Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship

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Admins

We had 117 mops handed out in 2009 and 75 in 2010, and every time somebody makes a chart, the number of "active admins" has been trending downward, so obviously were losing faster than we're gaining, I estimate losing 10 active admins per month. Of course I have no desire to be an admin, but obviously I would propose it's a better idea to give the mop to the new and upcoming editors that will likely be here for years, instead of the old conglomerates that will likely fade off sooner than later. Monterey Bay (talk) 08:51, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I have no intention of "fading off", simply because this is my tenth year here. Besides that, I have seen no evidence to support the notion that newer editors are likely to stick around for years. Quite the contrary, in fact.--Atlan (talk) 09:05, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if I agree that a new user is more likely to remain active. If anything, an admin who has been around a few years has contributed a lot more and will be more dedicated to the project than a newcomer. Having said that, I agree in principle that newer editors could potentially bee good candidates for adminship. However, that is only my personal view and I understand views to the contrary. As it is not unreasonable to oppose a candidate on the basis of time spent here, I think we need to leave it up to each !voter. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 20:10, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that new users are more likely to remain active than old ones, and I generally disagree with any generalizations made about users on Wikipedia. Everyone is different, and everyone should be considered for adminship on a case-by-case basis. Ajraddatz (Talk) 22:34, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, if Wikipedia is in a admin drought, I think an experienced admin should go poking around Wikipedia administrator hopefuls, give advice, and hopefully theyll be able to shape themselves up enough for a successful nomination. Also, pay special attention to those who are afraid of nominating themselves. If needed, I, even thought Im not an admin, am fairly experienced with Wikipedia, I can identify and notify obviously bad editing patterns. Im fairly-confident it will work if you format your advice like a GA review. mysterytrey talk 02:09, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Where is the evidence of any kind of drought? Some of us might argue that having fewer administrators is a good thing. Malleus Fatuorum 02:23, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

By drought I mean when Monterey Bay stated that active administrators are decreasing at an estimated 10-a-month (only 117 mops were handed out, then 75), the evidence being the charts of active administrators. The how-to on more admins was merely a suggestion, however I do request your reasoning/explanation for it better when there are fewer admins. mysterytrey talk 03:00, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm seeing periods of time during peak hours where vandalism reports are sitting unanswered at WP:AIV for an hour or more and page protection taking the same amount of time or longer. That alone is strong evidence that we need more active admins. We would never have seen such an extreme backlog in those two critical areas two years ago. Trusilver 03:27, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Trusilver has a great point. mysterytrey talk 04:08, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

In reply to Mysterytrey I am firmly in the camp that the Devil makes work for idle hands. There is much that could be done to ease the burden on every editor here at Wikipedia, not just or even mainly for administrators, such as not allowing new users to create articles, but the idiocy has spoken. And let's face it Trusilver, most AIV reports are a joke. Malleus Fatuorum 03:35, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Interesting. Please elaborate, Malleus, why are they a joke? Dayewalker (talk) 03:44, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

"Please Miss, someone was rude to me. Can you please block them?" Malleus Fatuorum 03:46, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

It comes down to adminship really not being that big of a deal - in my opinion, a good number of admins would be admins jumping over each-other for blocks, deletes, etc. Adminship is little more than a set of tools which aid a user's ability to maintain Wikipedia - if vandals are going unblocked for up to 30 minutes during peak times as I saw a few days ago, then there is a problem. I actually agree with Malleus in regards to disallowing new users the ability to create articles, but as for adminship, I think that the more the merrier (assuming that everyone with the mop is competent). Ajraddatz (Talk) 04:24, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia ought to be looking to develop systems and processes that minimise the need for administrators, not trying to create more of them, but of course there's an entrenched hierarchy who resist any such moves to the death. As we've just seen with the new-user article creation fiasco. Malleus Fatuorum 04:02, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I'd ultimately prefer both more humans and more processes helping out. We could do a lot more in terms of expanding abusefilters, limiting new user abilities, working on an expanded editor that makes editing easier so that less good faith edits need to be reverted. But at the same time, we still need admins around for blocking, deleting, etc. Ajraddatz (Talk) 04:24, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I doubt we'll ever agree on the need for or role of administrators here on Wikipedia. My view is that the administrator role has just become a rag-bag of ill-considered "rights" to which every new "right" is thoughtlessly added. Malleus Fatuorum 04:30, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Completely agree with the more the merrier, but what do you mean by "admins jumping over admins"? mysterytrey talk 04:08, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

By that I just mean admins block-conflicting each-other while blocking vandals, or delete-conflicting when deleting a page tagged for speedy deletion, etc. Ajraddatz (Talk) 04:24, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

What does the devil makes use of idling hands mean? Also, if you think there is a lot of work to be done to alleviate the pressure on everybody, having more administrators to do the work auto-confirmed, confirmed and unconfirmed users alike arent able to do is greatly contributing to the cause. mysterytrey talk 04:08, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Look, the real work isn't done by administrators, it's done by regular editors who are lorded over by administrators who think they do all the work. But in reality all most of them do is pop onto AIV or similar venues for a few minutes each day, if that. After all, having won their badge, what else are they expected to do? The game's been won. Of course I don't tar all all administrators with the same brush, just most of them. Malleus Fatuorum 04:18, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

So we remove the bad ones, putting more into office, then remove the bad batches of the newbies. I guess administrators do just review our/bots requests. PS:per the discussion here, today is a bad day to say anything bad about admins. mysterytrey talk 04:25, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Or maybe it was just a bad day to sling unwarranted personal attacks around for no reason. Eagles 24/7 (C) 19:22, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Have you ever tried to remove a bad admin? Or do you believe that there aren't any? Malleus Fatuorum 04:32, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Ive never tried but they do exist. Why? mysterytrey talk 05:53, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

• Malleus' philosophies aside, and notwithstanding the benefits of looking for efficiencies, it is troubling when there are backlogs in important areas. The truth is that the important admin work is not the "haha i'm an overlord" type stuff. If admin's tasks were distributed and some editors were called, say, "Vandalism Report Responders" or "AfD Closers", you'd probably weed out all the status seekers. Being an admin on wikipedia is not a resume builder. And speaking of AfD, we have an unusual number of post 7 day discussions still open -- up to 11 days old!, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 04:39, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

But why should it require an administrator to close them? Malleus Fatuorum 04:41, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

While I agree with you completely, the Foundation's legal counsel has specifically opposed[1] any unbundling of admin tools. Trusilver 04:45, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

• Trusilver: Thanks for the link, I can understand Godwin's concern about unfettered access to deleted articles. Which answers Malleus' question as well, plus the fact that most editors are idiots. Even if most admins are also idiots, its a more controllable group. Its just like local politicians, we need them to do necessary governing tasks.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 04:55, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Except that admins, like the rest of the volunteer community, don't have a voice in the 'government'. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:32, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

tl;dr, go recruit good admin candidates, leave discussions Wikipedia political philosophy for dorm-room bull sessions.--Tznkai (talk) 06:11, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Insert the obligatory WP:You don't own Wikipedia, even if you're an admin. Have mörser, will travel (talk) 02:31, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I think that Godwin's point supports unbundling, just not in the way that that particular proposal was worded. Specifically, if the legal concern is over the ability to review deleted contributions, then that is the "tool" that should be kept accessible to only a few people, possibly even fewer than have it now. But the perennial "Vandal Fighter Role" doesn't, for the most part, need that tool, and thus we could give that right to more people. All they need is the ability to semi-protect a articles and block users; if it works, software-wise, there could even be a strict time limit (say, up to 3 days protection maximum, 2 days blocking maximum). We could even limit the blocking to IPs and unconfirmed editors. That alone would significantly cut down on RFPP and AIV reporting. This keeps the deleted edits "safe" (legally speaking), allows us to set higher standards for Admins (I'd even be willing to risk being "demoted" myself if it were deemed worthy to re-evaluate all current admins under newer, stringent rules), and still gets the high-speed stuff done. I don't know that this is the exact point at which we should split, but I just mean to say that Godwin's point actually supports splitting off any right except for deletion, as far as I read it. Qwyrxian (talk) 06:14, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

If we have average users getting blocking rights, even with limits, then I think we need to bump up the requirements for autoconfirmed. mysterytrey talk 05:53, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

They dont have a voice in the WikiGovernment? They do have the policy section in the village pump. mysterytrey talk 05:53, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

That was a reference to a proposal that had consensus but was shot down by the WMF. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 07:03, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Godwin's posting goes no way at all towards answering my point, as he is specifically talking about viewing deleted pages, nothing else. Malleus Fatuorum 23:26, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Then even the mean administrators serve a purpose if they help Wikipieda exists and not be drowning in vandalism. As to why autoconfirmeds shouldnt be able to close discussions: To prevent abuse. Its fairly easy to create an account. mysterytrey talk 05:53, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

To test the badge theory it would be interesting to survey successful RfA candidates from the last 12 months and see how many are still highly active. Anecdotally I think the number would be surprisingly high. --Mkativerata (talk) 07:54, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I think we already have a script somewhere that can already do that with a minor tweak. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:09, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I really don't like the badge theory - I think that basically all admins are mature enough to understand that what they hold is a mop, not a trophy. I rarely see an admin bragging about their sysop flag, whereas I quite often see users bragging about rollback/autopatrol/accountcreator flags. Ajraddatz (Talk) 21:40, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, although I do mention my on-wiki "status" when describing my role(s) to non-wiki (i.e. real-life) people, I've never seen anyone do that on-wiki. Consider how having that extra permission bit gives you the ability, and to some degree a sense of obligation, to look at first-hand evidence of the very worst behaviour imaginable, sometimes as the last non-supressing editor involved, and sometimes getting back out of bed to check on something - who wouldn't want that wonderful prize? I think the desire is more powerful than the outcome of attaining the goal. Franamax (talk) 23:43, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to escalate one part of Malleus's comments to a (off-topic) higher thread level: "most AIV reports are a joke". Not because many of those reports are frivolous or self-interested, that is easy enough to spot and dismiss or redirect - but rather because of my own experience. I did frequent WP:AIV for a while but then stopped. I would see genuine reports and watch the editor contribs to see if they kept on beyond the final warning, allowing for the one-minute possible gap in edit timing, so I could be reasonably sure they'd actually read the final warning. What I found was that those editors got blocked anyway, perhaps by someone determined to "clean up" the AIV page. Once (pre-admin) I found an IP editor who had committed 4 vandalisms and asked them in informal wording to cut it out, and indeed they followed that advice (or study break ended). Then I watched as 4 escalating warnings were added to their talk. The explanation from the tagging editor was (paraphrased) "they always keep going, so I'm setting the stage for a block" So yeah, AIV is a bit of a joke, and part of the "I'm more poweful than others" mentality, just not the way Malleus said. And yes, I'm aware that if I have an issue I should be goiong to WT:AIV to discuss. But the way existing admins deal in a cogent fashion with noticeboard issues is related to the question of why an editor would seek adminship anyway. Is it all about a competition to see who shoots first? Franamax (talk) 22:15, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Quite honestly, a few changes need to happen in countervandalism here. First, the youhavenewmessages bar for anons needs to be changed so that it provides more info (such as "Please read these messages which have been directed to you" or something). Second, we need to take the focus off of warning every user four times and start using more common sense. If an IP has gone and replaced the content of five pages with "LOL you got vandalized", which makes more sense; warning or just reporting for a block? Likewise, if an IP has gone and changed the word cake to caek, which makes more sense; a vandalism warning template, or a personalized message telling them that their test worked and that they should use the sandbox instead. Instead, we get the countervandalism game happening, with users fighting for reverts and AIV reports. Ajraddatz (Talk) 23:10, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

During my RFA it was pointed out that I'd not done much at WP:AIV. True. My policy has always been to select something suitable from WP:USETEMP - either level 1 or level 2 depending on how many unsatisfactory edits they'd made, wait for it to happen again after warning, and escalate as necessary. I think I only took it to level 4 twice; I only reported to AIV twice too, and these were for cases where a level 4 had already been served and the bad behaviour had continued. For me, therefore, AIV was a last resort, not first. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:52, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I think the vast majority of vandal fighters do use AIV as a last resort. Any user with a habit of issuing four warnings at once, as in Franamax's example, would find themselves blocked eventually. Tools such as Huggle have features which prevent vandals being warned if they haven't been given enough time to read their previous warning. Epbr123 (talk) 14:48, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that there are many editors that would maliciously issue four warnings at once. I do want to point out that there are certain circumstances where someone who is inexperienced and/or inattentive CAN issue multiple warnings on Huggle within a very short amount of time. It's just something that is good to be aware of, especially among new Huggle users that can be lured into a false sense of security. Huggle is NOT foolproof and it still requires the vandal fighter to have a strong awareness of their surroundings. Trusilver 15:02, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps you miss my point - I believe the editor who issued those serial warnings was acting in utter good faith and genuinely believed that was the right way to deal with vandalism. As noted above, it is the potential for competition to file a report that leads these behaviours astray. In particular (as also noted), counting AIV reports here at the page for consideration of adminship requests as any sort of measure of competence in vandal-fighting is misguided. Look through my own contribs and I think you'll see that I am very successful at spotting bad edits, and looking at the entirety of what the particular editor has recently been up to. I've successfully intervened on a thousand or two occasions now and when I stood for RFA I had approx. 2 WP:AIV reports. And the record will also show that I've never ever used a user warning template either (tho' I do sometimes use templates for block notices), it's 100% my own words. That approach is so effective I've never considered using automation. I've never bought into the "institutional" approach to vandalism, I don't think AIV reports should be used as a metric here, and I think existing admins could set a better example with more critical examination of AIV reports, and followup education and tip-sharing with the editors who are bringing less-than-clear-cut violations to AIV. Admins need to show leadership (as do all other experienced vandal-fighters), and that is how we will persuade other editors to join the admin ranks. Franamax (talk) 01:18, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

• If I have read correctly, what Malleus was trying to say is that instead of us trying to hunt for more new admins we should actually start thinking how to cut red tape for a change. - Mailer Diablo 12:08, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

Ill reiterate some stuff thats probably been said already, adminship is no big deal period. If maintenance starts lapsing though more admins will be let in naturally, or more likely, greater automation will simply evolve to make decisions easier (cutting that red tape so to be in a way). I personally feel so much of the fixes today are automated anyway today versus 5 years ago (even vandal aiv reports are so stream lined....) and thus i beleive more active admins back then were probably needed than today (just my feeling). Though i do find automation has created a cold bleak gap that chases away new editors anyway. But thats just my biased look at wikis future, probably something will change to be more optomistic. Meh just some rants Ottawa4ever (talk) 18:35, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Ironically it's career malcontents like Malleus who make adminship a big deal by playing up the idea of a divide between the haves and have-nots. The vast majority of admins are regular editors with a few bits, who occasionally even do The Real Work Of Regular Editors™, but I suppose if one hung around ANI all day (or, God forbid, Wikipedia Review) then it'd be extremely easy to get the impression that Wikipedia resembled pre-Revolutionary France. In reality the meta-commentary and court drama which gets picked over all day by our resident rabble-rousers actually has very little impact on how the project runs, and even RfA itself is far less full of intrigue than it was a few years ago. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 11:58, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Disagree with the unnecessary pejoratives; agree strongly with the idea most of the stuff we get up in arms about doesn't matter both as a matter of philosophy and pedestrian fact. I like tooling around the margins as much as anyone else, but try to keep it in perspective.--Tznkai (talk) 14:39, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Why is it that admins can get away with calling Malleus a "career malcontent", but if he so much as uses the word "wikilawyer", he's blocked? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:11, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Why? Two reasons: administrators know they can with impunity and and they believe themselves to be better than regular editors. Malleus Fatuorum 00:14, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Unless you forgot the word "some", that generalization is just as unfair as calling you a career malcontent.--Atlan (talk) 11:13, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm prepared to compromise on "most". But the fact you've complained about the unfairness of my comment but were silent about about the unfairness of Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward)'s remarks goes some way towards proving my point about the immunity of administrators. Malleus Fatuorum 13:25, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

There's nothing "unfair" about my comment. It is mildly pejorative, but no more so than I'd expect any other editor (including you!) to get away with. The alleged unfairness of my supposedly being able to get away with such things while a non-admin wouldn't is false, as I wouldn't have been expected to be blocked for that even as a non-admin (I certainly said worse) and nor would I expect anyone else (including you!) to be either. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 15:08, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Really? So how do you explain a one-week block for this? Malleus Fatuorum 15:25, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

About the same way you explain a one-week block for this.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:34, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I am shocked, shocked I say that there was slightly more context to this one-week block than Malleus using a naughty word. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 15:45, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

How strange Sarek. Gwen Gale herself described her block shortly afterwards as a mistake, but you stick stubbornly by the official admin line: all blocks are good. Malleus Fatuorum 15:50, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Feel free to continue randomly making stuff up.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:02, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

And here we go again, the same old SarekOfVulcan touch. If I thought it would make the slightest difference to your objectionable behaviour I would post the diff, but as I know it wouldn't I can't be arsed. It's easy enough to find for anyone who, unlike you, has any regard for the truth. Malleus Fatuorum 16:27, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Not sure. Has Malleus ever been blocked simply for calling someone a "wikilawyer"?©Geni 11:34, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

It's easy to check. On 24 May 2008 User:Swatjester had this to say on my talkpage: "A bit delayed, but calling people 'wikilawyers' is a highly uncivil thing to do. Please take note of our policies requiring civility and no personal attacks. Given that you've recently been less than civil with ST47, resulting in him leaving the project, and then chose to attack me for warning you, I'll be giving you this last warning regarding your incivility." After I pointed out his misrepresentation of the facts of the matter to him he blocked me.[2] The very clear pattern is that administrators always think they are right, and the only acceptable response to a formal warning is to lie back and think of England while they screw with you. Malleus Fatuorum 13:24, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

So you've not actually been blocked simply for calling someone a wikilawyer. Well that's cleared that up. So the answer to SandyGeorgia's question appears to be "thats not actually the case".©Geni 13:35, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

No, I was blocked for not rolling over and playing dead when an administrator complained about my calling him a wikilawyer. No doubt you, like many other administrators, see nothing wrong in blocking someone with whom you are in dispute, particularly if you either misunderstand or deliberately misrepresent the nature of the dispute. Malleus Fatuorum 13:43, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure how that relates to SandyGeorgia's question.©Geni 13:50, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I can't help you with that, other than to suggest "try harder". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:36, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

• I fail to see how a discussion of a block from two and a half years ago that was placed by an admin who has not used his tools in the last nine months is related to improving RFA. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:42, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

• I'm not surprised. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:43, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

That kind of snarky, condescending, and undeserved hostility is exactly why most users have given up even commenting here. I don't know what I did to deserve your ire and I don't particularly care. This page is not for discussing individual admin actions of a questionable nature. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:48, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

The way I see it, we most certainly can discuss double standards wrt admins on the page where they occur and where admins are promoted. If Malleus had called an admin a "career malcontent", Malleus would likely be blocked. And then future admins would use Malleus's block log as a reason to continue blocking him, without even investigating to see how ridiculous his block log is. It becomes something akin to a self-fulfilling prophecy, caused by admins. The point of this thread on this page is why RFA is in decline-- if anyone here doesn't see the relationship between that and the MF situation, I really can't help, other than to say, y'all brought it on yourselves, and this very thread makes it clear how and why. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:52, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Your initial question was based on a false premise and none of the further commentary has provided evidence to the contrary. The standards of basic intellectual integrity would suggests that you should acknowledge and seek to correct your error. I know I know I'm old fashioned and stuck in the past again but so it goes.©Geni 16:02, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Ah, yet another Wikipedia article that needs attention; so much to do, so little time, so few editors to do it. Carry on. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:05, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Evasion noted.©Geni 16:09, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Your evasion? What, in your opinion, was the proximate cause of the disputed block? That I called some unidentified editor a sycophant, or that I objected to an officious and inappropriate warning? Bearing in mind the potential for a butterfly's flapping wings in Beijing to cause global catastrophe, how far back do we need to look for the causes of anything, in your opinion? Malleus Fatuorum 16:21, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

thing is none of that changes the fact that SandyGeorgia's initial description of events was inaccurate. I admit there is little interest on my part in investigating long past admin actions when I wasn't even an admin at the time.©Geni 16:34, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

You may continue to display your ignorance of basic logic for as long as you wish Geni, and by doing so appear to defend an administrator who has admitted several times that she was at fault, but it just won't wash. Malleus Fatuorum 16:38, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Back on topic

I don't know why this keeps coming up-- we see the same (declining) trend in every area of Wikipedia (except, perhaps, the increase in the number of child editors and university projects). We don't expect that the appropriate response to the trend of declining editorship at FAC or GAN or DYK or AFD, for example, would be "more FAs regardless of declining quality"-- neither should the concern here be that we need more admins even if preparedness or knowledge are in decline. The project is in decline-- some of us believe that's partly related to abusive admins, others don't. YMMV, but the notion that we need to hand out more mops because of a general decline across Wikipedia is as faulty as the notion that we should promote sub-standard articles to FA simply because editorship is declining. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:43, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

There is at the present time no evidence that the standards of RFA have any real relationship with quality of our admin population. The reality is that the project survived promoting people with 1000 edits and 6 months experience without suffering from significantly more issues with admins than we do at present.©Geni 16:07, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

There is at the present time no evidence that unqualified supports at RFA are unrelated to the quality of our admin population. The reality is that the project is in decline after promoting people with 1000 edits and 6 months experience while suffering from significantly more issues with content than in the past. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:10, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Nyet decline kicked in after standards had risen. I suppose those who follow the mmorpg model of wikipedia would find this unsurprising.©Geni 16:40, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

The quality of RFA candidates is not going down. If anything, the bar has never been higher. That also happens to be the same for other areas of the project (I've seen 2007 FAs which would be lucky to get out of B-class today). You can choose to interpret that as decline, but I'd be greatly surprised if the consensus position was that people would take the 2007-vintage Wikipedia (when the "decline" meme started) over the present one. Editorship numbers are another matter, but as has been pointed out the vast majority of readers (and editors) never see all this court drama at all. Personally I put it down to Muffin Knight not existing in 2007. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 16:08, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

The quality of RFA candidates is not going down. I think that's my point-- it's never been particularly high, so how could it go down? Everything is in decline on Wikipedia, but FA standards have not declined in order to push more FAs under declining editorship. RFA should be no different-- yet we see repeated proposals to make it easier to promote more admins. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:12, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

"The quality of RFA candidates ... has never been particularly high". Thanks for that :) Black Kite (t) 16:17, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

You're right-- that's not fair. Some of you are excellent .. in fact, many of you are excellent. The problem is that a few bad apples really can spoil the lot. Anyway, I should not have digressed into a discussion of the bad apple effect, because there are some who will never understand how detrimental their actions can be on content, and that discussion goes nowhere. It was not my intent to roll all admins under the umbrella of the unprepared, gadfly, abusive ones-- it was my intent to point out that we don't lower standards in response to declining editorship. And thanks for all your good work, BK :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:22, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks :) It reflects real life though; I have to interview people as part of my job for many positions; sometimes they look fantastic at interview and have brilliant references, and turn out to be useless. Equally, I've rejected people before who I've later found out have got positions elsewhere and have been excellent. You can't judge on a day's interviewing, and RfA is equally non-functional. Black Kite (t) 16:25, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Admins who make unjustified blocks or other actions do a great deal of harm to Wikipedia and its reputation. On that point I think we can (almost) all agree. However, there is as yet no foolproof way to insure that persons likely to take such actions will never be granted access to admin tools. So is the real question "what do we do about RFA?" or is it "what do we do about those bad apples?" We've tried a few times to come up with a better, community based approach to removing problematic admins, but as some of you may recall, it suffered from the same problems as so many other wide ranging policy discussions of the last few years: Everybody and their mother added their pet idea, to the point where there were so many proposals that it was basically impossible for any one of them to emerge as the one with consensus behind it. To my mind, this is one of the most serious problems facing this project. We can't seem to make any big decisions anymore. We argue about them until everybody is blue in the face, there is no usable result, and everything carries on as before except that all the participants are a little more convinced that changing anything of substance around here is impossible. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:30, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I think that's a fair summary Beeblebrox. What we're witnessing is the "consensus-death" of Wikipedia. Malleus Fatuorum 16:41, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

But when you're interviewing these candidates Black Kite, you're not interviewing them for a lifetime position. That's one thing that really has to change. Malleus Fatuorum 16:36, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

The available evidence suggests that adminship has turned out to be a lifetime position in less than 1% of cases.©Geni 16:40, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia, I don't think the problem at hand is the standards to which candidates are held. It's the difficulty and capriciousness of the process. For several years, most people who become admins choose to go through a series of specific steps over the course of several months.

1. Demonstrate writing proficiency by grooming articles for FA and DYK.
2. Be visibly involved in matters that touch on administrative activities, by placing speedy and PROD tags and voting at xfD (for example).
3. Become known and trusted to the current crop of RFA !voters by making noncontroversial, well-reasoned !votes that support whatever consensus has already evolved regarding any candidates who come forward.
4. Seek out other individuals planning for an RFA run, or who have recently completed one, offwiki and build mutual trust and support.

People who haven't gone through these steps have much worse chances. For reasonably qualified, noncontroversial candidates, the keys to a successful RFA have always been mobilizing early support and neutralizing those RFA regulars who like to find flaws in candidates they don't know.

The problem for the project is that people who are able and willing to go through those steps aren't necessarily the best candidates.

As an aside, I think it's interesting that, no matter how long a break I take from Wikipedia, when I come back, the conversation about RFA's brokenness is still here, with no progress towards fixing it. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 16:37, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from , 27 October 2011

{{Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Samuelriley97}}

Samuelriley97 (talk) 05:21, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

 Not done Please read WP:NOTNOW.Jasper Deng (talk) 05:23, 27 October 2011 (UTC)