Wikipedia talk:Vetting process

This page has been created per Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship#The "no negative comments" stipulation, and an alternative. — Sebastian 22:19, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Informing prospects

I think it is inappropriate to discuss an editor in this way behind their back, and suggest that people only be posted here if they have agreed to be vetted. ϢereSpielChequers 22:32, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I was just thinking the same thing, and I will change the page accordingly. But please don't hesitate to change the page yourself. I don't own it; I just happened to start it. — Sebastian 22:52, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I also added that the prospect has to agree on their talk page; that has the added benefit of alerting third editors of the vetting. — Sebastian 23:00, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Regardless of owning the page or what , thanks for for starting the page Sebastian,I in particular find it very useful Bobbyshabangu (talk) 13:05, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Bobbyshabangu. Incidentally and very appropriately for this discussion, I became aware of it thanks to the notification feature. — Sebastian 18:07, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Transparency

I'm sorry, but I'm still rather skeptical. When the RfA goes live, it would essentially mean that the candidate has been "cabal approved"? At least that's how it would seem to those that didn't participate in the vetting. Please do not take this the wrong way, I applaud your iniative to try to improve the RfA process, but I just think that transparency is an essential part of it. Regards, decltype (talk) 22:54, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing your concern here, and for the nice way of phrasing it. I'm sorry, I had thought that your concern was already answered by user:Friday at WT:RFA#The "no negative comments" stipulation, and an alternative. This is not a cabal - to the contrary: It only makes what is currently going on behind the scenes more apparent. When I was nominated, people asked me behind the scene, and I'm pretty sure I was no exception. — Sebastian 23:06, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm with Decltype. I understand the reasoning that led you here, but this page is a bad idea.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 23:07, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Hello S Marshall, did you see that I already addressed Decltype's concerns above? — Sebastian 23:36, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

• Yeah. And like Decltype, I applaud your motives, but I think this page might generate opposes because of the transparency issue.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 23:40, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

• I think I already addressed Decltype's concern. Would you, personally, oppose a candidate, all things being equal, because they went through vetting? — Sebastian 00:07, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

• Personally I would not. However, if I were thinking of running again (and I'm not, at the moment), I wouldn't want my candidacy to have been discussed here.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 00:14, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. I agree that many people vote on irrational fears; this just happened at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/A new name 2008, where "transparency" became the battle cry for many opponents, despite the fact that the candidate was no less transparent than any other person who ever changed their user name for privacy reasons, which is completely legitimate. For that reason, I would like to thoroughly and openly address any transparency concerns. If we discuss this here now independently of any given candidate, then it should be less of a problem later. — Sebastian 00:30, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I too see parallels; this process is actually more transparent than the status quo, just as ANN08 was more transparent than others who've just lied about a previous account, but I can easily imagine people opposing. Still, the idea is quite a good one, and as long as the process is voluntary and potential candidates come in with their eyes open, I think it's worth a try. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:46, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

It just occurred to me that part of the perception problem might be the big yellow box, which some may read as "In a nutshell, the point of this is to keep information away from RfA." That would of course be a wrong understanding, because anyone who has concerns will always be free to bring them up at RfA. So, should we remove the yellow box, or reword it, or both? — Sebastian 18:01, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I've added a line about revealing the vetting concerns in the case of an RfA. Thoughts?  Skomorokh  18:12, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Mention privately raised concerns publicly?

Regarding the added note: "The nominator and prospect should address, in the nomination statement and initial questions, any and all concerns raised in private via vetting, ensuring transparency":

I am glad that people are thinking about how to improve perceived transparency, and I welcome the idea of a note about that. However, the current wording seems too drastic to me. I have been a mediator in many conflicts, and it is always easier to talk about personality related problems in private. If people have to fear that what they say will be made public, then there is no reason for them to bring it up here. It would be much easier for them to just wait till the candidate gets nominated and then vote "oppose" without a reason, or with a copycat reason. That would backfire and decrease real transparency. I agree we need to do something about perceived transparency, but not at the cost of real transparency.

Maybe this doesn't need to be regulated. I think we can leave the decision to the nominator; they're experienced editors, after all. To provide transparency and avoid wrong expectations, nominators could state their privacy policy in advance. Mine is laid out here: User:SebastianHelm/principles#Confidentiality. — Sebastian 06:59, 19 September 2009 (UTC), amended 07:09, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know, given what I saw at ANN's RfA, I think it's pretty sufficient to say that the RfA crowd can and will oppose if anything is hidden from view. This process will only nail a prospect's coffin shut if it isn't highly open and all the information isn't addressed or brought up. Irbisgreif (talk) 18:09, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Ditch the email and keep it on user sub pages

By keeping the commenting phase on either the Proposers or Prospect's sub page you could sufficiently answer the transparency concerns. I understand the noble sentiments of trying to avoid flaming or public displays of dirty laundry but keep two things in mind-(A) User talk/sub pages are still less "public" than an RfA forum so while transparent, you do have some layers of flame retardant to keep the discussions civil and focused (B) Wikipedians can be a paranoid group and while "cabalism" already happens behind the scenes, anything that seems to actively promote it will not get much support. If a Prospect is too controversial and the user talk page starts to get out of hand then you withdraw the vetting tag and the sub page can be protected & archived with admins being diligent in warning/blocking anyone that continues to cause trouble. I think being very clear that vetting is only to see if a candidate is suitable to stand up for RfA and NOT the public trial (such as RfA has become) of said candidate will give troublemakers a short leash and limit the drama & incivility. But again this vetting must be as transparent as possible with the only way being to keep in on wiki (though there will be the criticism that this is a rehash of Wikipedia:Editor review). Agne^Cheese/^Wine 19:44, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree completely... There are only two times where I have given reviews privately. One is when somebody approaches me about becoming a 'crat. There is a different stigma there and privacy can be a more legit reason. People are more prone to taking a negative stance towards somebody they know is considering becoming a crat than they are of somebody considering becoming an admin. (E.g. he's only doing this to become a 'crat.) Second, if there is a specific explicit reason why a person doesn't want it public... namely, there is a reason why the person doesn't think they will pass/are worried about something in their past and want to know if that reason would be enough to stop them from being a viable candidate... in fact, the only person I can recall doing privately in the past year was a person whose first RfA flamed out in a major way. They weren't sure if they wanted to subject themself again to that scrutiny.

I adopted this practice because 'private vetting' didn't work. I wanted it to be public for several reasons. 1) Others might see something or know something about the candidate that I didn't notice/see. 2) I wanted to be able to say, "JohnQ asked for a review 3 months ago. Here are the strengths/weaknesses I saw, and here is how he adapted to it." 3) If they didn't address my concerns, I wanted the paper trail as well. 4) I was too lazy to go back and find my original emails to them and wanted to be able to see what I had said previously. 5) I wanted the record on the user's page in case I didn't see the actual RfA.

Personally, there is very little related to wikipedia that should be done off wiki and I discourage that practice in less there is a specific reason to do so.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 23:41, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I don't think the sub-pages would really be viewed by many people, but it will all be in the open when the RfA goes live, which is a good thing. While I symphatize with the view that some things are best to remain private, I don't think we should encourage even more WP-related business to be taken off-wiki. Regards, decltype (talk) 18:31, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Transcluding

See here for evidence we can transclude just the table at WT:RFA. Someone more template savvy could easily right justify it, add a link to the table to go directly to the page, etc. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:41, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I see what you mean. In the earlier discussion, I had mistakenly assumed you meant WP:RFA. I'm not against it on the talk page, but I wonder how many people really look at the top of the talk page; I must admit that I seldom do. — Sebastian 01:53, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Wherever it goes, adding a name to a transcluded page is only going to show up on watchlists if people who are really into the idea watchlist this page. Up at the top of WT:RFA just seemed less likely to upset people than somewhere on WP:RFA, which is pretty cluttered anyway. --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:07, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Terminology: Vet, nominate, pre-nominate, or ...?

I see Floquenbeam's point that vetting may be applied to the feedback everyone can give, and I appreciate the initiative to replace "vetter" with a less ambiguous term. I had, however, intentionally avoided the term "to nominate", since that can be confused with the nomination at an RfA. To avoid that confusion, we used the term "pre-nominate" in our previous discussion. I'll use that term in this discussion for now, but maybe we can find a better term. How about "mentor", "adviser" or "assistant"?

I think we both understand vetting as described at vetting#Political selection, but when Floquenbeam wrote "I think the "vetters" are the people emailing the nominator, not the nominator themselves", Flo seems to compare the "team of advisers" with everybody who provides feedback, whereas I think of it as only one advisor, whose task is to collect the feedback, much as a political advisor might conduct a survey.

I also am not particularly keen on the term "vetter", which translates to "cousin" in German, and I hope we can agree on a better term soon. — Sebastian 01:53, 19 September 2009 (UTC); amended 02:09, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I see your issue with "nominator". I'll cogitate on it for a while. --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:13, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Any objection to propose and proposer?  Skomorokh  17:33, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. — Sebastian 17:52, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Self-nomination

Irbisgreif brought up an interesting idea: Self-nomination. It seems indeed to me that there's no reason why the nominator can't be the same as the prospect. Maybe we should write that explicitly. I assume the note about civilty applies primarily to that case, since for non-self-nominations it is the task of the nominator can buffer any incivility. But even for self-nominations, I'm not so sure if that note is really needed: If the prospect can not deal with incivility, then he or she is probably not a good candidate for adminship. (See also WP:PINOT.) — Sebastian 07:18, 19 September 2009 (UTC), amended 07:32, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Certainly works for me. This entire idea, by the way, is excellent (and I'm saying that in my role as a user, not my role as a perpetually unsuccessful RfA candidate. He also thinks it's good, though :P). Ironholds (talk) 11:37, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

One of my concerns was that we should build up a less toxic, more civil environment here. If the acidity of RfA bleeds over, this is just going to be another stepping stone to burnouts. Irbisgreif (talk) 17:57, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Define "acidity". The way I see it, the problem is not incivilty, but entrenched positions and grandstanding. That can't be regulated; people have their position, and if they're not allowed to express them here, they will express them at RfA. — Sebastian 06:34, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Automatic

Why don't we just make everyone with more then, say, 1000 edits an "admin". I honestly don't see the need for a whole process for "adminship", let alone extending it into more bureaucracy (no offense to everyone's obviously hard work here, but wouldn't you have rather spent that time doing some article development or something?).
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 01:53, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

If you don't see a need for it, don't participate – there's absolutely no requirement to. Having a large number of edits is of little relevance to trustworthiness or competence. Sincerely,  Skomorokh  01:59, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Generally, I don't participate in it, and I only came here because this was advertised on the Village pump. I personally don't subscribe to the view that some trustworthiness isn't displayed by edit counts... obviously, edit counts don't directly indicate anything, but if someone can manage to remain unblocked and participatory long enough to make a decently high threshold of edits then they must have some trustworthiness. This sort of proposal simply flips the use of admin tools from an opt-in to an opt-out system, and I think that such a proposal is a more objective measure then the current RfA system.

I don't see how the current RfA system can be anything but subjective and somewhat arbitrary. Certain users have happened to express interest in gaining access to the tools. A relatively arbitrary group of other editor then comes along and states that they trust said user. However, there's nothing to really point to in order to demonstrate actual trustworthiness. I honestly don't really care about this, but I wanted to at least mention it since it was listed on WP:VPP.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 02:23, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

There are plenty of people with many more than even 10,000 edits who have been declined adminship by the community. If we put in another system, we should aim to have a system that at the very least closely matches the outcomes of the one that we currently have in place, and I can tell you right now, just about no editors with ~1,000 edits are going to get through at this point in time. You can be a well meaning editor with bad contributions and have any number of edits, but is it wise for that person to be an administrator? No! It is not bureaucratic to simply expect some form of community review before the bit is handed over -- just because the system is imperfect, doesn't mean we should replace it with one which is even worse. — neuro^(talk) 10:31, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

The question though is: why? Why is the answer to the "is it wise for that person to be an administrator?" question, no? What do administrators need community review for?
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 17:00, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

As long as admins have the power to view deleted revisions, Mike Godwin will refuse to allow automatic-adminship for legal reasons (the WMF has to at least make an effort to keep libellous material and copyvios out of general view), so this is a pointless discussion. And if you really think "1000 edits" represents some kind of super-user threshold, here is what 1000 edits in under two hours looks like. It's really not hard. – iridescent 19:30, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

The number 1000 was just something that I pulled out of thin air. Pretty much any number could be gamed, obviously, but the current system can (and is, from what I can see) gamed as well. That and I don't believe my own legal theories, let alone anyone else's. If Mike Goodwin has actually said something to the effect that WMF is not legally allowed to implement something like this then I'd be interested in seeing it, of course. Since this is not the first time that this general topic has come up though, I seriously doubt that we couldn't do this, there's simply resistance to doing it (obviously). I simply think that the fact that the RfA process is taking this step in becoming even more bureaucratic presents a good opportunity to raise the question again.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 00:15, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Here is the Foundation's statement on the matter (he's talking about non-admins, but it would apply as much to automated-admins). It is not going to happen. The exhaustive discussion on the matter, complete with "Create a "Custodian" user group, between Autoconfirmed and Admin, with Rollback, view-deleted, and maybe others" option—which was summarily ended by a "there is no point having this discussion as we will veto it" ruling by the WMF—is at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Persistent proposals/Straw poll for view-deleted. – iridescent 00:27, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah... well, it's not directly on point (the only issue he was actually discussing there was the ability to view content in the deletion queue), but it's close enough to shut me up, probably. The only thing is... current admins can view them, which doesn't seem to be putting the WMF into jeopardy. Increasing the admin population form ~1,700 to ~25,971 doesn't seem to me to be that great of a difference. I never honestly expected you guys to take this seriously, but I didn't expect some legal opinion to be a part of this either.

Regardless, if you folks feel like doing this then I'm certainly not going to stand in your way. As long as no one gets into my way I could really care less, after all. It just seems somewhat pointless to me, but I'm obviously simply indifferent to all of the drama that some of you folks seem to seek out. *shrug*
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 03:06, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

PS.: Out of curiosity and in the interest of accuracy, I looked up the most current numbers for edit counts (available at Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits), and I adjusted the numbers above. The new number is slightly less than double the number that I originally guesstimated it would be (I originally thought ~16,000, for whatever reason). If I could implement this I would likely use "recent edits" (previous 30 days) as the determining factor, would have it run constantly as a batch job in the background (likely on the toolserver), automatically ignore bot accounts, and peg the number to use at around 250 edits. Doing something like that would give ~2,800 editors the tools at any one point in time, which isn't actually as "inclusive" as I thought it would be, but is inclusive enough to matter in order to satisfy my viewpoint. Obviously there would need to be a "gutter" at the bottom end of the scale, so that if an editor "only" performs 236 edits (for example) s/he doesn't suddenly loose the flag, but that sort of heuristic is usually easy enough to create. Some form of removing the tools from demonstrated abusers would likely be appropriate as well (although I would guess that this wouldn't much of an issue). As I was sort of saying above I don't really understand why all of this bureaucratic "cruft" is necessary, but that's just me.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 03:49, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

And we're off!

Just received the first review, a helpful and sober assessment from an experienced RfA contributor. Keep 'em coming,  Skomorokh  20:00, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

It was someone telling you how much I suck, and should never, ever, never, ever even be considered for adminship, wasn't it? - Adolphus79 (talk) 20:11, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, what are people's experiences so far? I must say, mine weren't too encouraging. I looked at a couple of prospects, but unfortunately I saw issues in each case that would prevent me from voting for the prospects, if they ran for adminship now. I provided what I felt was helpful feedback (never anything that amounted to what Adolphus79 feared above), but I don't have the impression it was well received. I either received no reply (not even a short "thank you for your feedback"!) or excuses and denial along the line of "Yes, I caused this accident by drunk driving, but normally I can drink and not cause accidents, so I'd still be an excellent school bus driver!" — SebastianHelm 18:46, 22 September 2009 (UTC) — continues after insertion below

If the 'bus driver' analogy was directed at me (I don't know if it was), I disagree with the analogy. If anything, I think this process will deter editors from running -- the people more likely to email the candidates are the ones that have found problems. — neuro^(talk) 22:19, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Since you're asking, it wasn't directed at you, but it was inspired by an experience I had with you. I had tried to protect your privacy by changing the story, and I intentionally avoided being close to the original. I don't want to wash your dirty laundry here in public (I just sent you another mail), but let me just say that: I don't believe we should lower our standards for administrators; at least that's not what this page is for. The whole point of this page was to enable you to get negative feedback in a less toxic environment. I came here without any bias against you, and after some research I felt it was my duty to let you know why I would oppose you. If I had been a prospect, I would have been grateful to get honest, confidential feedback; I would have seen that as a chance to improve. — Sebastian 23:08, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Of course, a couple of cases is not statistically relevant, but, if I'm allowed to generalize, I fear that some people may consider vetting as an easy way to become administrator. Do other people have the same impression? If so, what can we do about it? — Sebastian 18:46, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

If they view this as a shortcut to adminship, they should prepare to be disappointed. Maybe we should say that somewhere. You can't control how they respond to your feedback. In my mind, the main benefit to trying this is to provide constructive feedback so the candidate can address concerns and then be good to go, without the obligatory 4 month wait. Plus, when you're emailing someone, it's easier to remember to treat them civilly, so the criticism is likely to be slightly more constructive than some Oppose sections I've seen. This is almost entirely for the candidate's benefit; how they use their newfound information is up to them, and their proposer, and I certainly wouldn't get into an argument with them about it. A second benefit is to head off people running who think it's going to be easy, when in reality people are going to hammer them, with resulting hurt feelings and potentially a loss of an active editor. Air the dirty laundry in private, rather than in public. I would expect that they at least acknowledge the feedback, so we know if made it thru the spam filter gauntlet; at least the proposer (if there is one) should acknowledge it. They asked for feedback. you gave it. The end. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:20, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, it seems my post wasn't clear enough. I didn't mean to ask for general advice on how to provide feedback, but what other people's experiences were so far. What I'd like to know:

• From prospects and proposers: What were your initial expectations here? Have they been met? How much feedback did you get, and did you find it was helpful?
• From everybody: How many of you have provided any feedback at all? What fraction of the prospects would you support in an RfA? How much time did you spend per prospect? Do you feel that it was worth your time?

Thanks, — Sebastian 19:51, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

• Since I'm asking others, I should answer the second bullet myself: Among the prospects I researched, I could not find one that I could support at this time. I spent about 45 min per prospect. About one third of that time was research (mostly looking in user contributions), and the rest was finding the right wording for my e-mail and following up. (Finding the right wording is hard; not so much because it's hard to be civil, but because it's never easy to convey unpleasant news.) So far, I do not feel it it was worth it. — Sebastian 20:02, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

• To be completely honest, I did not know what to expect out of this... certainly not making RfA easier, or any other shortcut towards adminship... maybe just an advanced (alternative to?) editor review... per the conversation on my talk page, I was asked if I wanted to be nominated again, and clearly made it known that I would only run again if my biggest opposers felt I was ready... I guess what I'm saying is that I volunteered myself as a guinea pig for this new wiki-experiment... I'm not sure what other's results have been, but I am already somewhat impressed by the amount of feedback I have received (no emails, but a few questions/statement on my talk page), and am interested to know what the emails sent to Skomorokh have had to say about me... I personally think this system (system?, process?, review?) is working, if not at least for the moment... - Adolphus79 (talk) 21:11, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

How useful is this page and negative feedback?

I think this page is useful while we've got this recruiting festival going on; people may be running out of peer pressure or running before they've thought it through. The jury is out on whether this page will be helpful long-term; we'll have to see whether the prospects think it's helpful. I'm hoping the first 30 reviews will be done by 10 different, clueful RFA voters ... if it's just a few people, then we'll have to deal with the appearance of gate-keeping. Neuro is right that if you get a couple of reviewers who are more pessimistic than the average RFA voter, then this could give us fewer admins rather than more. It might be a good idea to add this link to the front page and tell the prospects to check the voting history and previous rationales of the reviewers ... if their comments were often out of synch with what was going on in those RFAs, then they may not be good at guessing how the votes will go, even if they have good advice otherwise. - Dank (push to talk) 02:25, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

You seem to reach the same conclusion as Neuro because you are making the same pessimistic assumption: That people can't change. I believe they can, if they want to. That is my motivation why I spend my time providing feedback, even when it's negative. You can believe me, I don't enjoy writing negative feedback, and I wouldn't do it if I didn't think it would help the other person. — Sebastian 03:26, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it is a matter of change, it is a matter of perception. For the record, the issue Sebastian listed to me in email was about my use of the word "fucking" on another user's talk page. The disagreement between he and I is that I believe that evidence shows that it was a one off, and he does not. My pessimistic assumption that no change can be made, especially in my case, is because you are asking for change where there is no change to be made. What do you want to be changed? What would you like to see me do differently? If the incident truly was a one off mistake, I see no issue to resolve, but that is where we disagree. — Neurolysis — continues after insertion below

That wasn't it - but see my reply to Dank below. — Sebastian 14:42, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I like the concept of vetting, or at least, what it could become, but I fear there are many issues to be solved yet. — neuro^(talk) 11:13, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

After candidates who got reviews go through RFA and have a chance to see whether the advice was useful or not, it would make sense for the candidates to give feedback on the reviewers so that future Prospects will have that information. Since some of the reviews are emailed, that makes it a little dangerous for everyone involved ... people may misunderstand each other and it might not get sorted out, which is of course why Wikipedia generally discourages private communications. But the greater good here is to give people feedback in a way that doesn't torpedo their RFA, which is why I'm willing to do a few reviews and take the chance. If we get a bunch of people willing to take the chance on reviewing, and the if the prospects wind up in the end thinking the reviews were helpful, then this might have a future, but as I say, I'm not sold ... at the moment, I'm just thinking of this as a temporary process intended to support the current recruiting drive. - Dank (push to talk) 14:20, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

That's a good idea: I would love to learn from the experience. If Neuro agrees, then I would like to post our e-mail communication somewhere (maybe in his or my userspace) and I would be grateful if people could point out what I could have done better. — Sebastian 14:42, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't mind. Either way, I don't think you could have done anything better, I think it is an inherent flaw with the vetting process. — neuro^(talk) 15:14, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your consent and for your friendly comment. I'm afraid you may be right. Our conversation may therefore most useful as a case study for this process, so I'll put it on a subpage: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Vetting/Neuro-Sebastian. (Please feel free to rename or move as you see fit.) — Sebastian 15:40, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh, actually, one thing you did say now you mention it (didn't think of it before) -- "BTW, I just complimented another prospect for an appropriate, mature handling of a similar situation." feels to me like an attempt to rub salt into a wound, but I guess that wasn't the intention. — neuro^(talk) 16:04, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, that's helpful feedback. To be honest, what happened there was this: While vetting the other prospect, I noticed the similar situation, and spontaneously complimented them by alluding to your situation. A moment later, I felt that that was like talking about you behind your back, and I felt the appropriate thing to straighten it out was by letting you know. It would have been better to leave your situation out of that in the first place. I also now see that it did come out somewhat schoolmasterish. BTW, how about if we move this subconversation to Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Vetting/Neuro-Sebastian? — Sebastian 16:43, 23 September 2009 (UTC) Amended 17:08, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Assuming you mean Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Vetting/Neuro-Sebastian, sure thing. — neuro^(talk) 12:34, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I meant the talk page, which seems natural to me because this is the talk about Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Vetting/Neuro-Sebastian. Would you be opposed to that? — Sebastian 15:32, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't aware I was assuming that people can't change. - Dank (push to talk) 13:57, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Reviewed by

Someone added a column "Reviewed by" to the table, but there is no explanation what that's for. — Sebastian 05:49, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

It looks like it's for other editors who reply (step 4) – it was added in this edit where the title was "Emails from" – this discussion appears to be relevant. snigbrook (talk) 13:58, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Feel free to do a review, and you don't have to add your name if you review but it would be nice to let others know how many reviews a candidate has received. I've also added a "last RfA" column, the RfAs have essential information ... for instance, Until It Sleeps had an RfA in late August. - Dank (push to talk) 02:13, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

How about writing an explanation on the actual project page, as I did for the fields I put in the table? — Sebastian 18:27, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, because it was only a suggestion. Architects who design college campuses have learned not to plan the sidewalks, they just do the campus without sidewalks and then later they put in sidewalks where the students have worn the grass. I'm waiting to see what people do before I try describing what they should do. - Dank (push to talk) 01:13, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Nice analogy; I see where you're coming from! But I don't think it applies to pages like this: If a student is faced with grass, they know how to deal with it and just walk across, and they only do so if they want to. The use of this field isn't self-explanatory, and it's not obvious that it's only a suggestion. — Sebastian 01:26, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

ISD Vetting

I got a note saying I had been nominated for vetting, but because no-one left me a note on my talk page it got removed and my nomination got commented out. I would like my entry to be relisted please. Thanks. ISD (talk) 07:20, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Sure, I'll add you back in. I guess this makes you the "proposer" now. - Dank (push to talk) 13:24, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Really, surely the person who first listed me should be the proposer? All well. ISD (talk) 13:37, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Because of these kinds of misunderstandings, and because talking about Wikipedians "behind their backs" is asking for all kinds of trouble, I'd suggest that emailed reviews should always go to the Propect. If someone thinks someone would make a good prospect, then rather than giving them some kind of official role as Proposer, I think it would make more sense for this page to make clear that it's up to them to review the Prospect, come to the conclusion that the Prospect would probably pass sooner or later (no point in giving people bad news if it's not likely to do them any good), either email the review to the Prospect or not, and leave a message on the Prospect's talk page inviting them to participate, and not create an entry here until/unless the Prospect replies on-wiki that they want to proceed. - Dank (push to talk) 13:39, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

P.S. Although of course, prospects can add themselves at any time if they're doing it on their own initiative, they don't need to talk it over with themselves :) - Dank (push to talk) 15:32, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I think I understand. ISD (talk) 13:46, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not clear what you mean. I would like to understand that proposers should spend sufficient time before they propose someone, which would be what I originally had in mind. But what makes me not sure is that you also say "rather than giving them some kind of official role as Proposer" - I don't see a contradiction there. Maybe it would help if you fleshed this out a bit and wrote it in a separate section?

Back to the original topic of this section: ISD's entry in the list. I don't think it was right to change the proposer for ISD. If I hadn't been so anal as to comment the entry out, then we wouldn't have just picked one of the entries and changed it retroactively? I will therefore revert the proposer change. — Sebastian 14:46, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

If this page is encouraging people to email comments about people to third parties, then I can't support the page. Although I see the point, it's hard to know how best to support the recruitment drive, and usually no harm would be done, there are too many ways for that to go wrong. - Dank (push to talk) 15:10, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I share your concern, which is precisely why I removed ISD. But I don't see a problem with it if the "third party" - i.e. the prospect - agrees. — Sebastian 15:43, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

One problem is that the prospect isn't in a position to know who to trust and what to trust them with; if they were that familiar with voters at RFA, they probably wouldn't need this page. Another problem is that, traditionally, off-site communications cause problems when people misunderstand each other and then give different reports about what was said. That goes double if the communication involves something potentially stressful, such as RFA. That goes quadruple if you insert someone in the middle as an interpreter or buffer. - Dank (push to talk) 16:03, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

You're making a good point which hadn't occurred to me: I had assumed that there would have to be considerable trust between a proposer and a prospect before the proposer even proposed them. That may indeed not always be the case. The second half of your post, your simple multiplication rule, is theoretically possible if there is no trust at all between the proposer and the prospect, but I think that is rather unlikely. In my experience as mediator, I usually found the opposite to be true: A caring person in the middle can eliminate even some of the most deep-rooted misunderstandings. — Sebastian 16:52, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Vetted?

Any possibility of becoming one of the vetted? Basket of Puppies 04:55, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Sure! Just add your name! Irbisgreif (talk) 04:57, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Great! Done! Basket of Puppies 05:14, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing going on here at the moment

We have a problem with getting people good information about RFA that's tailored to their strengths and weaknesses, and I think that's why Sebastian started this page and why I gave 3 reviews. But note that there haven't been any reviews for a while, despite the fact that this page has been discussed twice at WT:RFA. The page could do harm if it gives candidates the impression that other people are getting reviews and they're not; they're likely to think that they're doing something wrong, and/or waste time here when they could be getting reviews elsewhere. If we can't find more reviewers, then I support Andrevan's proposal to shut this down for now. - Dank (push to talk) 02:18, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I say we at least let this first wave run it's course... I have received public feedback on my talk page, but have yet to hear back from my proposer... the experiment has only been active for a week and a half now, so the four weeks for an entry to expire has not even happened yet...

Also, when and who proposed that this be merged with ER, and didn't even bother to start a discussion as to why? - Adolphus79 (talk) 02:32, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Dank. The page page could do harm if it leads to disappointments. I would have really wished this to take off, but the dearth of replies to my question at #And we're off! (which include Dank's reply which I turned into its own section #How useful is this page and negative feedback?) seems to indicate that nobody except for Dank and myself actually provided feedback, and nobody except for Adolphus79 seems to get some value out of it. Our success-to-disappointment ration could thus be 1 to 8, which would be a reason to shut this down. For that, I think that merging to ER would be an appropriate path, unless we want to go through WP:MFD. I will therefore reinstate the merge template for now. — Sebastian 15:49, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I would ask the question of how many people are aware of this process. Page has existed for a week, the RFA note less than that. I say let it run its course. The fact that the reviewers aren't blindly passing people is a good thing, they are (assumedly) reviewing each potential candidate. My only complaint is that there is no way for the editor to check on the status besides seeing that it was proposed. Sephiroth storm (talk) 20:37, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

With regards to your first statement, putting up a notice on Template:Announcements/Community bulletin board usually works to get this process more known out there. I also agree that this process should be given more time, it seems worthwhile and I can see its potential to improve RfA and the quality of candidates. -- œ^™ 04:26, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

A few comments. First, in no way should this be linked to editor review: ER should be for normal editors to get some feedback, and should have no bearing on future adminship; the vetting process would be for people who are considered as one step away from adminship. In some ways, I would see the vetting process as especially useful for someone who failed their first RfA, and it would give that editor a good feeling as to whether or not they have been "forgiven" for past transgressions. As an example, I was recently approached about going through RfA again myself - I was contemplating setting up a straw poll in my userspace, and invite all of those who originally commented on my last RfA to comment on what I might still be missing, according to them. When used in that manner, the Vetting process has a benefit. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 10:57, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I've removed the proposed merge since it's been years since the last comment, and in the meantime Editor review has been closed. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 16:15, 29 May 2014 (UTC)