User talk:Jimbo Wales

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A Little Help

At Talk:2010–2011 Ivorian crisis, a merge discussion has been going since early April. No one has merged the articles yet due to the large consensus in favor merging. So, can you merge these articles? B-Machine (talk) 15:05, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

This is not something to request here - someone who is experienced in the content there can WP:BEBOLD - Go for it - and merge anything that is not duplicated or move the sections that required moving over and then redirect the merged article. It looks like a quite complicated merge that will require a bit of understanding of the topic - I suggest you ask the merge nominator to do it or any experienced contributor there. Off2riorob (talk) 16:32, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

If you know of any, give me some names. B-Machine (talk) 16:53, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Well - its not actually clear what the WP:consensus is there - discussions can take time here - you need to ask there on the article talkpage. Regards. Off2riorob (talk) 23:12, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree with Off2riorob. Doing a merge requires sensitivity to a wide range of concerns that gave rise to consensus (or near-consensus?) for a merge. That means having some understanding of the content, which in this case I don't have.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:29, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Mayfair art dealer Mark Weiss in disgrace after admitting poison pen campaign on Wikipedia

This seems to have begun on Wikipedia. Fiction turns to reality. [1]. Please hat with the comment "Not sure anything is being asked of me, nor sure how I can help" 86.176.94.123 (talk) 23:08, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Let's begin at somewhere near the beginning. An IP makes slanderous allegations here [2]on 10 October 2009. See also here [3]. At the very same time, the allegation is repeated in tabloid newspapers. It turns out the source of the newspaper allegation is the same as the source that edited Wikipedia. And now Wikipedia editors can repeat the slur [4]. And even the Wikipedia administration can repeat the slanderous allegations [5] because they come from 'reliable sources'. No one picked this up until Sebastian Shakespeare [6] picks it up in today's standard. What has gone wrong? Why is the supposedly reliable crowdsourced Wikipedia recycling rubbish from tabloids which has itself been sourced from slanderous allegations originally made by anonymous edits on Wikipedia? Nonsense recycled. 86.176.94.123 (talk) 23:31, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

The Standard story is not on the net, but the Daily Telegraph has a report on it here [7]. You are going to say of course that it is nothing to do with you but it is everything to do with you. You are responsible for all the evil that is on Wikipedia. 86.176.94.123 (talk) 23:38, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

The rhetoric above is strident and excessive, but I am reviewing the links. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:40, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Yet please review the links, and read the full article in the London Evening Standard. 86.176.94.123 (talk) 23:45, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

This sits better at the article talkpage - its a content dispute. - Off2riorob (talk) 23:41, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Probably, but if we move it there, the IP will say it is a coverup. Best to address it here?--Wehwalt (talk) 23:42, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I added a welcome template to their talkpage and they are angry about it - asking on my talk if its some kind of joke - no its a welcome. and the rude boy continues - "No one is innocent on Wikipedia" - disruptive attacking IP block and direct to OTRS - Off2riorob (talk) 23:43, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

You are the rude ones who lie about people and destroy their lives. 86.176.94.123 (talk) 23:51, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

If anything here destroyed your life then you need to get out more.. Move along please Off2riorob (talk) 23:53, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia should not be about deciding which side to block or blacklist or revert or suppress. It should be about open conversation. Wikipedia is not here to lie about Mould (or Weiss, for that matter). That is (allegedly) the tabloid's job. Wikipedia is like the library that puts the tabloid up on the newspaper rack for people to read. The cure to any misinformation here is more, better information. Wnt (talk) 19:41, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Although I do not appreciate the IP's invective, his anger at Wikipedia at this moment is frankly understandable. The Philip Mould article, which I have just checked, does not appear to have any current issues, but I have redacted two instances of apparent defamation from the talkpage. If there are any other concerns about Mould-related content I would appreciate their being brought to my attention.

As I have said before in many forums, the rise of the Internet has been a force for much good, but it also enables the most outrageous lies, slanders, hoaxes, and invasions of privacy to be spread worldwide at the push of a button, often with devastating effect. This is an Internet-wide problem, not a Wikipedia-specific one, but our unique combination of high pageranks and free editing makes Wikipedia pages, particularly our biographies of living persons, an especially inviting forum for the malicious, the vindictive, and the depraved. Short of shutting down the project altogether there is nothing we can do to entirely solve this problem, but we must do more than we are doing. Focusing on the impoliteness of the victim or of someone apparently close to or sympathetic with the victim is certainly not going to help. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:58, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you and good night. Thank you 'New York Brad', whoever you are. Why is a civilised person like yourself in company with such barbarians? 86.176.94.123 (talk) 00:03, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Brad - when you close the Pending protection RFC please consider that the protection is duck to water to prevent this and all similar situations, - Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment February 2011 - one thousand articles are right now being protected from such libelous additions from being published by en wikipedia to all our mirror sites and the whole of the WWW - please don't reduce the protection we offer living people in your close. Pending protection attracts experienced editors that would have dealt with that situation without any dispute or publication to the WWW at all. Off2riorob (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:05, 7 May 2011 (UTC).

For clarity, this is not Mark Weiss, the photographer, right?
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 00:59, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

No I don't think so, just someone with the same name.--BSTemple (talk) 07:38, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

"Pending Changes" wouldn't prevent a registered user from adding information sourced to an apparent newspaper publication. Because the Daily Mail no longer serves the story at its former URL (see link from [8], for example) it might be considered retracted, hence not a reliable source. But Wikipedia's most important defense is that anyone in the world can add a link to [9], to not merely correct the slander, but to definitively refute it and cancel out much of the impact of dozens of other sources on the Internet that repeat the first Daily Mail story. At least, we could do that, provided that mention of the reference is not considered a violation of BLP for Mark Weiss... Wnt (talk) 09:41, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Wnt, I believe you are mistaken. Cases like this would be very much helped by Pending Changes. I see no way any responsible editor would have accepted this, and if one did, they'd immediately lose the reviewer right. This is precisely what PC is designed for.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:56, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Only Level 2 Pending Changes, comparable to full-protection, would affect non-IP editing as happened here.^[10] This article did not receive that level of attention, or the problem would have been fixed anyway. True, the first two 2009 IP edits would have been stopped by Level 1 PC, or by better Recent Changes patrolling, as they were obvious vandalism - but I doubt a reader would have seen them as anything but puerile vandalism.

So far, the duties of reviewers in PC have not been made clear - especially, I have seen no evidence that they are required to deny additions of apparently verifiable information from newspaper articles. Since deciding whether such articles are well-supported or not is far more time-consuming than simply citing or checking them, this requires Level 2 articles either to be written primarily by reviewers, or else to say only nice things about anyone. Wnt (talk) 19:27, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Until the software is in wide use and well tested, we will have these kinds of problems. Some people make the perfect the enemy of the good, I'm afraid. We desperately need pending changes to solve these problems.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 04:19, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

One lesson (of many) to be learned here is that tabloid sources like the Daily Mail, The Sun, National Enquirer, celebrity blogs and so forth simply are not reliable encyclopedic sources. Yet we have thousands of BLP content items cited to them. [11] [12] [13] [14] Given our page rank, it is irresponsible to cite them, and not to update policy accordingly. --JN466 13:54, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

We could solve this problem very easily, and radically, by putting these tabloids on the blacklist. Hans Adler 16:28, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree. If it's true, reliable sources have also reported it. However, most of the 'scoops' from these tabloids should be tagged ^{[ not intended to be a factual statement ]}. Flatterworld (talk) 16:40, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I like Hans' idea...blacklist the tabloids. Of course, they don't have to include the url to put the refs in & they'd still need to be manually reverted but it would certainly help.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 16:58, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

In purely practical terms, how would you decide what qualifies as "a tabloid"? In Britain (where this story originates) every national newspaper other than the Daily Telegraph is tabloid, along with almost all local and regional newspapers. – iridescent 17:16, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

We can list them, though of course there may be some short amount of discussion.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:29, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

There is a cultural difference in the meaning of "tabloid". In the US, what is meant is tabloid journalism or sensationalism (read trashy). That is what we're talking about here.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 17:36, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)x2 Really this is a subtext of the age-old question: how do you decide what's a reliable source? And current guidelines read "Mainstream news reporting is generally considered to be reliable" (original emphasis). So a guideline change would be the first port-of-call before talks of a blacklist Jebus989^✰ 17:38, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

The Sun and the Daily Mail don't do news reporting, or at least not normally. They generally just do news creation and news simulation. In the rare cases that they do report actual news in a usable way and can be used, they can still be cited by any editor, just not with a working link. Admins can edit/fix links if appropriate. Hans Adler 17:46, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Nonsense. The Daily Mail may be frothingly right-wing, but I don't think you can seriously claim they 'don't do news reporting'. – iridescent 17:53, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Iridescent is right, but so is Hans. The Daily Mail is of frightfully low quality most of the time, but - as Hans acknowledges - they do (rarely) get a scoop of some importance. I'm not comfortable with us using them as a source for anything, other than in some very very specific circumstances.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:58, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I am struck by the fact that the IP last night may not have been the best-spoken, but he spoke through real pain. How can we best deal with this?--Wehwalt (talk) 18:06, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

A scoop of importance will be covered by other sources. In such cases, the Daily Mail can be cited, with care, just like we are able to cite primary sources, with care, where they are referenced by reliable secondary sources. --JN466 19:29, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

(ec) I admit I have never actually held this paper in my hands. I am going by the links that I have seen on Wikipedia. If they do news reporting, then it appears that they are not normally used by us for proper news reports.

There are currently 5669 links to thesun.co.uk and 3717 to mirror.co.uk. Many of these are from BLP articles. To get an idea of how bad the reliability problem of the Daily Mail is, look at this: Talk:Audrey Tomason#Khalid El-Masri connection. An editor asks for a reliable source for a suspicion that he once expressed in his blog and that is in the article without proper source. According to him, his blog is the only source that this suspicion exists. Another editor responds with an article in the Daily Mail, but they just copied it from the blog. If they just copy random blog posts, then there is no reason why we should use them rather than cite random blogs ourselves. Hans Adler 18:06, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Do they make more of their past articles available than other major UK newspapers? That would be one reason why they are used in preference to better news sources.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:11, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I have no idea. But for some reason I just confused Daily Mail and Daily Mirror. The number of external links to the Daily Mail domain dailymail.co.uk is 15,301. Compared to the other two I think I have seen an unusally high percentage of links from talk pages, but there are still a lot of links from BLP articles. [15] Hans Adler 18:24, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Instead of draconian measures like blacklisting or a policy ban, I wish someone would write a bot to put an inline tag on all BLP pages with a Daily Mail reference with a ^{tabloid reference, please verify} - with a link from the tag to some page that cites this case as a bad example. The page should ask editors to remove the tag if the Daily Mail item seems genuine, but to remove and report any dubious or plainly libellous cases to a special noticeboard, where editors who are more familiar with the British press can pick over the claims carefully. Another page should index every article tagged by the bot, so the quality of the tag resolution can be audited at random. The person who added the Daily Mail reference could also be invited to participate. In this way the articles would be fixed, and Wikipedia would get some sense of the extent of the problem before deciding what to do. Wnt (talk) 19:34, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Wishing solves nothing. The best thing to do is move forward today with reliable solutions to these kinds of problems, solutions like PC that are well-tested and that we know will work, rather than wishing for fantasy software that might never exist.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 04:20, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Pending changes would not have stopped this edit, because it was made by an established editor (now a reviewer), who was relying in good faith on a newspaper, and the Daily Mail is not in fact as bad as people are saying here. Not brilliant, but definitely a cut above some of the other British tabloids, and at times has some interesting investigative pieces. And the newspaper had not used WP as a source; it had relied on a press release, [16] possibly one issued by the anon who had made an edit to the same effect on WP. So everyone was fooled.

If we want to safeguard BLPs properly, we need something targeted. We could consider introducing a "BLP editor" status, and make it tough to get: a fairly large minimum number of non-minor edits to articles; and a lengthy minimum period of service. Any article tagged as a BLP could then only be edited by those people. It would not solve all problems—BLPs could still be created by non-BLP editors, before someone catches and tags them, but hopefully the recent-changes patrollers would spot a lot of those. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 04:48, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't agree. That edit is more than enough to cause the instant removal of the reviewer flag.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 05:36, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

We could have BLP reviewing as a separate user right. --JN466 13:50, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

The other "gotcha" with that proposal, SV, is that it doesn't deal with BLP edits to non-BLP articles, such as the two I referenced in my ArbCom candidate response page. Any article can have BLP info, and the articles not labeled as BLPs seem to my anecdotal experience to have a longer time-to-remove for problematic info. Jclemens (talk) 06:21, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Jclemens, we really have to get out of the mindset of shooting down proposals with the argument that they don't solve every problem, because the result is that nothing is done, and nothing is solved. BLPs are usually the top Google hit for a living person's name. The most bitter complaints OTRS receives are about BLPs. This is a prime example. Think of what SV's proposal could do to help address this problem, rather than the problems it leaves unaddressed. --JN466 13:50, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Jimbo. We currently have a climate in which editors such as the one in this surreal thread (referring to this discussion) don't get the required negative feedback and are allowed to edit freely until something really bad happens so that they can finally be blocked. There are simply not enough adults here to supervise all of these.

For those not sure it's worth following the link: Over a period of 10 days, an editor kept insisting that this screenshot from a 2009 episode of Weeds (TV series), showing the beginning of our article on the series as it was between April and June 2009 with minor alterations (navigationals tools and Wikipedia branding removed, different title, high-quality series logo added) was a reliable source for the claim (barely readable in the screenshot, and followed by "citation needed") that the title of the series was an allusion, among others, to "widow's weeds". Not a big problem in itself, but if we don't prevent such editors from BLP editing, then we are responsible for the damage they may do later on. Hans Adler 07:38, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

What's funny is that recently there was a big banner headline about making Wikipedia more approachable to new editors, less tied up in policy, less hostile. But here it sounds like the problem is that ordinary Wikipedia editors just don't know policy well enough, and editing of BLP articles (which is to say, all articles) needs to be restricted to some elite subgroup, who can lose their status at any time for accepting an edit with what looks like a verifiable source. Wnt (talk) 09:49, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm arguing for precisely the opposite. By using Pending Changes, we can allow more people to edit, more freely, with less stress, while simultaneously dramatically reducing the incidence of BLP issues. It's win-win.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:59, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. --JN466 13:53, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't call this an elite subgroup at all. Responsible adults (and children who can behave like responsible adults) are not a tiny elite group. Hans Adler 10:13, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Pending changes still means an inappropriate edit is visible to tens of thousands of logged-in editors—in terms of BLPs, it was using a sledgehammer to crack a nut that often didn't even crack the nut. We should be trying instead to stop bad BLP edits appearing in the first place, because the damage one person can do with one edit is too great. But whenever we discuss it, so many people join in with suggestions and objections that nothing gets done.

As a first step, we ought to start indefinitely semi-protecting BLPs. Then, Jimbo, perhaps you would consider setting up a working group, consisting of 20 experienced editors to make a series of recommendations to the community regarding how to protect BLPs further—with a mandate that the community choose, via RfC, at least one of the suggestions to be implemented within a reasonable time. And if they can't decide, the group itself decides. The group can hold its discussions on a public page if it wants to, but only the 20 should take part. Is that something you'd consider? SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 03:14, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps we could use a 'whitelist' of the most reliable news sources from each country, whether they're free to read without subscription, and how long they keep archives. In the UK, I doublecheck with the BBC, Guardian and Economist. The Daily Mail cherry-picks and spins, and The Sun and Star sensationalize and over-simplify. What are we trying to achieve as an encyclopedia? The answer to that should clarify which sources are reliable. Reliable does NOT mean 'must be carefully waded through'. Flatterworld (talk) 14:56, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

The problem with tabloids being treated as reliables sources is widespread, and affects not just BLP issues, but basic notability, with the consequent degradation of the idea that Wikipedia is a serious and quality biographer, rather than the world's largest database of tabloid reportage. Sure, a reviewer is theoretically supposed to spot that that edit violates BLP, yet in 2011, we still see Afd closures like this one made by admins, where it is frankly impossible for anyone to argue that there is infact a difference between tabloid coverage and reliable sources, for the purposes of WP:BIO (BLP + GNG). So, we end up with 'biographies' like this, even though the woman has given precisely one interview in her life. Sure, there is a blizzard of 'coverage' about the woman, but you can count on one hand the number of reliable sources who have given her life some actual novel in depth treatment, and even those were published in and around the same single event or for the same single reason. And it shows in the end result, which even after having had much attention from several admins and being 'rescued' by the ARS, is still nearly 50% sourced to tabloids in terms of secondary coverage, and certainly looks nothing like a biography in terms of scope or balance. Even a merge proposal was closed as IAR! By the same admin who closed the Afd! In this current climate, even if people think she's notable, it would be immensly difficult and stressful even just to pare that down to non-trivial info backed by reliable sources alone, as policy demands. As such, I suggest a raising of the overall quality of admins is in order, as the ultimate root cause is of failing to lead by example and make reality match policy, before we start thinking reviewers will have enough clue to stop the example edit above. MickMacNee (talk) 17:20, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

• Start a biography wiki ("en.wikiography"?) where the community can agree appropriate policies for handling biographies, move all biographies from en.wikipedia to there, and keep biographies off en.wp in future. Doesn't deal with BLP stuff in non-BLP articles of course but perhaps would make BLPs a hell of a lot more manageable. 86.146.22.108 (talk) 20:00, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't see what's wrong with Pippa Middleton. Wikipedia summarizes available sources; it is not a source itself; it is not a biography and its editors are not biographers. When people say we shouldn't have articles about people in the news, shouldn't cover the news, shouldn't let edits show up unless a Reviewer or "BLP Editor" approves them, shouldn't let Google and forums rebroadcast our articles lest mistakes be in them - it sounds like what they want is a few little volumes you can hold in your hand, written by professional editors, copyrighted, with some catchy name like Brittanica. Do you really think that Wikipedia was a mistake after all this time and so much useful information? Wnt (talk) 21:01, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't see much wrong with having an article on Middleton either; but there was clearly something wrong with Mould's article. --JN466 02:53, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Re. [17], Jimbo Wales, above, says That edit is more than enough to cause the instant removal of the reviewer flag.

An editor in good standing added information from a seemingly reliable source. Some six months later, the source was shown to be incorrect. And for that, the user should be admonished?

It's not just the Mail, not at all. RS frequently make mistakes. Wikipedia states facts based on RS. How can the reviewer be expected to perform fact-checking on each news item?  Chzz  ►  14:05, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Pending changes could not have stopped that tabloid content from being added as you know it was added by a reviewer - someone with such low standards of content addition as regards tabloid style contentious BLP content has no right to be having Reviewer status and I support his having it removed. Ok, you like adding this low quality sourced tittilation , fine, but we will review your edits and not allow you to review unconfirmed accounts desired additions. Off2riorob (talk) 14:16, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Revisiting the reform of RfA

Dear Jimbo, a while ago you raised the matter of how the RfA process fails to serve the project well now days. A current RfA reconfirmation presents an interesting scenario in this respect. Many participants acknowledge significant and continual problems in the applicant's handling of adminship, particularly WP:INVOLVED, and the applicant has thus far given a less robust commitment to do better on the CoI thing than some participants were hoping for. On the other hand, a lot of people (including me) admire the editor's bravery in voluntarily submitting himself to this trauma; but it's concerning that this appears to have swayed a many towards support. An alternative explanation is that there is an undercurrent in the community for softening the WP:INVOLVED policy, or at least not applying it strictly. It's unclear to me.

I quaver at singling out one RfA: it doesn't seem fair since the applicant has already exposed himself enough, and is regarded as having some strong features as an admin. So this is intended as a systemic, not personal, example of how "the big deal" you explicitly did not want may have evolved into a very distorting factor. Ideally, I think it should be a badge of honour to be an ex-admin, or to have an official break from admin duties. The trauma of the process infects so many aspects of the admin system.

I don't expect you to respond publicly; this message is just to remind you that a lot of editors were keen to listen when you talked about reforming RfA a few months ago. Tony (talk) 16:55, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I hear you. I'm basically at a loss as to what the right solution is. When I last explored this, and people sent me ideas, and I bounced ideas off of people, nothing emerged as obvious. Some themes that do seem to make some sense would be a different route to adminship that would be open to editors generally known to be good editors, with elevation to adminship being "probationary" for some period of time, and with a mandatory recall process - so that if it goes wrong, the community can correct it. But each of those elements is subject to a myriad of valid and not-so-valid objections. What does "generally known to be good editors" mean? By what rule or process is that determined? What does "probationary" mean - what does someone have to do to fail the test, and again, who decides? And finally, are there examples of good and functional admin recall processes that don't just involve the same drama that we are seeking to avoid in the first place? I support reform and I'm willing to throw my weight behind some reforms - but we need to make sure we do this with wisdom.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:09, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Just to help you think out of the box, here is an idea that I first had when Giano once again complained about misbehaving admins: Let's accept the reality that WP:Wikipedia is an MMORPG. MMORPGs don't have admins, but the have a magic system. Here it could work as follows (plagiarising myself from User talk:Giano II/archive 14#Credo accounts): Every user is in principle able to cast spells such as "block", "unblock", "delete" etc. However, a spell costs mana, which you can obtain through content building and some other forms of constructive work. You get a tiny little bit of mana for every edit in article space that isn't a revert. Any such edits in the month before an article becomes a GA are worth more mana points, and even more if the article becomes an FA. The mana required to block a user depends on the user's mana. You can block whoever you want, and you can unblock whoever you want, even yourself. Hans Adler 17:39, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

How many FAs are required to block Jimbo? This is a great way to encourage top content contributors!  :) --Wehwalt (talk) 17:53, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Linking adminship to content contributions, as one potential avenue to (probationary) adminship, is a good idea. Admins should ideally know how to build quality content. --JN466 19:07, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Thats makes the rather flawed assumption that the FA process doesn't have it's own dissfunctions. Oh and we are are still clearing up the mess from the last GA meltdown. Rasing the stakes in those areas=trouble.©Geni 19:11, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Should I have put a smiley face in there? I do not support the proposal and was merely joking.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:17, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

The entire proposal was a joke, of course. But the idea was inspired by my positive experience with sites such as Reddit and stackoverflow.com, which are automating the reputation stuff that we are doing by hand. Hans Adler 19:23, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

• Jimmy, it is again clear from your comment that you continue to give this crucial matter your focused attention, for which I thank you. As you are most likely aware, a mandatory admin recall process at WP:CDA was !voted down last year (with the admin vote against it being the deciding component [18]) and it is my view that entrenched admin resistance to reform is the biggest single hurdle concerned Wikipedians face. I continue to feel that not only is Rfa broken across the board, but that the community process available to fix the problem is broken as well. We are stuck, and need a serious shakeup which may well require "adult supervision" - a binding edict from the highest levels of Wikipedia and the WMF. The current reconfirmation Rfa mentioned by original poster is a good case study of the faultline. Thanks again for staying focused on this issue; wisdom is indeed called for. Jusdafax 19:31, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

  Zee highest levels of the WMF make cross project rulings and I can't see say the italian wikipedia reacting too well to being randomly what to do about their adminship process.©Geni 19:57, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Much about the admin process is broken. It is a volunteer system where everyone does their best. But since it is often the domain of the young, being a Wikipedia admin is quite an accomplishment for some where retaining the privilege is more important than doing some good with their powers. Accordingly, many are reticent to step in and stomp on editors who have a long pattern of disruption because there is no single act worthy of more than a 24-hour block. Admins also have their peer group with whom they backchannel and—what with the seeming great accomplishment of just becoming an admin—many are reluctant to run afoult with the good ol’ boys’ club. It takes an uncommon amount of independence, self assurance, and immunity to social pressure to just Do the Right Thing®™©.

However, admins are granted their responsibilities, privileges, and powers by the regular wikipedian community and they are continually beholden to serve the interests of that community. With regard to reconfirmations, there has been a natural concern from the admin community that if a robust reconfirmation process were to take root, good and proper actions such as stomping disruptive editors who have a cabal of followers, or actions such as blocking an I.P. who continually writes stuff like “ROBERT POOD HIS SHORTS IN GYM CLAAAAAASS" will result in the admin being ‘voted off the island’. This sort of concern has been raised on numerous occasions. I personally find that mentality to be utterly offensive because it is the argument used by despots: “The electorate is too ignorant to be trusted to understand the challenges I face and do the right thing as I lead my country.” It is a notion I utterly reject as it violates a fundamental value I hold dear: Leaders shall govern only with the consent of the governed.

I propose that the simple solution is to Just do it; to put into place reconfirmations for all admins each year. A year may seem short, but it is an eternity in Wikipedia time. But, I further suggest that the criteria for pass/fail be kept flexible at the outset so that the proper and desired outcome generally occurs during the reconfirmations. To address the legitimate concerns from the admin community, you, Jimbo, could exploit your leadership role by serving as a respected adviser where you look at the total record of a given editor and assess whether or not the record shows an general pattern of useful and consistent service to the community. Then you would look at the RfA results and propose !voting threshold criteria for properly gauging a consensus so the process typically results in the desired outcome (retaining good admins and jettisoning the bad ones). For instance, if a number of good admins came up for reconfirmation but there is something about the whole RfA reconfirmation process where an inordinate number of editors who have only been active for less than one month comprise a preponderance of “oppose” votes, then you could lead the way with a proposal on how to craft RfA reconfirmation criteria that accommodates this circumstance unique to RfA reconfirmations. I propose that your basic objective would be to scrutinize a handful of RfA reconfirmations of admins who are well regarded and a handful who are not. I should think it would not be a difficult task to craft some decent RfA reconfirmation guidelines to start with; they can always be further tweaked to improve them. Greg L (talk) 20:23, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Errr you are aware that admins as a group tend to be very experenced users right? Thats not the best group to try and sell the jimbo in the leadership position to. We've only just cleaned up the pending changes mess for zeuses sake.©Geni 21:14, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

• You are confused about what I am supposedly confused about, Geni. I am perfectly aware that Admins are very experienced wikipedians. In the grand scheme of things (speaking as someone who has hard-earned gray whiskers) admins, as a class, tend also to be shear youngsters where becoming an admin is a great and wonderful accomplishment such that many fear to be bold for fear of being ostracized by his or her admin peers. But four years of experience as a wikipedian (age 14 to 18) does not necessarily equate to great wisdom, does it? The whole process of slowly earning one’s admin stripes as of late on the English-language version of Wikipedia tends to reward politically correct sloganism more than anything else.

  As for Jimbo selling himself into a leadership position with the admins, that wasn’t on my mind at all. Jimbo doesn’t need to inure himself with admins nor does he need to curry favor with admins for a successful reconfirmation process to be instituted. All processes on Wikipedia are decided by the community, which is—for the most part—comprised of regular rank & file wikipedians, not admins.

  The community does not need buy-in from the admin community to institute change in our processes. If I am incorrect about that point of fact, please provide a link to the relevant page on Wikipedia policy. However, arriving at a workable and good reconfirmation process can be helped along if admins get the right attitude, stop circling the wagons, and start behaving as if they recognize that they continue to be beholden to the community that granted them their powers in the first place. The English-language version of Wikipedia can easily and quite quickly get into line with the practices of the other-language versions of Wikipedia and it’s about time the admins acted as if they are part of the inevitable solution. Greg L (talk) 22:06, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Trying to do anything without the buy-in of a group of 764 experienced editors isn't practical.©Geni 22:32, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, that much hasn’t gone unnoticed. Impressive. Greg L (talk) 01:13, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Just an observation. We have a monarch (of limited and ambiguous powers) and a House of Lords (admins). But we don't (yet) have a House of Commons. At their best, the Lords are experienced, thoughtful, wise, and taking a long view. At their worst, they are humans like anyone, defensive of turf, etc. Lords are seldom in favor of Lords reform. I'm making no proposals, merely pointing out a useful analogy.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:15, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

The Commons analogy is indeed interesting, and you would seem to me to be going in a direction you mentioned earlier, with a class of "admin lite", for lack of a better term, who would not be subject to Rfa, but some other process of nomination, confirmation and de-adminship. Enacting this overall process into place through existing Wiki-mechanisms would be a fascinating circus, and there's the rub. Having studied the process of adminship, very much from the outside, I am stil of the opinion that in times of stress - meaning, the wide gulf between admins-for-life and non-admins and the broken Rfa spectrum - the benevolent monarch should reserve the right to rule by decree. Let the 'Lords' (not all, but some) howl; something's gotta give. That's how I see it, anyway. Jusdafax 08:48, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

That's true. We have a slightly cobbled monarch. And then there is, well its not so much a "House of Lords", more like a band of opportunistic robber barons, focused on protecting their considerable privileges. These are often children, and children or not, they were selected when they were admin wantabees on the efforts they made to delete articles, thwart vandals, add categories, put the wind up spamsters, and most particularly grease current admins by following them around and supporting their every move. They were selected for focusing on fringe activities in Wikipedia. Then there are, I apologise for bringing up this indelicate matter, the great unwashed and inconvenient serfs. And amongst the serfs are the content editors who provide most of the real content in Wikipedia. The longer these content editors contribute, and the more creative and valuable their contributions, the more they are liable to be punished (blocked etc) by marauding administrators. This is the slow descent into hell that is the all too common experience that Wikipedia offers its best content editors. The administrators are elevated to a somewhat godlike status where they endure for life, a form of immortality. They can rarely be removed, and then usually only if they offend other administrators. It doesn't really matter what they do to the content editors, and often the more savage they are, the more other administrators and admin wantabees circle to protect them. --Epipelagic (talk) 10:52, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I think one of the major reasons that admins are opposed to a reconfirmation process, is that they know that no matter how good they are, they are going to be unfairly mischaracterized with these kinds of childish generalizations. Peacock (talk) 13:25, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

While I support the idea of regular reconfirmation, I think 1 year is far too short. Everyone (mostly) has lives outside of Wikipedia, and an RFA -- especially a contentious one -- does tend to dominate your time for a week, if you care at all what other people are saying about you. I'd suggest approximately two years, with some flexibility in the dates so your timing two years ago doesn't ruin your vacation this year.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:13, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I think routine reconfirmation AfDs are really a bad idea. :/ There are a couple of fabulous users I'd like to see become admins who are dead set against it because they rightly do not want to subject themselves to the gauntlet. Making it an annual or biennial gauntlet is going to make that hurdle seem even more daunting. I know mine is just one more opinion in a sea of many, but I think what we really need is an effective and efficient way to deal with admin error and admin abuse--by offering appropriate guidance or sanctions. Current community processes for this do not seem to be either. Everything is fraught with drama; users who do not enjoy that kind of thing are more likely to leave Wikipedia than to face the uphill battle of getting others to support them in dealing with admin issues. A lighter weight process of evaluating when admin complaints are (a) frivolous, (b) legitimate, but correctible by discreet, diplomatic instruction, or (c) legitimate and potentially requiring more authorative intervention might help. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:36, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

My problem as an administrator with any reconfirmation process is that knowing you'll have a less chance of passing RFA a second time is a turn-off running for the first time. In the time that you gain adminship, especially on a shaky RFA, you do sometimes make enemies and there is more to scrutinize you with. It seems like, having to face RFA every X made years will make the Y (amount of administrators) fall anyway because no one will want to run in the first place. I know I personally wouldn't pass a reconfirmation anyway due to my mental background and honest lack of any work the last several months due to college, which ends tomorrow afternoon until September for me. Any real RFA reforms is going to have to come in the process itself, including the feeling that its like a confirmation hearing for a SCOTUS justice. That feeling you get at RFA is that people are grating you left and right for what will you do in situations becomes rather problematic. I think the less heinous atmosphere at RFA might actually improve the RFA nominations per month and year. Reconfirmation personally is a turn away for more than it speaks for.Mitch32^{(Can someone turn on the damn air conditioning?)} 13:41, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Admins are generally very against this RfA term idea, an example of the Lords not being in favour of Lords reform? There is a paper that analysed the effect of 1-year terms on admins at sv.wiki (link) and the long and short of it was, unsurprisingly, admins work harder when seeking reconfirmation, like a pre-election politician. And part of the point is, MRG, that if every admin was having an RfA every year, they would become less of a gauntlet and more of an everyday occurrence, several per day infact. So that new applicants would rarely (if ever) be the lone RfA receiving wikiattention from any bored editors Jebus989^✰ 14:12, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

That certainly would be true if every admin was having a reconfirmation hearing every year; we've got 1,785 admins at this moment. We'd be listing them at a rate of nearly 5 a day. Is that really an efficient and effective approach? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:45, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Depends how you're measuring the vague terms efficient and effective. Would it increase admin activites? The data above implies it would. Certainly time would be spent closing RfAs, but only in contentious cases where there isn't a cut-and-dry percentage — and these are the admins that should be under scrutiny anyway. If you're saying editors' time would be wasted in participating, I agree somewhat, but we could reasonably expect the average number of !votes to decline if RfAs were going on constantly. I also agree with SoV that 2 year terms are more reasonable for this larger userbase (compared with sv.wiki) Jebus989^✰ 14:52, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, it also rather begs the question of what behavior we want from admins. Is pressuring them to increase activity always best for the project? In terms of real world politics, I tend to think that politicians who behave a certain way in the hopes of securing reelection are not necessarily putting the attention to doing the job properly, which will sometimes anger people when done right. Too, while greater levels of participation are fabulous, we are dealing with volunteers here, and volunteerism tends to ebb and flow with interest, energy and time. To me, it seems that routine reconfirmations would siphon off time and attention from other activities by the admins up for reconfirmation as well as those who like/dislike them. And it would do nothing to address the immediate needs experienced by Editor A when Admin B is mistreating him (for up to one or two years, depending on length of reconfirmation). An efficient method would attend to those admins who do cause problems without generating unnecessary process around those who do not. An effective method would reform inappropriate admin behavior where possible and remove from adminship those who prove unable (or unwilling) to reform, with a goal of providing fair hearing to all parties. We don't want to lose or alienate any good volunteers, admin or otherwise. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:17, 9 May 2011 (UTC)