Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 227

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 220 ← Archive 225 Archive 226 Archive 227 Archive 228 Archive 229 Archive 230

Footer box for prior RFCs, reform projects, and such

Since this is a place that many editors come to discuss questions about the admin selection process and possible changes would it be helpful to add something like a "Links to related discussions" collapsible box at the bottom of the page? It could link to prior RFA reform projects, RFA RFCs, etc. This might help those new to the area or those that haven't frequented the page in some time. Not to stifle discussion, but rather a tool for those that want to take an extra step forward to be able to find these vast resources easier, rather than rehashing the same proposals every time the page goes blank. I know there is the archive, but that thing is a beast and from watching this page it does not appear to be used all to often. Calmer Waters 18:46, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

All the major de-admin related stuff is in a box at Wikipedia:Requests for Comment/Community de-adminship proof of concept/Navbox. Cheers. 64.40.54.179 (talk) 05:31, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Participation in reform

Of the 42 currently signed up at WP:RFA2011 many have significantly reduced their participation in Wikipedia or quietly stopped editing altogether, some have been blocked and/or desysoped, and only 12 are (or were at the time) admins. I don't know what one can conclude from all that, or perhaps one could come up with some suggestions if they were to examine their editing histories more closely. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:14, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Its probably for many reasons not the least of which IMO would be the communities continued inability to make any meaningful change; the WMF's conduct with several of the reason releases and the progressively degenerating editing environment here. I also think it helps to further illustrate that the nail that sticks out gets hammered. So if you do something here to buck the system particularly against admins, you are likely to become a target from many of them. There are a lot of good admins here but there are also quite a few who are excellent manipulators and are very good at twisting policies to meet their POV. 71.126.152.253 (talk) 11:45, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
Bear in mind that since 2007 we've typically lost over 200 very active editors per year (graph). You may just be seeing the normal Wikipedian lifecycle in action Jebus989✰ 12:06, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
I think we're probably looking at a typical average Wikipedian lifecycle. Probably also at some admins who drifted into the background after their initial euphoria of getting the bit wore off. I'm also seeing that the project was hardly one designed to help admins hang on to their immense power and keep others out of it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:34, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
Some were also probably very young/wannabe admins and realised that their time is better spent on their schoolwork. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:51, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
I'm one of those 42, and I know I need to do more. I've been in isolation mode for more than 10 months now, my project has taken far more time than I ever anticipated and I have no intention of stopping, but if that ever does finish I'll try to put in some more time. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:34, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
Looking very much forward to it  ;) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:51, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
As with many others I think reform is necessary and would be a good thing. Unfortunately I don't have any faith that anything will come out of these discussions except wasted time. Too many are opposed to making changes to a system that gives them power. People like power and tend to do whatever they can to keep it. So just as all the other RFC's and ideas ended in failure this one is destined too as well. Until the RFA problem has gotten to a point where we aren't promoting or there are so few admins that work isn't getting done (which arguably is already occurring) then this process won't change. Its going to take something drastic to get changed. Not a few well wishers talking about it. 71.126.152.253 (talk) 13:54, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
I still do not believe that statements such as , or similar to: "Too many are opposed to making changes to a system that gives them power. People like power and tend to do whatever they can to keep it." have any foundation in fact. I think such assumptions are based purely on the perceptions of those who have an axe to grind. It's a mantra we've heard too often and it's wearing a bit thin. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:02, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
Well when meaningful discussion turns into meaningful change I'll retract my statement and you can publicly call me a fool and a lier. Since these discussions always end in failure with reasons like "this won't work; the WMF won't allow it; or the non admin community can't be trusted to reelect admins because they don't know what its like to be an admin, are just as foolish and pointless as perceptions that abusive admins will prevent change from happening. As it is, there is more evidence to prove I am right than to the contrary. 71.126.152.253 (talk) 15:57, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
Right, the problem is just that it is not actionable. We have people who believe that Wikipedia is broken beyond repair, and some of them are present at this page. The problem is that "broken beyond repair" usually translates into "let these fools fight each other, until the point that everything is really disfunctional, and then Jimbo will be kicked out, WMF will be kicked out, and I will pick up the website and run it how I please". Great, may be it comes to this point, but I am personally not really willing just to sit and wait until this point comes.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:03, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
Actually I don't think Wikipedia is beyond repair. I think the problems are very repairable. What I see is the problem though is a lack of desire by the community to accept there is a problem; a lack of desire to affect change to fix it; a general attitude that the few who are trying to change the system just have a chip on their shoulder and a lack of interest. Not to mention a number of admins who vote against any change the to system no matter how benign; the lack of trust towards editors by the admins and a general attitude that admins are better than editors because 5 years ago 40 editors all said they could be trusted and they got the tools. The mere fact that a lot of admins don't use their tools at all and still admit they wouldn't pass under current standards says a lot. If they can't pass, and they have been admins for years, then how the hell can they justify that the system works. They can't because it doesn't, but they will protect it fiercely because they have the power and they don't want to lose it. I challenge the admins to rerun. If they get to keep the tools great, if they don't then they will learn what they need to improve on to get them back and regain the communities trust. A lot of them lost the communities trust and need to get it back but the community is powerless to do anything about it. As for the latter part of your statement. Jimbo is nothing more than a figurehead these days and hasn't had an active role in several years. Other than paying to keep the servers running the WMF does very little of value and a large amount of what they do isn't an improvement or is a waste of the communities time. So frankly, I wouldn't have a problem if the WMF stepped aside. They don't do the things they should be doing and need to do and only seem to be focused on things that none of the rest of us care about or deem important....like Visual editor and Flow. Both of which are a long way fro being developed to a point where they are useful here and even then they are being developed how the developers want to do things and not what is beneficial. 71.126.152.253 (talk) 20:07, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
The problem is not that a significant minority, admins or otherwise denies that we have a problem, that minority has long dwindled below the level that can block change. At worst we have a small number who will oppose some reforms such as unbundling block newbie because things aren't yet so broken as to require that change. The real problem is that we disagree wildly as to what the solution(s) should be, and that many of those who support some reforms believe that some of the alternatives would be counterproductive. The implication of that is that we need to shift our focus away from convincing people that RFA is broken and focus on trying to achieve consensus for some particular changes. ϢereSpielChequers 21:27, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

(unindent) If we are serious about reforming RFA, we need to break off a few bite-size changes to implement and not try to fix the whole shebang in one fell swoop. For example, one problem has been the rise of opposes based on semi-arbitrary criteria like the creation of FAs and GAs. We could try to institute a policy that would make those oppose votes invalid. Andrevan@ 23:03, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Non-starter -- what would happen is that people would then use "accepted" criteria for their votes so they would not be thrown out. Collect (talk) 23:12, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
I agree with most of what both of you are saying. But I also disagree with parts of what you both state. The problem with those comments is that I don't have faith the community will accept any change to the RFA process regardless of how small or targetted we make it. I have seen those positive comments for years and many have tried to do just that and every suggestion has ended in failure. It has nothing to do with the validity of the suggestion, it has to do with the general inability of the community to do anything about it and the incompetence of the WMF for allowing it to get to this point and not stepping in to do something about it. I also consider it a failure of Arbcom and the bureaucrcts and the admins for allowing a minority of their peers to continue abusing the tools unmolested. Its easy just to look the other way,it takes courage and strength to do something about it. If they don't have the strength or courage to fix it they should let others do it. Not continue to block suggestions to fix the problems with hyperbole and what if scenario's. We also should not need to unbundle the tools because we don't trust our editors. Let them have some rope and if they screw up tighten the noose. This would require a couple things that we don't currently have. First, it would require trust which is something this community no longer has; Second it would require a change to make the tools easier to get like in the old days (which makes up the majority of our current admin corps so it must have worked pretty well); third we need to make it easier to take the tools away if people screw up. Admins shouldn't have unlimited impunity to be assholes. None of these is likely to occur however. So there is little need for me to continue to dwell on it. 71.126.152.253 (talk) 23:17, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
"...one problem has been the rise of opposes based on semi-arbitrary criteria like the creation of FAs and GAs." - we need to investigate and provide stats to demonstrate just how much this is accurate. I've said many times before that the majority of participants at RfA are very transient, leaving only a small pool of regular voters. What seems obvious to me, although it would be difficult, if not impossible to prove, is that many voters do little or no research into the candidate's background. Among those regular voters who have published their criterta, many have very different criteria. On the whole, taking all kinds of voters, the overall criteria are therefore set anew for each RfA depending on who turns out to vote. Hence, it is not the system which is broken, but the process that allows certain types of voting by certain types of voters.
I've also mentioned many times previously that there are basically two camps: 1) those who wish to maintain high standards in order to prevent unsuitable candidates from passing (this is quite different from admins abusing their powers to keep new candidates out), and 2) those who think the standards should be lower, giving new admins enough rope to hang themselves later. In the latter, it would create more bureaucracy, and one that would be very incomplete without an easier system in place for desysoping. There are possibly some tools that could be unbundled for use in exceptional circumstances, but until someone starts an RfC, we cannot possibly speculate on the outcome. That said, has anyone tried reviewing and analysing just exactly who voted 'oppose' on all the dozens of RfCs to unbundle tools, make major changes to RfA, or adminship in general?
I still resent the notion that all admins are potential badmins. There was talk above about identifying possible badmins, but that would require a systematic evaluation of every one of the 1,400 sysops, and not only their use of tools, but their judgement and comments in non-tool areas, and civility. It would be a dangerous exercise because it would be assuming bad faith on the part of all admins, but such stats could, theoretically, be useful. After all, the persistent negative claims about admins is soon going to need backing up, otherwise those mantras will (and already do) fall on deaf ears. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:04, 10 November 2013 (UTC) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:04, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
I agree with you that not all admins are bad, in fact I have mentioned that it is a minority. The proble is no one is doing anything about them so IMO they are contributing to the problem by ignoring it. If they did the right thing and police their own, or the Bureau's did it, or Arbcom did it, or the WMF did it then the problems would be mitigated. But since none of those groups are interested in doing what is essentially all their jobs to some degree, it continues to be a problem; it continues to hinder recruiting and keeping new editors; it continues hindering allowing editors from helping and it continues to bog down the process with needless politics and redtape. I also don't think it would be all that hard to look through the admins. You could eliminate probably 1000 almost immediately because they don't even use the tools, then you could narrow the scope even further buy grouping them into activity levels. Start with the most active and then eliminate each group. The bad ones stand out just as much as the good ones so they are easy to find. Another possibility is to do an editor survey, see what the community tells you are the bad apples. The world wont come crashing down if we defrock a few rogues anymore than it will by not promoting deserving editors to admin.71.126.152.253 (talk) 01:34, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
I'm taking it as a given that the problem with RFA is that it's too hard on candidates which discourages participation; therefore I would be in the category of whose who believe that community standards have drifted too high for what is essentially still "not a big deal." I do agree with you that fundamentally RFA works and we don't need to throw out the mechanisms or the general shape and characteristics that RFA has had since 2003 or whenever. In my view, the problem is not that admins as a class have decided to prevent the creation of more of themselves, but that the community has created an unreasonably high standard of achievement to prove that one is a serious contributor, perhaps as a form of subconscious competition or one-upmanship. This has developed slowly over the years. I remember when the first editors started stating their criteria as 1800-2000 edits, before too long we had instituted today's edit count and contribution history review or inquisition of sorts. I think this has snowballed somewhat such that if you don't have broad participation in many policy pages, backlogs and mechanisms you will be opposed. I don't think a WikiGnomic admin needs to be a major content contributor, nor do I think a prolific article writer should have to deal with things like deletion or non-free image removals. That being said, the constants for good admins are communication skills, cool heads, civility, thoughtfulness, attention to detail, and the like. I agree we could end up playing whack-a-mole if we disallow specific lines of reasoning in advance, but the bureaucrats can adapt, and if the response to disallowing invalid reasoning results in the construction of a legitimate argument, that seems like a feature not a bug to me. Andrevan@ 02:00, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
  • I can't help but say this again: I think it's time that someone took the initiative to use their skills with regex or whatever, and provide some tables that we can examine to prove or disprove the claims by both sides. I spent enough time a couple of years ago on WP:RFA2011 so there's no point in waiting in the hope that I'm going to do it, besides which, I still spend far too much time on this forum just talking about things and doing battle with Kumioko (who is actually a nice guy). That's the way to go about it - c'mon people, let's get some up to date facts into the discourse. Let's get this table (How they voted) updated for starters, also adding a column for logged admin actions where the admins are concerned - there's a huge amount of information in it still waiting to be extrapolated, and a lot of other graphs and tables on that page that I feel sure not everyone has taken the trouble to visit. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:02, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
    And it would be great to have an analog of these statistics, not all-time, but just for a recent period, say, 6 months.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:23, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
    I agree Kudpung, after seeing countless proposals and RFC's fail, many of which were good ideas and would be a big improvement, I have no desire to use my time in what would be a failure and amount to nothing more than a waste of time. I also think its pretty sad that the primary user advocating change is one the majority of the community would like to see leave and not come back. That doesn't reflect well on the community or the project. 71.126.152.253 (talk) 15:04, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
    Kumioko, who are you talking about with the "primary user" comment? Binksternet (talk) 15:44, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
    Looking at this table (How they voted) I cant stop thinking that hope seems to be that if enough data is gathered then somehow someone will read correct answer out from it, but nobody has any real idea how that answer should be found. Simply having lots of statistics wont do. If you count in all RFAs, including total failures and complete successes, then you will just get bunch of extra garbage that doesn't give you any useful information how those more borderline cases could have done better. Similarly going to voter level, supporters cant tell you what could have made opposers/neutrals more favourable to borderline candidates, only opposers or neutrals can tell you that. Simply gathering all possible statistics wont help, you need to get data that is directly relevant to making RFA process easier to pass.--Staberinde (talk) 18:02, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
    I'm talking about myself of course. 71.126.152.253 (talk) 18:07, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
    I don't think that's a great idea, the same people that !voted oppose in a borderline passing RfA will also vote support in a landslide and etc. for all combinations—individual !votes are no more interesting than the average participant. Also those tables seem to show the RfA pass rate has't really decreased, so making it easier to pass may not be the issue so much as getting more people to put themselves forward Jebus989✰ 19:45, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Standards (i.e. voters' individual criteria) may not actually have risen much in the post 2007 years. What we do have is an exponentially increasing number of editors who, over time, are likely to meet them. There was also an exponential increase in bad faith oppose voting and, which seems to have somewhat abated recently, while the support sections are still frequented by a large number of one-off and rare visitors to RfA, and just a few admins and regular participants.

Here's a list of users' essays and voting criteria:

List

Users

Older pages

RfA !voters' brief comments on standards. The pages A–Z are classed as 'inactive'. The comments have mostly petered out since around 2006–2007, but may be helpful for research.

I'm not so sure that that the dramatic decline in candidates over the past couple of years is directly due to potential candidates feeling that the standards are too high. It may be more that a combination of the increases in disingenuous voting, exposure of RfA reform, campaigns for easier desysoping, and in the general tarring of all admins with the same brush, are what are putting people off. Ironically, in inverse proportion to the number of RfAs, the number of voters on each RfA has increased, and 100+ support votes are no longer a rarity.

On another note, I see a rather disquieting percentage of desysops 'for cause' being to highly visible admins, 'crats, or arbs. There were a couple of desysops this year (I stayed completely of of those cases) where I had already seen the writing on the wall a long time back, and just had to sit back and wait. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:19, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

That is an interesting list of criteria. I had seen many of them but didn't know about some of those. It might be useful to create a consolidated essay somewhere of the various good ideas of what it takes to become an admin. It should also be noted that I actually meet most of the criteria from the majority of those and at least one of those users, User:A Nobody, has been banned from Wikipedia. I also think some of the criteria are unrealistic and very few would qualify or are unnecessary and unrelated to RFA and shouldn't be used as a criteria. I also note another interesting fact of these. They all list multiple technical qualifications that few candidates being promoted these days have showing they seem to favor those admins who are less technical over being mediators. Its also interesting to me that several of the criteria would disqualify many of the current admins if they were held up to the light such as Blocks, bad attitudes towards other editors, abusive use of the tools like extraordinarily long blocks for minor infractions of policy and low vote records at venues like AFD or CFD. It seems to me if these criteria are to be used to prevent users from getting the tools, the same criteria should be used at removing them from users who fail to uphold the standards. Otherwise their just hypocritical. 71.126.152.253 (talk) 12:08, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
What it takes to become an admin ought to be common sense, but when I think about the regular stream of emails I receive from some who want to be nominated or would like my opinion, I'm not so sure. That's why this got written. -Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:46, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
Hypocrisy only comes into play when someone argues for higher standards for others than they intend to follow themselves. If an admin opposed a candidate on grounds that would get that admin desysopped or would have trashed their RFA then they might be being hypocritical. But of course an admin who passed RFA prior to 2009 without ever citing a reliable source could now argue that standards have risen, and that by modern standards they themselves shouldn't have become an admin until a year after they did. Equally a !voter who themselves thinks that they aren't ready for adminship is not hypocritical in opposing someone who is as qualified as themselves. Specifically at AFD/CSD, an active admin who never works in those areas but instead specialises in block appeals, protections or requested moves is a different and known quantity from an RFA candidate who says they intend to work at CSD or AFD but has little relevant experience. We have hundreds of admins whose recent levels of activity would see them fail an RFA, but none of those hundreds are being hypocritical unless they themselves oppose similar candidates to themselves for taking a recent wikibreak or "insufficient recent activity". Very few of our 1400 admins, far less than a tenth of them, are regulars at RFA. I doubt if there are many hypocritical !votes, off hand I can't recall any. But we do have lots of Admins who are aware that current RFA standards would have seen their own RFA fail, and in many cases we have admins who suspect that if they had not become admins when they did and were to run now they would not pass. Such admins are not necessarily being hypocritical in continuing to be admins, especially not if they consider RFA to be broken. ϢereSpielChequers 12:48, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
Inactivity isn't really what I'm referring too although I admit I do agree with removing the tools from inactive editors. I would even agree that we should drop it from 1 year to 6 months. What I mean is that some admins, over time, start to become callous towards other editors. Rather than start with minimum blocks they go straight to indefinite. Some show extremely poor judgement at AFD,CFD and other venues where they vote to delete nearly everything they come across. When you look at the criteria of these "checklists" I can see one or 2 admins for most of the "criteria". Some fail multiple criteria. Its a very minor group of admins, some active and some less so. But no one is removing the tools from them for violating the rules which are used as criteria that's used to promote them. That is what I mean by hypocritical. We are holding editors to a higher standard than admins. That just ain't right no matter how some admins might try and justify it. No RFA reform is going to be accepted or take hold unless something is done to equal the imbalance. If we are goign to set criteria for RFA that's totally fine but we need to hold our admins to the same standard. Not relax the rules once they become admins. Furthermore I still contend that for many to insist the community can only be trusted with voting in admins and not having a say in getting rid of the bad ones or the ones that violate policy is also hypocritical and gives a lot of validation to my assertions that there is an us and them mentality between the admins and the editors. 71.126.152.253 (talk) 14:55, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

IMO in all of the complexities of this, there is one (IMHO no-brainer obvious) area to take a step forward on which would be uncontroversial and no-brainer certain to help. And that would be to compile a short list of qualities sought, and to structure RFA to urge respondents to evaluate the candidate in those areas, I.E. make so that some of their feedback shifts to being on those topics. That would reduce the randomness, superficiality and grudge-based feedback attributes. This could be slowly developed and tried, first on a tiny basis, so it would not need the huge decision which this process has been unable to come up with. North8000 (talk) 13:13, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree that agreeing a criteria would be an obvious reform, and it would bring RFA more into line with processes that work like Rollback or FAC. However after proposing User:WereSpielChequers/RFA_reform#Agree_a_criteria_for_adminship more than once, I wouldn't describe the idea as uncontroversial, and even if we get agreement to set a criteria setting the criteria itself will be contentious. ϢereSpielChequers 13:34, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
My idea specifically AVOIDS setting it as a criteria, something that heavy duty and controversial is certain to die under it's own weight. It's just to describe some desirable qualities, and give the RFA discussions a nudge to talk a little more about those and place a little extra value on those. North8000 (talk) 13:39, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
I / let's might even start it via a few edits in that "what respondents are likely to look for" material which has a lot of offbeat stuff in it. That would be just an incubator. North8000 (talk) 13:41, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
Not calling it a criteria might not be the solution, I suspect that would just get the idea trashed as a criteria that pretended not to be. I think it would be safer to call it a core criteria as that acknowledges that not everything can be set in the criteria. ϢereSpielChequers 14:02, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
I think that you are right regarding where it should end up. I think that I'm right regarding a realistic way to start going there. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:43, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
So a "no brainer" reason this wouldn't work is that it's practically a tautology. Problem: disagreement amongst participants on what is required of admin candidates; solution: agree what is required of admin candidates. If you manage to freeze out all those with conflicting opinions and just write your own criteria, it's equivalent to those userspace pages linked above and should set no more of a precedent than they do Jebus989✰ 16:24, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
Does an essay exist approximating User:Kudpungs advice for candidates, which is aimed at potential !voters? I have not been able to locate it. (Sorry if I am just missing it). I think it would be a useful thing. All !voters would be strongly encouraged to read it before participating in RfAs. It would explain some of the attitudes or approaches to avoid as being unhelpful, and would encourage tips on what to look for in a candidate, how to research candidates histories constructively, etc. I would propose an RfA moderator, using this guidance as a template, ruling out some of the grosser attacks from ill-informed and/or unconstructive !voters. I would see an active arbitor actually pro-actively involved in the voting discussion, controlling the more unhelpful or obviously POV voters. Voters should also recognise their responsibility in the process, if we have the vision that all members of the community are indeed equal. A society ends up with the police force it deserves, ive heard it said. The same probably holds true of WP. Irondome (talk) 16:42, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
Relevant: RfA clerks (failed proposal) Jebus989✰ 16:46, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
  • I think that should be re-evaluated in terms of our present discussion, redrafted and re proposed. This could be the way in. Every debate has a chairperson. I think it would greatly decrease RfA stress to potential candidates, and is a first step to more reform, if it was accepted. Also, I am assuming there is still some traction for your "experiment, User:Jebus989. How do you feel about it now? In terms of my OP, I am thinking now that if utilised in the short term, without other changes to buttress it, periodic re-election would be damaging. In the context of a reforming RfA process though, I think its the way to go, in the long term. Irondome (talk) 23:52, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Although I share skepticism that requiring certain things for an RFA is unlikely to pass, what I think would be useful and generally accepted is if an essay were written that combines the various "criteria" that some use into one central document. Most of them share a lot of the same criteria anyway, most editors probably have some criteria they use even if only mentally and not written down. This could also help to inform those who might be considering running but don't know if they are qualified. We don't need to require its use immediately, but having something drafted would be a good step in the right direction. 71.126.152.253 (talk) 17:05, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
That one is focused on signs, which is fine. I was thinking of coming up with a few that are "qualities" (which those signs could be an indicator of) Another maybe even more on target is the "what voters are looking for" type sections in Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship. We should pick one that will be the incubator and go to work there. North8000 (talk) 17:27, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Note that in spite of all the recent discussion in several sections on this page, we have gone about a week now without an open RfA. This is becoming an all-too-common occurrence. AutomaticStrikeout (₵) 21:14, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
The reasons for that should be obvious. It's been discussed ad nauseam for years to such an extent that they no longer need any stats to prove them.
To arrive at any detailed stats of individual performance, especially behavioural, there is no work-around to doing it manually. Good luck for anyone who has the time to go through the RfAs of 1,400 admins and their edits.
I think there is nothing to be gained in collating a set of adminship criteria; as I've said many times, most of the voters are transient, and in any case, few appear to do any particular research before voting. If a user is seriously interested in becoming an admin, all they have to do is read WP:RFAADVICE and follow all the links in it and they'd soon find out what is required of them. Investing a couple of hours to do that is the least they could be expected to do. Why should we spoon feed them? We need candidates of the right calibre to come forward, and they will have the intelligence to know what is required of admins. Those who have joined Wikipedia with the sole intention of becoming a admin some day (and there are most definitely many of these) should probably best not be encouraged. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:13, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
That wasn't the idea. It was to develop a few desirable qualities, and nudge the RFA discussion to be more about those and less about the random and grudge stuff. North8000 (talk) 23:56, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
As much as it may seem to the contrary, not having any candidates or promotions for a month or few is actually a good thing. As long as the occassional candidate is getting the tools some will insist the process works. Which we all pretty much agree it doesn't. The only way it will be fixed is to let it go to a state that so few admins are getting the tools, something must be done. At this point that is the only way I see change occurring to improve the RFA process. 71.126.152.253 (talk) 03:54, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
That kind of thinking is better saved for end time arguments—"let's allow the system to become as messed up as possible so that it can eventually be fixed." I strongly protest such a WP:POINTy strategy. Binksternet (talk) 05:33, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
Oh stop being so dramatic Binksternet. It is perfectly sensible to allow the already messed up system to run to its logical conclusion. The current admins as a group will never voluntarily release their grip on the levers of power. That will not happen until they have no choice. Letting the system run itself into the ground so it can finally be replaced with a decent and more workable system is the best possible outcome. Then we can have a system worthy of the better admins and less demeaning to content builders. The worst possible option is to keep trying to prop up the current mess. Then we will just get an endless cycle of what we already have. --Epipelagic (talk) 05:52, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
An intellectualised version of what is basically the game of chicken is probably not the best way forward either. Lets not stray into magnified shadows territory again. If we keep emphasising the them and us anecdotal stuff, we will be doing no camp any favours. The idea is to destroy the distinctions in the longer term. Thats my goal here anyway Irondome (talk) 06:04, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
Can you explain what that is meant to mean? It doesn't seem to be addressing the point here. --Epipelagic (talk) 06:12, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
I think it is very precisely. I will expand after I get some kip, later. Cheers Irondome (talk) 06:34, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
It's perfectly clear what Irondome is saying. To illustrate a point.... Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:51, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I've realized for a long time that this reform talk with no action is all in vain. If we really want something done, somebody just has to be bold and get it done. Sure, big decisions require community input, but you can't satisfy everybody. You have to be willing to make compromises, even if it leaves a few people partially or even completely unsatisfied. The UtahraptorTalk/Contribs 17:01, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree that something should to be done, but what do you have in mind? AutomaticStrikeout (₵) 17:13, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
See my reply to Calmer Waters. The UtahraptorTalk/Contribs 06:27, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
Contrary to what Binksternet infers by his comments above, the comments I left as IP 71.126.152.253 are not based on pure pessimism. They are pessimistic but that is based on years of experience with Wikipedia and the communities repeated admittance that the RFA process needs to be reformed along with the communities repeated failure to do anything about it. Virtually everyone (all as far as I know in fact) believe the RFA process is a nightmare. Virtually everyone thinks it needs to change and has flaws. Every conceivable idea has been presented multiple times. Many of them were very, very good ideas. None of them passed, not one. No matter how good the idea or how well well its articulated nor how much support it has, there will always be a few that don't agree for one reason or another. This minority insist the changes don't meet consensus and the change doesn't occur. In order for a change it takes an unrealistic super majority of the community. If people are serious about wanting Wikipedia to succeed they need to stop holding onto this false sense that admins are above editors, that editors can't be trusted and that the RFA process can't or shouldn't be changed. Its also unrealistic to say that editors just need to be bold. First, such actions in an RFA would almost certainly lead to a block, a bureaucrat would need to intervene to even give someone the tools and its doubtful they would get away with arbitrarily granting the tools to someone. In theory, the bureaus could all vote on someone and give them the tools if they all agreed but that would likely be controversial. Other than that I agree not everyone would be happy. 138.162.8.58 (talk) 17:25, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
I don't believe it is a nightmare. It could be better, but until editors are willing to sit down in an organized way, identify the goals, identify possible solutions, review the shortcomings and refine the proposals, nothing is going to happen. The throw something at the wall to see if it will stick has failed. Again, and again, and again. That's why I think a different approach is warranted.--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:38, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
What you are asking for has been done multiple times. There is the one from last year by Dank and the one from 2011 mentioned multiple times here. Those are just 2. So no, I do not believe that just coming together to solve the problem is going to solve the problem. The problem is more culturally systemic than that. Unless something happens that causes a majority of the community to accept finally that the RFA process must change (like not having any new admins elected for a period of time) its not going to change. Its not that there is a lack of willing participants or good ideas, its a matter of community will. Right now the community not only lacks the will...but the desire as well. Few want to spend their time in discussions that have, repeatedly, ended in failure. Too few people hold out hope that this process can be changed, myself included. 138.162.8.58 (talk) 17:56, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
The idea of a committee designated for this task appears to have the teeth for such a task, if they were allowed to have a set period for research, workshop, and trial. A Wikipedia site wide voting process for those interested in being in the committee can be selected from a pre agreed upon number of bureaucrats, admins, and non-admins. There could be a questioning period and then a voting period. The arbcom process is one that appears to work fairly well and could be tailored to fit this. Once voted in, they have the ability to really work on the problems addressed above. There could be a workshop page where other can suggest ideas, suggestions and comments, allowing others to assist without detracting or disruption. This will also allow added transparency. When the date of trial submission has been reached and all research and proposals agreed upon by its membership and the committee has agreed on a draft, it could be presented to say arbcom, Jimbo, or the WMF to sign off on for those who appreciate an official like close. Then the new system is set in play. Controversial? Probably. A lot of work? Definitely. But able to be enacted? I think so. Calmer Waters 04:29, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
And see, this makes sense to me. I think this would be a wonderful thing to do. But what's going to be difficult is getting people interested in this. Wikipedia is a community of volunteers, and as such most people just aren't interested in putting all that time and all that effort into a project that has little to no impact on their real world lives. The biggest problem in RfA reform isn't RfA's voters, these discussions, or anything like that. The problem is that most people simply don't feel like doing anything because it doesn't have any kind of significant impact on their real world lives. It's a shame they feel that way, but that's how it is. The UtahraptorTalk/Contribs 06:27, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Signpost

I wasn't aware until now that the Signpost had a series of articles on Admins/Adminship but the last article was issued in January 2013. I suggested on their talk page that one of their writers visit this talk page to read over the comments but I'm not sure how likely that is as there really isn't a "news" angle here. Still, I think if anyone wanted to write up a summary of suggestions for RfAs proposed here and submit it, it could get printed and the conversation might get restarted. ;-) Liz Read! Talk! 23:33, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I've written or contributed to several Signpost articles, including some on RFA, but I wasn't planning on doing the next one till the new year. I'm not sure that an article that just focussed on the possible changes would cause a spike, my experience is that you need to make it clear that RFA is not as bad as its reputation, and that there are many experienced editors who would sail through uncontentiously. Partly that's down to my personal time commitments, partly because for some years we've had one annual spike in RFAs after a signpost article, and if we had two in one year it would muck up the stats, but also some of the stats are just a little easier if you do them at year end. I think that the news for a Jan 2014 article would be that the decline in new admins has finally levelled out, but that the decline in the number of active admins has continued and unless we fix RFA will do so for some time. But biggest of all is the Wikigeneration issue. I covered this in my 2010 article and both the average and minimum length of service of admins have dramatically grown since then. Of course this is partly because we aren't recruiting so many new editors nowadays, and we are much worse at turning newbies into active editors. But the change is staggering. In August 2010 I worried that "there is now a gulf growing between admins and non admins in terms of "Wiki generations". Over 90% of our admins first edited more than three and a half years ago. It is probably no surprise that there are no admins who first edited in 2010, but only nine started editing in 2009 and thirty-eight in 2008." A little over three years later and Over 99% of our admins first edited more than three and a half years ago. It is probably no surprise that there are no admins who first edited in 2013, but none started in 2012 and only 2 in 2011, 7 in 2010, 23 in 2009 and 55 in 2008. 90% of our admins first edited over six and a half years ago. These stats are stark and my experience at least at WT:RFA is that the Wikigeneration divide is very much with us. That said reading through the list of those admins whose first edit was in the 2008-2010 era there are several arbs, so perhaps the wikigeneration divide is more pronounced between admins and the rest than it is between arbs and the community. ϢereSpielChequers 08:17, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Observation

Being basically a WikiGnome myself, I can't help but notice that in the past few months' of RfAs that I've looked at, some Editors/Admins oppose a candidate primarily because the individual hasn't devote a substantial amount of their time and edits to writing new articles (and it's article creation, not editing, that counts). And it's not just creating stub or start articles, it's creating exceptional articles that is now expected. So this can result in Oppose votes for otherwise productive Editors who might toil away reviewing articles, working in Mediation or at the Help Desk, or fighting vandalism because they have no GAs or FAs to their name.

I can't believe that this expectation was present even a few years ago because I see many active Admins who contribute loads of time to the many important areas of Wikipedia that are essential for the smooth running of the encyclopedia, but little to new article creation. I completely understand the importance of new article creation for the vitality of Wikipedia and its future. I'm just not clear on why being an outstanding writer is a necessary qualification for becoming a good Admin.

So, that's my perception and you can argue that it's on the mark or way off. I should add that some of these candidates have passed their RfAs in spite of the opposition to their lack of writing expertise. It's just in looking over Oppose votes (which are, unfortunately, always longer and more detailed than Support votes), I see this same criteria coming up again and again. Liz Read! Talk! 22:02, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

This is an significant point. Wikipedia has developed to a high degree of maturity and it is becoming as important to protect the good material that we have as to create new material. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:18, 2 November 2013 (UTC).
I think it comes down to showing that the person has attempted to try to build the Pedia and understands not just the policies needed in the role, but also how those on the affected side of the tools may feel when used. Most say, not looking for GA or FA, but something. I believe having those focusing on vandalism and other meta areas is vital; however, it's not out of the realm to expect someone to learn what goes into making an article and collaborating with others on them. It really isn't asking so much and a certain amount of clue is shown by knowing this prior to attempting an RFA. Calmer Waters 22:32, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
I agree; extenuating that it becomes a bit more requisite, in my opinion, when the candidate expresses an intention to administer csd/afd deletions.—John Cline (talk) 22:46, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
I do not have GAs and FAs, and I explained in my RFA statement why I am not planning to have any. There were no opposes based on this ground. I think the voters just believed my explanation.--Ymblanter (talk) 03:35, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
I don't think that the content requirement is to have a GA or FA, I'm not seeing many !voters who are opposing for the lack of audited content. But I do think that the de facto requirements include having mastered the art of adding reliably sourced content to the pedia. Any candidate who doesn't take the opportunity of using question 2 to give examples of them doing that is going to have problems. ϢereSpielChequers 22:37, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
I also don't think that FA, GA, or DYK are necessary(#4), but I do think a very minimum of article creation and/or an equivalent amount of new content should demonstrate that we are here first and foremost to build an encyclopedia and not a MMPORG. People don't join the army just because they want to shoot guns, and they don't join the police force just because they want to drive a fast car with a blue light and a siren and hand out speeding fines. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:27, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
Well, Kudpung กุดผึ้ง, I don't see mediating disputes, closing CfDs, protecting pages, closing discussions on noticeboards, offering guidance to new editors, etc., as the "glamour" part of being an Admin. Not every Admin needs the tools to block other users as Admins generally focus their efforts on a couple of different areas of Wikipedia.
For example, if someone has an excellent record fighting vandalism, it might be nice to have another Admin working in that area even though an Editor doesn't need to be an Admin to fight vandalism. See there are two different approaches...the generalist approach views top Admin candidates to have lots of experience in many areas of Wikipedia so they are well-rounded (even though they will actually probably only work in a couple of areas). The other approach, the specialist, argues that it's talented Editors who should get the tools so there are a representative number of Admins present in all areas of Wikipedia, so there are Admins present in Dispute Resolution, on Help Desk or Reference Desk duty, in deletion discussions or article creation. You elect someone who has the right temperament, experience and attitude to be an Admin and then they continue to work in the fields they excel at.
Right now, it seems like the generalist approach is the dominant one seen in RfAs (although people voting do not need to share their rationale for their votes). I guess what I'm trying to get across is that there are different ways to select leaders.
I realize that suggesting reforms of the RfA process is a perennial activity for many. But this is not about changing the process, it's about viewing Admins in a different way, as more than just users who can hand out blocks, but as genuine leaders wherever they choose to work. Liz Read! Talk! 01:32, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
There is just one flaw in that argument: At RfA we don't elect leaders, we elect janitors. The only difference between those janitors and the non-admins is that the janitors wanted to be janitors so they tried their chances at RfA, and if they passed they demonstrated that they could be trusted with a bunch of keys, know most of the corridors and rooms, and not to use them for locking the wrong doors for the wrong reasons. For leaders, we have a lot of prolific, very well respected active users who help develop new things, define policies, help other users, review and pass FA and GAN, and close RfCs without an admin flag. There is absolutely no glamour whatsoever in being an admin - if you stay in the safe areas of admin work that don't attract controversy, you'll never get noticed (but your work is still important), and if you are one of the 20 - 30 who are bold enough to enter the danger zones without a Kevlar vest, you'll get noticed alright but what you take is flak and criticism from the detractors for just doing your job. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:28, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
Actually no. We should be electing janitors but the process is designed to elect conservative leaders. The problem is, most of them don't lede. In fact most admins don't do anything...or very little...and that's the problem. The current RFA process favors promoting ineffectual editors to admins. For every 10 admins we promote, only a couple use the tools with any frequency. The rest just add the icon to their userpages ad strut around. If some of these "wanna be's" wants to do some work then they should do some, otherwise the community needs to start promoting people who are willing to do the work, not the ones who will keep quite and play nice. I like you Kudpung I think your one of the better admins but the more I see your comments the more I think that the process won't change because too many admins find an excuse to keep it. No change is good enough so we may as well leave it be. I also don't agree that admins who do certain tasks are more prone to attracting criticism. Although that is true to a point, more often than not they attract criticism because they start to get arrogant and do whatever they want with impunity. They know they can't be touched, so they can do whatever they want. Many get bolder and bolder and no one does anything. I keep checking back thinking these discussions might be of some benefit. But I check back less and less and when I do, I see that the attitude here is that of general complacency. If the community doesn't have the desire or morale courage to do the right thing and help build up the project, then I have no desire to be here. As it is, its just a bunch of admins trying to hold onto their power and shooting down any suggestions to upend the system that got them that power. When you are interested in building an encyclopedia and are willing to make changes to benefit the project and not yourselves let me know. I would love to participate in that project. Kumioko (talk) 03:16, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
I don't know for sure if admins should be leaders or even if such qualities are anticipated at RfA; lead by example yes, but that's not the same thing. I've certainly never seen myself as a leader either - a mover-and-shaker maybe, because someone has to get the ball rolling but the rest is up to the community. I did my bit a couple of years ago by investing many hours in WP:RFA2011, which was not, I hasten to add, a project to help admins retain their superpowers and exclude others from it. The project was born of the very arguments the regular detractors make about all that's wrong with adminship and the way the sysops are elected. If I still comment here or vote regularly at RfA, it's because I'm still very concerned that the bit is not given to the wrong people while all the time hoping that more candidates of the right calibre will come forward, but I'm unlikely to be active on any new campaigns for reform. In an environment where the same detractors are persistently shooting the messengers, it's just not worth it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:04, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
And RFA2011 ended just as every other related one ended, in failure. Largely because too many do not want the system to change. Not you necessarily, but many. The problem is we need to do multiple things to fix the system and we can't even get one to pass. I obviously don't have any faith in the system left and I have a pretty strong disdain for the current system. I also don't think several of the current admins should be allowed to call themselves admins. In the end though no one really gives a shit what I think. I'm just a fool tilting at windmills. Because its easier to discredit my comments as heresy than to fix the obvious problem that a lot of editors see but continue to ignore. I see the problems and I see them getting much worse. That can be seen in the numbers of how 2 are promoted for every ten that have the tools taken away. I can also see already that the only way things are going to change is when the project gets to the brink of collapse. I hope Wikia is solid enough it can take the articles over at that point. What is needed is a major house cleaning and a complete and total restructuring of how the tools are used and who gets them. Good luck with that! Till then, those of us that want to help won't and we will continue to loose contributors to this arcane and outdated bureaucratic system. Kumioko (talk) 04:43, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
Liz could not be more wrong. Considering I just finished dealing with a serious content problem in a DYK review from a new admin (whose RFA I just browsed and it showed no content experience), I'm reminded that those who don't know how to build content and don't know Wikipedia's core policies and guidelines that govern content should not be policing same. No, you don't need GAs or FAs, and those don't guarantee good admins, but please ... stop supporting admin candidates who don't know the fundamentals of how content is built or even our core policies, like BLP or NOR, or guidelines, like reliable sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:07, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
@SandyGeorgia: I couldn't agree more.
@Kumioko: I have a very soft spot for anyone who takes the time (and spends their money) to attend a Wikimania. When we met, we should have taken the opportunity to discuss these issues, pity we didn't - mature blokes like us can usually talk things through. We all know what axe you are grinding, but never say nothing can be done about it. There is a huge amount of resources in WP:RFA2011 and the only reason none of the proposals were launched is because several of us got simply fed up with the barracking from the sidelines from wannabe's who would never get the tools if they asked for them - under the current system, others who were simply demonstrating righteous indignation at having been (most probably) rightfully admonished, and some who are like those who go to a peaceful demo just to throw rocks, smash shop windows, and set fire to cars. In the finish when the background din was getting so loud, we decided either to continue the project off-Wiki and get accused of being a cabal, or dropping the whole thing. We dropped it. There are several ready-to-go proposals in there that are just waiting for someone to take them to RfC. I doubt very much if ever one of the radical alternatives to the adminship system will ever gain traction, but unbundling some of the tools may be an answer although there again, detractors are worried about creating more hats for the kids to collect, some would fume if their requests for the rights would get denied, while others are genuinely concerned about the added bureaucracy an extended priesthood of gatekeepers would create. I don't believe for a second that there is a cabal of admins who practice a single-party exclusion policy - we're not a military dictatorship. If more people of the right calibre would run for office, we'd get, well, more admins of the right calibre rather than teenage hotheads or pompous adults who are used to throwing their weight around in RL. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:49, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
Y'know, if we could distil Kumioko, SandyGeorgia and Kudpung into a single concoction and require all Wikipedians to drink it, Wikipedia would be invincible. --Epipelagic (talk) 10:43, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
@Kudpung:, actually several people of the right calibre have run and didn't make it. No I'm not talking about me. There are several others that have tried to get the tools and the community told them no. Sometimes for petty reasons and I know you have seen it too. Then as I said the majority of those that get it don't use it. Sure they might use them occasionally, but their not really making any impact and this site is too reliant on the same few admins like Plastikspork who does the vast majority of Stuff for deletion closures and Sandy with the FA's. If they leave, or several others like them, then those venues virtually collapse. Look at what happen to Featured pictures when Durova left. That venue is deader than a doornail. Aside from unbundling we also need to eliminate the admin for life mentality and the admins are above reproach policy. Not to mention the misconception you need to be a saint to have the tools. People keep mentioning how they don't trust me with the block button but the truth is I think 98% of blocks should be undone and virtually all blocks longer than a week should be restricted to a higher review than one admin. So the times I would even use that button are so rare its almost not worth having. Its just an excuse to prevent me from interfering with their POV and personal agendas. Not all of course, but quite a few. When we have admins who are indefinitely blocking IP ranges or users for a minor infraction or making up rules as they go along, then we are just hurting the project. Did you know we currently block about 3% of the entire internet from editing. That may not sound like a lot, but it is. I know people get irritated about me but then they completely ignore the real problems like admins abusing new editors and the severe abuses of power like the ones at AE because they can't do anything about those. The only reason I keep coming back is because I keep seeing these discussions where people are saying half truths and trying to manipulate the discussion because not enough people know the history. Now although I have been responding in a few discussions I really have the intent to essentially retire from this site. I no longer want the tools, I no longer help out any Wikiprojects, edit articles, write code for AWB, etc. I'm done. Completely fed up with the mentality of this place and the "we don't care how much work you do we just don't like you" comments. The problem is, that is why we lose a lot of people and they don't come back, because they are fed up with it too. Kumioko (talk) 13:48, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
We've also lost around half a dozen of our busiest and fairest admins over the past 12 months because they too, simply got fed up. Those who would like to see the back of all admins are of course jumping with glee, but those admins are the hardest of all to replace. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:00, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
By my count, including those due to inactivity we lost 89 admins, only a couple asked for the tools back. Since only 30 have been promoted its easy to see there is a problem. I would also argue that there were a couple that gave up the tools I would not consider a loss. Several yes, but not all. Unfortunately the ones who need to have the tools removed, or at least restricted, still have them and are unlikely to give them up. Kumioko (talk) 14:19, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
The current admin system operates in a way that is a systemic insult to able admins and productive content builders. Able admins have to carry the burden of admins who pull the system down, and the best admins often resign or leave. The admin system is grinding Wikipedia ever deeper into muck of its own making, and we cannot look to the system itself for solutions. Maybe the only hope now is if remaining content builders revolt to the point where they can overhaul the system. --Epipelagic (talk) 22:09, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
Undermining the current state of affairs is not the way to go about building an encyclopedia. Rather, if change is in order we should all sit down and talk about it in the appropriate manner as is deserved such a large culture change. KonveyorBelt 22:15, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
You might think so, but if you stay around here for more that a few weeks, Konveyor Belt, you'll realize that not how things work around here. The precise issue is that talk about it "in the appropriate manner" achieves nothing. --Epipelagic (talk) 22:30, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
Then perhaps it is time for a change in "the appropriate manner". But running around screaming "revolt against authority!" will not get this encyclopedia built. What the content builders can do right now is continue to write articles and expand the wiki. If they make enough good contributions with no mass hysteria they have a fair shot at being an admin. By the way, what do you mean about admins who pull the system down? KonveyorBelt 22:51, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a MMORPG for teenagers, and you are not achieving anything with inflammatory language about "screaming" and "mass hysteria". See of you can write an article and get some experience with what this site is actually about. --Epipelagic (talk) 23:23, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi Konveyer Belt. I'd have said "If they make enough good contributions without being a party to controversy they have a fair shot at being an admin." In my experience the main reasons why candidates who mainly focus on building content sometimes fail at RFA are either that they don't show a need for the tools, or they don't appreciate that the Q&A section is an open book exam and that it pays to reread the relevant policy before answering each question. I'm not bothered by the odd error in the Q&A section, and I personally don't oppose candidates who haven't indicated where they would use the tools. But my experience is that those are the main risks for our "content creator" candidates. ϢereSpielChequers 00:39, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

@Kumioko:, let's keep this attrition thing in perspective because we need to avoid possible misinterpretation of the figures. Since the 'inactive' policy was enacted, many users have been procedurally desysoped but they can get the bit refunded on simple request. If they haven't asked, that part of the attrition speaks for itself and no one is expected to be a Wikipedia contributor for life - people change their hobbies or their lifestyle or simply just move on. We really have lost about half a dozen or more of the nicest and most active admins over the past 12 months (I'm not going to list them), some of whom quietly handed their tools in, while others simply went into (semi)/retirement. I know the reasons behind several of those retirements which were mainly due to RL situations or, more worrying, getting fed up with the climate here. These latter have been driven away, and as I mentioned before, they are the ones who in terms of quality and activity are the hardest to replace. If you and our friend Epipelagic and a few other non-admins who regularly voice disfavour of the current system would actively help change it, maybe there might be some progress, but it's my guess that they, like me, have run out of ideas.

WereSpielChequers feels that some failed candidates should perhaps have passed. He may well be right, but those failures were based on community consensus or in the case of close calls, a crat chat, and they are always welcome to try again as WSC did; I'm not sure though that those who took 4, 5 ,6, or 7 attempts should finally have been promoted (a quick check on their performance might show something, but there's no need to go on a witch hunt). One way to address these issues is to improve the turnout and the quality of voting. What the table I published above demonstrates is that turnout is nevertheless generally on the increase, 100+ support votes are no longer a rarity (perhaps a reason to deprecate that list), and the number of inappropriate transclusions has dropped dramatically. There is a fascinating sortable table produced by Scottywong on this page of RFA2011 where a total of 1,497 individual RfA voters' profiles were examined based on multiple criteria. With some possible new trends emerging, perhaps this table should be updated to include all the RfA that have taken place over the additional 2.5 years since the table was created. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:37, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Look, I didn't come to do battle. There is enough bickering and fighting on Wikipedia as it is. I made an observation. I proposed that there were two ways of judging candidates, looking for generalists who had a deep and wide level of experience and picking specialists, individuals who have special skills and would make good Admins based on their character.
It was just a thought I was putting out there, to see if it would prompt a conversation, which it did (thank ::y'all). I'm not proposing sweeping reforms because, I've seen, this has been done many times in the past without success. I doubt that I have insight to offer that wasn't already present in ideas that have been suggested.
Let me be totally pragmatic now: There are only 630 active Admins and, according to comments here, only about 20-100 of them are doing most of the heavy lifting. I think you could use more help. But there are competent Editors, with experience who would make decent Admins who would never put themselves through an RfA process because, frankly, unless the candidate sails through, it's an exercise in having strangers point out all of ones flaws, in a public setting and debating ones competence. Who would want to go through that unless it seems like a sure thing? And I've seen these RfA check lists of expected levels of experience and, frankly, if 1 Editor out of 10,000 meets these criteria, I'd be surprised.
So, that's the situation. If this continues, Wikipedia will get 1 or 2 new Admins every month, while a dozen or more retire or are desysop'd for lack of activity or for cause. That's the trend line, going on for more than three years, and it is unlikely to change, we are not going to suddenly see dozens of Editors with straight A+ backgrounds wanting to become Admins.
Agree with me, disagree with me. Accept my ideas or ignore them. I'm just one Editor. But the demographics point to fewer and fewer Admins shouldering more and more work resulting in more frequent burnout. And right now, it doesn't seem like the community is inclined to do anything about this. Liz Read! Talk! 03:44, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
Liz, no one is suggesting you came here to do battle. If you review the archives of this talk page you'll see that even my comments regularly come under heavy fire, but I don't get upset about it. I wouldn't say that nothing ever gets done about RfA - earlier this year Dank started a monumental effort with a string of RfCs; my main observation was that they were not widely enough published to attract sufficient participation. A huge initiative was made with WP:RFA2011 to thoroughly examine RfA; even those detractors who didn't contribute particularly objectively had their say, and their points were noted. At the very least, as this talk page demonstrates, RfA is still a very lively topic for discussion, and your comments are most welcome even if others don't agree with you. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:07, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
Kudpung กุดผึ้ง, I was just placing my comments in chronological order, I wasn't writing them in response to your wise words. I'm sorry for the confusion that resulted...I probably shouldn't have indented them. This, on the other hand, is in response to you! Liz Read! Talk! 23:27, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
In my opinion, it is critical that anyone nominated for RfA should have substantial article edit contributions as well as the courage to stand up for Wikipedia's core principles and for what is right even when they are standing alone!... After one is elected admin and has been one for a while, then they can strike a balance, and focus more on admin contributions. Anyone who agrees or disagrees with my "opinion" is welcome to express their opinion respectfully, nicely and assuming good faith.Worldedixor (talk) 05:59, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
But that's not enough for many. A lot of editors are looking for a reason to oppose not to support. I have about 30 GA's and a dozen featured but even that's not enough to support. They can give all the reasons and excuses they want but I won't be an admin because I am critical of the system and abusive admins. So that's a big part of why I stopped editing. I also agree with Liz completely. Less admins means more work for fewer of them. That means a higher stress level for those that do the work. The majority of the editors that are getting promoted are the ones who don't get involved, because those are the ones the process favors.
@Kudpung: You know that I have and that I have been active in trying to change things so you can't blame the communities failure to change the processes on me. I ignored the problem for years just like everyone else and when I finally got involved I completely destroyed any chance I have of getting the tools. As I said before, at this point I'm essentially done with Wikipedia. I have no desire to try and change anything. They can turn off the servers at this point as far as I am concerned. So no I will not be submitting an RFC or discussion to change anything, because there is little interest in the community to do that. They would rather keep things as they are until the fail than change before they do. Kumioko (talk) 12:29, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
Kunioko...you don't have to be an admin to be a somebody on the website. The tools exist solely to be a janitor and clean up stuff. I'm sorry gaining adminship has been something that has eluded you...Wikipedia isn't always fair or impartial.--MONGO 20:24, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Right, this may have been discussed somewhere but I can't see it and have limited time - (someone can link if they know) - two signs of a system in trouble would be (a) a significant number of candidates who fail who should have passed (or vice versa), and (b) a significant number of editors who won't run due to the process - are these numbers actually large? Without necessarily going into specifics and folks counting their own failed RfAs if they have one, can folks comment? My impression is that (a) is not too large as I don't recall seeing a large number where I think the result was in error (?), but (b) possibly a bigger group. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:05, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Cas Liber, Kudpung กุดผึ้ง is the user I know who has done the most study on the RfA process and maybe he could tell you. I remember recently he (I believe it was Kudpung) reviewed all of the candidates from the past year, compared their votes with the results of the RfAs and judged the process to be fair.
As for how many Editors who'd make good Admins decide not to try to become one, I don't think guesses at this number are even close since a) they are based on anecdotal information (those Editors we know) and b) most people who decide not to do something rarely talk about it. It would only happen if an Editor suggested nominating another user on their Talk Page and that user replied that they didn't want to do an RfA.
On an unrelated note, I have a script that posts how long an Editor has had an account and what User Rights they have. I think a high proportion of Admins I run across (I'd guess it's about 60-70%) have had accounts 6-8 years. When I look into when they became an Admin (when that detail is disclosed), it was between 9 and 15 months after they started editing. So, it does seem like there was a push to get more Admins during the period 2005-2008 as some Editors were given the tools with less than a year of experience. Obviously though, they were good decisions as many in that cohort are still quite active. And Wikipedia was experiencing a surge of growth around 2005-2007. So, the community can respond to a sudden need in Admins if they choose to. But Wikipedia hasn't hit this turning point yet. Maybe in another year or two though...whenever the number of active Admins falls below 500, I think it will be time to be very concerned. Liz Read! Talk! 23:27, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
I can't take the credit for having done the most research into adminship related issues. Admittedly I started WP:2011 and kept it bubbling as long as possible and kept the project's vast navigation on track, but I cajoled others into spending huge amounts of time to devise regex and other systems to come up with all the tables and extrapolations. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:18, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
Well, Kudpung กุดผึ้ง, if not you, then who would you give credit to? Because we should invite them to this conversation. Liz Read! Talk! 03:18, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
The answer to that Liz, is in the WP:RFA2011 project. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:02, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

What we don't know (and seem unable to figure out)

  • We know that the preceding section was created by User:Liz who also initiated the current discussion at the top of this page
  • We know that Liz is concerned (to paraphrase) about the obstacles to Administrator recruitment
  • We know that this concern has been raised by some editors for a few years
  • We know that serious attempts to propose restructure of RfA in 2011 and 2012 failed - completely
  • We know that some people are concerned about aspects of the existing RfA process which might contribute to a lack of fresh candidates
  • We know that a lot of effort by a few editors continues to be expended in examining, re-examining, discussing, scrutinising, analysing and regurgitating this issue, over and over again
  • We know that there have been some good-faith ideas that are, frankly, daft
  • We know that no tangible change has been affected by any of these discussions
  • We know that the place where there is evidently no shortage of Admins. is WP:AN & WP:ANI and that the problem (if there is one) must be at the more practical, mundane level where Admin. involvement is currently the only way to move things along
  • We know that for all the efforts to present available data, it is open to interpretation depending on what one wishes to achieve by way of outcome
  • We know that becoming an Admin. means (in all but exceptional circumstances) a job for life
  • We know that before a single question is answered it is possible to have up to 25 supports turn up to !vote yet such a candidate can still not pass their RfA
  • We know that too many editors across the entire range consider becoming an Admin. as (delete as appropriate): Promotion, Recognition, Election, Deserving, Achieving, Elevation, Rank, Authority
  • We know that too few editors across the entire range consider an Admin. as being (delete as appropriate): Entrusted, Selected, Suitable, Capable
  • We know that there are lots of other "knowns" which I don't know.


  • We don't know what conclusions might be drawn if and when all this data is interpreted correctly (or incorrectly)
  • We don't know why we don't know precisely what, if any, problem actually exists (with RfA)
  • We don't know precisely why candidate numbers have dropped in recent years
  • We don't know for sure that the drop off is necessarily detrimental now, next year or by 2020
  • We don't know what being an "active Admin." actually means in terms of actual Admin. activity as opposed to an Admin. simply editing
  • We don't have an undisputed, completely accurate view on the correlation between the size of the user community, the size of the active user community, the volume of contributions generated by the active community and the number of Admin. interventions required at any given time
  • We don't measure and compare critical queue sizes where Admin. intervention is required, therefore we are not measuring the real problem (if any)
  • We don't know whether any reform to RfA would have any material consequence - beneficial or not
  • We don't know why, before a single question is answered, it is possible to have up to 25 supports based on no evidence of suitability
  • We don't know for sure but one might suspect that (trigger warning: accusation of self-interest) the ultra anxiety repeatedly shown by some non-Admin. editors about this matter belies a pressing desire to become a member of the Admin. group.


  • There are many other things about RfA we do not know we don't know.

Leaky Caldron 14:36, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Nice one! Do we know whether any of the unknown unknowns, if they became known, would refute any of the known knowns? IOW, did Rumsfeld have a clue what he was talking about? --Stfg (talk) 14:48, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
I don't agree with one of your listed "knowns": that there is no lack of admins at AN and ANI. Several people who start sections there later go on to bemoan the lack of response; and ANI in particular is a fashionable place for non-admins to hang out, partly as preparation for RfA (some do use participation there as a measure of suitability; and it can be argued to be a good place to get to know issues and community standards) - sometimes to the point where a thread has so many responses it gets passed over, but none are admin responses. Looking at that it occurred to me that the thing about measurability of admin actions and the thing about where we need admins are related - some admins avoid those two noticeboards, some admins perform very few logged actions but edit a lot of protected pages ... it's a more varied job than I thought it was before I got it, and there is even greater variation among admins than I had been aware of. I suspect some editors would be good additions to the admin corps and simply haven't realized it because they're not seeing this variation and how they could be useful in one admin area; I've also seen a few RfAs (both successful and unsuccessful) where an important objection to a candidate was that they would likely not work in a wide range of admin areas; and the questions thing is probably related too, because not everyone boasts well. Obviously a candidate's responses to the questions can be very useful - for one thing they are useful in showing how well the person communicates, and for another, what they consider most important or what is uppermost in their mind regarding adminship - and that's why they've been made a part of the template. But responses to the unpredictable questions that follow are at least as useful, and it does say something about a candidate if they get 25 supports before they finish filling out the form! Every RfA - and candidate - is different. I like that, and it suits what we want, which is for all sorts of clueful editors to be seriously considered for adminship. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:06, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
Most of those observations are correct, though as a community we clearly don't agree as to which possible reforms are daft and which are eminently sensible. But it isn't just some aspirants who are keen on reform, Kudpung and I are both admins and we aren't the only admins who consider RFA to be badly in need of reform. We don't understand all the reasons for the decline, but we understand some; Fewer editors becoming active editors and rising if arbitrary standards especially the change in early 2008 after Rollback was unbundled and "good vandalfighter" ceased to be enough to pass RFA. Also I wouldn't worry at the number of !votes placed before the first question, few of the questions are actually tailored to the candidate; My worry is the number of !votes placed in the first half an hour, how can these be based on even a cursory check of the candidate's contributions? ϢereSpielChequers 17:48, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
There's no doubt there is a small minority of admins who do advocate for change publicly. The problem is they can't compete with the minority of admins who are abusive and want to keep their power or the vast majority of admins and editors who either don't want the process to change or don't care. So the process is basically stuck in a rut. We can't change it because we can't get a consensus to change it and the process and environment gets incrementally worse as more time goes by. Basically the project suffers, because of a few stallers. I also agree with most of Leaky's points. A particularly good point is that we don't know what will happen if we change the process...we do know what will happen if we don't change it. I also think that some of the unknowns are known...but the results of nearly anything can be debated so a few will always shout there is no consensus for change. I also agree with the post of the IP below. The hostility of Wikipedia is legendary and will be its downfall if something isn't done. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 18:33, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
  • We know exactly what the problem is. Wikipedia is hostile. The problem with RfA is the same problem with Wikipedia. Wikipedia is hostile. RfA is a nightmare because Wikipedia is hostile. New users don't join because Wikipedia is hostile. Veteran editors leave because Wikipedia is hostile. The decline in RfA's follows the decline in editors, which follow the decline in articles, etc.. We have known this since at least 2009. People have been talking about it since 2009 (Why is Wikipedia so hostile to experts?). There have been acedemic studies and newspaper articles about the hostility going back to 2009. They are all over meta:. The community did a major study about it in 2010. I've mentioned it several times going back to 2011. The most recent I know od is the MIT study a month ago and the related Slashdot thread (Wikipedia's Participation Problem). The problem will only be fixed when people decide to come to Wikipedia to collaborate with each other rather than battle with each other. Until that happens, the problem with RfA/editor retention/article quality/etc. will remain. 64.40.54.145 (talk) 18:29, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
Then this is a job for the anthropologist, psychologist, sociologist, and maybe a priest. WP is getting an increasingly stressful place to work in, and I have only been here a relatively short time. But the RfA issues, all the Gordian-knot problems of WP systemically, are symptoms of the real world. It is an internet plus real life problems thing. It is human nature. Was there ever an ideal WP "first time" a polite collegiate state of nature utopia that we have slipped from? I suspect we have always been like this, but things have just got bigger and more complex. Let us not drive ourselves nuts with these big issues. Lets try to fix small, do-able bits that we can agree on and take forward for discussion. Irondome (talk) 19:12, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
Actually its my experience that it is possible to do thousands of edits without encountering hostility, and it is quite possible for experts to edit very happily. I'm also Wikimedia UK's GLAM organiser and I've met several museum curators who edit successfully and uncontentiously. Aside from the minority of us editors who deal with abuse and attack pages there isn't much outside hostility to worry about. Within Wikipedia there are a minority of contentious areas, anything contentious in real life will be contentious here, but that shouldn't often surprise people. Where we have big areas of contention are the rise of spam, our deletionism and inclusionism struggle and between verifiable and verified. If you are writing referenced content about something notable and uncontentious, even dry and academic then you are unlikely to find WP hostile. Spammers and those who write articles of borderline notability will find us hostile. If you write unreferenced content then nowadays you are likely to be reverted, sometimes without an edit summary. I'd like us to go back to tagging stuff as [citation needed], but I'd prefer that we changed our edit process to prompt for or even require a reference rather than continue the current trainwreck of our unadvertised de facto standards being stricter than our advertised ones. ϢereSpielChequers 19:58, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
@Irondome: Was there ever an ideal WP "first time" a polite collegiate state of nature utopia that we have slipped from? I don't know about the earliest days, but between 2003 and 2006 Wikipedia was a very different place. It was dominated by writers and content builders. A thousand edits in those days was huge. People would spend a couple of hours each day making 3 or 4 edits. They were writing great swaths of material. The community was slow and methodical because writing is relatively difficult compared with other things. Around mid-2006, Wikpedia started showing up more often in the top 10 results of Google. Also around that time, automated tools were becoming more popular and this attracted a different type of editor. With a single click, an editor could tag an article, revert an edit or template a user. These rapid fire edits made people focus more on rapid fire tasks rather than content building. In mid-2007, the rapid fire editors came to be the dominant community and took over from the slow, methodical content builders and that's the peak you see in all the graphs. That's when the content builders started leaving. A rapid fire editor could tag more than 100 articles in the time it took a content builder to make a single edit. The click-first and ask-questions-later type editor created of different type of user experience for newbies and verterans alike. It's much easier to tag a new article for deletion than to do in-depth research to to find out if it's notable, so that's what people focus on. That's why we only have a few thousand FA class articles and over 2 million stubs, because people want to do quick, easy edits rather than the difficult work of writing content. This type of rapid fire work fosters a different type of thinking. People think more in terms of "what can I find that's wrong" as opposed to "how can I significantly improve this". That, in a nutshell, is what the hostile environment is. 64.40.54.145 (talk) 20:31, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
@Special:Contributions/64.40.54.145 Thanks for that excellent response. Very helpful for context. Irondome (talk) 20:39, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
(ec) Wikipedia IS a vicious place; WereSpielChequers you completely missed the main place that it is which is on contentious articles. More specifically, articles which reflect a real-world clash where the combatants see that there is something to gain by making the article go their way. And the way to accomplish that (as encouraged and incentiveized by the system) is by cleverly ripping the other person and their work to shreds / deprecating / denigrating them. And do it in a way that is not only 100% wiki-legal, but which uses the wikisystem to do so. For an emblematic/ironic/informative example, to use wp:civil to cut their wiki-head off with a chainsaw. North8000 (talk) 20:40, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
I didn't miss the issue of contentious articles, I just pointed out that "Within Wikipedia there are a minority of contentious areas, anything contentious in real life will be contentious here, but that shouldn't often surprise people." Most articles are uncontentious, and even on the contentious ones I can and have fixed typos without causing upset. My first experience of a fully protected article was one about the first battle between Islam and Judaism, neither side objected when I wanted to change thrity to thirty. I've since had a few involvements with contentious articles - I don't dispute that at their most extreme they can get very unpleasant. But they are a small minority of articles, and their nastiness is quite contained. If you look through recent changes it is easy to spot edits where unsourced content additions are reverted with little or no explanation to the bewildered newbie concerned, edit warring on contentious articles is much rarer. ϢereSpielChequers 20:23, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure that Wikipedia has ever been a warm, cuddly, supportive place. It depends on who you ran across during your first year editing, whether they were friendly or left a bitter taste. For example, early in my time as a more active Editor, there was another Editor who for a day, followed me from page to page and reverted a good portion of my edits. So, I just lay low, did completely uncontroversial edits, didn't edit as much, and that person moved on to other editing activities. But another person might have edit warred because they felt the reverts were unjustified. I came across a paper on Wikimedia about the effects of reverting a person's edits and, as you can guess, it prompts other people to get prickly (my unscientific word).

I've spend a fair amount of the past four months reading old ARBCOM cases which led me into the AN and AN/I archives to try to trace how particular conflicts started, evolved and exploded (this is primarily between 2005-2009). No grand conclusions (yet) but, let me tell you, things were vicious then, too. It seemed like WP:IAR was much more highly valued than today and lots of Admins appear to be free-wheeling, lone rangers, used to getting their way. I see much more reference to particular policies now than 5-8 years ago and I came across more than a few Admins who complain about there being "too many rules" now on Wikipedia (I guess, compared to 2001-2005). So, for all of the complaints about "abusive Admins", I think there is actually more adherence to rules and accountability and less shooting from the hip than there used to be. Of course, I'm reading about desysoping, topic bans, admonishments and controversy over IRC so I'm seeing the worst of it.

But when I see people getting all nostalgic about the old days when everyone supposedly supported and encouraged each other, I'm beginning to think that when they joined they signed up with a WikiProject that offered that to them, it's a particular kind of experience that can happen today with some WikiProjects that isn't tied to a particular era on Wikipedia. I do run into a fair number of inactive WikiProjects and maybe some of the loss of collegiality is due to that. Liz Read! Talk! 21:04, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia still is a warm, cuddly, supportive place. Depends on what you are doing. It certainly still is in the area I mainly edit - though of course just one problematic editor can easily turn this into a hell, and several tried.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:33, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
I agree with much of what Liz is saying but having read much of the Arbcom, AN, ANI and other content over the years myself, I interpret some of that differently. First, I agree that there is more emphasis on the rules these days. I also agree that the good ole days weren't necessary steller, they were better in many respects to what we have now though. Back then if you were a hardworking editor and had been here for some time and asked for the tools, there was a strong chance you would get them. Now, unless you are extremely careful in your wikicareer and stay away from dramatic areas until after you get the admin tools, you probably won't. I also think the Arbcom 5 years ago was a much better process than the one we have now. As with many things, RFA included, it has strayed quite aways from its original intent and mandate. Decisions are more arbitrary and especially at Arbitration enforcement, the end result is more like a block them so we don't have to deal with it any more mentality. Its almost like they try and make the process so painful to all parties no one will want to use it because everyone gets burned, so its better not to submit at all. To get back on topic of RFA, the RFA process we have now is a shadow of what it should be. RFA should be more like a screening process than a gauntlet (more like what it used to be like). If the submitter isn't going to delete the main page or start mass blocking all their enemies, they should get the tools. On the inverse, all the admins who do little more than bully other editors and make an arse out of themselves should swiftly have the tools removed. WITHOUT having a multi month arbitration case and editors should be more than trustworthy enough to vote them in and out. We need to abandon the notion that Admins are above reproach and editors can't be trusted to vote them out. That argument only further justifies the arguments that the RFA process is garbage. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 22:40, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
@Kumioko, I hope you don't mind me using you as an example. A long time ago, I ran across Kumioko, He was one of the most friendly people on the project. He was hard-working and encouraging to others. He was like this for many, many years, then he got bit. I don't mean just a little, it was a feeding frenzy, There's an entire thread at the village pump where people were criticizing Kumioko. His natural reaction was to defend himself but people didn't want that. They wanted him to submit. Most people would have left after something like this, but Kumioko stayed and called for change though in an abrasive tone, which is understandable. At that point, Kumioko was labelled as one of the bad guys. All his years of service didn't matter. The community decided he was not one of the good guys. There are many other stories like this. It has happened over and over. This is what has changed about Wikipedia. Instead of thinking about "how can we make this situation significantly better" people instead focus on "what can we criticize about Kumioko". Wikipedia has changed from focusing on improvement to focusing on criticism. That's why changes to RfA don't work. People are focusing on criticizing rather than improvement. So when people go through RfA, !voters focus on criticizing rather than helping. This is a result of rapid fire editing and how it has changed the mindset of editors. 64.40.54.126 (talk) 02:52, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
Nope its totally fine. Not trying to hide, there's just no point in using an account anymore. IMO that's a fairly accurate assessment BTW. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 03:21, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
  • There are more than 4 million articles on Wikipedia. Can ayone really get their head around such a vast number? The amount of incivility, personal attacks, edit-warring, and bad admining is extremely small in comparison. In fact, as a 'front-line' admin, I see most of what goes on at AN, ANI, RfC/U, and Arbcom. What I do see are the same names cropping up time and time again, but they are only a tiny minority of the editors and admins who gnome away making uncontentious content contributions, using AWB to correct typos and formatting errors, policing the very few who do (regularly) misbehave, and generally getting on well with the people they meet in the areas where they work. Never in the field of human knowledge has so much been owed by so many to so few. Don't wreck it by giving it an undeserved bad name. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:46, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
    • @Kudpung: Part of the problem with that statement Kudpung is that eventhough admins are only a small fraction of the community and bad admins are only a small fraction of that, the mere fact that its next to impossible to remove the tools from a bad admin only increases the problem. One admin can do more damage than 20 or 30 regular editors. By the time the tools are removed from them, a massive amount of damage is done. Arbcom and AE has done more damage to the project than they help and no one even thinks about doing something about them. In the case of Arbcom it isn't so much the members but manipulative admins who craftily eliminate editors they don't like or agree with. Then you have others admins who feel they are always right and will even block or revert other admins who question their actions. Most of the time admins just let it go but there are some, and I know you know a few, that will fight tooth and nail against any action which questions their actions. So most admins don't bother arguing with them and eventually they just get their way. Sure some admins have lost the tools over the years but the vast majority (not counting loss due to inactivity or voluntarily) are due to association in a tangential Arbcom case. Their usually not even the direct target, just collateral damage. Even the its often times under the appearance of being done just so to show people that submitting an Arbcom case is going to end badly for everyone...so just don't do it. My problem isn't with the 99% of the good admins who do what they are supposed to do, my problem is that nothing is being done about the 1% who doesn't and admins such as yourself that just dismiss it as admin bashing. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 12:22, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
      • It is not next to impossible - the arbitration committee is bound to at least respond to a case where use of tools or admin conduct has been questioned. Agree with comments about vast areas of content-building being harmonious, and the good old days not really being that good. People often get supports by others who know them. I rarely look at answers when voting, but concentrate on past conduct. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:57, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
        • The reason I state that its next to impossible is two fold. First, historically the huge majority of editors who were sanctioned fell into that trap. Only a handful managed to avoid it, mostly by just not editing and moving to some other project like Commons. Secondly is human nature. People edit what they are interested in so if I am interested in Biology and I have a sanction on biology articles its not very likely I am going to start editing sports articles instead. Its more likely I am going to write about something tangentially related or leave. Most people aren't going to edit something they aren't interested in. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 13:11, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
            • Many people can and do edit in a wide range of areas. It is a matter of sitting it out and abiding by the rules, not dick around and split hairs editing at the margins and engendering reams of arguments about whether it constitutes a transgression of sanctions....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:37, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
That's not accurate. You forget that on contentious articles, "the rules" are used against their intended purpose and are just a wiki-llegal method of conducting warfare. In Wikipedia, the most effective way to POV an article is by cleverly using the policies to deprecate your opponents, including those that want it to be neutral. North8000 (talk) 14:08, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I've seen bad admins do a huge amount of damage. The two most common reasons are incompetency and engaging in battleground mentality while supposedly acting as an admin. North8000 (talk) 14:02, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

One the core myths is that we need more admins. There are far, far, far too many admins. Admins as a group generally seem very satisfied with the way they operate things, and rarely critique their system. The one criticism we do hear a lot about on this page seems to be about unwashed content builders who make passing RfA difficult, which in turn makes it difficult for admins to further build their numbers. We already have a vast horde of life-appointed admins, far far more than needed. We need perhaps one tenth of their number to do the actual admin work. Admins say themselves that about 30 of them do most of the heavy lifting. The rest of this great legacy horde have one essential function only, which is to make sure any motion which might limit or dilute the powers of admins is defeated. This dark reality lies at the heart of the admin dysfunction, and is the reason why there can now be no hope of getting a decent system, short of revolt by the content builders. --Epipelagic (talk) 00:02, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
We don't need more admins, we need new admins: the inactive ones are dead weight, so there are effectively only ~30-50 admins. Inactive is inactive, they aren't there to defend themselves or the admin corps as a whole. See WP:Former administrators: there are far more being desysoped for inactivity than people requesting it back (in fact, I've only seen one formerly inactive admin regain the tools). What we need is for new, active editors to take over for them. And besides, there is no cabal. Ever. Ansh666 01:30, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
That's not true at all. Many hundreds of admins are active but not on admin stuff, or are almost inactive but not enough to have their tools removed. Collectively they form a huge reservoir of loose cannon admins that emerge individually at random and on whim to block active content builders, or to block a motion that could otherwise lead to improvements. The result is the inconsistent, fraught and unjust environment we see today that content builders are expected to try and work in. We don't just need new admins. We need the dross pared away and replaced by a few quality admins, and we need a restructuring of the admin system so different types of admins are targeted for different purposes. The current "all-purpose admin" model has been trialled for years and is an abject failure. Are you here to become another one of our admins, Ansh? --Epipelagic (talk) 02:48, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
See the break in the section below - I won't be putting myself out there for a long long time, and if I do I'll be active in deletion only. I'm not going to respond to the rest - I haven't had any bad experiences with current admins at all. Ansh666 03:00, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Well see how it goes if you try building content. If we had a rational system, you would be able to get the tools you want to do the deletions. But we don't. Every admin, and only admins have all the tools regardless of need or competence. --Epipelagic (talk) 03:12, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
I have done quite a bit - more or less everything before around May 2013. Not even interaction with admins there, as far as I remember. And yeah, I wish. Ansh666 03:28, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Let's not get carried away with the 20 - 30 admins I cite so often. These are the few who are prepared to work in the danger zones without a Kevlar vest. These are the ones who, if they make one small error of judgement or block one blatant vandal too many, or warn an agressive user for 3R, take all the flak for the entire corps of sysops. They are brave and they are bold. We must not forget however, that there are dozens of active admins who carry out lots of essential routine operations well away from enemy lines. Then we can start counting the 'way too many' admins who don't do much sysoping at all, and the ones who are over enthusiastic and make too many mistakes. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:24, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Requested move of Wikipedia:Not now

Hello everyone. I have just proposed that Wikipedia:Not now be moved to the title Wikipedia:Adminship is not for beginners. I am also suggesting that we use a new shortcut for the page, and that the existing shortcut, WP:NOTNOW be turned into a soft redirect. I'd be grateful if other editors could comment at the requested move discussion. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 16:01, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Be right over. Good one. Irondome (talk) 00:11, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Stats

Also, I just came across Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Statistics. Even though the data is 7 years old, you can see, in the last chart, the problem emerge. In 2006, there were 800 active Admins and just over 1M articles. Now there are around 630 active Admins and over 4M articles. It would have been so interesting if this study had lasted longer than one year. Liz Read! Talk! 23:50, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Glad I poked my head in on the link you gave, it led to stats regarding active administrators I didn't previously have. I was able to update Wikipedia:List of administrators/stat table from 2002 to March 2007, but I am still missing five months of stats that don't seemingly exist. It might be a huge pain but I'll find them; I can't stand to see this gap in the table.
Average number of active English Wikipedia administrators per month (January 2001 – present):
January February March April May June July August September October November December Yearly
2001 Founded
2002 37 37 38 (1) 39 (1)
2003 40 (1) 40 47 (7) 54 (7) 65 (11) 86 (21) 98 (12) 105 (7) 114 (9) 121 (7) 128 (7) 143 (15) 104
2004 153 (10) 166 (13) 193 (27) 215 (22) 240 (25) 253 (13) 259 (6) 270 (11) 292 (22) 312 (20) 336 (24) 360 (24) 217
2005 368 (8) 381 (13) 394 (13) 418 (24) 432 (14) 458 (26) 417 (41) 446 (29) 496 (50) 541 (45) 557 (16) 627 (70) 267
2006 667 (40) 689 (22) 696 (7) 731 (35) 738 (7) 757 (19) 783 (26) 787 (4) 804 (17) 815 (11) 812 (3) 819 (7) 192
2007 825 (6) 846 (21) 863 (17) 857 (6) 916 (59) 947 (31) 971 (24) 913 (58) 922 (9) 929 (7) 952 (23) 993 (41) 174
2008 1,011 (18) 1,016 (5) 1,006 (10) 989 (17) 986 (3) 990 (4) 986 (4) 966 (20) 974 (8) 966 (8) 951 (15) 951 42
2009 942 (9) 938 (4) 929 (9) 918 (11) 922 (4) 918 (4) 916 (2) 906 (10) 896 (10) 880 (16) 862 (18) 865 (3) 86
2010 882 (17) 885 (3) 859 (26) 843 (16) 841 (2) 838 (3) 817 (21) 800 (17) 805 (5) 796 (9) 785 (11) 777 (8) 88
2011 765 (12) 778 (13) 777 (1) 771 (6) 764 (7) 760 (4) 765 (5) 746 (19) 730 (16) 723 (7) 729 (6) 744 (15) 33
2012 742 (2) 748 (6) 745 (3) 734 (11) 719 (15) 703 (16) 693 (10) 702 (9) 694 (8) 674 (20) 661 (13) 663 (2) 81
2013 693 (30) 700 (7) 687 (13) 687 686 (1) 676 (10) 661 (15) 651 (10) 646 (5) 631 (15) 621 (10) 633 (12) 30
2014 630 (3) 648 (18) 634 (14) 608 (26) 598 (10) 601 (3) 599 (2) 610 (11) 613 (3) 595 (18) 583 (12) 583 50
2015 591 (8) 591 590 (1) 597 (7) 591 (6) 583 (8) 585 (2) 584 (1) 572 (12) 574 (2) 571 (3) 582 (11) 1
2016 593 (11) 594 (1) 567 (27) 562 (5) 547 (15) 539 (8) 545 (6) 545 540 (5) 516 (24) 526 (10) 529 (3) 53
2017 552 (23) 568 (16) 571 (3) 547 (24) 538 (9) 542 (4) 534 (8) 523 (11) 525 (2) 535 (10) 531 (4) 533 (2) 4
2018 548 (15) 552 (4) 536 (16) 528 (8) 530 (2) 537 (7) 524 (13) 520 (4) 520 514 (6) 513 (1) 515 (2) 18
2019 521 (6) 527 (6) 527 523 (4) 531 (8) 531 505 (26) 498 (7) 507 (9) 505 (2) 504 (1) 497 (7) 18
2020 504 (7) 517 (13) 509 (8) 510 (1) 508 (2) 509 (1) 512 (3) 515 (2) 514 (1) 499 (15) 498 (1) 503 (5) 6
2021 514 (11) 516 (2) 498 (18) 494 (4) 491 (3) 492 (1) 487 (5) 474 (13) 450 (24) 468 (18) 469 (1) 463 (6) 40
2022 475 (12) 479 (4) 458 (21) 455 (3) 465 (10) 472 (7) 460 (12) 447 (13) 478 (31) 483 (5) 479 (4) 478 (1) 15
2023 498 (20) 475 (23) 461 (14) 455 (6) 462 (7) 454 (8) 467 (13) 449 (18) 462 (13) 451 (11) 446 (5) 448 (2) 30
2024 466 (18) 474 (8) 448 (26)
Notes: Information gathered between September 2002 and August 2007 was the number of administrators considered active at the end of the month • Information gathered between September 2007 to present was collected daily by Rick Bot and averaged together • July 2011: Wikipedia adopts the policy of procedural removal for inactive administrators • December 2012: Wikipedia adopts the policy of lengthy inactivity of administrators
Oh well, one day maybe I can be coerced into finding those missing stats or manually doing it. Addendum: Bothered too much, filled in the information now. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 10:13, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Is it possible to represent this table as a graph? Maybe also plot the number of articles, and the number of active editors on the same graph? TheOriginalSoni (talk) 00:40, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Very possible, assuming I had the information for the latter two; I'm sure that information is somewhere. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 04:47, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi Liz, I wouldn't worry too much about the ratio of admins to articles, the current number of articles doesn't really predict the admin workload, and sometimes it is a bit academic as the same content might form a different number of articles depending on whether it has been broken down by subsection or spun off into separate articles. The real drivers of the admin workload are things like the number of edits, number of deletion tags, number of AIV reports and of course one crucial difference between us and some language versions, the timezones we need to cover. EN wiki operates 24/7 with readers and editors in pretty much every timezone, by contrast there are some language versions which are inactive for several hours per day. ϢereSpielChequers 02:15, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
@Moe Epsilon: I believe that stats:EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm is what you're looking for. It has the number of articles and active editors broken down by month. Thanks for all your work keeping the stats table updated over the years. Best. 64.40.54.82 (talk) 09:10, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
No problem! I'll try and get a graph detailing this information out soon. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 11:25, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
Graphs

These graphs are for each September in years 2002 to 2013. September was the last month which full data was available for number of edits. Only one month was chosen due to laziness.

(1)Above: Number of edits(red) is on the left y-axis scale. Number of active admins (yellow) and ratio of number of edits to number of active admins (green) are on the same right y-axis scale. This was also done due to laziness (hard to label for a third scale in LibreOffice).

(2) Above:This is as graph (1) except the ratio is not included and bars are used instead of a line for the number of admins (yellow).

(3) Above:This is the ratio of number of active admins to number of edits. The inverse of green line in graph (1). --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 11:46, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Active editors vs active administrators: Sept. 2002 - Sept. 2013 Regards, — Moe Epsilon 14:06, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Nice work, both of you. I am really surprised and somewhat reassured that admin numbers are broadly tracking edit levels. I would prefer that as the community stabilised so the proportion of admins rose. I also worry that our definition of active admin doesn't really separate those who use the admin tools for several hours each week from people like myself who at least this year rarely use the tools, and I worry that our community is increasingly divided between very longterm editors who include 90% of the admins and newer editors who are underrepresented in the admin cadre. But then I'm a worrier, perhaps we have more slack in the system than I feared. ϢereSpielChequers 13:16, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
Just spotted that these graphs are based on article edits not total edits, total raw edits are falling more gently. When measuring the admin workload I think we need to include the non article edits - AIV and AFD edits probably generate more admin activity than the average. It may seem a bit unsettling that article edit counts have fallen so sharply in recent years, part of that could be the drift of newpages to AFC and userspace, and since the beginning of this year the change in the way that intrawiki links are maintained. But the big change in editing since 2009 has been the rise of the edit filters, and most of what they lose us will be mainspace vandalism and its reversion. My estimation is that if all the edit filters had instead been implemented as anti vandal bots we would now have a higher raw edit count than in 2009, but no-one can be quite sure as the way that vandals respond to the filters is different. ϢereSpielChequers 14:51, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
Where would I find total edits per period? --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 19:19, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
One source is User:Katalaveno/TBE, that doesn't fit with the time period you want but the methodology has potential - though I hadn't realised this omits deleted edits, which is a bit awkward for the purpose of identifying admin workload as deleted edits will have involved admins! There are others but they give current figures not historical. ϢereSpielChequers 04:04, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. I might be able to work something with that. At the very least it helps me develop a new idea for how to get the data.
About tracking edit levels: I share your surprise. It was really surprising to me when I saw the comparison, but, as can be seen clearly with graph 2, the pairs of numbers are perfectly ordered: That is, the year with the fewest edits has the fewest active admins, the year with the second fewest edits has the second fewest active admins, etc. all the way up to the year with the most edits which has the most active admins. I would have been surprised to see a close ordering, but a perfect one (for each September anyway) was very surprising. Now, despite that ordering, the ratio has obviously nonetheless swung widely between 2002 and 2013 (the best ratio was 2003, and the worst was for 2010), but since 2006 the trend is flat. So at least as for number of article edits, the number of active admins does not seem to be a problem (unless it's been a problem since 2006). Now that doesn't mean the number of active admins is not a problem for some other reason, as you point out.--Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 10:28, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
More graphs
Graph showing number of active admins compared to a number of other factors
  • I have made another attempt at making the graph for number of active admins. Since I am not as good at making graphs as others here, the data used for making the above graphs can be found at the Google Drive spreadsheet at bit dot ly/WikiAdmins (I could not find any other adequate way to paste the spreadsheet here so I uploaded it.)
If anyone can use that data to make better graphs that look at a number of these factors, while still factoring in all the months, that would be great.
TheOriginalSoni (talk) 16:22, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Wow, Moe Epsilon, I LOVE the graphs and table. It really brings to life trends one can only guess at based on ones own experience. I think the most stunning stat is the steeply falling number of edits....it seems like not only are there fewer editors but the editors that are here are doing fewer edits, which is stunning to me considering the popularity of automated tools like Twinkle, Huggle and AWB.
Based on the first table, it looks like Wikipedia is most likely to have a net addition to the Admin corps from December->February. It does look like there need to be more active Admins but given the decline in edits, it's not as severe as I originally thought. Of course, there is a very low bar for what is considered "active" and I'm guessing that not all of the 630 active Admins are doing admin activities daily or even weekly.
Moe, I'm tracking down more and more stats on Adminship which different Editors have put together and they are scattered across Wikipedia, including on subpages of user accounts where I just kind of stumbled upon them (by backtracking to see what pages linked to certain information). I really think it would be a good idea to collect all of this data (all attributed, of course) on a section of Wikipedia:Requests for adminship or some other area of WP devoted to conversation on adminship. Even old information is useful when you are talking about the evolution and history of Wikipedia. What do you think? Liz Read! Talk! 19:30, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I can't take credit for all the graphs, thank Atethnekos as well. :) The falling number of edits doesn't surprise me so much, because the number of one-time contributors is down drastically. We peaked at 51,000 editors with 5 or more edits in March 2007, with 4.8 million edits made that month. We are down to a lowly 28,000 editors with 5 or more edits, and 2.8 million edits in September 2013. Editors with 100 or more are "active" per se, but the bulk of our community used to be small-time contributors. I'd probably say that long-term semi-protections that locks out the majority of these editors is why the number of edits are down.
There is a low bar of what is considered active. Consider though if you will, that we have 1,424 administrators (I think we peaked in the 1,700s total at one time, so we havent lost a whole lot of them). As of right now, over 800 administrators can not even meet this low, low bar of activity. That is what is most troublesome to me. The bar being set at 30 or more edits in the last two months may not be entirely accurate or indicative of what the truth is (a handful of admins handle all the tasks on a daily basis), but at least it does show us how truly inactive the majority of our administrators are.
I think it sounds like a wonderful idea, to keep stats somewhere in the main RFA space as a subpage perhaps, and have this information free for people to see all together. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 05:05, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
I think most of what you say is right on Moe and I think it matches pretty closely with what the numbers show. I have a couple followup opinions though. Part of the reason why we have less edits is not only because of the semi protections but the massive number of blocks. I have read several times that we currently block between 2 and 4% of the entire internet through range or IP blocks. Another factor in the numbers as well as edits is log entries. I'm not sure if those are reflected in the numbers above. Since many of the things admins do aren't edits per sey, the numbers will be only one factor. From a personal perspective I tried for years to help out but I was told repeatedly I can't be trusted, IMO because I am very outspoken about admin abuse and the us and them mentality between many admins and editors. So I basically stopped editing. I beleive that is the case with many others as well. They edit and want to do more but don't fit into the cliche so they leave and the project loses in the long term. Its really hypocritical considering most of the current day admins were promoted when it was easier to get the tools and very few admins ever have the tools removed for reasons other than inactivity. So, either the old system worked pretty well and there is no reason why we shouldn't go back to making it easier to get the tools, or we have an ineffectual system for getting rid of bad admins. In either case, there is room for improvement in the current system. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 13:47, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
Hypocrisy is a nasty charge, can I ask you to reconsider it? It might seem hypocritical if an admin opposed an RFA candidate for being little more qualified than they themselves were when they passed RFA. It would certainly be hypocritical for an admin to oppose someone who they thought better qualified than they were now. But since Admins are less likely to vote oppose than non admins are at RFA, and several of those admins who do participate here passed with qualifications that would still see them pass today, I would be surprised if you could find many hypocritical !votes. ϢereSpielChequers 21:07, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

' Admins are less likely to vote oppose than non admins are at RFA "'

— WereSpielChequers
Is that really true? Axl ¤ [Talk] 14:15, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Pre RfA Feedback Page

This conversation is taking place at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 108#Pre RfA Feedback Page. I have included my proposal bellow. Do not reply here. Oddbodz - (Talk) (Contribs) 14:11, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

As we are all aware, there is a problem with the current RfA system. Two major issues I've noticed are:

  1. People are scared of rejection and don't apply.
  2. People apply to soon(WP:NOTNOW), get rejected and this puts them off applying again.

One way I feel this could be combated is by creating a pre-RfA page. Editors could almost run a 'mock RfA' where users can give them feedback without consequence. If an editor were to 'pass', they could then run for a real RfA and if they 'failed' they would know what to improve on before running for adminship.

While many hold a failed RfA in the past against a future RfA, this pre-RfA would not have the same affect as it is simply users looking for feedback. Also, if a user could pass this, it may remove the stigma of a self nomination as users can show that they already have support from other editors.

Of course, not all editors would want to do this and it should not be a pre-requisite for RfA. The traditional root would still be available but this would serve to help encourage editors who may not otherwise think of entering an RfA.

Good to see the process still works

It looks like we have our 1 promotion for the month and at least one for December. Glad to see the process still works and all the banter on this page is for nothing. One promotion a month should be more than enough to do all the admin tasks and replace the 5-10 leaving a month so I really don't see what all the fuss is about. Its not like we really have that much do here anymore right? 108.45.104.69 (talk) 13:33, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, actually the current RfA suggests that if we can find really good candidates and persuade them to run, the results are likely to be good. AutomaticStrikeout (₵) – Rest in Peace, Jackson Peebles 16:11, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
My guess is that if you look at the admin actions taken by the 5-10 admins lost in a month it is fewer than those done by a new admin. However, I don't suggest this means there aren't issues to address. I just mean it isn't the impending calamity the cited numbers might suggest. I have noticed, anecdotally, what seems like more AN notices about backlogs, but I haven't done a formal study to see if this is a trend.--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:00, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
It should also be noted (and no offense intended here BTW) that both of the editors who are passing are ultra conservative. They don't get involved. They stay in their corner and don't try and change anything. Do we really want all of our admins to sit in their corner? That's what causes the backlogs, that's why we have some admins who are allowed to be abusive and that's why we have problems in a variety of other areas. They get the tools and they just sit there unused. I also notice that most RFA's that pass are landslides which suggests the only ones running are those that are so overqualified they can't be argued. Again, not a great trend IMO. We are seeing a lot more months with only one candidate. Its only a matter of time before that trend becomes multiple months with no candidates. 138.162.8.59 (talk) 17:34, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
"They get the tools and they just sit there unused. " - which tools are you referring to? As far as I can make out, some people complain that admins make overuse of some of them. Loath as I am to keep producing stats (because nobody takes any notice of them anyway), these are claims that need supporting. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:52, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
Yes we complain when they are used abusively and nothing is done about it. We complain when admins are allowed to do virtually whatever they want after they get the tools but if an editor does it before they get the tools their marked for life. There are tons and tons of things that need to be done that require the admin tools, the problems are that either too few of the admins are using the tools, its the wrong admins with the wrong temperment or with their own agendas or their aren't enough people with the tools to accomplish the tasks. Take your pick, these are just a few of the problems we/I have been complaining about. But just as you are frustrated that people don't agree with your interpretation of the stats, not all of us agree that admin should be for life that it should be impossible to remove the tools fro abusive admins or that only admins should be able to help out around here. Why was it even necessary to split out file mover, rollbacker and template editor? Its because no one trusts our editors here anymore. That's the bottom line. As long as that continues, Wikipedia will continue to decline. Its not because of some perception that we aren't keeping up with technology, its because people don't want to be told they aren't wanted or can't be trusted after dedicating months or years to the project. Using the current RFA as an example. The editor is a shoe in for admin, they are an Arbcom clerk and help out in other areas...but what have they done to make the project better? Nothing they stay in their swim lane and keep trudging along. Half of the stuff they do isn't even to articles, its offline and behind the scenes. Very important, don't get me wrong, but not someone who is going to try and improve the project. Just go along and get along. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 02:19, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Restricted mandate

Apologies if this idea has been aired before -- and if it has, will someone please close this thread (and trout me if you like). But just in case it hasn't:

I absolutely hate opposing RFAs unless it's an obvious case (perhaps even then), but feel forced to do so sometimes when there are areas that I wouldn't be comfortable for someone to work, even though in all other aspects I find them competent, polite and trustworthy. I used to believe the solution was unbundling, but I've read the arguments against that and have become convinced that it isn't practical (and that getting consensus for it is a hopeless cause anyway).

The real trouble is that adminship is currently an access-all-areas, perform-all-functions pass (almost), and I don't always feel quite that much trust. But in several RFAs I've opposed for that reason, I would have trusted the candidate to honour an undertaking not to do certain things. So I'd have been happy to support giving the whole toolkit if they would undertake to only use part of it, or to use all of it but not in specified topic areas. This is the notion of a restricted mandate.

A restricted mandate could take a few different forms. For example, an editor might be allowed to use the tools to perform RMs, deletions, etc, but not to carry out user supervision (blocks, unblocks, except perhaps for VOAs). Another editor might be allowed to use all the tools, but not in certain subject areas in which they had strong involvement.

A restricted mandate could be established in various ways. A candidate could propose it himself, for example in the answer to Q1; or a question-for-the-candidate could propose it and the candidate accept in their reply. There are probably other ways, although all of them would have to involve the candidate agreeing to the exact form. A support then simply implies trust that the candidate will keep his word. That isn't always so difficult.

One objection to this idea might be that trust is binary: if we give the toolkit then we trust it to be used acceptably. But I don't think trust is binary, and in fact we already have one form of self-imposed restricted mandate: we don't check an editor's competence with advanced template features before giving a mop: we trust admins who don't have those skills to know themselves and not get out of their depth. This suggestion just extends that idea to other areas, and makes it more explicit. And right off the cuff I can think of at least three RFAs that I've opposed but would have supported under a more restricted mandate. Does anyone else feel the same way? --Stfg (talk) 17:30, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

IMO, Restricted mandate is just another name for unbundling. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:41, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
I understand unbundling to mean technical unbundling, enabling some tools to be given without others. I am trying to put it on a trust basis rather than a technical one. --Stfg (talk) 18:17, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
For me, this is obviously the right thing to do – a breach of trust in such circumstances would be obvious grounds for summary removal of tools which were granted on that basis.

What would however be important is that candidates entered into such arrangements voluntarily and before discussion of their candidacy. The sort of people who see the tide turning in a discussion and decide to throw a late "how about if I agree not to do this?" are precisely the sort of people I do not want to see as admins. On the other hand, people who want to help in additional ways and simply have no interest in helping out in other ways should not be deterred from doing so because people will – quite rightly under the current system – judge them on their ability to do all the things that adminship allows them to do. —WFC— FL wishlist 18:50, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

In the past there have been several RfA from users who have requested adminship for a single or limited purpose. Most, if not all, of these RfA have not been successful because the general consensus of the voters appears to be that they require the candidate to demonstrate sufficient maturity, competency, and knowledge to use all the tools that are put at admins' disposal. Once elected, there are also other tasks and judgements that are generally expected to be carried out by admins which although they do not require the use of physical tools, they require the community's trust. Trust, which is not physically definable, is a major part of the electoral process.
There was a time (generally assumed to be pre-2007) when adminship appeared to be somewhat easier to obtain. The Wikipedia has grown considerably since, voter turnout at RfA has increased, and thus consensus to pass or fail a candidate is stronger. In spite of today's requirements being apparently higher, some post-2007 admins do get desysoped which may prove that either the RfA system is still flawed or that there are insufficient mechanisms available for desysoping in cases of abuse of the tools or patterns of poor judgement.
While some RfC for changes to the electoral system and other elements of adminship have failed, some ideas which may have gained consensus from the community have not yet been proposed. A change was enacted this year to allow the creation of an 'unbundled' right for certain users to edit fully protected templates but such changes are rare.
Over the past 2 months I have seen more objective discussion on this talk page for changes than I have seen over the past 3 years. Perhaps it is time now to be bold and propose some of those ideas to the community in the form of official RfCs. RfC are usually proposed by an editor or editors who favour the desired outcome, but this does not have to be the case - the main objective is to provide the broader community with an opportunity to discuss proposals, express their opinions, and reach a consensus for or against. WP:DESYSOP and WP:DES may provide some useful background on the possible implications of allowing a Restricted Mandate. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:34, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
In my opinion first step needs to be finding some kind of consensus what is the actual main problem currently with RFA. Like in my opinion adminship is simply "too big deal" due various factors (for life, desysop requires arbcom, includes blocking and deleting tool). Some others probably think that issue is directly in current RFA procedure itself or something else. After you have identified main source of problem you can start thinking what are best options to fix it.--Staberinde (talk) 16:46, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
The flaws in the electoral system were pretty well identified, supported by stats, and heavily discussed at WP:RFA2011. It may be that the process has become somewhat less intimidating over the past few months, but RfAs have become too few and far between to really demonstrate such a change. There are always going to be some who say "This and that candidate should have passed", (what we don't hear often is "This or that candidate should have failed"). At the end of the day however, except in the case of rare close calls, it's the community who decides, whether or not the voters were truly objective, so apart from the discretionary area, it's still based very much on a vote count. As I've stated several times already, there have been some ideas suggested over the past two months or so - all it needs is for someone to go ahead and propose them to the community through an RfC and see what happens. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:45, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Kudpung, you have ignored what Staberinde said just before your comment and focused yet again merely on the mechanics of the RfA process. The wider issues concern the way the RfA process is used to distribute power and privilege on Wikipedia. The discussion at WP:RFA2011 was heavily censored. The more important issues, those not confined merely to the mechanics of the RfA process, were rigorously removed from the conversation. You also appear to be repeating the myth that the results of the RfA process represent some sort of community will, rather than an outcome ultimately controlled by a coalition of legacy admins and admin wannabes. --Epipelagic (talk) 18:58, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Ignoring your inaccurate and disparaging claims about the enormous effort that went into RFA2011 (and the efforts to keep the trolling and personal attacks under control - which I presume you are referring to as 'censorship'), as I've stated several times already, there have been some ideas suggested over the past two months or so - all it needs is for someone to go ahead and propose them to the community through an RfC and see what happens. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:08, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
I claimed only that the issues discussed in the RFA2011 were confined to "the mechanics of the RfA process". You say that claim is "inaccurate and disparaging". How? And are you really referring to the attempts in the RFA2011 to give voice to real issues as "trolling and personal attacks"? It is a very unpleasant experience to be sidelined and muzzled in that manner. I agree I got irritated and flippant in response, but I did not realize back then how severely entrenched the admin issues are. The ideas you refer to have been around for some years, not months. We don't have to see what would happen in another RfC. We already know. Nothing will happen unless it further entrenches admin powers. --Epipelagic (talk) 04:05, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

It's "unbundling" of thee type that is actually needed (by types of functions performed) but not by the common meaning of the term (splitting the technical tools). We need to actually do this. It should be recognized that current admins have a COI when discussing such a split. North8000 (talk) 19:44, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

So why not go ahead and start an RfC to propose something? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:14, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
OK, see next section. North8000 (talk) 18:24, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

The only way to get an RFC to actually go somewhere & effect change

We need to have a group of people work out a really good proposal, and all agree that they are going to actively support the result of their work, even if it is not exactly what they wantedThe the RFC needs to be strctured so that the status quo is presented as one of the two choices. North8000 (talk) 18:24, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

It would be a mistake to restrict this to two choices, but worse is the "all agree that they are going to actively support the result of their work, even if it is not exactly what they wanted". Collective responsibility is not a good system and has dire implications here. Like Politicians the people coming out of this would not necessarily be supporting something they agreed with, but supporting something because they'd agreed to support the majority in their working party. You then risk having a policy implemnented despite majority opposition, with the majority split between those who opposed in the working party and those who opposed afterwards. This is not a good way to get a good decision. ϢereSpielChequers 18:33, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
I'm the most cautious of anybody regarding new policies. There could be lots of choices if it's handled right ( = everybody weigh in on every choice). But homework needs to get done before going to an RFC. A large RFC never creates anything, the best it can do is decide. North8000 (talk) 18:48, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Archive_227&oldid=1142663341"