CFD deletions - and only ranks 7th? Wow, the others must be really busy : ) - jc37 06:41, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

226 admins logged at least 20 actions in the last month. 4 of those are bots. Hut 8.5 11:43, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

One reason I think there is a lack of RFA candidates right now is that we manage to maintain backlogs better. I remembered when I was an administrator around 2007/2008, I've seen CAT:CSD loaded with hundreds of pages at one time, AFDs with two to three week backlogs and even backlogged prods on a constant basis and that was at the peak of RFA promotions. All these new administrators simply went to anti vandalism, and ignored everything else (which usually led to a high burnout rate) or passed RFA and went back to content creation, using the tools infrequently. Now that backlogs became much more controllable, many editors don't see the point in running for adminship for reasons perfectly explained above. Secret ^account 08:09, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Speaking of AFDs. All you admins here, *point to WP:AFD/Old* care to help?

KTC (talk) 09:56, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

It's kind of funny, when I became an admin I said I wanted to do anti-vandal work mainly, but since then I've stuck with deletion work more than anything else. I think it was the relatively steady stream of fairly easy work that drew me there, whereas anti-vandal work is sometimes badly needed, and sometimes several admins tripping over themselves to clear out every AIV report. Mark Arsten (talk) 16:14, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Mark; I might be one of those background admins Kudpung talked about above, but still was drawn to deletion in the first place, and have more or less stayed there. I shy away from drama, to be honest. Lectonar (talk) 09:20, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I think the decline in editor registration is a better explanation for Secret's observations than better management. The actual number of mainspace deletions performed has declined from about 617,000 in 2007 to about 264,000 in 2011. Presumably with fewer users registering and editing fewer problematic pages are being created. Unfortunately the RfA pass rate has declined much faster than the number of deletions. Hut 8.5 11:20, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Being asked to comment here, I must say that deletion IS a main part of my work here. It's a step on from what I was doing before I got nominated - tagging. I wasn't an NPP - I monitored edits by new users which picked up quite a bit that the standard patrollers didn't. My very first edit was removing rubbish from an article, so you could say I've gone on as I began... Having said that, I do get a chance to save some things, like Bobble-head doll syndrome and True's Yard (can't remember exact titles). I do some translation, and have started a new article (one sentence so far...) I've said similar things to this before, but this is how I look at it: A school is about teaching, and that means teachers are important. But... What if they had to clean the place, remove the rubbish, feed the kids at lunchtime, and do all the office work? How far would the star surgeon get without nurses, auxiliary nurses, technicians, porters, cleaners, and whoever disposes of the excised bits? Many Christians ignore Jesus's remark about 'in my father's house are many mansions' (they think theirs is the only one...). So do a lot of the regular participants at RfA. Some require content creation. Some require DYKs and GAs. I wouldn't know a by the definition and labelling GA if I fell over it. I may have seen a DYK somewhere. I do know spam, concealed spam, hoaxes, attacks, vandal articles, and non-entities with egos. If everyone was permanently healthy, what need of doctors? If all articles were perfect from the start, and no-one vandalised, who'd need patrollers and admins? I and several others (including those concentrating on vandalism) work mainly in the dirty areas. But dirt can grow crops as well as weeds, which is why I use individually targeted messages a lot. Where I think someone's not getting the point, or could in fact do a better job now - or a couple of years later when things are better known. There are some people who would do a good job as admins, but I wouldn't at present encourage any to try. We'd be likely to lose them through the downright unnecessary rudeness that RfA has become notorious for. (Just like the House of Commons...) Peridon (talk) 20:57, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Continuing after a save (and some sour strawberries)... The loss of new editors. Some are well lost. The 'I'm only trying to get our company's history where people can read it' brigade, and their associates in politics, rap, and so on. Odd ones can come through - one whose name I can't remember started as a spammer and went on to be quite good. It's the good faith ones I worry about. I think one reason is that they only sign in when editing the article. You can see this when the contested deletion is IP made. They're not going to see the reasons on their talk page because they won't get the yellow banner. They see the article's gone, and they go. That's enough for now. Peridon (talk) 21:09, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, we rightly lose some SPA and vandal editors - the widely held conjecture that they will all become regular Wikipedians is a fallacy. The number of them who never contest their spam and vandal blocks is proof of it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:17, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

As a relatively new admin, I'd like to offer some tentative comments. After acquiring the tools, the first thing I did was go to admin school. Although useful, that covered only a few basic things. It didn't offer any guidance as to what I should do next, or even how to go about figuring out what to do. So, I just decided on my own to start at RFPP. Since that time - and it's only been a few months but it feels like MUCH longer - I've branched out into AIV, ANEW, and CSD. I haven't touched AfD closures, or any other closure discussions (category deletions completely intimidate me). As I use the tools, I also watch what other more experienced admins do. For example, at CSD, which, strangely enough, I find the most "relaxing" area, if I'm on the fence about a page, I put it on my watchlist to see what another admin does with it. Not sure if I've learned much, though, because the range of discretion seems fairly wide. I've also found that I either delete the page or do nothing but rarely remove the tag - haven't figured out why that is.

One thing I'd like is more structured guidance. When I have a specific question and I ask an individual admin, I generally find the response to be quite helpful, but it's kind of ad hoc. I realize there is no one-size-fits-all, so different new admins may want to do different things, but what seems to be missing are the possibilities and guidance as to where to find things. For example, I cribbed from someone's user page a little chart for easily finding the speedy delete candidates by category, but I just came across it by accident. Up higher in this conversation, someone pointed to a page for AfD closures. I've now watchlisted that page, but I didn't know about it. I'm sure if I poked around enough I could find most of these things in different places, but a central list of aids to using the tools would be helpful.

Of course, none of this may really be relevant to this discussion. I imagine that admin attrition doesn't occur that much with new admins, but does anyone track how much new admins use the tools after acquiring them?--Bbb23 (talk) 16:03, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Have a look at my Links page User:Peridon/links. I've got a thing called ({{admin dashboard}} - don't ask me where from. I've added other things below it. Just put it on a userpage and bookmark it for quick access. It has one's admin statistics in it. For some reason it doesn't count 'users unblocked' as well as 'users blocked' and 'users reblocked'. If I knew where it originated, I'd ask for that to be added (even though I block and decline far more). Like you, I find CSD relaxing (except for odd times when someone insists that a PR Dept written article is purely the history of the company and fits WP:RS with only a link to an article somewhere written by the CEO and the company website...). I think new admin acquisition is more the problem than attrition. And a major part of that is the new admin inquisition. Candidates are expected to be spotless, have worked in all areas, and created about fifty articles with at least twenty GA and ten FA in there. They must not have been less than politician polite to some toerag that was trolling, and never to have mistagged an article, not even five years ago. They must use tools, but not rely on automatic editing. (I even got criticised for having done over 10,000 edits completely manually. Don't think some could believe it...) And anyone who creates so much content should have no need for the mop, and someone with a squeaky clean record can't have had any real contact with vandalism, or won't be able to cope with it. It's Catch 22 with four appendices and an annex. puts soapbox away and starts to think about tea... Peridon (talk) 18:28, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the link to links. Some of what you have (the box on the right) I already have, but I'll review the other links later (I'm about to go off-wiki). You're right about the new admin acquisition part - I think my brain was slightly dyslexic when I wrote the other. The attrition is natural, but obviously we have to replace the ones who leave, assuming we need at least the same number of admins in the first instance. But I do think that in addition to the attrition, there's a reduction in the use of the tools by some admins over time, which means the absolute numbers as to how many admins there are becomes misleading. Finally, with respect to the RfA inquisition, I try not to think about mine. I don't know where it fits on the bruising scale, but ... Some RfAs subsequent to mine were really easy for the nominees (like 100% or almost 100% support). I was happy for them and admittedly a bit envious at the same time. Ah, well, it's never really over unless you're just lucky and the entire world loves you. I'm working on this compound that one ingests to thicken one's skin. It's still in the experimental stage. :-) --Bbb23 (talk) 19:48, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

" Candidates are expected to be spotless, have worked in all areas, and created about fifty articles with at least twenty GA and ten FA in there. They must not have been less than politician polite to some toerag that was trolling, and never to have mistagged an article, not even five years ago. They must use tools, but not rely on automatic editing. (I even got criticised for having done over 10,000 edits completely manually. Don't think some could believe it...) And anyone who creates so much content should have no need for the mop, and someone with a squeaky clean record can't have had any real contact with vandalism, or won't be able to cope with it. "
— Peridon

That's ridiculous hyperbole. Some editors require higher standards than you do. That doesn't make you right and them wrong. No doubt some editors also accept lower standards than you do. Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:27, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Surveyed comments

I asked around to some of the highly active admins as to what motivates and de-motivates them. Their comments generally confirmed what I expected. Generally, the reason an admin is highly active is either because certain admin tasks are the primary focus of their Wiki-life or because certain admin tasks are directly tied to their primary focus (such as NFCC enforcement or NPP work). Also, they generally are de-motivated by increased procedural requirements (such as verifying a person was notified of a deletion tag or discussion) or by the responses of those challenging deletions.

My impression is that it is not the inquiries regarding deletions that de-motivate them, but the high level of tolerance for SPA-like accounts who are permitted to badger and challenge deleting/protecting admins without penalty. Also, it seems that the community at-large has a hard time understanding that admins who perform a large percentage of the work will have a greater absolute number of errors/challenges than those who perform smaller percentages of the work. This seems to lead to highly active admins getting burned out after constantly being brought to the noticeboards with complaints about all of their errors, when those errors are actually occurring as a lower rate than the general admin community.

My recommendation from this meager research and my prior experience is threefold:

1. Recognize that the ideal admin is not necessarily the well-rounded, highly communicative individual who participates in numerous forums and creates a lot of content. While some admins may be great content creators and it should not be seen as a negative that they create content, many of the heavy lifting admins who do most of the maintenance work are specialists. Recognizing that a person who has only done image patrols or bot coding is as desirable as someone who writes lots of DYKs or is heavily engaged in AFD discussions would be a big step towards recruiting and promoting future highly active admins.

2. Increase the presumption of good-faith given to highly-active admins. While everyone makes errors, it is important to view those errors in light of a person's overall record. When people are brought to ANI for "bad blocks" or procedurally defective deletions, it is important to view them in the context of their total contribution. Labeling an admin as a problem user because they have had five blocks brought to ANI in the last month is inappropriate if they have done 500 blocks in the last month. Similarly, requiring an admin who has done 300 promotional blocks to always leave a reason when blocking a SPA accounts is an elevation of form and procedure over substance and experience, as that user has attained a level of knowledge where they can better predict which sorts of promotional users are worth giving a second chance and which are hopeless cases.

3. Re-affirm the notion that the assumption of good-faith is not a suicide pact. Over the past few years, the concept of editor retention has been at the forefront of the community and the Foundation's discussions. Frequently this leads to admins being instructed to act with the greatest presumption that a user can contribute to the community and to avoid any language that could discourage them from contributing. As a general rule, this is a positive presumption. However, it has become overly broad. Admins who have experience in certain areas can predict when a user is a lost cause and users who have already shown themselves to be problematic should not be given a presumption of good faith. The idea that a user who has created five spam articles will suddenly realize promotion is not permitted and start contributing reliably sourced material is faulty and admins should not be hounded for summarily blocking such users. More noticeably in areas under Arbcom sanction or in similarly controversial POV-pushing settings, admins should be given the leeway to act equitably and with the discretion to protect the project from disruption, even if this can appear to be acting harshly towards an individual. While this is not to say that procedural safeguards such as the uninvolved policy should be suspended, it does mean that sometimes people need to be told "the community's made up its mind on this point, either stop challenging it and wasting our time or you can't contribute anymore."

I know these are not concrete recommendations that could could immediately form the basis of RFCs or other change discussions, but I would appreciate ideas on how they could be translated to such changes or other thoughts on them. Thanks. MBisanz ^talk 20:22, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

As background to this, my thoughts here, here, here, and here and the data I compiled here, are good supplamentary readings. MBisanz ^talk 20:30, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

While you sort of allude to this, I'd make a 4th point: the tortuous inquisition that RFA all too often descends into these days. I know many many people who say, more or less, "I want to be an admin, and I don't mind the crap that comes with it, but I don't want to go through the hell week of RFA, the trolls it attracts, etc." IMHO, this is a major factor in declining admin numbers. Otherwise, excellent analysis, MBisanz. PumpkinSky talk 20:43, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

As a formerly very active admin (on a different project), I agree with the conclusions. A good analysis. My personal motivation was that if there is some pile of work nobody is willing to do, it has to be dome anyway. If nobody was doing it, I had to take it.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:51, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

MBisanz's suggestions are excellent but I'm pretty sure they sum up what a lot of us have been secretly thinking already. To those who complain about the unpleasant environment at RfA, I will say that this is the community's own fault for having allowed/tolerated the extremes of bad faith and bad behaviour that goes on there which in other areas would get a stern warning or even a block. I've often said, as vaguely as possible to avoid being accused of personally attacking unidentified groups of editors, that there are, or have been, users who over a long period of time have deliberately disrupted the process to the point of bringing it to its knees. They have succeeded, and furthermore any attempts to bring them to reason have failed. Formal attempts have rarely been instigated, and those that were have also failed to bring about any sanctions. Anyone who has seriously tried to knock some sense into the system has been trolled, personally gang-attacked by those who defend unacceptable behaviour, or accused of using pompous authority. At the risk of repeating myself, I don't believe there is anything wrong with the system, but what is needed is more control over who can vote there, and more striking or removal of bad faith votes and comments. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:29, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

What Kudpung said can be transcluded to virtually every area of wiki. But the problem is even deeper...look at how ineffective the UN is, wiki is a reflection of the world...vast differences in cultures and attitudes make it very difficult to get agreement on how to handle situations. The result is what wiki is today. PumpkinSky talk 02:06, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree it is important to consider a mistake against the weight of an admin's total contributions. If an admin makes 500 blocks a month, and one that is borderline, it is probably fine. The problem is when an admin is making mistakes at an unacceptable rate. Where you draw the line is tricky, but it is also important that high activity isn't a pass for more mistakes then would have been made by several admins working at a slower rate, and handling the same volume of actions. Monty ₈₄₅ 03:38, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

From what I have seen, it appears to be actually quite rare for admins to regularly misuse their tools. Anyone can innocently make an occasional minor misjudgment in good faith but I've never come across a persistently inaccurate admin. When they do abuse their privileges, it's usually a single blatant disregard of one of the golden rules for admins such as, just for example, wheel warring. Far worse (if it gets noticed), rather than the use of the actual tools, are the abuses of admin status by being uncivil, making personal attacks, POV pushing, systemic bias, and intimidating other users away from certain topic areas. And with those admins, it's extremely difficult to make a complaint stick. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:41, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

RfA is already better than it was 6 months ago, although the reputation lags behind the reality. After mine, I made sure to get very involved and do what I could. I have several admin candidates I'm working with that I would have already nominated two years ago, but are putting off for a bit more rounding, to increase their odds. This is more a matter of the criteria being higher than avoiding drama, however. I have concluded that the main problem with RfA was us, not the system. As for being dragged to ANI, I have a couple of times but it doesn't bother me so much as I have felt supported. Not blindly by admins, but by a cross-section of the community, so they were non-events. The biggest problems I take note of are not admin tool abuse as much as the perception of "bullying" with admin editing in contentious areas. That and general tone, which I think is often a sign of burn out. As to your three points, I do tend to agree, but those are a matter of Wiki-culture, not policy. Culture is harder to change, trust me, as that is a huge part of what we try to do via WP:WER. There is still a subset of editors who are going to be contrarian in nature, and it is usually this small group that causes much of the unnecessary drama. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 20:39, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
Comment from an old fart: When I got here, the process for becoming an admin was relaxed to say the least. That was very much in keeping with Jimbo's feelings on the matter, and indeed mine as well. However, by the time I got around to it in 2006 (and finally succeeding on my third attempt, in 2007, at the absolute peak of applications in the system) it had mutated into something that wouldn't have looked out of place in the McCarthy era. The experience was so traumatic that I literally haven't been in here since. Going from that to discovering today that nobody is applying, though, is astonishing. Even though I knew that we've been experiencing a general drop in regular editors.

Kudpung comments that earlier attempts to make the process "less negative and nit-picky", as GabeMc suggests, failed to generate consensus; well, then, as I see it, all the comments above about how people are being scared away from even trying mean that we should try again. The process is at an all-time nadir here, and there's no guarantee that it's going to pick up any time soon. We should take this chance to attempt reform; if few people are involved with the process, that means there's a greater chance of generating consent. I would suggest a moratorium on further promotions until reform had been attempted, but it appears that isn't even necessary. And yes, I would be highly involved in any such attempt this time. My initial thoughts would be:

We should hack the process down, right down, back to the root, and shape it gently as it grows again, on a case by case basis. Big Design Up Front is not the right way to go about this.
Appointments should be decided by existing administrators, cutting out the nightmare drama of the peanut gallery at a stroke. These are people who've been found trustworthy; they should be trusted to decide further appointments. That also provides an incentive to appoint more administrators; each one adds a bit more diversity to the group.

I can see people crying foul at this situation straight away, but we have over a thousand already; that's twice as many as the Athenian Boule, and they invented democracy. We can use that to bootstrap a new process. But yes, this wouldn't be democracy; it would be meritocracy and technocracy - the merit part being provided by simply demonstrating that you're not a danger to the project (see comments from Jimbo I linked to above). The technical part being admin skills. And skills are meant to be taught: it's to the benefit of this project, obviously, that the methods of administration are taught to as many suitable people as possible, because that makes Wikipedia more robust and efficient.

Making easier appointments requires faster action taken on mistaken appointments (or appointments that go bad). Again, this is an area that gets better the more appointments that are made; the system would reinforce itself.

That's my 2¢. — Hex (❝?!❞) 16:03, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

P.S. Those of you reading this who are a little older may remember LambdaMOO Takes A New Direction and its consequences. The more things change, the more things stay the same. — H

Interesting ideas, but one must bear in mind the political realities of WP. The chance of a structural change being approved through the consensus process which would restrict RfAs to already-approved administrators is near zero. It seems to me more likely that approval might be won for a new RfA-lite for a Vandal Fighter button package — particularly if such a status was subject to some sort of annual or bi-annual review. I don't think the Full Meal Deal of revision deletion and so on is necessarily something that all vandal fighters need; being able to send vandals packing with block buttons is.

While we're at it, I note, there probably should be some sort of earned status for Content Creators that allows auto-review of new articles and automatic access to Questia and J-STOR accounts on request. Whatever the mechanism for that should be, emulation of the borderline dysfunctional RfA process should be avoided for that... Carrite (talk) 18:33, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

As loath as I am to see new layers of bureaucracy, I think an "admin-lite" option with counter-vandal tools only is possibly a good idea. The actions of any users with that permission would necessarily need to fall under enhanced scrutiny, as the power to block is a dangerous one. Perhaps there would be an additional log of actions taken by such users. — Hex (❝?!❞) 08:36, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The concept of allowing admins only to review RfA's would definitely fail and for good reason, in my opinion. All Wikipedians should have the right to determine who they trust to be admins. Making the admins the sole determiners of the authority would only reinforce the perception that many admins are power hungry. My biggest question here is why has nobody thrown his or her hat in the ring since the start of this discussion? Has nobody found a deserving candidate? Is nobody willing to try? I would, but I know that I will fail because I've only been around for five months. AutomaticStrikeout 18:37, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

With no disrespect meant, regarding All Wikipedians should have the right to determine who they trust to be admins - you've only been here five months. You really haven't seen the consequences of that at all. Your assertion of a perception that many admins are power hungry is also an odd one; bureaucrats, stewards, and the Arbitration Committee have much more "power" than administrators, yet we're not scrambling over each other to try and become those.

To answer your question: nobody has stepped up to the plate because the RfA process has become too painful to tolerate, and everybody knows it by now. — Hex (❝?!❞) 20:20, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Fair points. However, there is no way that the community will agree to surrender RfA voting rights to the admins alone. Also, there were several RfA's this summer that passed unanimously, maybe it's not as hard as we're making it sound. However, you certainly have a better idea of what you're talking about. AutomaticStrikeout 20:23, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

My cynicism has been disproven! There's an application going right now. He seems like a pretty nice guy and everyone is being friendly. Hooray! — Hex (❝?!❞) 08:36, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Interesting question. I have followed this discussion with interest. I would probably be a pretty good candidate - here since 2009, somewhere around #4000 in number of edits, no major skeletons in my closet - but I have never seriously considered applying, because of the requirement that admins need expertise in all areas. My major focus has been content (including NPP and article rescue), also AfD discussion. But I don't know the first thing about images or about patent policy, which seem to be a firm requirement, and I have little or no experience with contentious areas like ANI and AIV, so I would probably be considered unqualified by many discussants. Anyhow, I don't have any particular desire to be an administrator; in my content work I very rarely find myself wishing I had tools. Bottom line may be that not everyone, even very active editors, is cut out to be an admin. --MelanieN (talk) 19:05, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
P.S. See Dennis Brown's comments above, that he has a couple of potential candidates that he has been nursing along for TWO YEARS and still doesn't think they are ready - what more evidence do we need that the application process has become too demanding? --MelanieN (talk) 19:13, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, that is a perfectly valid point. It's true that not everyone is cut out to be an admin and if you aren't interested, then I guess it's not for you. But there has to be somebody who could run. I'm not saying that no one has offered to make a nomination, only to be turned down. I've offered to nominate one user for adminship and another for cratship. AutomaticStrikeout 19:12, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Responding to your P.S.: Exactly. I'd run myself, but I really doubt that five months is enough. AutomaticStrikeout 19:16, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

MBisanz makes excellent observations up there. The current feeling of the RfA crowd seems to be that giving the buttons to our most prolific content creators, is something that cannot fail. Sure, but it doesn't give us active administrators either, and this way adminship is going to be mainly a badge. Imagine for a moment an RfA submission where the incumbent states that:
- "I like to block vandals to protect Wikipedia."
- "As an admin, I will watch over topic X. I will rescue the articles that have potential, and facilitate deletion of those that don't."
- "I wish to make edits to protected templates because I have coding skills. I do not intend to ever write substantial content."
- "I write a lot of DYKs and have noticed that the queues are frequently empty. I would like to help out there, although I have little other exposure to WP."
- "I'm a professional in XY and would like to offer my skills to close AfDs, although I typically do not participate in them, because I have no own opinion about the articles in question."
Assuming good faith on the hypothetical authors of all those statements, I could imagine they make fine administrators. Yet, one will have too few deleted edits, the other too little content creation, another one too few edits, or little tenure. Instead we give the mop to prolific content creators who are very likely to continue writing an encyclopedia, just that they now are able to nuke the odd ill-conceived page, or misbehaving newbie, they stumble about.--Pgallert (talk) 20:23, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
There is another point of not throwing one's hat into the ring: It is never the right time to do so. Made a comment that another editor misunderstood, and got angry at? Wait 3 months, the RfA !voters are going to find it. Rejected CSD? Wait 3 months. Not participated in AfDs for a while? Patrolled NP? Get active, for the next 3 months. There is quite a number of reasons why one shouldn't start an RfA right now, without even considering the bashing one is going to get. --Pgallert (talk) 20:23, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

@Hex. You probably missed out then on the huge project to examine RfA in depth and discuss suggestions to reform it. Pretty much every conceivable idea was churned over to exhaustion but apart from a minor initiative to stave off the SNOW/NOTNOWs (which worked) no concrete proposals were made. On the suggestion to limit !voting to admins, the general consensus of the task force was that because such a change would need to be agreed by the community, the main resistance would come from those who already complain about the 'admin cabals', and that it would turn us into a group of super-users. Similar opinions were voiced even for introducing soma minimum qualification for other voters such as tenure/edit count as is practiced on other Wikipedias. We may have over 1,000 admins, but as the discussion above has shown, very few of them are actually really active, and even fewer make up the corps of regular !voters at RfA. Without checking back at the stats we retrieved and the tables we produced, there are possibly even some admins who have never even votet on one. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:51, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I did miss it. I'd been involved (as a witness, mind you) in an arbitration not long before and didn't want to even look at anything resembling policy or procedure for a long time, so I didn't pay attention to it. (Obviously this puts me in a bit of a poor position to go throwing suggestions around, but that is a hazard of this side of the project, not everybody sees everything.) Well, thank you for the précis, that saves a lot of reading - much appreciated. I see what you mean about the figures. I also understand about where the resistance would come from. To be quite frank, my feelings on this point are that a MeatBall:MilitaryCoup (see also: MeatBall:WikiLifeCycle) for the reasons I suggested above would work wonders, but I understand that (a) it really wouldn't go down too well (even though the "power" of administrators is questionable at best) and (b) maybe not all of us admins are that great and trustworthy in such a situation. Although I do possess a belief in the innate goodness of the admin group as a whole. I'm pretty old-fashioned. — Hex (❝?!❞) 08:53, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

RfA participation - a welcome sign?

Particularly interesting in the light of some suggestions that RfA voting should be restricted to admins only, I don't know if anyone analyses every RfA as closely as I still do, but in a current RfA, now just reached 100 supports, a staggering 40% of the supporters are sysops. Without checking back on our stats from WP:RFA2011 (which are of course now 12 months out of date already), I think this is almost unprecedented. Also worth mentioning as a consequence of the discussion above about inactive, or less active admins, of the 40 who have voted, there are 9 names (25%) I've never heard of. If this is a new trend, it's a very welcome one, and RfA might indeed be on the way to recovery. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:53, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Kudos to the nominators? What is so good about having a "staggering 40%" sysop support? Do sysop votes count for more on Wikipedia? So sysops not usually bother to vote? How does having more sysop votes mean RFA is recovering? Eau (talk) 23:47, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, I think part of Kudpung's point is that the level of involvement by sysops in the currently active RfA is indicative that admins in general are more active than some in the above discussion entitled "The Year Without a Santa Claus" believed. AutomaticStrikeout 00:02, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

EauOo, I think it would help if you were to read the preceding discussions (and perhaps also WP:RFA2011) and understand some of the reasons why RfA has traditionally been such a bad experience for the candidates and is driving them away from seeking adminship. Of course an admin vote does not carry more weight than any other - how quickly were you able to detect which ones came from admins? What I do welcome is the apparent increase in admin participation in the system which may help counteract the unresearched and often unqualified votes of new and less experienced users, and/or those who vote with an agenda. Unfortunately, unlike on other language Wikipedias, we do not have minimum qualifications for voting, and RfA here - like many maintenance and meta areas - is a magnet for new, inexperienced, and sometimes immature editors. A good show of hands from admins - whether they vote in the 'Support', Oppose', or 'Neutral' sections - possibly helps maintain some quality in the process and avoid the dramafests. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:36, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, so many ways to tell off a new user, yet that retention question keeps getting asked. Thanks, Automatic, for the reply and talk page notification. Eau (talk) 00:48, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

No problem. AutomaticStrikeout 00:52, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, this is a most welcome sign. The time has come for RfA voting to be restricted to admins only. Talk pages like this one also need to be closed to the outsiders, the non-admins. Many of these outsiders have come here with nothing better in mind than contributing content. They have no clue about what admins really want. Fortunately many outsiders have given up on the admin system and no longer vote at RfAs; but some still persist in voting, and are yet to get the point. There are even outsiders so arrogant as to think admins should be here to facilitate their content development. The current farce of outsiders thinking their voice matters needs to come to an end. It is a fact that nearly half the incivility on Wikipedia, and most of the vandalism and inconvenience experienced by admins, comes from this group. The sooner a final solution is implemented the better. --Epipelagic (talk) 01:54, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, you lose. Thanks for playing, better luck next time. — Hex (❝?!❞) 17:00, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

With all due respect, that will never, and should never, happen. Calling non-admins "outsiders" is ill-advised to say the least. Non-admins are not outsiders, they make up the majority of the community and Wikipedia as we know would not exist without them. AutomaticStrikeout 01:58, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

it is my strong suspicion Mr. Epipelagic is indulging in sarcasm here. (the use of final solution is a dead giveaway) ... aa:talk 03:02, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, if that is the case, I apologize. AutomaticStrikeout 03:05, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Epipelagic FTW! Binksternet (talk) 19:03, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Adminship is not an entitlement, and I should add that every single admin on the site was once a so-called "outsider". It really isn't that big of a deal, or at the very least I don't see it that way; it's a toolset entrusted to experienced editors by the community for maintenance work. A large share of our current sysops were promoted several years ago in a bygone era when virtually anyone with 3000+ edits, 3 months experience, and a positive attitude would get the bit just by asking for it. Restricting RfA to administrators is a step towards turning the role of adminship into a quasi bourgeois establishment that we really don't need. Kurtis (talk) 02:57, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I Think it's less "Adminship is not a big deal" and more "adminship is not for people who make a big deal out of it". Someguy1221 (talk) 02:59, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't know it's bourgeois, but adminship is already largely a bureaucratic dictatorship on Wikipedia. It's not just "a toolset entrusted to experienced editors by the community for maintenance work". It's licence to block experienced editors on Wikipedia, and be uncivil to them with a large degree of immunity from sanctions. There is a double set of standards. Adminship endows huge asymmetric power over content editors, and is not infrequently given to editors, some little more than school children, who have no real experience with the psychology of building content on Wikipedia. If the power to block experienced editors was unbundled from the set of admin tools, and dealt with in some other way, that would go a long way to restore some sanity in the system, and allow the rebuilding of respect from the community of content builders. But while admins will never admit to it, as a group they covertly cherish that tool to block more than any others, and with the support of admin hopefuls there is no way now they will release their grip on it. Being an admin is "a big deal", and anyone who thinks otherwise needs to open their eyes. Content editors are often obstructed from building content by admins far more than by vandals. --Epipelagic (talk) 03:40, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Admins are dictators. Spare us the hyperbole, pal. And a nice dose of ageism too, along with some entirely unsubstantiated paranoid accusations. Classy. — Hex (❝?!❞) 16:54, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

P:::lease provide some diffs and stats to support your concerns. We've been well aware for a long time that you thoroughly disapprove of having people who are trusted to do the janitorial work on this site, but we've never heard you come up with an alternative that is likely to gain consensus. Having no control at all would defeat the very purpose of having a Wikipedia - being the encyclopedia anyone can edit does not mean that we have to tolerate all the rubbish that gets created or all the editors who can't exercise restraint when interacting on talk pages. Bad behaviour and bad faith, and not admins, are what drives most of the people away. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:04, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

No of course I'm not going to give you out of context diffs about specific admin behaviors. You know very well that would derail this discussion as aggrieved admins rush to their defence... You say I "thoroughly disapprove of having people who are trusted to do the janitorial work on this site". To the contrary, I thoroughly approve of and admire administrators who do competent janitorial work without antagonising article writers. I particularly approve of administrators who have the ability to resolve conflicts and disputes in benign and effective ways. I have defended besieged administrators just as vigorously as besieged content editors, and given barnstars to administrators for their administrative work. Please read what I said, and don't make things up. You say my position amounts to "having no control at all"! Where did you pluck that from? I explicitly said, "If the power to block experienced editors was unbundled from the set of admin tools, and dealt with in some other way, that would go a long way to restore some sanity in the system... ". Did you miss "dealt with in some other way"? Perhaps a panel of experienced content editors, or a number of panels, which mediate when conflicts or bad behaviours arise, blocking if it is really appropriate. But to give some kid, or someone who who has never written a decent article in their life, and probably couldn't, the right to intervene on content issues and block mature and capable editors is absurd.

Most admins are not problematic, some admins are superb. Some of our very best content editors are admins. Other areas, copyright, maintenance, categorising, vandal and new article patrols, and so on, are also essential activities supporting content creation, and should be regarded broadly as part of content creation. But the fact that most admins are not a problem doesn't mean there aren't problems. I don't pursue these matters much, because there is no support from content editors. I presume most readers of boards like this are admins or admin hopefuls. Constructive criticism falls on deaf ears. However, you are correct when you say, "we've never heard you come up with an alternative that is likely to gain consensus". I have plenty of constructive alternatives, but no constructive alternative likely to gain consensus amongst admins, because it would distribute admin "privileges" more widely, dilute the privileges of some admins, and limit administration privileges to finite terms. At the moment, content editors have to work looking over their shoulders, wondering what admin, maybe from eight years ago, is going to suddenly appear and block them on a whim. Control seems irrevocably in the hands of the admin corps and the admin wannabees. Recently I've taken heart. The situation here as rather like the rule of the colonels in Burma, but look at what has been happening there lately! If that can happen, there is still hope for Wikipedia. --Epipelagic (talk) 07:17, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I can't back up my argument because the evidence would cause a disaster! I have magnificent ideas but nobody will accept them! Ordinary citizens are living in fear of the military junta! Man, you're priceless. — Hex (❝?!❞) 16:54, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I can't profess to a huge amount of content work on Wikipedia, but much of it has been on this woman (and I read this not so long ago); I'm finding very few, specifically no, parallels. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 06:02, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

The community should always have a say in who administers the community, and limiting RfA participation to people who have already passed RfA turns the process into a members-only club. I will fight against anything that removes the community voice from the process. EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:55, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

If it were "a members-only club", why would admins participate in RfAs at all? To keep new people out? It's in the interest of every admin to have more admins. Every RfA is potentially a decrease in the administrative workload. Your suggestion is contradictory and only serves to further foster the mistaken viewpoint among some of our population that being an administrator bestows "power", rather than a mop. — Hex (❝?!❞) 16:54, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Ability to block access=power. Pretending otherwise simply makes people look foolish. Blocking is a neutral thing, but it's still power. Intothat darkness 19:11, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Blocks can be appealed. Admin bits can be revoked. There's no aspect of administrative behavior that can go without scrutiny. That's not power, it's a temporary ability to cause annoyance. — Hex (❝?!❞) 09:53, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

And I would fight for anything, except an adimin-only structure, that removes trolling, two-edit wonders, drama-mongering, and disingenuous voting from the RfA process, just as will I fight against any sweeping, snide claims about our corps of admins. Of course there are some rotten apples in the barrel - and I can provide diffs there too, but its up to the community and its Arbcom to do something about it. Risible heckling from the sidlines doesn't help anyone. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:25, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

"Sweeping, snide claims", "risible heckling from the sidelines". Is that the best you can respond with, mere insults? I gave you constructive alternatives. As before, you ignore them and respond in fierce and threatening ways, allowing no opening for anything constructive. How amazing it would be if you defended content builders with the same passion you defend admins, and worked towards a community where not only admins, but content editors could have some dignity. Then we would get somewhere. --Epipelagic (talk) 09:26, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

The irony of complaining about Kudpung not defending content contributors and your vague accusations of insults isn't lost on me; he's been spearheading a ton of initiatives (many derailed by the WMF) to improve NPP, which is where content building really starts. As I've said elsewhere, admins are in a very paradoxical position wherein we're "privileged members" of the community but receive the wrath of just about everyone on a regular basis. It's my privilege to be told my family is going to be fucked with chainsaws at night, be told I'm an evil Western colonialist aiding genocide, and getting to deal with such lovely people as User:Ciggernunt. Anyways, my point is that just as people contribute to articles completely unnoticed, so there are some things admins do which you don't see; Kudpung always has content additions foremost in his kind, you just haven't seen some of the venues he's defended content contributors in. As I'be been with him through a lot of it, I'm happy to provide a few links, as they're not the most visible places, but as an example RFA2011 was done with nothing more than the interests of Wikipedia's editors (and the content they produce) in mind. There are plenty more similar instances which demonstrate the same. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:28, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

"Vague accusations of insults"? What vagueness? I was specific. I want to build content on Wikipedia. I acknowledge admin work is important, but I don't want to do it myself. I don't see why building content has to be such an inferior activity. Giving every janitor in the building, regardless of whether they have any appropriate background, the power to block experienced editors who write Wikipedia, is demeaning and is at the core of many current dysfunctions. No fiddling round the edges will change that. As usual, no admins or admin hopefuls here are going to acknowledge this. If Kudpung is supporting content builders and not lumping them indiscriminately with vandals and POV warriors, then that is a refreshing current of fresh air, much needed on Wikipedia. May he continue. --Epipelagic (talk) 03:17, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I think you;re tripping my sarcasm switch too... I didn't know admins could block anyone they wanted whenever they wanted.... I have a nice can of beans holding a list of what a single admin could do in that case : ) - jc37 04:03, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I didn't know that either. But thank you anyway. --Epipelagic (talk) 05:58, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

<sarcasm>So why not even going back to 200X when Jimbo had only the power to promote editors to admins?</sarcasm> mabdul 11:24, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

All hail Caesar

I haven't read through the page, but the very idea that Wikipedia would limit voting for adminship to admin only is to admit there is a class system on Wikipedia and that admin are on top and everyone else is.....far below. A senatorial class pehaps? What next? Admin only articles? Admin only on AN and AN/I. How about only admin allowed to deal with ALL the problems on Wikipedia? Yeah, since some admin feel inclined to "criticize" the regular editors attempting to help with problems and issues on Wikipedia, perhaps they would like to deal with EVERY dispute, EVERY issue and EVERY single problem that comes up. Only admin on ALL noticeboards. Let them deal with RS/N, BLP/N, DR/N and all the others boards. Heck...why even keep them on the open board. Just lock them and hide them from view so ordinary, powerless pleb editors can't even see them. I mean, if they are going to have the last word...give them the entire word to deal with. How about an admin ony Wikipedia? So what kind of training process will there be for admin? Surely there will be a "vetting process" to make sure they have the proper IQ requirements, are able to multitask and don't have anything in their real lives that will interfere with their "work". I for one believe that administrators must have some extra abilities that the regular "Joe" doesn't, like block ability and a number of other options to give editors they feel deserve certain privileges like roll back or reviewer status, but I do not believe it is a good idea to push the community out of choosing who has this Power". Lets face it. While admin, in theory, are no different than any other editor and are not authority, in practice it isn't always as clear. As Wikipedia:Administrators states (emphasis added): "Administrators assume these responsibilities as volunteers who go through a community review process. Remove that and we would then need to replace the mop and bucket logo with a septor and throne. I can't even believe that 40% of admin are for this. Holy crap you guys are seriously voting in this yourselves? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That is hilarious. Admin should NOT be allowed a voice in this if it takes away something from the general community to give it to yourselves. Seriously....this is really just maddening and watching an RFC deciding the fate of civility policy and seeing admin voting to only allow admin to select admin is like watching Emperor Nero light the encyclopdia on fire to make room for his own stuff. I do not wish you good luck on this and I have watchlisted this page now. I actualy do have a great deal or respect for all admin. But if this takes place, you guys might as well block everyone else but yourselves. What? Are there so many admin now that you guys don't need the rest of us? Seems I remember hearing that there were no admins made in August or something like that. Are there so many of you now you don't need the rest of us?--Amadscientist (talk) 01:43, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Um, I don't think anyone is proposing that RfA !voting be limited to admins only. The suggestion to that effect in the thread above was clearly sarcastic. And even if one or two people were proposing it, the idea would be shouted down so fast that it would require us to coin a term for a rejection so fast as to be beyond WP:SNOW; perhaps WP:BLIZZARD. Let's not spend much more time on opposition to something that no one supports. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:50, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually, Brad, if you read more carefully, you'll see that I was. And I'm quite aware of what reception the proposal would get. But I ran for admin on the basis that almost everyone should have access to the tools, and I still believe that. Either trust the pool of trustworthy people to gradually expand itself for the public good, or radically expand the notion of trustworthy and let the community defend itself against bad apples, exactly the same way it currently does for everything else. This no-man's-land inbetween is the worst of all the options. — Hex (❝?!❞) 09:44, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I read through the above threads and it does actually look like some are even suggesting closing this talkpage to outsiders, but I trust your good faith on this NYB. I at least hope your see the "sarcasm" meant with my post". I really can't believe this would happen....but I just had to add my two Denarius.--Amadscientist (talk) 01:58, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I was the perpetrator of a sarcastic post above, Amadscientist, because sarcasm seem to be the last tool available in some situations. I don't know if it's true, but I have been told some Americans have problems identifying sarcasm, so I'll try using it less. Kudpung gets very upset about certain problems mostly related to RfAs and editors not applying for admin tools. Most of these problems would simply evaporate if the tools were unbundled and issued to individuals for a finite time on a needs basis, as outlined above. The right to block vandals would just be one tool among others. Disciplinary sanctions applied to content editors would be controlled in a different way, perhaps by special panels elected for a finite time by the content contributors. Another bonus would be content contributors working more productively, because they can work within a system they can have some confidence in. I get a lot of threats and rudeness every time I point this out. But it needs pointing out, so while no one else is doing it, I will occasionally do it. --Epipelagic (talk) 02:09, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

While I do believe it is true we Americans can not always recognise sarcasm....we general handle situations with it. LOL! So in short...thank goodness this was just one of those instances! Hey....its a dirty job...but sombody does have to do it Epipelagic.....so it might as well be you! ;)--Amadscientist (talk) 02:34, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

And kudos to NYB for faking you out so well, lulling you back to sleep. That was a close one. :) The sekrit admin cabal thanks you Brad! Franamax (talk) 02:52, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ....eh...what, *snort - cough*......Still wondering if Newyorkbrad is a Rocky Horror reference! LOL!--Amadscientist (talk) 03:19, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

To be perfectly fair, I think making AN and AN/I admin-only would make those pages far more palatable, so there's something to that suggestion... EVula // talk // ☯ // 03:35, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
But that would deprive non-admins from being able to make reports at those noticeboards or am I missing something? AutomaticStrikeout 03:37, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
*facepalm* EVula // talk // ☯ // 03:13, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
- No....you're not missing a thing there! That might even be the *sarcastic* point! LOL! ;)--Amadscientist (talk) 03:40, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
  - At this point, there's so much sarcasm it's becoming hard to know what is sarcasm and what is not. Maybe we should make this talk page admin-only. AutomaticStrikeout 03:44, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Adminship is indeed a privilege. The privilege of taking the slings and arrows of contempt from all those who feel intimidated by them and consider them to be the root of all evil on Wiipedia. There are indeed tens of thousands of potential new users out there who are reluctant to register because they are afeared of all those nasty sysops. Adminship is indeed also a big deal: one for all the non-admins who need an Aunt Sally at whom they can hurl their less palatable comments and accusations with nary a worry of getting reprimanded. Admins would just love to have a lighter finger on the block button - they are after all, a pack of snarling wolves just looking for innocent victims; but naturally of course they don't do anything of the sort - least of all for PA and incivility since Arbcom has practically all but proclaimed that it is inherently acceptable - except of course from admins...

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit - a literary device I sometimes use myself, but at least when I do, I like to think it's (at least) appropriate. But when some people use it, it's not always constructive: [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16]. Little wonder that the those who made a good faith attempt to clean up RfA (which did not call for an 'admin only' solution) finally lost interest in sheer exasperation. There seems to be a cabal out there that is determined to wreck the RfA system at all costs, but they are unable to come up with an alternative. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:46, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, well now you are dredging up stuff that is 18 months old. I wouldn't respond now the way I did in some of those posts. But my responses were driven by acute frustration at you removing, every time, constructive proposals, and claiming they were irrelevant. Also, at that time, some admins were behaving in disgraceful ways. Things are currently more measured, given the steadying hand of Dennis Brown, but who knows how long that will last before he burns out. The real problems are systemic. If content editors are not allowed a voice, then it is not surprising if they resort to sarcasm or become a bit immoderate. Why don't you balance your old diffs with the current responses made in this thread by admins and admin hopefuls? Thoroughly uncivil responses. A series of views which I don't hold, attributed to me by admins who just made them up. Even an attempt to incite other administrators to make a rogue block on me. What doesn't happen is a dispassionate , measured, discussion of alternative solutions. I appreciate teh system has left you frustrated yourself Kudpung, but equally it frustrates content builders. You seem to think I lay all the evils of the system at the feet of the admins. I don't. On the other hand, you seem to lay all the evils of the system at the feet of the content builders. That's not the way forward. The problem is not that I haven't come up with alternative solutions. The problem is that I have come up with alternative solutions. Kudpung apparently doesn't like them, and, as he did 18 months ago, is trying every trick to deflect attention from them. --Epipelagic (talk) 04:52, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, I'm afraid that anyone who is given a position of authority is going to have detractors. It's not fair, but there are those who aren't capable of being good leaders, so instead they cast stones at those in charge. AutomaticStrikeout 03:54, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Was that sarcasm AutomaticStrikeout? I hope so.

"I just wanted to say that becoming a sysop is *not a big deal*.
I think perhaps I'll go through semi-willy-nilly and make a bunch of people who have been around for awhile sysops. I want to dispel the aura of "authority" around the position. It's merely a technical matter that the powers given to sysops are not given out to everyone.
I don't like that there's the apparent feeling here that being granted sysop status is a really special thing."
Jimmy Waleswikimedia.org archive entry
Stated simply, while the correct use of the tools and appropriate conduct should be considered important, merely "being an administrator" should not be.

- I find the fact we are having a discussion about more special rights for admins chilling, sarcasm or no. Now before Kudpung's noble 2011 Rfa discussion project, of which I was a very part-time member, there was WP:CDA, the attempt to enable community de-adminship, which I was a bit more involved in. But it too failed to effectuate any change because admins !voted it down in the Rfc. I also believe any attempt to unbundle the admin tools is doomed to fail, for the same reason. I've suggested elsewhere that the WMF and/or the community step in and revoke all adminships and start over from scratch. (I believe it was Malleus' idea first.) Why? Because adminship's power to block is inherently a chilling effect that makes for intimidation, especially for newer Wikipedians, and Rfa is broken, it seems to me and many others, because the admin powers are indeed a big deal, with all due respect to Jimmy Wales, and few nowdays care to endure the process of Rfa and scrutinize with extreme care those who run. Obviously, the existing admins love their powers and will vote as a bloc to keep them. So we are stuck. My comments in 2011 (which were quickly 'hatted' by someone) are as follows:

As I have already said on my talk page (under the heading 'Task Force'): It is my strong opinion that most issues dealing with entrenched admins, many of whom became admins five or more years ago when standards were considerably more relaxed and whom would not pass an Rfa today, require thinking outside the box. Deliberations on adminship by a community whose true identities are unknown, by their nature generate more heat than light, go on at excessive length, and wind up turning reasonable voices away.

I go on to suggest an appointed council, with binding powers and accountable to the WMF, as a solution; however, this would require substantial change in itself. But if not that, there has got to be a way found to cut the Gordian Knot, and I believe facing that very fact is the first step towards fixing the problems this task force is supposed to be dealing with. [End 2011 quote]

I say again in late 2012 that until these facts are faced and dealt with, that nothing will change. Jus da fax 05:46, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Epipelagic, You have failed to recognise the very irony expressed in my own sarcasm and I suggest also that you adhere to the facts - I folded one or two of your off-topic comments. I'll point out that I have not taken anything out of context here, as will be seen if anyone following the diffs reads the accompanying threads. Whether or not those comments were 18 months ago or not is irrelevant, your style of contributions to these discussions is still not overly conducive towards getting things improved, and it's time you assumed good faith on the part of those who do.

As long as all attempts to to find a solution are subjected to disturbance by those who have contempt for any kind of control at Wikipedia, there will certainly be no way out of the Gordian Knot. Whatever happens, it's going to have to be a community initiative, the WMF have clearly stated that RfA change is not within their remit. It depends on the wishes of the individual Wikis - some of which already practice far better controls over their RfA systems than we do. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:02, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

How exactly was the Gordian Knot finally solved. Hmmmmmmmmm. Perhaps this is something for Jimbo to consider.--Amadscientist (talk) 06:48, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

All sarcasm aside, this statement "Things are currently more measured, given the steadying hand of Dennis Brown" is something I have to agree with. Perhaps more admin should be willing to take Mr. Brown as an example. I know I do, and I'm not even an admin. Just a lowly pleb.--Amadscientist (talk) 06:55, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

One thing is for sure, it was not an admin that called you a lowly pleb; nor have admins branded the non-admins as such. If that's how you see yourself, then run for adminship...

Things are no more measured at RfA than they were 18 months ago. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:25, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

OK...sarcasm found its way back towards the end of that post! I really don't see myself as a lowly pleb, and it isn't that I want to be an admin, but that we are all about the same and that admin should not see themselves as special or authority on Wikipedia. Most actually see this, but there are a few that think they really are "leaders" here. There are those that help and guide more than others, but...we should all be working towards the same goals, if not the exact same things individually.--Amadscientist (talk) 07:30, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Leaders are people who have a following (either through respect or coercion), but I can't really think of any admins who have a cabal of acolytes. Sysops are just plebs who have chosen to run the rotten gauntlet, and gained the community's confidence to be given a bucket and a mop - plebs' tools. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:51, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. Thank you. To continue with the Classical metaphors, Wikipedia is the Augean Stables. Admins are Heracles, doing the shovelling, not Augeas, owning the cattle. — Hex (❝?!❞) 09:50, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

But unlikely Heracles, the work really never ends...and sometimes one can feel a bit like Prometheus, with the liver being plucked out regularly without growing back ;). Lectonar (talk) 10:42, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Leaders (in this instance) are a natural result of those that follow...not forced behind. While most admin here really do provide that type of leadership, others seem to almost feel they must labour like Hercules.--Amadscientist (talk) 20:02, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Fixing RfA

There has been talk - considerable talk - concerning how RfA is broke and how it could potentially be fixed. Nothing ever comes of it, however, despite the perennial discussion.

But perhaps RfA cannot be fixed. Perhaps RfA, as a process, does not even need to be fixed. Looking at Σ's RfA, I would argue that the derailing factor appears not to have been the process at all, but the users who abused it by being excessively verbose, badgering, and detracting off on tangential arguments full of personal attacks and entirely lacking the exact decorum we would expect of our candidates.

In light of this, instead of further discussing trying to fix the process, I would like to encourage the lot of you who have previously been involved in this discussion to instead really fix it and endeavour to prevent this from ever happening again.

Be polite, avoid personal attacks, and consider the impact of what you say and do.
Consider the candidate's feelings. Suited or no, it is a person and it must have some merit to have gotten here at all, so do not throw that out the window.
Consider the !voters' feelings. They are going out of their way to participate, and not only would this process be nothing without them, but unnecessarily stressing them will often only lead to further unneeded unpleasantness.
Do not engage in arguments on the page. A polite request for clarification is fine, but if you do disagree with someone, either address it in your own !vote rationale or consider taking it to their talkpage and discussing it there - if it doesn't feel worth doing that, then it's probably not worth bringing up at all.
Avoid the urge to badger - if you do find yourself repeating something, either in response to multiple votes or in a discussion, then just stop. You've made your point. People may or may not agree and that's up to them; adding further stuff just makes it less likely for them to read any of it.
Take any other extended discussion to the talkpage.
Avoid the urge to snark, in comments, !votes, and questions. In stressful situations such as an RfA it will only cause further stress.
Avoid emotionally charging !vote rationales and present things neutrally; this is why you support or this is why you oppose, but others may or may not agree and that is fine.
Keep !vote rationales to a reasonable length. Valid points and diffs can be summed up to a short paragraph or two regardless of what there is; further elaboration can go on the talkpage.
Politely ask anyone not doing this, getting out of hand, or what have you, to either stop, take it somewhere else, or redact/reword it as necessary, and if it comes to it just block them.

Thank you. -— Isarra ༆ 17:49, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Support I am feeling sad for how Sigma's RFA went. It showed me that what is broken is not the process. — ΛΧΣ21™ 18:03, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Strong Support as RFA is already in a mess, and needs to be attempted to be fixed, or else it might not be able to be fixed. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 18:11, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Well-meaning but Pointless. Just asking everyone to be nice doesn't have a hope in hell of making any difference -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:15, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Not pointless if y'all do it and remind others to do the same! This is all I ask, and I know it is entirely possible; Wikipedians are amazing folk. Can do anything, really, if we set their minds to it. -— Isarra ༆ 19:35, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Your genuine, well intentioned enthusiasm is clear and an example to many of us. However, it will take more than that, I'm afraid. Leaky Caldron 19:47, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Yep, and we can rid the world of crime simply by not breaking the law and reminding everyone else not to do it either. You mean well, but just look at the history of this page to see how naive an idea it is. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:18, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Oh, stop making what you say true. Just be nice or I'll hurt you. *smiles sweetly* Seriously, though, blocking anyone who won't stop can work surprisingly well. -— Isarra ༆ 22:54, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Indeed it can. AutomaticStrikeout 23:00, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but to get the above to be blockable offences, you'd have to get RfA policy changed to say so, and that would required a Community consensus. Asking the lunatics to vote on how to run the asylum is not going to go your way - it is, in fact, the cause of many of our problems. Anyway, I'll stop souring your idea now - but I've seen exactly the same kind of things suggested over and over, and I hate to see yet another person wasting their time on the same old thing yet again. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 05:44, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
We do have community consensus for WP:CIVIL, however. This really isn't anything new, and for folks to not stand idly by while things go wonkers, and certainly to not jump in and add to it, well, that would be all I ask. -— Isarra ༆ 06:16, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
We do? That is news to me. More precisely, having consensus for a generality and applying that to a specific instance are very different things. - Sitush (talk) 06:27, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

We don't have a consensus for what incivility actually is, and it is not possible to objectively say so. It's a problem compounded by the multitude of different cultures people come from, where a specific word or phrase in one culture can be considered a heinous crime while being completely innocent in another - or where one culture values "telling it like it is" while another values circumspection. I've seen plenty of arguments about incivility in my time here, but rarely have I seen any consensus about whether a specific comment is actually uncivil - it's entirely subjective and context-dependent, and cannot be predefined. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 06:43, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Then perhaps that is our problem. -— Isarra ༆ 16:13, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Nothing we don't already know and has been covered, at length, a minimum of forty times already. Is the RfA system faulty? Yep! Is there anything we can easily to to fix it? Nope! Why? Because it's people that are faulty and not the process itself. Trusilver 20:01, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Strong support - Are there no actual guidelines for RFA? This sound reasonable. Is the thought that people will do what they want so overpowering we just give up and stop asking for civility? Why isn't this a part of the guidelines for participants?--Amadscientist (talk) 20:25, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Support - Not sure what voting on this will do, but it sounds reasonable. Initially I thought Sigma's RfA was going to be fairly straightforward and I'm amazed at the giant explosion of garbage that happened and how it spread into multiple forums. The issue for me isn't whether or not Sigma passes, but the sheer amount of drama for what should be a simple process. ~Adjwilley (talk) 21:31, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Aye, this is just something people should try to do in general. Voting is lovely, but people will still need to actually make it happen themselves. -— Isarra ༆ 22:54, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Support the above not just as a suggestion, but as a policy. AutomaticStrikeout 23:00, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Oppose - RfA is a discussion. So the points above suggesting that arguements and the like be removed, while well-meant, are a mistake. And rfA is a de facto request for review by the community, with the "hope" that the end result is the granting of the request. Now should this be done civilly? Of course. But whether comments are "arguing" or "badgering" is in the eye of the beholder. - jc37 00:11, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Uhm...first of all it doesn't actually say that above. It says "Politely ask anyone not doing this, getting out of hand, or what have you, to either stop, take it somewhere else, or redact/reword it as necessary, and if it comes to it just block them" . Also, whether or not we think it is a mistake...it is an actual policy. Per Wikipedia:No personal attacks: "Derogatory comments about other contributors may be removed by any editor" RFA is no different than any other discussion. If editors begin personal attacks they should be removed and a great deal of off topic discussion should indeed be on the talkpage not the RFA.--Amadscientist (talk) 00:29, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Please re-read my commennts. I never condoned personal attacks in my comments. Indeed I agree that civility is a good thing. But I have all-too-often seen people try to squelch discussion in an RfA by suggesting that discussion doesn't belong in RfA. And for another example, responding to comments isn't "badgering". This is a discussion. So for example: If you had posted your comment in an RfA, there are those who would have called it badgering, and possibly even inappropriate. I don't. And neither do I call my follow-up clarifications such. - jc37 00:34, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

How would re-reading a badly worded post help? But...if you struck out the comment or rewrote it for clarity...then it need not have an added post for clarification (see how that works). Also, badgering can be defined in a number of ways and does not belong on the RFA, but on the talkpage. As I said..."Off topic" discussion should go on the talkpage.--Amadscientist (talk) 00:44, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

"Badly worded" - thanks for exactly proving my point : )

The term "badgering" is subjective, and should not be used ever.

And I agree, if the discussion is truly "off-topic".

Incidentally, I think that a knee-jerk reaction to a current situation (a current RfA) is not necessarily the way to create a broad guideline concerning all RfAs. - jc37 01:15, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

To be specific, I oppose bullet points 4, 5, 6, and 9. As I said, RfA is a discussion. And further, evidence is and should be welcome. - jc37 01:17, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Can you give yourself more undue weight here? 18 months is kneejerk to you. Alrighty then.--Amadscientist (talk) 01:39, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Where are you getting 18 months from? and what, if anything, does it have to do with my comments? - jc37 03:19, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

[17] Jimbo Wales brought this up 18 months ago according to Kudpung กุดผึ้ง, whos good faith I trust.--Amadscientist (talk) 04:05, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

These types of discussions have been happening a lot longer than that. See Beeblebrox's comments below. I said "kneejerk", as this thread was apparently started in regards to Σ‎'s RfA. Rather more recent than 18 months... - jc37 04:21, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

No, not according to the opening comment which says "There has been talk - considerable talk - concerning how RfA is broke and how it could potentially be fixed." The thread brings up the recent case but is not based on it.--Amadscientist (talk) 04:25, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, there is a fair amount of reasonable, relevant discussion that takes place in RfAs, but also quite a bit of not so much... it really just comes down to people using their heads. Using heads is good. -— Isarra ༆ 06:16, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Now that is a statement I can "support" : ) - jc37 18:44, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Support - This ridiculousness has to stop somewhere. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 00:40, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
What Boing said. asking people to please be nice does not seem to be an effective way of managing this problem. I do agree that if someone writes a ten-paragraph long rationale for their position it should be moved to the talk page. This is one of the worst RFAs I have seen in quite a while and I imagine that at this point the candidate is relieved that is just about over, but every time there is a bad one like this there is a corresponding proposal back here. A long discussion is had.... maybe some actual proposals are floated... and nothing really happens. It's been that way for a long time now. Over the last two years there have been two co-ordinated attempts to gather community input and try and effect some positive change here. I'm sorry to say they both failed despite having fairly wide participation and a lot of good ideas floating around. This seems to be the problem we all agree exists but can't agree how to fix. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:46, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Isn't this how the Roman Republic fell? LOL!--Amadscientist (talk) 02:18, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Probably. The point is that if we want to change anything, the current Wikipedia constitution requires a community consensus, and we're not going to get one of those - because the broken elements of the community think everything is fine (or even that things need changing, but in the opposite direction). Analogies that come to mind are allowing the lunatics to run the asylum, or allowing the prisoners to run the prison. Management of admin policy by community has reached the "ground to a halt because there are too many people with too many opposing opinions to ever get a consensus" stage, and it can now probably only be fixed by Foundation fiat. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 05:58, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Strong support - The RfA process is now more of a hazing ritual than a screening. We need something with less bloodshed. Eeekster (talk) 02:12, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Moral support What is needed is oversight of this board to ensure that the above is enforcable and enforced. But people should behave that way. --Jayron32 02:54, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Strong support, though per Jayron32 this won't mean much more than our current civility options.--Jasper Deng (talk) 03:01, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
I don't think this will make much difference. The real problem we have to address is the very high standards used by the community to judge potential candidates (which, unfortunately, is very difficult to change). Asking people to be nice to each other is good, but is essentially the same as our largely unenforcable existing conduct policies. RfAs are (at least in theory) supposed to be discussions, and preventing people from having discussions on them isn't a good idea. Hut 8.5 09:22, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
This is utterly pointless. You might as well cast a support vote for fresh air when discussing ways to reduce atmospheric pollution. — Hex (❝?!❞) 10:08, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
So don't vote. This is not a proposed guideline or such, but merely a request that people as individuals take it upon themselves to try to do these things. Some won't always apply, and of course not everyone will succeed even if they try at all, but if others do, that should be enough to make a difference. -— Isarra ༆ 16:13, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Support. Wise words. I know at least I myself will make the effort to follow them. -- œ ^™ 07:41, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Evidence

I would love to see evidence lists placed on an RfA talk page by default (while still allowing in-the-comments linking "per this link"). Comparable to an arbcom page. But the simple fact is that people tend to drive-by "vote" and are unlikely to peruse such evidence.

If we can change that, I'd support the change. - jc37 18:48, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

If I get correctly what you say, did you mean a separate section on the talk page of the RfA, where anyone can post Diffs (Only Diffs without comments) ?? If so, I support it. --Anbu121 (talk me) 19:15, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

A link without explanation is merely a link. So obviously to be considered "evidence", the link should be explained/clarified in "some way". The same goes for a set of links.

But as I said, I'm dubious that we're going to have people actually look at the links. And we might need to create a format to display them, to prevent duplication.

"I'm supporting due to the gravitas that I saw exemplified in link # 12" or "I'm opposing because the edit summaries in link group #2 show a combative tendency that I don't think we'd wish to see in admin." etc. - jc37 19:25, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

This would tend to reduce the effectiveness of diff based evidence at RFA and shift yet more weight to the question section. Personally I'd rather reduce the impact of the question section and put that on the talkpage. But I appreciate I won't get consensus for that. There are several advantages to emphasising diff based !votes, not least that the more we encourage people to actually look at the candidate's edits rather than some stats the better the decisions we will make at RFA. Ϣere SpielChequers 22:11, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree with WereSpielChequers. And also just giving a laundry list of so-called "evidence", without supplying context would be a step backwards, as far as I'm concerned. Trusilver 22:54, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

It's easy, but would put some work on someone to perform. The !vote (and therefore the tally) is secret during the actual !voting. Run it like we do for ArbComm or something. It could at least list those who have !voted. If you wish to comment/provide evidence, it must be in the form of a question that the candidate can answer. The question would be submitted to and vetted by someone (possibly a Bureaucrat), and provided to the candidate for response if it's a valid question. The question and its response are then posted for all to see once answered. If the candidate does not answer after a period of time, the question and "no response" are posted instead (which can be just as telling).

For example, the statement "not enough work in admin-type areas" would become the following exchange: "Q. How much work have you performed in ANI, AFD, CSD, AIV over the last 3 months. A. Not very much". Or the statement "candidate is uncivil" becomes "Q. Could you explain the background behind [www.comment.com/inserthere this], and its appropriateness. A. Well, I did X and Y, and recognize it's not WP:CIVIL - however, it was 3 years ago, and I would hope that my behaviour since has shown that I have matured." The candidate still understands where they need to grow for next time, and at the same time can avoid some of the "gotcha"/did-you-stop-beating-your-wife type questions. dangerous panda 23:56, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Very interesting suggestions, they might help drive away the drive-by votes and pile-ons. Something similar was discussed at WP:RFA2011 but didn't go anywhere because one snag was that the crats had clearly stated that they did not consider any other involvement other than making closures to be within their remit or their interest. Perhaps we need more crats and ones who could convince their colleagues to change their minds on this. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:05, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

These ideas sound interesting, but I can foresee problems. Would crat-vetting (assuming they were willing to do this at all) prevent someone from posting a question like, "Why should people support your RfA despite your lack of work in admin-type areas?" I'm reminded of how parliamentary "Question Period" frequently becomes a forum where the opposition can hurl any scurrilous denunciation as long as they frame it in the form of a question. And having !voting be anonymous will simply encourage more drive-by, reason-free opposition, because there will be no way to enforce (even in theory) the ideal that a !vote without a reason behind it may be given less, or even no, weight — the process would no longer be !voting, it would become simply a matter of voting. — Rich wales 17:34, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

The crats have stated by consensus at WP:BN a while back that they are not interested. Perhaps some fresh blood among the crats may change this, but under the current climate, I don't many users being in a hurry to run for 'crat either. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:54, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

RFA, time to close board?

Is it time to close this board as a net loss to the community and hand over admin nominations to, say...Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard (edit: or WP:BN) as a simple thread and community straw poll? Thoughts? --Amadscientist (talk) 02:49, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

No. When the need for more admins is dire, we'll adapt.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 02:48, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
- Perhaps the time is now and this is the adaption needed?--Amadscientist (talk) 02:50, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
No, what is needed is better oversight and clerking of this board. Its fixable by anyone that wants to. Throwing out the baby with the bathwater... --Jayron32 02:53, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Clerking... hmm... I wonder what people would think of that idea? I mean, we've got ArbCom clerks, SPI clerks, CHU clerks, etc. — but what about RfA clerks? People we appoint to establish a sense of order around here, preventing candidacies from degenerating into the likes of what was witnessed in the very recent past here? Of course, one would argue that the potential pratfall of establishing such an organized system at RfA is that civility is supposedly a "subjective" idea, and some clerks might treat as "uncivil" what others would perceive only as a difference of opinion. Nevertheless, until the idea is actually tested, all we've got to go by are hypotheticals. Kurtis (talk) 06:27, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Well since administrators don't promote administrators, I'd say you're looking for WP:BN :) But no, the process isn't the net loss, the dicks who influence RFAs by providing unhelpful comments or starting drama with bad questions to ask candidates are the net loss and what need correcting. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 02:54, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
- Hmmm. Good suggestion. Added to above post.--Amadscientist (talk) 02:58, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Selection by admins only is absolutely not a safe solution, not only, but also because there are many editors who have no faith in any systems that are designed to keep the Wikipedia clean and are quick to accuse the admins of being a cabal of power hungry super users. The other solution of simply allowing all editors to become admins by edit count and block-free history ironically conflicts again with the argument of those who contend that the corps of admins is heavily populated by editors who use their status to push POV, intimidate other users, and are light on the block and page protection triggers.

A mixed committee perhaps, with each member on a 2-year tenure, and voting in camera. The problem is, what comes first - the chicken or the egg - who would be able to design such a process, get consensus for it, and how and by whom would the panelists be elected? That said, all the suggestions that have been made in these recent discussion were discussed in depth at WP:RFA2011, which if now largely inactive, is nevertheless an excellent resource that could well be consulted before rehashing the same suggested solutions over and aver again here where talk simply peters out after a while and gets archived..

The entire concept of adminship and its (s)election process is now seriously spiraling out of control, and where we still have enough sysops to do the routine work (although there are serious backlogs on closures) there will come a time when we reach negative equity. By my estimation, if nothing is done, that will begin to become apparent around mid 2014. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:47, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

If the situation was more of a "the community giveth, the community taketh away, I think we'd see a dramatic change in tone... - jc37 04:52, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I wanted to see some input from everyone here. I don't believe nominations should be handed to Admin, but that AN may be a better location to simplify the process by making it a simple procedure of a straw poll added to the board with "Support" or "Oppose" input added. Thank you for the link. I will read that to get caught up!--Amadscientist (talk) 04:53, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

The problem is the same as it has always been - however good an idea might be, we have to get a consensus to make it so. And the community will not reach a consensus to take away its current powers of selecting admins - in fact, as long as I've been here, I can't remember when we've ever managed to get a community consensus on anything to do with admin. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 06:03, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Support or oppose without a rationale is a poor way of achieving consensus, and it rather irks me when I see someone !vote for or against without even adding "per nom" or "agree with X's assessment". The problem with AfD is the nature of the rationales and the extent to which it is reasonable to nitpick, dig fro dirt etc. I told someone to "piss off" recently and would not be seeking admin status because it is bound to be raised. The fact that the situation deserved the response is not the point: the drama will be heightened to an intolerable degree. And I can do without that drama. Whether that is WP's gain or loss is moot. - Sitush (talk) 06:19, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I think a simple "support" or "oppose" may be a better way to deal with this without getting a "War and Peace" explanation that goes way off topic.--Amadscientist (talk) 06:29, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Eh? - Sitush (talk) 06:39, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

OK, lets try this...if you just told someone to "Piss off" over "the nature of the rationales and the extent to which it is reasonable to nitpick, dig fro dirt etc" then perhaps you are actually giving an example of why the added commentary should be kept out.--Amadscientist (talk) 06:46, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Oh perhaps you are just hurt because of things that happened somewhere recently and feel like taking a pop at me? I am not getting into a fight here: the proposal is an ill-considered one, I gave a reason and it is going to fail. Now I'll go back to doing something useful, like working on content rather than frequenting dramaboards. - Sitush (talk) 06:56, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Oh....I see...this is about you. LOL! No, this was neither a pop at you (you said these things, I am not making them up) or a true proposal. Its just a straw poll, but at least I see you are holding a grudge. I actually had to look to remind myself who you are.--Amadscientist (talk) 07:04, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

An "oppose" vote with no rationale gives absolutely zilch for the candidate to take as constructive criticism. It would be even more disheartening for candidates to be opposed and have no clue what they did wrong. EVula // talk // ☯ // 06:43, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I actually don't think so, but I doubt that many would support or oppose without commenting in some form, but it really should be kept to a minimum.--Amadscientist (talk) 06:47, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I completely agree with EVula. If I had an RfA and a bunch of people just signed their name under the "oppose" column without so much as an explanation for it, I would take it as them basically saying: "Oppose — I do not trust this user's judgment enough to grant them sysop tools." I want more than that. I want somebody to say: "Oppose — I'm concerned that this user's understanding of policy may be inadequate for the position at this time, as evidenced in this hypothetical example, blah blah blah..." The former comment would only serve to hurt my feelings and shatter my self-confidence; the latter would help me improve on myself for next time. Kurtis (talk) 06:37, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but would it only work so well. There's a clear difference between the type of helpful "I can't support now but here's how to improve yourself for your next run" criticism that you note, and the sort of angry, hate-filled vitriol that can keep people from wanting to run this gauntlet to get the tools. We need to do what you're saying. Instead we get a lot of the "I'd never support this person before the heat death of the universe. He's worthless as a content editor and someone like him should never be an admin", which is the general tone and attitude of enough of the commentors which keeps this board from running efficiently. --Jayron32 06:45, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

No, a massive over-reaction to an admittedly shameful episode. We can, and will, bounce back from this. Giant Snowman 08:00, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Everyone, everywhere should be treated with respect and if excessive/verbose !votes contribute to a feeling of being unreasonably hectored, pressurised or bullied then it needs to be prevented. Consider simple measures such as word limits for questions, !votes and !vote challenges. More detailed initial disclosure questions with a short embargo on !votes until answers are received (to save early pile-ons, either way), very simple rules to limit challenge and response to !votes (which frequently spin off-topic) with overspill discussion transferred to the talk page and simple clerking duties to manage these non-bureaucratic processes. If RFA reform simply looks at candidature limits (edits, length of service etc.) that will not resolve the concerns you are describing but adopting some of these simple process changes might. Leaky Caldron 09:31, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I note with interest that an embargo on incivility, personal attacks at the nominators and other voters, and disingenuous voting are not on your list of reforms. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:58, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, how would you enforce an embargo on disingenuous voting? — Hex (❝?!❞) 10:10, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Not sure how anyone can determine those 3 things in any clear cut way. The first 2 seem impossible to resolve since one persons incivility is another persons welcome greeting as we know from past and current Arbcom cases. RFA reform alone won't solve it unless the process limits the scope for badgering and battering which is what my ideas are intended to do. Adopting some of the suggestions will certainly reduce the risk of misplaced comments leading to a vitriolic shambles. No guarantee that it will never happen, just reduce it. As for disingenuous voting, how can anyone challenge the integrity of another editors !vote? Unless they are blatantly trolling for example, it would be a recipe for even more drama if we started cancelling someone's rationale because it looks false. Leaky Caldron 10:14, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Disingenuous voting is covered by our disruptive editing policy already, but Writing it clearly and specifically into the RfA guidelines, then turning those guidelines into a policy would leave the perpetrators no room to argue fake innocence or flame with typical righteous indignation. Striking the votes. When it':s blatant enough and repetitive over a couple of RfAs, with a topic ban. Serious isolated cases: instant block. Introducing the same controls that are practiced on other Wikipedias might also help. Clerks are needed, but again, the chicken and the egg - how and by whom would they be appointed? By another hazing ceremony? If it were done the way SPI clerks are installed, again the admins would be accused of being a cabal of super users (highly experienced admins who apply to be SPI clerk trainees are already being told by the CU admins to go away, get more experience, and stop hat-collecting). All suggestions for reform are therefore a lose-lose situation. Reform is in the hands of those who sought to bring the system to its knees, have largely succeeded, and continue with impunity with the blessing of Arbcom. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:37, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Addendum: 'Disingenuous voting' is just a polite term for lies, smoke and mirrors. It's easily recognised. There are plenty of diffs around for any skeptics. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:44, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarifications, Kudpung.

I was a little confused by the comments here about Σ so just went back to his RFA for the first time since registering my support - at which time it was 24 supports and one oppose, and looked like a dead cert. What the...!

I think there clearly needs to be enforcement against bludgeoning of the process as well. And yes, I'm referring to that mega-comment by Cunard. — Hex (❝?!❞) 14:05, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Just let people say what they want to say in their own !votes and we'll have fewer problems. I just don't get why supporters need to respond to every oppose (or to questions they don't like). When these responses lead to an extended discussion it ends up painting a negative "something must be wrong" or "no smoke without fire" aura on the candidacy that leads to more oppose !votes. Sorry supporters, but you most likely ended up shooting yourselves in the foot in the case of Sigma's RfA and really have only yourselves to blame. Even I have to admit that I was almost about to !vote oppose because of the smoke reason and it was only LC's question to the nominators that prompted me to stop and think and realize that sometimes there is smoke without a fire. I propose the following drama minimization approach:

No one is allowed to comment on anyone else's !vote. If you feel that the !vote needs clarification, use that editor's talk page or add a comment to your own !vote.
No one is allowed to comment on questions posed by other editors. If the question is idiotic then even the average idiotic bureaucrat will see that so just let it go. regentspark (comment) 13:33, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that the closing Buro did the right thing and ignored the !votes that were simply because of the username? :-) dangerous panda 13:39, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not saying anything about the close. I'm just saying that the drama escalated because (1) there was excessive push back on the oppose !votes and (2) there was some pushback and comments on the questions (in the "Questions to the candidate" section). Ban that sort of interaction, it serves no purpose anyway, and there will be less drama. regentspark (comment) 13:59, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I would be in favor of disallowing discussion of votes or questions at RfA. This is where the majority of drama is bred. If a vote requires discussion, then it should have to happen on the RfA talk page, in its own thread. This would reduce badgering and overall drama considerably. -Scottywong | chat _ 14:07, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Wow, really? I could not disagree more, Scotty. The discussion process allows us to judge the reasoning behind the !vote and thereby the weight of the !vote. I'd say exactly the opposite... !votes with no rationale deserve little consideration. Jus da fax 16:11, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

You've misunderstood the point. !voters can, and should, give a rationale for their !votes. But, what I'm suggesting is that other editors are not allowed to comment on the !vote except on the editor's talk page, the RfA talk page, or wherever their own !vote is. This is standard procedure at arbcom and other places and is a good drama reduction tactic.regentspark (comment) 16:23, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

It appears you are correct and I apologize to Scotty: my mistake. Still, we have a process in place already to discourage obvious badgering, which includes "hatting" it or removing it to the talk page. Total restriction of !voter comments and questions in reaction is not the way to go, in my view. Jus da fax 16:37, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

On the surface, I think this is a great idea. Most of the drama DOES come from the extended RfA discussions. However, what would happen is those discussions would simply find their way onto user talk pages, would become CONSIDERABLY more vitriolic, and more convoluted without keeping it centralized in one place. The only way to combat that would be to put a gag order saying no one is permitted to discuss RfA anywhere BUT RfA, which I consider to be extremely unlikely to happen... nor should it. Trusilver 23:01, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm missing something. A nomination, clearly headed toward confirmation with support north of 90%, took a turn after an editor posted a long oppose. The community decided the candidate was not acceptable at this point, largely due to the investigations of one editor. Now, there's wailing, gnashing of teeth and rending of garments, but many are pointing to the post of that editor. Isn't that an example of the process working? (I'm open to the possibility of limiting the size of oppose statements on the nomination page, and adding a link to the talk page when more needs to be said, but that's a niggling detail. I'm having trouble understanding why there is so much angst over a process that worked as intended.) --SPhilbrick (Talk) 15:27, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Agree that this is another reaction to the recent Rfa. While there can be no doubt that Rfa is a flawed process, I find this proposal extreme. In my view, supporters of the failed candidate are taking this way too seriously because they are not getting their way. Jus da fax 16:01, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Please refrain from conspiracy theories and ad hominem arguments. Thank you. — Hex (❝?!❞) 16:39, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, please. I didn't even participate in the RFA that everyone is bringing up. And this proposal/straw poll is based on a number of issues that were brought to Jimbos page over the last few months. Admin noms are on the decline. Admin numbers are dwindling. As I understand it for the first time in Wikipedia history no admins were added for the month of August. Jimbo Wals himself has stated this process is broken and the amount of editors on the site is also declining. At the same time we have a civility issue being discussed and the suggestion that the Civility policy be deprecated to guideline that can be ignored. We have a huge problem with editor retention and resolving issues and diputes and little movement towards solutions. We are already cutting back on boards and red tape so it may be a possiblity that this board really has become a net loss for the community. There are other ways to handle RFA.--Amadscientist (talk) 18:59, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The problem isn't that the community decided that the candidate is unsuitable. Many of the oppose votes were just fine. The problem is that the process by which the end result was reached was way more toxic than the candidate should have had to endure, as a fellow human being deserving of basic respect and decency. I think moving discussions of individual votes to the talk page might help—in multiple RfAs, the toxic atmosphere isn't set off by the initial vote, but the back and forth afterwards. wctaiwan (talk) 16:46, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

It is important for RfA voters to have the latitude to present evidence about a candidate, and to fully explain why they're opposing a candidate. However, at the same time, it is perhaps more important to be reminded that these are people we're dealing with here. Even though we rarely (or never) see each other face to face, you can rest assured that any candidate at RfA is a human being with feelings, and not only that, they are volunteering their time here.

Think about it from the candidate's perspective. An RfA is essentially a request to do more work for free. And in response to this request to volunteer their time, many candidates get their name dragged through the mud, and anyone with whom they'd ever had a disagreement has free license to bring up minor transgressions from 5 years ago. Things like misuse of rollback and bad AIV reports are certainly fair game. But bringing up things like "the candidate unsuccessfully nominated an article for deletion" and "the candidate made april fool's jokes" and "the candidate jokingly discussed his RfA on IRC" and "the RfA nominators did this or that" is just petty, niggling, and reminiscent of a witch-hunt.

If we could all view RfA more as a request to do more work for free, rather than a request for absolute power and lordship over all non-admin editors, I think RfA would work a lot better. We should also all remind ourselves every once in awhile that despite the fact that we never actually communicate with each other in normal human ways, we are actually all human beings with feelings, and we should strive to treat each other as such even when we disagree. -Scottywong | converse _ 17:14, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

This is not a new issue. See the famous poem by Brecht:

"...the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?"

And my namesake, who said "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Warden (talk) 17:34, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Four year ago, I helped create the nightmare that is RFA... today I believe it is a catastrophe. IMHO, we should do away with RFA and expand the number of 'crats. I thnk Adminship process could take a lesson from the roll-backer process. Let 'crats promote admins upon a much much more simplified process. If they abuse the tool, then it can be stripped ala rollbacker. There is no need for this overly beaucratic nightmare. Personally, I am ashamed of my roll helping to create it... but this page is a joke now. The user formerly known as Balloonman.19:21, 9 October 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.124.47.11 (talk)

Four years ago? I went through RfA five years ago and it had already been a nightmare for some time. — Hex (❝?!❞) 09:33, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Given the community's collective inability to remove its head from its ass and actually do something, the only way out I can see is for people to adapt the experience of Wonhyo to the RfA experience; it's only bad if you perceive it as bad. The trick is figuring out how to get people to perceive such things as good... given what he perceived as good, maybe it's not impossible. Can't be harder than improving RfA, as I'm about 100% sure something can't be harder than impossible. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 20:07, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I see a future for Wikipedia that some may not like. But it seems that it is almost inevitable. Are we trying to control the uncontrolable? Is civility more a matter of destroying the entire biographies of living persons criteria? I think so. Many of us have linked our real ID to our user accounts, yet, some editors think nothing of just letting loose and throwing caution to the wind because they have a burr up their ass. Accusations and inaccuarate statements seem to mean little to some editors just because they feel safe with their so called reputation. Let me tell you, I see a lot of editors violating far more than just BLP policy. Civility is not a practice. It is just a theory, and one many want proven before they are forced to apply it. I thought the idea that some editors get away with more than others, just because no one has stopped them before was just a convenient excuse to do nothing. It may well be convenient, but it is not just an excuse. Sadly some editors really do have the support of others to just be an ass. The true drawback to Wikipedia is how editors are discredited and undermined and have little to no route to take but fight back until blocked. Wikipredia is quickly becoming usenet with a bowtie. Looks really professional but really is just an internet brawl with a nice suit and tie. Some have predicted changes to be far off. I don't think so. I think Wikipedia is teetering right now and the fall will be as result of the ability of editors to say whatever they want about each other with no control. RFA is a major contributor to this probelm. Eventually WMF will have to do something. If not the encyclopedia will see a decline in more than just admin and editor retention.--Amadscientist (talk) 05:29, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I didn't see a problem with the contentious oppose !vote, nor with the other !voters who agreed and opposed. (Disclosure: I supported the candidate.) Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:19, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Time to forgiveness?

Sigma's RfA brings up again a question that often gets brought up by RfAs but, to my knowledge, has never been discussed here.

Suppose someone does something unambiguously wrong. It could be vandalizing Conservapedia, like Sigma, or it could be any number of other things. How long does it take before people say "enough time has passed that I'm not going to take this into account".

Obviously it's going to vary by offense. A block for edit warring is going to factor in people's decisions a lot more than a block for vandalism, and some things like outing might never be forgiven, but I'm going to ask the question anyways, despite the futility, to try and get the a barometer on the community. Sven Manguard Wha? 15:16, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

For me 3 months is convincingly enough to forgive.—cyberpower ^Chat_{Limited Access} 15:37, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I think that perhaps if Sigma had been more willing to call his actions vandalism, others would have been more willing to forgive. I considered changing my support to an oppose, but decided against it. However, I highly doubt this RfA will pass as successful at this point. AutomaticStrikeout 15:45, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

There can't be, and shouldn't be, a hard-and-fast date. Giant Snowman 15:46, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree. I would have very easily overlooked this misstep in judgement had the candidate not displayed the attitude of "But it was OKAY to vandalize it, because it was Conservepedia!" Had his attitude been better, he STILL would have had problems, but I don't feel they would have been so bad as to sink his RfA. Sometimes an RfA candidate shoots himself in the foot for talking too much, but it's very rare that an RfA candidate shoots himself in the foot for saying too little. This was an RfA candidate that said too little, and what he did say was more harmful than it was helpful. Likewise, he stumbled into a bigger bear trap... IRC. The community has been distrustful of IRC for as long as I can remember. I think that the resonating chord in this case was the use of IRC to coordinate a childish attack on a rival wiki. I think, or would like to think, that given the acknowledgment of one's past transgressions, the majority of the community would forgive most everything within a 3-6 month span of time. Trusilver 16:23, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

To me the current discussion over Sigma illustrates what was discussed here above, namely, why there have been so few candidates for admin lately. Here we have a candidate who has many strong points - and one problem in their past, for which they are getting relentlessly pounded. Until we abandon the notion that an admin candidate must be perfect - not merely good, but PERFECT - the dearth of candidates will continue. --MelanieN (talk) 15:49, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

You describe the notion of a candidate needing to be perfect. Personally speaking competent, civil, knowledgeable and untarnished is usually sufficient. I think that there was 5 in quick succession in August so there is no need for despair. Leaky Caldron 16:00, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I think what you are calling "untarnished" is what I am calling "perfect". What, no tarnish, EVER, at ALL? --MelanieN (talk) 16:03, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I would agree with the above that its very circumstantial. Specifically discussing vandalism and edit warring, I would consider an established editor who lapsed into vandalism at least as harshly as I would consider edit warring, and perhaps more so. We never know when they may lapse again, while a reformed vandal who started as a vandal but has consistently edited productively since they reformed would not be an issue for me as everything indicates that have seen the light so to speak and there is no reason to believe they may return to vandalism. Likewise, I would consider someone with a track record of extensive edit warring as tarnished for much longer then I would consider someone with a single block for edit warring who appears to have gotten the message. Monty ₈₄₅ 16:38, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

From personal experience from seeing and being in RFAs, I tend to disagree with some of the above. It has taken the community a substantial time to forgive editors, much longer than a time of three months. In the cases where editors have got their block logs tarnished with civility, edit warring, etc., it will always be brought up in discussions where they are given "power." Most of the community is forgiving. However, there are always going to be editors who oppose on the basis of it not being long enough since prior problems have occurred or that their actions were unforgivable (in their eyes.) Regards, — Moe Epsilon 21:58, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

If someone stays editing and learns from an incident then I think that the community will forgive most things after a year and perhaps a few months. Some idealistically forgive because they think that people have reformed, some pragmatically do so because a year's good editing is enough to pass an RFA and they'd rather people kept the same account and reformed rather than cleanstarted. If a mistake wasn't serious enough to merit a block then it rarely matters at RFA, an effective oppose needs to either have recent diffs or older diffs that show something that isn't likely to have changed. An isolated human error will merely be taken as evidence that someone is indeed human - we all make mistakes, RFA tends to reject candidates with a pattern to their mistakes. For example I usually focus on a candidate's CSD tagging, but I no longer oppose because of one incorrect tag, even a ridiculously incorrect one, having found one seriously duff tag I will look until I've found more or can accept it was an isolated mistake. Ϣere SpielChequers 00:04, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

You lost me right from the getgo with the assertion that vandalizing conservapedia is "unambiguously wrong." Stealing from your grandmother is unambiguously wrong. Raping children is unambiguously wrong. Screwing with the jerks who run what is basically an attack site is not. There is no comparison between WP and that cesspool of ignorance and tyranny. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:38, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
“forgiveness?” On-wiki? Don't make me laugh. This place never understands and never forgets anything. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 03:53, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

"Forgive" and "Forget" are two very different things.--Amadscientist (talk) 04:13, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

True enough; the place is entirely unforgiving, too. Br'er Rabbit (talk) (sockpuppet;) 08:55, 12 October 2012 (UTC)