Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship

Holy crap

There are four RFA's on! And they're all green! I never thought I'd be saying this in my life... bibliomaniac15 00:01, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Give it time... Avruch ^T 00:03, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

A new user just put up one that got SNOWed out. Operation:Holy Crap lasted all of 12 minutes :P. Ironholds (talk) 00:14, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

November seems to be the month for successful RfA's. This month last year there were 56 promotions including 6 on the one day (the 14th). Are successful RfA's seasonal? Euryalus (talk) 00:38, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Last year about November time, a dev said they were going to open up page creation to anons and then everyone got nominated and supported to deal with the anticipated deluge. (Thats my slant on it anyway) Woody (talk) 00:47, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank god they didn't. That would've been... hideous. Ironholds (talk) 01:01, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Why? Lots of other projects are open to IP page creation and don't have a massive problem. There's a lot of good IP editors out there. They aren't all vandals or completely clueless :-) – How do you turn this on (talk) 01:03, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

The ones who have a clue can probably find WP:AFC. Other projects don't necessarily have waves of vandalism as lunch-hour works its way across the western world. Franamax (talk) 01:21, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeh, some pretty poor candidates made it through. Well, one did, anyway (grin). Perhaps all those elected in anticipation of IP page creation should stand for reconfirmation...? </humour> Bencherlite^Talk 08:09, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Then there was a sudden lull right after that. That's when I slipped through. Useight (talk) 08:17, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. Limiting it to user accounts isn't to say "IP editors are all clueless idiots" but rather to keep out the lazier of the vandals and dissuade them with a few more hoops to jump through. Other projects have IP page creation, yes, but the en-wiki mindset is different; a lot more people speak English than say, German. German wiki might be vandalised by people from Germany/Austria and people from outside the country who know the language. We're vandalised by people from Britain, Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and the chunks of other populations that speak english. Ironholds (talk) 01:42, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

<---Back to the point. Yes, it's something where we get impressed with a total of four RFA's. Certainly the landscape has changed a lot. Over my (excessive!) time at RFA I've seen things wax and wane but it certainly feels that the last two months has been particularly quiet if taken in the context of the last two years. It pretty rare to see a zero weekly figure at the sign post for example. Pedro :  Chat  08:00, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

You know, if the software could be altered to have some kind of junior "admin", one who had rollback and could only block accounts under a week old, so many more of these guys would sail through. I guess that won't ever happen, but it would be a good way of empowering vandal fighters without the worry that some multiple FA writer is gonna get blocked by one of them for "edit-warring" against some IP troll. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 08:56, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Are you thinking perhaps of unbundling the tools? That's one of those WP:PEREN discussions that for various reasons (cultural and technical) is unlikely to move forward. Pedro :  Chat  09:01, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Well I suppose something like that would probably need to be imposed on our chattering rabble, or else proposed by someone high up in concrete terms, as otherwise it would get swamped by frivolous opposition and drowned by minor alternatives. For that to happen the need would have to be so great that it began to bother someone like that. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 10:55, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

As previously posted here by me, stats prove that September 2008 was our worst month for promoting admins since useful records started. October showed something of a revival, but rates are still well below long-term trends. Hence my standing offer to nominate more unusual admin candidates. I'm gradually returning to Wikipedia after a break and plan to resume nominating soon - I have a small backlog of potential RfA candidates. If you, or someone you know, could do with a nom, drop me a line.

In the meantime, I urge all RfA contributors to focus on the essential element of RfAs - "do I trust this candidate with the tools?". Which is not the same as "is it possible this candidate will make mistakes?" (answer - we all do) or "is this candidate an ideal RfA candidate?". Gauged on the latter two questions, I should have failed both my RfA and my my RfB. --Dweller (talk) 12:58, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

You wrote "my" twice btw :-) As when I vote, I prefer to support people, and mostly do, since opposing always tends to give the place a bad atmosphere, even if an oppose is warranted. I tend to keep my language in my opposes polite and helpful to the candidate, and sorrowful, since I am indeed sad I feel the need to oppose a user. – How do you turn this on (talk) 13:21, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

My my. --Dweller (talk) 13:41, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Speak for yourself, Dweller. ;) EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:00, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Oops, yes. We all make mistakes apart from members of Category:Wikipedians that are always right! --Dweller (talk) 20:58, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

We have three candidates all on like 99%, does anyone want to take a photo, so we can cherish the moment. It's been a while. — Realist² 00:28, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Just wait

There are now FIVE, count them FIVE rFA's and they are all green... and all have a respectable number of supports!---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 01:21, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

It's official; the internet is obviously broken. Something has gone wrong in those tubes out there. Its the end days! We'll have green RfAs, Arbitration cases dealt with within 20 minutes of being posted, Kurt and A Nobody voting support, plague, war, famine... Ironholds (talk) 01:23, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

That's 7 in a row I believe (excluding NOTNOW, and SNOW closes). iMatthew 01:28, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

The Apocalypse is coming four years early!!! Xclamation point 01:49, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Or one hundred and four years early depending on if you're a Priest of Syrinx. Ironholds (talk) 03:03, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

wait, did I miss something Kurt voted support??? Do I need to update my rapture insurance?---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 06:56, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Not yet, I'm afraid. Besides, the rapture won't be too bad; plague just hasn't been the same since he caught AIDS. Ironholds (talk) 06:59, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually Kurt has voted support in the recent past ([1]). Icewedge (talk) 07:08, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

And another one. The end times indeed! Ironholds (talk) 23:07, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

and I have another that is in the works that I think should do fine.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 23:28, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Wow, we should throw up some RfBs. Nah, that would ruin it :p. Malinaccier (talk) 01:45, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Although, I do think you used the right verb---throw up---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 21:16, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Updated statistics on edit count inflation

With the help of the new RFA categories, I've updated my RFA edit count statistics. I conclude from this data that editcount inflation has slowed significantly, but not diminished, since last year. While the numbers of edits expected on RfA continue to increase slightly, they are no longer growing at the large exponential rate they were up to 2007.

Currently, the average* successful candidate has about 10,000 edits, compared to about 2,500 for unsuccessful candidates.

This graph shows the statistics on a log scale, with the trend line for successful RfAs compared to the trend line extrapolated from my 2007 prediction. It also shows the trend line for unsuccessful RfAs. RfAs that predate MathBot posting the edit count on the talk page are no longer shown.

* "Average" here refers to the mean on a log scale. Assuming an exponential distribution of edit counts, this should approximate the median.

rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 09:28, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

This really surprises me... I remember a time where it seemed that if you had 10K edits, then it was too late to run for admin. There was almost a sense that if you had that many edits, then you were bound to have pissed somebody off and made some mistake that passing was virtually impossible. And it wasn't that long ago that I thought that! (Although I have noticed a trend lately to pass these higher producers.) I also think part of the reason we might be seeing this shift is the increase in the use of tools. I would love to see the results of manual edits only---would that be possible?---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 15:04, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Not really, the tool to scrap out manual edits only works on accounts with under 25,000 edits, which is fewer than most admins have. Also, the tool was invented only a few months ago, so it would be impossible to back date the data to the date the person became an admin. MBisanz ^talk 15:05, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Nice graph. The only thing that confused me at first was red meaning a pass and green meaning a fail. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 16:29, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm fascinated by this data, though my focus is on two items. First, how would this look if it went back beyond 2006? Put another way, what editcounts did the first admins have when granted the tools? Obviously they'd be lower, but how much, I wonder? The second is the current state of RfA - what is currently required to pass. I've been tinkering with the last 6 months or so of RfAs, and plan to keep a running tabulation of the last 75, or just under the last 5% of successful RFAs. The stats I've used are here. The average I've come up with for the last 74 new admins (less 4 with edits over 45000), we find that the average number of edits is 11,514 - quite close to the average shown above. The average age of account is 25 months. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 21:04, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Anecdotally, the RFAs I categorized from 2004/2005 had comments like "My criteria are high at 2,000 edits" or "He's been here 3 months, that is enough". MBisanz ^talk 21:07, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

The red for success was meant to be "rouge", the official color of adminship. Failures are black, and the green line is a trend line. I can see how it's confusing, though. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 03:09, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I guess it can help to show the big picture. Note that the earlier data is a bit noisier, though, because there weren't accurate edit counts reported in a consistent place. Here's the graph going back 4 years. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 03:21, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Some stats that I'd be interested in: minimum edit count vs. chance of passing, and experience vs. chance of passing. For example, for recent RfAs, for editors with over 3000 edits, what was the chance of passing? 4000? over 6 months of editing? 9 months? And how does that compare with the average pass rate? I'd do them myself, but my stat class lies longer in the past than I'd like to think about it.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 02:56, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Problem is that "experience" isn't necessarily quantifiable. Time between X and the first edit is calculable, but someone that makes one thousand edits over three years and then puts in five thousand in a single month will have a different result than someone that puts in six thousand edits over three months. Both their RfAs would be very, very different. (though there will always be extremes at either end, and perhaps we Don't Care about those) EVula // talk // ☯ // 03:23, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

What about 3400+ in one day? J.delanoy^gabs_adds 03:30, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Wow. Looking back at my own RfA (June 2005) I only had 2450 edits when I was nominated. If I remember correctly, talk at the time suggested that a user should probably have at least a thousand edits for a run at adminship. Now – more than three years later – I still only have about twelve thousand edits. Apparently it is now (effectively) required for admins to have installed and extensively used some sort of automated vandal-whacking tools to rack up thousands of productive (but not terribly informative) edits. Ugh. I still have never used an automated tool to edit Wikipedia, and it seems likely that that would now disqualify me for adminship. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:30, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

No, not necessarily. Someone who passed an RFA (I can't remember who exactly) within the last two or three weeks had around eight thousand edits. The big thing now seems to be having lots of GAs, FAs, and DYK's. Huggle only makes me look like I'm doing a lot. In reality, fighting vandalism lies somewhere between watching TV and playing video games in the amount of mental concentration required. If you had (or have. I keep switching tense...) a decent number of substantial mainspace contribs, and a reasonable edit count, say, four to seven thousand, you probably wouldn't have too much trouble passing. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 04:09, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

So here's the thing. Why does it take 4000 edits to have a "reasonable edit count" now? I was promoted with 1500. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 04:31, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

(e/c)I would opine that it has to do with the maturation of the community. As time goes on, the average edit count and level of experience of the community goes up. This means that the expected edit count and level of experience of potential admins is also going to go up, since admins are assumed to be somewhat above average (whether they are or not).--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 05:09, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

You seem to be missing my point, or perhaps proving it. It took me nearly three years to hit eight thousand edits, and I spent more than two of those years with my admin bit. Four years ago, "four to seven thousand" edits wasn't a minimum standard but a remarkable achievement. Just about the only accounts with those sorts of edit counts were bots, plus a small handful of admins who made very regular use of their rollback privileges.

At two thousand edits I had ample experience editing articles, resolving disputes, reverting vandals, dealing with AfD (back when it was VfD), posting to AN and AN/I, responding to copyright issues, and fiddling with wiki-markup. Every one of my edits was 'handmade', with none of this Huggle/Twinkle/what-have-you inflation. (I still don't use any of those tools.) I fear that the emphasis on edit count and vandal-whacking means that RfA nominees are in effect required to use the automated tools to have a successful nomination. I remember when I started out the standard was (roughly speaking) 1000 edits, 3 months, and not obviously a menace. We've gone too far from that, methinks. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 05:01, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

*takes a step backwards* Not quite sure what to say here. I guess I have (or hopefully, had) a really narrow view of this project. The reason I said what I did is because I am used to being around people who fight vandalism. For these, RFA is brutal, and you have to have a huge edit count since you can easily rack up several thousand of edits in a a couple of weeks. Since as a rule, I don't write articles, I don't know many people who work in that area. Since I don't see them at other times, I don't notice when they are promoted, and since I don't know them, I rarely comment in their RFAs.

I guess I probably owe you, rspeer, about 4/5 of Wikipedia's administrators and probably more than two-thirds of Wikipedians as a whole an apology. I didn't realize how zeroed in I am on my area par excellance.... I'm sorry for saying that. (wow, I didn't even know it was possible to unintentionally insult so many people that I respect with one edit :/ ) J.delanoy^gabs_adds 05:26, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

There's no need for an apology — I wasn't insulted, and I don't think any of the others were, either. I was lamenting that expectations at RfA have shifted to emphasize ridiculously high edit counts. We essentially tell editors with fewer than – what is it, now? – four thousand edits not to bother with RfA, and I think we're doing the community a disservice that way. We just won't see editors who don't use the automated tools here. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:40, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't see 3-4K edits as being ridiculously high (heck, 10K for somebody who uses tools and easily do 1000 edits in a day isn't necessarily ridiculously high.) First, for somebody who uses tools, most of those edits require minimal thought and don't show how the candidate approaches subjects---so most of them, I simply discard. I want to see manual edits (or to use a great example, tanathalas stands out in my mind as a person who used tools, but when he came across an article needing help, he put the tools aside. In other words, looking at his edit history, he would make 30 edits in 20 minutes using twinkle. Then he would make a handful of edits on one article, it's related talk space over a longer period as he focused on the article. Half an hour later, he returned to twinkle leaving the article he had worked on in better shape.) Second, as for count inflation, it is only a natural part of our evolving. 3 years ago you had to be a pretty serious wikipedian to get 2K edits. Now, because of how long accounts have been around, 2K doesn't demostrate much any more. Think of it this way, I'm approaching my, um... birthday. When I was a teenager, I was most interested in teenage girls, and pretended to be interested in college girls, but anything over 25 was too old. In college, teenage girls was "jail bait" and my horizon expanded to maybe 30. Today, somebody in college, would be too young for me, but 30-40, no problem. As I mature, my expectations change. What I seek changes, and what I find to be too new/inexperienced changes. The same thing happens here on WP, as we mature as a community, our expectations are naturally going to grow. We are going to start to realize that people with just 2K edits, really haven't been around the block like we thought. We are now looking for somebody with more WP maturity. Again, while EditCounts is not a good guage for expertise, it is a moderate guage to lack of experience.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 15:07, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I think you have to realize that not everyone edits like you. In fact, most Wikipedians don't edit like you, and yet a lot of them would be qualified to be admins. Your dating metaphor doesn't hold up, because how a dating partner compares to you in particular is clearly relevant for whether you should date them, but how an admin candidate compares to you in particular is not very important. Unfortunately, many voters on RfA compare candidates only to their own editing style.
If someone has made 2000 well-considered, non-automated edits, I find it absurd to say they "haven't been around the block like we thought". Were most admins from 2003-2005 promoted under such a mass delusion of competence? Did we turn out to be dangerously unqualified? Should we line up to resign now? rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 06:02, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Obviously you missed the entire point of the dating metaphor. As wikipedia grows, and the experience of the community grows, the expectations for what an experienced/qualified user are naturally going to grow as well. 4 years ago, when wikipedia was a comperable teenager, then the communities expectation was for comperable teenagers. 2 years ago, when wikipedia was a comperable college student, the communities expectations were for comperable college students. Now, that wikipedia is at a symbolic college graduate, it is only natural that the community will expect proportional experience. As the community matures, its expectations mature. That doesn't mean that somebody with less (or more) experience than the current community norm won't pass, just as a person in his 30's might date somebody in the 20's. In two years, a person who is seen as qualified today, will probably be borderline. It is the natural path of soceity.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 04:42, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

When I was a new editor looking at RFAs, a good 20 months or so ago, I figured I'd have to get 2000 edits before applying, because that was what I was seeing in typical candidates (albeit I didn't check all that many and I couldn't figure out the archives back then), but nowadays the average has definitely increased. Sure, candidates can still get through with 2000, as there are many more factors than straight up edit count, but I'd estimate the typical candidate needs three or four thousand now. Useight (talk) 04:53, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

The point of the metaphor is clear enough, the problem is there is nothing about it that necessarily makes it apply here. Even if that is the natural path of society it does not follow that is the natural path of Wikipedia or even if it were, that that is a good thing. If you continue your argument and Wikipedia has 15 years of history and proportionate experience is required from all admin candidates, fewer and fewer candidates will qualify. Especially relative to the number of editors and readers. That's not a good thing. Eventually the demand for admin tasks will outstrip the supply. Keeping this place going requires that enough admin tasks are completed which with growing demand either requires extremely high production from some admins or more admins. Since you can't count on the former, the latter is the only solution. So I don't think the rising expectations are natural or good, more that they come from the difficulty of removing admins so which causes enough people to vote more and more conservatively. - Taxman ^Talk 21:15, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

For clarity can you expand on that last statement - it seems to make no sense; when you say "so enough" do you mean "therefore" ? Or do you mean that because it is difficult to remove admins people will be more conservative in voting - if so that seems totally bizarre - surely RFA would be more liberal if there was an easier desysop process? Pedro :  Chat  21:37, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

You're right my wording was not so good. Apparently also the choice of conservative wasn't good. What I meant was if it is difficult to remove admins, enough people will withhold support from or oppose more candidates. That can be defined as voting more conservatively. I also re-factored a bit above more for clarity. - Taxman ^Talk 22:05, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Evula, as you guessed, by "experience" I did in fact mean "time between the first edit and Rfa". (Thanks for seeing through my inclarity.) I think that time since the first edit, to some extent, does matter in Rfas. It takes time to study up and understand the policies and guidelines. You can't just edit non-stop, there have to be pauses where you're taking in information. So I would guess that the length of time you've been in the community would have an effect above and beyond the edit count. as you pointed out with your example. I think the user who'd been around for three years would probably have a much more thorough, internalized and organic perspective of the Wikipedia community and its norms than a productive editor who stormed onto the scene. It might even be useful to try to map out a third correlation beyond the two I already requested: overall edit rate (i.e. edit count divided by time since first edit) vs Rfa success rate.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 04:42, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Another metaphor, when my great grandfather was alive in the early 20th century, he had an 8th grade education, but was successful (until the Great Depression.) An 8th grade education in the early 1900's was acceptable. My Grandfather had a HS education, but was a full colonel in the Air Force (until he was kicked out for not having a college degree.) One didn't need a college degree to succeed. My Dad it took my dad a college degree to get doors opened for him. They are now saying that our kids will need graduate degrees to obtain what the current generation obtained with college degrees. Expectations rise. I differ with Taxman in that I do believe it is a natural process of organizations. Whether it is good or not is up for debate. It could be argued that rising expectations are also part of the cycle that eventually leads to an organizations collapse. The corelary being htat higher expectations limits new and innovative ideas, the status quo becomes the norm, and stagnation sets in.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 15:38, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

It may be a problem of difference-of-philosophy with regard to what an Arb's 'qualifications' actually ought to be. The 'level of education' expected or required of an admin will depend on the tasks which we expect him to perform. That eighth-grade education is just fine for mopping the floors and painting the walls. Rolling back vandalism, blocking vandalism-only accounts, and closing clear-cut 3RR cases are routine household maintenance that anyone of of sound judgement and a modicum of Wikipedia experience can handle. On the other hand, I've been an admin for years, and I'm sure I couldn't tell you off the top of my head what our current, correct procedure is for reporting and deleting a copyright-violation image. (I might go rogue and just delete it, though....)

To my mind, the key requirements for any adminship candidate are but three:

1. Demonstrated familiarity with the purposes and goals of Wikipedia. Candidates must show in some way that they 'get' what we're supposed to be doing here. Writing a Featured Article is one way, but not the only one. I'd give credit to someone who spent a bunch of time copyediting, or who did good work wikifying new articles. I would even give credit to someone who spent a substantial amount of time at AfD, as long as their comments were insightful and constructive.
2. Demonstrated ability to work with others. This has two sides to it. A candidate should be able to engage other editors civilly and courteously. The candidate should be able to express himself clearly and coherently. The other side is the ability to respond correctly to unreasonable editors. An admin who uses his tools will, at some point, face loud, obnoxious, unpleasant opposition; this opposition may range from simple childish vandalism of a user page to an ongoing campaign of stalking by an obsessive sockpuppeteer. A candidate must have demonstrated the ability to calmly respond to obnoxiousness. These first two criteria implicitly include an ability to participate in a properly-formatted threaded discussion.
3. Demonstrated sound judgement. Where the candidate has brought issues to AN, AN/I, AfD, RfArb, what-have-you, has he done so at the correct time and for the right reasons? (That is, does he use our bureaucracy to improve the encyclopedia, or to manipulate things to his own ends? Do his choices tend to increase or decrease drama?) Has the candidate demonstrated an awareness of situations where he is in over his head, and a willingness to seek assistance in such situations? Does it seem likely that the candidate would misuse the buttons?

That's it. What is adminship, really? It's access to a couple of extra tools. I don't have to know that a candidate is familiar with all of the circumstances under which a page may be deleted. I just have to know that the candidate will ask if he's not sure. An admin – particularly a newly-minted admin – is more of an apprentice than a journeyman. He should be aware of his limitations, and be prepared to seek the advice of more experienced editors before digging himself into a hole. None of us can be expected to know everything about how Wikipedia operates anymore — and such knowledge absolutely shouldn't be a prerequisite for adminship. When it comes down to it, admins are still just hall-monitor/janitor hybrids. We still have the Help Desk and WP:AN for on-the-job training. A metaphorical four-year degree just isn't necessary. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:35, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Age of account is the measure I use, simply because it's posted in Mathbot's report when a candidate posts their RfA. Other than editors who switch names, it's a good measurement of when a candidate first stepped into the role of someone who plans to improve the project. Editrate is a bit hinky, though, simply because lots of editors see their rate increase as they become more involved with the project in the months (weeks?) before their RfA. The progression trends toward editors saying "I can do more" and seeking the tools. So I would be interested in total edits-per-month/week/day versus edits-per-month/week/day for the 90 days prior to the RfA. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 13:20, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Anyone else questioning the sucess sign " + " down at the bottom of the graphs by July '07?--Koji† 16:06, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps it's Citicat, who had the lowest edit count for the entire month. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:53, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Nah, Citicat had 3K edits. Looks like maybe August 2007 instead of July to me. Darkspots (talk) 19:23, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

It's Mikegodwin, with 103 edits. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 21:40, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Ah-ha! That makes sense. I was begining to question the accuracy of the graphs.--Koji† 22:06, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

And he still doesn't have 250 edits!---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 22:21, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Should we ban him? After all, an admin with such a low edit count obviously has no clue whatsoever... :P – How do you turn this on (talk) 22:30, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Theoretically speaking, you could make a lot of administrator actions without ever editing the 'pedia. Oh, the irony of that in context of everything else. --Izno (talk) 22:40, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

It's only one data point, so it's probably not totally screwing up the data, but you might want to remove Mike Godwin's RFA from the data set, as he didn't actually pass RFA, but was, in the end, given the admin bit as a Foundation action, not through the RFA. Not a huge deal, but it is such an outlier....--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 07:15, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Semi-related topic

I'll use this thread to draw attention to my recent little analysis tool, uContribs, as seen here. I think this solves some of the concerns discussed here as far as assessing the editor's true contributions. First, it combines page and talkpage counts; this is important in assessing the overall contributions in article space. Second, it allows separation of overall and "recent" edit counts; this gives a look at what the editor has been doing lately; Third, it groups non-main edits by "families" to give a look at the project spaces where the editor is focussing. And fourth, by inspection of the beginning of the curve, it gives a sense of the "long tail"; in articlespace, it becomes relatively easy to see whether the editor is a vandal-fighter - they will have a low "most-edited-articles-num-edits" count and lots of edit-counts below the cutoff - and conversely, a serious article editor will show a different tail-count, and a different page/talk ratio.

I bring this up as a question - should I make these uContribs listings a standard part of RFA's? I.e. create an accompanying RFA/name/contribs page? Also, I have the framework established to look a little deeper, as in how many edits were simple reverts (bot-tolerant), how many edits were then reverted, how many links were added (referencing freaks = good!), how many of various types of tags added/removed, and so on. Would this type of analysis be of interest at RFA? Franamax (talk) 06:38, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

• That sounds good to me. If people need something they can check quickly instead of checking the contributions, it sounds good for this to be available. It'll probably still misrepresent things at times, but it's way more informative than a four or five digit number. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 08:19, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

• I'm tempted to say that a short paragraph objectively describing contributions of a candidate (sort of like MathBot in prose) would be helpful in the nomination statement. I think if you add these statistics as a subpage, or to the talkpage like mathbot, they'll end up being mostly ignored (like I imagine the mathbot stats are). Prominence is key in this particular case if you're looking to influence behavior at all. Avruch ^T 17:11, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

• I'm not so sure that the mathbot stats are ignored. I almost always check the talk page of the RfA before talking to look at the user's stats. Maybe a "mathbot in prose" would work well on the main page, as long as it's not too long. Malinaccier (talk) 01:43, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

The main benefit to the Mathbot stats is that they are a snapshot of the editor's edits when they started the RfA. When looking at someone's RfA #2, it's useful to see where they were during RfA #1, and a static page helps with that. Moving such stats, even in prose, to the main RfA page would encourage a bit of editcountitis, but knowing an editor's areas of focus is valuable. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 20:13, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

User:Secret/Attract More Editors

I would welcome contributions and comments for this new proposal to attract editors. Thanks Secret ^account 21:39, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I always have and still do maintain that the drop in contributors is because we have fewer "easy" problems to fix that a passing visitor would see and think "hey, I could improve that"; it's less likely a passing visitor would decide they could improve this than this, and that's a pattern repeated across all the high-traffic areas. (Until you see them for yourself, it's hard to appreciate just how bad most Nupedia and early Wikipedia articles were – it's less than five years since this was a FA). IMO ten good contributors is better than 20 adequate ones or 50 bad ones; would Myspace or Facebook provide people who'd improve our content as opposed to just adding to it? – iridescent 21:54, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Just curious, (and I think I've seen this number before), do we have data showing not just the successful RfA's, but also the number of RfA's opened by month, the number snowed by month, the number withdrawn by month, and the number failed by month? If that data is more favorable, and suggests a more sustained volume of editors trying to pass, but failing, then the debate may not be about bringing in more editors, so much as bringing the threshold for the mop back down to the lower historical levels of a couple of years ago. Hiberniantears (talk) 22:10, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Good question, I'd be particularly interested if the recent updates to Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship has achieved its objective of guiding some of the 2,000 - 4,500 edit candidates into delaying. ϢereSpielChequers 19:23, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Would anyone be opposed to me adding this to {{CENT}}? Malinaccier (talk) 23:51, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

No objections here. –Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 01:47, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Indenting !votes

There is an ongoing discussion about 'crats indenting !votes on RfA's. One of the crat's suggested opening up the discussion here to get a broader view on people's input, but rather than having two parallel discussions, I want to direct people who wish to comment here.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 15:29, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Signature?

Pedro, I'm sorry, I'm not clear what you meant, you asked for some discussion about a signature to start here. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 21:26, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

He's referencing people voting per "trust in the nominator" as compared to the candidate. The former is never a good idea, the later is. While certain people have developed a reputation for vetting candidates and having solid judgment, the !vote shuoldn't be based upon the nominator's signature. It's not fair to the community, the candidate, or the nominator. (Although it is flattering that people feel that way, it is a mistake for all involved.)---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 21:28, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I was less than clear. BM is quite right. Your RFA was starting to lean towards a debate on supporting because of the nominator and I wanted to nip that in the bud as it's not relevant to your RFA and will only be a distraction. BM is also totally correct that who the nominator is (what I meant by my "signature behind the nomination" comment) should not matter whatsoever. I'm not so naive, however, as to think it doesn't influence any given RFA to a degree - however I can't think of any RFA where it would have made any difference to the outcome. My intention was simply to head of a discussion that should be here and not on the main page. Pedro :  Chat  21:37, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

It is certainly influential, particularly on nominations which aren't full of supporting diffs. It's easy for a would-be nominator to look at tool reports and say "candidate has 10,000 edits over 2 years, hundreds of edits in most namespaces, has clean block log, has clean user and talk pages, has created 10 articles with 1 GA as seen on the user's talk page, etc. etc." without delving into the real history to see if he's contentious, has a history of getting reverted, etc. A nominator with a good nomination-reputation will "get to know" the candidate, either by looking carefully at his history, by being his coach, or by interacting with him over time. When a nominator with an unknown or negative nomination-reputation makes a nomination with the exact same verbage, it's up to the RfA participants to do the deep research on the candidate and point out that he is or is not well-behaved and trustworthy. In the case of a recent RfA made by a nominator with a good reputation, I just spot-checked things with the tools and read a few random diffs over the past few months, far less research than I would if it were an unknown nominator. The spot-checking was because even the best of us can miss something. I trusted that the nominator did all the hard work before making the nomination or that he had other reasons, such as knowing the candidate over an extended period of time, to believe a full background check was not necessary. I would not have as much faith in an unknown nominator to be thorough. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 22:13, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

As someone who mentioned the nominator in said RFA, it was only an aggravating factor towards my supporting. I do have another rationale. I'd surely never support "per nominator". – How do you turn this on (talk) 22:15, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure I have supported per nom in the past, in similar circumstances in the future I'll make it clear that I'm supporting for the same reasons as the nom, not totally relying on their research. ϢereSpielChequers 22:26, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I think that "trusted nominator" is not a bad reason to be part of a support. I also think "per nom" is not a major issue - it simply implies that you have nothing else particularly to add and that your support rationale is in agreement with the nominators (as indeed any per editor x support is not a bad thing). Supporting solely because of who the nominator is would clearly be a bad thing but I doubt it happens that often - certainly not enough to affect an RFA outcome. Pedro :  Chat  22:35, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Didn't we already discuss this already? GlassCobra 08:45, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

When was the last time we had a thread here that hadn't been discussed already? – iridescent 15:54, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

We rehashed a conversation on this talk page? Never! Surely RFA talk is a hotbed of originality....Maybe not. Pedro :  Chat  21:00, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

That must have taken far too long to write... –Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 21:02, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Holy shit, the wikicode! It burns! Garden. 23:02, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations (sort of)

With 36,022 revisions as of October 8, 2008, WT:RFA is the most editted page in the Wikipedia Talk namespace.

Runner-up is Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject Professional wrestling with a mere 20,236 revisions.

Truly, the piles of "discussion" about what is or is not wrong with RFA are without equal. Dragons flight (talk) 22:58, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

It's nice to know that WT:RFA could beat WT:PW in a cage match. EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:10, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

For a related revelation the rather obscure List of World Wrestling Entertainment employees (26979) is the third most editted article on Wikipedia behind George Bush (41684) and well... Wikipedia (28404). Dragons flight (talk) 23:32, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Where are you getting this data from? – How do you turn this on (talk) 23:34, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

He is the data guru for many things Wikimedia. If you ever need stats on something, if they're available he's got 'em. Avruch ^T 23:41, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm working up an analysis of active editor patterns using stub-meta-history. Looking at the revision histories is just a bonus. Dragons flight (talk) 23:53, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

This is a good month for RfA. First we have 6 greens on the go and now we've won some sort of award (incidentally, I want a prize). —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 23:49, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, they're popping up faster than I can review them, been so busy with school. Useight (talk) 23:55, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Must be the Christmas spirit. Now's the time to run for RfA if any, but I know the feeling with school. Currently a nightmare. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 00:05, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I graduate with a BS in Business Management in 15 days, seems they wanted to really make the last two months as intense as possible. Useight (talk) 00:11, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I bet it counts for nothing, it's just a bit of fun to stress you out. Good luck at graduation. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 00:12, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Hahahahahha. Professional wrestling, yay! ;) iMatthew 00:06, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

How the hell did such a niche WikiProject conjure up so many edits?! —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 00:11, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Muahaha. iMatthew 00:22, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

All those edits were very heated debates and complaints over a new style guide for the project. Plus, its one of the oldest projects on Wiki.:)--Tru_Co 01:34, 27 November 2008 (UTC)