Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 249

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Archive 245

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Archive 247

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RfA Protection Notice

Per the close of the Extended Confirmed RfC above, there was a recommendation to have an editnotice at Template:Editnotices/Protection/Wikipedia:Requests for adminship that replace the default protection notice. However, as I understand it, this edit notice will be shown to all users, not just those that are extended confirmed. By default it would be shown instead of the editnotice at Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Requests for adminship, but both can be shown by adding {{editnotice load|notice action = view}} if there is a desire to do so.

Here is a proposal based on text from the various linked advice pages in the standard editnotice:

Ahecht proposal #1

This page is currently protected so that only extended confirmed users and administrators can {{{2}}} it.

Why is the page protected?

Adding a request for administrative privileges to this page requires a minimum amount of experience editing the English Wikipedia.
Adminship is not for new or inexperienced users, and it is difficult for other editors to determine if editors with recently created accounts know and can uphold Wikipedia's policies and guidelines calmly, maturely and impartially.
Applications from editors without considerable experience are usually quickly declined as premature or deleted before they begin, and it is extremely rare to become an administrator with less than six consecutive months of activity and thousands of edits to articles and housekeeping tasks.

What can I do?

If you have read Wikipedia:Administrators, the Guide to requests for adminship, and Advice for RfA candidates and still wish to proceed while your account is new, you can request that an extended confirmed editor or administrator initiate your candidacy.
If you have any other questions, you can leave a message at the Teahouse or the Help desk.

Comments? Suggestions? Changes? Complaints? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:29, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

The "your account is too new" is too strict, we have no policy requiring any tenure to become an administrator. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:36, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

I think it's fine. We had general agreement at the discussion that anyone who isn't at least extended-confirmed is going to get the WP:TOONEW response, even if there isn't exactly a policy regarding tenure. However, I would like to reword the comment to get rid of the concept of "trust". Suggesting that they are too new to know the ropes is one thing, but suggesting that we don't trust them is insulting. --MelanieN (talk) 19:09, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Forgot to say: Thanks, User:Ahecht, for taking the trouble to draw up a statement, as was suggested at the discussion. I think it's excellent. One other minor change: There's no need to say "extended confirmed users and administrators". All admins are automatically extended confirmed users. --MelanieN (talk) 19:12, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Oh, and what's with the {{{2}}} ? --MelanieN (talk) 19:24, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Including both extended confirmed and administrators is done in Template:Protected_page_text/extendedconfirmed, ~~but I agree it's redundant there as well~~ because Admins are explicitly excluded from being automatically granted the extendedconfirmed user group unless manually added. {{{2}}} is automatically replaced with the action attempted (edit, move, etc.) --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 20:32, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

I agree with MelanieN, especially about the need to slightly reword the template to remove "trust". Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 19:30, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

I reworded that sentence to remove the "your account is too new" verbiage. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 20:32, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

My suggestion is to say that the responsibility for nominating candidates to receive administrative privileges has been placed on editors with a minimum amount of experience editing English Wikipedia. Nothing has to be said about the administrative candidates themselves; if they can find someone with extended confirmed status to initiate their candidacy, they can volunteer for administrative duties. I think we should show the other edit notice as well (or include a suitably reworded version), to provide all the other links that warn off inexperienced editors. isaacl (talk) 19:48, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

All the links from the edit notice, except for the deletion and copyright policy links, are in this notification. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 20:32, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps I should have said how about we show the same notice that is shown now, but with the additional message preceding it, explaining the extra information regarding extended confirmed status? I think this would convey that the extended confirmed status portion is related only to the ability to initiate a candidacy; as of yet, no explicit qualifications are being set for someone to be granted administrative privileges. (An edit I thought I made to my previous statement seems to have gotten lost; I changed "the responsibility for nominating candidates" to "the responsibility for initiating candidacies". This better reflects that the person transcluding the candidacy doesn't have to be the person writing the nomination statement.) isaacl (talk) 21:14, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Here is a mockup of that:

Ahecht Proposal #2

This page is currently protected so that only extended confirmed users and administrators can {{{2}}} it.

Why is the page protected?

Adding a request for administrative privileges to this page requires a minimum amount of experience editing the English Wikipedia.

What can I do?

If you have read Wikipedia:Administrators, the Guide to requests for adminship, and Advice for RfA candidates and still wish to proceed while your account is new, you can request that an extended confirmed editor or administrator initiate your candidacy.
If you have any other questions, you can leave a message at the Teahouse or the Help desk.

Wait! Read this before continuing any further!

Hi, and thanks for offering your services as an administrator or nominator. Please read the Wikipedia page on Administrators, as well as Wikipedia's Guide to requests for adminship and Advice for RfA candidates pages before proceeding with a nomination.

The administrator toolset is a senior-level user right that is not for new, moderate, proficient, or even somewhat-experienced users. Candidates who are successful have usually made thousands of edits to articles and housekeeping tasks. Administrators need to know and understand how Wikipedia handles deletion and copyright concerns, and other policies, and they must be able to show that they can exercise sound judgment in complex situations.

Applications from editors without considerable experience are usually quickly declined as premature. If you are unsure if an RfA nomination is reasonable, please ask an admin or an established user for advice. There is also a list of experienced editors willing to consider nominating candidates.

The main difference between this and what new editors currently see is that there isn't a big blue "Submit and edit request" button. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 21:50, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for providing the mockup; I appreciate it. Maybe User:Force Radical could incorporate the content into the other mockup so it will have three main sections, corresponding to the three main parts of this mockup, when edited by someone without extended confirmed status? A one-section version can be used editing isn't being blocked. isaacl (talk) 17:43, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Does it need to be so similar to the default template? I am concerned that people who have hit the "sorry you can't edit this page" message frequently enough will only skim over this one. There are other editnotices of this type which may provide an alternative design. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:25, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

I suggest focusing on content first, and then working on styling. isaacl (talk) 21:14, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Ahecht-I have made a very rough draft of a mockup of a different sort of edit notice here which focuses more on the styling and look of the edit notice than on the content — comment added by Force Radical (talk • contribs) 06:58, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Just a note, {{{2}}} could be replaced with "move", which would result in the title using the word "moveed". --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:53, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Ahecht Isaacl-I have taken both of your suggestions on board, currently if you try and edit my Userpage you will see the mockup of how I hope it will look on WP:Rfa when a non-exc user tries to edit it.(this has the actual notice).I have focussed more on making the notice custom so that it is not confused with any other notice. Notes and feedback is always welcomed- — comment added by Force Radical (talk • contribs) 09:40, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Ahecht Isaacl, et al -Should we be moving forward with this editnotice, if so which one should we use — comment added by Force Radical (talk • contribs) —Preceding undated comment added 11:21, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

I would suggest going with my second proposal for now, as it is the least change from what non-EC users currently see, while we build consensus for a more radical change. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:35, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Personally I like Force Radical's version. I'd like to hear what other people think; can some of the participants from the earlier discussion or anyone else interested please weigh in? isaacl (talk) 16:54, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

This "Initiating candidacies to receive administrative privileges" is just awful, really pompous English. I'm not sure that it actually grammatically correct. Then again, I think the entire notice idea is a needless exercise anyway. Leaky Caldron 17:03, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Agree that a special protection message should be introduced for this page. I'd go with Ahecht's draft just above, as being less wordy (73 words against 127, without headings). I'd make just one change: considering the type of editors who will often be encountering this I would put the left-hand sentence in simpler words (and not repeat the link to ECP protection which is already linked from the word "protected" in the banner). Something like:

"We are ensuring that anyone asking to become an administrator on English Wikipedia will first have sufficient experience of editing here, at least enough to become "extended confirmed"."

: Noyster (talk), 17:05, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

The problem with that, and for the awkward wording, is that we're not actually requiring that the candidate or nominator be extended confirmed, just that the person listing the nomination be. I updated the wording in my second proposal to Adding a request on this page to receive administrative privileges requires a minimum amount of experience editing the English Wikipedia. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:30, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps flip it around a bit: "Adding a request for administrative privileges to this page requires..." isaacl (talk) 17:47, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

I would also suggest changing the word "minimum" to "certain." Minimum sounds more like an autoconfirmed type level. -- Dolotta (talk) 17:58, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Good idea. I had put to this page at the beginning to avoid sounding like it was a request for privileges just for this page, but your wording sounds better. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:40, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Force Radical's version would also replace the big "Wait" box—but then again, Ahecht's version can probably omit the "Wait" box as well (with the edit notice shown to editors with extended confirmed status changed to align); I've come around to the idea of replacing the Wait box. The text in Ahecht's version can be used verbatim with Force Radical's format, if the length is the only concern. isaacl (talk) 17:54, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

If you get rid of the wait box, you probably would need something like my Proposal 1, which contains the information formerly found there. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:40, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Can it not just be "to apply to be an Administrator" instead of this superior sounding "to apply for Admin. privileges"? Is it a privilege? Leaky Caldron 19:50, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Theoretically no, practically yes. I pass no judgment on whether that state of affairs stinks like a mackerel in the sun :) SerialNumber54129^{...speculates} 19:53, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

It depends if we want to emphasize naming a class of editor versus the extra permissions being granted. In the past there have been editors who felt strongly about not describing administrators as a separate class of editors, or as a role to which editors are promoted. Accordingly for official purposes I personally prefer to use the phrase "receive administrative privileges", where privileges means the additional rights assigned to the editor. (Informally, of course the term administrator will continue to be used no matter what.) For this edit notice, whatever consensus can be reached is OK with me. isaacl (talk) 05:27, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

I would be okay if my mockup was shown to the non-exc users and the wait ! box to exc users.

Noyster, everyone else-Despite having a far more word count I believe my mockup (Partly taken from WP:Landing)is more interactive(You do not need to read everything written to find your way around the notice, but yet the point gets across) and intuitive (The average newbie will only have to read the words in big font, the buttons, and the line at the bottom to get a hang of what the template says and what he has to do) than Alhect's .

That being said I am comfortable with whatever the community consensus is as Alhect's mockup also has its own set of strong points- — comment added by Force Radical (talk • contribs) 09:22, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Mandatory ORCP?

Thank you! No.Just no! And, logging into the main account can be a bit more helpful for you and transparent for us.Winged Blades^Godric 19:18, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Just as a suggestion, what do we think about making an ORCP mandatory for those running for adminship to avoid so many SNOW closes? Mitch G 74 17:54, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Well we would have missed out on at least one new recruit if we had such a policy in place already, and I know of more in the future. To answer more specifically, no. >SerialNumber54129^{...speculates} 18:04, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

I've just noticed that this is your ninth edit...? >SerialNumber54129^{...speculates} 18:06, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

SN54129 And...? Not seeing your point. Mitch G 74 18:13, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. ORCP does a good job of weeding out people who stand no chance, but it also can discourage good candidates from coming forward. My first piece of advice to anyone who asked me for my thoughts about their chances of RfA are “don’t go to ORCP, it can only hurt your chances.” Given; the first person I recruited to run for RfA did go through it and turned out fine, but I think as a whole it discourages people from taking the risk. We need more good people who are willing to throw their hat in the ring and be fine with accepting passing with 80% and realizing that RfA is not a high score test: it’s a pass/fail exam. Getting out of this mentality that anyone who isn’t likely to pass with 99% support should wait until they have a stronger chance is needed to recruit more admins, and I don’t think ORCP helps with that at all. Why on earth would anyone want to put themselves through a mandatory two week examination period where people are free to critique your smallest mistake in the most vivid terms and you are expected not to respond? TonyBallioni (talk) 18:39, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Paid use of administrator tools RfC

An RfC has been started on paid use of administrator tools and disclosure of past paid editing during RfA at Wikipedia_talk:Administrators#RfC_about_paid_use_of_administrator_tools. All are invited to participate. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:44, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

On this day a year ago...

I wrote on this page: "As the user who (I believe, though I'm happy to be proven wrong) has participated on more RfA than any other editor, I have in fact asked a question only twice (or perhaps three times). I believe the question system should only be used to delve into an existing issue that could well be influential in guiding other users. My own RfA garnered a negative neutral vote from a user who insisted that as a resident of Thailand I should be spending my time editing Thai related articles. Such behaviour should not be allowed to go unnoticed particularly as the editor had obviously not done any research - I had in fact contributed extensively to Thai articles; needless to say, I haven't bothered much since. One vindictive admin who lied through his back teeth in an attempt to scupper my RfA later got himself desysoped - a pity his tag team were not also sanctioned. It's time for a clean up of RfA, I keep telling everyone it's only the voter behaviour that is discouraging candidates of the right calibre from coming forward. RfA needs a three strikes rule, and certainly a formal warning for even one or two inappropriate votes or questions. There's even been blatant trolling on Ivanvectpr's RfA by people who just can't abide to see a virgin oppose section" It seems as if things just don't change. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:53, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Didn't help much, did it?

A few months ago I suggested that the RfA page be put under extended-confirmed protection, in the hopes that it might help to prevent unqualified candidates from posting bungled or hopeless RfA requests. The suggestion was accepted and the EC protection was installed. So far, in the first two weeks of this month there have been three requests by grossly unqualified candidates. (Two of them don't show up on the list because they didn't figure out how to transclude.) Of course, there may have been other people who WOULD have posted a request but were prevented by the protection. But overall it looks as if that addition of protection didn't accomplish much. Thoughts? --MelanieN (talk) 01:33, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

The only reason this one showed up on the list was because someone else transcluded it for them. Probably not the best idea seeing as the result was obvious from the start. In any case, I never thought ECP would help anything. It just gives people the impression that extended confirmed is the level we are looking for. We weren't drowning in inappropriate RfAs before anyways. We aren't going to be drowning now either. ECP or not. --Majora (talk) 01:52, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Which was exactly what I said would happen before. You restrict the overeager from applying, they'll apply the first opportunity they get. Esquivalience (talk) 03:20, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

To be fair, these weren't editors who are just barely over 30/500; all three have been here for 3+ years and two had thousands of edits. We simply can't know how many non-EC have tried since the protection, so it's impossible to know if it actually helped or not. ansh 666 05:24, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

I don't think that a couple of months is enough of a time scale to judge how effective applying ECP was, especially when we can't measure blocked actions. But some of the points made above - especially regarding the rarity of RfAs before and after - may well be true. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 05:26, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

I thought it was a good idea, but at the end of the day, RfA have become so rare, it's not really a problem to nip these things in the bud on a per case basis. There are plenty of people watching and it doesn't need an admin. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:02, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

As usual, Kudpung has a valid point regarding RfA's. I also have watchlisted the RfA page, so whenever someone tried to transclude, I see it in watchlist. I reverted Uebelhoer's improper transclusion, but it was later fixed and transcluded. There was no point in letting that RfA run even if it was transcluded properly in first go. I tried to close it as soon as I saw it transcluded again, but as I had no experience with closing RfA, and I was on a laptop with 256MB RAM, everything went slow, and there were 7 more votes. I think the same: a lot of people watch the page, so if there is an inappropriate RfA, it can be removed quickly, even by a non-sysop. But again, I think there is no harm with ECP either. —usernamekiran(talk) 19:33, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Nobody ever claimed that extended confirmed protection would dissuade people who were already extended confirmed. But it self evidently has stopped anyone who isn't from applying and getting burned. If we now get a steady flow of people applying when they've reached their 500th edit then we'd have created a new problem because as I think we all know the de facto criteria for adminship are much higher than ECP. But clearly that isn't the case yet, though I'll keep my fingers crossed for a while in case we do actually get a rush of people who barely qualify for Extended Confirmed. The first month after ECP we had just one unsuccessful RFA, things have got a little busier since then, but we are still in the expected range for unsuccessful RFAs - we had 20 in each of the last two years and it is simply too early to say whether this year will be lower or higher. Ϣere SpielChequers 22:15, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

I don't think there's much to worry about. The only thing is of course that since it was agreed to heavily publicise RfA, a lot more people are watching who are not the ideal kind of voters and they are always poised with their mouses to get in quick with a vote. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:45, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Call me an optimist, but I'm delighted to see dozens of extra !voters at RFA, my hope is that after a while more of them will decide it is time to run. I don't have a problem with the tendency for new RFA !voters to pile on for uncontentious candidates, we all have learning curves, and last years new RFA !voters could be the admins of tomorrow or at least of my dotage. After a few !votes my hope is that the more clueful of them will start checking the candidates' edits and pointing out things that make for a good admin, or reasons why this candidate isn't ready or suitable. Ϣere SpielChequers 16:01, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Oh the horror! Somebody who was obviously unqualified slipped through and got an RfA up. And it actually survived for not quite a half hour. Well that cuts it. We need a select committee composed of ARBCOM and at least half of the Crats to figure out what is to be done so that this never, ever, happens again. -Ad Orientem (talk) 03:23, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Well... you say "composed of ARBCOM and at least half of the Crats", but I think prior to anything like that there'd need to be a series of widely publicised RfCs to gain consensus on this approach, or at the very least determine which half of the Crats. It's no good just rushing into these things, you know. Do you think we should suspend the RfA process entirely until this important issue is clarified? -- Begoon 03:52, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Absolutely. And we need an RfC to come up with a suitably impressive name for the committee. It's important that people know we are serious about this problem. -Ad Orientem (talk) 16:15, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

That is a tricky one... "Committee Regulating Administrative Permissions", maybe? Just an initial thought... -- Begoon 15:38, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Just the "Regulatory Committee" would be pretty good..along with the Arbitration Committee and the Mediation Committee. Galobtter (pingó mió) 15:44, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Not fancy enough. How about "The First Grand Regulatory Committee of the Rogue Admin Cabal for Matters of Highest Adminship-related Matters Working for the Benefit of the Proletariat Editors" (or FGRCRACMHAMWBPE)?

Regards So Why 16:04, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Well, as I said, it was just an initial thought... -- Begoon 16:12, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Ah perfect; when are you going start the RfC to name it :) Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:13, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

We never actually did update the message that non-EC users see. While I think @Force Radical:'s proposal has promise, there are some issues with it (calling a failed RfA a "mishap", using constructive buttons for links to read a page, which isn't a constructive action, etc). Since there were no specific objections to the latest version of my proposal, which is designed to have the least amount of change from what non-EC users currently see, I am going to put it in place for now, but I have abslutely no objection to a more radical (no pun intended) redesign once there is consensus around it. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:47, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Well, I've fixed those parts and I'm open to more suggestions. The proposal I have should be sufficient enough to replace the wait! box for non-ecp users and may be displayed alongside the wait box for ecp users . Ideally we should have a broad consensus before adopting any of edit notice that is widely different preferably in a rfc style discussion where a wide spectrum of editors can comment. — Force Radical∞ ( Talk ⋯ Contribs ) 15:19, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Erm, where is that proposal being discussed at? —usernamekiran(talk) 18:25, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

I don't think an RFC is needed, given the relatively low level of comments so far. Let's just put something up to which no one has major objections, see how it goes, and revisit it later if needed. isaacl (talk) 18:38, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

usernamekiran-It was discussed here before dying down and getting archived [here] — Force Radical∞ ( Talk ⋯ Contribs ) 04:27, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Standard question from RfC at WT:Admin

The close of the RfC at WT:Admin states that this should be included as a standard question

"Administrator candidates must disclose in their RfA whether they have ever edited for pay. This question will be required as one of the standard RFA questions."

I'm not sure I'm in the right place to get this done, but if anybody wants to let me know, please do.

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:23, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Okay, so the template is Template:RfA - so the question can be added there. Based on ivanvector's suggestion and the wording of WP:PAY:

Have you ever received or expected to receive compensation (money, goods or services) for your contributions to Wikipedia?

Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:48, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

This formulation actually includes participation in competitions which offer prizes, and I am not sure including this was the initial idea of RfC.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:55, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Just took the wording from WP:PAY which kind of defines paid-editing..if that prize was say money then even say defining it as payment would be problematic too. Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:59, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

I once received a 25-pound (if I remember correctly) Amazon voucher for winning Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa/The Africa Destubathon. I also got some (non-monetary) prizes for winning in Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Loves Earth. If I go to RfA and see the question "Have you ever received or expected to receive compensation (money, goods or services) for your contributions to Wikipedia?" I will have to answer "yes", because I did participate knowing that prizes (goods) would be awarded (though I made clear I would never accept monetary prizes). I am an opponent of pay editing and would not in any situation can be called a paid editor.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:05, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and added the question (and the explanatory note) per the Rfc. Lourdes 17:06, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
I'd have to answer "yes" to this question, as I received travel support to a conference from a WMF affiliate that had an on-wiki application process (e.g. a "contribution"). Can we word this better? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 17:53, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Surely. The words in the explanatory note are picked verbatim from our paid editing policy. The question "Have you ever edited for pay?" is picked verbatim from the Rfc. I added these to fill in the blanks. Improvements are always welcome. Lourdes 18:04, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

I would leave it as is. Rob, I wouldn't read it nearly as broadly as you do, but if you felt it applied to these circumstances, you would simply answer "I've received no compensation for any article edits or other actions I have taken. I have received travel support to a conference from a WMF affiliate that had an on-wiki application process, but other than that which can be found [here]." No one would hold that against you. Lourdes' statement is simple, in line with the RfC, and the explanation matches the TOU word-for-word and is in line with the definition of paid editing found in the Mister Wiki case: The core definition of "paid editing" includes an edit made, or an on-wiki action taken, by an editor in return for payment to or for the benefit of that editor. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:14, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

While improved wording is always welcome, I'd caution against spending too much time with over-elaborating on fine details. "Yes" with an explanation is a reasonable answer, and "No" with someone later bringing up a corner case that has no practical conflict with Wikipedia's goals isn't a problem. isaacl (talk) 18:17, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

I would answer yes to such a question because I have attended editathons at which food, accommodation, wifi &c. were provided. Travel expenses may be provided at such events, but I've not had much need of them. On the other hand, I flew to Hong Kong at my own expense to attend Wikimania and the amount of the time, energy and expertise I have spent upon Wikipedia is quite large and so the net cost has been high. The great Dr. Johnson averred that "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money". It seems unwise to remind editors that they are foolish to work here. Andrew D. (talk) 18:36, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
What Lourdes linked to is fine, per what TonyBallioni and isaacl already said. It's not a pass-fail situation; just like Q3 if someone just answers "yes" they're going to be asked to explain further in a follow-up question. Loading up the templated question with qualifiers just opens the door to gaming its intent. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 20:42, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
Seems a little strange to me. It's a policy, after all, to declare all such edits. Should we be asking candidates to declare their allegiance, known or otherwise, to all other Wikpiedia policies one by one during the arcane, drawn out and thoroughly tiresome RFA process? Is it now a lie-detector session? The Rambling Man (talk) 22:24, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
All part of the moral panic surrounding paid editing. Not saying that I support paid editing, but some measures (like this one) are clearly out of proportion. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 22:32, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Along the same lines, I was thinking the standard question could be "Are you now, or have you ever been, a paid editor?"--Wehwalt (talk) 22:46, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
And while I understand the sentiment, I'm not sure I really know what we'd gain from that. If they have been and haven't declared it, they won't say it at RFA. If they have been and have declared it, it's a non-question. If they haven't been, it's a non-question. So what? The Rambling Man (talk) 22:52, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

TRM, it's tongue in cheek, based on similar questions once asked, notably in the 1950s.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:06, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
Sure, I got your reference, I'm still asked similar when I'm being vetted, but the point I'm making here is that why would we mandate a question that simply benefits no-one? If we discover later than an admin is or has been a paid editor without disclosing, well Arbcom dismissal is the way. And that would be the case whether they declared it at an RFA or not. This is patently stupid. The Rambling Man (talk) 23:12, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
I wonder myself. Is this intended as a final settlement of the paid editing matter? Or is it just one slice at a time towards a complete paid editing ban, and we'll have another RfC without a real reason for it in a few months time?--Wehwalt (talk) 23:17, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
Do we ask candidates "have you deliberately vandalised Wikipedia?" or "have you made a direct personal attack on another editor?" No, so why do we cherry pick other concepts to quiz people on? This is not going the right way for Wikipedia. The Rambling Man (talk) 23:19, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
Some people are bringing up editathons and other forms of WMF support. I wonder if we could just exclude WMF compensation from the question? (Or ask it in a subquestion?) That way, the most interesting case (someone receiving compensation from someone besides the WMF) can be asked as its own question. Enterprisey (talk!) 23:27, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
Personally, I still disagree with this decision, but so be it. However, the question was to ask if they have edited for pay - asking them to disclose is a separate problem. If they have edited for pay since the ToU was changed, then they should have already disclosed. However, if the editing for pay was prior to the change in the ToU, then asking them to disclose could put candidates in a position of self-outing by revealing their employer or may simply be impossible due to contractual arrangements. Could we simplify this to just ask if they have edited in return for payment, so as to avoid these problems? (I note that Wehwalt is proposing the same change). - Bilby (talk) 23:39, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
How does the lie detector work here?
I dont think the bad guys would confess. I missed the RfC. —usernamekiran(talk) 00:18, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
Actually, I think we've gotten off the point. All you need to do is disclose whether you've ever edited for pay. The answer could be a simple "yes" or "no". It is not a question that is meant to disqualify anybody, but I hope it draws out the candidate's views on paid editing. For example, if a candidate had done paid editing before the ToU change, or accepted airfare from the WMF, or won a contest - they could simply say that in one line. And then they could declare why they don't think that is a problem and maybe even what type of paid editing they consider to be a problem. So I'd change the current wording

"4. Have you ever edited for pay?

A: Admin candidates are required to reveal whether they have ever edited for pay. List clearly any employer, client, and other affiliations with respect to any contribution for which you may have received compensation." to:

"4. Have you ever edited for pay?

A: Admin candidates are required to reveal whether they have ever edited for pay. You may also wish to explain your interpretation of paid editing rules."

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:30, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

I like the simplicity of this, although I think asking for an interpretation of paid editing rules is something perhaps best left to questions from the community. - Bilby (talk) 07:44, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

The question is simple, and I think this is being overanalyzed: I don't think we need to be counting angels dancing on needles here, which is what the conversation has started to become. I do not consider any of the things brought up a form of compensation for editing: food for attending an editathon is a minimal consideration for the labour performed by being a trainer, a scholarship isn't a form of compensation as no labour is performed in exchange for it (scholarship/grant reports are not a form of labour), and a travel stipend that you had to apply for on-wiki is not something that is in exchange for edits (you have to edit to get it, but they are not paying you to make the edits, they are paying you to travel). An Amazon gift card is a prize that you are not guaranteed and you can't even reasonably be said to anticipate at the beginning of a competition.
If someone feels obligated to disclose those, they can, and no one would care. I've never done any of them, but I wouldn't disclose any of them if I ran at RfA today because I honestly wouldn't consider them compensation or pay. If someone asked me about it later, my response would be "None of these were given with consideration for on-wiki actions or were reasonably expected to be received for on-wiki actions. Here is all the other things I've done. If I've forgotten anything, let me know." For all the talk of moral panic about paid editing, it is those who are opposed to regulations that seem to be panicking, at least in this case. There was community consensus for this. If it causes issues later, we can adjust later, but for now, keeping the wording uniform between all our different documents on this makes sense. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:10, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

The whole thing is a knee-jerk following the Salvidrim affair. A solution looking for a problem, just more creep - no RfA candidate in his/her right mind would admit to UPE even if they were. We've had some users with a long-term agenda make it to sysop before being smoked out, and there will be more... Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:42, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Yeah I'm not sure exactly how the question helps. Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:44, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

(+1) to what K said.no RfA candidate in his/her right mind would admit to UPE, precisely.Winged Blades^Godric 17:33, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Ok, if this means that a standard question is still under debate I am going to repost my comment from WT:ADMIN here: strong oppose to any paid editing standard question. I know that the "admins being paid" issue is "in the headlines" so to speak, but we can't add a question for every common admin behaviour problem. We have removed admin status from many admins for many reasons in the past, not counting people resigning while about to be sanctioned or people failing in RfAs due to concerns about future behaviour problems. These removals/non-grantings of admin access happens for many reasons ranging from outing or civility problems oor edit warring or performing involved or otherwise problematic admin actions to this, and I am not being comprehensive. None of these have led to their own standard questions, not even the last one which consumed a lot more community time than the Mister Wiki case did and arguably involved far more severe damage to the encyclopedia. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:39, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Closing the barn door after the horse has knee-jerked, I know, but: what Jo-Jo said. I noticed that RfC awhile back and thought this suggestion was so silly there was no way it would fly as a serious proposal. I realize there's a bit of a holier-than-thou arms race going on at the moment over who hates paid editing the mostest, and I also realize I don't get to whine since I blew off the RfC, but this makes me honestly disappointed in the community for not seeing through it. Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:01, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

I think the more important question is: Since when is vote-counting the right way to judge consensus? Because essentially that is what the closing admin admitted he did despite the fact that most comments in support were mere votes while opposers offered detailed reasonings that were not refuted. And yes, I am probably biased since I also opposed this addition at WT:ADMIN. Regards So Why 17:50, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

@SoWhy: When you are deciding some fundamental change, vote-counting is almost-always the right-way to do things unless either the closer is willing to step on the territories of super-voting or it's a close call (which this isn't).And, I say this as someone who doesn't like the new addition.But I will agree that the closure ought to have been phrased in a much better manner.He seems to have forgot that the closure of a RFC does not only restrict itself to the result but shall contain a broad summary of the discussion-scape.Winged Blades^Godric 05:13, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

62% especially could easily have been failed (for adding the 4th question) for insufficient support (I'd say adding a new question should have more support) and generally would've even on a pure vote-count basis (and the addition of a question wasn't really made clear) Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:55, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

~~Correct. This proposal wouldn't have passed an RfA itself. And~~ Struck incorrect bit. The supporters give no reason why the question would even be effective. And for the record, as the person who invoked the moral panic comparison myself, I am not panicking. If this question is introduced, it changes absolutely nothing in my life. But, as a dedicated m:metapedian, I do like to point out bad or useless policy proposals when I see them - and this is certainly one. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 19:40, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps you should ask the closer then? It's possible that it was just poor phrasing and not pure vote-counting; I didn't do the math to see. ansh 666 20:16, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Regarding the "62% supermajority" - the closer calculated this as ("71 votes in support and 27 votes against ... approved by a supermajority of 62%") apparently 1- 27/71 = 62.0%. The usual calculation would be that the supports were 71/(71+27) = 72.4% and the opposes were 27/(71+27) = 27.6%. I didn't find that the opposes had much logic to their arguments. Paid editing is tremendously controversial and all this part of the proposal asked is to have candidates declare whether they've ever made a paid edit. It's clear that somebody is going to ask this question regardless, but the opposes seem to think the Wiki will tumble if the question is asked.

Go ahead and ask an admin to reclose this, but I can't imagine anybody would go against a 72%+ majority. If you'd like to rerun the RfC, please realize that the result of the previous goes in as question 4, and you are very unlikely to get even a majority in an RfC to take it out. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:07, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Ah okay. It doesn't really matter either way.. Galobtter (pingó mió) 04:15, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

We're just in the standard post-RfC NOTAVOTE phase that happens after many policy RfCs right now. 66-70% is our typical discretionary range for policies, and this was above that. RfCs are not only a vote, but numbers do matter, as WP:not counting heads makes clear. There were no obvious reasons to discount the !votes of those supporting (no obvious socking, craziness, !votes based on false pretenses, etc.) and the oppose arguments were not so strong as to outweigh the supports. I don't think this question is that important, but it was proposed, and there was consensus for it. TonyBallioni (talk) 05:13, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

I also missed the “vote” and disagree with the addition of this question, and cannot believe it has been added. It should not get priority over every other policy. Aiken D 20:06, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
Just for the record, the close percentages were incorrect: It was 72% for clause 1 and 75% for clause 2. The idea behind the close, however, remains the same: clear consensus existed for the proposals to become policy. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 03:33, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Spoken like a true Brexit / Trump supporter - “you lost, get over it”. Pathetic. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 08:43, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

This RfC has been designed by people trying to disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate their pet bugbear. There was no notice here or on Template talk:RfA, and no note on my talk page (one might have thought it was a good idea to let somebody who put forward 10 RfA candidates last year know about it). Clearly some people are here to stir up trouble instead of writing an encyclopedia. I think smallbones is probably a paid editor and thrashing wildly like a mongoose in the hope that people don’t notice. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 08:40, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Hmm..There's good reasons to be worried with the result and/or the close.However, we are better without casting random aspersions.Winged Blades^Godric 12:42, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

@Ritchie333: please read WP:NPA. I believe you also owe User:Coffee an apology. Also note the announcement at Centralized discussion. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 12:40, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Saying that somebody has a weak argument is not a personal attack. I'm going to write an essay when I've got time, but in a nutshell: Do you slag off Linus Torvalds because Transmeta (and others) paid him to hack a free operating system? Do you wonder how we will fix the thousands of unreferenced BLPs or BLPs that cite the Daily Mail (despite it being allegedly banned!) without some sort of external motivation? The encyclopedia is free (libre) - writing it doesn't have to be (gratis). I notice you didn't answer my question of whether you are a paid editor, which is telling. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 12:49, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Please remove your personal attacks (plural). I am not a paid editor and have never violated the ToU or WP:Paid. If you have any evidence to the contrary, please take it to WP:COIN or ArbCom, but I know that there can't be such evidence. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:33, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Ritchie333, I think this is a dumb idea - and I've had the same thought about the significance of the libre/gratis distinction to this issue - but I also think that effectively counterbalancing the "moral panic" problem requires holding the line on the idea that calling someone a paid editor without evidence is inappropriate, even if it's sarcastic/making a point. Opabinia regalis (talk) 16:54, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

The RfC was notified at this talk page [1]: Noyster (talk), 10:47, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Unless I'm missing something, this RfC discussed adding text to Wikipedia:Administrators. I've got no idea where the proposal of adding a "standard RFA question" came from, rather the proposal was to have people disclose it somewhere in the nomination (not to make a new question). TonyBallioni modified the proposal after ~7 users had expressed their opinions but it wasn't tweaked to the extent whereby it was implying a new question would be made. @Coffee: Having skimmed through the RfC and again seeing no part where it explicitly said "add a standard question", where did you get your 72% support statistic for it? FWIW, I supported both additions (but I guess my opinion is "support disclosure, oppose question", not that it makes much difference post-RfC). If a 4th standard question is to be made, it should be discussed in a new RfC with its goals being crystal clear. Cheers, Anarchyte (work | talk) 09:22, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Yeah i was going to comment on that - the 4th question wasn't clearly part of the RfC; requiring disclosure doesn't necessitate a fourth question Galobtter (pingó mió) 09:35, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

As a supporter at the RfC I agree we did not !vote for a 4th standard question, we supported "candidates must disclose at their RfA". The standard question was mentioned by a few supporters as a possible means to ensure disclosure, but there was opposition to it as well, and certainly no consensus for it. I'd interpret the "must disclose" as "if you forget to address this in your opening statement, you must answer any question about it": Noyster (talk), 10:47, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

I didn't comment at the RfC, because I wasn't aware of it. I've just read through it though, and I have to agree that the close is questionable. The closer's conclusion that "This question will be required as one of the standard RFA questions" had "a supermajority of 72%" seems just plain wrong. I don't even see where that has anything approaching a simple majority, just a few comments, for and against, and nothing in the proposal. -- Begoon 11:27, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Hmm..The wording is now-modified.Winged Blades^Godric 12:42, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I have since updated that particular piece in the closing statement, what is in the quotes is what passed and the following sentence is simply now a de facto process permitted by the new policy. My sincere apologies for any confusion I may have caused. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 12:44, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Well, if by "updated" you mean completely removed an emphatic statement about a specific action ("...This question will be required as one of the standard RFA questions. - This is to be implemented immediately per consensus.") previously purported to be mandated by your initial close of the RfC, with an edit summary beginning "tweaked wording...", then yes, I'd say that's confusing. -- Begoon 13:13, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

@Begoon: I'm not sure why you're being so hostile towards me. I'm not just sitting here thinking of ways to antagonize you. I saw you and a couple other people's concerns about that sentence so I changed it to make more sense for everyone. I didn't know doing that would also be something you displeased. I'm sorry if I've somehow infuriated you, I assure you it has not been nor ever will be my intent. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 15:40, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Well I wasn't going for "hostile", so I must have missed the mark there. "Infuriated" though, yes. It does infuriate me when people say things like "I changed it to make more sense for everyone" and "tweaked wording..." when what they actually did was got a close substantially wrong, and then, when that became obvious, fundamentally altered it after people had rushed around trying to implement it. Now, had you said "oops - I got that very wrong, I'll fix it", I'd have no issue. But you didn't, instead implying that you'd made a simple error in wording, rather than a basic misreading/misrepresentation of the discussion, and I find that disingenuous. To be clear, I'm not saying you intentionally misread/misrepresented the discussion, but you must realise that misread/misrepresent it you did. Sorry if that hurts your feelings, but you asked, and I try to be open and honest. -- Begoon 16:06, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

That seems a bit of an overreaction: "RfA candidates disclose . . ." and "RfA candidates answer question . . ." is not substantively different, just bureaucratically different - so, he now has the form in triplicate stamped, correctly. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:34, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Did you actually read what I wrote, and look at the diff? The words ("...This question will be required as one of the standard RFA questions. - This is to be implemented immediately per consensus.") were removed, and basically replaced with (paraphrasing) "people can ask questions if they like". If you don't see those 2 things as fundamentally different closures then I don't know what to tell you. -- Begoon 16:45, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

No. The central issue of consensus is still 'must disclose' and who asks the exact same question is not "fundamentally" different, at all. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:51, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Begoon on this one, by analogy to the situation with prior accounts. Candidates are generally expected to disclose them - to arbcom, if not publicly - but it's not a standard question, and it seems to go in and out of fashion to ask directly. (Contrary to assertions made elsewhere in this thread, as far as I can tell questions about past paid editing have been asked all of twice recently, both times by the same editor - hardly so inevitable that we might as well make it a standard. There are other fashions in this kind of question, like a run of them about strong passwords after a breach, that seem Very Important at the time they're asked but eventually something new comes up and everyone forgets that six months ago it was absolutely mission-critical that all new admins pledge to be open to recall/write an FA before running/set their 'force edit summaries' preference/enable email/not have non-Latin usernames/seriously, these are just the fads I can think of off the top of my head, there have been dozens of them.) Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:24, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

@Opabinia regalis: About "questions about past paid editing have been asked all of twice recently, both times by the same editor", there is this: [2], by me. Unless my memory has gotten worse than I thought it was, that was the only time I asked it, so maybe there have been more than one of us asking. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:30, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

You're right, I stand corrected - the two I found were Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Muboshgu and Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Joe Roe. (But I searched some more, and I may just be unobservant, but I think that brings the total to three questions from two people.) Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:23, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Sure. Consensus showed that people want to see any paid editing be disclosed at an RfA, but consensus was not to have a standard question. In my eyes, having a standard question and being told to disclose it somewhere is fundamentally different. We don't require candidates to explain various policies but many users ask such questions to gauge their eligibility. If someone doesn't disclose being a paid editor in their nomination statement and someone is suspicious, they can just ask a question, just how if someone wants verification that the candidate knows the UAA/AIV policies. This is all in reaction to one(?) admin that screwed up; if you want to gauge consensus for adding a 4th standard question, a new RfC can always be started. I agree with what you said here: policy changes take time, so perhaps we're rushing into things here. Cheers, Anarchyte (work | talk) 13:15, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Consensus was not about a standard question is why the close was amended, which changes nothing about the policy and 'the spirit' being 'must disclose.' You merely describe one process for disclosure, someone asking the question. Obviously that is not the only process for disclosure. And your and OR's talk of process, just makes my point - the critique is about bureaucracy/process, not substance. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:37, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

@Begoon: (edit conflict) I apologize if I didn't make it clear enough that I made a mistake in the way I combined the totality of the consensus on the RFA question itself, and in how I failed to spot the wording error on my own. I messed that part up, I admit that completely. I also fixed the error once you and a couple other people pointed the issue out. It was a mistake, and I apologize for infuriating you with my not-so-optimal response to your concerns (that weren't intended to come across the way you took them at any rate). I'll be sure to try to express myself better next time. But, I do hope that you and others are fine with the new wording. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 16:40, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Possibly what should be done is add to the instructions to candidates, "Please make any disclosures of paid editing required by this RfC", with link. If none is mentioned, the anti-paid editing clique can if they like ask some question on their own. Informs the candidate, puts the onus for any action beyond that on those who feel strongly about the matter.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:22, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Well... ok, but can we please still have the ducking pond? I've asked for installation quotes and everything... -- Begoon 16:09, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

I've put @Wehwalt:'s wording in as Question 4. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:44, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Well done for scaring all the RfA candidates away. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 19:46, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

I've reverted. I think it's clear from this discussion that it should not be a standard question. I would agree with Wehwalt that a candidate should disclose paid editing in their opening statement, and someone can ask a follow-up question if they wish to get more clarification. -- Tavix ^(talk) 19:54, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for doing that Tavix. The suggestion of adding a new question was not part of the RfC proposal, and it's not what I voted for there. The idea for a Q4 at RfA was suggested by Jytdog in his vote here, and AFAICS was was only fleetingly mentioned later by two other voters. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:06, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

actually it was first proposed by User:Tryptofish very early in the !voting, here. It was also mentioned by several other people. The RfC close by User:Coffee doesn't mention this way of implementing it as a fourth question... I have no strong feelings about whether it should be a standard question or not. And that is all i have to say on the matter. Jytdog (talk) 21:20, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

It doesn't now. Originally it did. "...This question will be required as one of the standard RFA questions." [3] Leaky Caldron 21:38, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

My suggestion was to add it in the instructions rather than as a question.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:34, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

I've dipped in and out of this talk page over the years, and came here now after a mention/ping. I've read through the discussion above, and something that stands out to me are the rather bad-faith-assuming references to the "anti paid editing clique". I guess the editors saying that are the "pro paid editing clique". Anyway, I think there's really no downside to adding such a question, and the opposition to it is unconvincing. Typically, the candidate answer will be "no". Oh, the horror! --Tryptofish (talk) 22:44, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorry for expressing myself in a grumpy way, but given the sheer number of proposals against paid editing we've had, and the fact that it's usually the same people leading it, I don't think I'm inaccurate.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:15, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! It's not just you I was addressing, but you had the most quote-worthy way of saying it. As for "the same people", it doesn't mean that they are cranks, but that they are particularly concerned with a serious problem. And in my opinion, the problem is extremely serious. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:22, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

An effective policy response to any issue involves a careful measuring of a) the extent of the problem, b) a comparison of alternative solutions, and c) the adoption of a solution that minimizes the harm caused by the problem in question. This sort of weekly, knee-jerk solution to any instance of paid editing causing concern is a problem. One OTRS volunteer is paid (and subsequently removed)? Explicitly ban paid OTRS use, even though it already wasn't allowed. One administrator desysopped over paid editing? Make a myriad of proposals aimed at preventing administrators from being paid and going so far as to require editors to "out" themselves as having been paid at RfA, even though the former admin was desysopped without any of these rules being in place. This is why I bring up the concept of a moral panic - perhaps an unfair comparison, but all of these policy solutions are band-aid fixes for problems that don't exist in the first place. So no, just because the same people are bringing up a bunch of different proposals doesn't mean that they're cranks, but they also don't have a very useful approach for dealing with the overarching issue here. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 01:07, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

"Effective"? Your analysis appears to fail to take into account how Wikipedia works. This was not the first RfC at ADMIN, about paid editing -- the last, from before either OTRS issue or the Slavadrim! issue resulted in a consensus to 'say something' but no agreement on what to say, exactly. After those issues arose there was a discussion at VPP in which there was multiple almost universal comments against paid use of advance permissions. Consensus is often a slow process over time and attempts, and it seldom ends-up with what's perfect, it ends up with what gets past the post from multiple compromises. As with any policy proposal, the poles are usually going to be somewhere around 'not-needed/harmful' to 'needed/good enough', and it is where the collective judgement lands between those poles that gives a usable outcome. So, 'this policy is not perfect' is rather make-weight, and it rather ignores that any policy can be refined, using that messy, often frustrating, often multi-step CONSENSUS process I gave a summary example of, above. However, it's the only "effective" process around.

It's also odd you point to the Salvadrim! case outcome, given that 1) the arbitration decision took notice of this RfC, 2) several of the arbitrators spoke of unwritten policy/guideline 'spirit' - in such an issue, the community writing-down something to more concretely capture the 'spirit', is not only a reasonable choice but useful and kind, in giving explicit warning for the future people caught up in it. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:00, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Maybe I'm not remembering the sequence of events properly - I haven't been involved with either. All I've noticed is a series of proposals, here and on Meta, aimed at othering paid editors rather than developing functional policy solutions. But you're right, maybe with the decision-making processes used here that just isn't possible. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 21:16, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Well. This is Wikipedia, it's a wiki, you actually do have to convince people you have solutions and they are effective, so you actually do have to be involved. Feel free to propose your effective rules for policy-making, in the appropriate forum - I would suggest you start at VPP, and later work your way over to VPR. If you want to work on WP:PAID try that talk page, and your pet theories about "others" can actually be tested. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:11, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Indeed, it looks as if Tryptofish got in with it first. See the full text of the RfC proposal below. It does NOT mention anything about a Q4 for RfA. Idea-forking is a malady of Wikipedia debates, but I still don't see a consensus for the Q4 even if it was fleetingly mentioned by one or two more voters who I missed. This is not to say that I disapprove of the suggestion or find it inappropriate - all suggestions are welcome and it's what makes Wikipedia work, until they are rejected.

Based on the above proposal and leaving out point number 2. Should we do the following?
Under "Becoming an administrator" after the 2nd paragraph as a separate paragraph include:
"Administrator candidates must disclose in their RfA whether they have ever edited for pay."
And under "Misuse of administrative tools" as the 3rd sentence in the 1st paragraph, include
"Administrators may never use administrative tools as part of any paid editing activity, except when they are acting as a Wikipedian-in-Residence, or the payment is made by the Wikimedia Foundation or an affiliate of the WMF."

IMO any proposal for a Q4 should be the subject of its own RfC and here at WT:RfC. That said, it probably wouldn't gain traction, but the heightened concerns over PE would certainly attract more 'optional' user Qs, and probably of the kind: 'Cool, people can pose questions for the candidate here, I'll think of one to ask' - in the section in the process that regularly turns RfAs into a farce (and Qs are not always posed only by newbies trying to be clever). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:08, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

It's true that the past RfC did not establish consensus for a fourth question, just for disclosure. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:11, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Difficult to find a good place to break

...something that stands out to me are the rather bad-faith-assuming references to the "anti paid editing clique". I guess the editors saying that are the "pro paid editing clique" - 'nuff said... Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:24, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Frankly I don't think enough has been said about this. The quality of the rhetoric *by admins* is shameful. In particular User:Ritchie333's personal attacks - where does he get off calling me a paid editor? Specific examples:
- "Spoken like a true Brexit / Trump supporter ... Pathetic."
- "This RfC has been designed by people trying to disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate their pet bugbear."
- "Clearly some people are here to stir up trouble instead of writing an encyclopedia."
- "I think smallbones is probably a paid editor and thrashing wildly like a mongoose"
- "I notice you didn't answer my question of whether you are a paid editor, which is telling."
- All followed by the snarky "Well done for scaring all the RfA candidates away." All the above by Ritchie333
Other admins on this page are almost as bad
- The comparison to McCarthyism. McCarthy was a US Senator who used the power of his office and of the government to throw people in jail (for contempt of congress and otherwise) or to blacklist them from their chosen profession for exercising their 1st Amendment rights. But, we're talking here about asking one simple question, which might affect whether some editors vote for an admin candidate. Who is over-reacting here?
- "anti paid editing clique"
- The use of "moral panic", folks seem to be using it as a synonym for "witch hunting". If that's what you mean - just say it. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:33, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Smallbones, actually, I think Ritchie's outburst and the usage of addressing you as a paid editor was more of a heat-of-the-moment sarcastic way making a point, which, as Opabinia regalis says above, shouldn't have been done. I'm quite sure Ritchie would come around to you and discuss it off; he's not normally like this. You should read his comments in full context – having tried so hard to get new Rfa candidates, it would be deeply frustrating to have such an addition to the mandatory questions potentially derail all prospective efforts to attract new talent (and I'm saying this while supporting the Rfc and while being the editor who added the question to the Template). Apart from that, no other statement is a personal attack on you or others; they're just heated statements, expected of such changes. I'm sure that finally, Wehwalt's suggestion would be what is incorporated here; unless this goes to another Rfc. Thanks, Lourdes 02:54, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Ritchie may talk to me any time - here, on my talk page, via email - provided he starts with an apology for his multiple outbursts. I also do not think that accusations of McCarthyism by admins is either acceptable or expected. People who support paid editors need to clean up their rhetoric, much of it is just insulting, apparently meant to derail the discussion.

All Wehwalt needs to do is say where he thinks we should notify the admin candidates that the disclosure is required. Since it is required, we shouldn't keep that secret form the candidates. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:13, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Wehwalt's already mentioned that his suggestion is to add it in the instructions rather than as a question. But, as is evident from the discussions above, consensus is needed before even that is added. So please don't be hasty in attempting to add anything to the template as of right now. ("People who support paid editors need to clean up their rhetoric..." Not helpful and takes away your intent... Just saying...) Lourdes 03:20, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

The problem with adding it in the template is that there is no place there that makes any sense, except in the questions (correct me if I'm wrong). I don't think Wehwalt is talking about the template - but where is he suggesting that the notice of the requirement to disclose be put?

As far as "not being helpful" feel free to say that but I don't think it is helpful advice to say, in effect, "just put up with the personal attacks, don't say anything - it will just make them mad"

Accusations of paid editing without the tiniest speck of evidence, and accusations of McCarthyism are against our rules, e.g WP:NPA. When admins do it, it is simply shameful, and I'll feel free to call it out whenever I see it. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:59, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

You're right, accusing people of things without evidence is really annoying. For example, you just implicitly accused those who disagree with you of being "people who support paid editing" - a group you obviously hold in disdain, and a position no one has taken in this thread. Ritchie is certainly in violation of the advice to "state your point, don't prove it experimentally" - but, well, the reason WP:POINT can be so tempting is that the experiments often work. "This is a WP:POINT" is a perfectly reasonable response, if one is needed. Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:24, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Just a correction to your '"people who support paid editing" ... a position no one has taken in this thread.' Ritchie wrote above "I'm going to write an essay when I've got time, but in a nutshell: Do you slag off Linus Torvalds because Transmeta (and others) paid him to hack a free operating system? Do you wonder how we will fix the thousands of unreferenced BLPs or BLPs that cite the Daily Mail (despite it being allegedly banned!) without some sort of external motivation? The encyclopedia is free (libre) - writing it doesn't have to be (gratis). I notice you didn't answer my question of whether you are a paid editor, which is telling. Ritchie333" That's support of paid editing followed by a personal attack. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 12:43, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

You make it sound like supporting white supremacy or something. Do you really think, Smallbones, that if committed editors had their expenses paid, within reasons, and even received a small stipend, that the sky would fall?--Wehwalt (talk) 13:18, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

I've been advised to stop participating in this part of the discussion, and will after this message. There's a real problem here with editors and indeed admins just labeling others and engaging in personal attacks. The ones I see are the 2 claims that I am a paid editor, the claims of McCarthyism, accusations of "moral panic", just to add a new example, "Can't we keep the ducking pond". You may see others, but I'll ask that you stop the labeling. At that point we can have a reasonable discussion (see my request below).

As far as "Do you really think, Smallbones, that if committed editors had their expenses paid, within reasons, and even received a small stipend, that the sky would fall?" No, not at all. I don't see any editors trying to do that in any open way. But I do see many paid editors just putting in hidden adverts into articles.

Perhaps Wikipedians-in-Residence are as close to anything like the situation described in your question. I always separate out WiRs in anything I do regarding paid editing. I'd be happy to see something like the following, and it is within our current rules: Academics or grad students are paid to write or re-write full articles on technical topics. They declare their paid editing status and place their articles either on the talk page or at AfC. Great! - they've contributed to the encyclopedia and followed our rules. I'd almost certainly vote for anybody at RfA who declared this type of paid editing.

But if folks can only insult and label editors who want to prevent deceptive advertising being put into our articles, we'll never be able to have a reasonable discussion on these issues. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:12, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

If language that was not directed at you, such as the allusion to the 1950s, scores a hit on you, there is likely good reason for it. I would you would improve articles with the same zealotry with which you pursue the ghostly paid editor. The reader might be the better for it.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:30, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Let me add this lest I seem overly harsh. You've spoken of bringing an article to FAC. If you do, I will review it and our disagreement will have no effect on what I say. Or if you prefer I do not, that's OK too, but usually I catch stuff other people don't.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:45, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Opabinia regalis, there are a lot of discussions going on at the moment about PE, probably even more than around the height of the campaign to clean up Orangemoody. Some of us are active in the talks at all those venues (and we also watch other topic and personal talk pages). Anyone who thinks we haven't identified some patterns - without even needing to look for cash under the beds - must think we're naïve. That said, Smallbones isn't on my mental list, and I don't really believe they're on Ritchie333's either. Someone please archive this thread. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:21, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

As a general comment to everyone here, I think that Smallbones has been doing a lot of very helpful work on the paid editing issue, and I find it a pity that the discussion here became so heated and personalized. I also want to point out that, for the vast majority of us, this isn't about "hating" paid editors, but hating paid editing that becomes tendentious, either because of deliberate nondisclosure, or because of naked promotionalism fueled by an unwillingness to engage honestly with good faith editors. It's also worth pointing out that many future RfA candidates will have been members of the community since long before the ToU about disclosure came into being, so informing the community now that they previously edited for pay would not be an admission of "guilt". --Tryptofish (talk) 18:43, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

A reasonable request

The RfC (and now WP:Admin) requires admin candidates to state whether they have ever edited for pay. Since this is a requirement, it would be reasonable to let the candidates know before the RfA starts that they are required to do this. Could folks give the wording they'd use and say exactly where they put it.

I'll bow out of this discussion and would be perfectly happy if any reasonable wording is placed anywhere where candidates are likely to see it. Like Ritchie, I may also write an essay on what really concerns me about paid editing. It's fairly remote from this topic, but I may leave a link here. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:23, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Obvious places to include mention of the new requirement to disclose any paid editing would be:

Candidates will meet emphatic notices telling them to read these pages before proceeding: Noyster (talk), 17:55, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Longest RfA hiatus on record?

Just wondering, since it's been a month now, what's the longest interval between successful RfAs? ☆ Bri (talk) 02:38, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Answering my own question from Wikipedia:RFA by month it looks like September–October 2016 were the longest dry spell. So a new question, what's considered a healthy annual replacement rate? BTW this might make it into Signpost if it's interesting enough ☆ Bri (talk) 02:41, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

You mean September to October 2014. I suppose technically September to October 2002 as well, but for very different and obvious reasons. I do find it interesting the gap between January 2018 and January 2017. Mkdw ^talk 02:43, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Oh yes, I can actually read ... sometimes. It was the difference last year to this year that jumped out at me. I think some people were hoping RfA reform had performed miracles but now it looks like maybe it was a temporary glitch. Anyway Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-06-23/News and notes had some robust discussion, pinging Widefox ... anybody want to take this on as an op-ed? Or maybe it's all been done before? ☆ Bri (talk) 02:50, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

There's always a temporary uptick in RfAs surrounding any RfA reform talk, which subsequently serves to quash any momentum for reform because things look like they're working. That's what happened last January. You can see the progression in these archives - it starts with discussions about the course of ORCP and the RfA2015 reforms which had reached their first anniversary or so, then as the RfAs start rolling in, transitioned to mocking discussions about how everyone thought RfA was dead but is alive and well. Well, guess what, that month had more successful RfAs (9, plus 4 unsuccessful, for the record) than total RfAs in each of the 12 months following and preceding, including SNOWs and NOTNOWs. The last time there were 9+ RfAs of any kind in a month, except that one, was July 2015; the last time it happened two months in a row was the beginning of 2014. ansh 666 03:10, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

At first I thought you were exaggerating, but wow. Here's a comment from archive 245 that looks prescient now: "I'm fairly sure that as long as our community continues to be numerous, and the 2007-14 decline doesn't resume...". Okay, the decline has resumed, now what? ☆ Bri (talk) 03:21, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

If you want to do this the classic Wikipedia way™, we'll need to discuss whether or not the decline is even a problem, then if we should even do anything about it or just let RfA die and replace it with something else, before we can even talk about what to do about the decline. I think that's a bit drastic myself, but it seems to be the way that these discussions always go. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ansh 666 04:47, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Surely first we'd need to discuss what the longest (and shortest) period between successful RfAs without a post on this page asking about it has been? After all, if we're not properly introspective we'll get nowhere... -- Begoon 04:56, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Wait..if there's an uptick - new RfA reform idea - always talk about RfA reform! Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:19, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Yep, that was suggested (mostly in jest) in the archives I mentioned, but it's of course unsustainable. ansh 666 05:54, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Yeah yeah ofc. It's the lack of successful rfas that makes people go and run rather than rfa reform talk. Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:57, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

The problem isn't the number of "new admins", it's the number of new editors. The community will find a way to make more admins if administrative backlogs ever get truly severe. power~enwiki (π, ν) 05:04, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Admins form the pool from which bureaucrats, functionaries, arbitrators, stewards, Foundation-level committees, and the community-selected board seats are selected. The lack of new admins isn't just felt in the length of the speedy deletion queue; there is a tangible decrease in enwiki users involved in movement-wide areas of work, and a significantly smaller pool of people available to run for senior community positions here. This means that the problem of systematically excluding new users from adminship compounds up. As an example, one of the most recognizable stewards from enwiki passed an RfA here in 2006 with under 6,000 edits, and was elected as a steward 8 months later. If that same user joined in 2014 instead of when he did, he would have been laughed out of RfA, and both enwiki and the broader Wikimedia community would have lost out on his perspective and expertise. You can devolve every last non-controversial right out of the admin group, but non-admins will still need to use that NAC template when closing a discussion and won't be able to contribute beyond that level. It makes a tangible ceiling for anyone that joined after 2010, one that can only be surpassed by editing Wikipedia like it's a part-time job for years. To me, that represents a bigger problem than whether the backlogs are cleared within x hours, and certainly something that is worthy of more than people joking about the perennial nature of these discussions. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 08:14, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Most of en-wiki population just does not care about everything outside en.wiki (which has been brilliantly illustrated with recent Wikidata-related events), and there is not a big surprise for me that "there is a tangible decrease in enwiki users involved in movement-wide areas of work". I would think it is not per se related with the RfA decline.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:39, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Indeed, there are many other factors affecting that trend. But I think the RfA decline is slightly related. Anecdotal evidence suggests that most stewards/global sysops/committee members become active in cross-wiki work after becoming an admin on their home project. But my main point here is to expand on my earlier posts regarding systematic exclusion, to show that the effects are perhaps best seen at the top of the technical access hierarchy. There is now a very small proportion of stewards and global sysops from enwiki, and the ones who hold those roles are mainly those who were elected between 2008-2012 (and became admins here between 2006 - 2010). The youngest steward from enwiki first edited in 2008, the youngest bureaucrat in 2008. There is one arbitrator who started editing in 2015, after that 2008. The average start date for users in all of these roles is roughly mid-2006. I also wonder if enwiki's under-representation in the global roles is one of the fueling factors behind the apathy you refer to. It's easy to stop caring when you don't see familiar faces involved. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 09:42, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

What you say is most likely correct, but as you know I am someone heavily involved in cross-project collaboration (which is reasonably easy for my due to the fact that I speak several languages), but here I see a completely different predominant attitudes. "Wikipedia" just means the "English Wikipedia" by default, and everything else is regarded as sometimes useful and sometimes annoying annex of the English Wikipedia. It would be great to understand whether there is indeed a relation but I would not know how to do it.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:03, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

A couple of years back, I did some statistical work with the career paths of politicians. I could use a similar methodology here, though I'm not sure if it would produce useful results given the limited number of cases I could use. I definitely agree with you regarding the predominant attitude, however, and have noticed it myself. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 10:23, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Bri I quote my reply from Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-06-23/News and notes : Here's a graph with better analysis (exponential regression fits only from mid 2011, total has r²=0.989 but a linear is similar) predicts less active admins than semi-active in a year from now, and total admin numbers 50% down from the peak by 2027:

User:Widefox/editors English Wikipedia administrator numbers 2003-2019, black: total, green: active, orange: semi-active, red: inactive, dashes: %
User:Widefox/editors English Wikipedia administrator numbers 2011-2019, black: total, green: active, orange: semi-active, red: inactive, dashes: %
User:Widefox/editors English Wikipedia administrator numbers 2011-2028, black: total, green: active, orange: semi-active, red: inactive, dashes: %

Widefox; talk 21:37, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

That data is up to August 2017, but active admins are today at 557, semi-active 470. The extrapolation predicted a crossover already, so I'm keen to add the last 5 months of data. This could just be the strong seasonal trend in active admins and semi-active with the first quarter being more active than average, last quarter less active than average (and the inverse for semi-active), so we'll have to wait another 6 months or so to see (or do better work and seasonally adjust). Did anyone realise admins are seasonal?! Widefox; talk 09:01, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

It's duck season! --Hammersoft (talk) 13:41, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Might be a bit too much work, but it'd be interesting to see if it was editors in general as opposed to just admins. ansh 666 18:28, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

There are some stats from the Foundation: [4] [5]. power~enwiki (π, ν) 00:42, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

@Bri Thanks for those nice words about my archived comment ""I'm fairly sure that as long as our community continues to be numerous, and the 2007-14 decline doesn't resume..." But I should point out that I was talking about the community, the whole community, not just RFA and though the 2015/16 rally has petered out, editing levels have since been broadly stable. The whole quote was "In October 2005 we appointed 67 new admins, and another 68 that December. That's more new admins in those two months than we have managed in the last five years. That all happened before I had started editing, so I'm not sure of all the details, but I do remember someone once saying there was a bit of a spike because a change they were about to make was expected to increase the admin workload. I'm fairly sure that as long as our community continues to be numerous, and the 2007-14 decline doesn't resume, if we suddenly realise we haven't got enough admins we will appoint a huge batch of poorly considered ones; Most of whom will do just fine. My preference is that we fix things before we get to that stage, but I'm much more sanguine about the situation than I used to be. ϢereSpielChequers 20:35, 23 December 2016 (UTC)" If we take WP:Time Between Edits as the rawest indicator, we are now generating ten million edits every 60/62 days. In the 2014 lull that slowed to 73 days, the community today is larger than it was in late 2014. RFA continues to be far quieter than I'd like, but if you look at the people who do pass, most are passing by landslides. To my mind the problem is that there are many qualified candidates who aren't running, some because they don't want to, many I fear because they don't realise that they'd easily pass. Ϣere SpielChequers 23:45, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
@Ajraddatz:: while technically your analysis on new/old contributors is correct, I think you're missing part of the picture. I am technically a 2007 editor (and even older than that if you use my disclosed to ArbCom abandoned account), but I really only became significantly involved with the community in August 2016. I can think of several other recentish admins and functionaries who fall in the same boat. Really, what one of the biggest jumps that has happened to the admin corps recently is a result of is actually pretty simple in my view: people who registered in their early to mid-teens hitting their mid-20s and reengaging with a hobby that had fallen away when they were in high school and undergrad. This is still new blood, but it just doesn't come with a new registration. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:45, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
Yep, I'm one of those too. Also registered in 2007 (when I was in middle school!), only really started editing enough to be called active in 2013 (though it was really 2011 but not reflected in stats). ansh 666 04:15, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
That's definitely a fair observation, and as any organization matures you would expect to find a balance of new and old contributors filling the roles. The big injustice that causes me to pull out my soapbox is that the same editor in different situations would have different opportunities available to them. I think that this still holds true, though of course it will be a balancing act between allowing new blood and ensuring reasonable standards are maintained. Meh. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 21:38, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
Nostalgia can be a big factor for returning to the project. I started editing as a freshman in high school (because I had nothing better to do in school haha) and quit during the summer. Looking back at it now, I probably would have been an admin if I kept at it another year. I think the inflation of requirements is still an issue and a lot of qualified editors either (a) aren't willing or (b) too afraid to be dragged through the mud. When an RFA goes good it's great, but when it goes wrong, it goes awful. --Church ^Talk 22:12, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
You know dat >SerialNumber54129^{...speculates} 22:19, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

How to report Administrators

Thank you! ~ Winged Blades^Godric 11:08, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I have to make a complaint about two Administrators who are misusing their privileges and tools in distorting facts. They should be stripped of their Administrative rights as they are not following Wikipedia rules and policies. Their abuse of administrative rights is effecting the Authencity of Wikipedia. Please advise on how to report them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arnavlamba (talk • contribs) 22:15, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

How to report Administrators - Please write a section on this

I have to make a complaint about two Administrators who are misusing their privileges and tools in distorting facts. They should be stripped of their Administrative rights as they are not following Wikipedia rules and policies. Their abuse of administrative rights is effecting the Authencity of Wikipedia. Please advise on how to report them. ~~Arnavlamba — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arnavlamba (talk • contribs) 22:20, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

@Arnavlamba: see Wikipedia:Administrators#Grievances_by_users_("administrator_abuse"). — xaosflux ^Talk 22:25, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Thank you ~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arnavlamba (talk • contribs) 22:26, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

@Arnavlamba: I don't see any abuse here other than the users on your talk page politely informing you about the requirement to provide reliable sources. Take your complaint on the talk pages of the administrators involved if you want to. Esquivalience (talk) 22:30, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

And you can knock this off right now; we take an extremely dim view of legal threats. (I don't know why you'd think RTI would be relevant, given that Wikipedia is neither a government department nor in India, but your intent to create a chilling effect is clear.) ‑ Iridescent 22:32, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Who's debating with you. You knock this off! ~~Arnavlamba — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arnavlamba (talk • contribs) 23:25, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

XTools Edit Counter now available as wikitext

I noticed we often copy/paste XTools results on RfA talk pages, so I wanted to advertise that you can now export the results as wikitext. For example, see xtools.wmflabs.org/ec/en.wikipedia.org/Jimbo_Wales?format=wikitext. More at WP:VPM (peramlink). Regards — MusikAnimal ^talk 18:14, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks MusikAnimal! :) — sparklism ^hey! 07:05, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Great job! Thanks a lot for adding this. Enterprisey (talk!) 21:24, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

My thoughts on RfA

Comments withdrawn.

I've been a regular voter at RfA for over a year now, and I remember very well the rush of new candidacies around Dec 2016/Jan 2017, which, when it proved to be just a blip on the radar, admittedly left me a little bored. However, one thing I have noticed over these past years of contributing to this project and to RfA discussions is that the candidates themselves aren't truly looked at past a superficial "I like him"/"I don't like him" basis other than a few key (although less meaningful than they are seen) metrics such as AfD participation, number of articles created, and above all, edit count. I have nothing against BU Rob13, and I have seen absolutely no incompetence thus far in his admin work, but his 2016 RfA passed due to a high edit count and high participation in those areas despite having only ten months of active editing, which contradicts what I have seen people say time and time again about one to two years being the bare minimum.

Time and time again, personal biases have gotten in the way of objective and impartial voting, as many others have been noting for years, and there seems to be a subtle sentiment against a completely unopposed RfA, with people like Andrew Davidson and their oppose du jour bringing up minor concerns for what seems to be the sole purpose of ruining the existing xxx-0 vote. Effectively, whenever we allow people to make decisions about other people, such as the RfA system in principle and in practice, it sooner or later devolves into nothing more than a popularity contest, as this seems to have already.

Let's get back to my point on edit count and other requirements. It used to be that a candidate could pass RfA just fine with a few months' experience and an edit count in the high triple figures, back when Wikipedia was in its infant and childhood stages, if you will. Since then, standards have been progressively inflating, to the point where it now seems that the de facto minimum edit count is somewhere in the 10-20K range. Someone who knows how to brown-nose effectively and who spends his entire day sitting there with Huggle open might amass 40,000 edits in six months, as I have seen people do in my years of vandal fighting, and he would likely pass RfA even despite knowing little about Wikipedia and how the delete, block, protect, and other buttons work other than simply how to click a button or two in Huggle and have the script do all of his work for him.

However, I don't think pressing buttons on automated tool sets really fast should be what we're trying to encourage. According to X!'s tools, I have made 2,273 edits in the past 365 days, and this is among the most active I've been. This is still over five edits per day on average, and my lifetime average is still an IMO respectable 3.2 edits per day. However, at the rate of 2,273 edits per year, it takes 6.6 years to reach 15,000 edits and have a chance of passing RfA. That means if an editor started at the age of 20, by the time he or she became eligible for adminship, he or she would now be 26 or 27, having gone from college kid to adult man or woman, holding down his or her own full-time job and likely married or even a parent. And it's not like I'm inactive or just a sporadic editor either; I often spend 30-60 minutes a day with the abuse log open in front of me, reverting any vandalism I find and giving talk-page warnings to the repeat or egregious offenders. The extremely high edit count de facto requirement is only encouraging people not to have a life outside of Wikipedia and just to sit there all day with Huggle open, as well as a likely player in the "kid with the tools" archetype, as I refer to it: the new or relatively new user who spends his time doing this, clicking buttons inside his automated tool set and reverting anything he thinks might be vandalism, without ever truly taking the time to figure out what he's even doing, let alone how Wikipedia actually works behind the scenes. Six months after he joins, he has already amassed somewhere in the ballpark of 50,000 edits in extreme cases, and already likely seems to be losing interest. This behavior is only encouraged by the current herd RfA mindset, and this "kid with the tools" archetype seems only to have emerged since about 2014 or 2015, becoming largely pervasive around 2017, with me noticing it especially so in the summer months of that year, when I was extremely active and my time online often overlapped with times when these users were on.

Personally, I also don't think it's necessary to have 67520 featured articles or 83134 AfD votes under one's belt either. Granted, it is very much a plus to have breadth of experience, which means contributing in many different areas instead of just sticking stubbornly to one particular topic. Besides, understanding and proper application of Wikipedia rules and policies is really what we are (or at least should be) assessing here, so it would only make sense to give preferential treatment to users with experience in many different areas, including but not limited to these. The mindset I have a problem with, however, is the one that basically states that those are the only worthwhile parts of Wikipedia. This is blatantly untrue; aside from content creation and deletion, there are many other aspects that are also necessary, including article maintenance (including gnome work), vandal fighting, and snuffing out sock puppets, bad usernames, and copyright violations. As such, it's not as much the raw number of articles created, or AfD votes cast, et cetera, as the actual quality of such. Creating unreferenced, potentially libelous stub articles that read in their entirety "John Q. Public (born 31 December 1969) is a terrible guy, he has spent 23 of his 48 years alive in jail for assaults" is not helping anyone, and as such, just creating 150 of those articles should actually be seen as a negative as they are more disruptive to the project than they are constructive. Creating one long, well referenced, well written, accurate, and overall very good article is, however, very much a net positive, even if it is just one (which, in the eyes of many RfA voters), is nowhere near enough. Similarly, voting "delete" on every new AfD that comes out without giving explanation as to why is not helping anybody; a few well-composed AfD votes with policy-supported reasoning should be worth a lot more than just writing the eleven characters needed to spell "delete ~~~~" on every new AfD submission.

Sorry if this is overly long or incoherent; this is just one man's opinions on this process. 65 HC A7 23:10, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

(comment struck by author) power~enwiki (π, ν) 01:41, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

This "analysis" is shallow to the point of being absurd, and frankly insulting to the vast majority of regular RfA participants. ansh 666 00:21, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

On second thought, is it allowed for me to withdraw my comments, as it's clear I'm just going to get flamed? I'm not meaning to upset anybody here. 65 HC A7 01:06, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure what could possibly have prompted Ansh's reply. Thank you for your perspective. Prodego ^talk 01:29, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

That's probably a good idea. Including my comment and Ansh666's. Thanks anyhow. --MelanieN (talk) 01:24, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

I wouldn't say it's completely absurd. It's clearly a rant by an editor who would like to be an admin though, and who perceives the criteria as being too stringent. Perhaps a good read of WP:RFAADVICE would change their perspective on the process. Some of the requirements by some voters are indeed ridiculous but they are not in the majority. I would however venture to say that since the reform 2 years ago allowing RfCs to be more widely publicised, it is almost certain that a significant number of participants make drive-by votes without doing any research. The serious votes are still mainly made by a small core of long-time RfA voters. All that said, however, RfA appears to do the job it's intended for, but certainly needs purging of time wasters and those like Andrew Davidson who are determined to maintain RfA as place where very few potential candidates of the right calibre are wont to venture. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:54, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
My thoughts in full [6] but since 65HCA7 wants to not continue this conversation, let's just leave it. ansh 666 20:03, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

How soon is TOOSOON?

OP has been locked globally for confirmed socking

So I read the guides, and looked through the past requests, it seems to me that in addition to significant positive contributions (clerking, content creation, AfD, CSD and the like), RfA generally requires at least 12 consecutive months of activity (preferably longer). I don't see anyone with less than this being accepted in the last few years. Is this accurate? Prince of Thieves (talk) 10:16, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

There's a difference between too soon and WP:NOTQUITEYET. From what I've seen, too soon usually means the user has almost no experience and wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of passing. NOTQUITEYET means the user is on their way to becoming an admin but suffers from a few issues that they should fix before re-running, such as having insufficient article work or currently undesirable AfD stats. RfA usually requires at least a year of consecutive activity and around two years of registering with ~10,000+ edits to dampen the !voters who focus on account age and edit counts. Others may have different interpretations of the minimums required, though. Anarchyte (work | talk) 10:25, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Ok thanks. My follow up question is, has anyone yet made a list of editors that potentially meet these requirements? (ie. all editors registred for 2+ years, active for 1+ year with 10,000+ edits). Prince of Thieves (talk) 10:29, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

There was an attempt here, but I don't think anyone is actively updating or using it. GMG ^talk 10:32, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

There are some rather familiar names on that list. :) - NsTaGaTr ^(Talk) 20:24, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes I recognise many of them. I guess any attempt to recruit more admins this way is doomed from the start. There are various reasons each person will not go to RfA. Prince of Thieves (talk) 20:47, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

I've got this nagging feeling what Prince of Thieves really wants to know is when can he run for RfA. Well, my answer is a) carry on what you're doing content wise b) avoid ANI (and, especially, never close a thread there) c) get involved in copyvio checks which nobody wants to do d) wait until 2020. Then drop me a line. As for new candidates, one fruitful avenue I have found is at Category:Wikipedia new page reviewers. Have a look down that lot and see if you find anyone suitable. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 21:13, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

wait until 2020. Then drop me a line. wilco. :) Prince of Thieves (talk)

@Ritchie333: to my surprise, I am not listed in that category. Are the only people who like to boast off through userboxes included in this category? —usernamekiran(talk) 01:57, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran: Got it - the definitive list, synced with the actual user rights, is here, and you are on the list. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 15:19, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

I got that feeling too. PoT, if this is the case, you've only been extended confirmed for 3 days. I won't consider an adminship candidate under 1000 edits. I'm much more lax than most. The average edit count for a successful candidate fluctuates wildly due to the low number, but as a rule of thumb, 10,000 edits is a good minimum. I know at least one user who will reject under 20K edits. ~~I've got 6x the number of edits as you (roughly)~~ and I'm not experienced enough. Edit count is a very rough metric, but it does say something about experience, albeit crudely. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 21:25, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Wow, 2800 edits in 33 days. You're actually the first time I've seen the "30 days" come into play. However, time restrictions then come in! Generally, RfA, as far as I can tell, wants at least a year of active editing (I'd say you've got the active down though!) I'm not so sure about consecutive, different users will have different standards on that one (some say "6 on 12 off 6 on = 12, not 24") ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 22:15, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

At least he's got the "pretending to not want to be an admin" part down. He'll fit in perfectly with a bit more experience :-) -- Ajraddatz (talk) 22:08, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

@Ajraddatz: Not only that, he's got the "pretending to not want to be an admin but 'accidentally' dropping enough hints to get an nomination" part done too. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 22:19, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Even better! Of course, I can always dream that the community will eventually reach a stage when we recognize that all admins wanted to be admins, and stop treating that like a bad thing. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 23:12, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

The other route available is you "do a GoldenRing", which is basically self-nom and make all the answers to questions the most brilliant anyone (including those who've been admins for 15 years) have ever seen, and have a profoundly zen-like wonder. You'll get at least 50 opposes for edit count, and you'll have to keep on your toes writing superb answers to stay in the 'crat chat zone. Then you can expect a few disgruntled souls who think edit counts are the most important statistic to determine whether someone should have the bit. I would say this is analogous to cooking a sausage by conducting 240V AC through it - if you're lucky, you'll get the cooked sausage, but if you're not careful you'll get something far worse. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 23:28, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Yeah we prefer the "pretend I guess I have to be an admin" attitude currently. I, too miss the days of empowering people that legitimately want to help out. SQL ^{Query me!} 03:52, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks but no thanks

Can we have a moratorium on applicants thanking people for their questions? Let's all just agree that questions are appreciated and leave it at that. E Eng 13:56, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Well, they at least missed out the mandatory questions :) I clocked 20+ in mine; that's probably the highest, no? Lourdes 19:07, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Two RFAs

It's nice to see, does anybody with a longer tenure than me know offhand when we last had two RFAs at once? ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 20:08, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

You only have to go back to October 2017; there were 4 or 5 open for a few hours. power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:10, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Wow, found the page with them. We've had a bit of a dry season. Anyone want to put up a 3rd RFA so we can complete the old bus-themed adage? ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 21:00, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Go on then! 🐾🏁👉

There's one here if anyone's feeling adventurous. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 08:55, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I'd support that, but that user gets enough aggravation w/o adding more.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 09:14, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Ditto. Bloody good idea. —SerialNumber54129^{paranoia /cheap shit room} 09:23, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I think it would be the closest thing to a civil war I've ever seen on Wikipedia. But I'd support. -Ad Orientem (talk) 15:50, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Sometimes that's what this kinds of places need, a good war. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:49, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Can I hear a "self nom" from y'all? Aaaaa-men. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 19:03, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Are you kidding? I can just see it now: Oppose self-nominations are so arrogant. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:06, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

That's the problem with this crack-down on YouTube links - saying "google for 'Kenny Everett' brother lee love" just doesn't have the same ring to it. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 19:10, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Dew it! For safety and security of the Wikiempire. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 19:08, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Not so much Bellezzasolo as Bellezzasidious ~ Amory (u • t • c) 00:34, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

One doesnt have to do much of a research. You can this at the top of the very page. Harrias, and Muboshgu ran together in Dec 2017. —usernamekiran(talk) 09:58, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

TBH I was hoping for the cool stats which power provided. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 10:42, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Harrias is missing from Wikipedia:Requests for adminship by year, I'm fixing that. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 10:44, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Maybe that was intentional. It wasn't really an RfA was it, as he was already an admin.--Pawnkingthree (talk) 12:46, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

@Pawnkingthree: Oh, that was the reconfirmation RfA. I'd still consider it an RfA, so I'm going to be bold and add a parameter to the {{Recent RfX}} template to set it apart. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 13:32, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I think Srich32977 would be a great candidate. I hope he decides to run soon. L293D (☎ • ✎) 13:38, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I nominate Theroadislong, if I were a nom-worthy person! talk to !dave 20:51, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Don't wish to be a party-pooper on that, but I can see about 20 declined A7s from just this year - that's a pile of opposes there, I'm afraid :-/ He does chip away at the NPP backlog a lot, I don't mind him going to ORCP to see what others think, but for now I wouldn't suggest anything else. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 21:36, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Ack, yikes. I guess that's why you didn't ask him a year later. talk to !dave 21:50, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Yup. Happy to chat and give advice; for now the obvious thing is "be more like 331dot". Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 21:53, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

I have no desire to be an admin though thank you. Theroadislong (talk) 21:56, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Moral of the story, thanks to nominators for doing the work and going out to find candidates. It's hard work to do, even for candidates that seem likely to sail through, and is a real sticking point in the process. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 00:34, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps My name is not dave (talk · contribs) should consider taking a bite at the apple? power~enwiki (π, ν) 22:00, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
- Hmm...anyone else got an opinion on that? I don't have much blue here -- the only true decline decline was for PetCloud because I decided to csd it as WP:PAID. That was back in Sep, where I apparently reached my wooden spoon limit. That might just be the thing in the way. I was good enough for OTRS, but that doesn't always equate to anything. talk to !dave 22:17, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
- I think I'd support WP:Requests for adminship/My name is not dave. ORCP? ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 22:31, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
  - I think the authoritative opinion here is the man, the myth, the legend, right? talk to !dave 22:41, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

I’ll have a look and get back to you. I think the block was justifiable but it’s a one off mistake so meh. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 22:45, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Good to know. Personally I've seen RfA guides (i.e. User:WereSpielChequers/RFA_criteria#Blocks) with warnings that it is best to wait a year or whatnot. I mean on paper I think I could crat chat it and maybe succeed. Ah well, who knows. RfA is a popularity contest. I look forward to hearing back from you. I also apologise for the temporary conversion into a low-rate Martinevans123, as I have been left stunned and flatted with two suggestions above, so thanks for them, Bellezzasolo and Power~enwiki. May the latter always crush my RfA reform ideas to pieces. talk to !dave 07:10, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

@My name is not dave: Tip unrelated to RfA, but don't archive your whole talk page. It can be confusing to new editors. It was confusing to me at least a little bit whether I was on your talk or your user page. GMG ^talk 23:08, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi GreenMeansGo. I've done that, and also made it clear that the page my sig links to is my talk page. talk to !dave 07:10, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Default question #3

3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or have other users caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

Wanted to propose an alternative to reduce redundancy and acknowledge that the answer to the first question is inevitably "yes" but a matter of degree:

3. What negative interactions have you had with other editors and what role did you play in their resolution? How will you approach future conflicts and stresses?

For your consideration, czar 18:11, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Well; yes and no! On the one hand, you're absolutely right—an editor who wants to do adminny things (and therfore has presumably already been doing them to a lesser degree) must inevitably have been involved in conflict along the way. On the other hand—anyone who answered "no" would, Darwin Awards-style, put themselves out of the running immediately and thus everyone save 168 hours of wasted time... —SerialNumber54129^{paranoia /cheap shit room} 18:20, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

I don’t particularly agree that being in conflict is a necessity to becoming an admin, and I’m not that keen on the loadedness of the proposed rewording. However, it is true that the current question is wordy and four questions in one, so happy for it to be altered. Aiken D 18:32, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but anyone who's never been in conflict isn't ready to be an admin. It would be like getting a virgin to run a whorehouse. E Eng 18:35, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

I misread that as getting a Virgin to run a warehouse. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 19:24, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

In the long run, turns out that didn't go so well either ~ Amory (u • t • c) 20:19, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

I understand your concerns about loadedness, but I think Czar's intent is to turn what is essentially a yes/no question into something a little more probing. I might change what role did you play in their resolution to something that doesn't lead them to a generous answer, like and how was it resolved?. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 20:18, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Do not assume conflict. Let the candidate answer yes. As above, if he claims there has been no conflict, that would set me to work looking through his talk page archives and then his contributions until I found some conflict, and would be a basis for voting against him. Just saying "We know you have been in conflict with other editors; how did you deal with it?" sounds like a cop interrogating a suspect, or someone asking "After incidents where you beat your significant other, how did you make up?" Edison (talk) 15:59, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Did RfA reform actually reduce the number of RfAs?

It seems like 2018 has sharply fewer successful RfAs. Could the latest round of minor reforms to the process actually somehow reduced the number? Andrevan@ 00:32, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Sharply fewer RfAs in general - this is the first year ever that there will have been fewer than 10 RfAs closed by the end of March. The only formal changes to RfA within the past year that I found in the talk page archives:

Putting ECP on the RfA main page, which probably is the cause of the general drop in RfAs (since the 10-figure always includes NOTNOWs).
Disclosure of paid editing at RfA.

So no, I doubt they made much of a difference. ansh 666 01:21, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

None of the "reforms" that have passed within the last five years have addressed the core issue of a measurably different standard for admin candidates compared with the high volume times of 2006-2008, so honestly I would doubt that any of them have had a significant impact one way or the other. But I agree that ECP and disclosure of paid editing are doubtful to have reduced the number. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 01:25, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Reduce the "number of RfA"'s perhaps, but the number of "successful RfA's" not so much. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:06, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes; I'm thinking of successful RfAs (and credible attempts at RfA). It is certainly possible that ECP has reduced the "hello can i pls be an admin"-type requests from users with ten edits :-) -- Ajraddatz (talk) 03:21, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Except for the blatantly inapproriate attempts, I do not believe any of the reforms have actually changed much apart from greatly increasing the number of voters. IMO, the lack of candidates also reflects what I perceive to be a general apathy to engage in meta areas. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:40, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

New RfA

There is a 3-edit-old user, User:Pastrami653 who just nominated themselves for an RfA. See Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Pastrami653. What should I do? L293D (☎ • ✎) 18:35, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Welcome them. I will look for my not now template. As it is not transcluded, we can probably just G6 it.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 18:41, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

They would not be able to transclude their request for adminship because of ECP. Mkdw ^talk 18:42, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

I've deleted the page and left the user a note; I see Dlohcierekim has left them one also. --RL0919 (talk) 18:52, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Signpost Op-ed and a question re: nominators

Bringing this here so people who don't normally chime in on the signpost can comment. Kudpung wrote Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-05-24/Op-ed about the declining number of RfAs. I don't agree with all of it (I think the concerns with admin activity decreasing, like the general concern with editor activity decreasing, are a bit overblown by the community in general when looked at from a statistical point of view, as some have pointed out at the Signpost talk page). That being said, I do think that it is not a good thing that currently, we are at an average of 0.8 promotions per month this year as compared to 1.8 last year and 1.3 in 2016.

Something that I have brought up previously in a number of ways is the in our current system, in practice, the nominators have one of the most important roles in determining the success of an RfA (Chris troutman's RfA criteria #4 is one of the best explanations of this I have heard, and I think he might even understate it a bit.) If this is the case, and I think it is, something that we should be striving for is seeing more respected members of the community seeking out new admins, and offering to nominate. I believe it was Samwalton9 who has mentioned here in the past how the number of nominators is fairly limited, and I think if you were to factor in repeat seeking out of candidates and then trying to find a conominator, the list would get even shorter.

I think one way to help solve the problem of declining RfA numbers, if we view it as a problem, is to also to bring more diversity to the nominator pool and get more current admins (or other users) to reach out and encourage people to go for it. We all have different areas of Wikipedia that we are most familiar with, and in those different areas, there are plenty of users who would likely do a great job with the bit: encouraging them to go for it is important. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:43, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Well put. However, the problem with looking for candidates is that you have a number of experienced editors who have no interest in going through the ordeal that is RFA. I think a better idea would be to advertise Wikipedia:Request an RfA nomination more prominently and encourage editors who would make good admins to contact editors who have declared their willingness to nominate qualified users privately to get a fair assessment. That way, they can avoid being seen as "power hungry" if they are not ready yet. As for how to do that, I'm out of ideas. Anna Frodesiak tried to get something going at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Optional RfA candidate poll/Poll candidate search, asking users to name potential candidates and encouraging those who fit the profile to take OCRP but that did not really work. The list created for this might hold a couple of potential names interested nominators could contact though. Regards So Why 14:12, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't problem is real. As I say below, reputation is perceived to be very important here, and I think that's why many recruitment efforts have failed, creating a real mismatch. Anything driven by candidates can be viewed negatively, and for nominators, it's a lot of work if someone isn't interested. That's fine, but it can take hours of your life to vet someone. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 14:57, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

I think there is some truth there, and what you say also would be helpful, but I also think just asking does go a long way. To use an example I hope he won't mind: I had emailed Joe Roe encouraging him to think about RfA, and then after he did ORCP followed up encouraging him to go for it. I'm sure he would have made his way to RfA either on his own or through someone else poking him at some point, but I'd like to think that the asking made him think about whether or not he wanted to do it when he did (and if I'm giving myself far to much credit, he's free to point it out.) In my case, people had been suggesting it to me for a while, but I wasn't planning on running until around December, but I got enough people asking about it that I thought I may as well run in October, if only to stop getting the questions.

Re: the candidate search: I wasn't a fan of that effort in part because it I felt it relied too much on statistic rather than personal interactions with people. I consider myself a pretty decent RfA handicapper, and most of what I look at are interpersonal interactions when looking at the likelihood of success (the "numbers" should be there in some form too, but that's more of a "will you be NOTNOW'D" thing, IMO).

Tl;dr: I think the best way to spot good candidates is for people who are familiar with the RfA process to look at the people they interact with and suggest to anyone that stands out that they may want to think about it. Some people might not be interested, but I think it will encourage some people to come forward, and if more people start doing it regularly, it could have an impact. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:40, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Although there was a number of people looking for ways to search for candidates using numbers, Anna solicited everyone to submit any and all potential candidates gleaned by any method possible so she could approach them about taking the poll. For whatever reason (well, I can think of a few), there is a reluctance for those like you who look for administrator candidates to co-ordinate on wiki. That's perfectly fine, but it means it's hard to get a view of how much effort is ongoing in this line of pursuit. isaacl (talk) 15:49, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I realize that, but I also think that the limited number of current RfA nominators in a way speaks to this being an area we can improve. I'm not suggesting a formal process here as much as advocating an "if people think this is a problem, they should help solve it" approach. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:59, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

No you're absolutely right. Before you encouraged me, going for adminship was something that in the back of my mind as something that I might think about "in a couple of years". I probably would never have done it left to my own devices. As it happens I had gotten a message from AF through her automated candidate search a few months before that, and while it was very nice of her, I dismissed it because I didn't think statistics counted for much. RfA is ultimately an exercise in peer review, with a deserved reputation for being very harsh, so it makes a world of difference to hear an actual person like yourself, with a proven record of good judgement, tell you that you can pass it. – Joe (talk) 10:12, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Thinking out loud, but I wonder what folks think of nominators of failed RfAs? RfA more than anywhere perhaps relies heavily on reputation, and this post is a good example of that. It's clear potential candidates often don't run for fear of the negative pushback, but do nominators of failed candidates get the same negative perception? ~ Amory (u • t • c) 14:57, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

I think not. Most nominators have a good track record that one or two failed nominations will not be seen as emblematic (for example, 2 out of 14 people I nominated failed RFA but I like to think people still value my input as a nominator). I can't recall seeing any user constantly nominating bad candidates to the point where this might affect those candidacies. Going back the last two years (to 2016), only one name appears multiple times, Ritchie333 and that's because he nominates so many people (his track record is 13 out of 16 succesful RfA nominations). Regards So Why 15:23, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Apologies, real life inserted itself up so I posted before I finished my thought, but yes, agreed. I meant to suggest that if (good) nominators are unlikely to be seen in a negative light even for "failures" on nominee RfAs, that would support the goal of getting more and more diverse nominators. As for you, I think WP:SWAT speaks for itself. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 15:45, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

The game theory explanation is that players who perceive themselves to be winning become risk averse. I've wondered about the statistics of our RfA nominators, and the degree to which they demur on nominations out of an abundance of caution. That's not my anecdotal perception, however. Of the clueful, reasonable nominations, it seems candidates themselves stay away or withdraw their candidacy because they're too thin-skinned to get the public roast that is RfA. It's worth study to see if successful RfA's spawn from nominators above a certain edit count or longevity of service to Wikipedia. Do co-noms help? Sadly, reputation is something that isn't easily quantifiable. If we had a popularity poll of the 100 most active admins we might correlate that to RfA success. Of course, everything in social science is probabilistic, so it would only be one factor among several. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:39, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

I've successfully nominated ten candidates, but I've also had six unsuccessful candidates including my first two nominations. I take several things from that, including that nominators also have a learning curve. Not all of us nominators get it right from the start, and as a nominator you need to remember that your own !voting criteria may not be the same as that of the community. But I'd add that I hope that !voters, especially Oppose !voters, sometimes revisit their past !votes and see how those RFA candidates subsequently fared. I think that my nomination track record is pretty good, not so much because most of my nominations have become admins, but more importantly those who have become admins have acquitted themselves well as admins, including my very first nominee who passed at a subsequent attempt. Ϣere SpielChequers 13:05, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Whenever I hear the "Admin-ship" crack, I'm minded to put Ellan Vannin on the jukebox ;) but on a serious note; this was a great article, but I wondered when I read it whether it's the RfA process itself that's "broken"—or just the appearance of adminship that puts people off? Some extra twinkle buttons, yes, but every morning a load of notifications telling you that you've ****ed up somewhere in the last 24 hours/abuse/trolling/complaining / and if you're lucky the odd thank-you (or even odder barnstar!). I mean: it doesn't come across as particularly "fun," or even pleasant, and—per WP:VOLUNTEER—why would anyone go out of their way for that? I'm sure there's a well-deserved sense of well-being in helping out, but perhaps the problem is that the upsides of ~~the Ellan Vannin~~ adminship are too obscured be outweigh the visible downsides? Just a thought, carry on. —SerialNumber54129^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 16:13, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

So why don’t yall start nominating? I mean, it doesn’t have to be now, but the community is itching for a new admin and will gladly ignore any obnoxiously high standards to have one elected. Also, as someone who can be considered “part of the crowd” most people don’t care about the nominator’s rfa track record; they just care about the canadite.💸Money💸emoji💸^💴 14:16, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

I think User:Srich32977 is a perfect example of a good and experienced user who doesn't want to take the humiliation of RfA. I'm sure if he ran someone would dig up an incident two years ago and that would fail his RfA. L293D (☎ • ✎) 14:26, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

If anyone opposed on account of a three year old 53" block...incredible. —SerialNumber54129^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 14:36, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

There are some blocks, even as stale as that, that would merit an explanation at RFA. But that one, and indeed any edit warring or 1RR block as old as that, I'm pretty sure the RFA community would happily treat that as a lesson learned. Ϣere SpielChequers 15:08, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

I also contest the idea that RfA is some horrible process or is as bad as it used to be: the majority of RfAs started by viable candidates with strong nominations pass in the 90s these days. The last two “nasty” RfAs were GMG and Headbomb, and both of those sunk because of comments by the candidate during the RfA itself, not ancient disputes.

Anyway, Money emoji, my point in starting this discussion was to encourage more people to seek out candidates and help with nominations from people from diverse backgrounds on the project. Like Joe said above: having someone tell you they think you can do it an offering to nom can have a big effect on getting people to take the plunge. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:10, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

@Money emoji: spurred by this discussion, I approached 4 editors to nominate them, 3 "nopes" so far, one pending... not everyone wants to deal with it. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:56, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Potential nominators may want to consider looking through Wikipedia:List_of_administrator_hopefuls#Users_with_at_least_30_edits_in_the_last_2_months every now and then for editors to consider nominating. This page sorts the users who have added themselves to Category:Wikipedia administrator hopefuls and separates the active editors from the inactive ones. Iffy★Chat -- 19:31, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

@Iffy: That category is most likely incomplete, as some nominators and RfA voters (such as Kudpung) explicitly frown upon displaying it. Anyone who is seriously interested in an RfA and conscientious enough to have a decent chance passing it (i.e. has taken the time to read various peoples' voting criteria and advice pages) will likely not use it for that reason. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 00:48, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

It's the old The Ruler of the Universe problem: "it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it." --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 02:00, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Moving out of the fictional world, however, it is very unlikely to find someone who doesn't want to rule but is good at it. And the fact that all admins want to be admins, otherwise they wouldn't have volunteered for the role. The 'pretending to not want to be admin' theatre in potential admin candidates is on a similar level to the newly-elected speaker being dragged to the chair in Westminster legislatures. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 17:41, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

That is true, and I think we need to distinguish between those who want to be admins for the status and those want to be admins for the tools. It is only natural that someone whose activities would be eased by being able to perform deletions or block users or whatever else would want to be an administrator therefore, and I'm not sure it's productive or fair to condemn them for expressing as much. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 12:30, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Agreed, though I'd go a little bit further than that. I think it's very hard to say what the distinction is between someone wanting to be an admin for the status vs for the tools, because the two are inseparably linked. And even if a candidate just wants to be an admin for the status, that still doesn't mean that they will be a bad admin. We look down on signs that a candidate might want to be an admin (for the status) because we assume that wanting to be an admin will lead to abusive behaviour, but it doesn't necessarily do that at all. If we want to avoid abusive admins, we should look for actual measures of abusive behaviour, like looking at how they interact with others in discussions, rather than considering largely-unrelated proxies. In an ideal system, candidates should feel comfortable expressing their interest in moving into different areas of volunteering within our organization, and receiving the appropriate mentoring without the risk of that being used against them in the RfA process. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 20:09, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Well said. In case it didn't quite come across, my comment was intended to be a rebuke of the mindset that anyone who declares themselves to be an admin hopeful is a hat colelctor and unsuited for the job. That whole mindset represents assumption of bad faith. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 23:31, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

@Ahecht and Ajraddatz: I generally agree with ajr’s point, but I think to an extent it misses a point: a lot of how wikis work is based on convention and practice. Silly things like knowing that having the I wanna be an admin one day userbox are quick giveaways as to if someone gets a basic social norm of the project (namely, passing RfA with that userbox on your page in the last 6 months is nearly impossible.) Same for the theatre bit Ajr loves hating on (and he hates on it so well

) The community generally doesn’t want to know everything about how admins (or any editor) really feels, and not talking about your RfA ambitions or seeming over anxious is an easy way to test if someone is able to take part in a bit of political theatre that is going to be present in any complex social system.

Tl;dr: of course Ajraddatz is right that all admins at some level wanted to be one. That’s not the point in wanting candidates to be discreet about it. That has more to do with seeing if they can follow unspoken social rules. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:55, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Just seeking a point of clarification: are you saying that you believe that a user expressing interest in potentially being an admin on their userpage actually undermines their chances of ever becoming one? I mean, I've had the "might like to be one someday" box on my userpage for years, and I have no idea whether anyone ever noticed, much less cared. If it's considered an unspoken social rule that one shouldn't even engage in that level of hinting at interest, then I might recommend that that be a spoken rule somewhere. DonIago (talk) 14:10, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

See the last point of Kudpung's criteria. (pinging as a courtesy) The I want to be an admin userbox is usually not looked at favourably at RfA by many RfA regulars. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:25, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

That's pretty daft though. Aspiring to be an admin should not be a bad thing, assuming your aspiration is because you want to help the project and clear some of those backlogs and so on, rather than hat collecting. And given the downward trend in admin numbers, the userbox might actually be useful for the project in helping us to pick out and vet those from the large pool of experienced users that could be willing to have a crack at RFA. That's just my off-the-cuff instinct though, there may be deeper issues going on that I haven't considered... — Amakuru (talk) 21:33, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

I haven't been around for a long time until recently but in reviewing RfAs from the last couple of years, Tony's statement is absolutely correct. However, for all the reasons listed above, I think this is a social norm that should be pushed against as others have done eloquently above. I think there enough other unspoken RfA rules to judge whether someone can pick up on social cues here. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:43, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

I think it would make better sense to evaluate candidates on how they have conducted their editing career, rather than by that particular kind of userbox. In other words, someone who has done nothing but hang around noticeboards and demonstrating a keen interest in hat collecting can rightly be opposed as lacking the needed varieties of experience, and that's what editors should look into if the userbox catches their attention. But nonetheless there are editors who will see the box, and decide to oppose without looking any further. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:04, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

There are newer users who I think have potential who I have privately suggested remove the userbox, and knowing they had it at one point wouldn't affect whether I supported or nom'd. My criteria are pretty lax, and with rare exceptions I generally support any experienced user who isn't a jerk and has a basic understanding of how the project works. My point above in responding to Ajraddatz is that while we might like to make fun of stuff like this, weird political requirements for adminship (or a real world office politics) often do serve some purpose beyond just being ridiculous. (As an aside, I will take the opportunity point out that Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Tryptofish should not be red.) TonyBallioni (talk) 22:15, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Or should not be read. You've identified someone who would never be caught dead with that userbox. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:18, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Weird political requirements can absolutely serve their purpose, and I imagine that this one came from the "no big deal" days, when wanting to be an admin could be frowned upon because adminship was just a few more buttons. My argument is that this particular norm is somewhere between unhelpful and harmful to our community governance, and that we would be better off developing open mentoring relationships with people who might want to step up to advanced roles rather than forcing candidates into deceitful behaviours like pretending to not be interested. And for what it's worth, there is probably some value to not being over-eager to be an admin - such an individual might be prone to over-exercise their authority once in the role. But if that's what we're trying to prevent, then again we should actually be looking for that rather than random proxies to that. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 00:12, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:List of administrator hopefuls seems like some sort of cruel joke being played on editors if the logic is really that an editor who is willing to express interest in becoming an admin is in fact least suited for the position. If there is a consensus with regards to that opinion then I think admins should come out and say it and do away with what's essentially a trapdoor at that point. Honesty (provided that's what it is, obviously) should be rewarded, not punished. DonIago (talk) 04:36, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

@Ahecht, Ajraddatz, Barkeep49, TonyBallioni, and Doniago:. It may sound daft to you, Amakuru, and others may accuse me of bad faith, but I do my homework. I once went through all the "I wannba be an admin" users and I found that a significant number of them had placed that Ubox on their UP within moments of registering. Parsing those users further, I felt I perceived a distinct lack of maturity in many of them, Hence why I would like to say to those people: "If you joined WP to become an admin, you joined for the wrong reasons" Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:33, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Fair, but to conclude "I'm going to summarily oppose anyone who has the userbox" (which I'm not saying you're doing) seems to go against WP:AGF and seems to fly in the face of the intention (if perhaps not many of the practical cases) of including it. Put simply, if editors who have a serious interest in becoming admins should never add that infobox, I think that should be explicitly stated, not treated as a way of disqualifying someone without conducting any additional research into whether they are in fact qualified. How long does it really take to check to see whether a user meets criteria in other regards, in any case? DonIago (talk) 12:44, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Just wondering, what is the general activity level required for a successful RFA? Ive been pretty active this month but i've also gone several months without editing. I have thought about running for RfA for a while now but my first two attempts did not go very well. ~EDDY ^{(talk/contribs)}~ 17:15, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

In my experience, !voters frown on large chunks of absence. Especially editors who have already failed RFA before are usually held to a higher standard than first time candidates. In your case, I'm pretty sure a RFA at this point will fail considering that five out of the last twelve months you have not edited at all. If you remain active, a RFA in a few months might look better (on this count, I suggest OCRP for a complete assessment) but you probably have to explain your editing pattern no matter when you run (unless you wait another five years). Regards So Why 18:36, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

I haven't actually nominated many candidates myself, but I've done a lot of research in the past and passed them on to those who do a lot of nominating. The vast majority of those whom I have approached myself said they were not prepared to go through the process although they would almost certainly have passed. Others said that if they had wanted to be an admin they would already have run. On another note: Agreeing with SoWhy, large gaps in ending history are not good. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:12, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
I just stumbled upon this tool, which purports to statistically assess how ready someone is for adminship. It seems to me to have no merit whatsoever, but I am curious what other people of it. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 01:42, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
- The admin score tool does not assess how ready someone is, rather it provides a quick overview on whether or not the candidate satisfies some of the basic minimum expectations. It is also somewhat outdated to serve much useful purpose. Alex Shih (talk) 01:50, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
- FYI this tool is similar, but faster to run usually. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:17, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
  - It timed out on me the first time, but overall it seems to be much more relevant than the first one (although its nowhere close to a substitute for research and common sense, obviously). —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 03:41, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
    - All it does is, as Alex points out, allow users to quickly see whether a user is warrants further research. It also flags common problems. If for example the tool detects a large amount of blue links in someone's CSD log, one can check that log and stop researching further if the entries there already demonstrate that the user is not familiar enough with speedy deletion to be trusted with the deletion button. Regards SoWhy 07:14, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
      - I understood that. I was merely commenting that between the two, the one provided by Xaosflux does a better job of using relevant measures and processing them in a way that makes sense. For example, the former does not check a CSD at all. It also looks at AfD votes, but only in regard to how many times you've voted, not how closely your votes matched the eventual consensus. The latter also uses a better metric for quantifying recent activity (average edits per month rather than total edits, and over a one- rather than three-year interval). If you are wanting to get a quick glance at someone's contributions and what requires your closer inspection, the second tool is definitely the one to use; half the metrics in the first one aren't even relevant, at least not in the way they are presented. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 12:49, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
        That tool is very interesting, and does indeed provide a good starting point. I'm not sure what the userpage metric is for though in either of them. The older tool seems to value longer userpages, whereas the second simply counts existence, with lesser score given to redirects... ƒirefly ( t · c · who? ) 13:00, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

True dat, counting the user page as—"something, anything?"—is a mite bizarre. How it reflects on a quality of adminship I don't know. —SerialNumber54129^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 13:20, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

A user page helps others understand the candidate or admin, and so it is a positive thing. It only counts for 10 points anyway and some admins don't have it. I would count it as a negative, but not a disqualification, for a candidate not to have a user page, and a really big negative if they do not have a talk page. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:44, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree, in part. But then it's a matter of what the user page says, not just the mere fact of its existence. Which of course the script can't assess, which is why it should ignore it. My user page could be covered with Nazi/Communist dog-whistles—and the script would still give me ten points! On the other point...how does one not have a talk page?! —SerialNumber54129^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 12:50, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

No talk page happens when a user is brand new, or when the page has been abused in such a way it has to be deleted! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 13:01, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

The former would be a WP:NOTNOW closure, the latter a WP:SNOW. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 18:27, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

I was wondering about Oshwah's RFA, and if there are any particular takeaways from the RFA itself. ^{cinco de}L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 22:36, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

In the interest of helping the discussion of decline of RfAs, I added a Daily page views to the talk page Xinbenlv (talk) 03:33, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Anonymous v. publicly-identified admins

Does it matter to RFA voters whether an admin candidate edits anonymously, or have identified themselves, either publicly or to ARBCOM/WMF? More to the point, should it matter?

Some of the concerns with new admins (the Archtransit problem) may be minimized for people who are known publicly; on the other hand, I doubt we want to discourage anonymous or pseudonymous editors from becoming admins. power~enwiki (π, ν) 04:15, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't think there's been much suggestion that this matters or should matter. (And note that the highly unusual Archtransit incident occurred more than ten years ago.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 05:03, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Archtransit's first edit was in June 2007, they passed RFA in Jan 2008 and were indefinitely blocked in Feb 2008. Since that event and other events in that era the de facto standard for RFA has included a year's activity, given the quality of admins appointed since that era I'm sure I'm not the only one to think that this particular barn door works just fine. Ϣere SpielChequers 10:47, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I think it gets brought up here and there, but never seriously. It's not necessary, and there haven't ever been great numbers calling for it to be required. Moreover, I don't think any of the higher-ups (AC, WMF, etc.) actually want it — unnecessary paperwork, etc. That being said, if someone is identified, it's often for a good reason (OTRS, for example) so it's likely to be correlated to something beneficial to a candidate. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 13:07, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm going to slip in with my two cents. I originally wrote something long and terrible last night, but let me just say that identification doesn't matter to this RfA voter. But, as Amory says, being identified tends to be for a good reason, so it's a plus, usually. (I would, of course, object to identification being a requisite for nomination.) — Javert2113 (talk; please ping me in your reply on this page) 13:23, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

In any case, what did the affaire Archtransit have to do with public / anonymous editing? —SerialNumber54129^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 13:30, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

If this question is for me, @Serial Number 54129:, l'affaire Archtransit had nothing to do with public or anonymous editing, so far as I can tell. I believe power~enwiki is suggesting it may act as some sort of deterrent against long-term abusers or sock-puppets, but I just don't see the crux of the argument. — Javert2113 (talk; please ping me in your reply on this page) 13:38, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Right, the relevance was that harmful or biased editors wouldn't want to be publicly identified with their actions, and it could be demonstrated that the editor isn't a sock-puppet. power~enwiki (π, ν) 14:47, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I see. I still just don't see it. Whether or not I hand over personally-identifiable information doesn't necessarily preclude my being a sockpuppet or a meatpuppet or a spammer. Furthermore, the online veil of anonymity only extends so far as one wishes it to: some people take pride in their bias, and show it quite publicly.

In a larger sense, I'm admittedly wary of handing over my information to the Foundation simply because I want expanded powers. I'd rather not have some unknown individual knowing who I am, without my having any power to rescind their receipt of my information, just because I might become an admin. I could see this idea being a bureaucrat thing, or an ArbCom thing; there, I might agree, but just for admin? Eh... — Javert2113 (talk; please ping me in your reply on this page) 15:19, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you Javert2113, no I should've outdented; but I agree with your conclusion, and couldn't quite see the link myself. Cheers! —SerialNumber54129^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 13:41, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

If you believe what was previously said about "identifying to WMF",[7] all copies of IDs were destroyed upon receipt. As I understand it, OTRS no longer does "identifying to WMF", and I'm fairly certain that CU and OS don't either. Thus you can really question, even more than usual, to what extent anyone is properly identified or how effective that process would be. It's just safest to assume that no one is properly identified. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 14:27, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

If the WMF doesn't actually identify users any longer, this almost certainly is moot. power~enwiki (π, ν) 14:47, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

They don't. Volunteers sign a confidentiality agreement. — JJMC89 (T·C) 19:34, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

MFD for a deletion of all a batch of malformed test and junk RfA subpages

Done

See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Bjkun16, which is establishing or confirming a consensus to delete any and all malformed test and junk RfA subpages. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:14, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi Joe. I can't see the discussion oriented towards any and all malformed test and junk RfA subpages (although it may be that I'm perhaps reading either your message or the Mfd wrong). Warmly, Lourdes 07:02, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi. "test and junk" is my opinion of the pages nominated. The nominator alleges that not using the template is "malformed". I didn't spend much time wordsmithing this notification, but I think the description is not terribly wrong. I do think that this MfD nomination is precedent-confirming, and any WP:RfA page watchers concerned about the deletion of these odd, never-launched "RfA" subpages should go have a look. Without strong feelings, I support the deletions, but I think a notification here was proper. Apologies if the wording is a problem. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:11, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi all, I nominated these for deletion on the basis that they're not serious attempts to apply for adminship. It's not really my intention to create a precedent for deleting any malformed/very early RfA subpage without a full deletion discussion - unless, of course, it meets a CSD. Some of the ones I found did in fact meet G2, and I tagged them as such. ƒirefly ( t · c · who? ) 08:07, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
Tweaked section heading, this is taken as informative of the current MFD for removal of a specific batch of old malformed RfA's. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:18, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
- - I just went ahead and SNOWed that MFD while you did that, sorry. Seems pretty clear though that removing these pages is accepted as simple maintenance without precedent. Regards SoWhy 13:26, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
    - Contrary to the statements opposing precedent, I see a strong vein of consensus that these sort of pages may be freely G6-ed, with an element of schizophrenia (case-by-case, vs G6-at-will). --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:16, 19 June 2018 (UTC)