Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship

RfA candidate S O N S% Ending (UTC) Time left Dups? Report HouseBlaster 55 3 1 95 00:50, 23 June 2024 4 days, 9 hours yes report RfB candidate S O N S% Ending (UTC) Time left Dups? Report Last updated by cyberbot ITalk to my owner:Online at 15:18, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Current time: 15:30:59, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Audit Subcommittee appointments: Invitation to comment on candidates

The Arbitration Committee is seeking to appoint at least three non-arbitrator members to the Audit Subcommittee, and is now seeking comments from the community regarding the candidates who have volunteered for this role.

Interested parties are invited to review the appointments page containing the nomination statements supplied by the candidates and their answers to a few standard questions. Community members may also pose additional questions and submit comments about the candidates on the individual nomination subpages or privately via email to arbcom-en-blists.wikimedia.org.

Following the consultation phase, the committee will take into account the answers provided by the candidates to the questions and the comments offered by the community (both publicly and privately) along with any other relevant factors before making a final decision regarding appointments.

The consultation phase is scheduled to end 23:59, 21 March 2011 (UTC), and the appointments are scheduled to be announced by 31 March 2011.

For the Arbitration Committee, –xeno^talk 00:00, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Discuss this

Are votes with no rationale "useless noise"?

I'm moving discussion of this over here, from Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Fæ, because the question does not specifically refer to that candidate.

Personally, I think a 'support' or 'oppose' with no rationale at all is pointless. It's not a vote, right? Therefore, such !votes should be discounted. Correct me if I am wrong.  Chzz  ►  02:48, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

It's a disparity that I've always thought a bit odd, but as far as I've been around the stock line is that support is the default position and does not require explanation. I would be interested to see what the 'crats would make of an RFA where the candidate had clearly failed but most of the opposers had not supplied a rationale. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:58, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

That would never happen, because supporters always hound the opposers. The real disparity is that supports without rationales are considered to be an implicit "I agree with the nomination statement", whereas opposes aren't considered to be an implicit "I disagree with the nomination statement". Malleus Fatuorum 03:12, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

(copied from my comment at Fae's RfA)Indeed no rules oblige a !voter to make a comment, but RfA is not a 'first-past-the-post' election, and one oppose vote equals three supports. Like all Wikipedia consensus gathering, it's supposed to be a discussion rather than a poll, and in a close run RfA the closing bureaucrat will evaluate the quality in the discussion. It's generally considered good faith to offer comment. Not saying anything suggests either no effort to do one's own research, "I just don't like him/her", or simply too little understanding of how Wikipedia works its processes and primary goals to be able to !vote objectively. Kudpung (talk) 03:22, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Why is that a "disparity"? Supporting means "you agree with the nomination statement and find no fault with the candidate." No questions arise from taking this position, and no additional info is required. There is very little difference between "Support." and "Support - Hey this guy's really cool and I like him and the articles he wrote." On the other hand, opposing means "you disagree with the nomination statement and/or find a fault with the candidate." Many questions naturally arise from this: What part of the nomination statement do you disagree with and why? What fault did you find with the candidate? How does that perceived fault affect the candidate's ability to be an admin? Not explaining an oppose leaves a lot of questions unanswered, while not explaining a support leaves no questions unanswered. —SW— ^chatter 03:24, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

"Support he's hilarious at Editor for Deletion" vs. "Support he would make a capable admin." The difference isn't trivial. Townlake (talk) 03:29, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Ok, but that's the difference between a facetious support statement and a typical support statement. We're talking about the difference between no support statement and a typical support statement. —SW— ^chatter 03:32, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

My point is that with a one-word support, you don't know why the supporter is supporting. A bit naive to suggest that social networking doesn't happen around here, isn't it? Townlake (talk) 03:34, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

If you're suggesting that RfA is primarily a popularity contest, you certainly have a point that I would find it difficult to disagree with. However, requiring supporters to make a brief statement wouldn't fix that. —SW— ^verbalize 03:39, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

RfA most certainly is a popularity contest, and if opposers are required to make a statement beyond "I think XYZ is a dickhead with a brain the size of a pin head", then so should supporters who make statements like "XYZ has always been very nice to me". Malleus Fatuorum 03:55, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Why? —SW— ^gab 04:03, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)(edit conflict):::I agree entirely, Malleus. The assumption should be that if a candidate (who has read all the RfA instructions, counsel, and essays) is nominated by a nominator who understands the process and has done their homework, there would be a fair chance of success. In practice the chances are 2:1 against because we still haven't resolved the issue of disencouraging NOTNOW and SNOW to run for office. Kudpung (talk) 03:30, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Yet should all the supporters have to brainlessly repeat "the user meets all of the criteria layed out at WP:ADMIN? It was met in circumstances A B &C." One can do that for any user, so although I would not disagree on the point that RfA can be a popularity contest, requiring rationale for support votes doesn't seem to help the situation a whole lot. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 04:01, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Sure it does. Even if it's just going through the motions, it forces the supporter to demonstrate they've at least nominally thought why they're supporting. A solution doesn't have to be perfect to be useful. (I realize this change ain't happening and I'm tilting at windmills, for what it's worth.) Townlake (talk) 04:06, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

What if two people have the same rationale? I admit that it might stop a certain number of drive by supports, but it's easy to drive by oppose as "per Malleus" NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 04:10, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

You may or may not have noticed that I've stopped taking part in any RfAs, either for or against, so I'm not your poster child. The process is obviously broken and there's no will to fix it. It will ultimately be the death of wikipedia, but not for the reasons you might immediately think, i.e., a shortage of administrators. Malleus Fatuorum 04:20, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

@Snottywong I have no problem with Support, per User:FOO, User:BAA and User:BAZ, above, who said everything I'd say.Support ~~~~. I do have a problem with Support ~~~~ ditto oppose.  Chzz  ►  04:14, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Ok then, Per intelligent opposition? NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 04:22, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)(edit conflict) :::Malleus hits it on the nail again (Why do you keep doing that?). Until some clear policy/guidelines are introduced for !voting, with a way of making sure everyone will read them and observe them, there will always be crap votes in either of the three sections. You can't 'force anyone to demonstrate they've at least nominally thought why they're supporting' - they can copy and paste the line just as easily. The worst 'support' !votes come from the canvassing that happens in the schoolyard. The worst 'oppose' !votes, IMHO, are possibly, but not always, from those who contest an RfA that has overwhelming support from genuine supporters and is clearly going to pass. I think those are the !votes that might conjure up notions of "I just don't like him/her." No one can stop people from thinking what they want - even if according to Wikipedia rules they have to find another reason for stating why they have !voted. Kudpung (talk) 04:32, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

It is supposed to be a discussion, not a vote - or so we claim. Therefore, surely, Support ~~~~ or Oppose ~~~~ is fucking useless. It does nothing to help form consensus. If it is a vote, let's at least be honest about it.  Chzz  ►  04:44, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

It's paraded as a discussion rather than a vote, but it's a vote as anyone with eyes can see. Malleus Fatuorum 04:47, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

MF, I'm not denying that; it is what it is. I'm just asking that we be honest about it.  Chzz  ►  05:41, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Whether it is a discussion or a vote is not really the point. (Fact is that unless a candidate gets circa 70%+ the RfA will fail so it is at least a de-facto vote, but that is besides the point). The RfA process is to determine if there is general consensus of trust that the candidate will use the tools wisely and confidence the candidate has the competency to do so. There may be any of a thousand reasons a user doesn't trust the candidate, but not all of them will relate to specific "mistakes", some may be merely a personal opposition to a POV on the candidates userpage, or a perception of the tone of a candidates responses. Ultimately, if a user does not trust the candidate they will oppose, and if the reason is simply "I don't trust this candidate" that should be just as valid as "I trust this candidate". As I believe RfA is as good a place as any for visitors and candidates alike to learn better ways, I would generally not support or oppose without providing some rationale.--ClubOranje^T 08:59, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

As long as some participants follow the debate after their !vote and amend, reaffirm or even reverse their position based on subsequent discussion then in my view it is no more a vote than it is a popularity contest. Also I'm not familiar with any form of voting which when it concludes with between 70 and 75% becomes a discussion where a crat has to weigh consensus, or that allows one to qualify one's position by prefixing it with weak. ϢereSpielChequers 16:51, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

• Malleus was almost there with his first comment, but I would say he missed one bit. In my view it is more supports without rationales are considered to be an implicit "I agree with the nomination statement", whereas opposes without rationales are considered to be an implicit "I disagree with the nomination statement, but I'm not saying why". There are two possible changes to that, accepting that people can simply vote no without explaining why they oppose a candidate, or requiring those who support "per nom" to add words to that effect. I don't think that either change would be positive for RFA. ϢereSpielChequers 16:41, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Whether someone should be an administrator is primarily a matter of confidence that they will be sensible. A statement like "support" means I have overall enough confidence. A statement "oppose" is a statement that one does not. This is a vote, a vote explicitly, and there are guidelines by which the bureaucrats should look at the proportion of votes. In doubtful cases, they look also at the reasons. What is the difference between saying "Oppose" and saying "oppose because I do not have confidence in them" ? they mean the same. The purpose of giving reasons is twofold: one is to aid the crats in judging borderline voting results, and the other and usually the more decisive, is to try to convince other people, and, sometimes, elicit a response from the candidates that may clarify the degree of confidence people hold in them. The only difference between a vote here and a vote for arb or the board, is that for the arbs or the board there are a fixed number of places to fill, so we do not need a fixed cutoff, but can pick the highest. Here, there are an indefinite number of places to fill, but we have ever agreed on what a cutoff value should be, so we let the crats muse their judgment if the vote is indecisive. DGG ( talk ) 18:06, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

There is no more difference between Oppose and "Oppose I do not have confidence in this candidate" than there is between Support and "Support I have confidence in this candidate". None of those positions gives anyone a clue as to why you do or don't have confidence in the candidate, though with the supports we can reasonably assume that you agree with the nomination. I think that it is at least a matter of courtesy that one gives a reason for an oppose. If an editor says "Oppose, sandal wearing hemp clad *****ist with a grossly inappropriate anti penguin userbox" then other editors can weigh that argument and decide to support it, dispute it or even refute it if as occasionally happens an opposer has misread a candidate. If these were simply votes then I don't think that would be possible.ϢereSpielChequers 13:57, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't call them "useless noise" but they are an indication of opinion rather than a contribution to a debate. As the "oppose" side normally attracts fewer comments but more discussion, I think it is more important for the health of the debate that people opposing give there reasons why. Anyway, this discussion has prompted me to update my !vote in the RFA in question The Land (talk) 18:12, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

• Thoughts (from the second newest admin (at time of posting)). I've not taken part in many RfAs on either side, but I took it that supporters were assumed to be 'per nom' with optional extra remarks, but opposers and neutrals were raising points that could possibly be addressed, or being 'per xxx' who had beaten them to it (or raised something they only thought of when seeing it on the page). There is a nomination statement which can presumably be taken to be accepted by all the supporters (unless they disagree with a part of it). There is no anti-nomination statement as such. I feel that that makes an 'oppose' with not even a 'per xxx' of less value than a 'support' with no explanation. Unless a Devil's Advocate is appointed (I'm not volunteering...), opposers and neutrals should explain - with a minimum of 'per xxx'. I learned something from my opposers. Peridon (talk) 21:17, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

I figure that if a person is opposing they have a reason... generally, if they don't have a rationale, I assume that it is more personal dislike.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 14:55, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

My76Strat

Following the recent RfA for My76Strat (talk · contribs), xe appears to have announced retirement [1].

I will make no comment here other than to say, a) I opposed [2], b) I like to consider him a friend, c) his retirement is a loss to Wikipedia.

I'm not posting here for DRAMA; I just thought I'd let people know, who might not otherwise notice. Best,  Chzz  ►  03:19, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Tough luck! Monterey Bay (talk) 03:31, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Excellent prose, but it seems somewhat like a martyrdom to me. Yet it cannot be denied that RfA exacts a toll on its participants. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 03:50, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Anyone who puts themselves forward at RfA must be prepared to take the knocks. It's not nice to be told that you're not trusted, sure, but then just look at who's telling you that and be glad you're not one of them. Malleus Fatuorum 04:00, 18 March 2011 (UTC)y

"I am proud, having left record of my hand, across Wikipedian. Wishing the very best possible, even imaginable, continence, and peace abundant!" Righto. I'm not convinced this user has retired. Townlake (talk) 04:34, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I might be if I understood that. But there a few Wikipedians I'd like to leave a "record of my hand" across, that's for sure. Malleus Fatuorum 04:38, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Is it unbelievable to anyone that a user retired from Wikipedia due to hostility in their RfA? It's not exactly uncommon, most of the time only a few notice. Swarm ^X 04:45, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually, to me, it is unbelievable. Why would you stop editing articles just because people tell you your style isn't compatible with the style expected of admins? I'm not just exaggerating when I say that I really don't understand why you would walk away after a failed RfA. Qwyrxian (talk) 05:08, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Complete and utter emotional discouragement? They no longer feel a desire to contribute to something that has caused them so much pain? Honestly, I've seen it multiple times. Swarm ^X 05:23, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

After my failed RfAs I simply went on a wikibreak. It's a really good way to recover after the stress of an RfA. Seriously, I swear I only got two hours of sleep in that entire week! I do agree with Qwyrxian though, I joined Wikipedia to improve it. The mop is just another way to assist in that process. Nevertheless, Swarm makes a valid point as well. Many candidates take their failed RfA to mean that the community doesn't value their contributions. Add to that the mental (and sometimes physical) pain of RfA, and you can begin to understand why some users might retire.— Oli ^OR Pyfan! 05:58, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Hey, one of the users in my RFA actually said that I "have contributed so little". How's that supposed to make someone feel? I can see why some people would take negative feedback poorly, it seems a simple task to devalue years of hard work with a few sentences. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 16:15, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I saw that, and was very pleased to see Airplaneman and Swarm jump in and point out how inappropriate that comment was. Hopefully if people continue to challenge those sorts of obnoxious drive-by belittings, there will be less of them in the future. 28bytes (talk) 16:35, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

User_talk:My76Strat#Poll - and if anyone says DIVA, I will personally cut their thingies off with a blunt spoon. This is not about stupid politics; this is about a person. thank you for not shouting at me for this... Chzz  ►  06:14, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I only got about five hours sleep too, and I was on tenterhooks until the last minute, but that's probably partly the fault of choosing to live in an odd-ball time zone. RfA is the biggest single drama on the whole of Wikipedia. Those who get massacred at SPI, COI, or civility investigations have only got themselves to blame, but generally, the respected and experienced editors who run for adminship haven't done much wrong, and most of them have been doing everything fairly well. The editors who leave in disgust or disappointment after a failed RfA are mostly those whose 'oppose' section was full of contrived arguments from past enemies, pile-ons from follow-my-leader (and there are plenty of those in the 'oppose' sections), or sim'ply "I just don't like him/her." This really happens, and all the closing crat can do is count the !votes. I would probably have left the project if my RfA had failed simply because the 'hate' faction had its way - I don't know. I do know, after being promoted in an RfA that remained controversial and contentious until the last 36 hours, that it's totally unnecessary to put volunteers - and we're all volunteers here - under the kind of stress, pressures, and character assassinations that RfA too often is, even for those who don't have cat in hell's chance of succeeding.

And yes, it's a popularity contest - as some of the commentators here know only too well from recent RfAs, a candidate that is so well known they are going to pass anyway, can permit themselves the occasional quip, while those who are not so well known are going to be mercilessly chastised and opposed for displaying the slightest evidence of being human and having a sense of humour. --Kudpung (talk) 06:49, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Agree with much of this. The level of scrutiny of admin candidates these days is really pretty ludicrous. I don't think that with my mere 6,525 edits I'd be a credible candidate at all. Ironic really as I've been an admin for 5 years and helped write the original WP:GRFA..... The Land (talk) 18:24, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

• I got the shit smacked out of me at my first RFA. It went down in a flaming ruin. I took a day or two off and then went back to what I had been doing before. Freaking out and retiring over it is something I would take as a further indication he was not ready to be an admin. Users yell at you and tell you exactly how much you suck pretty much from day one. You get yelled at for keeping, for deleting, for restoring, for protecting, for not protecting, for blocking, for not blocking, and so on and so forth. You have to be able to take that if you want to be an effective admin. Can't say I didn't see this coming after this [3] odd post apparently constructed using a thesaurus. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:09, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

• My first RFA was not a pleasant experience, so I have sympathy with anyone who gets upset and feels rejected as a result of RFA comments. I'm a fairly frequent opposer at RFA and I think it is important that when one opposes one tries to make clear that we value them as an editor but don't think they are yet ready for adminship. There is a broader problem here with CSD tagging, many newpage patrollers don't realise that their tagging is below par until they run at RFA. That isn't good for those candidates, for the RFA process or of course for the article creators who get bitten. I think we need to improve the way we give feedback to newpage patrollers so that excessively speedy tagging and incorrect tagging is picked up much earlier in people's wiki careers. ϢereSpielChequers 18:33, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

True. When a speedy is really off base, not just a little wrong, the person declining it should explain why directly to the user who nominated it. Of course I have also seen some NPPers who have "I'm not perfect so don't tell me why you declined my speedy" headers on their talk pages. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:05, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I honestly would like it if admins patrolling my speedy-tagged articles at C:SD would notify me when they decline the articles I have tagged or delete them under other rationales. However, most do not. Reaper Eternal (talk) 20:14, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Do you watch the page after you tag it? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 05:05, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I have a CSD log at User:Reaper Eternal/CSDlog. Actually, I only see one admin-declined speedy and one I removed myself after the author de-spammed the aarticle. :) Reaper Eternal (talk) 12:30, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

• A few days ago I told My76Strat I hoped he would continue editing, despite the bloodbath that his RfA was. It's nice to see some 30+ editors echoing that sentiment. Perhaps Dusti could use some similar encouragement? His RfA was ten times the bloodbath My76Strat's was, he hasn't edited since, and so far as I can tell, no one's said a single encouraging word to him. 28bytes (talk) 20:31, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

While I personally won't be participating in any of these pity parties that is a damn good point. Funny considering that Strat was so upset with me over remarks I made at Dusti's RFA. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:39, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I just hate this type of wp essay; User:Either way/On retiring or rather the fact that WP:RETIRED, just happens to re-direct there, it does not describe what retiring is. Im a firm beliver that a wiki editor knows when the time has come though to hang up the key board. Alot of quality editors though seem to see this to coincide with RFAs though, Its tough when the community is as harsh on someone for essentially volunteering their services for several years often- and making little issues big (the oppose always has more weight than the support too). So much drama, so many rules.... Ottawa4ever (talk) 11:00, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

The essay is silly. Someone quits, we offer condolence and ask them not to, and they come back... therefore, they didn't intend to quit? Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Chzz  ►  11:08, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

It would look much nicer with a {{humor}} tag on it. Can we do that to an essay? —UncleDouggie (talk) 20:46, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd rather make decisions on the margin. If we try to say nice things to competent active editors post-bloodbath, they are more likely to continue editing. Hence, saying a couple of nice things will increase the number of competent active editors in the project. My urge to ensure a high-quality cadre of admins is not so strong that I flinch from being nice to somebody who tried and failed. bobrayner (talk) 15:13, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Well said, thank you! There's a big difference between a retirement following something at WP:AN/I and one following a failed RfA, which is a voluntary process. —UncleDouggie (talk) 20:46, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I'll start a neutral, informational essay on retiring. Feel free to help. Wikipedia:Retiring. Swarm ^X 20:52, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Alright, I think WP:RETIRE is now a decent informational essay. The above users were right, WP:On retiring was not satisfactory as the only essay on retiring. Swarm ^X 01:13, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

My first reaction when I see recently failed RfA candidates retiring is "Well, this proves my/their point". Admins do need to be able to tolerate pretty high levels of stress without breaking, but I think it's a natural part of the sequence of thoughts following a highly discouraging event is to assure yourself you'll never go anywhere near that place again. Few people actually, permanently stop editing after an RfA, although many pledge to, often with every intention of doing so. Of course, Wikipedia is always a click away, and you're always going to log in and check what people are saying, even if you're totally disenchanted. And then you see that there are people who have no problem with you as a person (which is most, if not all, of the editors on the project, even if they opposed you). Juliancolton (talk) 01:50, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

My experience with RfA was, to me, not pleasant (it concluded earlier this month). As it was finishing, I felt discouraged and was preparing for an indefinite wikibreak to cool down after it. When it finished, I managed to convince myself that I wouldn't jump into that pit any time this century, and that a wikibreak isn't necessary. Although I never considered retirement, I was rather shocked by the hostility of so many of the established Wikipedians here, and I know that there are countless RfAs that were worse than mine. The positive comments that I got, although few, were very helpful, although since then I have not returned to CSD tagging and have minimized my vandalism fighting. I also stand by my policy of boycotting other RfAs, as I do not want to be part of such a process that is harmful to Wikipedia by driving away valuable contributors. Even Jimbo Wales recognizes that RfA is broken. Everyone does. However, because of the strong resistance of a determined "core" of established editors, change is blocked time after time. These people are not here to help Wikipedia if they are supporting something that is hurting it. RfA is a perfect example of red tape and bureaucracy, and goes against the fundamental principle of adminship- that it is not a big deal. --Slon02 (talk) 03:10, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

The community has decided adminship should not be easy to obtain. Jimbo's nobigdeal quote isn't exactly policy. Townlake (talk) 03:54, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I think Slon02 may well be right about a core of established editors, and I think they have made, or try to make adminship difficult to obtain. Fortunately there is a larger core who do good research, discount the minor problems more than 6 months old, and don't !vote out of revenge or just because they like or don't like the candidate. The bar is not too high, but it is set anew for each independent RfA, mainly due to the high percentage of rare names in the !voting sections. Kudpung (talk) 04:25, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

You realize how backhanded this sounds, of course. Townlake (talk) 05:34, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Everyone keeps saying RfA is broken but noone can pin-point exactly how it's broken. And that's because it's not broken. It is what it is. It's a tough process, and deservedly so. Jimbo's nobigdeal quote is outdated, Wikipedia is much higher profile now, and admins take on much more responsibility. Up to this date we haven't had any major problems with badly incompetent or rogue admins, a testament that the process works. Just my thoughts, -- œ^™ 12:37, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

You say that Jimbo's quote is outdated, so here is a more current one;

“ RfA is a horrible and broken process ” — Jimbo Wales, 18 March 2011^[ref]

...and I agree.  Chzz  ►  12:50, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

It seems to be widely (not universally) believed that RfA is broken, but we can't all agree on exactly how it's broken, and even if we could, I doubt we'd agree on resolution/mitigation.

We are sailing the wide blue ocean in a wooden galleon. Some of the crew think that the galleon is slowly taking on water. Others argue that the gallon's trim is a normal consequence of wind and waves and ballast. Several crew have volunteered to form bucket-chains - so far, each bucket chain comprises one or two people. A couple of crew have been up in the crow's nest for a long time and they can't agree whether the grey shadow on the horizon is an island or a typhoon. A midshipman once offered to go down into the hold and look for leaks, but nobody really pays attention to him. We just stand on the deck, bickering, and pulling on different ropes, and arguing about whether the galleon is sinking - until one of the crew interrupts: "Forget all that. What I want to know is, why are there weevils on my biscuits?". Then we start all over again. bobrayner (talk) 13:42, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

And that is the problem with trying to sail a ship by consensus. There comes a point in any serious enterprise when leadership is required, or else nothing gets done.--Korruski^Talk 14:11, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

No I don't agree. Because you're ignoring the crewmembers who are actually wandering around swabbing the decks, cooking lunch in the galley, indeed that large contingent who are sat there blowing the sails (depending how far you want to take the metaphor). So whilst there are things that could be improved, like the RfA process (making it less vitriolic would be a start!) I heartily disagree that "nothing" is getting done. I might also point out that there is leadership, and it is pointing in a certain direction, it's just not dictating the "how". Worm^TT · (talk) 14:18, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but we're talking about 'fixing' (or not fixing) RfA. It's in this context that I am saying nothing gets done. Sure, day-to-day tasks can get done with little or no leadership, the problem Wikipedia has is that it relies on a 'consensus' that is next to impossible to achieve when you are discussing anything that more than a handful of people are interested in. As you say, some things could surely be improved, but all we get is a proposal, counter proposal, argument, subtle variation on original proposal, etc. Each gets some support, and some opposition, and nothing happens. To go back to the sailing metaphor; a group of relatively amiable people can probably manage to keep a ship clean and tidy just by agreeing things betweem them. They might even be able to sail it in calm weather, but once problems start to appear and the solutions aren't obvious, some kind of leadership is needed.--Korruski^Talk 14:36, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I made an idle remark somewhere recently, to the effect that we could try electing a committee of editors to draft reform proposals, with Arbcom style deliberation and workshopping. Proposals would go out to the community (for amendment, rejection, whatever) and the drafting would still have community input too, but it would filter the initial drafting process in a way that might prevent the endless, endless circles some discussions go in. RFA reform is certainly one of those. Rd232 ^talk 14:54, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

It's not as idle as you think, I've been making the same suggestion time and time again. Problem is, you'd need to get a consensus on it... Kudpung (talk) 16:30, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Well since the proposals wouldn't have any particular authority, it wouldn't really need consensus. It just needs someone brave enough to set the thing in motion and see what happens, in terms of people turning up as candidates and community involvement in the voting. Even if you end up with few candidates and few voters, the resulting committee could still usefully go off and try and do something in terms of coming up with well-thought-out proposals to put out there. Rd232 ^talk 16:47, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Reading between the lines

Jimbo says on his talk page: "I am seeking feedback via email for some ideas of an alternative process to run concurrently with the existing process with an eye toward easier confirmation for highly experienced editors with no history of troubles who don't want to run this silly gauntlet. While we have no evidence that the current process actually works, we can design and implement a new process for a few months and see how it goes. The goal should be to have a lot of happy and kind and thoughtful admins. To the extent that the current process is emotionally draining and not obviously achieving that goal, we should consider adding a new process." [4] The thing is ... the only candidates who are going to pass RfA currently would be likely to meet these qualifications, and if a new process is less difficult and/or less painful, who's going to do RfA instead?

And he, or rather the Foundation through him, can do it of course; it's their website and their right to change permissions or not as they see fit. You might say that they'd never get away with it, that the RFA community will push back ... and that actually scares me more, because if it's a fight, then to make their case, people will come up with reasons why the RFA community sucks and shouldn't be trusted, to support their side, and they've got plenty of ammunition from bruised candidates. History gets written by the winners, and the winners will say: RfA was a horrible place filled with spiteful people who never were able to even improve the process, much less fix it, so the Foundation had to step in and stop them. That's not how I want to be remembered.

Does anyone have suggestions that will deal with Jimbo's concerns, before we lose the ability to make the decisions? - Dank (push to talk) 12:50, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

The idea that there is an 'RfA community' who sees protecting their legacy as important seems a little worrying, doesn't it?--Korruski^Talk 13:00, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with your point that we shouldn't encourage an us-against-them mentality; I'm only speaking for myself. - Dank (push to talk) 14:38, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

As long as any new system is run by the community, I'm interested to see what happens. I personally can't see how to resolve the two conflicting arguments that "The community should be able to trust the new admin" with "RfA is an emotionally draining and possibly spiteful place", but I would be open to the ideas that they come up with. Worm^TT · (talk) 13:11, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Personally I do not see change ever happening at RfA unless it is mandated from on high. The system is broken, very few people dispute that. The only thing that I would encourage the powers that be to consider is a mechanism to make it easier to de-admin somebody as well. Personally, I do not think taking away the bit should be as difficult/painful as it currently is. But neither process is likely to garner the popular support needed to become a policy... WP as a consensusology is encumbered by the shere number of people on it. Garnering consensus on major/controversial issues rarely happens.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 13:22, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I think (and this is me personally, not me as an Arb or owt) that the problem lies with the idea that "highly experienced editors with no history of troubles" have problems at RfA. I regard my own RfA as highly unproblematic (other that Wehwalt accusing me of strange practices with livestock - perhaps that was a misunderstanding), and cannot see otherwise than a highly experienced editor (which is more than I was) with no history of troubles would have much difficulty. The bloodbaths by and large don't fall into Jimbo's category anyway.

• new editors who have been here 3 months and think adminship is the next step
• editors with a past who claim to have reformed (rather regardless of whether they have or not)
• vandal and NPP patrollers, who think that's all there is to it
• editors who are in a clique which has an opposing cliqueElen of the Roads (talk) 13:26, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I suspect that, if Hypothetical-New-RfA started running with a mandate from on high, and if it had any participation from the community, then the first 20-30 requests would get a lot of protest votes from Old-RfA stalwarts. Perhaps some people would try to strictly apply criteria which would have applied if the candidate were at Old-RfA. Perhaps some !voters would investigate edit histories a little more closely for problematic CSD tagging or poor-quality content (whether or not these are important benchmarks in the new process). Perhaps less GF would be A'd when an old dispute is brought up at Hypothetical-New-RfA. Who'd volunteer for that?

I think the community is very good at writing an encyclopædia (which is the most important thing), and usually good at collaboration; but process change is not something we're good at. bobrayner (talk) 14:06, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, sadly. How about if admins are appointed by crats (who can ask for emailed input from the community) for two months, then we have the RFA, when we can talk about what the candidate has actually done (with and without the tools), rather than obsessing about what they might do? - Dank (push to talk) 14:10, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Not keen on that idea - how much admin work will a person get done in 2 months? what if it's 1 or 2 tasks? It would push for people gaming the system for those two months IMO. I've a couple of ideas, but is there any mileage in ressurecting WP:RfA Review? Worm^TT · (talk) 14:17, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not seeing it; if a person does 1 or 2 tasks, or if they do 100 tasks avoiding any difficult calls, or try to game the system in any other way, then they won't pass RFA. - Dank (push to talk) 14:32, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

If that's the case, it's worth a shot Worm^TT · (talk) 14:38, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

It's a view I've expressed here a few times, that the community is impotent when it comes to fixing RfA, because there is always too large an opposition to any suggestion anyone makes. Consensus has worked very well for encyclopedia content issues, as Bobrayner says above, but it doesn't work for "management" and procedural issues when the community gets too large and polarized. I've opined that RfA can now only be fixed by imposition from those in authority - I'd still like to be wrong, but I don't see it -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:21, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I totally agree. I'm only making suggestions because I think the time is running out for making suggestions. I'd like to be able to say: we gave it a good shot. - Dank (push to talk) 14:34, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Yep, I'd certainly be happy to help support "one last go" if anyone can come up with anything feasible -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:38, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Well... I'd appreciate some feedback on a few ideas I've got. My major issue with the RfA process is the vitriol, meaning that good editors who fail feel that they are not "worthy".

1. A standard set "requirements" to be an administrator. I see this as a very difficult one, I'm pretty sure there's a WP:PEREN, but worth mentioning.
2. A requirement to provide divs to support your vote, otherwise it goes on the talk page.
3. The only suggestion which I feel has legs is the role of an "RfA clerk", who removes votes which are considered unhelpful/vitriolic. Forcing criticism to be constructive.

All are bare bones ideas, and probably not worth persuing, but I thought they should be mentioned. Worm^TT · (talk) 14:44, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Interesting suggestions. First thoughts...

1) I tried to get the community to add a warning that people shouldn't really apply if they have fewer than 1,500 edits or 6 months, but even something that innocuous was shot down - there are just too many people who won't contemplate any suggestion of imposing minimum requirements

2) That could be hard for Support !votes - supporters can't provide diffs for the absence of things that would cause them to oppose.

3) I think there would be zero chance of the community agreeing to any kind of "super !voter" who could decide which !votes to remove

-- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:58, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

1) I didn't say it would be easy ;) 2) Difficult, perhaps, but should not be impossible... 3)I was thinking more along the lines of someone who was authorised by the community to remove unconstructive comments, asking them to be refactored or at least provide specific examples. Comments such as "contributed so little" or "concerns with ... judgement" from Nick Penguin's RfA. Worm^TT · (talk) 15:09, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

So do we allow Keeps to make his opposes or not? There are a few people who firmly believe that Keeps' opposes/questions are idiotic, mundane, trivial, and show a disregard for WP. There are others who firmly believe that Keeps' opposes/questions are insightful and generate conversation. Efforts to silence Keeps have been (as far as I know) routinely shot down. My point is, what is unconstructive to one person might be constructive to another. Plus, the two examples you highlight are poor examples as they both show positions that have routinely been accepted. You may find them worthless, but that does not mean that others do not agree with them.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 15:22, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

That's a good point. I was looking at this from the "there's no need to make the candidate feel worthless as an editor" point of view, but I can see this being abused. I suppose the solution there would be a clear, agreed remit - but I don't know how to write that without falling foul of editors who would want to remove editors like Keeps. I also do not find either of the positions worthless - I respect both opposes, I just feel they could have been phrased better so as not to make the "candidate feel worthless as an editor". Worm^TT · (talk) 15:29, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

The problem I see is not in your suggestions themselves (I think there is merit in what you want to achieve with all of them), but that I don't think there's a chance of the community going with any of them - I've seen lots of related suggestions in the past get nowhere. There are too many people who want no minimum RfA requirements, and too many who want no restrictions on what questions you can ask and what comments you can make -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:36, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah, now that is why I'm tempted to try and revive WP:RfA Review, which appears to have died a death a couple of years ago. As Dank said above, time appears to be running out for making suggestions and I'd like to say I'd given it a shot. I haven't been very involved in RfA until a couple of months ago, and whilst I've read people being shot down - perhaps one more attempt is worth it. (I don't doubt I'll be shot down as well, but hey ho!)Worm^TT · (talk) 15:44, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

←I think I buy the argument that limiting questions and comments won't work and we don't even want it to work on Wikipedia ... because if someone's got an axe to grind, RFA is exactly where we want that to happen, in the sunlight, with everyone watching. We don't want the guy who thinks an admin is grossly deficient to follow them around taking potshots at their decisions, opposing everything they say in discussions, trash-talking them behind their backs, etc. (and if they do that, what they said at RFA will help us see it coming.) OTOH, if crats appoint admins and the community votes later, the crats are in a perfect position to say that it's no longer a vote, that all they're interested in is evidence of whether the candidate has or hasn't followed the rules. Comments such as "Support, great guy!" are welcome because RFA is in part a chance for the community to have their say, but any comment that doesn't contain at least one small piece of evidence that the admin either has or hasn't acted in line with community standards for admins will be ignored, as will the vote total. - Dank (push to talk) 15:52, 22 March 2011 (UTC)Striking this for the moment because it's not in line with what Jimbo is proposing, but I'll unstrike if it seems to me this is back on the table.

If you revive WP:RfA Review, I will participate in it to help effect changes. Reaper Eternal (talk) 16:23, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Yep, I'll do what I can to help with another shot at WP:RfA Review if people are brave enough to give it a go -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:29, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Can I ask if anyone else is getting email from Jimbo asking their take on his proposal? If he's sending out a bunch of these emails to get our input (and, I suppose, to make us feel good), then I encourage everyone to respond (but keep it short). If he's just talking to me, then I have to assume I said something he found attractive ... and since I try to say things that others will go along with, that might mean it's still possible to come up with something everyone can live with. - Dank (push to talk) 17:03, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

LOL----Should somebody warn Jimbo about wp:canvass---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 17:16, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

But it's the Foundation's website, and I think I buy the argument that things have gotten a little crazy at RFA and some intervention is needed (in which case, they should ask whoever they want to ask whatever they want to ask, in fact, it's their job). What I mean by "crazy" is: There are areas, such as deletion calls, where Wikipedians haven't done an adequate job reaching and enforcing consensus. Instead of working harder to make consensus-building work, they've looked to admins to make the decisions for them that they weren't willing to make themselves. They then blame RFA voters if the admins do things they don't like. It's classic crazy-making, and many RFA voters have internalized it, feeling responsible for making sure that admins never "go bad". If voters understand that they're not responsible for predicting the future, only for evaluating the candidate's actions, then I think that the research and rationales of RFA voters will come across as much more professional, and we won't get as much flak. - Dank (push to talk) 17:21, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Jimbo certainly hasn't asked me, but then I'm sure that's no surprise to anyone. :-) Malleus Fatuorum 17:43, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

From what I've read, Jimbo is missing the point. RFA is a gauntlet, that's undeniable. But it is the way it is because adminship is too broad. There are thousands of editors who are capable of using the tools, but far fewer who are suitable for the quasi-judicial role that comes along with them (a large degree of discretion in promoting guidelines, closing XfDs, whether or not to make difficult blocks, and so on). Anyone considering the latter role probably should be subject to the current gauntlet, whereas those who simply want to do the non-controversial maintenance should not. Problem is, at the moment all admins have tend to be judged on their suitability for both. —WFC— 17:52, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Kind of repeating myself, I believe that RFA and RFA voters are adversely affected by the peer pressure to elect people capable of making a variety of controversial calls ... because the end result is that people are escaping responsibility for reaching consensus themselves and blaming admins (and us) when the calls don't go their way. It forces us to talk about things that we're not the experts on, forces us to predict an unpredictable future, and sticks us with the reputation as the bad guys. Promotion should be based on performance in areas relevant to the tools where there community has already reached a firm consensus. (And I'm not saying that good judgment isn't important, it is, but we can tell "good judgment" from their actions in these settled areas.)

A thought: I groaned when I saw "RFA Review" because I don't think we can get it done in time. Could we quickly elect a temporary discussion leader with 3 jobs? 1. Keeping an eye on the discussions and giving a reasonable deadline to cut off discussion on each point. 2. Making a call on consensus, in the interest of time (appealable, of course). 3. Asking for a reboot of the discussion if the answer we got doesn't fall inside the bounds of what the Foundation considers acceptable? - Dank (push to talk) 18:21, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I completely agree with all of that. And it's a strong argument for two-part adminship (one "part" being the tools, the other "part" being ability to make the tricky calls with current admins keeping both "parts" by default). But if I were to draft a serious proposal for two-part adminship on-wiki, it would be ridiculed and/or filibustered by those who simply don't like change. —WFC— 18:51, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm aware that a lot of people are working on ideas and have very good things to say. We need some way to prioritize, and reassure everyone that every point will be dealt with and we won't be cut off by a Jimbo-edict in mid-sentence. Would anyone object if we write Jimbo back (he asked for email in the linked thread, and I think he means it) and ask what he considers the main sticking point to be, the reason that he doesn't think RFA can work, so that we can fix that first? (From his tone, I'm guessing it's that Dusti and others have been turned off by the experience, but obviously it would be a very bad idea to put words in his mouth :) - Dank (push to talk) 19:06, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Since it's easier to get forgiveness than permission, I just emailed this to Jimmy: "if I could ask a favor, my gut tells me we're making solid progress at [WT:RFA] (people are bending from their settled positions), but we need time, and we need a way to prioritize. If you could tell us (either in the current thread on your talk page or at WT:RFA) what your top priority is (you mentioned hurt feelings, and the lack of any clear metric of success), and give us a deadline, I think there's a reasonable chance we can deliver at least on one issue in a reasonable time frame." - Dank (push to talk) 19:20, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

The problem we have with our procedures - virtually all of them - is a mammoth case of instruction creep. What started off as an open, easy-to-edit encyclopedia is frankly anything but. RfA is particularly showing this problem. As Jimmy says, there is no evidence that it actually works in selecting good admins, just those who can put up with the minute scrutiny of the RfA process—which actually tells us very little about their personal attributes or their likely behaviour when they have admin powers. I am sure we can find a better structure and process than the current theatre of the bizarre. The Land (talk) 19:07, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with a lot that's being said here over the last hour or two - Dank seems to be telepathic about a mail I sent to Jimbo. What's needed is a compact and responsible task force with limited time frames for the phases to develop and get an optional trial RfA process up and running as quickly as possible. It shouldn't be a messy, drawn out affair like the BLPPROD from which good, active participants retired in despair (one actually left the Wikipedia from fatigue). It started with 400 users (far, far too many) and about six of us were left to finish it (a good dozen too few). Kudpung (talk) 19:52, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

You're telepathic too Kudpung ... I didn't want to be the first to mention a task force, but based on the BLPPROD and other experiences, it might not be a bad idea to notify everyone who we think might be interested in the discussion and ask them to get in small groups and select a person from each group who they think will do a good job of arguing their point of view. It can be exhausting to try to sort out 20 slightly different shades of what is essentially the same argument; having one person make the main points, checking in with the people who are basically on the same side, can save a lot of time. It also reduces the temptation to try to win by numbers. - Dank (push to talk) 19:57, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I think the task force idea may be better than RfA review, since RfA review did die a death - I'm assuming for a reason. I'm willing to put the effort in to revive it (though it might not be for a day or so - certainly at the weekend if we can wait that long), but it does depend on how long we have to do it. Worm^TT · (talk) 20:24, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

If WMF comes up with a new idea, I'd be curious to see what it is. But if we are going to make RfA easier, I think they also need to come up with an idea for making recall easier. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:02, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I want to make the case that if we can succeed in demoting or lightening up the admin role, that goes a long way towards solving the problem that many feel that it's not easy enough to recall admins. (Also, if we do the RFA two or three months after the crats promote them, and make it clear they need to work hard during those months to succeed at RFA, we'd be less likely to need to recall them, since we could evaluate their actual behavior.) Although in theory, you'd want to recall admins who are doing a lousy job with the basics, I'm not aware of any recall where that was the only issue ... the main issue is usually that the admin has used the tools as if consensus was clearly on their side when it wasn't. Of course, there's nothing we can do, or would want to do, about the fact that some people are more respected in some roles and can get away with more than others; Wikipedia has run on a "reputation-based economy" right from the start. It's annoying as hell sometimes, but it's what we're used to and what we know how to do. It's this "I'm an admin, I'm the decider" that is new and, arguably, process-creep and anti-Wikipedian. - Dank (push to talk) 20:21, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I for one will be glad to see the back of the current system, and I'm sure that I am not the only one. BigDom 21:39, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Speaking as a "highly experienced editor with no history of troubles", why on earth would I want to be an admin anyway, even without having to run a "silly gauntlet"? Ghmyrtle (talk) 23:58, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

For me was the realization that nearly every time I requested an administrative action it got done. I figured I'd cut out the middleman. It's a tough process to get through but i have yet to see a better idea. After the failure of both Wikipedia:RfA Review and Wikipedia:WikiProject Administrator to achieve, well, anything at all I decided to focus on something easier like refereeing the pending changes debate. And that certainly hasn't been a picnic either. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:39, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Yesterday, I felt like I was a good person to get this going because I'm generally sympathetic to a wide range of views. I've left messages on the talk pages of everyone who's commented in this section, asking if they want to participate in a task force. After doing a boatload of reading, it's become clear to me that I'm not sympathetic to a wide range of views, so I can't in good faith act as a sympathetic ear. I don't mind, though, saying what I believe and why I believe it:

• Every effort at reform so far has been derailed by people who have goals other than making RFA work well ... and the main two groups are people who would like to see admins have less power, specifically the power to block established users, and people who want admins to keep that power. My firm belief is that if our voting would have an effect either way on that wiki-reality, then our voting will completely lose the focus of improving RfA. I can only support proposals that apply to people who are promoted after some cutoff date, say May 1. Our deliberations should have no direct effect on what current admins should or shouldn't do.
• RFA voters tend to be more or less okay with the rationales in, for example, the current RFA Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/NickPenguin. RFA voters generally don't understand that we're in the minority in this view. Most Wikipedians believe that, if it's already clear that someone isn't going to succeed at something, it's un-Wikipedian to let them know in great detail exactly why they fail and exactly who thinks they're not worthy. I can only support proposals which ask candidates to start by submitting their application to the crats (or to some other elected group, if for some reason crats don't want to do it, which is fine with me). Feedback from the community would be emailed to the crats, and if it becomes clear the candidate won't pass at this time, one or more of the crats would post a message giving the candidate a reasonably clear idea of what areas they'll need to work on in order to pass. (Possibly, we could make this more acceptable to everyone by allowing the failed candidate to demand an open RFA if they choose, as long as they understand that the results are likely to be even worse if people have to vote a second time when the result is already clear.) - Dank (push to talk) 13:47, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
• Oh, bottom line: if it looks to me like we can agree on doing these two things for a minimum of 6 months tweaked per Bob's point, below, I'm in. Inserting ... the "endorsement" proposal below might or might not work as a substitute, I'm open to it for now. Otherwise out, and best of luck. - Dank (push to talk) 14:20, 23 March 2011 (UTC) There's been enough progress that I'm not this pessimistic now.- Dank (push to talk) 14:08, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
  • • Emails to bureaucrats? Maybe I'm missing something (not really followed this thread) but how is that better than my Editor review-before-RFA proposal from a while back? Rd232 ^talk 15:20, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
  • I hate to appear stupid, but I count a lot more than 2 points in there. I don't see anything objectionable, except "I can only support proposals ..." - that precludes quite a lot of proposals. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but I'm not sure we should be limitting ourself so soon. I absolutely agree we shouldn't be be trying to solve other perceieved admin issues and any decisions should not be applied retroactively. Worm^TT · (talk) 15:10, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
    • Replying to both of you: I'm saying that based on what's gone wrong in the past, I can't spend a lot of time on this unless it looks like I recommend we can agree not to apply new criteria to current admins (because that has always pulled in too many participants who don't know or care about the current workings of RFA) and we're agreed that RFAs will start off as "secret ballot", so that elected Wikipedians (hopefully crats) can summarize the results when it's clear the candidate won't pass. (Inserting ... or some version of the "endorsement" proposal below might work.) I'm concerned that Jimbo is close to shutting down RFA over the issue of the harm that's done all around when candidates fail. - Dank (push to talk) 15:33, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
  • I think those two points are compatible with my realistic aims for the discussion. In the same way that BLPPROD was only successful because it was not applied retroactively, it stands to reason that current admins' powers should not be materially affected by any change. I don't like that, but accepting it as a precondition to any RfA reform is an important pragmatic step. —WFC— 15:02, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
    • It may be very helpful to set a clear (and not too generous) scope. A clause like "We think X will solve RfA's problems. Let's do X for 6 months, and the community feels that it's not working as well as we'd hoped, then we'll stop doing X" will win over just as many potential opponents as a decision to restrict the new mechanism to new candidates, or whatever. The scope has to be totally unambiguous, otherwise it could bounce back later with a positive-feedback loop of drama - just look at Pending Changes. I have my own ideas for what X should be (presumably we all do), but am trying to be neutral here. bobrayner (talk) 15:53, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
      • Excellent point, and I tweaked my bottom line accordingly. - Dank (push to talk) 16:08, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

One thing I always wonder when these discussions come up: if RfA had been "fixed", say, two months ago, which recent RfAs that didn't succeed would have succeeded under the "fixed" process? Or is the idea that the pass/fail results would be the same but the process itself would be less unpleasant somehow? I'm all for the latter, but if people want to alter the pass/fail ratio I think that ought to be explicitly acknowledged. 28bytes (talk) 15:55, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

That's a very good point. However, it would be difficult to separate cause from effect, because it seems to be widely (though not universally) thought that the current mechanism deters some would-be candidates, and that seems to be a significant motivation behind the current proposals. Any alternative process would have its own pluses and minuses, so it would be reasonable to expect different candidates coming in... just like phone polls vs street polls have different technical merits to the pollster, but they also tend to get a slightly different demographic of respondents. bobrayner (talk) 16:13, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Also, people (including one person who can shut us down) have voiced strong opinions that we're making people unhappy and hurting their productivity, particularly failing candidates and potential candidates. - Dank (push to talk) 16:21, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I can empathize with long-term, clueful, experienced editors who would be willing to help out with admin tasks, but not willing to go through an RfA. I expect what will happen is that Jimbo will go ahead and "make a bunch of people who have been around for awhile sysops", albeit in a more formal, structured way. People would e-mail him or otherwise make him aware of such long-term editors that ought to have the bit but don't, and he'll send the name to a group of 'crats or some other appointed group to vet them, and for those successfully vetted, he'd say something like "I will be making the following editors admins in 30 days. If you have any objections, e-mail me, and if I think the objections are serious enough, I'll ask the candidate to go through a traditional RfA instead." This is just idle speculation, of course, but the language Jimbo is using would seem to suggest such a thing will be put in place sooner or later, although he'd be likely to delegate all of that after a short time. 28bytes (talk) 16:36, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

My 2 cents:

• Having a (pretty low) minumum criteria to avoid clear WP:NOTNOW cases seems absolutely sensible. Could this be a relatively easy first change to get concensus for?
• It's hard to explain what I mean for this second point, but here goes: It seems as an opposer you're trying to do one or both of (a) tell the candidate why you oppose and give constructive criticism about how to improve their work, and (b) persuade the other voters that the candidate cannot be trusted with the tools. To best fulfill (a) you'd tactfully explain their specific weaknesses as well as a praising their strengths. To best fulfill (b) you'd collect as many examples of their weaknesses as possible, ignore their strengths, and add some rhetoric about why admins like the candidate would be bad for the project. The two aims are incompatible and pretending that both can be achieved in the same forum is just asking for trouble. But I'm not sure what to do about it.--Physics is all gnomes (talk) 16:38, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

  Splitting the two roles could be quite challenging, as a process change (though any suggestions are welcome).

  I face a comparable challenge in my day job, and we resolve it by having separate roles instead of just a mob of !voters (Person A writes a list of potential concerns like "Might be a drama magnet" or "What if they're too hasty at CSD?", and then gives the list to person B who will do the equivalent of looking through diffs; there's a third person C who decides whether the list of potential concerns is sufficient to give the organisation assurance against bad admins; and once a big pile of diffs is presented, there's person D looks through the diffs and decides whether any items on the list of concerns turned out to be actual problems which are a real stain on the proto-admin's character, and person E (who has a long-term familiarity with the candidate) then deals with remediation/mitigation for any item on the list which turned out to be problematic. This process gives a combination of depth, consistency, and assurance; but it's safe to assume we'd never go that far on wikipedia, although for RfA purposes, C and possibly A would be replaced by a standing policy/guideline document rather than a person.)

  If I were coming here as a newbie editor with no prior knowledge, I would say that the current RfA process had been optimised for speed rather than quality. But we don't need speed. bobrayner (talk) 17:10, 23 March 2011 (UTC) (edited to add: sorry for the slightly tangential TLDR rant)

Arbitrary break

*Note I've renamed the section heading as an arbitrary one. The discussion so far has been open-forum, and surprisingly constructive and good-natured. If we start labelling sections as proposals, we run the risk of people starting to polarise their opinions, and/or !voting. At the moment I think this is all about generating ideas. —WFC— 21:36, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

As opposed to a "list of criteria" that editors would have to meet in order to file an RFA, why don't we make the initial 72 hours of the RFA be an "endorsement" time? What would happen is that an editor would create his RFA and then transclude it, exactly like what is done now. He would also answer the default three questions. During those 72 hours, nobody would be allowed to vote or pose questions. Instead, seven (exact number to be decided later, but let us assume for now that the number is seven) editors would "endorse" the candidate as worthy of adminship. If the requisite seven signatures are received within the 72 hours, then the remaining 96 hours would be spent in traditional RFA with people supporting, opposing, and offering diffs. If, however, they are not received, then the RFA would be closed as Insufficiently endorsed. This would eliminate butcheries like Dusti (talk · contribs)'s RFA, since he would not have been endorsed. This will also prevent people from creating RFAs the moment they pass the cutoff. This will not stop people from making RFAs that never have a chance of succeeding, but at least it may prevent butcheries. On the other hand, limits will not stop newbies with 20 edits from making WP:SNOW RFAs that get pile-on opposed since the new users ignore even the big, flashy editnotice on WP:RFA right now. This, at least, will stop the pile-on. Reaper Eternal (talk) 20:19, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I feel like this might increase the risk of canvassing since it would be tempting for users to hunt around and find people willing to endorse, especially if one were on IRC. On the other hand, I suppose that in itself is a test of the editor in question, whether or not they are able to resist that temptation would be a mark of their suitability as an admin. Lastly, this doesn't eliminate the "clique" problem. An editor would easily be able to obtain 7 endorsements if they are in one of the various "cliques", but as soon as the RFA opens, an opposing clique can still shut the editor down just as harshly as before. Not that this wouldn't work, but I think it may need a little tweaking. Regards, MacMed^talk_stalk 20:31, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually I think part of the merit of this proposal is that it encourages prospective admins to have a dialogue with experienced editors before they are nominated. I would much prefer that they spoke to 7 community members regarding an "endorsement" and perhaps got some useful feedback, than that they jumped in first. It may be that the experience of "canvassing" helps clarify their nomination, or persuades them now is not the time, or provides some additional moral support. I also think it could work well alongside a set of criteria. The Land (talk) 21:24, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I actually quite like that point of view. Together with a set of criteria I think this could work quite well. I wonder if there should maybe be an additional page. I will work one up in my userspace in a bit, and see what the group thinks. Similar to editor review, but specifically for RFA endorsements. This page would list the criteria and basically be a centralized location for the RFA to be posted prior to moving to the actual RFA space. Would this be worth it, or would it be just a bit creepy? MacMed^talk_stalk 21:31, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

The idea has merit. But while I accept that seven is an arbitrary number, I'm not sure on the overall mechanism. How many non-NOTNOWs fail to get seven supports in 72 hours? —WFC— 21:39, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I could live with some version of this, but unlike most of the issues we're discussing, this one is about how RFA is perceived by outsiders, so we need to get feedback from outsiders on this one sooner rather than later. - Dank (push to talk) 21:42, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

WFC - I think that getting these supports/endorsements earlier on (particularly if they are well-written, essentially very brief co-noms) could give knee-jerk opposers some things to look at first, and have to actually prove incorrect, rather than just saying "Oppose - not enough _________".

Dank - I'm not a regular here, I think I am somewhat of an outsider. Additionally, as someone that is thinking about possibly running the gauntlet, I like this suggestion and I think that it could make the process much more constructive. In terms of other outsider opinions, once I get a mock up going, perhaps we could open an RfC on it? Regards, MacMed^talk_stalk 21:51, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I support an RFC once we get something that we like. In the past, we've been leery of RFCs, and after doing some reading recently, I suddenly understand why: there are a lot of people who feel strongly about what admins should and shouldn't be doing, and we get more of those people in any RFC than we get people who care about, or even know anything about, RFA. But on this one question, we need to gauge whether this takes the "ick" factor out of RFA for the wider community, so an RFC would be great. - Dank (push to talk) 21:56, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Okay, so at User:MacMed/rfa reform there is a very, very, very basic outline. I'm not great at designing templates, and the RfA one is beyond me :p So anyone with more experience feel free to take a stab at creating one at User:MacMed/rfa template. That is the current location coded into the inputbox. I basically envision an RfA template with the same questions and a spot for the candidate to speak about themselves, with Endorsements instead of Support, Oppose, and Neutral. We essentially eliminate the nominator and allow each of the 7 endorsers to make a mini-nom in support of the candidate. Regards, MacMed^talk_stalk 22:11, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

(ec)Um, no. Basically, what you are saying is that we give supporters a 72 hour head start? If you support this candidate, "endorse" now. If you don't like this candidate, tough, you have to wait? Getting seven, hell getting 20 people to endorse a candidate doesn't take much effort. There are easily that number of people who feel that anybody who wants the bit should be given the bit. People who almost never oppose candidates. 4 of the last 8 unsuccessful RfA's that were not closed due to snow/notnow had more than 7 supports before they garnered their first oppose.

15 supports before he got his first oppose[5]

8 supports before the first oppose [6]

12 supports before the oppose[7]

11 supports before the first oppose [8]

If this idea were to pass, there would literally be 40-50 supporters on just about every RfA before anybody had the "right" to ask questions or oppose. Sorry, can't support this. Would rather just give the bit away.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 22:17, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

(EC) The difficulty with having up to three days for seven endorsements is that a proportion of RFAs fold fairly quickly after an oppose or question that brings up a serious issue. Waiting for three days before that sort of thing can be discussed strikes me as inefficient use of everyone's time. If an issue is going to surface that derails the RFA then in my view it is better to get that over and done with quickly and mercifully. It is also potentially unfair on the candidate, currently it is the candidate's choice of when to transclude, but if it depends on the timing of the 7th support the candidate could find that the process starts when they've just gone to work and won't be back for ten or more hours. ϢereSpielChequers 22:21, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I think Reaper Eternal was suggesting a hard 72-hour period rather than the moment the 7th editor endorses; if so, that would alleviate your second concern. Your first, though, is pretty hard to argue with; if there are 10 people set to support and 40 set to oppose, it's just a waste of everybody's time to have a quiet 72 hours then a bloodbath. 28bytes (talk) 22:31, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I didn't like the idea at first, but I can see some potential, I'd like for us to keep talking about it. Sure, some people will be quick on the draw to endorse, but there aren't a huge number of established (>1000 edits?) WPians who will do that, and we could say something like, anyone who's endorsing too many candidates who fail can't endorse any more. We also need to think about the important role RFA plays in noticing and praising what people are doing right, and candidates who eventually fail need this as much, and sometimes more, than candidates who pass ... giving them 3 days interacting only with voters who are trying to find reasons to support might be good for their ego, even if they can't find enough endorsements to qualify. - Dank (push to talk) 22:29, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

That is just so patronising. Malleus Fatuorum 03:01, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 2) I like this proposal and I don't see any major pitfalls except the time frame and support !votes needed to be endorsed. If a student were to run for a student government position at my school, he/she would need about 100 signatures before their name can be put on a ballot to ensure they have some chance at winning. I feel that RfA should be the same way, even though it is not a race. I suggest that the 72-hour timeframe be reduced to 24 hours, since, at the moment when RfAs are transcluded, a flood of !votes come in immediately. 72 hours is much too long for a preliminary process without any oppose !votes, and the candidate, if ultimately unsuccessful, would have their hopes up too high when the real thing starts, which could lead to some retirements. Decreasing the time frame to 24 hours would also decrease the opportunity for a candidate to canvass for endorsements. If they are going to be successful at the real RfA, getting 7 endorsements in a 24-hour (or even 12-hour) timeframe should be easy. I am assuming (and if incorrect, suggesting) that these preliminaries will still be transcluded to the main RfA page (maybe in a different section) in order for the same flood of users to see them. I also suggest the 7 support !votes to be changed to at least 10 if the timeframe remains 72 hours, or keep the same if the timeframe becomes shorter. Eagles 24/7 (C) 22:29, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

MacMed: It's not correct to suggest that opposers don't have to think about their reasons for opposing. It is a fact that they are heavily scrutinised. While occasionally supports are scrutinised too, I've never seen evidence of non-existant reasoning in the support section being discounted by crats. I'd go as far as to say that the level of badgering that is acceptable in the neutral and oppose sections, occasionally bordering on or amounting to harrasment, contributes to the atmosphere at RfA. —WFC— 07:12, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

MacMed: People can canvass for support !votes now.

WFC: This is not an attempt to prevent the unsuccessful or no consensus RFAs. This is an attempt to reduce snow and not now RFAs. Every snow/notnow that I have seen has usually had at most two real supports and the rest are "moral support".

Balloonman: This is not an attempt to shut down opposers. Users would not be allowed to support or oppose until the seven endorsements had been received and the 'crat certified it for a go-ahead. Additionally, the endorsements would not count as support votes, although we can probably assume that endorsers will support. Finally, people would not be permitted to endorse after the seven are received to prevent the issues you mentioned. Thus "there would literally be 40-50 supporters on just about every RfA before anybody had the "right" to ask questions or oppose." will absolutely not be permitted to occur.

WereSpielChequers: The support/oppose portion of the RFA could start after the 'crat certifies it to go ahead and the candidate then agrees to proceed. That would prevent somebody's RFA from being pile-on opposed while they were at work.

Dank: If they cannot even manage seven endorsements, then they would have been massacred in a regular RFA.

Eagles247: The numbers I made were just "thrown out there", so to speak.

Reaper Eternal (talk) 13:09, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Arbitrary Break (continue discussion of other idea above)

(edit conflict)Perhaps some sort of mentoring idea, similar to Admin Coaching but more in depth. Have a talk page set aside, and go through current discussions, block requests, etc that are not urgent. Mark them as reserved for a mentee. The mentee gives a decision on the talk, the mentor then corrects if neccessary and carries out the decision. The mentor can then recommend the user to the community with the talk page as a record of learning, ideas, etc. The only concerns I have with my own idea are that a) there might not be enough "non-emergent" situations to go around and b) the system could be gamed by the mentor and mentee communicating via IRC or another off-wiki method, so that the mentee makes the right decision and therefore presents a false face to the community. Any comments or suggestion? Regards, MacMed^talk_stalk 22:33, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

see Wikipedia:Adminship coaching with tools RfA reform proposal for one of the past discussions on this. I still think this is the best avenue to take.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 23:08, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I highly approve of this idea. I think the edit count requirement is a little high though. The prereqs should really be up to the coach's discretion. An extraordinarily clueful user that has helped out a ton but only has 1500 edits should really be just as viable. Especially considering the ease of desysopping and the fact that at RFA there will be admin actions to review in this situation. MacMed^talk_stalk 23:15, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Partly agreed; I'm also in favor of finding some way to let candidates have some experience with the tools pre-RFA; I think it would help to ground their RFA in the realities of tool usage. I'm fine with a coaching system if coachees put their names up somewhere, anyone can coach them any time, and all the coaches collectively feel responsible for all the coachees. I don't like the one-on-one idea; I'm concerned that others will "coach" admins to act in ways that further their own goals. No, I'm certain of it; relatively few long-time WPians feel strongly about the RFA process, but most feel strongly about other issues, especially issues of how admins should behave. It would also strengthen the (mostly false) impression that RFA is a closed, guild-like system. - Dank (push to talk) 01:27, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Note section heading removed; see rationale above. —WFC— 06:47, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Currently RFA has only two possible outcomes, pass or fail. A third and in my view very positive one would be "not unless". In this scenario the RFA would run much as it does today, but the closing crat would have the option of closing with a statement such as "Due to the mixup of the nominator picking up and responding from the candidate's PC, this RFA can only be closed as a success if a checkuser confirms that the candidate and their nominator are in fact different people." Or "Due to the concerns expressed at the candidate's AIV tagging this RFA can only be closed as a success if the candidate demonstrates an improvement in this area". This would give a crat the opportunity to promote such candidates if they subsequently met the relevant condition(s), and the discretion not to do so if they had also done something egregious. The candidate would still have the opportunity to submit a completely fresh RFA, and I would hope that in areas where judgement is concerned the crat would consult with the relevant opposers before promoting such a candidate.

One of the advantages of this sort of close being possible is that it would hopefully concentrate attention in the oppose section on the things a candidate would need to do in order to be suitable for adminship, rather than how little they are trusted or known. It might also make those who oppose for spurious reasons such as a high percentage of automated edits think twice when they worked out the implications of such opposes and saw themselves writing "Oppose 80% automated edits is too high. Candidate needs to give up Huggle and Hotcat and do 60.000 more manual edits in addition to the 20,000 they've already done to bring their Automated edits down to an acceptable 50%".

I'm one of those who failed my first RFA, I remember as the opposes came in, and again when I reread it before my second RFA it was much easier to accept the "not yet" type of opposes than some of the others. I think it could transform the RFA process if we were to focus the opposition section on the things the candidate would need to do to become an admin. ϢereSpielChequers 00:18, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps combine this with the idea above? "Not unless" candidates are provided with the bit for (2 weeks?) and work with a mentor to improve their ability in the area of question. MacMed^talk_stalk 00:35, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

"With all due respect", I think that's frankly naive. All that would happen is to mirror what already happens before the RfA is started, which is that savvy candidates pretend to go through the motions and keep their noses clean for however long is required. Any changes need to be much more fundamental, even a dismantling of the current administrator hierarchy for something more relevant and focused. Malleus Fatuorum 00:36, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Re Macmed. This isn't a probationary system but a way to appoint candidates who didn't make it for an easily resolvable reason - hence my example that would require a checkuser. I think we've also had someone who could have passed if he'd added some referenced content. ϢereSpielChequers 00:45, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh I gotcha. Basically a pass as long as they do x within a certain timeframe. MacMed^talk_stalk 00:50, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Like "be nicer". This is a ridiculous proposal. Malleus Fatuorum 01:36, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

That is why ANY meaninful change in the process to become an admin has to be tied, hand-in-hand with a process to remove the bit. As long as it is a big deal to remove the bit, then there will people opposed to lessening the standards to obtain it. The only way that we will get people to buy into a process to make it easier to become an admin would be if we make the mechanism to remove it easier/less painful/etc.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 20:38, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Although well-intentioned, I really don't see this proposal helping much. It would be difficult to administer and by definition could only help marginal candidates, who could succeed if they just overcame some minor objection. In my review of past RFAs, I've found that candidates usually either get the bit or go down in flames. Although they tend to get a lot of attention, proportionally there aren't that many marginal failing candidates. There's also the question of whether we should actually be encouraging marginal candidates to assume the admin role as it is currently constructed. --RL0919 (talk) 02:07, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

• I think that this approach would be much more easily interpreted as "lowering the bar", and you could expect quite a lot of opposition on that basis, unless the idea was very developed & presented quite carefully.
• If this is a road we do go down, then it's not technically difficult to include a mitigation/remediation step in the process (you'd need a trusted arbiter who does a job slightly broader than the current role of crats in RfAs), but this kind of process would be pretty unprecedented on en.wikipedia (I think), and that novelty will encourage more pushback. bobrayner (talk) 02:22, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

• On the whole, crats are crats because they are deemed to be very good at judging consensus, and because they are deemed to be a consistent barometer of consensus (with very occasional exceptions, such as a closure X! made a few months back, but even that was followed by an acknowledgement that it may be controversial and a lengthy explanation). But what this idea would effectively do is give crats the sort of discretion open to GA reviewers, provided that a candidate isn't a clear pass (overwhelming consensus) or a "quick fail" (NOTNOW/SNOW). Arbs would arguably be worse. Without wishing to tar everyone with the same brush, crats as a group seem to be held in higher esteem than the arbs. —WFC— 06:58, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

This isn't about lowering the bar, nor is it necessarily about marginal candidates in terms of amount of support. Taking my example where a checkuser was needed, if half the participants in the RFA were "Oppose unless " or even "support provided that " then the crats could have a clear close of "not promoted unless" after 7 days followed by an even clearer close as promotion once that issue was resolved one way or the other by checkuser. True this would only directly effect a small minority of RFAs, but a focus on what the candidate needed to do get get support would IMHO make a big improvement. ϢereSpielChequers 16:19, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Auto promote all longterm users as admins

I'm not going to send an email to Jimbo because I believe WP procedures should be discussed on-wiki. How about solving the issue by abolishing the RfA system altogether? Imagine a talk message like "You are now an administrator. Please consult the reading list for administrators if you wish to make use of these new rights. If you misuse the tools, we will remove them again. Have fun." This could be sent at the user's 1000th non-automated edit, or after 12 months of editing, or at some other arbitrary criterion, by a crat who performs a spot-check on the candidate's edit history and block log. Adminship would again become the no-big-deal it once was, and only bureaucrats would have to go through Hell Week. --Pgallert (talk) 19:10, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I think everyone who wanted tools for any reason would spam edits up to 1000, and soon every RFA would be conducted in an atmosphere of suspicion, exactly the opposite from the direction we're trying to go of treating candidates with more respect. OTOH, I'm totally with you if you're looking for a way to reduce the power and prestige of the mop itself. (That's not putting a limit on admins, individuals could still gain whatever prestige they can gain, it's just that we wouldn't be giving it to them. I'm thinking particularly of the fact that admins continue to block established Wikipedians when there's no clear consensus to do it and claim that we voted to give them that power in their RFA; such a block happened again just a few days ago.) - Dank (push to talk) 19:20, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

But with 30,000 admins as opposed to 1,000 a block would not be as bad a spot on your white vest as it is today. It would happen all the time because a lot of admins would be totally inexperienced. Of course, it should be as easy to lose the mop as it would be to gain it, "You haven't used your admin rights in the last three months; we took them away again. Feel free to ask it back any time." or "Your block of editor X was a bad decision, see this discussion on ANI. Feel free to ask for your block rights again after you familiarised yourself with WP:BLOCK." --Pgallert (talk) 19:35, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

In theory, if we could find a single admin userright that rarely causes us to lose a contributor when it's misused, we could hand those out and see what happens, but people are debating ideas at the moment that strike me as a lot more promising that haven't already been debated to death. If we try the other ideas and they don't work for some reason ... then sure, I'm open to trying something new. But a majority in the community feel that it's really, really bad to step on a newbie's toes, and that a bad block or bad deletion does just that. Also, I think handing someone a mop before they're ready is probably setting them up for failure. - Dank (push to talk) 19:50, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, I wasn't expecting this to be implemented tomorrow. But then, we hand out the editing right to people before we know they're ready. I could do nasty things with that right if I wanted to. We hand out reviewer and rollback rights--if misused we take them away again. Wifione made an interesting suggestion on User talk:Jimbo Wales, pointing out how far-reaching the accountcreator right actually is. I had that right some time ago. I did not use it as much as I thought I would, and after a few months someone took it away, no problem. That's what I call "no big deal". Losing contributors, that's of course serious. But can you really say we lose no potential editor by all this negative coverage on a perceived admin cabal and the strong hierarchic structures WP has developed? The reforms discussed so far do not go far enough. --Pgallert (talk) 20:23, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but the thing is, we've evolved complex checks and balances, through blood, sweat and tears, to deal with bad edits and bad accounts. We have evolved no structures to deal that would deal with a host of bad admins ... and I don't know why we'd want such a thing, but if we did have it, we would almost certainly evolve another heirarchy above admins to deal with them, starting the cycle all over. I'll talk about the "admin cabal" thing in my next post, I want to talk about making RFA more open and inviting. (Btw, I don't mean to monopolize this conversation, I was just hoping to bring up points that have been made time and again, hopefully to save us a little time ... I'll stop now in case someone else wants to jump in.) - Dank (push to talk) 20:48, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes but do we actually have a "host" of bad admins? I suspect that depends on where one stands over the areas of admin contention. We have some admins who stretch the deletion policy beyond where I'm comfortable with it, we have others who block or unblock vested contributors and a fourth group which includes most admins who haven't used the tools in months. I suspect that every admin is a "bad admin" to some people, but one person's bad admin is another's good or uncontentious admin. On past performance we will lose half a dozen admins in the rest of this year either desysopped or resigning under a cloud; But when we look back on this year in Jan 2012 I doubt that many of those will be ones that seemed inevitable or even justified by what was publicly known at this date. ϢereSpielChequers 11:12, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry if I was unclear, I was responding to Pgallert's call to make just about everyone an admin (until they're not). I don't take a position on how good the current admins are; I rarely visit ANI, AN or Arbcom, and I'm pretty out of touch with who's doing what to whom. - Dank (push to talk) 11:44, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

OK That's different. I've added a heading for this thread, I'm not aware of any wiki that uses this system apart from Rational Wiki. I agree that autopromoting every longterm user without filtering out those who would have their own ideas as to when to block, unblock, delete, undelete or protect would be about as sensible as abolishing the driving test would be in the real world. It would certainly fix RFA, but I'm not convinced we should move to a Rational Wiki style of operation where everyone is demoted to admin and people dish out 10 second blocks to each other "for te lulz". That said the motive for the suggestion is spot on, the way to make adminship less of a big deal and to torpedo ideas of an admin cabal is to appoint everyone who is suitable. In particular the candidates who intend to continue spending most of their time here creating or improving content and would just use the tools when they came in useful. ϢereSpielChequers 12:03, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't think autopromotion is a very good idea - we'll never know who will be a bad admin until they are a bad admin. We have to live with the bad admins we've got (and we have got some), but I'm not convinced there are really so many, nevertheless some form of scrutiny is required for future candidates, to avoid potential mishaps slipping through the net. That scrutiny must be a system that also cleans up the selection procedure and the voters themselves. WSC is, IMO, correct in his assumption that the number of active admins risks getting low, but if we can get a system, not too different from the present one but which is a less humiliating experience, we will probably get more candidates of the right calibre. We don't need 30,000 admins - in view of the decline in new articles, we probably only need to maintain the current number of active admins. Kudpung (talk) 12:49, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

[W]e'll never know who will be a bad admin until they are a bad admin. -- exactly, you cannot know before you let them try. That's just my point. Browsing through some of the entries at Wikipedia:Former administrators you will see that incidents that led to desysoping almost never were anticipated in the respective RfAs in any form. So RfA did not sort out those. On the other hand, of course, you cannot know who would have been a good admin despite a disastrous RfA. Taking this thought further, is there any indication the RfA process achieves all, or even some, of its desired objectives? There are two types of editors that pass RfA: The highly popular and highly active ones that almost never make a mistake, and the ones that manage to accumulate a few thousand edits without getting into any significant controversy. All others have to expect an uphill battle. The first group would become admin under any process. The second group (not entirely free of the occasional bad apple) will probably remain uncontroversial and thus not make tough decisions. But people failing due to outspoken deletionism (who says they would close AfDs their way?), participation in WP:NEWT (where did AGF go?), not-enough-edits-in X (can they not improve?), 10% declined CSD tags last month...who wants to say they are going to make bad admin decisions in the future, instead of rising up to their new responsibilities? So what exactly does RfA establish? --Pgallert (talk) 14:51, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Speaking only for myself, I stay busy, and the answers to your questions (if there are answers) would require a lot of digging and surveying. If you would address some of our arguments, I'd be more likely to make some time to address some of yours. - Dank (push to talk) 15:03, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not a natural defender of the RFA process, and I do think it is inconsistent and capricious . But I do believe that many of those who currently fail RFA would otherwise have been bad admins, as for the new admins the vast majority start out just fine. When we do desysop people it is frequently after three or more years, which is why I think that we need an ongoing admin training program. As for the examples of reasons for rejecting admins, it is reasonable to assume that if someone has been making excessive mistakes at UAA, AIV or CSD they would make the same mistakes as admins. If you jump red lights and swerve erratically whilst taking your driving test don't be surprised if you fail. ϢereSpielChequers 15:11, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I like this idea. Let us not forget that in the begining, this is about how it worked. Jimbo would just promote long term editors to become and admin - and that was that. I've been here for many years, been involved in all kinds of activity. I am pretty sure that I would never submit to this process, though I have considered it in the past. I've seen perfectly good noms torpedoes for stupid reasons, and horrible ones approved for popularity reasons. The truth is that being an admin has become a big deal, despite the fact it was never intended to be one. Sad to say, but alot of editors don't really care for the well-being of this project as a whole, they care more about their own self-interests. I've participated in the RfA review process, nothing came of it. The fact is, the majority of the community does not have the will to make major changes. Not here, and not anywhere. And threads like this will go nowhere. The same mindset that started us down this road years ago is more entrenched than ever, and its direct result is that it drives away disagreeing editors, and we have created a bureaucratic monster behind the scenes of wikipedia that discourages new users from particpating. At a certain time, drastic reform is called for. And it must come before too much longer if we want this project to continue succeeding in its goals. I would whole heartedly support any reform here, but lets be serious. Its never going to happen through a consensus of the community. —Charles Edward ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 15:19, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not particularly a fan of the RFA process and know I will never submit myself to it, but proposals such as this are probably not the answer. Any automated process can easily be manipulated (not to mention encouraging of editcounitis). I doubt it would take long before some page or another headed straight to Wheelmageddon. Kansan (talk) 15:22, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

A problem with auto-promotion is what to do with long-term problematic users. A visitor to WP:ANI will usually find a discussion related to one of several well-known and generally productive users whose actions routinely push the boundaries of acceptable conduct but have not yet justified a long term ban. Sometimes this is because said users are forcefully advocating viewpoints at the edge of the accepted normal range or because they have difficulty maintaining their civility. Providing users with known self control issues with the technical means to block other users with whom they disagree or to delete or protect an article in which they have a vested interest seems like a recipe for increased Wikidrama with little to no compensating benefits. While I am no fan of the current RfA process, I believe we will always need a responsible person in the process to screen for obvious conduct problems before promotion. --Allen3 ^talk 15:25, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Similarly blocks of editors would become an issue, and any possibility of civility blocks would be impossible. How could you block a editor who could just unblock themselves? you'd need more crats to be able to block and remove admin at the same time - Oh look, we've just got ourselves into exactly the same mess, at RfB. Worm^TT · (talk) 15:30, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Here is a thought, how about an elected committee that has the authority to give and remove admin powers, based on some set of agreed to standards. Regularly elected, with rotating membership perhaps. They could oversee the auto-promotion process. The current process is hopelessly flawed, shown by years of debate. A radical change is the only solution. Completely alter the dynamics of the system. And if that system fails to work, then change it again until we find what does work. Lets not just keep living day after day with the same problem but failing to deal with it. —Charles Edward ^{(Talk | Contribs)}

Well, to its credit, I think that idea gets better the further it diverges from pure autopromotion. :-)

I would firmly oppose autopromotion. I think that the long-term civil pov-pushers are just as big a problem for Wikipedia as the obvious and swiftly-blocked vandals; if we start handing the mop to people who've spent the last year diligently "correcting" a thousand articles related to their favoured cause, or merely said the same thing a thousand times on Talk:Kosovo, then we're doomed. bobrayner (talk) 15:55, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd also oppose the idea of auto-promotion, on the basis that it's at best a sticking plaster on a wound requiring more radical treatment. The whole idea of administrators needs to be rethought. Malleus Fatuorum 15:58, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The standards-based voting patterns at RFA make it abundantly clear that auto-promotion is a complete non-starter, against the community's will in every visible way. Recommend putting a kibosh on this discussion before it becomes just another unproductive thread on 1,000 different topics. Townlake (talk) 16:18, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

100% agreement on that, Townlake. Kudpung (talk) 16:36, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Agree, its impossible for this community to arrive at consensus on anything except that there is no consenus. Any discussion for reform is pointless (evidence the last five years of this talk pages archives) —Charles Edward ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 16:55, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I absolutely hate this idea. Nothing personal. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:04, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Realising that the majority wishes this discussion to end, I'm not sure if it is a good idea to bat at it again. Please just skip this post if I bore you. Let me try to collect the counter-arguments:

1. easy to manipulate
2. thoughtless blocking drives away productive editors
3. no structure in place to deal with bad admins
4. creates Wikidrama, possibly anarchy
5. no screening for conduct and competence will make bad admins
6. will just shift the problem to BfA and crats
7. adminship itself should be abolished
8. against the community's will

What could be said to that?

1. Prone to manipulation. That's true. Making the criteria harder to reach could obviously achieve something in this regard; I am of course not going to argue about the exact numbers useful for a threshold -- 5000 edits, 18 months service, clean block log, add whatever you like. That's not changing the spirit of the suggestion. I do believe there is at least some possibility of manipulating the current process as well.
2. Bad decisions drive away editors. That's IMHO the most serious of the concerns. Could possibly be addressed by making clear that the first really serious blunder would result in immediate removal of the bits with little chance to ever get them back (Reconfirmation RfA, old style).
3. No de-admin procedure. Indeed. That issue needs to be sorted out anyway, I believe. If you really want me to make a suggestion, this would be it: During the first X (10, 20, 50) admin actions, the awarding person can take away the right, logging the reasons. Later, and for all admins elected per RfA, the panel of all active crats votes without making their reasons public. 3/4 majority=desysop.
4. Anarchy. This does not have to be implemented over night, for all editors. Try 20 guinea pigs and see how it works for a few months. Then take 100 more.
5. No testing of conduct and competence. Well, I did suggest a superficial screening by the promoter. Maybe, instead of a single promoter a panel can be used, somewhat like the regulars at FAC: One checks AN and reports, one browses talk page archives and reports possible problems, one samples civility, and so on. A crat decides.
6. Then BfA would be the slaughterhouse. True. The problem would be greatly reduced in numbers, though, even considering that we would need more crats.
7. End adminship. Not sure if this can be reconciled with WMF decrees like visibility of deleted content. Needs to be more detailed to be able to be discussed.
8. Against community will. Any data to back this up? Community ≠ RfA community. Publish in Signpost and make a poll.

--Pgallert (talk) 20:06, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

February

I noticed that there were more "yeas" then "nays" last month which doesn't happen very often. A quick look at the archives shows that it also happened in November of 2009 (13 yeas 11 nays) and December 2007. (34 yeas 33 nays) I suspect we would have more "yea months" if we disregarded the NOTNOWs. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 12:51, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Eureka! We're all morons.

(TLDR. But read it anyway.) User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#RfA is a horrible and broken process, plus the fact that I realized last week for the first time that we've been doing a terrible job at RFA, have had me stressing all week that Jimbo might shut down RFA. I feel awful (seriously) that I didn't figure this out before. My only comfort is that you guys didn't figure it out either.

• You show up to apply for your driver's license. The woman hands you a test, then follows you to your chair and criticizes each answer as you write it down. Then she takes you for your driving test, criticizing your skills as you drive. Is there anyone here who believes that this woman has a shred of social skills? Does anyone think she'll keep her job? That's RFA. (And you people who knew this already and have been telling us all along, don't look so smug ... why couldn't you explain it in terms we could understand?) We have to find a way not to get up in the RFA candidate's face while they're taking their test and demonstrating their skills. (Ideas that might do this have already been suggested by several different people above, without too much dissention, which gives me hope.)
• A husband drinks; his wife tells him it's all right, and makes excuses for him. He keeps losing his jobs; she keeps finding him new ones. Is there anyone here who can't figure out why the wife is depressed? It's fine to help or care about someone who's having a hard time, but the moment you let them suck you into their problems, the moment you feel that it's your responsibilty to fix them, you lose the ability to make the situation better. Admins are promoted precisely because they care about the community in some sense; unfortunately, they often care like the wife does. They see a situation where the community keeps arguing and can't make up its mind, they see people having problems and they want to make it better, so they step in and absolve the community from any blame and try to fix the problem themselves by acting without consensus. Example: established users are sometimes blocked or unblocked by admins after a discussion at ANI when it's clear that no consensus was reached. These admins almost never lose their mops. Another example: WPians have never come to a consensus on whether a new account should be immediately blocked if the username has a few edits that tie them to a company of the same name, but don't really "sound promotional". There are good arguments on both sides, and different admins will make the call different ways. I'm as guilty as anyone of jumping in and making the call in these cases. By doing that, I soothe the conscience of the community, absolving you of the responsibility to make a decision, and making myself feel good that I'm "rescuing" your from yourselves. But this feels very much like the wife and the drunk to me (and of course, I'm not going to do it any more). The community is responsible for fixing the lack of policy, or not.
• The worst consequence of this dysfunction happens at RFA, IMO. People who work at UAA generally know and care about usernames, and the same goes for WP:CP and copyright; that's why those environments are relatively drama-free and collegial. But not everyone who shows up at RFA is there because they care about how RFA works; some have given up on Wikipedians in general, and they're looking for admins to save us from ourselves. Of course, heroes are hard to come by, so these voters feel a need to knock the candidates around some and make sure they're made of strong stuff, and they want to grill them to make sure that in those areas where the community is avoiding deciding policy, the admin will step in and make things right (in their view). The solution IMO is to say that everyone promoted at RFA after (say) May 1 is required to understand that they are not to use the tools in any area where the community has clearly tried and failed to find consensus, and that if it's clear from their actions that they don't understand this, Arbcom is instructed to desysop them. If we do that, then hopefully the people who are coming to RFA looking for heroes will go home disappointed, and the RFA participants will once again be composed mainly of people who are actively encouraging, training and evaluating admin candidates; RFA is only the most visible part of that community.
• I would of course love to apply this change in understanding the role of an admin retroactively, and I think that's why so many people are hot to tie RFA reform to making it easier to desysop admins in general, but don't go there. We know from years of experience that that will only ensure that RFA reform will never happen, and again, it is not the responsibility of people who care about training and encouraging admins to save the community from itself. If the community wants to form a consensus to redefine adminship, fine, and if they don't, fine. We have a job to do at RFA that has nothing to do with wiki-politics. - Dank (push to talk) 19:17, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Inserting: to make sure it's clear, my proposal would not apply in any way to current admins, and I'm just expressing the "pure" idea ... in practice, there are always exceptions, cases where we expect admins to step in, and we can figure those out as we go along. - Dank (push to talk) 20:17, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Meh. This would just add to the bureaucracy. If admins are forbidden from acting when there's no clear consensus, then nothing would ever get done (especially if it gets reported at ANI). It's nearly impossible to get a consensus on anything if more than half a dozen people are involved in the conversation. We need to be able to trust admins to make the right decision in a particular situation, even if there is a drama-laden conversation about the situation which hasn't (and will likely never) come to a consensus. Also, I find it difficult to believe that making it easier to desysop an admin will cause people to relax their RfA standards (unless it becomes very easy to desysop). —SW— ^{spill the beans} 19:34, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I didn't say that, I said admins are prohibited from acting unilaterally when it's clear that the community has tried to find consensus, and failed. That applies to very few decisions at ANI. And my suggestions, together with many suggestions above, are fairly big changes, and likely to make some kind of difference; there's one way to find out. - Dank (push to talk) 19:47, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Can you give an example of an area where the community has tried and failed to find consensus? Admins are supposed to interpret consensus, so the line between that and "acting where there's no consensus" might not be clear. Swarm ^X 19:54, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I just tweaked my ANI example to make it clearer ... that and the username example were the two that came to mind. Since this would be a big change, I want to be careful not to own it; what's a situation that you disapprove of where the community argued about something, couldn't come to a decision, and an admin used a tool anyway? - Dank (push to talk) 20:03, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

RFA gets it right the vast majority of the time. It can be a rough process, but it survives because it works. If Jimbo decides to issue a royal fiat closing RFA because a microscopic percentage of editors are getting their feelings hurt, that'll say a lot about his real vision for the future of this project. Townlake (talk) 20:36, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm past my TLDR limit here so I'd prefer to let others respond unless someone's pointing out that something I said was wrong or confusing, in which case I'll try to fix it. - Dank (push to talk) 20:43, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

So you're right right and everyone else is wrong Townlake? Rather unlikely don't you think? The issue has nothing to do with microscopes, but with proper governance. Which is something wikipedia has been lacking for years. Malleus Fatuorum 20:47, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I have been wrong before and I will be wrong again. With that, I have to withdraw from the discussion, as I'll be off wiki for the next few days. Townlake (talk) 20:57, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Not everything that works is good. I can get fantastic graduation results by letting prospective students write their final exams before admitting them into university. That our Holiness recognises how bad the process actually is without being a regular participant, and that he asks for fundamental changes instead of insignificant tweaks, does show some vision, don't you think? --Pgallert (talk) 20:50, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Dank, I'm absolutely with you on the driving test issue. No problem with that analogy at all, and if we could solve that, we'd be going a long way towards fixing RfA (my opinion). I'm not keen on creating an adminship role without teeth though. I don't see admins as heroes, I certainly would never expect a new admin to weigh in where consensus has been failed. A new admin closing the pending changes RfC is likely to be as controversial as a non-admin doing it. But the new admins grow, and mature and become old admins. The only way I could accept the idea is if it was time-limited. 6 months? A year? Worm^TT · (talk) 21:40, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

It seems we've come to the conclusion (more than once) that RFA is broken, but what are doing to fix it? Sitting here and saying it's broken doesn't get us anywhere. We've decided it was broken before. Now begs the question: What are we doing/going to do to fix it?. I think Dank makes a good point, but now we have to act on it. Tofutwitch11 ^(TALK) 21:47, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Define "broken". Without a definition of what's wrong (other than "it just is") we can't fix it. I'm yet to see an "RFA is broken because.... bulleted list of acceptable reasons argument" .....but I've seen plenty of "It's broken because such-and-such passed or so-and-so didn't. (Request not directed specifically at your good self Tofutwitch11).

We see this a lot. So let's challenge it;

• RFA is broken because we "promote" less editors then we used to - so? Why is that an issue? Justified with true stats that show AIV and BLP/N etc. are backlogged to the point of harming the project as a whole it might be, but....
• RFA is broken because the standards have gotten higher and higher - so? Why is RFA broken? Surely that's a problem with editors standards, not RFA - after all there is no minimum requirement for adminship.
• RFA is broken because of incivilty/personal atacks. "It's a gauntlet to run" - so? We have methods of dealing with WP:CIV and WP:NPA - it's nothing to do with the RFA process. RFA isn't nasty. People are.
• RFA is broken because Jimbo says it is - so? When did Jimbo last partcipate in an RFA?

The process -> vote/discuss (whatever your preference) -> 'crat clicks button or does not -> end.... is not broken. It's too bloody simple to break. What's broken is the way we deal with the process. That's a very different issue.

Pedro :  Chat  22:21, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

There's distinction to be made between the RfA process, which is whatever it is, and the results of that process in creating an almost untouchable hierarchy of "trusted" super editors, too many of whom have great difficulty in distinguishing their arses from their elbows. Malleus Fatuorum 22:22, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. But the results of the process are not the fault of the process. They are the fault of the people that contribute without thought too the process. I know this sounds nit-picky but really, really it isn't. Much wailing, gnashing of teeth and moaning about "the process" is not the right approach, because the process is fine (or at least okayish - we could sort the vote / !vote thing out, but hey). It's the process of the process that's stuffed. Pedro :  Chat  22:34, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Any effective process needs checks and balances; RfA has none. Malleus Fatuorum 22:36, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Agree and disagree. Any process that is very simple needs no check or balance, as it will simply fail to produce an end result if it does not work, thus no harm done . An analogy (vaguely relevent metaphoricaly) - the process of lighting a match is simple - strike match against touch paper - it lights or does not, with no check or balance needed. The process of the process is more complex - strike match away from body, ensure match is not damp, do not douse oneself in petrol first etc. .

That's a pretty comprehensive misrepresentation if what I said. Let me give you another analogy. I recruit a policeman (which is what administrators believe themselves to be), there are effective procedures for removing said policeman if (s)he turns out to be unsuitable. This discussion is nevertheless missing the point, which is that whole concept of "administrator" here on wikipedia is screwed. Malleus Fatuorum 23:03, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

How about this. We seem to agree something is wrong, but can't agree on what. RFA is certainly not what it used to be, look at RFA's from years past. There wasn't editcountites and the myriad of other factors that often wage in to whether or not you pass an RFA today. Is this change bad? Tofutwitch11 ^(TALK) 22:44, 25 March 2011 (UTC)