Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship

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Possibly the best essay about an RFA experience I have ever seen

Just posting this. It describes just about everything that is wrong with RFA, by somebody who was unfortunate to go through it. AD 17:04, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I thought about posting that here; I agree entirely, that's probably the best RFA essay I've seen. Swarm ^X11|11|11 17:12, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Just seems like the predictably bitter ramblings after a failed RfA to me. In what universe does "Truth be told, I figured I'd be leaving Wikipedia whether I succeeded in my RfA or not" make any sense? Why not just leave without the hassle of RfA? But it is a good example of RfA's greatest flaw, the way it dispirits those who fail. Malleus Fatuorum 17:23, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

The "I was going to leave regardless" bit had me scratching my head as well. I have to assume he didn't actually mean that, 'cause WTF. 28bytes (talk) 17:29, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I think Dayewalker meant that the basic nastiness of the Rfa experience would have soured him on Wikipedia whether he passed or failed. Cloveapple (talk) 21:05, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

That aside, he does make a lot of good points. For example, he says "no articles created" is a perfectly reasonable oppose, but people can't just say that, "they instead had to pass judgment on me based on what they, as total strangers, would expect from me, another total stranger" (referring to the "you're a writer, Y U NO CREATE ARTICLE" opposes). It's actually not bitter ramblings as much as it is a very frank warning about what unprepared RfA candidates will face. Swarm ^X11|11|11 18:08, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

That's what I was thinking. Several good points, some points I wouldn't be willing to agree with. But definitely worth reading. WilliamH (talk) 18:16, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

That is a good Essay and I agree there are a lot of good points. After my RFA I vowed to never go through that madness again and still maintain it at almost 300, 000 edits and with 1000 or more edits in almost every namespace (except book and Book talk I think). Personally I can't imagine why on earth someone would want to go through that for a volunteer position. --Kumioko (talk) 18:28, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. It also seems as though WP:AGF is thrown out the window, jumped up and down on a few times, and put into a shredder when it comes to RfA. Dayewalker's essay perfectly outlines all some of the reasons why many editors have cried "RfA is broken" lately. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 18:35, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

IMO, it was a mixture of good points, frank warnings, bitter ramblings and the type of incivility he wants to block others for. I doubt anyone is puzzled as to whom the "unrepentant shitheads" remark was directed. However, I can certainly understand his frustration; the support/oppose numbers were just about the same as mine when I withdrew from my first RfA, and I got some of that "you knew what WP:REFUND was? SOCK!" crap too, so I can certainly emphasize with being attacked for having a clue as to how to do things. 28bytes (talk) 18:36, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Im confused about why he has a blog, yet hasnt even created a stub yet. Swarm, like the date in your signature. Do you have to retype it daily and save under preferences, type it every time you date your signature, or did you set it up so you can just use ~~~~? mysterytrey talk 19:23, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

If you are not actually focused on article creation its actually quite unlikely that you will create them in any numbers. Not many redlinks around these days in articles that people actually look at on a regular basis.©Geni 22:35, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

You'd be surprised. In the most-viewed articles, redlinks tend to get removed - that doesn't mean they don't exist. Furthermore, taking an article from stub to B+ is to my mind "content creation" as much as creating a stub from nothing is. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:45, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Let me add another dimension. If Dayewalker really meant to retire whether or not his RfA was successful then he was clearly deceitful in his answers to the questions asked of him, and in his statements about what he would do with the admin tools if granted. Why assume that he's being any more truthful in his essay? Malleus Fatuorum 18:44, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Take his advice and take everything that editors like you say with a grain of salt? Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:47, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

It's perhaps the case that I am one of the very few editors here who doesn't lie, hence my block log. Malleus Fatuorum 22:40, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Given the number of editors on wikipedia that strikes me as statistically improbable.©Geni 22:47, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Given the number of dishonest wankers here it seems not at all improbable to me. Malleus Fatuorum 23:08, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure to what extent randomised incivility towards our general editor population supports your point.©Geni 23:15, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I've got no idea why you might believe my observation to be "randomised" or even "incivil" ... unless you're a member of the civility police of course. Who only see whatever it is they want to see. Malleus Fatuorum 02:05, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Wow, that is an impressively long block log. You must be a very honest person. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:33, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that every possible solution will piss people off. We could ask the 'crats to babysit RfAs and clamp down on incivility, but then people would complain about their freedom of speech being infringed. We could require that oppose votes show diffs, but people would say that it's unfair and complain that they're not trusted. We could empower the 'crats to overrule the numerical consensus if a crat chat decides that there is a bunch of groundless opposes, but then people would shout 'cabalism'. And then of course, we could scrap RfA, but we don't despite years of trying, have anything else to put in place instead. I see the situation as rather hopeless. Sven Manguard Wha? 18:43, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Who knows? Perhaps there's a Henry Clay among us, just waiting to come up with a compromise? ;) The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 18:46, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

The compromise position is very clear, and has been for some time; sort out desyopping and put an end to the admin for life mentality. Malleus Fatuorum 18:50, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Already in the inventory. Arbcom are quite prepared to remove adminship.©Geni 22:24, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Eventually. But admin is supposed to be no big deal, right? Why do so many incompetents have to have their sheriffs' badges prized from their hands after the inevitable acrimony of an ArbCom case? Malleus Fatuorum 22:36, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

They don't. Why do you think that arbcom had to come up with the whole resigned under a cloud thing?©Geni 22:45, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

But for "resigned under a cloud" to apply, the admin in question actually has to resign, which some won't do for whatever reason. In that case, assuming a still-active admin, you generally need a full ArbCom case to desysop. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:45, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Right... a bitter rant full of what might in other contexts be block-worthy personal attacks. As for the IP edit issue: surely the nominator should have seen that one coming? Certainly for the candidates I've nominated (only two of them), I've made those checks of early edits. --Mkativerata (talk) 18:47, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

A lot of votes on RfA are block-worthy personal attacks. I'm convinced that some participants just come along to RfA for the opportunity to criticise an editor, any editor, as nastily as possible and for the entertainment. 'Oh, there's a stoning in the market place today - he's probably not guilty of course, but what a great opportunity to hurt someone and get away with it'. And if he survives to talk about it, let's kick him in the groin a couple of times for good measure. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:32, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

You're absolutely right; as I said about a year ago, people like to pick one flaw in an otherwise perfectly qualified RfA candidate and oppose over it, and this generally causes a pile-on that leads to the failure of the RfA. People are saying that we need a change in RfA, but what is there to change? We can't change the way people think, we can't change the way people act. All we can do in that area is encourage !voters to be more civil, and we know that hasn't exactly worked in the past. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 01:17, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I know this suggestion might lead to a firestorm, but is it worth asking the 'crats to step in and police RfA? At this point I wouldn't mind it if the 'crats were empowered to remove blatantly uncivil comments (replacing them with {{RPA}}) and giving the 'crats the ability to topic ban users from RfA if they've had to be reminded multiple times to keep it civil. It's not an ideal solution, but is there a better idea that is feasible? Sven Manguard Wha? 05:42, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

While some of the most fragrant incivility could be dealt with in a pretty straightforward manner, many of the worst comments made at AfDs are not of the potty words variety. To seriously address the problem with nasty opposes we'd need some fairly firm guidelines on exactly what one was supposed to comment on when opposing a candidate, and there are a lot of users (not all of them in WP's amateur dramatical society) who are strongly opposed to that. Either that, or we need to abolish the idea of thresholds at all and give 'crats the freedom to evaluate the candidate solely on the arguments made with no respect to the actual numbers, the way things (theoretically) work in other parts of the project. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:51, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Entirely agree with Chris. Vulgarity is hardly ever the most effective way to get what you want, and some of the most hurtful and provocative oppose comments are expressed in perfectly civil language. Abolishing thresholds would help with one of the key points in Daywalker's excellent essay: the perceived 'cone of silence' that inhibits some candidates and their supporters from duly responding to opposers. A perception that gets its strength from way the threshold weighs an oppose as equal to three supports. If folk don’t want to remove the threshold another option would be to lower it to a more reasonable 50%; then if we really wanted to take the drama out of RfA we could also switch to a kind of Arbcom election-light with a secret ballet. Have no objection to Crats policing RfA - its so broken that any feasible change might be better than nothing – but something much more radical is likely needed. FeydHuxtable (talk) 14:21, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with about a third of what Dayewalker said in his essay. One point was very good - much acrimony is indeed caused when a user going through RFA has the temerity to reply to someone's hamfisted and ill-thought-out oppose vote, asking for diffs, or a rationale, or a sane and non-bitter response. Apparently, doing so suggests you are incapable of dealing with the 'pressure' having access to a block button and a delete button brings (clue: there is no pressure, being an admin is easy). I would suggest being willing and able to justify your thoughts and your actions in the face of someone with a one-track mind who will not listen - repeatedly - is the key skill an admin needs. Unfortunately, doing this in an RFA is the kiss of death. One of the best ways to manage this would be for bureaucrats to be stringent when evaluating oppose votes - if they aren't backed up by evidence, assign them less weight. If they are opposing for facetious reasons, such as the candidate failing to adopt a deferent and submissive attitude in the face of incompetent pile-on abuse, instead trying to stand up for themselves, weight them less. fish&karate 12:31, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

AfD stats

We see to be posting AfD !vote stats lately. However, the most recent decision I can find about this is the following:

• [1] A decision with pretty clear consensus in March 2011 not to do it.

What have I been missing? DGG ( talk ) 01:43, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't see why doing it publicly is not an improvement on doing it privately, which certain individuals have studiously done for years. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:45, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Another RfA essay

I have written an essay on RfA voting here. Any feedback is appreciated. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 22:58, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

IMO this process would be less vitriolic if editors did not comment on others' votes except to correct errors of fact. --Surturz (talk) 04:24, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Precisely. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:07, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Have you changed your stance here? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:19, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

You're not suggesting that user make their own minds up are you? O.o fg^t_c 05:27, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I actually disagree with that. I think we should encourage civil discussion among participants so as to better understand their rationale for supporting/opposing an RfA, and in particular how it relates to the candidate's potential performance as an administrator. That way, we can develop a much more elucidated perspective on whether the community considers someone to be competent enough for the role. Master&Expert (Talk) 11:38, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Right, not commenting on others' !votes isn't the answer. If anything, we should be emphasizing that RfA is a discussion, not a vote, and people should absolutely not feel entitled to say whatever the hell they want without the potential of their comment being discussed or even criticized. Swarm ^X11|11|11 21:41, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

In the unlikely event that the community would acquiesce to allowing for an RFA code of conduct, that's an excellent start. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:21, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Worm^TT · (talk) 10:23, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Utahraptor, your essay is an excellent reflection of my own perspective on the adminship process which I have held for years now. The reason RfA is so difficult to pass isn't because the system itself is broken, it's that there is a long-standing trend towards only supporting exceedingly well-rounded people with generally flawless records. The only viable solution to this is a gradual alteration of the high standards set for administrators at RfA — not through the use of coersion or alienation, but by setting a positive example. Being proactive in the RfA process by promoting civil discussion and looking for reasons to support someone, rather than opposing them, will leave a lasting impression on less experienced users who come across the RfA page for the first time. They will get the notion that it is an overall lenient and constructive community process, and their subsequent participation at RfA will likely reflect this perception. Phasing out the negative aspects of the RfA atmosphere is not something that can be done overnight, but will take a genuine committment from the community towards fostering a civil and productive environment. This is becoming more and more important for Wikipedia, which is facing an unprecedented decline in the number of active administrators to handle the maintenance tasks that are essential to the site's day-to-day functioning. By improving the RfA experience, we can influence the creation of a large and efficient administrative team, thereby improve the Wikipedia experience as a whole. Master&Expert (Talk) 12:19, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I personally believe that setting up a policy, or at least a guideline, outlining what is and what is not acceptable as an RfA vote is what needs to be done. There are editors here, though, that oppose this idea, so I think, eventually, we should start up an RfC on the matter and, depending on how that goes, act accordingly. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 14:09, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd support such a move in principle but I doubt we could get consensus for any but the most trivial rules. We could get consensus for a rule that says "Support !votes go in the support section and oppose !votes go in the oppose section". We could not get consensus for "Be civil to people even if you don't think they deserve civility" or "Judge candidates on maturity not age" &c. bobrayner (talk) 14:17, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Are we going to have to start an RfC over whether we should start an RfC about RfA voting? ;) In all seriousness, though, I think it's at least worth a try. Many editors agree that RfA has become a venue for incivility and personal attacks. I don't want to sit around and watch qualified candidates fail at RfA and get their self-esteem damaged, and I don't think anybody else does, either. Something needs to be done, and I think an RfC regarding an RfA voting policy (or guidelines) is the best thing we can do. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 14:24, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

It is very difficult to define or classify "incivility", Utahraptor. I'm afraid that the meaning of this word is different and changeable in various parts of the world, but it is not the only problem. Everyone of us has — to some extent — its own concept of what is acceptable behavior and what is not; a possible 'personal attack' may be almost indistinguishable and irrelevant for someone but significant and offensive for someone else. Wikipedia (not only the RfA) is full of accusations of incivility, but I rarely notice anything that would be worth the drama ... and I don't think I'm a barbarian who don't know how to treat others. Maybe that's because I prefer searching a solution or addressing a problem instead of time consuming contemplation over the form and (seeming) incivility of someone's comment. But I don't think you can determine a flawless and unified standard of 'civility' for everyone, that would be in my opinion ridiculous. Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 16:36, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I acknowledged the fact that the definition of incivility isn't solid in my essay (link above in the very first post of this discussion). By suggesting that we form a policy or guideline regarding RfA voting, I'm not saying we define civility, I'm saying we define what should and should not be accepted as an RfA vote. This does involve civility somewhat, but it also involves several other things. Have a look at my essay (particularly the "Don't's" section), and you'll see what else I'm basing this suggestion on. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 17:16, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

There should be no perceived need for any user to describe why he or she is supporting an RfA. If a user agrees with the case made by the candidate and/or nominator(s), he or she should be able to simply support and be done with it. Asking for diffs and such for a *support* would just be discouraging users from voting. Keepscases (talk) 23:01, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

While RFA is one of the few explicit vote systems in WP, rationales are still strongly approved because they indicate that the editor making the comment has actually engaged his brain while making a decision rather than simply following a herd or helping a friend out (or, of course, done whatever amused him). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 00:28, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Oppositional voting is the problem. Being required to give a reason for Opposing means you need to criticise the candidate. That will always be inflammatory. If RfA were not a soviet-style single candidate election, then we would be asked to choose the best from a field of candidates, and oppose voting would not be necessary, you would only need to support the candidate(s) you liked. --Surturz (talk) 23:14, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

That's one of the most sensible things I've ever seen written about the slough of despond that RfA has become. Anything other than a straight vote invites dispute when opposers are obliged to be critical of the candidate for their votes to be counted. Malleus Fatuorum 23:44, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Really? In a multiple-choice system it is usually the case that someone still has to be elected even if all of the candidates are mediocre. I'd understood you to strongly oppose that sort of thing. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 00:28, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Chris, I didn't interpret Surturz's comment to mean that he favors a multiple-choice system, I think he was merely making a comparative observation. And I agree with Malleus (despite the fact that I thought that both her and Surturz were both jerks at Steven's RfA) that Surturz's observation is insightful. And though (at the only other RfA I have participated in) I have found Keepcases to be a major horse's ass, perhaps he too is right. Maybe we should just have an up-and-down vote and leave the reasoning [or what passes for it (see User: Badger Drink)] off the page. Or maybe if it was just on talkpage. Emotions would probably be lessened. I don't know--I found this whole experience so revolting and upsetting that almost any kind of change would seem to me to be a likely improvement. HuskyHuskie (talk) 01:16, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Wow, I'm on your userpage too? Stalker alert. Keepscases (talk) 15:18, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

FWIW I do actually support a multiple-candidate-election-with-term-limit process as I have proposed here: Wikipedia:RfA_reform_2011/Radical_alternatives#Rolling_administrator_elections. Why this is a "radical" proposal for WP is beyond me. It has worked for governments and voluntary organisations for decades, if not hundreds of years. I don't know why WP is so special it needs to have a completely different process to the tried-and-trusted. --Surturz (talk) 01:45, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

The key to making that work though is term limits. Malleus Fatuorum 01:48, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

@Surturz: I think that proposal does have its benefits, but it might prevent some well-qualified editors from becoming admins. The process itself isn't the problem; the problem is with editors who fail to assume good faith and who badger and attack the candidate and their defenders to the point where good editors leave Wikipedia.

@HuskyHuskie: I don't think we should remove reasoning from RfA votes; many supporters and opposers provide valid arguments in their reasoning. We do need to cut back on the dramatics, though, and a guideline outlining RfA voting etiquette is, in my opinion, a good way to go. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 01:53, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

The current process is inherently adversarial, and nothing can change that, not even insisting that every criticism is prefixed by "with all due respect". Surturz has proposed just about the only alternative to RfA that could possibly work, yet one that has no chance at all of being adopted. Malleus Fatuorum 02:01, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

One of the concerns I have with that proposal is the following: "The current RfA process would run in parallel with this process..." If this alternative were adopted, we'd still have the problems we see here at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship, and we'd still have people posting suggestions for improvement on this talk page. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 02:06, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I think Malleus is completely right about this. It IS adversarial and there's really nothing that can be done about it under the current system. I suppose an option would be to just drop the threshold to a hard 70% and make it just support or oppose without discussion. Anyone who is taking the time to participate in an RfA should be doing their own homework about the candidate rather than being sheep who just glance through the opposes and see if anyone dug up something juicy. Trusilver 02:07, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

It would eliminate the personal attack and incivility hassle that has plagued RfAs for years, and it is a good proposal. But I'm just not comfortable with completely wiping rationales out of votes; I'm even a bit uncomfortable with moving rationales to the talk page of the RfA. Some of the rationales are incivil and add unnecessary heat to discussions, but some of them are actually insightful and good to consider. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 02:19, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Surturz's ultimate solution is, I think, quite breathtaking in its clarity: we have staggered terms for administrators, at the end of which they're up for re-election. That's the way that local elections have been run here in the UK for as long as I can remember. So every month, three months, or whatever, a bunch of hopefuls present themselves for election, and those whose term has expired may choose to go for re-election or not. Malleus Fatuorum 02:31, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I recall having this discussion before and I think that could work. The only question is the volume of voting that would be taking place. Doing it this way would mean we only have truly active administrators, so we could do more with less. But figure (I'm just throwing a number out here) 600 admins. Give them terms of three years. That's 200 admins elected every year, so seventeen or so elected every month. That's a hell of a lot of researching and making judgments on candidates. Increasing the term length fixes this, but means more admins as the longer amount of time means more going inactive. Trusilver 02:40, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

17 elected each month seems like a lot, but consider how many would need to run each month to actually elect 17... With maybe 30 candidates a month, less obvious problems with candidates would be much less likely to be detected, which only makes the lack of a practical method to remove problem admins an even bigger issue. Monty₈₄₅ 02:47, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Trusilver, what do you think are the shortcomings of creating a guideline outlining RfA voting etiquette? That's why I initially created this thread (to discuss the creation of an RfA voting etiquette guideline), and I feel as though the creation of an RfA voting etiquette guideline would work best in this situation. But I'd like the opinions of others, as well. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 02:51, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

There can be no "voting etiquette", that's almost an oxymoron. You just vote. If you demand that voters explain their votes, that's no longer a vote: that's a debate. Malleus Fatuorum 02:58, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

True. But what are we going to do? We shouldn't stand by and watch qualified candidates get butchered by fellow editors. There's always Surturz's suggestion, which aims to eventually render this RfA process obsolete, but that could take a while to do, and in the meantime we'll still be scratching our heads here, wondering how we can "fix" this process. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 03:02, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Surturz's suggestion could be implemented immediately, were there the will. Malleus Fatuorum 03:09, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I think you may have misinterpreted what I meant, Malleus. I wasn't meaning that Surturz's suggestion would take a while to implement, I was saying that, after implementation, Surturz's suggestion would take a while to render the current RfA process obsolete, as permanent adminship, in my opinion, appeals to more editors than does temporary, elected adminship. I apologize for not being clear in my first comment. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 03:14, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think I misunderstood. The fundamental idea is ultimately that all administrators are subject to terms, but initially only new ones are. It would be insane to have two separate routes to admin; it's bad enough having one. Malleus Fatuorum 03:21, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Why is there endless talk of RFA reform with no actual fixing of RFA? There was even a recent RFC on it that I took part in that went nowhere. RFA (and other wiki problems) aren't fixable because wiki isn't fixable. The basic problem is wiki itself. Unless wiki is fixed first, and I'm not sure that it can be, RFA etc can't be fixed. PumpkinSky talk 03:23, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about that... I think that elected admins might resonate with the community. There has always been an undercurrent of grumbling about the concept of "admin for life". Term limits would go a long way to change that. I am not saying that this plan is perfect, but it beats what we have going right now. I don't think it's the right time yet, though. I think the system is going to have to deteriorate further before community support starts to emerge. There's going to have to be a situation where things actually begin to fall apart in a measurable way before I see the community really rallying behind a drastically new RfA procedure. Trusilver 03:26, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Oh for chrissake! It's all about term limits or specifically, the lack of them. RfA people are mean because they still know in the back of their distorted, warped, fragile and probably little heads that granting an adminship to someone is for evah! And so even these kinds of people understand that if you gonna give this kind of power (the "no big deal" kind of power) to someone you better be damn careful about who you're giving it too. So they grill the hell out of the potential candidates (and sure, at the same time it gives'em an excuse to indulge the sadistic, self-righteous tendencies which by this point the average Wikipedian is famous for) and it makes RfA a particularly nasty place. Given that it's a nasty place because of this ... well, not that many decent people are interested in putting up with it. So you get low admin nominations. You stretch that over some months and you get a falling number of active Wikipedia admins.

Sure. You can patchwork it. You can impose some restrictions on what the mean people are allowed to say and what they're not allowed to say. You can gag the supports and opposes. But at the end of the day, they're still gonna be thinking those mean thoughts. You might make RfA "look" nicer but you're not gonna solve the fundamental, underlying problem.

Seriously, why is Wikipedia's answer to every very obvious dysfunction ... "Give it More Hypocrisy!" (GIMH) ??? Since when has hypocrisy become some magic pixie dust which solves all problems? Or is it just convenient? Volunteer Marek  04:01, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with PumpkinSky's above statement. The problem with RfA is the same problem we are having with new editor retention. As of late, I have seen a number of cases were new users have been bitten by established editors because of generic warnings that didn't really address the issue. In many of the cases, the users were blocked, or they just left. The problem with new editor retention is our own unwillingness to help new editors learn policy. Due to a decrease in active editors, we have started to create more and more semi or full automation. While it is time consuming to slow down and help new editors, they are vital to continuing this project. If we keep slapping generic warning up, rather than truly explaining the problem with their edit(s), we aren't helping them. Generic warning templates are indeed helpful with dealing with vandalism, but for issues such as neutral point of view or sourcing issues, generic warning templates really don't help them. The templates (in particular warning levels 3 and 4), create a negative atmosphere, one that more often than not causes new editors to leave. Similarly, the RfA process isn't the problem, it's the atmosphere involved with the process. As stated above, less candidates are willing to come forward because of the general hostility surrounding the process. In order to fix both issues, we need to take a look at what is causing this negative atmosphere. The essay created by The Utahraptor above is indeed a good start. Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 03:50, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure I see the connection to RfA, but AQ is spot on with the way newbies are handled. I think that it should be forbidden to do an auto-message to any newbie account unless it is blatant vandalism. One of the great things about Steve was that he didn't just adopt newbies and forget about them, he had a real method for teaching them the ropes. HuskyHuskie (talk) 03:56, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

The same problem we are having with new editor retention is the exact same problem we are having with RfA. I honestly don't think turning the process into a vote is going to solve the issue. The current process works. I believe we should focus on figuring out why there is such a negative atmosphere surrounding the RfA process, and attempt to correct the issue. The Utahraptor's essay points out several such reasons. Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 04:22, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

RFA is a pretty hostile environment for many candidates, but is not always. I'm not sure if eliminating all discussion or comments is a good idea. Bureaucrats are elected to sift through the good and the bad !votes, this would be impossible without discussion. I'm not so sure how to proceed from here. RFA can be unpleasant, but turning it into a raw vote would require a lower threshold than 70% I think. Steven Zhang ^{The clock is ticking....} 04:23, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

The proposal by Surturz appears to do just that, turning RfA into a sheer !vote count. Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 04:27, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Removing comments entirely is a terrible idea. Voting sucks, people. There's absolutely nothing which has to tie term limits (which I'm fine with) to a raw vote system. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:06, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

The Surturz Proposal

I have just read User:Surturz's proposal for staggered elections. I really, really like it, and see only one problem, which has already been alluded to above: the sheer quantity of elections, combined with the constant campaigning. As to the first point, let me say, as one raised in Illinois (the US state with the greatest number of elected officials—over 8000): voters become numb when ballots become too lengthy. They are far more likely to be informed when there are fewer candidates on the ballot. Someone said that there might be 17 mops up for grabs each month. So that might mean dozens of candidates on the ballot. You think there are uninformed votes at RfA now? Combine this with the second problem: Though these are multi-year terms, in order to avoid a ballot with 1000s of names, we are having these elections every month. That might be fine for the RfA regulars, but the rest of us (who, in any reform should become more active in the process) are going to be less likely to participate with any kind of meaningful impact. HuskyHuskie (talk) 03:35, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Won't work either but some times any change is good. PumpkinSky talk 03:37, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Real elections present real obstacles for candidates. Here in the UK for instance, to prove they're not just being disruptive, candidates have to put up a deposit, which they lose if they fail to reach a certain percentage of the vote. That might translate into an automatic block for any editor with fewer than 10 edits putting himself forward who failed to get more than X% of the vote, as just one example. Malleus Fatuorum 03:47, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Interesting idea. If I recall correctly, the UK requirement is that one must achieve 12.5% of the vote. Why not just use that percentage? HuskyHuskie (talk) 03:53, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

And MF, the block could be really brief, like a week. It would just be a sort of embarrassing tweak. Isn't the UK deposit forfeited only a small sum? HuskyHuskie (talk) 04:00, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

It's not a great deal of money, about £500 IIRC. Malleus Fatuorum 04:09, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I think the potential for blocks if one doesn't get enough votes is not overly encouraging. One could propose a minimum set of requirements, but we've had that discussion at least 9001 times. Steven Zhang ^{The clock is ticking....} 04:15, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

In Australia elections are always compulsory, so I presume voting would be compulsory here too. All editors would have to vote or lose their editing privileges. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:58, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

This American doesn't favor that idea. HuskyHuskie (talk) 04:00, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

There are almost a million editors at Wikipedia. Unless I'm reading this wrong, that would leave very few editors left on Wikipedia. Steven Zhang ^{The clock is ticking....} 04:04, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Steve, I think it's just a ploy by Hawkeye to create an Australian cabal; I'm sure there's a place in there for you. :-) HuskyHuskie (talk) 04:07, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Lies. There is no cabal. Steven Zhang ^{The clock is ticking....} 04:09, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

How would the electorate be provided the information they would need to make an informed decision? If there is still a discussion section where candidates were campaigned for and against, the electorate would be made well aware of potential problems, but it would probably result in a similar "problem" to what we experience now. But without such a method to inform voters of potentially obscure but important problems with a candidate, wont we get a lot more problem admins? Monty₈₄₅ 04:17, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Sururz's proposal explicitly states that the Wikimedia Foundation can remove adminstrators without having to explain themselves. That'd rein in those problem admins quickly. HuskyHuskie (talk) 04:20, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I can't imagine the foundation removing admins as an office action for merely problematic behavior. Isn't it the community's responsibility to police itself, removal of admins included? For that matter, why don't we just cede all decisions about adminship to the foundation? Monty₈₄₅ 04:23, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I think it's unlikely the foundation will get involved in mundane tasks like adminship. We're a community, we should come up with a way of dealing with it. If what we have at present is inadequate, then we need to think of something else, but I don't think asking the Foundation to intercede is going to work. Steven Zhang ^{The clock is ticking....} 04:25, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

(ec^4) It's a well intentioned idea (with some elements of reasonablessnes) but basically dumb. Why, why, why, do you have to take a simple idea like term limits and make it so god damn complicated that there's no chance in hell it could ever be supported? It's simple. You get adminship. You serve two (N) years. Second+ time around it's an up/down 50% vote. If you want complicated then let's say, that the existing admins get grandfathered/rolled into it - reconfirmed based on a 50% up/down vote - based on when they first got the mop, old ones first, say 2 per month. Probably even a way to simplify that too, if somebody spend some time thinking about the practical issues of instituting the procedure rather than pie-in-the-sky super weird voting systems or procedure. Volunteer Marek  04:26, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I still don't understand how term limits can work; eventually, all the experienced admins will term limit out, never be able to run again, and we will be in a much worse place then we are now. Sure, terms are a reasonable idea if we can make the reappointment process manageable, but why term limits? Monty₈₄₅ 04:32, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Some of the people calling for "term limits" are using that phrase to mean "limited-term" adminship. 28bytes (talk) 04:36, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, Surturz is not proposing a maximum period that one could be an admin, as you may be thinking. HuskyHuskie (talk) 04:38, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but is Volunteer Marek? In my review of past RFA discussion, my understanding is that there are some editors who support a limit on the number of terms. It is not entirely clear if that is what Volunteer Marek is proposing, but the "serve two (N) years" format looks like the proposal is talking about actual term limits. Monty₈₄₅ 04:41, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Wikisource has one year adminships, with reconfirmations each year, and it seems to work well there. They also have a simplified way of dealing with problem admins, three users can call for a vote of confidence, where 50%+1 is required to retain access. Dunno if this would work here, but thought it's worth mentioning. Steven Zhang ^{The clock is ticking....} 04:33, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

How many admins do they have? HuskyHuskie (talk) 04:34, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

38 admins there. Steven Zhang ^{The clock is ticking....} 04:58, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Hypothetically, with this proposed voting system, no admin in their right mind would ever do anything controversial. Admins would be more concerned about getting reconfirmed than making close calls. Say an admin closed a very controversial deletion discussion. One "side" had a stronger argument, so they closed it that particular way. Now when reconfirmation rolls around, those editors can come to oppose. Unless the admin appears to have lost community support, are reconfirmations really necessary? Term limits would only provide a possible way to get rid of problematic admins. The benefit of making mandatory reconfirmations and term limits is minimal. Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 04:40, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Hypothetically, with this proposed voting system, no admin in their right mind would ever do anything controversial - no. Even assuming that an admin only cares about getting re-elected they would still do the controversial thing only if they thought that doing it would get them more Support votes rather than Oppose votes. But more or less this means that their action had "community support". Right now "no admin in their right mind gives a shit about what anyone thinks".

And honestly this particular statement is laughable: Term limits would only provide a possible way to get rid of problematic admins - that's the whole point! Or look at it this way. A person is nominated for adminship. You don't know much about them. They could be good, they could be bad. If they're good, IF they get the admiship they will do good administratin'. If they're bad they're gonna cause trouble. Under no-limits, you're stuck either way. It's fifty-fifty (if you're lucky) so you might as well be careful and grill them over their edits, their dog's sexual preference and their momma's cooking (not exactly, but equivalently). But if there's a term limit and you don't know for sure whether a particular person is good or bad potential administrator... well, you might take a chance on them exactly because you know that if they show themselves to be bad you can get rid of them next year. So RfA gets nicer. Now, the fact that you're willing to take chance (which is equivalent to RfA getting nicer) means that you will probably make some mistakes and grant adminship to some bad people. But you will also give it to people who, in the interest of being too-careful, you skip. And the bad people, you can remove them after a year if they show that they're "not worthy". The good ones, you keep forever (and everybody loves them and all that - no seriously, it WOULD improve average admin quality over time).

I am explaining this in detail here but honestly, this is like old school stuff. This is why almost pretty much every single position in the real world is subject to term limits. This is like Political Science 101. This is why I said that term limits are fundamental to any kind of meaningful RfA reform. You cannot even begin that conversation seriously without considering them. And these convoluted proposals for weird-ass term limits structures or what have you just distract folks - and hey, we all like to give our opinions about convoluted meaningless proposals - but let's keep it simple.

The only meaningful question here is actually how to deal with existing old-time administrators, given that we reasonably impose term limits on new ones. Do we keep the old guys? Do we make them go through it again? If so how? Etc. THAT is what the conversation should be about. Not this "if .0485 of voters express dissatisfaction then we move it to a committee which then decides whether to send it to an RfC for comment blah blah blah" crap.

There's no RfA reform without A-term limits.

Term limits first, details later. Volunteer Marek  06:15, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Any admin who was seen to have acted fairly is such a situation would have nothing to fear. Term limits are inevitable if Wikipedia is to survive, it's that basic. Malleus Fatuorum 05:06, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Key word: basic. Actually Malleus is not living up to his usual role as the guardian of proper usage of English language. "Basic" means simple. This is "cardinal". But ya'll get the point. Volunteer Marek  06:18, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

How can getting rid of all the admins (for their terms will all eventually expire) help the project? I think what you really mean is that wikipedia must move beyond volunteer editors. Hawkeye7 (talk) 05:46, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Ok. Stop. Think. Stop. Think. ... are there any Senators in the US Senate? Do Senators terms expire? Yes? Are there still Senators in the US Senate? See what's wrong with what you just said?  Volunteer Marek  06:18, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Heh, I agree, limited duration terms are inevitable. My view is that within the history of democracy, the admin corps are in the "House of Lords" stage. The basic idea of my proposal is to create a "House of Commons". There's nothing to say that the two systems couldn't run together for a long time - lifetime admins could make the controversial decisions, while elected admins do the routine stuff. If an elected admin serves a couple of terms with distinction, then perhaps they would consider going for a traditional RfA to get ennobled.... errr.. get lifetime admin status I mean.

As for grandfathering in the existing admin corps (letting them keep their lifetime admin status) - that is simply commonsense realpolitik. --Surturz (talk) 05:53, 11 November 2011 (UTC) P.S. though I am Australian, there is no practical way to make voting mandatory, I would never suggest that for WP.

Like I said above, the whole HoL vs. HoC idea is nice and it's reasonable (I'm not sure if I expressed that part clearly - it was the "reasonablesness" part of the comment). But it's way to fucking complicated at this stage. Wikipedia is not even up to the point where it has a house of lords. It just has a huge big mess. Term limits, motherfuckers! Everyone is doing it and has been doing it for the past few hundreds of years. For a good reason too, unless you hate democracy, children and "the project". Volunteer Marek  06:22, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps it could be done this way: Existing admins are grandfathered in to lifetime terms, other admins are appointed for one year terms that are subject to a 50%+1 vote of confidence after a year, after 2-3 years extends to lifetime. I'm not sure. Just throwing an idea out there. I don't think running every year for eternity and having their mistakes for each year digged up will be overly helpful. Steven Zhang ^{The clock is ticking....} 06:26, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, yes at some point one says "anything that will work is acceptable". A lot (all?) of the opposition to term limits comes from established administrators. Last time the idea was pitched it was something like 90% against /10% for, AMONG ADMINS, 20% against/ 80% for AMONG NON-ADMINS (dig up the diffs). In other words, people were very clearly voting their "class interest". At this point, I don't give a fuck any more about all the useless assholes that are gonna do whatever is necessary to hold on to their precious trinket. Let'em have it, and yes, you're right, over time most of them will get bored of it and give up... eventually... we sort of have to accept their existence I guess. I DO care however about how to get out of this mess of a dysfunctional situation, because I want to see Wikipedia become better. And that means NOT creating another cohort of privileged-for-life useless shits who are gonna screw it up for the people who are going to be editing Wikipedia say three years from now. I would like for these people to have inherited a better set of admin-related institution than the idiotic feudalism we have right now. So, as much as I very much dislike the current crop, I'm perfectly willing to say "whoever has the adminship now gets to keep it for the next... 3 years, but from now on let's be smarter and put a term limit on all appointments". So yes, I think there is some way to grandfather the old daddies in without pissing them off too much. Maybe do it like the Soviets did: after two years strip them of the adminship, thank them very very profusely, post something to Jimbo's page about how they did all this great work for Wikipedia and give them like the biggest barnstar ever. There's at least a few that I'm pretty sure will like it.

But anyway. Whatever it takes to appease the existing admins - a guarantee that their existing privileges will exist for ever, barnstars galore, or whatever, let's take a view towards the future. The present way of doing things is just not sustainable. We need a professional, competent admin corp and that means people who are responsible. And that means term limits. Volunteer Marek  07:58, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

professional? You are going to start paying us?©Geni 01:50, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

The WMF has expressly stated that they will not be getting involved with any local consensus concerning RfA. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:48, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Why all the comparisons of admins to government legislative branches?

In the above discussion on "term limits", there are numerous statements that compare term limits and re-election for admins to the election requirements on legislative branches of various governments around the world (e.g. the US Congress or the UK House of Commons). But does this comparison really make sense? Admins don't legislate. It seems to me that adminship is more of mix of a civil servant position with a police officer, with a little "vote counter" and "lower court judge" mixed in. Anomie⚔ 12:01, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Because they do legislate, in a sense. WP policies are more descriptive than prescriptive; strict enforcement is discouraged, admins follow the spirit, not the letter of policy. In aggregate, admin actions define policy, not the other way around. Also, there is no separation of powers; admins can edit policy and then enforce it. --Surturz (talk) 12:35, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

None of the items in the first half of your post are "legislating", that's just latitude in enforcing the "laws". The community as a whole defines policy, not just admins; furthermore, most uses of admin tools are clearly restricted by existing policy and admins are discouraged from taking out-of-policy admin actions. And anyone, not just admins, can change policy and enforce it or convince others to enforce it; if an admin unilaterally changes policy and enforces it in a manner not supported by the community, the change is unlikely to stick and the admin will face drama and possibly ArbCom. Anomie⚔ 18:15, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Fixed-term adminship is the only method of addressing admin tenure that is simple enough in implementation to make pushing it out practical. (Term limits, i.e. allowing admins to serve only a maximum number of fixed terms, are quite a different proposal btw.) And it's not so much by analogy to a real-world job: in real life police officers / security guards / janitors / dog catchers are kept in check by their employers and by the law, neither of which we can fall back on. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:46, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

The proposal to turn RfA into a simple !vote count isn't going to work. The problem with making it a "election", is you turn adminship into an authority position. Administrators would now have elected authority, or at least a perceived authority, backing their actions. Administrators really just have three extra buttons that allow them to perform maintenance. The buttons really cannot cause any long term damage if abused. They don't, and shouldn't have extra authority with their actions. Reconfirmations would be helpful, and I agree there should be such a desysopping process. However, we shouldn't go as far as to make RfA a simple voting system like the ArbCom elections. Users would be able to simply oppose the candidate for any reason. The opens the door to turning admins and admin candidates into politicians. It makes adminship a popularity vote, rather than based on how well they would do the job. Having a term limit, simple voting, and mandatory reconfirmations isn't going to solve the RfA problem. If anything, it is only going to make it worse. The current discussion system works to a degree. The problem we are having is the unwillingness of good candidates to step forward. And as I stated above, the number of good candidates is decreasing because of the way we are treating new editors. With fewer new editors, there are fewer editors taking the place of experienced editors leaving the project. Thus, we have fewer candidates running for adminship. We need to solve the core problem, not drastically change the entire process. Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 16:02, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

The "core problem" is in a very real sense insoluble given Wikipedia's consensus-driven decision-making process (or lack of decision-making process). That's why the only viable alternative is to set up a completely new system along the lines that Surturz has described. Malleus Fatuorum 19:51, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

As for the core problem, that's what I said in my 03:23, as for the shurturz thing, maybe, not sure. PumpkinSky talk 19:54, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

All of these suggestions about limited terms and regular elections, and the comparisons to government seem to dangerously misunderstand the point of adminship. The most important part of adminship is that it is supposed to be no big deal - an admin's view is no more important, they have no more of a say, no additional rights to change policy or whatever. If an admin has an idea, it is treated the same as anyone else and they have to deal with content and conduct disputes in the same way. Essentially, admins are editors who are trusted to carry out the will of the community. I am well aware that the current situation is not always like that and that some admins (which, I must stress, make up a small minority) do use adminship as a position of power. However, these references to government and elections just add to the prestige of adminship, which is contrary to the whole idea of being an admin.

The only things that should really be considered for potential admins are trustworthiness and competence - do we trust them to do their hob properly and are the familiar with Wikipedia, its community & its policies? Elections do not do this and turn adminship into a popularity contest. One of the biggest problems without our current RfA system is many people support candidates because they like them and many oppose candidates because they hold a grudge. I see no reason as to why monthly elections will improve this situation and, to be honest, I can only seeing it exacerbating the problems. If candidates are pitted against each other, it becomes a competition. We are looking for volunteers to do a demanding and often unrewarding job - forcing them to compete with others to get the position will attract those who want to enlarge their egos and scare off the good candidates who are not interested in authority or power.

I also have a problem with the idea that admins are all so untrustworthy that we need limits on their 'terms'. It is true that governors and legislators are often elected and have term limits - that is why we elect ArbCom and Stewards. However, the role of an administrator is not to govern or legislate (as I have already mentioned). The only reason we would want to desysop an admin would be if they are abusing the trust given to them. I would not disagree that better recall procedures may be required; however, having limited terms makes the assumption that admins are untrustworthy and need to be regularly checked. That grossly undervalues that vast majority of admins here. We do have problematic admins, but I see no reason to force an arbitrarily limited term on every admin. Moreover, if admins are required to reapply for adminship after a period of time, we yet again subject them to unnecessary populism. If an admin is doing a good job, there is no reason to make them reapply, just because they've been doing a good job for a long time. All we do is allow anyone who doesn't like them to have another dig.

I don't believe that the current system is great, but any attempt to run elections, have limited terms or liken adminship to politics and government seems to misunderstand the role in a manner which I am uncomfortable with. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 20:35, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

"Term Limits" vs. "Fixed-Term"

As Chris pointed out just now, and Monty and 28 bytes did earlier, Marek is using the phrase "term limits" in a manner very different than most of us know. Marek, in the United States (hence, the majority of Wikipedia editors), the phrase "term limits" means a limit on the number of fixed terms to which a person can be elected. So no, the US Senate does not have "term limits", because a Senator can be elected to as many six-year terms as his constituents want to elect him. We would simply call what you are referring to as a "defined term", or "fixed term", or even just a "term" (since part of the definition--to us--of a "term" is the length of time one serves). Since this has confused so many of us, perhaps you would change your wording? HuskyHuskie (talk) 13:17, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

"hence, the majority of Wikipedia editors" - seriously ? --Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 18:48, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

• Hi. We have a job for you. There's no money or other compensation involved, you have to go through a "hell week" to get it, you will be attacked by lunatics if you do a good job, and in two years we will fire you for no reason because some people have the sorely mistaken impression that this mundane job is actually a pass to (imaginary) realms of great power and authority and so should not be held for too long by anyone no matter how good a job they are doing. We need to stress that this supposed power is not real, and most of what you do will be very boring. Interested? Beeblebrox (talk) 18:55, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Why the reluctance to admit that the ability to block another editor who gets on your tits, as happens every day here, is not a form of power? Malleus Fatuorum 19:47, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

That's the problem. Not all admins are the same. I block vandals, socks, spammers, edit warriors, and blatant violations of the username policy. That's pretty much it as far as blocking. I have never blocked anyone I was in a dispute with, and as far as I can recall I have never issued a civility block. (I'm assuming that is what "on your tits" means, I'm not familiar with that expression) So why should I, and the vast majority of admins who could say the same, be tarred with the same brush because of a few admins who do treat it as a position of power and authority? Beeblebrox (talk) 19:59, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Because no matter how good or bad a job you do you pretty much have it for life, and that's quite simply unacceptable, as it makes you effectively unaccountable so long as you manage to stay below ArbCom's radar. Malleus Fatuorum 20:02, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

This is always where it breaks down for me. The problem is how difficult it can be to remove a problematic admin. One way to deal with that is to remove the tools from anyone who has had them for a while without regard for how well they use them. I find that unacceptable. I manage a crew of people in real life. Sometimes there are people on that crew who are not doing a good job, or even abusing their position of trust. (supervision is fairly minimal in my line of work) I don't shitcan the entire crew because of the bad apples because that would leave me with nobody to do the work, on top of being patently unfair. I can't say I have a solution, but this is a bad idea, not to mention one that has been repeatedly rejected. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:15, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

What I find very strange is that every democracy "shitcans" the lot every five years or so, therefore I find your objections to be completely incomprehensible. Malleus Fatuorum 20:28, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a democracy. Resolute 22:33, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Maybe it should be. Malleus Fatuorum 23:00, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

• I agree with Malleus. As long as you have a class of editor/admins, many who gained the "mop" for life in an era with wildly different standards than exist now, who have the power to block others with impunity, you have a system that engenders distrust, intimidation and abuse. Term limits are a partial solution, de-adminning the entire group now and starting anew is another. Neither will happen because the admins vote as a group to stop change, as seen in the Rfc for WP:CDA. The only way out is for the Wikimedia Foundation to impose a top-down solution, which they seem unwilling to do. It's a badly stuck situation. Jusdafax 20:31, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I completely agree that there is a problem, I just don't think this is the solution, and I find the comparison to a legislature or government invalid. Admins don't make the rules and do not constitute a government. When someone in real life is hired to do a job, which is a more valid metaphor, they aren't fired later on because somebody else with the same position abused it. I'm aware of the old-school admins who can't seem to get with the times, and again I agree that something needs to be done about the situation. I just don't see why those of us that aren't causing a problem have to go through the hell of RFA again because of them. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:48, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

And neither do I. The point is to replace RfA with something more humane, not to force anyone to go through it again. Malleus Fatuorum 20:58, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

...by turning it into a popularity contest? That is exactly what turning it into an election will do. We can not start treating adminship like it is an authority position. Elections will make the position even more of a big deal than it currently is viewed as. Wikipedia is not a democracy, and we should not start treating it like it is. Part of the problem with RfA is the emphasis that the position is a big deal. In the unlikely event that the admin goes rogue, what is the worst thing the admin can do? Block several hundred highly active users, delete several thousand pages, mess up the user interface, or vandalize the main page. All of these things can be undone rather quickly without too much difficulty. Best case scenario, the mess is cleaned up in a matter of minutes (or seconds). Worst case scenario, Wikipedia has a mess for a few hours while other admins revert it. Even a non-admin can cause a mess on a wide scale. Nothing an admin can do can cause permanent damage. Adminship can easily be removed by a crat in the event of problems. Therefore, there is no point in treating adminship like it is a big deal. Yes, the admin could abuse his tools without drawing scrutiny, but that just means we need a process to desysop the user. Running all of the admins through periodic reconfirmations trying to catch the bad ones is like running water through a strainer trying to find a few grains of sand. Most of the time, they will slip through. With the sheer volume of admins, users will either just not vote, or only vote occasionally. The only users that will be sure to vote are the users who dislike the candidate. So unless the admin candidate is only making noncontroversial decisions, they will expect trouble passing. Yes, mandatory reconfirmations will catch some of the bad admins, but too many of the good ones will be caught in the process. We would be better off with a on demand reconfirmation process, but even then, it would be open to abuse of process. Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 22:07, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

You can't turn what is already a popularity contest into a popularity contest. RfA has always been a popularity contest. Malleus Fatuorum

Often the !votes made in RfA are based on the voter's opinion on how well the user will handle the tools. To a degree, the current system is a popularity contest. Past experience with the user is part of the considerations. However, this is not the sole consideration users make. Changing the system to allow anyone to support or oppose for any reason, and only electing the top 10 users with the most support votes will turn it into a flat out popularity contest. Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 22:37, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Which is what it already is, so no change. Malleus Fatuorum 22:43, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Alpha Quadrant; RfA has some of the elements of a popularity contest, but it doesn't have all of the elements of a popularity contest. If we were to switch to this election voting process, the popular, not necessarily qualified, editors would go through, and some of the better-suited admins wouldn't go through. As has been stated multiple times, the problem with RfA isn't the process itself, but the incivility and ignorace of assume good faith that many voters have displayed. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 22:49, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

The truth is that RfA has the characteristics of both a popularity contest and a lynch mob, and no amount of tweaking will ever change that. Time for a rethink. Time for a new system. Malleus Fatuorum 23:00, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I still think that some of the more qualified admin candidates will be beaten by the more popular admin candidates. Currently, both the popular and the qualified have a chance of making it through; with the new process, at least in my opinion, the chances of the qualified candidates becoming admins will go down and the chances of the popular candidates becoming admins will go up. We need qualified, not popular, admins to take care of the backlogs and other administrative tasks. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 23:07, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I think you reveal your bias by using the word "qualified". What qualifications do you have in mind? Vandal bashing? Mindless voting at AfD? Voting for popular RfA candidates in the hope they'll return the favour? Malleus Fatuorum 23:13, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

By qualified I meant people who are better-suited to deal with administrative-related tasks and who have more experience in such administrative-related areas. I don't believe I was being biased, but I apologize if my comment came across as such. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 23:18, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

But how do you judge such candidates, as by definition none of them have any experience at all with these mystical and legendary admin tasks. Malleus Fatuorum 23:30, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

The community judges the candidates in the current process. The major deciding factor in many RfAs is whether or not the user has the experience required to be an admin. If they do, then they are more likely to succeed. If they don't, then it may fail, possibly under NOTNOW. Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 23:35, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

You are not the community, and of course neither am I, but the increasing disquiet among the community ought not to be ignored. It's very clear, for instance, that the voters at RfA place civility well above competence. Malleus Fatuorum 23:37, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I like your style, Malleus. I know you won't want it, but I'd vote for you for admin, crat, and arbcom. PumpkinSky talk 23:48, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

The solution to mindless, cliquey children who have too-high an opinion of themselves is not curmudgeonly old men who have too-high an opinion of themselves. (Although it'd have to be better).101.118.44.91 (talk) 00:33, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

No it's not, but it might make for a more representative mix. BTW, as one of those "curmudgeonly old men" I wouldn't have made the mistake of hyphenating "too-high". ;-) Malleus Fatuorum 00:55, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

That's very kind of you PumpkinSky, but to be honest I wouldn't even vote for myself. I'm better suited to pissing into the tent. Malleus Fatuorum 01:01, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

You're right above, it should be "fixed term" not "term limits". For whatever reason "term limits" was the phrase used in previous discussion hence my usage here. Most of the above discussion is just excuses, false analogies (in real life, if you're hired for a job and are crap at it you do get fired. This doesn't happen on Wikipedia. Hence the analogy of a lifetime appointment is more apt), and red herrings. Volunteer Marek  01:33, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

At the present time there are 53 former admins who were forcibly de-sysoped. So admins can be ah "fired". Throw in the further 26 who resigned under a cloud and the handful who later managed to get their adminship back and the claim that adminship admins can't be "fired" is inconsistent with reality.©Geni 01:55, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Calling other editor's opinions "excuses and false analogies" to try and argue against them is ad hominem. Adminship isn't a political office, or even a job. Editing Wikipedia and helping out in administrative areas is volunteer work. When a candidate runs for adminship, they are volunteering to help out in a difficult area. Admins have to make close calls, take flack when they mess up (or sometimes even when the make the right call), and are quite often are subject to greater scrutiny than normal editors. Add to that, news coverage often covers what an admin does, rather than what a normal editor does. So there is a possibility real life scrutiny as well. The candidate has to run through an often tough and draining process to do so. Now because some admins have become somewhat abusive, we are going to make all of them suffer going through reconfirmations every 1-2 years just to make sure they haven't become abusive. Now, do you think that there are many users that are going to want to have to keep jumping through that many hoops to do so? And changing the discussion system to a voting system where the only the 10 most popular candidates pass? Over time, the only admins we will have left, are the ones that never make difficult decisions, are extremely popular among the RfA community, and have a perfect record. The ones that do make close calls and difficult decisions won't make it through a reconfirmation because it would now be a popularity vote. Being an admin occasionally calls for them to make a difficult decision. They may take flack for it, they may loose popularity, and garner opposes at the next reconfirmation. We need a reconfirmation process to deal with abuse. We do not need to slap a term limit requiring all admins to run for "reelection". Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 01:57, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

No big deal?

If I knew how to create a bot, I'd write one that would go through and strike out every time someone says that being an admin is no big deal. Yeah, I know The Man himself said that, but it's become The Biggest Lie on Wikipedia. If it was no big deal, Steven's detractors would not have been so vehement in their opposition. The reason they fought so hard is because everyone recognizes that it is a big deal. HuskyHuskie (talk) 01:53, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You're right, of course. But how can you help the blind to see clearly? Malleus Fatuorum 02:00, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Questionable. To a large extent its only a big deal if people treat it as such. This results in the irony that the ah "clip the wings of the admins" crowd are probably the greatest allies a power hungry admin could have.©Geni 01:57, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

To a large extent its only a big deal if people treat it as such. Geni, may I introduce you to my friend, Mr. Tautology? That's the whole point; it is being treated as a big deal, and as such, Jimbo's cliché is now a corpse. HuskyHuskie (talk) 02:12, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

The fact in the matter is Adminship should not be treated as a big deal. Everything an admin does can be undone, just like any other editor. The fact that a few editors get all riled over adminship and view it as a position of authority is fairly concerning. However, do their claims that adminship is a big deal hold any weight? The only risk in granting someone adminship is the off chance that they will abuse it. In really bad cases, they are desysopped. In minor cases, they are let off the hook because we don't have a formal process to desysop them. We need such a process, we do not need term limits. Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 02:23, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Adminship is a big deal to those who consciously choose to make it one - and that applies both to admins and non-admins. Resolute 02:32, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree that is should not be a big deal. But the "fact in the matter" is that it has become a big deal. As you may know, the US Constitution has no mention of political parties and the President's selection was expected to be a non-partisan affair. The fact that Constitution reads one way, however, does not change reality. And the reality is, being an admin is a big deal, for the very reason that Geni mentioned above. HuskyHuskie (talk) 02:34, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

It's like communism: we know it's broken, but we really really really want it to work. ResMar 02:37, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Point of fact: the biggest lie on Wikipedia is "we use consensus, not voting". But carry on. Danger ^{High voltage!} 02:53, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) HuskyHuskie, do you have diffs to back up your claim that it has become a big deal? Yes, it is a commons misconception for younger editors and new editors to believe that adminship is a position of authority. And what is up with the references to government and jobs. Wikipedia is not a government or a workplace. Nor are we trying to become a government or a workplace. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia run by volunteers. If we start making it harder for them to help out, do you really think they are going to stick around? I'd say it is fairly insulting to demand that all current admins go through a reconfirmation, just so the community can make sure they haven't gone bad. We as a community have entrusted them to perform maintenance. If they abuse that trust, we take the tools away. It should be easier to take away the tools from users who have abused the trust. We should make sure that we don't hurt good admins in the process. Term limits are not the answer. Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 02:56, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

As neither a younger editor nor a new one, I think that it is in fact a big deal. So fail. And asking for "diffs" in a discussion like this is silly. Volunteer Marek  03:08, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Silly and entirely typical of the childish bullshit around here. Malleus Fatuorum 03:18, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Nominations for the 2011 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee elections are now open

Nominations for the 2011 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee elections are now officially open and will run until Monday 21 November at 23:59 UTC.

• If you are interested in running for the Arbitration Committee for 2012 and meet the requirements for candidacy, please go here.
• If any other editors are interested in coordination, please go here.

–MuZemike 00:01, 12 November 2011 (UTC)